Henry Pomerance

4/8/20

Senior Project 2020

Business and Marketing

Blog Post #1

My first couple of days have been mostly background research regarding corporate structure, finance, and economics as general topics. I am reading a book which chronicles the history and science of risk in human culture, which so far has taught me that we have a natural tendency to gamble, and that our personal risk-assessment is erratic and, more often than not, plain wrong. This knowledge is incredibly valuable, as it brings that person one step closer to acting rationally (by the economics definition). One could argue it is more important now than ever to understand that humans are inherently irrational, the risk book points out that even in the time of the Ancient Greeks, those who understood probability in relation to simple games of chance came away as winners more often than not. Such people were revered, as they were few and far between (despite the Ancient Greeks being remarkably advanced in their understanding of logic, among many other things). All this is connected to my essential question in that the companies who saw the dangers of climate change (for example) coming, so far have fared better than those who haven’t in the last decade or so.