Lecture 1 - 07/04
April 30: seminar
Exam: multiple choice and open ended questions
Oral exam: working on portfolio (no pass/fail; just grade)
Group assignment: 4 students
Portfolio deadline Thursday 14/05
Risk:
4 definitions - each definition has a different angle
1. = undesirable things that might happen (Spiegelhalter, 2017)
Preferably to not have in our lives. And not sure if they will happen
2. = the objective likelihood or chance of experiencing (negative) events (Gigerenzer,
2003)
There should be a number associated with risk - risks are measurable. Risk is not
necessarily negative
3. = the likelihood of unwanted event (probability) x the magnitude of consequences
(severity)
How big of an impact an e.g. earthquake might have. E.g. low probability of an
earthquake in NL, but big impact
4. = uncertainty about and severity of the consequences (or outcomes) of an activity
with respect to something that humans value (Aven & Renn, 2009)
Covers all definitions together
If I take a medicine and I know it will come with side effects, I value these side
effects.
Not only about a likelihood, but also about the severity of the event
If you check the news, many of the events are about risks
Different core topics in this course:
Health risks
Environmental risks
Technological risks
Dimensions of risks
- Controllability (can we manage the risks) and knowability (do we understand the
risk?) (Slovic, 2016)
E.g.
,We know that smoking can lead to lung cancer and what we can do to control it: not
smoke
Natural hazards → knowable to us but not so much controllable e.g. earthquake
Risk vs hazard
- Possibility vs probability
A bottle of bleach: is it a risk or is it a hazard?
Until i dont do anything with the product: a hazard - the probability it causes harm
It becomes a risk when I interact/I’m exposed to it
Hurricanes are natural hazards
Elon Musk: I've never interacted with him → does that make him a hazard?
The impact the things he does has on us → makes him a risk because we are
implicitly interacting with him
Hazard → action (exposure) → risk
Risk vs uncertainty
Levels of uncertainty:
The things we can't know (first-order, or aleatory uncertainty)
Things we don't know (second-order or epistemic uncertainty)
There are known unknowns: there are things that we know we don't know → I know I
can’t know if I will pass the course
Unknown unknowns: we dont know we dont know them
Risk communication = the interactive process of exchange of knowledge, perceptions,
attitude, and opinions related to risk between individuals, groups and institutions.
Who communicates what in what form to whom to what effect
Risk Society paper
Idea: We are currently living in a risk society
In the past, we were focused on more natural risks. We were not really having the state of
managing/controlling the risks
After, we were able to develop tools (cars, trains etc), developed by welfare state
But: progress and prosperity came at a cost
We have created so many new technologies (tools, vehicles), that brought other risks -
man-made risks
New and unforeseen technological risks (that are borderless and hard to control)
, E.g. cyber threats, AI risks, climate change, global terrorism
Introducing human-made risks
Nuclear threat in cold war
Chernobyl nuclear disaster (1986)
We invented nuclear energy because we thought this is the next step → but we created
the risk of nuclear energy
Different ages of modernization
1st age of modernization: industrial modernity
Stated with enlightenment
Production of material wealth and goods
Avoidance of scarcity
Control over nature
Risks are short-term and physically bound e.g. a risk in production location where
food is produced. Risk affects only that specific location
Risks are visible and fixable → we could understand them and control them
2nd age of modernization: reflexive modernity or risk society
Started at the end of the cold ward (beg of 90s)
Production of safety and knowledge
Avoidance of risk
Preservation of nature
Risks are evolving and global
Risks are less visible and irreversible
E.g. crisis in middle east, there are so many risks taking place, not all visible
This is why today’s risk society is so focused on risk management and predicting future
outcomes through creating more knowledge and analyzing data.
VUCA World: Characteristics of modern risk society
VUCA =
Volatility (= a lot of unexpected things that can fluctuate quite sudden e.g. oil/gas
price)
Uncertainty
Complexity (there is not one factor that we can change that will solve everything -
there is a complex interplay),
Ambiguity (the majority of world dont know what climate change is or believe in it -
no shared understanding of climate change)
, 6 parameters of the risk society
1. Omnipresence of risks: the news
We live in the big world of risks
We are constantly confronted with those risks
Risk management: we want to minimize these risks as much as possible
We developed cars but there's a risk → make the cars safer
We create more stuff to minimize the risks of the stuff we made - we keep ourselves busy
2. There are different understandings of risk
Fatalistic pre-modernity: no risk awareness - if I die, I die
1st age of modernity: strong believe in science and technology
2nd age of modernity: maybe there is a case we cannot calculate the risk
Subjective perception of risk
Intersubjective communication about risk
Social experience of living in a risk society
Number of changes in our understanding of the impact and origins of risk:
Natural and technological risks
April 30: seminar
Exam: multiple choice and open ended questions
Oral exam: working on portfolio (no pass/fail; just grade)
Group assignment: 4 students
Portfolio deadline Thursday 14/05
Risk:
4 definitions - each definition has a different angle
1. = undesirable things that might happen (Spiegelhalter, 2017)
Preferably to not have in our lives. And not sure if they will happen
2. = the objective likelihood or chance of experiencing (negative) events (Gigerenzer,
2003)
There should be a number associated with risk - risks are measurable. Risk is not
necessarily negative
3. = the likelihood of unwanted event (probability) x the magnitude of consequences
(severity)
How big of an impact an e.g. earthquake might have. E.g. low probability of an
earthquake in NL, but big impact
4. = uncertainty about and severity of the consequences (or outcomes) of an activity
with respect to something that humans value (Aven & Renn, 2009)
Covers all definitions together
If I take a medicine and I know it will come with side effects, I value these side
effects.
Not only about a likelihood, but also about the severity of the event
If you check the news, many of the events are about risks
Different core topics in this course:
Health risks
Environmental risks
Technological risks
Dimensions of risks
- Controllability (can we manage the risks) and knowability (do we understand the
risk?) (Slovic, 2016)
E.g.
,We know that smoking can lead to lung cancer and what we can do to control it: not
smoke
Natural hazards → knowable to us but not so much controllable e.g. earthquake
Risk vs hazard
- Possibility vs probability
A bottle of bleach: is it a risk or is it a hazard?
Until i dont do anything with the product: a hazard - the probability it causes harm
It becomes a risk when I interact/I’m exposed to it
Hurricanes are natural hazards
Elon Musk: I've never interacted with him → does that make him a hazard?
The impact the things he does has on us → makes him a risk because we are
implicitly interacting with him
Hazard → action (exposure) → risk
Risk vs uncertainty
Levels of uncertainty:
The things we can't know (first-order, or aleatory uncertainty)
Things we don't know (second-order or epistemic uncertainty)
There are known unknowns: there are things that we know we don't know → I know I
can’t know if I will pass the course
Unknown unknowns: we dont know we dont know them
Risk communication = the interactive process of exchange of knowledge, perceptions,
attitude, and opinions related to risk between individuals, groups and institutions.
Who communicates what in what form to whom to what effect
Risk Society paper
Idea: We are currently living in a risk society
In the past, we were focused on more natural risks. We were not really having the state of
managing/controlling the risks
After, we were able to develop tools (cars, trains etc), developed by welfare state
But: progress and prosperity came at a cost
We have created so many new technologies (tools, vehicles), that brought other risks -
man-made risks
New and unforeseen technological risks (that are borderless and hard to control)
, E.g. cyber threats, AI risks, climate change, global terrorism
Introducing human-made risks
Nuclear threat in cold war
Chernobyl nuclear disaster (1986)
We invented nuclear energy because we thought this is the next step → but we created
the risk of nuclear energy
Different ages of modernization
1st age of modernization: industrial modernity
Stated with enlightenment
Production of material wealth and goods
Avoidance of scarcity
Control over nature
Risks are short-term and physically bound e.g. a risk in production location where
food is produced. Risk affects only that specific location
Risks are visible and fixable → we could understand them and control them
2nd age of modernization: reflexive modernity or risk society
Started at the end of the cold ward (beg of 90s)
Production of safety and knowledge
Avoidance of risk
Preservation of nature
Risks are evolving and global
Risks are less visible and irreversible
E.g. crisis in middle east, there are so many risks taking place, not all visible
This is why today’s risk society is so focused on risk management and predicting future
outcomes through creating more knowledge and analyzing data.
VUCA World: Characteristics of modern risk society
VUCA =
Volatility (= a lot of unexpected things that can fluctuate quite sudden e.g. oil/gas
price)
Uncertainty
Complexity (there is not one factor that we can change that will solve everything -
there is a complex interplay),
Ambiguity (the majority of world dont know what climate change is or believe in it -
no shared understanding of climate change)
, 6 parameters of the risk society
1. Omnipresence of risks: the news
We live in the big world of risks
We are constantly confronted with those risks
Risk management: we want to minimize these risks as much as possible
We developed cars but there's a risk → make the cars safer
We create more stuff to minimize the risks of the stuff we made - we keep ourselves busy
2. There are different understandings of risk
Fatalistic pre-modernity: no risk awareness - if I die, I die
1st age of modernity: strong believe in science and technology
2nd age of modernity: maybe there is a case we cannot calculate the risk
Subjective perception of risk
Intersubjective communication about risk
Social experience of living in a risk society
Number of changes in our understanding of the impact and origins of risk:
Natural and technological risks
