Sat 23 May
6:30pm
- 7:30pm
BST
Venue: Arena
Event [63]
Debates
Living Dangerously
Shami Chakrabarti, Daniel Kahneman, Steven Pinker. Anil Ananthaswamy hosts.
Risk is at the centre of current concern. And most agree that one preventable death is one death too many. But we have been content to allow 17,000 flu deaths a year in the UK that could be radically reduced if vaccination was compulsory. We allow an estimated 3 million people to die each year from alcohol - that's one in twenty of all deaths - when a global ban on production would stop this slaughter.
Are humans incapable of weighing up risk rationally? And are governments any better? Should we seek to reduce all risks and outlaw activity we deem dangerous? Or should we accept that all actions carry risk and it is up to each of us to determine the level of risk we are prepared to take?'
