… is from page 161 of the 2009 Revised Edition of Thomas Sowell’s Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One:
Safety might seem to be something that you cannot get too much of. Yet everything we do in our everyday lives belies that conclusion. Often what we do makes more sense than what we say.
Reducing risks has costs – some of which we are willing to pay and some of which we are not willing to pay. Moreover, not all costs are money costs. For many people, the costs of reducing risks would be giving up the enjoyment they get from skiing, boating, rock climbing, skateboarding, and other risky activities. In fact, ultimately there are only risky activities, since nothing is 100 percent safe. Yet no one suggests that we retire into passive inactivity – which has its own risks….
DBx: Well, not until Covid-19 did anyone suggest that we retire into passive inactivity. Starting in early 2020, much of humanity has cowered in passive inactivity, having concluded that the greatest risk of all is exposure to SARS-CoV-2, and that every additional reduction in this risk, no matter how lilliputian, is worth whatever such reduction costs, no matter how gargantuan.
And the public officials who promote this particular risk-avoidance calculus proclaim themselves to be – and are widely praised by the mainstream media as being – unquestionable purveyors of “the Science.”
