> broken perception of risk based on “optimism, underestimation and invincibility"<p>How about artificially low interest rates? An interest rate is <i>exactly</i> the coordination between risk and time, with a low interest rate you're subsidizing stupidity and wastefulness, and with its concommittant inflation you're forcing people into making those investments to stay afloat.<p>Maybe if we weren't goosing the interest rate lower for "growth" we wouldn't be destroying the environment.<p>But I guess it is hard to get someone who works for an organization like the UN, who is predisposed to meddle, to see that the problem is meddling, and not that the solution is more meddling.
I think this is completely backwards. We are not risking enough and the progress has stalled as a result.<p>During the 1880-1950 we were causing massive disasters all around, literally nuking cities. But that period is also where we came up with virtually all of technology that makes the modern world: cars, planes, radio, computers, nuclear power, jet propulsion.<p>Since then (also ~70 years) we have maintained a little momentum here and there. Jet propulsion gave us space travel and satellites, we linked computer into networks, put them on the radio. Otherwise, it has been a time of stagnation.<p>This managerial approach to risk management is in no small part to blame in my opinion. We should be bolder. This may be worse for individual people affected but better for humanity in general as it gives us tools to address truly existential risks (like a stray asteroid).<p>We can't really make it up to the people affected in another managerial/coasian bargain. So in return, as healthy cultures did throughout the ages, we give our heroes glory.
I think a lot of folks here are missing the forest for the trees about this report. This is urging people to take a disaster studies inspired approach[1]. We need are in danger of over-optimizing; of accepting too many disruptions from foreseeable problems. There is nothing here about how many risks we <i>should</i> take - it's talking about the fact that we can model expected disruptions and that <i>we are not using that knowledge to prepare for those disruptions</i> which will, of course, make them worse.<p>Nearly all disasters are foreseeable and mitigable. We will do better if we prepare ahead of time. Investing a comparatively small amount of resources will have returns down the line - but you have to do the investment and plan accordingly. A laser focus on investing all resources in "progress" will end up forseeably disrupted.<p>[1] The work of Scott Gabriel Knowles is probably a good intro if people are not familiar.
"The GAR2022 blames these disasters on a broken perception of risk based on “optimism, underestimation and invincibility,” which leads to policy, finance and development decisions that exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and put people in danger."<p>Optimism? I'd say it's apathy. Doomsday reports, also very correct and alarming ones, have lost their effect. People have become numb, pessimistic and just assume or even accept that everything is going to shit. They feel powerless to do anything about it, or are too occupied with their own economic relevance.
Its like with accidental pregnancies or software complexity. People love the nice things "at the front" and prefer to ignore the tail of liabilities coming with it.
Another perspective: humanity's biggest problem is our inability to understand the exponential function [1].<p>As for climate change, the only way that ends is after <i>massive</i> death and destruction or due to economics (specifically: carbon emission sources get replaced because they're cheaper). It's too large, expensive and long-term for people to care otherwise. The pandemic should've dispelled any notions you may have had about humanity not being staggeringly selfish.<p>The social and political disasters are more solvable. The world powers (and the US in particular) need to stop screwing with the rest of the world purely for their material gain.<p>The US loves to sanction, incite a revolution or just outright invade any country that even talks about (let alone actually) nationalizes natural resources [2]. Cuba and Venezuela spring to mind. In Ecuador after Chevron caused massive environmental damage and the government secured a $9.5 billion judgement, the US reacted by empowering an oil law firm to <i>criminally prosecute</i> the US lawyer (Steven Donziger) for fraud in the US [3].<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6E156F1A50BB7B72" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6E156F1A50BB7B72</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...</a><p>[3]: <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/05/04/science/mcgovern-calls-biden-pardon-embattled-attorney-steven-donziger/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/05/04/science/mcgovern-call...</a>
This is a plote headline for addressing the fact we don't have 2million dead bodies in britain.
Stats for the whole and stats for the individual are dangerous things to mix up.
i.e.
There is a non-zero chance a plane will land on you during your commute (there are even videos on-line around the world showing this happening now, god-bless the wide adoption of tech) but this does _not_ mean that you should never leave your house.<p>Also, people need to understand the nature of the risk. Most risk profiles drawn up my mathematicians/statisticians are delibarately very boolean in their outcome. This is to remove potential biases and in order to understand if something will happen you need the following:
A(chance something will happen) x B(chance that is bad) = P(death)<p>This in almost all situations means that P(A) is not the same as P(death) because P(A) will include everything from a stubbed toe or sneeze to death. Conversely P(B) is also no P(death) as it's derrived from the subset of people who pass the condition of P(A) happening which is by definition <=1.0...<p>And now that I've introduced something involving stats on the internet the trogledites will chery pick and straw man this into oblivion, but please, pick up a text book once in a while and stop clicking on the dailymail...
> The GAR2022 blames these disasters on a broken perception of risk
based on “optimism, underestimation and invincibility,” which leads
to policy, finance and development decisions that exacerbate
existing vulnerabilities and put people in danger.<p>The most fatal expression I have heard is that "We need to push
through".<p>In Digital Vegan I describe this mentality thus:<p><pre><code> "I feel there is more hope that one can survive a car crash by
accelerating at a wall to more cleanly demolish it. Instead we must
learn the self-discipline and endure the pain of being able to
disconnect first, in order to build new connections." [2]
</code></pre>
Iatrogenics and solutionism, by which we make things worse by trying
to improve them <i>as-is</i>, is now our mode of existence. Stopping that
requires humility. Falliblism is the ability to realise you are going
the wrong way and turn around, despite the ego losing face.<p>Surely I am an idiot, but I remain an optimist that human beings can
pull ourselves out of a great collective delusion built on pride and
greed.<p>For example; the GAR2022 statement perfectly describes the state of
cybersecurity. I recall a point around 2019, before the pandemic when
major breaches and incidents got to occurring once per day. I had a
feeling that the world was finally taking notice and something could
now be done. Then suddenly it vanished from the news cycle. When
something is happening daily, it's no longer news. Covid-19 then
eclipsed all threads of reflection and we plunged deeper into the very
forms of cybernetic technofascism and blind dependency we needed to
avoid.<p>It's now become impossible to research or teach anything but the most
cartoon version of computer security - one that holds the established
mythologies harmless and allows profitable abuses to continue. There
is no permitted narrative that doesn't compound the errors we are
already making [1] for the sake of those who have power. There is too
much resting on <i>not</i> comprehending the big picture and finding
human-centred solutions. A generation of smart young people who could
help us are left frustrated.<p>I think similar things are happening in other areas of human
intellectual endeavour now, climate, transport, health, education. We
have not valued competencies, but instead put prideful <i>appearance</i>
before reality. We have a bleak crisis of leadership. We cannot face
the onslaught of challenges by reason alone as we are all fatigued
already by tyranny, pestilence, looming poverty and war.<p>The first step is "When you're in a hole, stop digging".<p>We need to curb enthusiasm and withdraw support, even tacit, for many
of the "sacred" norms. We must reject monotonism and the idea that
progress is a "inevitable" scalar. That is not a rejection of
technology, or neo-Luddism. Computer people should at least recognise
that it is called "back-tracking".<p>[1] <a href="http://techrights.org/2021/11/29/teaching-cybersecurity/" rel="nofollow">http://techrights.org/2021/11/29/teaching-cybersecurity/</a><p>[2] <a href="https://digitalvegan.net" rel="nofollow">https://digitalvegan.net</a>
I would say our risk perception is broken in an opposite way: we became too risk-averse thus making simple things insanely more complicated. Think nuclear power.
Coming from the UN, we already know what the answer will be.<p>More governance, more/better management of risk by the UN that is then delegated to its administrative regions (the US, EU, etc). This is because as long as we are talking about risk, this plays into the hands of a global governance structure. All risks should be planned for and managed - I mean the covid response was fantastic, right? What was wrong was not enough governance, of course.<p>But what about the risk of a corrupt global governance structure? If you think "democracy" was bad (where you vote once every 4/5 years, for someone else to represent you for that time), how much worse will it be if global policies are rolled out to everyone with no vote at all? Where if you disagree on what stakeholders (corporations, government and NGOs) have in mind for you, you're on your own. Which is where we are already..<p>No to a global tyrannical system - thanks. Next.<p>I think the best way to manage risks is to roll back the mega governance structures, ignore or undo government diktats. Put power in hands of local people, and no I don't mean implementing the UN cookie-cut 'local sustainable development plan' templates that we are all getting. Can we discuss that? Of course not - imagine a government arguing for less government!!<p>I want less government in every way - let local people decide for themselves what they want to do. In fact, we could have that today, if people stopped listening to these ridiculous self-authorising "authorities".
It's just a distributed market problem, right?<p>As an agent in the market, if you correctly model tail risk you will still be out-competed by someone who does not model tail risk, since they can allocate resources somewhere other than tail risk mitigation. Given non-catastrophic events, this ends up being okay for the market system. After all, society doesn't care if Google is the search engine or Bing so long as they provide similar functionality.<p>For catastrophic events, though, we'd like to keep things operational rather than have someone else pop in. But that's okay. I think the right model is that the state steps in for true catastrophes and mitigates the effects (like we did in the pandemic).<p>And, to be honest, I don't see climate change as an extinction level risk. A few hundred million will die in the top end of what we expect, but that's acceptable. And this is clearly the position of most people, so I'm comfortably in the majority here.
> World could undo social and economic advances and face 1.5 disasters a day by 2030, according to UN’s flagship Global Assessment Report.<p>Now is a good time to talk about incentives. If you are the 'UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction' you have to find disasters or disband.
It's not a matter of broken risk perception but a matter of thirst for power by some who tried to push the accelerator and optimism feeling invincible to bend the society to their desire.<p>I call that the classic fallacy of the building contractor who think it's mix of quick actions and tolerance in the tech can do anything and scale to any level. The opposite effect of analyze-paralyze.<p>Beside that, the recent autarkic drive fueled much by the neoliberals need of overturn the table to remain in power against emerging powers that in the end use the same techniques in slightly different sauces BUT do have industries and/or natural resources the west have lost, is not a reversal of globalization is just the need for another cyclic world war to reset an unsustainable system avoid being rightly annihilated by a mass of angry people, the need for resource and the global exchange system is still the same. For anybody.
'risk perception' sounds like another name for fear.<p>Maybe we ve proven to be good at preventing the wrong things. People expected a climate disaster but it was a pandemic instead
Right now, we have a host of problems, almost all of them manmade, but no, they're not related to the state of nature or even mankind's influence on nature.<p>We are on the brink of world war three and the UN's only reason for existing is to prevent that from happening again, but instead of doing its job it's playing propaganda games with the word 'disaster' to make you think a global carbon tax is the solution to all of your problems (even though deaths from natural disasters are at all-time lows: <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters" rel="nofollow">https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters</a>).<p>We've got major inflationary pressures triggered from man-made economic policy decisions compounded by the incredibly disastrous decision to attempt to shut down whole economies in the vain attempt to prevent human beings from breathing in the same air space as each other. That was a disaster. We are still living with the chain reaction of that stupidity, and China is still running with it in Shanghai, maybe because power is kinda addictive, even when it's horribly disastrous, I don't know.<p>The last thing we need is more centralization of power vis-a-vis the UN.