Measuring Vulnerability and Deferring Responsibility: Quantifying the Anthropocene

This article addresses the manner in which neoliberal society measures vulnerability. It is not uncommon today to come across quantitative metrics assessing the vulnerability of populations, ecosystems, or investments. The concern within is what exactly such figures represent. The following elucidates frequently overlooked temporal aspects of vulnerability and responsibility among populations that practice the perpetual growth of wealth. To investigate this concern, this article offers an examination of three contemporary conceptions of vulnerability: ecological, humanitarian, and fiscal. A brief overview of the origins of the relationship between quantification and capital is offered, along with a history of modern conceptions of vulnerability. Specifically, I am concerned with how the optics of capital displace vulnerability into a perpetually hypothetical future. In analyzing the case studies of ecosystem resilience, climate refugees, and commercial insurance, my aim is to show that dominant methods of measuring vulnerability derive from and reinforce a historically situated neoliberal method of knowledge production, resulting in a paralysis of responsibility