Studies show that people tend to intuitively choose to roughly double the risk in their minds of a given choice; that is to say, they tend to pick choices which would be optimal only if the risk were double what it actually is. I myself have always been attracted to risk, but then again I've always built in safety valves -- that is, if X fails, I always arrange for a backup. So two or more things must fail for a disaster to occur: that's always been my rule. But it occurred to me that there may be times when a sort of "make it or die" attitude is better --- that is, rather than trying to cover yourself with "insurance" all the time. You might fail, but then you accept that risk. It might be that certain great things cannot be accomplished without at some point doing this. Naturally, one still wants to avoid unnecessary risk, yet dive into the necessary ones.
