“To know what life is worth you have to risk it once in a while “ John-Paul Sartre
It has been fascinating to observe how government officials have been drafting up all manner of draconian laws to ‘protect’ us all from a virus (Covid-19), and even more fascinating to observe how differently people everywhere have reacted to these laws. Take the masks for instance. Some people fear the virus so much that they wear their masks literally everywhere. Others wear them when they are required to do so, such as in a grocery store or restaurant or in close proximity to others. And yet others defiantly refuse to wear them at all. This is quite a wide variance of risk acceptance to the potential of catching the virus or not. Note I said acceptance to the risk, not whether you catch it or not.
A simple logistics equation I use to talk about risk is Risk = the actual scientifically calculated hazard (Probability x Consequence) + Outrage (the personal and cultural reaction to a specific risk). Sometimes even when hazard is low, we get high outrage, and also the opposite that when hazard is high, we don’t get enough outrage. It doesn’t help when the hazard number is manipulated through media reporting by those wanting to push certain agendas. So, what you end up with is a situation where we believe what we want to believe and base our views of truth on different sources of facts. The outrage factor is not a misperception of hazard data, but more about how we ‘feel’ about a potential problem in our own minds. If I use a rock-climbing idea; if you have a head for heights and trust the instructors and equipment you will find a rock face experience both rewarding and exciting. If you hate heights, then you will be negatively overwhelmed by the same experience – yet, in each case the amount of risk (hazard) is the same, only the outrage differs.
I have a chapter in my Environmental Communication textbook about risk and used to teach about risk. An example I would use is that from rock climbing. If you have a head for heights and are confident in the equipment (ropes and climbing gear) being used you will feel safe and secure in begin put on a cliff face. If you have no head for heights and/or do not trust the equipment then you will be terrified if forced onto a cliff face. Same exact situation but one is what you readily accept as worth any risk while the other is feeling that you have risk imposed upon you.
This is true for every situation you find in life. It’s all about what you do or do not accept, and your personal appraisal of any risk. Simply being alive is accepting risk at some level all the time – there is no such thing as risk-free! Now think about what do accept everyday as acceptable versus unacceptable risks in your life. And here is the kicker. Things you fear most are not what are the most dangerous things in your life. Based on your beliefs, you will have a whole set of fears that are usually attached to some risk or other, whether it is a risk of emotional hurt or physical hurt. It all comes down to lifestyle choices (there’s that ‘choice’ word again) and then risks imposed upon us as part of the society we live within.
We have experts that can calculate any specific risk for its potential harm – a well-informed guestimate. Insurance actuarial tables are objectively complied this way, but more often than not, regardless of what experts say, risk is personal and subjective. In other words. risk is both scientific and non-scientific.
Many people will subject themselves to intense physical experiences on a theme park ride because they trust the builders and that the rides are safe and regularly checked for any potential problems. Notice how much faith and trust comes into play here about the people managing the experience. How safe is Bungee-Jumping or Sky-Diving? The failure rate is quite low (1 in 500,000), but how many would subject themselves to such risk for fun? Actually, the biggest risk from bungee jumping is not the threat of cord-attachment failure but retinal detachment of the eye from G force deceleration. I mention this last point to emphasize that when we consider risk, we usually don’t think of the whole package involved with that risk experience.
There are small hazard risks, that is the likelihood of a hazard occurring may be small, but the consequence if it happens are catastrophic, i.e. a sky-diving accident where the chute doesn’t open. Likewise, a large risk may occur frequently, but its consequences may be varied from minor to catastrophic, i.e. a driving accident in a car. The chance of dying from an automobile accident (which include pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists and car drivers) is 1 in 77 (chance of just a driver dying is 1 in 114). Yet, we all travel down roads with little anticipation of meeting up with a car, trusting that cars will stay to their bits of the road and look out for the non-drivers. I know people that will race down the highway to the airport but are fearful of dying in a plane crash, which has odds of 1 in 9821 (this includes commercial, private and air-taxi flights). Flights are safer than cars, but if a car engine fails then the car driver can coast to a stop. Planes on the other hand tend to behave more like flying bricks that can glide a little if the engines fail – helicopters just emulate a brick.
I hope you see what I am trying to get at. What we fear most is rarely what causes risk problems in our lives. It is usually what we don’t think about that causes the greatest problems of risk actually occurring. There is an objective value to risk (hazard) where we can objectively weight up the pros and cons of doing something, but it is the subjective aspect (outrage) of being involved in doing something risky that plagues us with indecision, or even apathy to risk occurring in our lives that we know nothing about or don’t recognize as high risk. More on how we perceive risk in the next post.
To Be Continued ……………………
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