The Boston bombing and ‘black swans’
Brett Arends's ROI
Commentary: Role of risk in our lives is little understood
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Human beings seem to have a real problem with the idea of risk. We can’t get
it into perspective. We worry about the wrong things and the wrong dangers. It’s
a massive problem for investors, and it’s a problem in other parts of our lives.
The modern world of the media makes it worse, too.
Just look at this week.
I am writing this from Boston.
Monday’s bombs went off a short walk from where I live and work. The president, governor and mayor spoke Thursday at an interfaith church service here in town designed to help us heal from the trauma. In the hours following, and in rapid succession, the FBI released images of the suspects, and a chaotic series of events left an MIT campus security officer dead, one suspect reportedly dead, and the city on lockdown as a massive manhunt got underway in the suburb of Watertown, Mass., and its environs.
According to so many reports this week, we are a city “in pain,” “heartbroken,” traumatized and struggling to get back on our feet, but we Bostonians are all, apparently, especially resilient, and We Will Endure.
In addition to the fallen MIT employee, three people were killed in Monday’s outrage. Many more were injured, some very seriously indeed. My condolences to everyone affected (as indeed they go to everyone who suffers bereavement or trauma, including all those affected by the massive fertilizer-plant accident in Texas).
Just look at this week.
I am writing this from Boston.
Monday’s bombs went off a short walk from where I live and work. The president, governor and mayor spoke Thursday at an interfaith church service here in town designed to help us heal from the trauma. In the hours following, and in rapid succession, the FBI released images of the suspects, and a chaotic series of events left an MIT campus security officer dead, one suspect reportedly dead, and the city on lockdown as a massive manhunt got underway in the suburb of Watertown, Mass., and its environs.
According to so many reports this week, we are a city “in pain,” “heartbroken,” traumatized and struggling to get back on our feet, but we Bostonians are all, apparently, especially resilient, and We Will Endure.
In addition to the fallen MIT employee, three people were killed in Monday’s outrage. Many more were injured, some very seriously indeed. My condolences to everyone affected (as indeed they go to everyone who suffers bereavement or trauma, including all those affected by the massive fertilizer-plant accident in Texas).
According to the federal government’s Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, in a typical year about 120,000 Americans are killed in accidents of
all kinds, and another 15,000 are murdered. That works out to about 370 deaths
every single day. The Boston metro area, with about 1.5% of the U.S. population,
might be expected to see five or six such deaths every single day.
People are killed in three-car pileups on the freeway and in outbreaks of food poisoning. Children drown in reservoirs. Yet most of these deaths go unmarked. They are not granted national outbreaks of mourning, two minutes’ silence at sporting events, or flags at half-staff. Most of the time national leaders do not fly in for church services. News anchors do not move their centers of operation to be closer to the tragedy. Are the victims’ lives somehow less important? Or are we giving in to an irrational loss of perspective?
Most of the time those touched directly mourn, those touched indirectly offer condolences and support, and people go on with their daily lives. It is only when the deaths are the result of something dramatic or memorable that they get our attention.
Since 2007-08 people have been obsessed with the cult of “black swans” — supposed freak events such as a financial crisis — or a terrorist bombing — for which they are completely unprepared, and which allegedly dominate our lives. The phrase was coined by writer Nassim Taleb in his book of that name.
People are killed in three-car pileups on the freeway and in outbreaks of food poisoning. Children drown in reservoirs. Yet most of these deaths go unmarked. They are not granted national outbreaks of mourning, two minutes’ silence at sporting events, or flags at half-staff. Most of the time national leaders do not fly in for church services. News anchors do not move their centers of operation to be closer to the tragedy. Are the victims’ lives somehow less important? Or are we giving in to an irrational loss of perspective?
Most of the time those touched directly mourn, those touched indirectly offer condolences and support, and people go on with their daily lives. It is only when the deaths are the result of something dramatic or memorable that they get our attention.
Since 2007-08 people have been obsessed with the cult of “black swans” — supposed freak events such as a financial crisis — or a terrorist bombing — for which they are completely unprepared, and which allegedly dominate our lives. The phrase was coined by writer Nassim Taleb in his book of that name.
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