Tell HN: Risk, Dan Gardner | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: Risk, Dan Gardner

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Hey Guys,

I just finished reading Risk (The Science of Politics and Fear) by Dan Gardner and figured I should recommend it as a great read. I wouldn't normally recommend a book here but I suspect it is the kind of book a lot of people would dismiss as not-relevant to the hacker sort of mentality (I thought the same).

Basically it sums up the Human reaction to perceived risk. One way to describe the whole thing is how many people, after seeing a coin land heads up 5 times in a row will bet it has a higher chance of landing heads up again next time - regardless of the random aspect.

The most interesting thing I found in the book though was when he presented common "risk puzzles" where our gut causes a knee-jerk answer to a posed question. Several times I thought "that's silly, I'd never fall for that" only to read on an find that I had done :) one big point he makes there is that bad responses to risk and fear are just as much a problem in "intelligent" people.

If I had to sum it up Risk is a good link between some of Dawkins/Hitchens anti-mythology books and popular science concepts (like A Brief History of Time etc.).

His initial example is how after Sept. 11th people stopped using Aeroplanes whilst car travel went up: except more people extra died in that year than died in the Sept 11th tragedy. Car travel was perceived as "safer" even though it wasn't in the slightest.

I think it is really relevant to some of the stuff people here are working on: because it assess how people respond even after considering a problem. It's also proved useful (to me) in making several tough(ish) choices in the recent past. If nothing else it has sat there in my mind so that when "gut" kicks in I have a little bookmark to stop it and rethink what I just did/said/thought.

Anyway, I found it incredibly fascinating & enlightening to read so.... recommended :)

I'm all for book reviews by HN for HN.

I would like to suggest a convention to the title for reviews too - Book Review:

I am 100% on board with this. Also, the ensuing discussion and alternate suggestions have the potential to be more valuable than the original reviews, much like the articles submitted.

Good idea, I'll bear than in mind in the future (I was going to put (Book) at the end but forget. whoops.

It's like a FUBU for books.

A book that I loved in HS on a similar topic, just more focused on the social aspect of it is "The Culture of Fear" by Barry Glassner. Recommended also.

http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Fear-Americans-Afraid-Things/d...

Dan mentions this book several times in Risk actually - because of that it was tentatively on my reading list but now I'll definitely give it a shot :D thanks

As a compliment to this book, I submit "Fooled By Randomness" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. An excellent book that describes very well how human beings make deliberate attempts to rationalize random events.

Amazon Link (in case ppl struggle to find it)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Risk-Science-Politics-Dan-Gardner/dp...

I cant seem to find it on the US Amazon (Amazon.com).

I see some likely, but potentially renamed alternatives by the same author.

Any of these:

  http://amzn.com/1905264151 - Same name, not sold by Amazon
  http://amzn.com/0525950621 - Different title, same author/approx publishing dates

Thoughts?

This is the one: http://amzn.com/0525950621

UK sub-title izs "The Science and Politics of Fear". Also the Independant review on that page is the same in the back cover of my copy :)

Alternatively does this link work for you?

http://www.amazon.com/Risk-Things-Shouldnt-Ourselves-Greater

That is the correct book 100% :)

Edit: From his site they are all the same just different titles for different countries.

http://www.dangardner.ca/

"His initial example is how after Sept. 11th people stopped using Aeroplanes whilst car travel went up: except more people extra died in that year than died in the Sept 11th tragedy. Car travel was perceived as safer even though it wasn't in the slightest." I heard that statistic after September 11th. It didn't help. It just made me more afraid of driving.

That's gut at work again (he makes this point later on) you have the risks explained and still gut refuses to apply it right. Given the choice between fly and drive now both are worrisome.

One thing I've heard mentioned occasionally but still have not seen covered extensively/comprehensively in the mainstream media, is the shifting of risk in the U.S. in the last, say, 30 years, from institutions to individuals. For example, the movement from professionally managed pensions to individually managed (and often choice-limited) 401k plans as a main vehicle for retirement savings.

I don't know whether the book addresses those aspects of risk, or whether it shares my viewpoint on them, but I welcome the review and the attention the post may place on risk as a topic. The conversation here could become quite interesting.

I think Barry Schwartz talks about something similar with the shift of choices from the professionals to the public in health care in this TED talk - http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_ch... and probably more so in his book which I am yet to read.

> For example, the movement from professionally managed pensions to individually managed (and often choice-limited) 401k plans as a main vehicle for retirement savings.

We've found that the risk of professionally managed pensions is actually borne by taxpayers, not "institutions".

Yes, I thought of that as I wrote my comment. However, I see it as a somewhat separate problem. The pension funds were, essentially, raided. If that were prevented (that dreaded word, regulation), we might still be in a situation where pensions provide a very stable retirement income. Further, preventing such behavior would force the pension providers to own up to and correct their problems sooner, instead of milking retirement earnings as a short term compensation for those problems. Those that couldn't correct their problems would fail. But the pensions would remain intact.

I think what is currently happening with many pensions in the U.S. -- e.g. underfunding followed by default of one manner or another that transfers the pension obligations to the increasingly underfunded Federal government insurance/guarantor program that pays a small portion of their original value -- is criminal, ethically where not (explicitly enough, apparently) legally. But it does not of itself discredit the concept of pensions.

At the same time, I'm no expert in this. I'm open to considering opposing arguments. Let me put part of my point another way: Expecting every future retiree to become an investment expert is inefficient. All that time and effort duplicated across so many people, to manage in each individual case relatively small amounts (excluding that small percentage of the very wealthy).

But maybe it's like democracy; all that work by individuals is necessary to keep the system honest. And when the work isn't done, the system degrades. Perhaps the best we can do is to all hire investment advisors (whom we choose) and to treat no investment, no benefit as "guaranteed".

But, with regard to the topic of risk, this is a lot of individual risk.

> The pension funds were, essentially, raided.

Not at all. They were unsatisfiable promises.

> If that were prevented (that dreaded word, regulation)

I'll believe in regulation when public employee pensions are less of a disaster than private ones.

> But it does not of itself discredit the concept of pensions.

In theory there's no difference between theory and practice....

> But, with regard to the topic of risk, this is a lot of individual risk.

You can't eliminate risk. You can merely move it around.

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