21–30 of 58 posts
I have a paralyzing phobia of flying. I do, but It's always many hours of sheer terror. In my paranoia, I recently unlocked a new concern about air travel: what if a meteorite hits the plane? That would certainly be catastrophic. And now I've acquired a new one, space debris! Nice.
Not sure if this helps though...
> So what’s the risk of space debris to aviation? An FAA report from 2023 estimated an annual 0.1% chance that falling space debris would cause a single global aviation casualty. That meant individual passenger risk was less than a trillion‑to‑one though projected to increase. I wonder if a report done in October 2025 would give a different estimate, considering we have a lot more stuff in space now compared to 2023.
An annual 0.1% chance of one casualty (so: a passenger jet less than 1 in 1,000 years) doesn't become significantly more likely in two years. Also I assume the FAA actuaries would have forward projections of Starlink launches. Maybe this is space shuttle math where real-world accidents tell us that the risk is significantly higher. But it'd be the first documented case of a meteor or space debris, so I'd guess it's s…
Well, not by itself, but isn't that risk based on how many numbers of objects there are in space? And since we're launching more stuff into space than falls out of it, the numbers used for the calculations may be changing?
Two events each having a low probability is not the same thing as the events not happening. Despite our best efforts, folks still win the lottery, and you’re more likely to get struck by lightning than win the powerball jackpot. So while it can be extremely unlikely from a probability standpoint that this plane was stuck by space debris, and it can also be extremely unlikely that he saw it before it hit, it’s not a f…
Yep, and:
"In 1998, Bill Morgan, an Australian man from Melbourne was captured on film winning a AU$250,000 scratchcard while re-enacting his previous scratchcard win for a news report. The video of the event has since been widely shared online."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> folks still win the lottery, and you’re more likely to get struck by lightning than win the powerball jackpot I'm more likely to get struck by lightning than win the lottery, sure. But it's much more likely that someone wins the lottery this week (~100% in fact) than that someone gets struck by lightning this week. Edit: my point about independence of events still stands, but it turns out people get struck by light…
> it's much more likely that someone wins the lottery this week (~100% in fact) than that someone gets struck by lightning this week No it isn’t? Not only are the individual odds of winning the lottery lower than the individual odds of being struck by lightning, but far more people are exposed to lightning on a weekly basis than participate in any given lottery.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's much more likely that someone wins the lottery this week (~100% in fact) than that someone gets struck by lightning this week No it isn’t? Not only are the individual odds of winning the lottery lower than the individual odds of being struck by lightning, but far more people are exposed to lightning on a weekly basis than participate in any given lottery.
Lets reframe it: Someone always win the lottery, lighting doesn't always strike a human.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lets reframe it: Someone always win the lottery, lighting doesn't always strike a human.
That’s not true either though - someone eventually always wins the lottery, someone eventually always gets struck by lightning. The latter usually happens before the former.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s not true either though - someone eventually always wins the lottery, someone eventually always gets struck by lightning. The latter usually happens before the former.
When a lottery happens, there is always a winner, that's how they work. When there is a lightning, it doesn't always strike a human. The former is (almost) guaranteed to happen, barring something out of the ordinary, while the latter usually doesn't happen, but does happen sometimes.
It's possible this is a language and cultural thing, but most (possibly all?) state run lotteries in the United States don't work this way - they simply pick numbers from a pool at random and if no one has selected those exact numbers the prize pool rolls over to the next week. Powerball (afaik the largest US based lottery) works by selecting 5 numbers from a pool of 1-69, and one number from a pool of 1-26, if no one matches all six numbers then the primary prize pool carries into the next drawing. There's no guarantee anyone wins the jackpot on any given week, and often multiple weeks and sometimes months will pass with no winner, ballooning the jackpot further.
I'd more often refer to what you're saying as a "drawing" or a "sweepstakes" where tickets are sold and the winning ticket is selected from the pool of all tickets sold, but that's distinctly different to a "lottery" for me.
Two events each having a low probability is not the same thing as the events not happening. Despite our best efforts, folks still win the lottery, and you’re more likely to get struck by lightning than win the powerball jackpot. So while it can be extremely unlikely from a probability standpoint that this plane was stuck by space debris, and it can also be extremely unlikely that he saw it before it hit, it’s not a f…
I have a paralyzing phobia of flying. I do, but It's always many hours of sheer terror. In my paranoia, I recently unlocked a new concern about air travel: what if a meteorite hits the plane? That would certainly be catastrophic. And now I've acquired a new one, space debris! Nice.
There's some degree of things we just can't do anything about. We just have to accept it and move on. There's something about the human condition that makes it easy to say, and hard to do, and harder for some people than others - wishing you luck on your journey.
Focus on what you can control (exercise is a miracle drug that will lower your risk of so many problems! Don't smoke! Use sunscreen!) and enjoy life as best you can.