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Lumifer comments on Rationality Quotes November 2014 - Less Wrong
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They kinda are :-D First by physical proximity at the moment of the strike (you get to be called "collateral damage"), and second, via the "association with suspicious persons" method.
Are you, by any chance, looking for absolute safety? It tends to be very expensive to achieve and even then fails often enough.
If we are talking about "driving the risks from Ebola to the general background risk level", well, at the moment it's well below that level.
Are you saying that because precautions are in place, the risk is being kept below that level, or that because the risk is below that level, precautions need not be taken? The first is fine, the second is not.
It's a feedback loop: observe the current state and the dynamics, adjust as needed.
IAWYC, but in general the right thing to do is to reduce the risk until the marginal cost of reducing it more exceeds the disutility of what one is risking: for example, if I can spend one cent to reduce the probability I'll die tomorrow by 1e-7 (e.g. by not being as much of a jackass while driving) I should do so, even though the general background risk level (according to actuarial tables for my gender, age and province) is more than an order of magnitude larger.
Theoretically. In practice you're unlikely to be able to evaluate the risks with the necessary accuracy.
Not necessarily. The reduction may have positive value in absolute terms, but carry the opportunity cost of preventing you from devoting those resources to more valuable risk reductions.
I don't think you've just disagreed. When I say something has a marginal cost of $2.50, that doesn't mean I'm considering the sadness inherent in having fewer shiny metal discs and green pieces of paper, it means there's some opportunity cost which that money could have afforded which I would instead have to forgo.
I hope not. Because Richard's proposal doesn't provide that. Especially when 'drone strikes' have already been brought up in conversation. Sure, most of the remaining risks would sound about as realistic as a plot from a season of 24 but as you say this is a threat well below general background risk level so implausibility is expected.