The public's perception of risk is something which cannot be ignored by any government or ruling body, and below you will find a brief selection of the results from MORI's poll entitled Public Attitudes to Risk. Data are weighted to the known profile of the population, in terms of sex, age, working status, car in household, social background and region. The dominance of rational models of human behaviour has led to the notion that some form of quantification of variables can guarantee safety against risk. The view expressed here is both more elegant and sublimely logical. Drawing inspiration from Pascal, Bernoulli and Gould, Bernstein argues that risk is not only inevitable but valuable and that a predictable world would be the most dangerous of all.
Business management is a process rooted in the future.
We do not know the future. In this article I look at this question from the viewpoint of two great philosophers of the past and one distinguished scientist of the present. The bottom line is that the consequences of the choices we face should outweigh probabilities of the outcomes we expect, but humans do have free will and can make rational choices even when the future is uncertain. The first approach in both historical order and order of importance dates back nearly 350 years. My source is Blaise Pascal, a Parisian who was one of the most famous mathematicians and philosophers of his time.