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by denzil_correa·7y ago·view on hn ↗
It is important to distinguish between risk and uncertainty.

> "Uncertainty must be taken in a sense radically distinct from the familiar notion of Risk, from which it has never been properly separated.... The essential fact is that 'risk' means in some cases a quantity susceptible of measurement, while at other times it is something distinctly not of this character; and there are far-reaching and crucial differences in the bearings of the phenomena depending on which of the two is really present and operating.... It will appear that a measurable uncertainty, or 'risk' proper, as we shall use the term, is so far different from an unmeasurable one that it is not in effect an uncertainty at all."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knightian_uncertainty

2 comments
The concept was popularized a few years ago by Rumsfeld with his "known unknowns" (risk) and "unknown unknowns" (uncertainty).
It also influenced Keynes and many post-keynesians, much more than neoclassical school.