|
Jonathan90125
Incredible Member (2000+ posts)
4098 Posts
Gratitude: 276
 |
 Posted - 02/11/2013 : 11:36:36
|
There is more to to calculating levels of risk than a simple stiffs count. Other factors come into it too.
When I was at Scripture Union camp when I was 11 I was told when I was about to start abseiling that abseiling was safer than crossing the road because only one person a year (on average) died while abseiling in the UK while several thousand people every year died on the roads in the UK. This conclusion is in fact false as other factors have to be considered. If nearly the entire population of the UK was abseiling half a dozen times on the way to work every day and still only one person died every year in the year, then you could conclude that abseiling was safer than crossing the road, but this is not the case. Very few people do abseiling and those that do it typically only very occasionally. This is why the risk of dying abseiling is actually greater than crossing a small suburban street despite the raw stiffs count being much greater for road accidents.
I give myself good advice but I often have some difficulty following it  |
|
| Jonathan90125
Incredible Member (2000+ posts)
4098 Posts
Gratitude: 276
|
Posted - 02/11/2013 : 12:03:10
|
Another area where raw stiff counts can be deceptive is that of nuclear,chemical and biological weapons. Approximately 300,000 people died in the original bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and this is much smaller than than number of people who died in road accidents in the cold war period, but other factors have to be considered. The explosive yield by 1985 of the world's nuclear weapons was over a million times the yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and there were many possible sources of things going wrong, for example Reagan and The Soviet Leadership's semi-senility, somebody feeding attack simulations into the computer of NORAD as in 1979 and 1980, the potential for someone on the bomber crew's abusing drugs and alchohol and so on. Some analysts have speculated that the risk of global anniliation in 1979-1986 Cruise SS-20 crisis was as much as 50/50 and there are other times of similar risk like the Cuban Missile crisis, Suez, and Berlin Crises. Warhead numbers are a bit down after the 1988 INF treaty and early 1990s START treaty but the explosive power of the world's nukes is still hundreds of thousands of times greater than the original bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Similarly the Soviet Union stockpiled tens of thousands of tonnes of nerve gas and other chemical weapons as well as the Russian Biological weapons programs.
I give myself good advice but I often have some difficulty following it |
|
| Jonathan90125
Incredible Member (2000+ posts)
4098 Posts
Gratitude: 276
|
Posted - 02/11/2013 : 12:39:56
|
Everything caries some risk. According to a program on risk science by Equinox 600 people in the UK die falling down the stairs every year.
Did you know that there are over 15,000 killed by medical accidents and medical incompetence? Or that there are roughly 4,000 suicides every year in the UK?
Avoid the big risks such as tobacco and nuclear weapons and live with the small ones like tea and coffee and stairs. I do drink a small amount of alchohol, remember 21 units is reckoned to be safe for men and 14 for women but I have been told by medical opinion that you can go up to about 35 units for men and 25 or so for women on a bad week and be fairly safe. Some people are tea total, quite wise maybe. Remember 1 pint of beer is 2 units not 1. And extra strength lager is 3.
I give myself good advice but I often have some difficulty following it |
|
| Jonathan90125
Incredible Member (2000+ posts)
4098 Posts
Gratitude: 276
|
Posted - 02/11/2013 : 15:26:05
|
I am told you should have one soft drink after every two alchoholic ones. Drinking a lot alone and drinking a lot in the morning tend to be two worrying indicators of the start of alchoholism, as is drinking alcholhol quickly as if you have a strong thirst tends to come third as a difinite indicator, especially if it is spirits.
Tea and coffee are much safer. I should probably cut back to ten mugs a day, but it is the safest thing of its kind.
I give myself good advice but I often have some difficulty following it |
|
| Jonathan90125
Incredible Member (2000+ posts)
4098 Posts
Gratitude: 276
|
Posted - 02/11/2013 : 15:35:14
|
And another thing. If only 839 people a year die of murder in the UK and roughly 4,000 die from suicide, why does the murder get so much more coverage in the media? People don't give a damn about the mentally ill committing suicide, but they do give some amount of attention to murder? The media were turning us into pariahs for a while, though the likes of Eastenders was restoring the balence. And the majority of murders are committed by those with personality disorders like psychopathy and alchoholics, numbers committed by natural psychotics are comparitively few. I haven't really thought seriously about suicide for about 7 years, but I used to and the fact the media used to turn us all into pariahs by reporting all these schizo-murders aggravated my misery.
Still things are improving with things like Eastenders.
I give myself good advice but I often have some difficulty following it |
|
Calculating risk
