Re:Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test
by NikolaNovak on Tuesday December 28, 2021 @05:22PM
(#29719010)
Agreed; but I don't see it as necessarily nefarious (only probably nefarious:)
In a lot of places, most people only wear seatbelt, wear a helmet, don't drink and drive, etc due to laws/regulations (and in others, they'll strongly actively fight these initiatives). We are really really REALLY bad, on average, assessing personal risks. Regulation, in part at least, is us as a society taking look at overall percentages and saying "well let's not do that".
There's a likely apocryphal story about sysadmin who was fired after event he estimated had less than 10% chance of happening, happened. Most of us assume that <50% means it won't happen, >50% means it will happen. With most events that insurance covers, most of us are aaaaawful at understanding it can ever happen to us... and we most definitely over-estimate the gracefulness, self-awareness and ownership we'll exhibit if it does help us.
In a lot of places, most people only wear seatbelt, wear a helmet, don't drink and drive, etc due to laws/regulations (and in others, they'll strongly actively fight these initiatives). We are really really REALLY bad, on average, assessing personal risks. Regulation, in part at least, is us as a society taking look at overall percentages and saying "well let's not do that".
There's a likely apocryphal story about sysadmin who was fired after event he estimated had less than 10% chance of happening, happened. Most of us assume that <50% means it won't happen, >50% means it will happen. With most events that insurance covers, most of us are aaaaawful at understanding it can ever happen to us... and we most definitely over-estimate the gracefulness, self-awareness and ownership we'll exhibit if it does help us.