While interesting to read about from a scientific perspective, I lump such information in along with studies on the big rock falling from the sky, or the Yellowstone Caldera going POP, or the Pacific coast force 9+ earthquakes. It's like standing in a casino; sooner or later someone's gonna hit the triple seven, while others are losing their life savings on the crap table. You know, just standing there watching, that it's inevitable someone's gonna win big, just as much as someone's gonna lose big, but the house always gets its cut, win or lose. In the catastrophie business it's no different, just that the earth is the house, and regardless what the players (us, the dinosaurs, the cockroaches) may win or lose, the earth will go on.
Winning and losing is just part of life. Sometimes the stakes are just what you have in your pockets, sometimes it is everything you have and everything you're ever gonna have (Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven). You can't be alive without stepping up to the table, so the best you can do is lay it down and let it ride for as long as your luck holds out. Sooner or later, the house always wins, so really life is just a game of trying to stay at the table as long as possible before you go bust. The good ones get a sense of when to hold em and when to fold em. I like to think most of us here are the good ones.
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The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
-- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)
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