A Quote by Ian Hacking

The social risks that worry us are not a random bundle of frights. — © Ian Hacking
The social risks that worry us are not a random bundle of frights.
In my view the bundle theorist should say that when a bundle is located somewhere, there is an 'instance' of the bundle there. The instance is entirely constituted by the universals of the bundle. But the bundle and the instance are two distinct entities. Bundles of universals can be multiply located, but their instances cannot, and particulars are instances of a bundle of universals.
When large companies take on risk, then they impose risks on the rest of the system. And these are systemic risks and these systemic risks we never used to think were really that important, but as soon as we recognize how the financial sector - the risks the financial sector takes on can impact the entire global economy, we realize that those risks needed to be controlled for the social good.
My personal medicine bundle is my backpack that I have at the top of the course. Each person's medicine bundle is different and sacred and not to be spoken of. I have some goodies in my bundle. And my power stone is a quartz crystal that I love and wear almost every day.
I think that's something that investment banks have worried about for a long time and are continuing to worry about, but it's not an easy solution when you have lots of people betting the company's money, how do you really allocate those risks? How do you make sure that the people that take the risks are feeling the risks in an appropriate kind of fashion?
With recidivism algorithms, for example, I worry about racist outcomes. With personality tests [for hiring], I worry about filtering out people with mental health problems from jobs. And with a teacher value-added model algorithm [used in New York City to score teachers], I worry literally that it's not meaningful. That it's almost a random number generator.
The universe is random. It's not inevitable. It's simple chaos. It's subatomic particles in endless, aimless collision. That's what science teaches us, but what is this saying? What is it telling us, when on the very night that this man's daughter dies, it's me who's having a drink with him? How can that be random?
Worry more about being social, and worry less about doing social media
Be willing to take some risks in the areas of work and money. If we do only what we think we should do in order to make money and be secure, we won't listen to the intuitive voice that tells us to try something new, to be more creative, or to move on to the next step on our path. When we listen to our intuition and take some risks, we are not alone. The universe will support us and reward us for taking risks on its behalf!
Worry is different from fear. If fear is like a raging fever, worry is a low-grade temperature. It nags at us, simmers in our souls, hovers in the back of our minds like a faint memory. We may fear certain realities, like death; we worry about vague possibilities. Worry distracts us more than paralyzes us. It is like a leaky faucet we never get around to fixing.
I compare the troubles which we have to undergo in the course of the year to a great bundle of sticks, far too large for us to lift. But God does not require us to carry the whole at once. He mercifully unties the bundle, and gives us first one stick, which we are to carry today, and then another, which we are to carry tomorrow, and so on. This we might easily manage, if we would only take the burden appointed for us each day; but we choose to increase our troubles by carrying yesterday's stick over again today, and adding tomorrow's burden to our load, before we are required to bear it.
For we cannot adequately understand 'man' as an isolated biological creature, as a bundle of reflexes or a set of instincts, as an 'intelligible field' or a system in and of itself. Whatever else he may be, man is a social and an historical actor who must be understood, if at all, in close and intricate interplay with social and historical structures
By arguing that the bundle theory does not entail and is not committed in any way to the principle of identity of indiscernibles, I have thereby defended the bundle theory from a traditional objection to it.
I do not believe in the bundle theory anyway. The bundle theory postulates universals and I do not believe in them; so I do not believe in the bundle theory.
If you worry about taking risks, don't do it.
The trouble is that the risks that are being hedged very well by new financial securities are financial risks. And it appears to me that the real things you want to hedge are real risks, for example, risks in innovation. The fact is that you'd like companies to be able to take bigger chances. Presumably one obstacle to successful R&D, particularly when the costs are large, are the risks involved.
Certainly science, because of its ability to increase our capacities to do things, raises terrible risks for us all. If it were possible to undiscover nuclear fission, I would be very happy to undiscover it, because of the risks that it puts us all under.
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