Practical definition: “Risk”

Posted by Marc Hodak on September 8, 2007 under Practical definitions | 3 Comments to Read

This colorful sign is posted at airports and rail stations all over the country, so I’ve been seeing it a lot recently. I wonder if it means anything at all? I mean beyond the CYA function it serves our politicians. That I understand: As long as the threat level is “Elevated” or worse, our senior public officials have a magic pass to turn responsibility into blame if anything bad happens. Instead of saying “We failed you,” as they do in more honorable societies, our politicians get to say “I told you so.” See the difference? “We failed you.” “I told you so.”

In a society where authority comes with accountability, the incentive is for people to be careful about how much authority they assume. In a society where grabbing authority comes with little incremental accountability, you get…Homeland Security, the FDA, OSHA…

Websters defines risk as “possibility of loss or injury.” That broad definition means different things to different people. So, here are two versions of the expanded definition of risk:

Risk (scientist): A probability of loss or injury; often used to trade off against the probability of gain or reward
Risk (politician): The likelihood of loss or injury; easily used to justify more power or tax funding

The political view is immediately distinguished from the scientific one by its reliance on availability bias. Nowhere is this scientist/politician distinction better illustrated than our Homeland Security Advisory System. From a politician’s point of view, there is always a possibility of terrorist attack. Beyond that, their assignment of a color code appears to be based on a secret lotto wheel or big, fuzzy dice with only three possibilities: “Elevated” “High” and “Severe.”

Scientifically, what we’ve experienced with this color-coded system makes no sense. Sure, they’ve been very good at raising the alert after an incident occurs, but what good does that do anyone? We have been never been below Yellow alert–an “elevated” risk. For most of the time since the system has been put into place, we have been on Orange alert–“High” threat. After five years of this nonsense, we have plenty of data on threat levels vs. actual incidents. You’d think there should be a correlation between the two. Anyone care to guess what that correlation is?