We all have a constitutional, and common law, right to not be harmed by other people or the state. One implication is that we also have a right not to be exposed to risk or danger by others. We all know what danger is, right?
We expect measures of danger to be fairly straightforward. For example, the danger of a stretch of road is the probability of a fatal accident happening on that stretch. We can weigh that by the seriousness of the accidents to produce what statisticians call the expected outcome. That is rather like the expected outcome, in money, of a dice game. If the prize is R60 if you throw a six, then the expected outcome is R60x1/6 or R10. That certainly is part of it, but not the final word in the degree of danger people see in a situation. Different people profoundly disagree on the probability they call high or low, and also on how to weigh how bad accidents are.
The US defence department periodically has analysts giving their opinion on whether a particular option or mission has a high or low chance of succeeding. They then average those opinions in a sort of ‘wisdom of the crowds’ fashion. One day an analyst asked his colleagues to put a number to their judgements. He was shocked. The range of numbers for ‘high chance’ varied from 50-95%. The same probability number ended up labelled as ‘very low’ by some and ‘very high’ by others. In other words, the qualitative and quantitative estimates had very little to do with each other. Each individual wildly misinterpreted the number or qualitative opinion of every other individual, with important consequences.
Consider driving down the road. I know some people for whom a drive is a profoundly anxiety-provoking situation. The road seems way too narrow, and navigating it takes a lot of their conscious attention. They think the tyres could stray off the edge of the road or into oncoming traffic at any moment. Cars behind them always seem about to rear-end them, if not actually threaten them. They are not confident in their ability to control the car at high speeds, or in the car’s capacity to handle these, so anyone going faster than themselves seems utterly irresponsible and inconsiderate. These other drivers make the road seem even narrower and filled with unpredictable obstacles.
However, others experience driving as completely free of danger and overflowing with benefits. To them, going faster does not evoke anxiety at all but simply adds convenience and fun. They feel they are driving well within their abilities and the capability of the car. They have never been in an accident when speeding and so lack the evidence that might alter their opinion. The slow driver in front of them is costing them both convenience and fun for no good reason that they can see. They may even blame the slow driver for the danger produced by a quick passing manoeuvre. After all, they quite reasonably have to do something to compensate for the loss of convenience they are suffering.
We see this repeated when individuals seem faced with a disease and a recommended response to it. Take normal vaccines. Some will look at the package warnings and will think their children will suffer all of them plus others that may not be on the package, like autism. Some of these will think the dangers of side effects worse than the disease. Other people think the only possible downside to vaccines is a painful shot and the upside is being free of many diseases that kill or disable many people. To them, vaccinating their kids is a no-brainer.
The same enclosed space, which carries no risk of harm or provision of safety, will be traumatic to a phobic person but comforting to an autistic person.
Even where people agree on the subjective level of danger, they may still differ on what is sufficient reward to justify taking it on.
There is no such thing as an objective measure of risk, reward or the trade-off between them, which could have unanimous appeal. Consequently, there can be no objective agreement on appropriate policy. The only alternative is to find a way to compromise. Policy responses to risk are typically enormously divisive. Such policies inevitably impose the preferences or convictions of some onto others, who may have diametrically opposed views. The very idea that the preferences of some are more important than the preferences of others is itself divisive.
Frequently there was no attempt to canvas opinion or find the most satisfactory compromise, never mind thinking about how to accommodate both sides. Covid19 is a great example. Around the world, the imposition of the preferences of the more anxious resulted in draconian restrictions like lengthy lockdowns, loss of income, inconvenient masks and mandatory requirements for insufficiently-tested vaccines. The less anxious side protested and/or disobeyed in large numbers, and large sections of the population have lost trust in science, medicine, authorities and institutions.
Was it really impossible for the anxious to do their thing and the rest to do theirs? The anxious could have stayed at home, fully vaccinated, wearing masks, not seeing anyone else and losing income. Surely, they would have been safe. The less anxious could have gone to work, seen their friends and family and been free to take their chances of dying. Why would that have been a concern for the anxious? When not bullied, both sides are more likely to respect the rights of the other. If individual freedom of choice is not possible, why not consider options like many different local compromises? More federal countries mercifully did. We should study which countries had the least division. Vast numbers of people besides me wonder how politicians or society can avoid choosing policies that are needlessly divisive. The most well-known of these that I am aware of is my friend Leon Louw. Why not join us?
[Image: https://pixabay.com/photos/poker-dice-poker-gambling-3891473/]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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