Risk takers and risk averse

Over the two hundred thousand years of the human race we have evolved a strategy for the survival of the species. It's worked pretty well. One of the cornerstones of the strategy finding a balance between the risk takers and the risk averse. The argument about whether this is nature or nurture is

Here's a very quickly drawn diagram (I have a love hate relationship with Inkscape.)

There's no scale and no attempt at quantifying it. The numbers might be distributed differently but it is what it is.

The important parts as is very often the case are the two edge cases.

The red zone are the risk takers, this is where innovation comes from. The first person to tame a horse, Montgolfier, the Wright Brothers, Edmund Hillary are all in the the red zone. So are all all the entrepreneurs and small businesses. This is the source of all innovation. Some fail. But the ones that succeed make the leaps forward that eventually filter up the other groups.

The green zone are the risk averse. They like the status quo. New ideas and things will only filter down to them after the early adopters and late adopter have proven them. It's very difficult to name them individually because their impact on the species is taken for granted. They take the absolutely safe path. They will survive. They will breed, they will continue the species. Luckily they will breed some a few more risk taker than risk averse because some of the risk takers fail in a spectacular fashion.

Over most of the 200,000 years of the human race this balance has been maintained successfully.  We have thrived. The risk takers have given us innovation and the risk averse have ensured we haven't entirely wiped ourselves out.

The reason for the balance is that we have been allowed to make our own risk assessments.

Consider what happens when we are forced by regulation to be come risk averse....