3 ms·
Avoid tail risks. In other words, try to avoid circumstances that can kill you or severely harm you, even if the risk is small. Means no riding bicycles, taki
by DantesKite 5y ago
Avoid tail risks.
In other words, try to avoid circumstances that can kill you or severely harm you, even if the risk is small.
Means no riding bicycles, taking medicines with horrific side effects (unless I'm actively dying), surgeries (unless absolutely needed), skydiving, helicopters, and walking next to traffic.
- tomcatfish 5y agoI don't think this is particularly sustainable because the whole thing that makes them tail risks in their uncommonness. I can think of enough unlikely ways to be tortured an incredible amount that it's computationally infeasible that I can figure out how to avoid 1/3 of them.
- DantesKite 5y agoIt's the same reason you wear a seatbelt, even though most people don't get into more than 3 or 4 accidents over their entire lifetime. The point either isn't avoiding all tail risks, since you can't foresee them all by definition, but by reducing exposure such that you won't be ruined if/when they do happen.
- tomcatfish 5y agoYes, but tail risks definitionally include the WHOLE TAIL, which is infinitely long (including stuff like Quantum gibberish turning you into salmon while you read this). It's why we plan for risks, not tail risks, but the category Tail Risks is simply the category Risks with the most common ones subtracted out!