I don’t think prepping has anything to do with poor risk assessment. These people are projecting their overwhelming free floating anxiety into a more tangible fear that they can then make a hobby out of attempting to manage and control
So this week I chose option 4! First it was funny in context with the other options. oSecond while I am not actually afraid of this scenario I dream about it a lot. That Im in some strange city where I don’t know anyone and discover I’m without my wallet keys and phone. I’m nobody! In the dream I’m not scared it’s more like, huh! Now I can be anybody. Where shall I start?
I am SO GLAD you read and love your opinion! So it would be possiible to posit another unlikely scenario and some subset of folks will free-float to it! Your description also aligns with these scenarios always being unlikely and just a need to anchor anxiety. Interesting! Unfortunately there are always opportunists who take advantage of the people. It is why Costco is selling beef stroganoff in tubs.
To me I associate this stuff as A BIT about risk is because people watch the Discovery Channel and are fed some horrific outcomes be it war, or earthquakes, etc. I believe a lot of this is a very slight difference person to person and their amygdala. Fear, anxiety, fight, flight are so primitive and universal. A long while back I wrote about two different people. One had an extremely rare conditiion that consumed BOTH of her amygdalae and she has adapted. Nevertheless she has NO FEAR of things and MUST slow her mind down and be rational in dangerous circumstances which takes a long time without a quick reacting amygdala. The other woman had a tumor and emerged with almost no pain signaling. She became an extreme ultra-marathoner!
I created option 4 for me and am so happy someone else could relate! Just prior to a recent long-planned trip I lost my DL and my passport was expired. It turned me into a crazy person and disrupted all of my NEEDS to plan and be in control. You work your way through the scenario much better than I. I went to the airport 3+ hours early expecting a TSA challenge.
My spouse works in risk management, yet early in the pandemic I kept having to remind him it's never about what the risk actually is, it's about how people *feel* about the risk.
I like your son's take -- that's a great perspective!
Also, sometimes how people feel about risk can amplify the actual risk. Imagine if you live in a neighborhood and you begin to believe that about half of your neighbors are insolvent (even if only 5% of them actually are). How many neighbors will you lend money to? If all your neighbors execute the same thought process, your neighborhood's economy is likely to freeze up.
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Just based on the title of your Newsletter and the fact that I've read a couple of your posts, causes me to assign more credibility than I would to a random comment.
This is very well put and a great example. I think risk is a fascinating subject from many points of view. Your choice of the word amplify is perfect. Humans are remarkable BECAUSE of their ability to think analytically. I genuinely believe what is most challenging for us is how we arrive at truth. It is mostly just perception and often doesn't involve thinking at all. Hardened truths, traditions, instilled values are remarkable biases we cannot easily shed.
Overcoming hardened truths is really difficult even for individuals but especially for larger organizations and groups. It usually takes something upsetting the apple cart for that to happen... unfortunately! Agree that it's one of the major challenges of being human.
I wrote a post about this a long time ago titled Truth. One of the more fascinating changes evolving with AI (synthetic belief) is that it abandons pre-formatted belief and tradition. I think that humans will likely become resentful and fearful. I often have a LOT OF STORIES in draft. One I am playing around with is sector-level collapse in the economy when a drastic new approach arrives. Some survive but creative destruction destroys most of them. Very hard to insulate yourself from group-think. I am glad to have you as a reader and commenter!
I still chuckle to this day when there is a crazy driver. I just imagine Nick sitting next to me and commenting "I hope they ran to their car". I''m glad you enjoyed it. Invariably when someone speeds thru a yellow light we all often pull up next to them at the next light. It is all quite silly and unnecessarily dangerous!
Michael Lewis is the consummate author on the topic.
One of his books begins with the run on the rouble and ends with the morning of 9/11. Each major event ends with a massive bailout. Privatize the gain, socialize the loss.
They are the largest transfer payments in our economy and no one ever questions whether such things are socialism.
A bit of a plug but I wrote this https://markdolan.substack.com/truth a while ago. It was about three kinds of truth. What is so strange is that once something as different as gravity, earth at center of universe, and master race become IMBEDDED in our minds, we FIGHT to not them be displaced. A big lie, told over and over becomes reality and we might even become ANGRY that someone thinks otherwise. Our brains are amazing but they are simultaneously a 3 pound mass of fat. I also did a lighthearted set of post about the biblical figure Methuselah and then the near 6000 year old tree of the same name. The critical takeaway is it is not enough for people who embrace 600+ year old Methuselah to believe, zealots might also want to damage the tree because it THREATENS their personal beliefs. I don't think these folks are evil, they merely have not tried hard enough to help themselves sort out their countermanding beliefs. To challenge their personal beliefs is not the answer, it is of the utmost importance to respect their personal beliefs and their rights to them. Danger only comes when folks want to IMPOSE personal, non-objective truth on others in a desire to "help them".
I appreciate the time and thought you take in your comments. I got a little more reading it the second time. As to your comment about fear, I think it functions as the basis for many of our personal truths. I learned a lot in an old post about the amigdala. They are these little almond shaped parts in each sphere of our brain and they seem to govern fear, fight and flight. So crazy. These are amongst the most primitive parts of our brains and they can really wreak havoc. I know that when people hear things that conflict with their personal truths, this little center in your brain goes CRAZY!
This is a very complex topic. One example that strongly establishes how this seems to work. If you ask a statistically stable group of Americans over now about 75 years the same questions in a poll, a majority believes the world was created in the last 10,000 years. This is not a matter of education, objective knowledge, or anything else. A PATTERN has been BURNED into our brains at an early age that makes us vulnerable and essentially UNABLE to change our thought pattern. A large number of such people happily visit museums, are entertained and interested in seeing fossils and reads the plaques at the museum. Nevertheless, an early teaching has become IMMOVABLE in their minds. This must be a feature of how our brains form memory. Once ideas based partly on emotion are formed, they appear almost impossible to adjust.
I don’t think prepping has anything to do with poor risk assessment. These people are projecting their overwhelming free floating anxiety into a more tangible fear that they can then make a hobby out of attempting to manage and control
So this week I chose option 4! First it was funny in context with the other options. oSecond while I am not actually afraid of this scenario I dream about it a lot. That Im in some strange city where I don’t know anyone and discover I’m without my wallet keys and phone. I’m nobody! In the dream I’m not scared it’s more like, huh! Now I can be anybody. Where shall I start?
I am SO GLAD you read and love your opinion! So it would be possiible to posit another unlikely scenario and some subset of folks will free-float to it! Your description also aligns with these scenarios always being unlikely and just a need to anchor anxiety. Interesting! Unfortunately there are always opportunists who take advantage of the people. It is why Costco is selling beef stroganoff in tubs.
To me I associate this stuff as A BIT about risk is because people watch the Discovery Channel and are fed some horrific outcomes be it war, or earthquakes, etc. I believe a lot of this is a very slight difference person to person and their amygdala. Fear, anxiety, fight, flight are so primitive and universal. A long while back I wrote about two different people. One had an extremely rare conditiion that consumed BOTH of her amygdalae and she has adapted. Nevertheless she has NO FEAR of things and MUST slow her mind down and be rational in dangerous circumstances which takes a long time without a quick reacting amygdala. The other woman had a tumor and emerged with almost no pain signaling. She became an extreme ultra-marathoner!
I created option 4 for me and am so happy someone else could relate! Just prior to a recent long-planned trip I lost my DL and my passport was expired. It turned me into a crazy person and disrupted all of my NEEDS to plan and be in control. You work your way through the scenario much better than I. I went to the airport 3+ hours early expecting a TSA challenge.
My spouse works in risk management, yet early in the pandemic I kept having to remind him it's never about what the risk actually is, it's about how people *feel* about the risk.
I like your son's take -- that's a great perspective!
Also, sometimes how people feel about risk can amplify the actual risk. Imagine if you live in a neighborhood and you begin to believe that about half of your neighbors are insolvent (even if only 5% of them actually are). How many neighbors will you lend money to? If all your neighbors execute the same thought process, your neighborhood's economy is likely to freeze up.
Stephanie --
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Just based on the title of your Newsletter and the fact that I've read a couple of your posts, causes me to assign more credibility than I would to a random comment.
This is very well put and a great example. I think risk is a fascinating subject from many points of view. Your choice of the word amplify is perfect. Humans are remarkable BECAUSE of their ability to think analytically. I genuinely believe what is most challenging for us is how we arrive at truth. It is mostly just perception and often doesn't involve thinking at all. Hardened truths, traditions, instilled values are remarkable biases we cannot easily shed.
Overcoming hardened truths is really difficult even for individuals but especially for larger organizations and groups. It usually takes something upsetting the apple cart for that to happen... unfortunately! Agree that it's one of the major challenges of being human.
I wrote a post about this a long time ago titled Truth. One of the more fascinating changes evolving with AI (synthetic belief) is that it abandons pre-formatted belief and tradition. I think that humans will likely become resentful and fearful. I often have a LOT OF STORIES in draft. One I am playing around with is sector-level collapse in the economy when a drastic new approach arrives. Some survive but creative destruction destroys most of them. Very hard to insulate yourself from group-think. I am glad to have you as a reader and commenter!
I still chuckle to this day when there is a crazy driver. I just imagine Nick sitting next to me and commenting "I hope they ran to their car". I''m glad you enjoyed it. Invariably when someone speeds thru a yellow light we all often pull up next to them at the next light. It is all quite silly and unnecessarily dangerous!
Michael Lewis is the consummate author on the topic.
One of his books begins with the run on the rouble and ends with the morning of 9/11. Each major event ends with a massive bailout. Privatize the gain, socialize the loss.
They are the largest transfer payments in our economy and no one ever questions whether such things are socialism.
Thank you for reading AND commenting.
A bit of a plug but I wrote this https://markdolan.substack.com/truth a while ago. It was about three kinds of truth. What is so strange is that once something as different as gravity, earth at center of universe, and master race become IMBEDDED in our minds, we FIGHT to not them be displaced. A big lie, told over and over becomes reality and we might even become ANGRY that someone thinks otherwise. Our brains are amazing but they are simultaneously a 3 pound mass of fat. I also did a lighthearted set of post about the biblical figure Methuselah and then the near 6000 year old tree of the same name. The critical takeaway is it is not enough for people who embrace 600+ year old Methuselah to believe, zealots might also want to damage the tree because it THREATENS their personal beliefs. I don't think these folks are evil, they merely have not tried hard enough to help themselves sort out their countermanding beliefs. To challenge their personal beliefs is not the answer, it is of the utmost importance to respect their personal beliefs and their rights to them. Danger only comes when folks want to IMPOSE personal, non-objective truth on others in a desire to "help them".
I appreciate the time and thought you take in your comments. I got a little more reading it the second time. As to your comment about fear, I think it functions as the basis for many of our personal truths. I learned a lot in an old post about the amigdala. They are these little almond shaped parts in each sphere of our brain and they seem to govern fear, fight and flight. So crazy. These are amongst the most primitive parts of our brains and they can really wreak havoc. I know that when people hear things that conflict with their personal truths, this little center in your brain goes CRAZY!
This is a very complex topic. One example that strongly establishes how this seems to work. If you ask a statistically stable group of Americans over now about 75 years the same questions in a poll, a majority believes the world was created in the last 10,000 years. This is not a matter of education, objective knowledge, or anything else. A PATTERN has been BURNED into our brains at an early age that makes us vulnerable and essentially UNABLE to change our thought pattern. A large number of such people happily visit museums, are entertained and interested in seeing fossils and reads the plaques at the museum. Nevertheless, an early teaching has become IMMOVABLE in their minds. This must be a feature of how our brains form memory. Once ideas based partly on emotion are formed, they appear almost impossible to adjust.