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Micromort

en.wikipedia.org

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Re: Micromort

#21

Post by eli »

gbog wrote: post #18

It should be noted that used in Thinking Fast and Slow context this micromort induce can be used to show how much we human have very hard time grasping low probability events. All the lottery and insurance business is just a scam against us taking advantage of this miss computation of micro risks.

I gladly pay my life insurance premium because I want to know my loved ones will be taken care of. It's not a scam. I fully intend to pay in more than I get out of it (I hope!!).

Lottery isn't really a scam either if you derive pleasure simply from playing the game.

Re: Micromort

#22

Post by jlgreco »

eli wrote: post #20
andrewvc wrote: post #3

A lot of this seems weird. If I imbibe 0.5 liters of wine exactly once in my life I doubt there's any effect. Same for 2 cigarettes. For a lot of things there are thresholds that must be crossed before any effect is created.

Why do you assume there must be a threshold? If you had two identical groups of a million people each and one group received 0.5 liters of wine per person, would you really be shocked that the group that got the wine had a single extra death?

I would be shocked to see any statistically significant[1] difference. The things about alcohol that kill you are cumulative. 3 drinks isn't going to kill your internal organs, not even 1 in a million times.

[1] I would be shocked if, give two groups of a million, both groups had the exact same number of deaths in a predetermined time period. 1 death difference between two groups that large is pure background noise.

Re: Micromort

#23

Post by eli »

s_baby wrote: post #4

So per mile jets are only ~4 times safer than cars? That's a little unsettling.

Consider how much time the typical person spends in a car versus a plane; of course there are many more car deaths.

Re: Micromort

#24

Post by tyoma »

s_baby wrote: post #4

So per mile jets are only ~4 times safer than cars? That's a little unsettling.

The numbers were from 1979; air travel has gotten considerable safer since then. Then again, so have automobiles.

Re: Micromort

#25

Post by gibybo »

AlexMennen wrote: post #19

So is 1 mort a guaranteed death or a [edit:] 1 - 1/e chance of death?

Neither. 1/e would require that they all be independent random events which is not true in the general case (and mathematically 1/e would only be an approximation anyway). 1 would require that they be entirely dependent, which is also not true in the general case.

Re: Micromort

#26

Post by jlgreco »

andrewvc wrote: post #3

A lot of this seems weird. If I imbibe 0.5 liters of wine exactly once in my life I doubt there's any effect. Same for 2 cigarettes. For a lot of things there are thresholds that must be crossed before any effect is created.

It seems pretty clear that, to come up with these numbers, they took mortality figures from people with lots of exposure, divided their exposure down into small chunks, and assumed that everything scaled linearly.

I mean really, 1 hour in a coal mine and you get black lung? Absurd. Would 1 minute in a coal mine be 1/60th of a micromort? Would 1 second in a coal mine be 1/3600th of a micromort? Of course not, and of course not. Black Lung is caused by long term exposure.

You are not rolling a million-sided die every hour you are in a coal mine.

Re: Micromort

#27

Post by eli »

jlgreco wrote: post #22
eli wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume there must be a threshold? If you had two identical groups of a million people each and one group received 0.5 liters of wine per person, would you really be shocked that the group that got the wine had a single extra death?

I would be shocked to see any statistically significant [1] difference. The things about alcohol that kill you are cumulative. 3 drinks isn't going to kill your internal organs, not even 1 in a million times. [1] I would be shocked if, give two groups of a million, both groups had the exact same number of deaths in a predetermined time period. 1 death difference between two groups that large is pure background noise.

I'm not sure I buy that, but either way you're not visualizing it quite right: both groups go on to have regular lives... it's just that one group drank an additional 0.5 liters [1]. Like you said, death by alcohol is a cumulative risk, so that means each and every drink must raise your risk a teensy tiny amount.

How about this way: you agree that if you drink enough alcohol it will kill you, right? So you could surely find someone who almost drank themselves to death. Perhaps they got liver disease and came very very close to dying, but survived. So there must be a line somewhere. Given a huge enough pool of people, it should be possible to find someone who came so close to death that a single extra drink could have killed them.

([1] It's a thought experiment. The two groups lead otherwise identical lives besides the additional alcohol.)

Re: Micromort

#28

Post by stcredzero »

What you get when the villain of the Harry Potter books makes one million horcruxes? (Or is it 20?)

EDIT: I wonder how much the micromort exchange rate is with "The Death of Rats?"

Re: Micromort

#29

Post by jlgreco »

eli wrote: post #27
jlgreco wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be shocked to see any statistically significant [1] difference. The things about alcohol that kill you are cumulative. 3 drinks isn't going to kill your internal organs, not even 1 in a million times. [1] I would be shocked if, give two groups of a million, both groups had the exact same number of deaths in a predetermined time period. 1 death difference between two groups that large is pure background noise.

I'm not sure I buy that, but either way you're not visualizing it quite right: both groups go on to have regular lives... it's just that one group drank an additional 0.5 liters [1]. Like you said, death by alcohol is a cumulative risk, so that means each and every drink must raise your risk a teensy tiny amount. How about this way: you agree that if you drink enough alcohol it will kill you, right? So you could sure…

You are assuming a linear relationship between alcohol and risk of death. There is absolutely no reason to think that.

Re: Micromort

#30

Post by eli »

jlgreco wrote: post #29
eli wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I buy that, but either way you're not visualizing it quite right: both groups go on to have regular lives... it's just that one group drank an additional 0.5 liters [1]. Like you said, death by alcohol is a cumulative risk, so that means each and every drink must raise your risk a teensy tiny amount. How about this way: you agree that if you drink enough alcohol it will kill you, right? So you could sure…

You are assuming a linear relationship between alcohol and risk of death. There is absolutely no reason to think that.

What would you propose instead? Isn't it obvious that alcohol can cause certain fatal diseases in proportion to consumption?
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