Tag Archives: Risk

Reddit mobs rampaging on the stockmarket

I am following (just like everyone else) the developing GameStop story. Beyond the financial technicalities, what is interesting for present purposes is that the dynamics of internet virality seem to be finding a close parallel in stock valuation. The term “meme stock” is telling. In other words, at present the online coordination mechanisms, the capital, and the nihilistic boredom are all available to craft an alternative description of reality, which in turn is self-reinforcing (until it isn’t).

Risk communication

I just read an interesting piece in the Harvard Business Review by three researchers at UC Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity on how to communicate about risk. It is helpful as a pragmatic, concrete proposal on how to handle institutional communication about fundamentally uncertain outcomes in such a way as to bolster public trust and increase mass literacy about risk.