How Risk Mitigation is Naturally Built Into Our Decision Making Process and Why We are Losing It.

     When calculating risk, there are several factors that professional risk management businesses use. In the Army the system is called “composite risk management” and is basically the same with minor variations in assessment and decision making based on the purpose. For example in the Army, the goal isn’t to eliminate risk, that’s impossible. The goal is to mitigate it through systems, training, supervision, and assessment. How is this built into us naturally? 

     Well first, people who spend time thinking about problems tend to find ways to discuss them and to simplify the problem, based on the matrix below. If you spend enough time looking at it, you can see how intuitive it is. For example if something is unlikely to happen, but the result of it happening would be catastrophic, you will still probably not engage in this activity without taking some precautions. A perfect example of this is motorcycle helmets. If you are an experienced rider you may have known someone who was in a motorcycle accident. Was the accident bad? How common are motorcycle accidents? What is the most likely outcome of a motorcycle accident? These questions generally get processed in our heads pretty quick, and then a decision is made to wear a helmet or not, based on how much risk you are willing to assume. 

     This thought process is often what divides us politically as well. There are many who see one incident, realize how catastrophic it is, and want systems put in place to prevent it from ever happening. There are some who recognize that systems can and will be used to reduce freedom and therefore say risk must be accepted, but at the individual level people should utilize caution when engaging in risky activity. On the farthest aspects of each political side, there are those who see the likelihood for catastrophe as a reason to use state force to prevent such an eventuality. Back to motorcycle helmets.

     One side may think helmets must be mandatory to save lives. This requirement actually causes problems, because it assumes that wearing a helmet solves the problem. They mandate it, make it enforceable by law, and pat each other on the back because they have done a good thing to save lives, regardless of the external outcomes. There is another side that says freedom is dangerous, and no one should mandate safety. Personal choice matters more than anything. Another side says well, mandating helmets seems a bit too far, but we can split the difference with mandating eye protection, as in the case of Oklahoma law. From each of their perspective points of view, they are correct. Helmets do save lives in some circumstances, and eye protection does save the possibility of foreign debris entering into the eye and causing loss of eyesight or a crash. 

     The choice continues to be taken from the individual and each person then relies on the state to let them know what is safe, what isn’t, and what activities are sanctioned by the nanny state. This is the fatal flaw because inside each of us the above matrix is programmed. It has developed through evolution to help ensure the survival of the species, and the mandates and acquiescence to authority has caused this mechanism to begin to die off. Those who still have it tend to weigh the possibilities against the probabilities and act accordingly. Next time you see an online argument about policy regarding safety, zoom out and take a look at the thought process behind each person’s stance. Are they trying to use government to save lives, or are they advocating for each individual to use the instinct developed over millennia inherent in each of us.

     There are complications though. I mean murder should be prohibited right? Sure, I can get behind that. But does making murder illegal really prevent murder? No. It prevents some murder, because some people make decisions on how outcomes affect them without thinking about the people their actions would also affect. Does riding a motorcycle without a helmet remotely enter into the same category? Should you save a man's kids by using force of law to write him a ticket, or put him in prison for not complying? Both seem to remove the man from the home, or create financial hardship via fines, which also affects the children. What are the risks of prohibition? Are there any? The answer to this is almost always yes. 

     As the nanny state continues to prohibit activities and as individuals leave their critical thinking up to legislators, humanity is losing this skill that is inherent to our psyche. Dumb and hapless is humanity being led to the slaughter as they say. So next time you are thinking “there ought to be a law” remember that humanity made it hundreds of thousands of years and survived without the state because instinct and intellect propelled us forward through variations of the above matrix without a single politician's input.