Unbounded Risk

Providing perfect security in an era of unbounded risk is impossible. In my interview with Jack Anderson (Masters 1401), we talk about caribou scapula divination among Canadian nomadic tribes, jazz standards, particle accelerators, black swan events and using photographs of concealed snipers to understand how the dangers homeland security agencies face are increasingly beyond their control. Jack’s research shows how the response to such unbounded risks presumes a greater degree of knowledge, uniformity, and control than is available and that national adaptability is more desirable than perfect knowledge when responding to the unknown.