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Iatrogenic: Difference between revisions
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Popularised by {{author|Nassim Nicholas Taleb}} in {{br|Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder}}, one can extrapolate [[iatrogenic]]s to many other walks of life, in particular those involving service industries, and it is rather fun to do so. | Popularised by {{author|Nassim Nicholas Taleb}} in {{br|Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder}}, one can extrapolate [[iatrogenic]]s to many other walks of life, in particular those involving service industries, and it is rather fun to do so. | ||
So | So let’s have that fun! | ||
===[[Ergodicity]]=== | ===[[Ergodicity]]=== | ||
Much of this effect derives from the rent-seeker’s fascination | Much of this effect derives from the rent-seeker’s fascination with the particular over the aggregate: as an abstract matter, it is better to address ''this'' peripheral risk here, than ignore it: the cost of addressing it now (say an hour of petulant argument) pails when compared with the consequences later should this risk come about. Let’s unitise this: say the expected cost of this catastrophe, should it happen is one thousand times worse than the cost of dealing with it up front, and its probability of ever happening is one in ''two'' thousand. | ||
That those consequences are ''unlikely'' is rather beside the point: it’s only an hour, after all. That is a bearable cost well spent to avoid a small chance of a large loss later. At some level of abstraction it’s not a cost at all: it lives within the ebb and flow of human productivity in a day: we are not automata, we do glance up from our stalls and vainly peruse Expedia for last minute flights to Venice every now and then. What’s the odd hour, in the daily sludge? | That those consequences are ''unlikely'' is rather beside the point: it’s only an hour, after all. That is a bearable cost well spent to avoid a small chance of a large loss later. At some level of abstraction it’s not a cost at all: it lives within the ebb and flow of human productivity in a day: we are not automata, we do glance up from our stalls and vainly peruse Expedia for last minute flights to Venice every now and then. What’s the odd hour, in the daily sludge? | ||