High lethality and low probability events raise policy issues, because, using mathematics, the best course is often to do nothing about them. It is silly, economically speaking, to prepare for an event with a cost of a trillion dollars, if that event has a probability of occuring only once in a trillion years. Better to focus on creating a rich society.

For events like a tidal wave, the best response is probably a robust economy and well prepared military/national guard that permit a nation to respond quickly and effectively to disasters of tiny probability but horrific result. Here’s a relevant Belmont Club post.

Randomness is reduced substantially in fact, though not necessarily in the models, when the rare occurence might be the product of malevolent intent. Such is the case with smallpox, lethal about 30% of the time, about which a flawed and silly TV movie is showing tonight.

Smallpox vaccinations do not occur now in the US because several thousand children would get sick or die if vaccinations were routinely administered. However, it would clearly be prudent, given the catastrophic costs of such an attack, if all adults and school-age children were able to get vaccinated at their option. Dinocrat urges everyone to do this.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 2nd, 2005 at 9:02 pm and is filed under General, MSM, New Media, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.