The lightning stroke

In the financial world, gains and losses are asymmetric; many years of gradual gains can be wiped out by a sudden loss. In biotech and pandemics, the risk is dominated by the rare but extreme events. Moreover, as science empowers us more, and because our world is so interconnected, the magnitude of the worst potential catastrophes has grown unprecedentedly large, and too many are in denial about them.

Martin Rees