Talk:Risk/Archives/2016

Merge with Risk Management
Should this be merged with Risk Management?GESICC (talk) 00:39, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to say no. IMHO risk and risk management are different concepts, and particularly the psychological aspects of risk have little to do with risk management, which is more of a management/finance/engineering thing.Hamburg-1982 (talk) 18:55, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Gibberish Under Economic Risk
There was a ton of gibberish added under Economic Risk on this page back in June at revision 666904249. It can't be reverted simply at this point due to subsequent changes.

I am not particularly conversant with current wikipedia etiquette regarding reverting such changes. Should the gibberish simply be excised? Is there a discussion protocol? TedDunning (talk) 21:03, 8 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I think the entire article amounts to an endless pile of meaningless gibberish. Defining one word is the proper function of dictionaries, not encyclopedias. Articles like this go a long way to explain why Wikipedia has such a low reputation around the world. EditorASC (talk) 10:15, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Article should be deleted
This Wiki article has got to be the least valuable, the least informative, the most non-notable article about essentially nothing more than trying to expand the definition of one word for no apparent purpose but to fill up space, during the very early days (2002) of Wikipedia. It is a suitable subject for dictionaries, but not for encyclopedias. Most of what is stated in the article boils down to meaningless, silly, glittering generality statements, which convey no useful information.

This statement, for example, is not only silly, but pretty much one of OR: "Risk can also be defined as the intentional interaction with uncertainty. Uncertainty is a potential, unpredictable, and uncontrollable outcome; risk is a consequence of action taken in spite of uncertainty." What about risks of Nature itself --- disease, tornadoes, earthquakes, giant meteors that smash into Earth, etc.? Can that kind of risk be properly defined as "intentional interaction?" And, how can anyone actually "interact" with "uncertainty?" For an actual human to interact with some THING, that "thing" must have some kind of physical substance to it... "Uncertainty" is NOT a thing. To the contrary, it amounts to nothing more than our inability to predict the future. One does not "intentionally interact" with what we cannot know about the future. Such statements are absurd poppycock. EditorASC (talk) 09:49, 22 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Disagree Neither Aviation nor Quality own the word “Risk”, nor would I see Aviation’s or Quality’s usage of risk to be precisely identical; oh, sure, they overlap; but there are many reasons to discuss risk other than safety; the business case for quality, for instance. Likewise, there are many reasons to discuss risk other than Quality. I don’t pretend to tell psychologists how they should talk about risk; however they may need to define it or think about it in their practice.  But I do think that the “Anxiety, risk and decision making” should be split off. In a sense, I agree that we don't "intentionally interact" with uncertainty when we pull back on the stick, we too often blithely ignore it. IveGoneAway (talk) 00:35, 12 December 2016 (UTC) 14:51, 12 December 2016 (UTC)


 * “The viewpoint of uncertainty and risk vary from different disciplines.” ( Antunes-Gonzalez )
 * Lying awake last night, I realized that “intentionally interacting with uncertainty” ( Cline ) is simply an academic way of saying “taking yer chances”; after that, the citation was easy to find. Again, this illustrates (IMO) the real issue with the present article, “individual activity risk” is another disciple that has its particular considerations (e.g., this is a topic for scouting, rescue and paramedic services, outdoor recreation industry, etc.). The Cline citation supports the usage. The Antunes-Gonzalez citation seems to support “Uncertainty is a potential …”. Here, outdoor education, resource management, and construction science practitioners seem to have compatible terminology and methods that potentially appear as “absurd poppycock” to an aviation practitioner. IveGoneAway (talk) 14:51, 12 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I have drafted a new first paragraph to replace the first and second sentences. The next two sentences could be moved to a Etymology and Epistemology heading replacing a reworked Definitions heading.  But I want to read up on Cline before I commit it; I have not seen his work used in Aviation to the extent it appears in leadership and emergency services, for example.  "Walk up to any adult and ask them to define the word risk. The vast majority are going to have a quick and ready reply. The question, however, is whether or not these replies would be consistent from person to person. The answer is no. There are currently multiple disciplines using multiple definitions of the word risk." (Cline 2004) IveGoneAway (talk) 15:03, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

“Intentionally interacting with uncertainty” or “Well, that was an adventure.”
Cline found that the post-financial definition of risk (potential for loss) failed him as an educational definition of risk, because he considered engaging in risk was necessary for effective education and human development. He considered that attempting to protect children from all hazards results in adults unable to interact with uncertainty in any way other than fear and anger ( Cline 2007 ). He suggested the expression “Human interaction with Uncertainty” as an educational definition of risk, based on one of the pre-financial definitions of risk, i.e., adventure. I think it also echoes a concern in the conventional risk industry that excessive risk avoidance hampers innovation.

That said, the phrase “Risk can also be defined as the intentional interaction with uncertainty.” is definitely a widely used recent meme (introduced to the Risk article in late 2013); perhaps misattributed to Knight, 1921. My particular (amateur?) concern is that the use of this phrase is a case of a creeping fox terrier clone. Has this phrase been recently adopted simply because it appeared in this form in Wikipedia?

At the very least, this is a new definition of risk, but potentially significant, now appearing in risk management journals and glossaries, so maybe it should not be completely deleted from the article; but, syntactically and epistemologically, I don’t think it is presently properly presented, but I could be wrong.

(Is this a Wikipedia-induced meme, or not? Does it matter in this case?) IveGoneAway (talk) 15:34, 14 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I have yet to find any example of the meme “Risk can also be defined as the intentional interaction with uncertainty.” in the literature that predates its entry in this article in the Revision as of 05:08, 3 December 2013. (Has anyone else found an example?) Moreover, I have found no evidence that "intentional" interaction is any conditional for Cline's proposal, except where he discusses some interactions as intentional, but even risk avoidance is intentional interaction. I may propose ' Risk-taking is recently (2004) proposed as "interaction with uncertainty" '.  Agreed?   IveGoneAway (talk) 22:57, 17 December 2016 (UTC)