Living in Unexpected and Risky Modern Society

Topic 1 1. The word risk derives from the early Italian Risicare. To dare. In this sense, risk is a choice rather than a fate. 2. Theroy of probability is the mathematical heart of the concept of risk. 3. Understanding of risk enables us to make decisions in a rational mode. 4. Over time, the controversy between qualification based on observations of the past and subjective degrees of belief has taken on a deeper significance. The mathematically driven apparatus of modern risk management contains the seeds of a dehumanizing and self-destructive. 5. The capacity to manage risk, and with it the appetite to take risk and make forward-looking choices, are key elements of the energy that drives the economic system forward. 6. Risk should be more closely associated with chance, hazard, probability, eventually and randomness on the one hand, and loss and damage on the other. 7. Risk carries an added, more negative meaning, which is ‘beyond danger’. 8. Some concepts of risk are negative to the point where they merge with the notion of hazard. An important distinction needs to be made between the two. A hazard can be defined as an agent of hazard, for example HIV. The perceived risk is the subjective estimate that exposure to the hazard will be harmful. 9. Taking risk can also be culturally acceptable, as when children ‘take dares’ or people parachute for charity. From this position, risk becomes a driving force for change in a world where anything may happen. Risk-taking reflects undying and heroic quest to create wealth. 10. Risk is the probability that a particular adverse event occurs during a stated period of time or results from a particular challenge. As a probability in the sense of statistical theory, risk obeys all the formal laws combing probabilities. 11. Risk generally refers to the possibility of loss or costs when an outcome is uncertain, but in clinical and criminal justice settings, it means the chance of a(n)