WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

Have you noticed that bookies have invaded virtually everywhere we live. There are hundreds of them. Baylor University Professor Earl Grinols estimates that addicted gamblers cost the U.S. alone between $32.4 billion and $53.8 billion a year. Gambling is going to be a much greater problem in the future … I bet you.

But risk, although fundamental to gambling, is a much larger issue the understanding of which will shape all our lives. Government policy hinges on risk analysis. Personally, we daily make decisions based on our judgement of the likelihood of them turning out well.

The person we marry, the job we take, the house we buy, the holiday we take and more. Covid has sharpened all our views on risk. We have two extremes: the people who are so cautious they double mask, avoid all human contact, leave 30 feet between themselves and another in the street, wash their hands every 20 minutes and put their letters into the oven and cook them until they are charred and germ free. 

Whilst Rishi Sunak is now imploring us to go out and have fun and save the economy just like we saved the NHS,  the ultra-cautious are quaking in anticipation of the fourth wave with a mutant virus that will kill us. 

And in the blue corner (the dark blue Tory corner) we have the handshaking, hugging, rugby-scrumming, beer-swigging proponents of largesse , bonhomie and a casual attitude to life – “for tomorrow we die”. Rebels against caution and safety first:  skydivers, mountaineers, black run skiers. They believe in the right of everyone to make their own choices in life regardless of the probable consequences to themselves or others.

It seems to me both get it wrong, Mr Reckless and Ms Lifeless. The reality is we have to manage risk. We cannot eliminate it and if we tried we wouldn’t drive, fly, go on trains, cycle, go to restaurants, cinemas or meet people (or ‘germ-carriers’ as some see them.)

Robert Benchley, the American writer, satirised the cautious lifeless:

“Sometimes I’m so worried that I stay in bed. There I worry about falling out and breaking something.”  

The 21st century is not a place for tidy minds. It’s messy and it’s full of hazards. The better things get, the more risks emerge. Disease travels. Sophisticated communication systems fail. We are living on the edge of apocalyptic events (recently a storm cloud in the Western Pacific reached a temperature of -100C;  a record, but one that will soon be broken) and we need to plan for what we’ll do if, no when, these destructive events happen.

One thing we have to be more realistic about is death. I recently said I would die in the relatively near future…realistic not morbid. This provoked an emotional “don’t say that”. But I must. In 1950 the annual death rate was 1% of population. By 2019 it  had fallen to around O.7%. In 2020 thanks  to Covid there were 70,000 more deaths than forecast. Yet in reality whilst tragic that’s not cataclysmic. Despite the headlines we are living longer and better.

So let’s cheer up. 2020 has been a year of massive epidemiological advance and of understanding how to manage extreme risks. We have learnt about the fragility of the experts’ opinions and the penalties of caution. Everything that went wrong has been due to caution and indecision. The next decades will be full of “Black Swan” events. We just need to be prepared for them, learn from mistakes and enjoy life. 

!f we don’t enjoy it, what is life for?

ONLY 36 INCHES FROM REVIVAL

I have been working on and thinking a lot about managing risk over the past week. I recall the wonderfully acerbic H.L. Mencken‘s words:

“the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

Life is risky. If we try to eliminate all risk we’ll stay in bed. Don’t drive – 27,000 die or are seriously injured every year on the roads.

Don’t go in the kitchen – fires, fingers sliced off, slipping on spilt liquid – the place is a death trap. Don’t play football – as many as one in five suffer a serious injury sometime. Don’t be born – 600,000 people die in the UK every year.

To be alive is to be at constant risk. Yet our human strategy has always been to manage risk not to avoid it. If there were no risktakers there’d be no new products, new companies or discoveries. It’s the entrepreneurial spirit that makes being a human so worthwhile . Yet…back to Mencken… this global pandemic globally reflected his cynical observation.

A culture of risk aversion, almost comic indecisiveness and panic interviewing of anyone who has the willingness to appear on radio or TV and say something different especially attacking the government (not that they deserve any praise, just a bit less mindless kicking).

OK smartarse so what would you do?

Mostly not pretend there was one foolproof plan (how can there be when no one really understands this virus?) nor would I let clever but uncertain experts divert me from one key strategy.
We have got to get the economy moving much faster. To spend so much money just putting it into hibernation has been perverse.

OK how?

One thing I’d do is abandon that two metre rule. The WHO recommend one metre and only two countries advocate two metres. The UK and Spain (the 4th and 5th worst performers in terms of deaths per million). So that didn’t work too well. Current risk aversion would suggest we extended not reduced it.

If instead we reduced it by 36 inches to one metre we could open pubs, restaurants and the tourist economy might start purring into life. Is it a risk? Of course it is. It’s a manageable risk and one we should take.

Unless the towns come back to life it’s hard to start the rest of the economy. And if they do revive a strategy of awakening a dozy, just-had-a-lovely sabbatical workforce is easier to achieve.
The fear and alarm about Covid19 needs to be cooled and proportionate – here in Brighton the incidence has been low. The hospitals have not been and are not overrun. We have to balance risk and reward.

I am not advocating recklessness but we cannot nor should we try to exclude all risk. If we do we shall give up our humanity, our economy and our children’s future.