How should people handle risk? In business, people say risk taking and failure are good. With physical health, people say risk taking is bad (speeding, motorcycles, etc.). Strangely, risk taking is usually encouraged. So for example, if you ride a motorcycle without a helmet and smash your head, the government pays for it. Should they? If a business fails, the government pays for it. Should they? Why is risk taking so encouraged?
How should we think about taking risks? Risks are obviously needed to do something new, like if you take a risk there could be a good outcome. However, some things are just reckless and don’t lead to anything meaningful, so those aren’t good.
There’s also a mentality of avoiding all risks, like wanting to live in this perfectly secure bubble. I’m not sure why there is this mentality, obviously we all die eventually, so living in a bubble won’t protect you forever.
So how much is good? Are motorcycles ok if they free your mind? What about rock climbing? Crashing bicycles? Is all this fine or neutral? Risk often slides to recklessness, where people take risks at the expense of everyone else. You can lead the world down a path that isn’t just risk for you, but everyone else. When you do something that makes everyone else pay for it, that’s a bit scary. Or is it? Does humanity only go forward with risk, so we should all pay for it? Even something like a head injury, should we pay for it? Probably.
Risk & chance seem to be fundamental to what we do. It’s also easy for rich people to say risk is fine, they aren’t the ones losing their house and education, so it’s maybe not fair to tell everyone to take risks. Some people crash a motorcycle and die, so that was just stupid.