# why people take social risks We constantly make social risks to gain what we've [purposed](purpose.md). We tend to make [calculated decisions](people-decisions.md) and assessment about what we [create](creations.md) by how it applies to others: - Whether we want something - Whether we'd want it if they wanted it - How [likely](understanding-certainty.md) they may want it - How much we're willing to sacrifice, in light of all the above We end up either trusting that we'll yield [meaningful](meaning.md) [results](results.md), or we don't bother starting it. Unfortunately, people often don't have the same [values](values.md) or [purposes](purpose.md) as us. This can be the source of many [conflicts](people-conflicts.md) and can discourage us from future endeavors. Every time we [create](creations.md) things that may affect others, we risk our [expectations](imagination.md) of their opinion about it to be incorrect. Even when the risk is low, it's never precisely [certain](understanding-certainty.md) what other people are thinking. It becomes more uncertain as it applies to how they see us, which becomes our [reputation](image.md) over time. Since we don't have the time to do *everything* we'd like to do, we prioritize what we want, with our [decisions](people-decisions.md) calculating between what we like and the chances other people will like it. ## Deviants Even when they hate it, most people simply choose what they think other people would like because it gains the most [power](power.md) for *other*, more [meaningful](meaning.md) [purposes](purpose.md). Some people, though, consider their situation closely. They start asking what they'd like to do instead of merely what they think other people would like. As a general rule, they find every possible way to play and [have fun](fun.md), even at serious or boring tasks. These people will then make sacrifices toward finding an interest that fulfills multiple criteria at once: 1. They like it enough that they can [obsess about it](addiction.md) for at least a few years. 2. Other people like it, but it's not fulfilled by existing [solutions](results.md). 3. Other people are willing to give [power](power.md) to them for it, especially in the [form](power-types.md) of money. APPLICATION: Most people *can't* be entrepreneurs because they're not willing to make the sacrifices to [friendships](people-friends.md) and other [purposes](purpose.md) to achieve it. ## Idea To meet all these criteria at once usually requires focused [creativity](mind-creativity.md). People meet most of their typical, common [desires](purpose.md) through [large groups](groups-large.md) that can do things [more efficiently](jobs-specialization.md), so that creative solution usually has several constraints: 1. It needs a [small group](groups-small.md), even if it's simply a nucleus group in the middle of the larger group. 2. It typically uses [technology](technology.md) that wasn't there when the [trend](trends.md) of the largely satisfied need had started. 3. The creation fulfills a [desire](purpose.md) that people aren't even [aware](understanding.md) they have yet. Many times, the idea will come from exploring a [taboo](morality-taboo.md) or a recent [social trend](trends.md), especially a brand-new one. It almost *always* comes from seeing something that everyone [overlooked](awareness.md), and often exists within [nature](reality.md). One *severe* requirement of these people succeeding is that they have a high [conscientiousness](personality.md). They don't necessarily have to be *[moral](morality.md)*, but they must have an incessant aspiration toward specific [values](values.md) to maintain their [faith](trust.md) that they can succeed against the inevitable [conflicts](people-conflicts.md) from the surrounding [culture](people-culture.md). The role will fill a *very* specific need, so [creative](mind-creativity.md) [risks](safety.md) require engaging with many complete strangers. If it's a commonplace thing (e.g., toilet paper) it requires lots of volume, but if it fulfills a niche (e.g., phone cases) most people won't want it so it will require more [searching and advertisement](marketing.md). The engagement with complete strangers will test the creator's general [trust in humanity](trust.md). If that person can't trust people in general, other people won't be as inclined to trust back, since people tend to give [equivalent](morality-justice.md) treatment. But, most people are willing to accept their [uncertainty](understanding-certainty.md) about others *may* lead to good things. ## Obsessed Finding and exploring a specific [purpose](purpose.md) can be challenging, so most people searching for an elusive need will obsess with fulfilling it. It may be driven by [love](people-love.md), [virtue](morality.md), or [vice](addiction.md) but will *always* lead to them caring much more about their work than their peers, often to the point of a single-minded and near-[religious](religion.md) fanaticism. Ordinarily, a creator will be competing with large-scale organizations. To simply fight it, they'll obsess with [trimming inefficiencies](results.md), [learning](understanding.md) constantly from other risk-takers, doing things that a large system *can't* do, and seeking new [technologies](technology.md) that could magnify their labor. People often attribute this entire experience to [entrepreneurship](entrepreneur-1_why.md), but it encompasses *many* realms that require [marketing](marketing.md) with strangers: - [Job-seeking](jobs-1_why.md) - [Investing](money-investing.md) and venture capitalists - Professional artists like [writing](language-writing.md), music, and visual arts - Performance arts, including [public speaking](language-speaking.md) and acting - Inventing things - Colonizing unoccupied territory (though it's not as common anymore now that the planet has been largely settled) - [Scientists](science.md) pursuing [unpopular](trends.md) ideas - Running a church or not-for-profit organization (i.e., it's a for-profit organization where the [accounting](money-accounting.md) separates profit from expenses) - Government organizations which will lose [power](power.md) if they fail or face [competition](people-conflicts-war.md) from the private sector or other nations - Making a government coup or declaring [war](people-conflicts-war.md) While they're usually fulfilling a very specific [specialization](jobs-specialization.md) that's a niche of a niche, they don't typically start that way. Instead, they're doing dozens of tiny tasks across a broader range of disciplines, since nobody else has specialized in that way yet, and they're typically running a tiny operation. As their organization [grows](groups-small.md), they can hand off work, but not at first. To accomplish this, most of the risk-takers have a near-opposite [attitude](purpose.md) about [reality](reality.md) compared to the rest of the members in that group: - While most people [fear](mind-feelings-fear.md) [risk](safety.md), they see [opportunities](purpose.md) in it. - Most people are working as part of a [group](groups-large.md) toward that group's predefined [goal](purpose.md), but they're constantly [deciding](people-decisions.md) to shift their [purposes](purpose.md) around. - While most people are in the early or late majority on most [trends](trends.md), they're often innovators or early adopters. - Most people have great ideas, but don't want to make the sacrifices for them. - Risk-takers regularly have an intense [understanding](understanding.md) of [reality](reality.md) and at least some awareness of [what they want](purpose.md). ## Success Their efforts will generally not succeed, simply because they're trying things that have tremendous risks, and frequently in competition with [large-scale systems](mgmt-badsystems.md) that don't want them to prevail. However, these risks, when successful, add new [value](purpose.md) to people in ways nobody could have anticipated. The risk-taker is regularly honored as the founder of a [trend](trends.md), even when they simply worked hard and [remixed others' works](mind-creativity.md). Frequently, success in taking social risks requires finding value that wasn't previously regarded as value, which requires a unique perspective that explores [creative](mind-creativity.md) and otherwise-[taboo](morality-taboo.md) perspectives: - A city's [gang problem](mgmt-badsystems.md) means many [young people](maturity.md) are finding [meaning](meaning.md) through honoring a semi-formalized ad-hoc social structure. - A high murder rate means people have severe, unspoken [feelings](mind-feelings.md) that can be redirected toward a more [useful](purpose.md) goal. - Destruction of the environment means many people have likely been productive [creating](creations.md) other things. - A fading [culture](people-culture.md) or [trend](trends.md) means people have adopted a *different* culture or trend instead. APPLICATION: Since every system eventually turns [bad](mgmt-badsystems.md) from [human nature](humanity.md), there'll always be people breaking free from [a group's leadership](groups-large.md) somewhere to start something new. If it's not obvious, this is a *massive* vote of [confidence](trust.md) in the [unknown](unknown.md). APPLICATION: Pay close attention to the heretics, since the [new trends](trends.md) will come from them if enough people share their [belief](understanding-certainty.md). The [social class](classes.md) of the risk-taker will often lean upward, but this isn't strictly the case. Their trajectory all depends on what they're trying to accomplish. However, [money](economics.md) and [influence](influence.md) will follow them because others who believe in them will *[choose](people-decisions.md)* to give them [power](power.md) to keep them going. This success won't be without opposition. Every new trend means the death of an old one, and the [groups losing power](mgmt-badsystems.md) will try to shut it down to maintain their way of life. For this reason, most of the individuals who make the risks against established convention will *not* succeed. However, the new way of life advanced by the social risk will have advantages. Eventually, assuming there aren't any [government efforts to halt it](rules-methods.md), enough of a majority will follow in the risk-taking through the desire to have a more convenient life, and the [trend](trends.md) will win against the old way. However, the [establishment](groups-large.md) is always fighting a losing battle of attrition with all those risk-takers. They may be able to postpone or destroy smaller groups that start the new trend, at least for a long time: - For hundreds of years, the Catholic Church didn't want the Bible published, so they held back the development of the printing press, all the way up to the Protestant Reformation. - Thomas Edison used electrical direct current (DC) for his [creations](creations.md). When alternating current (AC) came out as safer and farther-traveling electricity, he used public demonstrations of killing various animals to imply AC was deadlier. - Big Ice didn't want the refrigerator to become a trend. They introduced [marketing campaigns](marketing.md) that implied parents could lock their children inside and kill them. - The Wright brothers invented flight, but then sat on their invention and failed to distribute the idea freely until their [intellectual property rights](legal-ip.md) expired. APPLICATION: Since every success story has *many* failure stories attached elsewhere to it, pay close attention to unlikely circumstances that they were entrenched in. Imitating them won't get you to their status, but [trusting](understanding-certainty.md) in the same kind of [luck](unknown.md) they played certainly will. It never works indefinitely, though. It only persists as long as the public remains [unaware](understanding.md) of how the new trend's benefits outweigh its risks. Both sides (innovator and old group) will make huge [political shows](image-distortion.md) of [their side](stories-storytellers.md) of the situation. APPLICATION: If you're going to take a risk, keep your head down and stay as undetected as you can for as long as possible. Once you start making [ripples across society](trends.md), expect the [big and established systems](mgmt-badsystems.md) to come after you with [everything they have](people-rules.md). If the venture can weather it, it becomes another [large group](groups-large.md) after enough time, ready for another [trend](trends.md) to arise and the role to replay itself. APPLICATION: Social risk requires a [culture](people-culture.md) that fosters it, which is why certain countries (e.g., the USA) have *way* more [entrepreneurs](entrepreneur-1_why.md) than most of the rest, irrespective of the country's [actual economy](economics.md). ## Failure [Risks](safety.md) naturally come with chances of failure. In the case of a new effort, there are *many* failures for every success. There are two major sources of failure: - [Cultural](people-culture.md) opposition from the risk-taker's violation of existing [standards](habits.md), which is why the [geeks and heretics](trends.md) never reap much from their efforts. - Competition from other people doing the same things, which is why the majority never reap those rewards. For this reason, people who walk the fine line of honoring [taboo](morality-taboo.md) but also breaking convention can ever win. However, since this is based on [feelings](mind-feelings.md), it can change at an *instant* with a small shift in [narrative](stories.md), and much of it is bound up in [luck](unknown.md). APPLICATION: Social risk requires scarcity. When people don't have a shortage, they don't maximize their efforts to go as far as possible with the limited amount of something they have. Unfortunately, [history](stories-storytellers.md) tends to forget that aspect. We see the end of the [story](stories.md) as we [consume it](creations.md), so we can often overlook how it [felt](mind-feelings.md) in the middle of it, as well as the *many* stories of failed attempts for every [success story](success-1_why.md). A person can lose tremendous [power](power.md) in a giant risk, as well as their willingness to try [new things](image.md), so most raw risk-takers are [younger people](maturity.md) in their 20s and 30s. When people get older, they frequently have too much to lose for it to be [worthwhile](purpose.md) for them. Further, even a tremendously successful risk-taker can become *very* [risk-averse](safety.md) as they [age](maturity.md). It may be because they've gained enough [power](power.md) they have something to lose, or that they're fatigued from all the existing loss they've already incurred. ## Incubating It's in [large groups'](groups-large.md) best interests (e.g., governments, massive corporations) to foster risk-takers. Besides cutting down on competition (since they're profiting directly from it and gaining [favor](people-friends.md)) they can often build and [frame](image.md) the new [trends](trends.md) themselves instead of fighting them later. Unfortunately, no reliable system can "make" risk-takers. Risk-taking is an [attitude](purpose.md) more than [understanding](understanding.md), so the creators are experiencing a highly personal [journey](stories.md) of self-discovery as they [influence](influence.md) their environment. APPLICATION: What got you *to* overwhelming success won't take you farther into running ever-larger applications of [power](power.md). Unfortunately, this also means [leadership skills](groups-small.md) (which consider others' [fears](mind-feelings-fear.md)) sabotage the drive to perform high-risk tasks over time. What a large group *can* do, though, is permit those ideas to incubate. By letting that person loosely associate with other people who share their [passion](mind-feelings.md), they're more likely to ally with [groups](groups-small.md) that are part of a larger unit. Time is a risk-taker's most significant resource. By giving them the time to [learn](education.md), explore, tinker, and gain [understanding](understanding.md), that person can branch out on their own when they're ready. APPLICATION: Any place whatsoever that gives many people lots of time, the means to survive, and unfulfilled needs will draw out the [creative](mind-creativity.md) spark that can build into something profound. Ironically, the best place to give someone lots of time is within a [bad system](mgmt-badsystems.md), which often gives [trade secrets](power-types.md) away as well in the process.