CDR: Re: Risk and insurance

[Tim May]

At 2:44 PM -0700 10/22/00, Greg Broiles wrote:
>At 12:33 AM 10/22/00 -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote:
>>On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, Nathan Saper wrote:
>>
>>>>  So these people are entitled to something for nothing?
>>>>  (or in this case, $1500 of treatment for $1000 of premiums)?
>>>
>>>That's the whole idea of insurance, isn't it?
>>>
>>
>>You're trolling, aren't you?
>>
>>Insurance is a good idea for the insured because it takes
>>money to make money.
>
>On the topic of risk and insurance, and apropos discussion of 
>reading lists, cypherpunks may find the book "Against the gods: The 
>remarkable story of risk" by Peter Bernstein of interest.

I support this recommendation. A readable book for the layman (most 
of us), on a par with past classics like "Lying with Statistics" and 
"Lady Luck." Available in a trade paperback for about $15 or so.

The book I recommended a week or two ago, Judea Pearl's "Causality," 
is much more advanced in its mathematics. (But the math is important 
if one is actually trying to construct the causality diagrams Pearl 
is talking about.)

--Tim May
-- 
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon"             | black markets, collapse of governments.