04-29-2009, 07:12 AM
Hi Cent.
Risk analysis in most ways is a risky business in itself, and is never a very factual process, always involving arbitrary assumptions that are pretty subjective. So much of it is comparing apples to apples and not to stones. If we get a full blown pandemic we're in a whole new risk class--and to compare it then again to my original comparison the risk of getting killed by a drunk driver, well, I guess I'd have to compare living through a current flu epidemic to being in a car that's already flown off the highway. In a lot of ways statistical stuff like that is just a bunch of wonky nonsense anyhow and the more particular to a case one tries to make it the less useful the observation will be.
My only point in any of this is to encourage personal action towards thoughtful and sensible preparation, and to neither panic nor live in denial. I've near a 100 percent chance of getting prostate cancer if I live long enough. That reality isn't going to affect much about how I go about my day today.
Risk analysis in most ways is a risky business in itself, and is never a very factual process, always involving arbitrary assumptions that are pretty subjective. So much of it is comparing apples to apples and not to stones. If we get a full blown pandemic we're in a whole new risk class--and to compare it then again to my original comparison the risk of getting killed by a drunk driver, well, I guess I'd have to compare living through a current flu epidemic to being in a car that's already flown off the highway. In a lot of ways statistical stuff like that is just a bunch of wonky nonsense anyhow and the more particular to a case one tries to make it the less useful the observation will be.
My only point in any of this is to encourage personal action towards thoughtful and sensible preparation, and to neither panic nor live in denial. I've near a 100 percent chance of getting prostate cancer if I live long enough. That reality isn't going to affect much about how I go about my day today.