People severely, severely misprice and misunderstand risk.

Climate change is a good example. If there is even a 0.25% chance that climate change will be as damaging as the worst predictions, it’s worth spending quite a lot of money to ameliorate it or prevent it. And arguing that there is not even a 0.25% chance is frankly fucking stupid given the history of our planet and the science available now.

Climate change is only one example — risk is mispriced in house purchases, retirement plans and so many other areas.

By the way, for climate change if it is as relatively-harmless as even the most rosy scientifically-valid but also unlikely-to-occur predictions, it still means spending hundreds of billions a year.

Yup:

Merkel: marriage is between a man and a woman
Trudeau: I support DAPL
Macron: Africans are uncivilized
Liberals: we need even more centrists

— Run the Jules 🇲🇽 (@SubcomandanteX) July 10, 2017

A bit shocking how delusional and clueless those older than 45 or so are about the experience of younger people in the economy.

my fiance has a degree in biotechnology and cytogenetics and worked at bed bath and beyond and older people would always ask him, “so did you go to college?” and when he said yes and told them his degree they would say, “wow!! then what the heck are you doing working here??” and if that doesn’t tell you how disillusioned and ignorant the older generations are to the situation many millennials are in right now i don’t know what will

So lucky that I strayed into a field at exactly the right time where jobs were relatively plentiful and for which fancy degrees were not required.

My life has been a series of lucky decisions. Yes, some skill — but honestly, mostly luck.