Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
"Thomas Dalton" wrote:
And the values of both are culturally constructed (i.e. arbitrary) as is the balance between them. I know one of the more prominent risk theorists, he has a hard time getting people to accept the validity of the concept of plain bad luck.
Exactly - that cultural construction is what people are talking about when they say someone is more or less risk-averse than someone else.
Up to a point. There are two issues: first, the /value/ of risk and the /value/ of reward are subjective; second, the perceived /balance/ between them differs.
To say that different individuals are more or less risk averse is only half the story - they may be identically risk averse but have formed different judgments of the value of risk in a given context.
"Plain bad luck" in our context means that there may be instances where we will be sued no matter what we do.
Ec