vault backup: 2025-12-13 17:58:54

2025-12-13.md

@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+---
+id:
+aliases: []
+title: "2025-12-13"
+tags:
+  - authorship/original
+  - destiny/permanent
+  - status/draft
+  - type/daily
+---
+# 2025-12-13
+
+## 2025-12-13 08:45
+
+I am interested in [[actuarial-science]] and [[risk-management]]
+for their ability to quantify what is generally viewed subjective,
+and as frameworks for general decision-making.
+
+The idea that one could devote significant thought
+into making a decision aligned with their [[personal-values]]
+and fail to pick the best option to that end is intriguing to me,
+more so that an accurate quantization of ones values
+and that the appropriate framework could trivialize all such decisions.
+
+Personal decision-making is often described
+like calculating the result of a formula with hundreds of terms by hand.
+People mess it up for the reasons you would expect for such a problem,
+but then today you wouldn't expect them to do it by hand.

individual-ability.md

@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ see [[professionalism]].
 Individuals differ in **learning rate** and **capacity for familiarity**.
 Whether nature or nurture is to blame,
 there is little an adult can do to move those needles.
-Making the most of the resources you have
+Making the most of the resources one has
 requires developing effective coping mechanisms
 (like [[note-taking]]).
 
@@ -34,7 +34,14 @@ There is a practical limit to the mind's "shelf space".
 It's not only a question of experience or exposure,
 familiarity requires maintenance.
 
-As of 2025-11-05 the original content of [[this-notebook]]
+> [!example]
-would take almost two hours to read,
+> As of 2025-11-05 the original content of [[this-notebook]]
-and though I try to make it otherwise,
+> would take almost two hours to read,
-it likely doesn't contain an eighth of my professional knowledge.
+> and though I try to make it otherwise,
+> it likely doesn't contain an eighth of my professional knowledge.
+
+%%
+
+## TALK
+
+%%

personal-values.md

@@ -0,0 +1,66 @@
+---
+id:
+aliases: []
+title: Personal Values
+tags: []
+---
+# Personal Values
+
+Personal values are subjective preferences for behavior
+that affect one's decisions in ways that an objective analysis could not predict.
+
+> [!example]
+> People are more likely to return a wallet
+> with more cash than less.
+
+Personal values are the difference between one's normative and descriptive [[utility]].
+
+Maintaining strong personal values aids decision-making
+by allowing one to trivialize problems
+that may be overwhelmingly complex when analyzed objectively.
+
+For example:
+
+For an unbiased individual,
+to calculate the utility of a second bowl of ice cream---
+to determine its relative benefit compared to its harm---
+requires a thorough understanding and accurate quantization of their
+* recent and future physical activity
+* fitness goals
+* preference for ice cream relative to other desert options
+* natural tendency to form unhealthy habits
+among many others.
+
+For an individual who strongly values their health and physical fitness,
+the knowledge that they would be acting in violation of those values
+skews the calculation so far to the negative
+that internal debate is unnecessary.
+
+Frequently, individuals are capable of effectively rationalizing their values
+(it's not difficult to imagine that all variables considered,
+the objective utility of the additional ice cream is negative for most people).
+In this way they are behavioral [[heuristics]]:
+subjective utility
+
+***
+
+_Having_ a value, simply acknowledging that some behavior is good,
+requires no effort, and has no perceivable effect on the person.
+Everyone _has_ dozens of values.
+
+_Maintaining_ a value means acting according to it so often
+that doing so is instinctive.
+
+***
+
+Personal values, as commonly described,
+tend towards benevolence (charity, family)
+or at least individual good[^1] (health, physical fitness),
+but like habits, people maintain bad values as often or more.
+
+[^1]: "good" is a **societal** value,
+    a common value that individuals are expected to maintain.
+
+Angry, wasteful, and unhygienic people
+maintain bad values that cause them to act the way they do,
+contrary to their own objective interest.

risk-management.md

@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+---
+id:
+aliases: []
+title: Risk Management
+tags:
+  - authorship/original
+  - destiny/permanent
+  - status/incomplete
+  - topic/risk
+  - type/encyclopedia
+---
+# Risk Management
+
+%%
+
+## TALK
+
+This note is for business risk management methods,
+even those not commonly labeled as such.
+
+Note that risk management and actuarial science
+have significant overlap in their common definitions.
+For the purposes of [[this-notebook]],
+legitimate mathematical methods for quantifying risk
+fall under [[actuarial-science]].
+Other (qualitative) methods
+as well as [[strategy|decisions]] based on methods of either type
+are appropriate for this note.
+
+%%
+
+**Risk management** is a professional discipline
+that is concerned with mitigating negative consequences of uncertainty on a business
+(i.e. managing [[risk]]).

risk.md

@@ -11,6 +11,24 @@ title: Risk
 ---
 # Risk
 
+%%
+
+## TALK
+
+This note is for the concept of risk
+as understood by laymen and mathematicians.
+
+## TODO
+
+1. Relocate profession specific content to [[risk-management]].
+
+2. If [[#In Cost Estimation]]'s content needs to remain,
+    and it isn't suited for [[actuarial-science-for-construction-estimating]],
+    another cross-topic [[risk-management-for-construction-estimation]] will be necessary.
+    I suspect that with some edits it will be most appropriate for [[actuarial-science]].
+
+%%
+
 Risk, in common parlance, is the chance that something "bad" will happen.
 As such, it is generally understood as a binary, win/loss relationship.
 

uncertainty.md

@@ -11,6 +11,16 @@ title: Uncertainty
 ---
 # Uncertainty
 
+%%
+
+## TALK
+
+## TODO
+
+
+
+%%
+
 The term "uncertainty" refers to the possibility of multiple outcomes.
 
 ## Information
@@ -25,7 +35,7 @@ In statistical inference and [[strategy]],
 > is the amount a decision maker would be willing to pay
 > for information prior to making a decision.
 
-Suppose information $I$ is available to a decision maker
+Suppose information $I$ is available to a decision maker.
 Consider these two scenarios:
 
 1. the decision maker does not purchase the information
@@ -45,9 +55,8 @@ V(I) &= P(D)|I - P(D) \\
 \end{align*}
 $$
 
-> [!info] Expectation Notation
+When forecasting, the payout of decisions is unknown,
-> When forecasting, the payout of decisions is unknown,
+thus
-> thus
 
 $$
 \mathbb{E}\left[V(I)\right] = \mathbb{E}\left[P(D)\right] - \mathbb{E}\left[P(D)|I\right]

utility.md

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+id:
+aliases: []
+title: Utility
+tags: []
+---
+# Utility
+
+[Utility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility)
+is a measure of a party's satisfaction
+with a certain state of the world.