> There's a reason we pay attention to tail risks, where the low-probability negative consequences are far worse than the high-probability costs of averting them. The vast majority of people are not going to die in car crashes, or of SIDS, or of COVID, or from untreated kidney infections. They are lucky.
No, by definition, they're the norm. They're not lucky, they're just normal. The expected outcome. The people who encounter the tail risks are unlucky.
Not too long ago, a part of a jet fell off over suburban Denver. I would be dismayed if someone -- engineers and investigators -- didn't obsess over this event. But if my brother wants to know if it's safe to get on an airplane, or live in suburban Denver, then my answer is not going to change.
I would also discourage anyone else from reading HN posts with obscure technical documents from Boeing and the FAA, and speculating about what it means for aviation in general. Or reading other peoples' posts on these topics, and sharing anecdotes about how "someone they knew" died in some ghastly aviation accident. And so on.
It is in our nature to exaggerate the importance of rare events. They are still rare.
> But the consequences of death are so much worse than the costs of wearing a mask, or not seeing your friends in person, or dealing with anxiety, that it's worth taking some precautions even if the chance that you'll die from COVID is low.
How did masks get swirled up into this? I swear...people will find any way to turn these things into a political debate. Can we agree that by this point, the debate about masks is fully baked, and no amount of discussion of Covid outcomes is going to change someone's mind?
You can find anecdotes on the internet to support literally any fear that you care to indulge. The point is, most of the time, these fears are not worth indulging, and what you read on the internet exaggerates the actual threat.