Risk VS consequence how do you seperate the two?

I've recently heard, (won't say who I heard it from so that I'm not accused of judging anyone), that a climber should separate risk from consequence. What does this mean?

As I see it, we have...

Risk -- The probability that failure will occur.

Consequence -- A description of what you stand to lose in the event of failure.

I suppose that consequence can be ignored, to some extent, if risk is low enough. Perhaps this is what it means?

But risk has to be more than just a probability of failure. Risk seems to go up when the consequences become more severe, but maybe that's all in the head?

I think you had it right with your definitions. Assess the level of risk when climbing can be more helpful than assessing the severity of the consequence. It might help to keep the same level of safety habits across the board. I'm not sure if I agree with the method wholly but that seems like the point behind the statement.

I certainly don't think risk increases just because the consequence is more severe, they are different measurements.

You, are on a roll, Mr; Spencer Parkin;) risk nothing gain nothing, risk too much, and you lose

Wikipedia quote: "Risk is the potential of losing something of value, weighed against the potential to gain something of value. Values (such as physical health, social status, emotional well being or financial wealth) can be gained or lost when taking risk resulting from a given action, activity and/or inaction, foreseen or unforeseen. Risk can also be defined as the intentional interaction with uncertainty. Risk perception is the subjective judgment people make about the severity of a risk, and may vary person to person. Any human endeavor carries some risk, but some are much riskier than others."

So climbing is about risk management and establishing "Acceptable Risk". Acceptable risk will be different for each individual. We "mitigate" risk to an acceptable level by applying good climbing techniques and application of appropriate protection or simply by physical conditioning. Again, this is subjective and varies greatly between individuals.

It's an expected value calculation:

(to highly simplify and be highly optimistic about the ability to estimate this kind of stuff)

Payoff = (% chance nothing goes wrong) x (magnitude of pleasure obtained) minus
(% chance something goes wrong) x (magnitude of pain suffered)

for example, if 99.99% of the time you obtain 10 pleasure points, .0001 of the time you suffer 10,000 pain points

Expected payoff is positive because = .9999x10 minus .0001x10,000 = 9.999 - 1 = 8.999

In aerospace, risk is frequently defined as the product of chance and consequence:
Risk = chance of something happening x consequence of it happening
with numbers assigned 1 to 5

So you assign values and then prioritize based on the risk. Something likely to happen(5) with a serious consequence(5) should be dealt with before worrying about either things that happen often(5) but with little consequence(1) or those that are serious(5) but happen very infrequently(1)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_…

liquid courage

How difficult is the monty hall problem? V3? If you're a stats major does it bring to down to V2+?

John Marsella wrote: Well, if you're talking about risk of bodily injury or ego bruising or something, yes. If the risk being assessed is simply "risk of failure" there are likely plenty of scenarios in which risk of failure is high while consequence (ie, pain, etc). E.g. I can approach a 5.12 in the gym and risk of failure approaches 100% while consequence is negligible. In the other direction (low risk, high consequence)I have done some scrambling approaches where it is highly unlikely that I slip and fall off the edge of whatever (or into the water on a rock-hop over a swift creek, etc), but it would hurt pretty bad or I might drown or some such very high consequence.

I think you're definition of risk is pretty dead on, however, it's not how most people see it. Most people see a consequence such as death or severe injury, and are paralyzed, regardless of the probability of that occurring.

The consequence of falling on a 1000ft 5.5 solo is extraordinarily high, especially compared to the gain, but for a 5.10 or above climber, the likelihood of that failure is relatively low, and acceptable for many. I think you're definitions work towards separating the two, but both should be kept in mind when making decisions about climbing, especially the more dangerous aspects of it.

I have not read this thred so hope this fits here. Read the full essay in my reply to the ethics of Retro Bolting.

There need to be a number of parameters; curbstones before the guardrail and a steep fatal drop;
.The loss of climbing zones.
A) As the number one priority is Access to climbing (redundant) RISK or events that call on non-climber groups (rescue /owner and governance) to interact with climbers at their worst moments (Injury, death ,retro bolting, chop wars, stuff left insight of other non climber user groups, parking etc.) is the greatest threat to open free access and climbing.

B) The current majority of climbers’ have started in gyms.

C) Higher, greater ability in climbing standards leads to greater and greater risk.

D) Natural, undeveloped wilderness is always under threat from all sorts of diverse elements, true enemies who will end all access to open spaces and climbing, given the chance.

the nature of the endeavor is best preserved if the history and wisdom gained from living that history is considered. The growth and Insight to appreciate the journey from starting out, reducing risk at every opportunity, to the feats of the free soloist (who never contemplates failure while en’route) is the grand adventure that is climbing, that we protect and preserve. That a new to the sport climber cannot grasp this is not surprising. Bolting the risk out of anything and everything is what makes the mind happy at that stage of the game. The loss is only felt later on.
“You really don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone -paved paradise - put up a parking lot”. (where I can bivy to get 1st tracks before the lifts open)

As others have said, risk is not independent from consequence. It's, simplistically, the probability of an event multiplied by the magnitude of the consequence of that event (Christian's expected value explanation is better). It's equally silly to think that risk is only determined by probability as it is to think only consequence matters. If either of those were true, then the concept of "risk" would be totally redundant with probability or consequence, and I don't think anyone would agree that it is.

I usually weigh consequence first, then risk. But, that's me. I recently did a 5.0 ridge which was really just 4th class with a handful of 5.0 moves. There was a low angle slab boulder that went over the edge of a 50ft drop to a 500ft roll through a talus field, and came back around on to safe ground. It was maybe 10 ft of something probably anyone with 4 limbs could do(read: 0 risk), and I still went around the long way because I didn't like the consequence.

I think most people would look that situation differently, and not even see what I saw as a consequence because there was no risk. At the end of the day I think the question you should be asking isn't one of risk vs consequence, but what's worth it to you? Something horrible could always go wrong, so there is always risk.

Is what you're doing worth the consequences no matter how risky it is? I find that's been more helpful than asking myself every few seconds/minutes if what I am doing is too risky.

spencerparkin wrote:There may be a symbiotic relationships between risk and consequence. You have to consider both. About the bolting stuff Michael talked about... I would still call myself a relatively new climber, but I think it's interesting to see how my own viewpoint on bolts has changed over the past 4 years since I started. Yes, in the beginning, I was disappointed when a climb I had considered had no bolts on it, especially for anchors. But after having finally climbed Jig's Up on the Dead Snag, it was quite gratifying, through the whole experience, to know that we had begun the route with only what we brought, took on the mountain for just what mother nature made it to be, and then left it without any trace we were ever there. (Well, we may have left some chalk.) If I had encountered a bolt along the way, even if I didn't use it, I think it would have detracted from the whole experience of the route. You really do take something away from a route when you give it a bolt it doesn't need.

hikingdrew wrote:In aerospace, risk is frequently defined as the product of chance and consequence: Risk = chance of something happening x consequence of it happening with numbers assigned 1 to 5 So you assign values and then prioritize based on the risk. Something likely to happen(5) with a serious consequence(5) should be dealt with before worrying about either things that happen often(5) but with little consequence(1) or those that are serious(5) but happen very infrequently(1) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_…

Bias plays a heavy role in this dance between measuring risk and consequence.

I like the aerospace analogy. Here is a highway engineering analogy, which is pretty much the same in that you consider the product of probability multiplied by consequence.

A section of road with a low chance of going off the road and a low chance of serious injury if you do, will not get a guardrail.

A section of road with a high chance of going off the road and a high chance of serious injury if you do, almost certainly will get a guardrail.

Decision making gets tricky when there is a low chance of going off the road (straightaway with no curves or icing and good sight distance) combined with a high chance of serious injury. Or a high chance of going off the road combined with a low chance of serious injury. These MIGHT get guardrails. Which is tough to swallow if you happen to be the rare person that drives off a relatively safe road with no guardrail, that drops you off a cliff.

Obviously, guardrails = pro

risk is fun. consequences aren't...