Introduction:
Joueurs de Cartes by Theodoor Rombouts
The hours of work I spend on relatively tedious tasks, such as the manual optimization of image dimensions on this site, are often lightened by listening to free online courses on various topics. This past week, I have been retreading the basics of personal finance in this course by Andrew Hingston. How poetic, then, that I should have stumbled across and begun listening to a course which often speaks of risk management and risk minimization, when I was already in the midst of reading a defense of our risky behaviors: The Art of Risk: The New Science of Courage, Caution, and Chance by psychologist Kayt Sukel.
Both individuals are students, to some degree, of behavioral economics—as formulated by, among others, Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. But their application and incorporation of such insights into their own worldviews are divergent. Whereas in his course Hingston shifts his perspective toward financial priorities so that one can analytically control one’s emotional experiences, Sukel accepts research on risk-taking as an opportunity to offer a naturalistic—even rational—account of risky decision-making. So now, setting other scholars aside, I would like to evaluate Sukel’s book, first for its method and then for its style.
Risk Defended:
, unlike that of Benjamin Franklin (which focuses entirely on self-improvement), seems to put forth the pressing concern of bringing about political and societal betterment. Douglass spends nearly all of his time decrying the atrocities and duplicities inherent to the system of slavery.
may scan Franklin’s mannerisms and qualities for confirmation of existing identities or individualized schemata for betterment. Franklin everywhere encourages people toward health, wisdom, and success.![[Game: Dark Souls, FromSoftware, 2011] Unchosen Undead: A Thorough Existentialist Philosophical Analysis of FromSoftware’s Original Dark Souls](https://i0.wp.com/thegemsbok.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Dark-Souls-screenshot-with-Darksign.png?fit=722%2C406&ssl=1&resize=200%2C200)
![[Work: The Stranger, Albert Camus, 1942] Smiling While Despised: The Ending of Albert Camus' The Stranger and the Beginning of Authenticity](https://i0.wp.com/thegemsbok.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/The-Stranger-book-cover.png?fit=262%2C400&ssl=1&resize=200%2C200)
![[Topics: Epistemology, Philosophy of Religion, Skepticism] Meditations on Descartes: Examining Objections to the Main Argument of René Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy](https://i0.wp.com/thegemsbok.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Photo-of-candle-by-Hartmut-Schmidt.jpg?fit=357%2C400&ssl=1&resize=200%2C200)
![[Work: The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker, 1973] The Denial of Life: A Critique of Pessimism, Pathologization, and Structuralism in Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death](https://i0.wp.com/thegemsbok.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Ernest-Becker-Sketch-by-M.R.P.-Presentable-1.jpg?fit=254%2C415&ssl=1&resize=200%2C200)