3 ms·
I must admit I never fully understand PP. I get you need to be cautious in cases of asymmetric risk where say 99.9% of the time the outcome is good and 0.1% cat
by sfvisser 5y ago
I must admit I never fully understand PP. I get you need to be cautious in cases of asymmetric risk where say 99.9% of the time the outcome is good and 0.1% catastrophically, unrecoverably bad. Especially when the distribution isn't even known.
But this is everything in life! Every time you get in car, cross the street, climb the kitchen stairs. So there is a tradeoff somewhere, but we don't know where, almost by definition. Which makes this principle rather unprincipled.
If only we could know when we don't know.
- Tycho 5y agoThe distribution of car accidents etc. is known though. I think the point is to determine when you are operating in mediocristan, and when you are possibly operating in extremistan.
- autokad 5y agoI often see pp keep people poor and stuck. Its interesting they hate where they are in life but refuse to do anything different because perceived risk, and that its better to do nothing. you should save money poor: it doesn't grow fast enough, inflation risk you should invest poor: don't want to loose money, risk you should go to school poor: what if I end stuck with student loan debt, cant find a job, what will the world look like in 4 years? there is not a lot of opportunity in your area, you should move poor: I wont know the place or anyone there, how will I <insert what ever> this literally happened, Home prices are going down and interest rates are low, you should buy a house. you dont even need a down payment as you can get 15k for it from wells fargo FREE poor: I dont want to buy a house now, it might go down. 5 years later... poor: home prices are so high, I can't afford
- gbin 5y agoYes, people are often hiding behind the PP. But often the biggest risk is to not take any risk.