Zvi comments on Rationality Quotes September 2012 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: Jayson_Virissimo 03 September 2012 05:18AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (1088)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Zvi 01 September 2012 09:10:38PM 17 points [-]

Subway ad: "146 people were hit by trains in 2011. 47 were killed."

Guy on Subway: "That tells me getting hit by a train ain't that dangerous."

  • Nate Silver, on his Twitter feed @fivethirtyeight
Comment author: Grognor 04 September 2012 01:26:39AM *  20 points [-]

This reminds me of how I felt when I learned that a third of the passengers of the Hindenburg survived. Went something like this, if I recall:

Apparently if you drop people out of the sky in a ball of fire, that's not enough to kill all of them, or even 90% of them.

Comment author: RobinZ 04 September 2012 01:53:16AM 13 points [-]

Actually, according to Wikipedia, only 35 out of the 97 people aboard were killed. Not enough to kill even 50% of them.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 September 2012 10:16:37PM 1 point [-]

jaw drops

Comment author: TheOtherDave 04 September 2012 10:56:44PM 5 points [-]

It helps to remember that the Hindenburg was more or less parked when it exploded... I think it was like 30 feet in the air? (I'm probably wrong about the number, but I don't think I'm very wrong.) Most of the passengers basically jumped off. And, sure, a 30 foot drop is no walk in the park, but it's not that surprising that most people survive it.

Comment author: [deleted] 05 September 2012 04:44:38AM 3 points [-]

(Well, then “out of the sky” is kind of an exaggeration, since you wouldn't normally consider yourself to be in the sky when on a balcony on the fourth floor.)

Comment author: TheOtherDave 05 September 2012 01:11:11PM 1 point [-]

Well, unlike the balcony of a building, a floating blimp (even close to the ground) is floating, rather than resting on the ground, so I suppose one could make the argument. But yeah, I'm inclined to agree that wherever "the sky" is understood to be, and I accept that this is a social construct rather than a physical entity, it's at least a hundred feet or so above ground

Comment author: [deleted] 02 September 2012 12:27:26AM 9 points [-]

Wait, 32% probability of dying “ain't that dangerous”? Are you f***ing kidding me?

Comment author: [deleted] 02 September 2012 12:37:46AM 22 points [-]

If I expect to be hit by a train, I certainly don't expect a ~68% survival chance. Not intuitively, anyways.

Comment author: radical_negative_one 02 September 2012 04:25:22PM 17 points [-]

I'm guessing that even if you survive, your quality of life is going to take a hit. Accounting for this will probably bring our intuitive expectation of harm closer to the actual harm.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 September 2012 10:20:58PM 3 points [-]

Hmmm, I can't think of any way of figuring out what probability I would have guessed if I had to guess before reading that. Damn you, hindsight bias!

(Maybe you could spell out and rot-13 the second figure in the ad...)

Comment author: faul_sname 02 September 2012 11:20:29PM *  2 points [-]

I would expect something like that chance. Being hit by a train will be very similar to landing on your side or back after falling 3 to 10 meters (I'm guessing most people hit by trains are at or near a train station, so the impacts will be relatively slow). So the fatality rate should be similar.

Of course, that prediction gives a fatality rate of only 5-20%, so I'm probably missing something.

Comment author: khafra 03 September 2012 12:36:48AM 4 points [-]

There's the whole crushing and high voltage shock thing, depending on how you land.

Comment author: [deleted] 03 September 2012 10:49:59PM 1 point [-]

high voltage shock thing

Well, lightning strikes kill less than half the people they hit.

Comment author: mfb 04 September 2012 01:17:37PM 1 point [-]

Lightning strikes usually do not involve physical impacts - I think "falling from 3-10 meters and getting struck by lightning" would be worse. In addition, the length of the current flow depends on the high voltage system.

Comment author: wedrifid 04 September 2012 01:48:45PM 2 points [-]

Lightning strikes usually do not involve physical impacts - I think "falling from 3-10 meters and getting struck by lightning" would be worse.

This seems overwhelmingly likely.

Comment author: DanielLC 11 September 2012 02:41:25AM 3 points [-]

I can't help but think:

Subway ad: "146 people were hit by trains in 2011. 47 were killed."

Guy at Subway: "What does that have to do with sandwiches?"