[SystemSafety] "Risk" as discussed in Taleb's books

[Peter Bernard Ladkin]

On 27 Oct 2013, at 20:56, "E. Douglas Jensen" <jensen at real-time.org> wrote:

> I am interested in thoughts from those on this list who have read Taleb’s books (The Black Swan, etc.). He has published a draft of a mathematical treatment of his views on risks and probabilities,

Taleb's writing is infused by the need to consider the de Moivre risk, that is, the expected value of loss, along with the worst case, namely what lurks in the tail of whatever distribution you consider possible events to have. His books so far have basically consisted of a thousand examples of why. If you don't know the reasoning and the examples, the books are well worth reading. 

A main point for us, but not for Taleb, is that there are two different, incompatible definitions of risk floating around engineering. I seem to be encountering them almost weekly, am getting bored with the same-old same-old and wish there were a way to resolve this terminological debate. Philosophers, and people with their own money at stake, would do it in two seconds, but engineers seem to like such things to persist for decades. 

PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, University of Bielefeld and Causalis Limited


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