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jsalvatier comments on The Zeroth Skillset - Less Wrong Discussion

48 Post author: katydee 30 January 2013 12:46PM

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Comment author: jsalvatier 31 January 2013 01:57:40AM 7 points [-]

One way to alleviate skeptical would be to explain why you are unusual in this respect.

Comment author: katydee 01 February 2013 09:04:48AM 4 points [-]

Until posting this, I didn't realize that I was particularly unusual in that respect; I thought having one or two people you know die every year was normal. Does this not happen for most people?

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 01 February 2013 10:59:58AM 3 points [-]

I don't think it started happening until I was past forty, and very few of them died as a result of accidents.

Comment author: katydee 02 February 2013 12:58:23AM 1 point [-]

One other potential confound might be that I know lots of people.

Comment author: Swimmer963 03 April 2013 06:31:39PM 0 points [-]

My maternal grandfather died of a stroke when I was about 12 years old; my paternal grandfather died of cancer when I was 19. Those are the only people I knew personally who have died, and I think those numbers (and causes of death) are fairly typical for young people. I've seen lots more dead people, as a nursing student, including some who died of accidental/preventable causes, but I don't count that as evidence I can generalize from–it's a massively biased sample.

Comment author: BerryPick6 01 February 2013 10:14:31PM 0 points [-]

I know a number of people who have died in the past 3-4 years, but they all happened to be in the army at the time, so I would consider myself unusual in this respect.

Comment author: jsalvatier 01 February 2013 04:50:17PM 0 points [-]

I can only think of one person I know of who died because of a preventable accident. One serious accident comes to mind too. I'm 27, male and in Seattle.

Another approach would be to cite statistics about accident rates. I think at least death statistics from accidents are well recorded.