The 5% figure seems pretty common, and I think this might also be a symptom of risk inflation.
There is a huge degree of uncertainty around this topic. The factors involved in any prediction very by many orders of magnitude, so it seems like we should expect the estimates to vary by orders of magnitude as well. So you might get some people saying the odds are 1 in 20, or 1 in 1000, or 1 in a million, and I don’t see how any of those estimates can be ruled out as unreasonable. Yet I hardly see anyone giving estimates of 0.1% or 0.001%.
I think people are using 5% as a stand in for “can’t rule it out”. Like why did you settle at 1 in 20 instead of 1 in a thousand?
The 5% figure seems pretty common, and I think this might also be a symptom of risk inflation.
There is a huge degree of uncertainty around this topic. The factors involved in any prediction very by many orders of magnitude, so it seems like we should expect the estimates to vary by orders of magnitude as well. So you might get some people saying the odds are 1 in 20, or 1 in 1000, or 1 in a million, and I don’t see how any of those estimates can be ruled out as unreasonable. Yet I hardly see anyone giving estimates of 0.1% or 0.001%.
I think people are using 5% as a stand in for “can’t rule it out”. Like why did you settle at 1 in 20 instead of 1 in a thousand?
It looks like we landed on the same thought. User Muster the Squirrels quoted your comment in a reply to my comment on ACX.