To be mensurable is to be
- Measurable
- Calculable
- Estimable
- Determinable
And, why do we care?
Enter: risk management
To compare two dissimilar risks violates the rule that risks to be compared must be similarly mensurable.
In a recent post, Matthew Squair, writing at 'critical uncertainties' makes the point that early on ....
(and I quote Squair)
".... lockdown sceptics were pointing out that your risk of drowning in a pool, in California, was much higher than that of dying from Covid 19 so why to worry? if you feel this is intuitively wrong, in fact wronger than wrong, you're right.
One of these risks is based on an independent probability. That is if I drown in a pool it's not going to have an affect on the probability of my neighbour drowning. But, on the other hand if I have Covid 19 you'll find the probability of my neighbour having Covid 19 is dependent on that; that is, the probabilities are dependent.
In one we truck along with a base rate of events unaffected by each other, in the other the events can affect each other and the risk can suddenly blow up.To be very clear the two risks are immensurable and not directly comparable."
He goes to point out that many such immensurable comparisons are being made in the Covid space, such as the risk of getting Covid itself compared, incorrectly, to the risk of blood clot from a vaccine, etc.
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