Another death-related unit meant to provide perspective: http://www.raikoth.net/deadchild.html.
Micromort
71–80 of 102 posts
Re: Micromort
#72La petite mort?
Hehe. Subtle.
Re: Micromort
#73Re: Micromort
#74Earlier 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.
You're dodging the question. You can achieve statistical significance by using a large sample size, iff there is a real effect. If we had 10e20 people in each group and gave an extra 0.5 liters of alcohol to each one, would you be shocked that a millionth of them died?
Yes, I would be shocked if an extra millionth died, because we have done many many studies of alcohol consumption, and they show that below a certain level (40ml a week or something?) there is no measurable effect on health.
Re: Micromort
#75The Micromort concept is explored thoroughly and very enjoyable in the book 'The Normal Chronicles' by David Blastland and Michael Spiegelhalter. It's well worth checking out. Blastland was one of the creators of the excellent 'More or Less' on the BBC that looks at how numbers are used and mostly abused by the media, politicians and everyone else. Spiegelhalter is a prof of stats. The book addresses a number of the…
+1 for 'More or Less'. I am a regular listener.
As for the book, I believe the correct title is "The Norm Chronicles".
Re: Micromort
#76The Wikipedia article claims air pollution from living in New York or Boston is 30 times worse than the risk from living with a smoker, though that was in 1979. Presumably air pollution has become much less severe since then. Does anyone know the figure today?
These days people vastly overestimate the risk of second-hand smoke. Based on the numbers in this article living with a smoker is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes every two years. i.e. not much.
Second-hand smoke does have some health consequences -- for instance poor air quality is strongly linked to childhood asthma. It's also certainly considered a nuisance by most people.
Anyway, I'm not surprised at all that living in a polluted city would expose you to far more danger than a smoker at home. 30x sounds fairly reasonable.
Re: Micromort
#77A 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.
Can you prove that? If a million people each smoke two cigarettes in their lifetimes, it's not impossible that one of them might suffer a cigarette-related health detriment.
The question is whether that person would suffer from that same problem anyway, due to some other cause. This is where statistical significance comes in.
Re: Micromort
#78It 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.
Insurance isn't a scam. You pay a little extra to ensure that you can get the money before you would have saved it (assuming you put your entire ensurance premium into savings) in the event that you (or your family, in the case of life insurance) need it. Sure, in infinite (or sufficiently high) number of lives/events, you'll always end up behind, but that doesn't mean it's a scam.
Agreed.
It is true, though, that many people fall into the trap of over-insuring. For example, people who could easily afford to replace their car yet pay for comprehensive insurance.
For risks you can self-insure against, you should do so. Otherwise you're just gambling against actuaries, and they're better at the game than you.
For catastrophic events, insurance is a completely sensible bargain for both parties.
Re: Micromort
#79A 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.
If you consider the underlying mechanisms, it becomes clear. Cigarette smoke contains mutagens. For those who are genetically predisposed, it might only take a single point mutation (change of a DNA base pair) in a single oncogene to cause a tumour. So while unlikely, there is no need to suppose a threshold.
In low quantities of a toxin, up-regulation of repair mechanisms can sometimes improve outcomes (i.e. hormesis), but the risk of damage to critical genes still exists.
Re: Micromort
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yes but a fair insurance would be the exact price of the risk leveled among insured, plus a small processing fee. There should be not one penny left for luxurious offices or prestigious ads or art mecenat. Lottery pleasure is empty. Play poker with friends, you may loose money but at least you get friends. The problem pointed in Kahneman book is that we are irrational, and (AND) it's usually the less irrational among…
"fair insurance", "There should be not one penny left ", "Lottery pleasure is empty"... You are stating a lot of opinions but not many facts. Also, why isn't it "fair" for insurance companies to turn a profit while it's fine for other types of businesses?