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Grognor comments on Rationality Quotes September 2012 - Less Wrong
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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."
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:
Actually, according to Wikipedia, only 35 out of the 97 people aboard were killed. Not enough to kill even 50% of them.
jaw drops
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.
(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.)
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