The "Reasonable Risk" Hypothesis

I've got two points to make today.

The first point: there are a mind-blowing many types of people in the world, of course, but for illustration purposes I'm going to pretend there are only two: procrastinators and ex-Marines.  I've noticed that those people who always get up at the crack of dawn and their lawns are mowed before I stir are mostly ex-military, where they apparently teach this behavior as a skill.  (This, of course, is my own observation and not fact, and I have obviously never served in the military.)  Procrastinators have a tendency to wait until the last minute, stating the obvious, and therefore try to crunch more productivity in less time.  In doing so, Procrastinators often don't leave enough time for the work, and often have to cut corners.  Yes, I know this is superhyperovergeneralization.  But the point is, when we do not leave adequate time to prepare, we are often not adequately prepared.  The Ex-Marine type, on the other hand, is prepared in a way that most of us find a little distasteful, as if they're rubbing in the fact that they're productive morning people, that they get to eat breakfast seated at a table, finish the day's work with time to lounge around in the evening with cup of coffee and watch the sunset.  The Ex-Marine is too much of a good thing for most of us.  Good for him (or her), but they sort of point out the self-imposed difficulties of our lives.

The second point is that we sometimes will fear and work toward the mitigation of some risks when they affect us personally, even though they're invisible and theoretical.  I remember when, two years ago at age 35, my doctor told me my cholesterol was too high.  To most people, this would mean that a heart attack is imminent, but it doesn't mean that at all.  In fact, what it means is there is a slightly higher probability that I might have a heart attack than another white thirty-something male that has LDLs that are lower.  In either case, it might or might not happen.  So what did I do?  Started antihyperlipidemics and exercise.  I found that, after a year, I did better, but was still above the standard for hyperlipidemia, so my dose was raised.  In other words, on the chance that something bad might happen I've rearranged my whole life and made massive lifestyle changes, when it really will, even if successful, only postpone my death, not prevent it.  How many times do we make such changes?  Many of us (decreasing in number all the time, of course) will never make it to retirement, yet, as is prudent, we put money away as though we'll live to be 100 years old.  We put money away for our kids' education even though they might get a scholarship or they might decide to be high school custodians (not that there's anything wrong with that, they just won't need that expensive college education.)  People save for all sorts of scenarios, besides just college, such as owning a home.  We build houses to be hurricane-resistant or purchase flood insurance, even though these calamities may never come to pass.  We might horde gold in case money collapses, even around the discussion of dollar solvency.  Some of the more conspiratorial among us stockpile weapons for a future battle with a docile government.  There's sunscreen, burglar alarms, water purification, and many others.  The point is, we're a species that is willing to mobilize on future risk (only risk and not certainty) when it affects us in certain, personal ways.

So, let's take a logical leap that synthesizes these two points into something useful.  Let's say there's a measurable, set amount of oil on Earth (this is actually true, though nobody claims knowledge of what that exact amount is).  I'm going to pour a quart of it into a barrel and light it on fire.  Doesn't that mean that there is now the amount of oil on Earth minus one quart?  Okay, based on that, as long as people are using oil (also a demonstrable fact) there will continually be less of it until there is none.  This follows logically.  Drilling for more in the Americas or in the ANWR will not change that fact, only postpone it.  Look at global climate change.  If human-caused carbon dioxide emissions are increasing, and mitigating factors such as rain forests and forests in general are decreasing (though climate-change skeptics will deny this, these are both also established, demonstrable facts), then it's safe to say the Earth will be dirtier (i.e. more carbon-y) tomorrow than it is today, and that this will continue into perpetuity (in fact will accelerate).  This one's a bit more of a leap, but still demonstrably true: if there's a limit to how much climate change will allow the current economic systems to function, we will, at some point, definitely pass it.

So, here's the punchline: like the heart attack, the flood, the college education, or the war with the government, there's a chance that none of this will happen.  But there's also a chance that it will--a good chance (and a logical leap that says it's inevitable).  And if there's a chance that it will, wouldn't any reasonable person, one that would take Crestor, start running, voluntarily pay into Social Security, buy insurance, save for retirement, horde gold, or assume any other preparatory action against future problems, at least consider starting to make some preparations for these impending problems?  If we used less oil, compelled businesses to do less polluting, recycled more, built infrastructure, such as public transportation systems that work, that would mitigate carbon emissions while we work actively to find other sources of energy, and climate change turned out to be false (it isn't), what have we lost?  If I wouldn't have had a heart attack with this new lifestyle I live, hopefully, I'll never know it.  I call this the "Reasonable Risk Hypothesis," which states that if there's a chance that something bad will happen in the future, we should take action as if it is, because it doesn't hurt us to take such action, but betting against the bad occurrence is certain to lead to catastrophe, if the event does come to pass...

And in deciding to take this action, are we going to be Procrastinators, and do too little now, or cut corners later, or Ex-Marines, and solve the problems ahead of the time of reckoning?

Someone else already used this hypothesis, but the "bad event" was a little different: Pascal's Wager....