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‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

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Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#241

Post by chc »

blackbrokkoli wrote: post #57
the_af wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why McCandless was idolized (I do know there was backlash from actual knowledgeable people, like park rangers). He purposefully put himself in harm's way and didn't have any relevant skills that would have helped him survive. So what's admirable or romantic about the way he died?

Well he most likely died due to poisoning himself with a misidentified plant that was only ever documented as dangerous in an ancient encyclopedia over 100 years old. Nothing romantic about it, but nothing screaming "no relevant skills", either. Don't think this is the part people romanticize, I think it's the whole "I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don't think I want one" and the "Instead, I will w…

The only reason he was even still there when he died is because he didn't have a map of the area and thus couldn't figure out how to cross the river to get back.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#242

Post by bentcorner »

angst_ridden wrote: post #208

A lot of folks don't appreciate how quickly normal can turn into dangerous in the wilderness. Because most of the time, it's all so tame. With our specialized gear and tech, there's not much threat ... most of the time. I've been on mountain peaks on nice summer days when storms appear as out of nowhere (not the typical afternoon rains), and there's lightning, high winds, and 50ºF temperature swings. In that kind of…

> A common trap is slot canyons in the southwest desert in the summer, when it's hot and dry, and hikers don't know about the rains in the distant mountains.

Good example of a flash food in a canyon, and subsequent rescue: https://youtu.be/FJOpZF_4b-w

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#243

Post by citizenpaul »

MrMan wrote: post #199
Arrath wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy shit, glad you're okay. That was quick thinking.

[flagged]

I guess you are mocking my near death experience? You must be a wonderful person.

Allow me to even further your disbelief. Nearly the same thing happened to me again years later. Except the second time was a motorcycle. I narrowly sidestepped a motorcycle on a mountain road that had taken the turn too fast while I was looking over a marked "scenic viewpoint". The driver in this case though I do not know if they lived. As they did go over the side of the ravine into very rough rocks and ground. They were alive when Ambulance took them away though.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#244

Post by ckdot »

vasco wrote: post #228
kibwen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Going around a bend, I saw a car in the ditch on the outside of the curve. I stopped the car, put on the hazards, and went to see if there was anyone in the car. As I was about to cross the highway a car come sliding around the bend more or less sideways. The lesson here is this: lightning strikes twice (frustratingly, the usual idiom is as wrong as can be). In other words, if you observe an outcome and have no oth…

One very easy application of this axiom is whenever you're near water or rain and don't want to get wet. You're at the beach, climbing on rocks and you're not sure if a wave will hit you if you climb on the next rock. Is the rock wet? If so it will, if it's dry, you're fine. You're next to a sprinkler system and it's going around and you don't know if you'll get hit if you stand here, is the floor wet? And so on.

Until a bigger wave will hit the dry rock.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#245

Post by dsfyu404ed »

toss1 wrote: post #205
giantg2 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, some people operate on PDL because they never learned about risk in general, or are incapable of operating differently. If you get hurt as a kid in a lower stakes fashion, you start to learn that breaking the rules hurts. That opportunity for lower stakes learning might be shrinking as we legislate away some "risky" stuff. Some people simply can't handle the "constraints" of being responsible... lik…

>>operate on PDL because they never learned about risk in general Yup, humans are generally awful at understanding and managing risk, and it is in no small part because there is almost anti-training about risk outside of high-risk activities, and even some of those are very low on guidance and high on PDL. >> I still wouldn't feel bad - that's the way they chose to live thier life. True, 'tho I feel like it is my bet…

>Yup, humans are generally awful at understanding and managing risk,

Normal humans are normal at understanding and managing risk because normal is defined by typical human behavior.

It is your expectations that deviate from the norm.

(the above applies to pretty much all "people suck" type gripes)

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#246

Post by tasuki »

How does:

> Either way, statistically, one of you will die this summer.

go together with:

> But you can take comfort in knowing that there were less than eight deaths per 10 million visits to national park sites between 2007 and 2018.

?

I'm confused. How many people were there in that room when the ranger said statistically one of them would die? Were they for some reason more statistically likely to die than the other visitors? What was the reason?

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#247

Post by advisedwang »

tasuki wrote: post #246

How does: > Either way, statistically, one of you will die this summer. go together with: > But you can take comfort in knowing that there were less than eight deaths per 10 million visits to national park sites between 2007 and 2018. ? I'm confused. How many people were there in that room when the ranger said statistically one of them would die? Were they for some reason more statistically likely to die than the oth…

They were employees of the park, not random visitors.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#248

Post by OkayPhysicist »

intrepidhero wrote: post #175
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It only takes 80ma across your heart to stop it In a lab, sure. In reality you need a lot of amps going into the body to get enough amps across the heart to screw with it. Defibrillators wouldn't be chock full of capacitors if that wasn't the case. Constantly repeating these sorts of misleading DARE-esque talking points is why nobody takes what the safety preachers have to say seriously. People find out through life…

Defibrillators are full of capacitors to boost the voltage, not current. They also use carefully located electrodes, and come with a razor to remove body hair to create the ideal conditions to affect the heart because they need to work every time . That has nothing to do with whether residential power is dangerous or not. I said mains voltage won't kill you every time but it definitely can. We wouldn't put it in resi…

Volts and amps are not independent values if you're applying them to the same resistance (you), and you cannot "boost voltage" using capacitors. A capacitor can only charge to the voltage that it is charged with.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#249

Post by jehanson »

vasco wrote: post #228
kibwen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Going around a bend, I saw a car in the ditch on the outside of the curve. I stopped the car, put on the hazards, and went to see if there was anyone in the car. As I was about to cross the highway a car come sliding around the bend more or less sideways. The lesson here is this: lightning strikes twice (frustratingly, the usual idiom is as wrong as can be). In other words, if you observe an outcome and have no oth…

One very easy application of this axiom is whenever you're near water or rain and don't want to get wet. You're at the beach, climbing on rocks and you're not sure if a wave will hit you if you climb on the next rock. Is the rock wet? If so it will, if it's dry, you're fine. You're next to a sprinkler system and it's going around and you don't know if you'll get hit if you stand here, is the floor wet? And so on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneaker_wave

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#250

Post by switchbak »

angst_ridden wrote: post #208

A lot of folks don't appreciate how quickly normal can turn into dangerous in the wilderness. Because most of the time, it's all so tame. With our specialized gear and tech, there's not much threat ... most of the time. I've been on mountain peaks on nice summer days when storms appear as out of nowhere (not the typical afternoon rains), and there's lightning, high winds, and 50ºF temperature swings. In that kind of…

"It's easy to turn your back on the ocean" - this almost deserves its own category. Other/shipping traffic, waves, weather, lightning (especially risky on a sailboat!), hypothermia ... there's just very little margin for error in some situations, and those concerns can so easily compound.

I've done some crazy things in my life, but it's always been the ocean that puts me truly close to death. If there's anything positive about those experiences, it's the lesson that sometimes the difference between life and death is keeping your head and not panicking.

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