jsalvatier comments on The Zeroth Skillset - Less Wrong Discussion
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One way to alleviate skeptical would be to explain why you are unusual in this respect.
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?
I don't think it started happening until I was past forty, and very few of them died as a result of accidents.
One other potential confound might be that I know lots of people.
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.
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.
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.