# Risk management summarized

Risk management involves treating or avoiding loss exposures:

1. Avoiding risk - simply *not* performing an activity that could carry a risk (e.g., general safety practices, [legal safety](legal-safety.md)).
2. Reducing risk - using risk control techniques to mitigate the scope of those risks (e.g., preventative efforts, installing fire sprinklers, security systems).
3. Retaining risk (self-insurance) - holding yourself financially responsible for all or part of a risk (e.g., [saving money](money-4_spending.md)).
4. Sharing risk - proportionally distributing risk among multiple individuals according to investment or need (e.g., [communal lifestyle](home-homestead.md), coinsurance/risk sharing agreement).
5. Transferring risk - arranging a contract for someone else to [take the risks entirely](money-insurance.md) (e.g., paying a fee to an insurer, subcontracting work to another entity, a lease arrangement).

It can be summarized by [a checklist of everything to do to avoid risks](safety-riskmgmt-checklist.md).

This only creates [meaning](meaning.md) if it *might actually happen*, and preferably for others' benefit, or it's simply the never-ending motivation of [fear](mind-feelings-fear.md). It's also fear when it doesn't respect others' [decisions](mind-decisions.md) to expose *themselves* to risk.

Safety culture has a bad reputation because the risk management dialogue doesn't correctly convey [meaning](meaning.md) through various safety departments.

- Companies have a financial incentive, since they don't want to lose workers or face civil lawsuits.
- Further, government bureaus don't like extra paperwork, and they add extra burden on companies to avoid people getting hurt (e.g., OSHA).
- The result of this is many, *many* boring safety videos that are 95% common sense.

Altogether, worker safety is firstly the responsibility of the worker, but many workers find ways to [exploit victimhood](https://gainedin.site/victim/).

- This means that institutions around the worker (i.e., companies, government) will create mandatory videos and signed forms to exonerate them from liability.