I think what he may be saying .....................................
is that no one really understands risk (and if you like you can call it tail risk; this has nothing to do with the fear you feel while trying to pick up a cute chick :) ). When people fear risk, they fear uncertainty with its unknown outcomes. Using their models, they decide to accumulate whatever it is they think will protect them from these "harmful" outcomes. Various things people accumulate include
--- paper wealth, metal wealth, commodity wealth
--- children, condoms, or both (think of India and China, respectively)
--- food, guns, knowledge, early warning system, friends
--- religious books and artifacts
--- videos of dancing girls jiggling anteriors and posteriors in curious rhythmic motion (mainly SI folk :) )
--- honey, farms, farm animals, property
--- unconstrained ignorance
--- political allies, stds, etc., etc.
It's all a very perplexing business. But there is a model for everything. :)
More seriously, though, we are all constrained by this limitation. Whenever we look at the world, we look through a personal lens. This personal lens does not let us see how everything can affect everything in such a way that nothing is truly predictable in some larger sense. First, whatever it is you prepare for, something else can go wrong. Second, our lives are short and we are not in control, no matter how much we type, jump about this way and that, or scream.
We live, and try to make progress, in the Universe of Perhaps.
J :) |
