X-Message-Number: 88 From: Kevin Q. Brown Subject: Perceived vs. Actual Risk Date: 14 May 1989 One of the great mysteries of cryonics is why so few people are seriously interested in it. Messages #9 and #13 proposed some reasons why. A mechanism for yet another barrier to interest in cryonics recently showed up in Issue 68 of the Vol. 8 comp.risks USENET newsgroup. This issue included excerpts from the Mon. May 8 New York Times' front page story "Life's Risks: Balancing Fear Against Reality of Statistics", written by Peter Passell. The article points out that sometimes the perceived risk is out of proportion to the actual risk. Sometimes the public greatly fear a relatively small risk and other times they are indifferent to serious threats. (For example, after a report of a plane crash or hijacking many people forego air travel while still driving their cars without using seat belts. Yet, "from 1982 through 1986, Americans were 70 times as likely to die in an automobile trip as they were traveling the same route on a scheduled airline.") The article offers some explanations for why the perceptions of risk differ from reality: " ... What explains the public's decreasing tolerance of some risks and apparent indifference to others? Paul Slovic of the Decision Research Corporation in Eugene, Oregon and Baruch Fischoff of Carnegie-Mellon University, point out that perceived risk is not always related to the probability of injury. Easily tolerated risks include ones that people can choose to avoid (chain saws, skiing), that are familiar to those exposed (smoking), or that have been around for a long time (fireworks). Poorly tolerated risks are involuntary (exposure to nuclear waste), have long delayed effects (pesticides), or unknown effects (genetic engineering). As Dr. Slovic notes, nuclear and chemical technologies fare especially badly in such subjective rankings. Indeed the general acceleration of technical change and integration of new technology in products helps to explain the increase in public anxiety about risk. ..." ----- By these criteria (of intuitive, "gut-level" perceptions of risk), death is both an easily tolerated risk, since it is so familiar, and a poorly tolerated risk, since it is (generally) involuntary. But choosing cryonic suspension is not an easily tolerated risk, due to its unknown and long delayed effects. This is because decades or even centuries will pass before reanimation will be possible, and by that time the world will have technologies and risks that (most) people today cannot yet comprehend. Perhaps Linda Chamberlain is correct that one of the main strengths of Lifepact (message #87) is that it reduces the perceived risk of cryonic suspension by promising a "welcome mat" upon reanimation. - Kevin Q. Brown ...att!ho4cad!kqb Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=88