RISK OF NOT CARING
Ever since humans evolved language, they have probably been talking of risk. Yet even now it is a poorly understood term, as the Editorial (“Duty of care”, July 1), which states “dangers are not just a risk but a probability”, illustrates.
Risk is, in fact, the product of consequences of an event multiplied by the likelihood of the event, or probability, if you can put a figure on it. For example, if you step out on a road used by logging trucks, the consequence of being hit is that you will be killed.
The probability of a logging truck being there at any given moment is high on a forestry road and low on a suburban street, although the consequences if you are hit are the same. Thus, the risk of being killed by a logging truck is higher on a forestry road than on a suburban street.
Similarly, as the Editorial points out, the risk of being killed by an earthquake is higher on these shaky isles
than elsewhere. PA Williams (Nelson) The Editorial says everything that needs saying on the duty of the state to protect citizens by providing and enforcing regulation of such things as building construction.
However, New
Zealanders should realise that the neo-liberal ideology that captured our economy and culture 30-odd years ago by definition opposes regulation on behalf of citizens by the state. Such regulation, as contained in the Resource Management
Act, might prevent individuals making money by
revealing the real costs of their private profit.
Fundamentally, neoliberalism embodies an individualist and sociopathic attitude of “don’t care”. Stan Jones (Hamilton)
WELCOME MAT FOR US
I can assure Joanne Black
( Back to Black, June 24) that if her American friends visiting New Zealand come out to Pauatahanui, they will get a warm welcome.
Those of us in the rural area on a former US Marine base at Motukaraka Pt have not forgotten the bravery of the 17- and 18-year-old soldiers who came here to help New Zealand in its hour of need in World War II.
At the bottom of our driveway is a memorial from the locals of the area, which includes the words: “They camped at this spot from June 1942 to November 1943 while helping to defend this country. Later they fought in the Pacific Islands where many of them made the supreme sacrifice and cemented an everlasting friendship.”
The memorial expresses our real feelings to guests to this country and not the rudeness of a few. Lest we forget.
Simon Nottingham (Pauatahanui, Porirua)