
That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer - danso
http://nytimes.com/2013/01/29/science/jared-diamonds-guide-to-reducing-lifes-risks.html
======
JoeAltmaier
A handy technique for evaluating situations is this: how many mistakes am I
away from death/injury? If I drive without a seatbelt, I've put myself 1
accident away in many cases.

My Scouts are young, and love to climb things. I tell them, I know you're
strong and skilled. But a loose rock or slippery foothold puts you at risk
anyway. So wear the harness - now it takes two mistakes to kill you (e.g.
loose rock + badly rigged harness). The risk goes down drastically.

So put some non-skid floor mat in your shower, or a chair as advised in this
thread. The mis-step no longer carries the same risk.

~~~
kjackson2012
Sometimes you hear things that instantly change your views on the world.

I have to say that this above post, in about 10 seconds of reading it, has
completely changed my views on assessing risk.

The idea of quantifying risk by counting the number of mistakes you are away
from catastrophic failure is an excellent way to visualize risk. It's a simple
way to calculate risk, and an even easier way to teach my kids. Thank you.

~~~
gojomo
There's a similarly great passage in 'The Great Gatsby':

 _It was on that same house party that we had a curious conversation about
driving a car. It started because she passed so close to some workmen that our
fender flicked a button on one man's coat.

"You're a rotten driver," I protested. "Either you ought to be more careful or
you oughtn't to drive at all."

"I am careful."

"No, you're not."

"Well, other people are," she said lightly.

"What's that got to do with it?"

"They'll keep out of my way," she insisted. "It takes two to make an
accident."

"Suppose you met somebody just as careless as yourself."

"I hope I never will," she answered. "I hate careless people. That's why I
like you."_

~~~
sukuriant
Is that from the original? There's a lot of 'e's in that passage.

~~~
Echo117
Are you thinking of Gadsby? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsby_%28novel%29>

~~~
dalke
I had heard about "Gadsby" first, so when high school friends told me they
were reading "The Great Gatsby", I was quite confused about why their English
class would assign a book most known for not using the letter 'e'.

------
daeken
This is a bit of an aside, but I have to say this: even as a young person,
take falls _very seriously_. I was 22 or so when I slipped in the shower. I
was falling to the side and was going to hit my head, so I decided to twist so
that I'd fall flat on my back, figuring I'd be fine. Well, I was, until a few
hours later, when I started having chest pain and my left arm went numb and
started getting shooting pains.

Thinking it was a heart attack, I went to the ER and was told I was fine, and
it was probably just a pinched nerve from the fall. Three years later, the
pain hasn't stopped -- the chest pain isn't so bad these days usually, but my
left arm is almost continually numb and, well, the body doesn't really get
used to the pins-and-needles feeling. If I had taken it more seriously, had a
CT scan taken at the time, etc, it may have been caught early. Unfortunately,
now that so much time has passed, doctors are at a loss as for what's going
on.

I'm still finding new doctors and doing my own research into what's going on,
but this process has been excruciating. So, please, if you have a fall: go to
the doctor, and have them do a real examination _immediately_. When I went,
they focused on my heart and didn't even so much as look at my neck or my
shoulder; had I gone after the fall, they may have figured out what it was,
and I wouldn't be in pain years later.

Hope this cautionary tale helps someone!

~~~
seestheday
I some similar problems along with significant pain, also caused by falls (and
a fairly serious injury that compounded things).

I had pain for years, until I stumbled onto a combination of things that
completely resolve the issues as long as I stick to them.

I'm telling you in case they help. If nothing else it shouldn't hurt anything.

In order of importance:

1\. Develop & maintain significant muscle mass, specifically in my upper &
lower back. I'm not a huge musclehead by any stretch, but I can do 20+ pull-
ups (not chin-ups) in a row and deadlift over 350 lbs. This had the biggest
impact, and if I stop working out, the pain/symptoms come back. It literally
took me years to get here, but is completely worth it to live pain/numb free.
Health/aesthetics benefits are nice too.

2\. Active Release Therapy - this broke up scar tissue that I had, may not be
applicable to you.

3\. Fish Oil Supplements - acts as a natural anti-inflammatory

4\. Vitamin D/sunshine - Not sure if it's just because the sun & vitamin D
makes me feel better overall, but I feel like it makes a small difference.

Edited to clean up paragraphs

~~~
chimpingout
what a load of balls...

the average man should be light and active enough to do a few chin ups with
ease and run for a while

i have deadlifted over 350. it did nothing for my chronic neck pain and in
fact only made it worse by over developing my traps.

neckbeard lifting gurus are so full of shit

~~~
pyre
You responded to:

    
    
      | This worked for me, I'm going to tell you
      | because it might help you too.
    

with:

    
    
      | what a load of balls...
    

and

    
    
      | neckbeard lifting gurus are so full of shit
    

Way to keep it classy.

------
noname123
In the derivatives world, there's a saying for trying to bet against highly
unlikely events with catastrophic risk for small gains: "picking up nickels in
front of a steamroller." The issue is when you pick up enough nickels and
watch for the steamrollers vigilantly first few times, you grow complacent and
think that you are the master of nickel pickers and steamrollers are slow
mofo's. You try to pick more nickels and linger longer in front of incoming
steamrollers.

See debacle of Long Term Capital Management. Options trader take profit/loss
as soon as a humble target is hit. It's as in life, the biggest loss is the
complete loss of your physical capital which takes you out permanently of the
game. Gamblers focus on the potential profits and get high on how their luck
evaded fate in one nick of time, traders focus on preservation of capital.

~~~
phil
I think LTCM's problem was more that they picked up all the nickels in front
of steamrollers.

But it looked like there were some more nickels out in the middle of an 8-lane
freeway...

------
protomyth
The CDC has keeps statistics on how people in the USA die
<http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm>

Looking at the 2011 prelims "Accidents (unintentional injuries)" comes in at
#5 with 122,777 deaths and Intentional self-harm (suicide) is at #10 with
38,285. Assault (homicide) is no longer in the top 15.

Also, Assault (homicide) by discharge of firearms is 11,101 with all other
Assault (homicide) totaling 4,852. To give some context to the Assault
(homicide) numbers, "Accidental poisoning and exposure to noxious substances"
totals 33,554 deaths or about 3x the Assault (homicide) firearm number or 2x
the total.

Looking at the stats and what kills us, we spend a lot of time looking at the
stuff that is actually going down versus the stuff that is increasing.

~~~
roc
It's important to remember that causes of death are often also activities
which carry utility and even outright life- _saving_ capability.

Accidental poisoning, for example, is often due to exposure to cleaning
chemicals and drugs which have massively reduced illnesses and deaths.
Spending more to make them less accessible may actually be self-defeating, in
that it could well cause more deaths than it prevents, by making it harder to
get and use those things for their intended purpose.

Further, many of the more prominent killers in society have already been the
subject of safety campaigns. Cars are massively safer today than they were in
the 70s and earlier, as a direct result of safety research and societal
effort. As returns on such efforts have been diminishing for some time, the
next dollar of safety research or societal effort is quite likely to impact
more net lives when directed at a "lesser" killer that hasn't been the subject
of as much study.

One must keep those two considerations in mind, when making judgements about
whether we're spending an undue amount of time and money on a given threat.

Simply looking at a stack-rank of 'killers' isn't enough.

~~~
protomyth
Simply look at one line of data on anything isn't enough, but it isn't a bad
place to start looking at what our actual risks are to see what the numbers on
that risk are. Using that as a guide for the first things you should be
concerned with helps quite a lot.

Looking at the auto stats
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year)
I am not sure I would say massive.

But today, we are surrounded by "incident news" without looking at the trend
lines. "Incident news" does not look at daily problems as its just noise and
not headline friendly. It doesn't have a story narrative.

Risk vs reward is always going to matter. We watch TV and see "gun control" as
the story. The long term trend lines for guns are more now than ever, more
concealed carry, and less deaths.

~~~
roc
From 25 per 100,000 to 10 per 100,000 is not a massive change? Or, using the
more appropriate rate -- fatalities per hundred million vehicle miles traveled
-- dropping from ~7 in the 1950s to ~1 today?

Again, the stack rank isn't a bad place to start if you have no other context.
But we do. We're well past that point. We all know the NTSB, Auto Companies,
Insurance Companies, et al have been hammering on car safety for decades now,
have been advancing auto safety about as fast as society will allow and are
always conducting newer/better research.

So it remains ill-advised to use that rate (or similar well-studied risks) as
some sort of reference point when considering whether a smaller risk is
getting outsize attention.

> _"The long term trend lines for guns are more now than ever, more concealed
> carry, and less deaths."_

In the 70s, when it became an issue (due in large part to media crusading and
'incident news'), the long-term trends for auto fatalities were _also_ on a
downward slope from the highs of the 40s and 50s. Yet, as it turns out, we
could still actually do better by allowing research into the issue and taking
common-sense precautions.

Similarly with the long term trends around smoking rates, when we finally
deigned to allow smoking/cancer/cessation research.

Similarly was Airplane travel, even with a bump from terrorism, the safest way
to get from A to B. Yet it remains a good thing that we studied the terrorism
'problem', despite its low risk, and changed air crew procedure and hardened
cockpit doors.

And the TSA stuff is nonsense, but it was and remains nonsense precisely
_because_ it's not being studied and considered in a sober cost/benefit
analysis.

What remains notable about the gun debate in the US, is that we're not arguing
about "what to do" so much as arguing about _whether to study the problem_.

Look at how the trial balloon for the "whether we should study the problem"
effort only has some sliver of a chance to succeed, because it's being first
aimed at a scapegoat (violent video games). It's not even a direct study of
the self-evident real problem (gang violence) or its equally-obvious
underlying cause (the war on some people's use of some drugs).

~~~
protomyth
I was looking at fatalities per miles traveled (given that is the measure of
how much we use cars). It seems the trend line was dropping pretty nicely
before the 70's, so I am not sure how much all the safety requirements have
actually changed things. Seat belts and air bags might account for the delta
from the 70's, but I am not sure it isn't the same reasons we see a reduction
from the 30s. Looking at what happened after a change is good, but it needs to
be in the context of what was happening before.

> What remains notable about the gun debate in the US, is that we're not
> arguing about "what to do" so much as arguing about whether to study the
> problem.

You must be watching some other debate, I consider new legislation being
introduced "what to do".

~~~
roc
> _"I am not sure how much all the safety requirements have actually changed
> things"_

Well, absent digging into details that neither of us have, that's going to
come down to a philosophical position: do you think that trends will continue
indefinitely in the absence of any additional efforts to sustain them?

> _"You must be watching some other debate, I consider new legislation being
> introduced "what to do"."_

I'm watching the debate where practical political reality says every
legislative proposal, other than "study the problem", is trivially DOA due the
lobbying power of the NRA and Congress' makeup and existing obstructionist
strategy.

~~~
tossacct
This thread is how I wish all discussions were on this site. Disagreement that
is just polite enough, tons of facts on both sides, both sides with reasonable
opinions founded in reality. Thanks roc and protomyth.

------
jessedhillon
Strangely not mentioned at all, so I'll put it here: Jared Diamond is the
author of _Guns, Germs and Steel_ , his most famous work. It addresses the
question of how and why European societies were able to advance themselves so
much farther ahead of all other civilizations. There is also an excellent
four-part series streaming on Netflix.

~~~
yk
I think Collapse is better than _Guns, Germs and Steel_. It is about the end
of isolated settlements, and the path which lead them to their demise.

And I think it should be mentioned that Guns, Germs and Steel is rather
extreme in suggesting an 'geological determinism.' [1] While his arguments are
generally quite good, there is simply quite a bit more happening. A nice book
to balance this is Ian Morris, _Why the West Rules--For Now_.

[1] Jarred Diamond actually warns of this determinism fallacy, but the book
certainly left me with the impression that such a determinism exists.

~~~
anon1385
GGS is the kind of book that makes academics despair [1]. I remember a
Geography lecturer once relating how Diamond had been given honorary
membership of some geographical society or other, and was giving an acceptance
talk. It was a cause of supreme embarrassment for most of the people in the
room; Diamond didn't seem to realise that he was addressing many senior
academics who had spent most of their careers exploring why his ideas are
unsound.

[1]
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4959.2008....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4959.2008.00265.x/abstract)
(paywall)

~~~
three14
Do you have any specific criticisms in mind? That abstract implies that the
paper doesn't actually argue with anything in GGS itself. Rather,
"environmental determinism" sounds like it's a dirty word in their niche of
academia, and they need to yell at GGS because it might be contaminated.

One way to phrase the distinction is that no one really expects huge empires
in Antarctica, so everyone admits there's _some_ role to the environment. GGS
talks about more complicated effects that the environment has, without saying
anything about the outcome being deterministic. It argues that the odds were
somewhat higher of Europe invading North America than vice-versa, and doesn't
even try to quantify by how much.

~~~
upquark
With the disclaimer that I've watched the documentary and haven't read the
book, the reasoning seemed faulty and unsound to me. It was definitely too
deterministic and did not really go into non-environmental factors. For
example, it boiled down the state of development of Papua New Guinea
civilizations to the primary source of starch being palm trees vs grains, or
something to that effect. It feels like picking one contributing factor and
focusing on it at the expense of everything else.

~~~
three14
I didn't see the documentary, but the book does build a single case, but it's
mostly saying "please consider the many, many complex effects of the
environment" rather than "don't consider other things."

------
nathan_long
Yep. This is why every dollar spent on the TSA would be better spent on
preventing car accidents, heart attacks, and falls in the shower.

[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/the_comparativ...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/the_comparative.html)

But I like the OP's more practical point: personal attention to normal
activities that are actually risky, based on a realistic view of those risks.

~~~
davidroberts
Especially since the TSA actually accomplishes almost nothing in preventing
deaths. All a terrorist about to be discovered at the airport security gate
would have to do to complete his deadly mission would be to detonate his bomb
right then and there. It would cause people to fear airports and security
gates and mess up the whole system. Terrorism is all about sowing fear that
the government can't protect you. The TSA just shifts some of the risk from
the airplane to the airport. You can't security check everything in life.
Better to figure out why people want to detonate bombs in the first place and
solve that problem. But symbolic solutions are so much easier.

~~~
roc
Worse than that, the TSA nonsense encourages a non-trivial population to
_drive_ when they would have flown. Driving being far less safe, it's probable
that Security Theatre has a body count.

~~~
saraid216
The body count has been tallied quite a number of times over the last several
years. Here's a search I just ran that gives a couple:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=tsa+drive+rather+than+fly+de...](https://www.google.com/search?q=tsa+drive+rather+than+fly+deaths)

------
ef4
Speaking specifically about fall risk in older people: if you want to ensure a
high quality of life when you're older, maintain strong muscles through
exercise. This may seem like a no brainer, and yet almost nobody actually does
it.

Balance and strength are highly dependent on exercise. Even fairly old people
can maintain very good balance and strength if they don't let their muscles
deteriorate through inactivity.

Being frail in old age is not inevitable. A sedentary person after age 50
loses something like 5% of muscle mass annually. But that same person can
boost their muscle mass 20% in a single year if they just get serious about
strength training, and then slow the deterioration to 1 or 2% thereafter. Run
the numbers, it makes a dramatic difference in outcomes.

~~~
darkarmani
Just as important bone density and minimizing bone loss through resistance
training. Stressing the bones forces them to become stronger.

------
brudgers
Mortality Data on Falls from the CDC shows the increase in risk as Americans
age - and that is the direction of our demographics:

    
    
      Cause of death (based on ICD-10, 2004)        Falls (W00-W19)
      All ages                                      26,009
      Under 1 year                                  10
      1-4 years                                     24
      5-14 years                                    28
      15-24 years                                   211
      25-34 years                                   299
      35-44 years                                   493
      45-54 years                                   1,283
      55-64 years                                   2,011
      65-74 years                                   2,988
      75-84 years                                   7,249
      85 years and over                             11,412    
      Not stated                                    1
    

<http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/deaths_2010_release.pdf>

------
stcredzero
The takeaway for programmers: every time you write a statement, the odds that
you're introducing a bug are quite small, but you do this a lot, so the odds
guarantee you will introduce a bug. The guys at NASA who came to TX/RX in
Houston used to treat soldering defects as a statistical certainty. You
empirically determine your solder failure rate, count the solder joins in the
project, then look for your predicted number of failures. When they told me
this, a light went off in my head. Why don't all programmers do this?

Think of it like this: if someone paid you $100 to take 2 steps balancing on a
rail, you're certain to be able to do it. How about going 100 times as far for
$10,000 over a 1000 foot drop? As they say: Quantity has a quality all its
own.

~~~
dredmorbius
"They" in this instance was one Joseph Stalin.

~~~
Evbn
Stalin worked at TX/RX?

~~~
stcredzero
No, there's a different dictator there.

------
hammock
Nothing against New Guineans, but the notion of attributing not sleeping under
a dead tree to their specific culture is funny. It's basic risk management of
anyone who camps frequently in the backcountry. In fact many learn the 4 W's
of concern when picking a campsite- Wind/Weather, Water, Wildlife, and
Widowmakers (i.e. a falling tree branch)

~~~
GiraffeNecktie
I think you missed his point. He wasn't trying to establish that New Guineans
somehow "invented" the idea of not sleeping under a dead tree, merely that the
author wasn't personally tuned to the risks of being under trees until he
spent time with the people there. That's all.

~~~
hammock
The point is not lost, but the author does attribute it to a specific culture:

>"I first became aware of the New Guineans’ attitude toward risk on a trip
into a forest..."

>"I now think of New Guineans’ hypervigilant attitude..."

>"Traditional New Guineans have to think clearly about dangers....In contrast,
Americans’ thinking about dangers is confused."

The truth is it's a common, learned attitude of anyone who spends a lot of
time sporting in the outdoors - no matter where you live. The author himself
points out the American/European pilot and raft guide, for example.

~~~
jff
It's just another example of the "magical natives, so in tune with the natural
world" bullshit myth.

~~~
Angostura
No it's simply an example of people who live in a particular environment being
well aware of the risks associated with it.

For example, before I worked in the Peruvian rain forest I would not have
guessed that being hit by a brazil nut was one of the commonest reasons for
accidental fatalities in the forest.

~~~
andrewflnr
Good grief, do you have to wear a helmet any time you're in the forest?

~~~
Angostura
No, but the rule of thumb was never to go into the forest when there was a
storm with decent winds.

------
skittles
I see someone on a motorcycle, and I think "idiot". I've known 7 people in my
life who have had motorcycle accidents. One has had 2. He broke his neck in
one of them. A couple spilled their bike on uneven pavement. A guy I met in
college was like doctor House (dead bone in his leg causing great pain).
Another guy was thrown 60 feet when he was rear-ended by a truck. And the last
2 are a father and son. The father has brain damage that destroyed his
marriage. Go ahead and have your midlife crisis. I'll be in my car. I might
die in a horrific accident someday, but a fender bender won't turn into road-
rash and a concussion.

------
shin_lao
Author doesn't understand how statistics/probabilities work and it ruins the
article.

If you roll a dice six times, you have no guarantee to get a six. Each time
you roll the dice, you have 1/6th chance of getting a six and this doesn't
change no matter how many times you roll.

If you roll a dice six times, you have around 66,51% (1-(5/6)^6) chance of
getting six at least once.

For the same reason, if you have 1/1000th chance of dying under the shower,
and you take 5,000 showers, you won't die 5 times...

You will have 1-(999/1000)^5000 chance of dying, that 99,32%. That's not 1. So
you won't die 5 times.

~~~
sparky_z
You're apparently the one who doesn't understand how statistics/probability
works. You're correct about his chance of dying once, but there's also a
chance of dying twice, a chance of dying 3 times, etc. The expected value of
the number of times he would die is 5000(1/1000), or 5.

If you replaced "deaths" in your post with "coin flips", this becomes obvious.
I'll repeat your post with some different numbers so you can see how absurd
your argument is.

    
    
        If you have a 1/2 chance of flipping heads and you flip 10 coins, you won't get 5 heads.
    
        You will have 1-(1/2)^10 of flipping heads, that [sic] 99.902%. That's not 1. So you won't get 5 heads.
    

See how that doesn't make sense?

Now, obviously a real person can't die more than once, but if you think he was
mistaken about _that_ then his supposed error has more to do with biology than
statistics. Any reasonable reader would understand that it was just his
rhetorical way of describing a large number of independent statistical events.
If it helps, think of it as a population of 5000 equally-careless people
taking 1 shower each, not a single person taking 5000.

~~~
shin_lao
Sorry, I understand what you're trying to say, but I don't think your example
serves your point.

I don't think I mixed up expected value and probability of occurrence, if I
did please point out where.

You don't care too much about expected value because once the event occurs
(death), you can't play anymore...

If you were playing money, on the other hand, expected value would be much
more interesting.

I think probability is interesting because if you say "I'll take the shower
2,500 times instead of 5,000" you drop the probability of death to 91.8 %
(from 99.9%)...

If you say I'll die on average only 2.5 times you say nothing interesting.

~~~
RobAtticus
He actually says "I’d die or become crippled about five times before reaching
my life expectancy." Being crippled does not necessarily preclude you from
taking a shower. Therefore, if you look at his expected value of "having a
significant fall in the shower" instead of "dying in the shower", it doesn't
have the same problem of being impossible. Obviously all 5 can't be fatal
events.

------
EwanG
For those equally concerned, there are "shower chairs" that you can get that
greatly reduce the risk of falls. Since my SO had her amputation it was the
only way she could take a shower. However I've found it to be pretty
convenient as well.

------
IsaacL
One of the reasons falls are so fatal for old people is because elderly people
in our society rarely stay active. Look at cultures like the Chinese, where
you so elderly women up in the morning doing Taichi, or working out on those
weird outdoor gym sets in the rest of the day. Maintaining strength and
flexibility during old age helps mitigate damage from falls a lot.

Physical deterioration is often a self-fulfilling prophecy,

~~~
peeters
The real reason falls are so fatal for the elderly is because the victims
become immobalized, _causing_ them to become less active. After a fall, many
elderly people are bed-ridden which causes a whole host of greater health
problems which are the actual killers.

But then good health and daily activity are the best ways of preventing falls,
(along with balance training and physiotherapy, especially after a surgery or
stroke) so yes it is a cycle as you say.

I don't agree with it being primarily a cultural thing though. Daily exercise
is an individual choice. There's a guy in my new building who I see all the
time, he just walks to the end of the hall and back many times each day. Each
lap probably takes him 10 minutes. But he chooses to stay active, even in very
old age.

~~~
mfringel
Daily exercise is an individual choice, but humans are social beings. An
implicit societal framework for being physically active helps at the
margins... and the margins are pretty large.

------
symmetricsaurus
Angband(the roguelike) is an excellent teacher of the point made in the
article.

The game is quite long and if you die you have to start over from the
beginning. You can also be killed in one turn if you are unlucky and not
careful. The only way to win is to lower the risk to die at each turn
sufficiently that you can play through the 100 000 turns or so that it takes
to win.

Playing it has really given me perspective on risks in a similar way to the
author of the article. In real life you end up doing some things a lot of
times and then the risk has to be damn low.

------
eagsalazar2
Seriously showering 365 times/year is, while normal in the US, really pretty
bizarre and definitely decadent. Put on some deodorant, shower every other day
and this guy could cut down his risk massively. And save colossal amounts of
water!

Does he sweat regularly? Play sports? If not, in the winter, shower twice per
week. Doing otherwise is really falling into one of the weirdest forms of
American prissiness.

In general I shower when my wife tells me I need to. On average that means
every 2-3 days. How strange and wasteful would it be if someone washed their
car every single morning regardless of whether it was dirty or had even been
moved from the garage that day! (I work from home so the analogy frequently
works)

I know he's making a broader point about risk but if you want to get over some
crazy warped American perceptions to improve your life and the world,
obsessive showering is as good a one as getting over delusions of risk of
terrorist attacks.

~~~
peeters
> Put on some deodorant, shower every other day and this guy could cut down
> his risk massively

Yeah, if by "massively" you mean he'll only be expected to have a possibly-
fatal fall _twice_ instead of five times.

Your post is extremely ignorant. It not only offensively and incorrectly
ascribes daily showering to "prissiness" and "obsessiveness" (as if that's the
reason I shower every day, instead of, you know, wanting to smell nice, look
nice, and feel refreshed), it also claims that this is an American phenomenon
(I'm Canadian, and many/most people I know shower daily. The ones I know who
don't, smell). It also assumes all people are the same. Personally, I'd feel
pretty sorry for your wife if you smell like I do after not showering that
morning.

It's no more "bizarre" than the Japanese are bizarre for using those funky
toilets with built-in bidets. Cultures may be different. Let them be different
without judging, and without projecting.

~~~
eagsalazar2
Canadians are known to be one of the only cultures more prissy than Americans
so you entire comment is invalid.

------
timruffles
Reminds me a lot of Nassim Taleb's focus on payoff/cost (expected outcomes) vs
probability. If the possible costs are high enough, it makes a lot of sense to
take precautions. Hardly rocket science - seat-belts, hand-rails, smoking etc.

------
ajaymehta
I initially thought this was going to be about long-term health risks of
showering every day. I've heard that long hot showers are bad for the skin
and/or hair, is that true? Or might they be bad for the body in other ways?

(But good piece nonetheless, Jared Diamond is brilliant.)

------
caf
It's common knowledge in Australia that you don't pitch your tent under a
tree, alive or dead. I imagine that's because Eucalyptus trees have a habit of
dropping large limbs without warning (it's an adaptation to survive droughts).

~~~
waqf
The other reason of course is because of the drop bears.

------
bambax
> _If I’m to achieve my statistical quota of 15 more years of life, that means
> about 15 times 365, or 5,475, more showers._

Or, take fewer showers. You don't need to shower every day in winter, do you?

~~~
lutusp
> Or, take less showers.

Would that be showers taken with reduced water pressure? Or do you perhaps
mean _fewer_ showers?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_vs._less>

~~~
bambax
Yes, I meant fewer. Corrected in the post above, thanks. (I'm not a native
speaker but this is no excuse, I should have known that! ;-)

~~~
lutusp
It's been my experience that non-native speakers do a better job of paying
attention to issues of structure and coherence than native speakers. And I
can't count the number of times I've met someone whose excellent English
composition abilities were completely at odds with their place of birth.

Some might say that my going on about "less/fewer" and other similar
grammatical arcana is unfair or irrelevant. There is some merit to that
argument, but we're comfortable tearing people's computer code apart, and this
is a similar activity -- except in an emotional sense. Most people who eagerly
welcome computer code corrections bristle at grammatical corrections.

So thanks for taking my comment in good humor.

------
casca
For a more detailed description of Jared Diamond's experience with the dead
tree in New Guinea:

[http://www.edge.org/conversation/tales-from-the-world-
before...](http://www.edge.org/conversation/tales-from-the-world-before-
yesterday)

And if you're in London, consider adding yourself to the waiting list:
[http://www.thersa.org/events/our-events/the-world-until-
yest...](http://www.thersa.org/events/our-events/the-world-until-yesterday-
what-we-can-learn-from-traditional-societies)

------
jokull
Consider doing exercise that strains your bones and strengthens you in ways
that will protect you when falling. Jiu-jitus is excellent at this. You will
learn to structure your body, and creating frames with your limbs in many
potitions, and you will fall to the ground multiple times. This prepares you.

------
larrys
The NYT headline is clearly link bait. If it had simply said "Some thoughts on
everyday risks we underestimate" if would go nowhere.

That said there is a clear benefit and need to take a shower for many people
as opposed to sleeping under a tree or crossing the street in the middle for
which there is a work around.

~~~
teach
A good headline is pretty much 'link bait' by definition. If a feature writer
mistakenly wrote a terrible headline like yours, I would expect the newspaper
editor to fix it before going to press.

~~~
Evbn
Some people have a more civilized education.

------
vickytnz
This stuff particularly applies to machinery: the horror stories about people
getting hair and clothing caught in machinery or looking away for a second
when using a bandsaw are always a reminder to be careful no matter how many
times you've used the machine before.

------
dr_
The article ignores the fact that there is a variety of equipment available to
further minimize the risk of falls in the elderly - and it's the elderly that
really matter, because a fall, in their case, could very well turn out to be
life threatening. There are shower mats to increase friction. There are bars
in the shower to hold on to. There are even tub benches to sit on while
showering. I don't really expect the sort of absurd headline grabbing articles
like this from the NYTimes. I expect articles that responsibly describe the
risks and ways to mitigate them.

------
aneth4
I've always been shocked at how wealthy people fly around in small private
planes. At least once a year, I hear of a tragedy involving such a person,
often wiping out all or most of their family.

While large aircraft are extremely safe, small ones have a significant chance
of catastrophic crashes, particularly in inclement weather. While I'll fly in
small aircraft, I will never make a habit of it - eventually the number will
catch up with you.

Same goes for motorcycles. How many motorcyclists have driven for 30 years
without a serious accident? None I know.

------
tomjen3
Solution: a bathtub. I have some combination bathtub + shower so I sit down
and wash myself -- it doesn't take longer and I can fall (since I am already
at floor height.

~~~
kyberias
I can easily think that climbing in and out of a bathtub is way more risky
(wrt. falling) than merely stepping under a shower. I believe people don't
fall when they stand in the shower. They fall when they step out of it on
moist surface. Sorry if I ruined your day. :)

~~~
atdrummond
They actually make such tubs that allow one to walk in:
[http://www.luxuryhousingtrends.com/walk-in-tub-with-
massage-...](http://www.luxuryhousingtrends.com/walk-in-tub-with-massage-
jets.jpg)

------
dhughes
CBC.ca mentioned a study by Simon Fraser University in BC, Canada.

> "We show that the most common causes of falls are incorrect weight shifting
> and tripping, and the most common activities leading to falls are forward
> walking, standing quietly and sitting down,"

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/10/16/falls-
elderly...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/10/16/falls-elderly-long-
term-care.html)

------
samspot
What else should we be vigilant about besides falling? I felt the article was
a little incomplete w/o this information.

I've got one: * Lifting heavy things correctly.

------
zobzu
I like how this article is written, with good english. This is refreshing. It
might be that old people write better than we do. :)

------
taeric
Oddly, I'm not sure why one would not consider skipping the daily shower if
you had these concerns. Though, I realize that is a highly personal decision.
(Meaning that personal influences matter a lot. I've known folks who would go
without a shower for upwards of a month with nobody noticing. Others, if a day
was skipped it was obvious.)

------
stewbrew
That's why they build special showers (that are on floor level) for elderly
people. No reason to sleep under a dead tree.

~~~
patrickk
Not to mention hand rails, non-slip mats to stand on, chairs in the shower and
other risk reduction strategies.

------
eridius
Amusingly, Lonely Island's latest music video, just posted 5 days ago,
expresses pretty much this precise sentiment. It's called YOLO and is
available at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5Otla5157c>.

------
doki_pen
When I here a statistic like, your chance of falling and getting an injury in
the shower is 1 in 1000, I assume they mean over my lifetime, not each day.
There is not way in hell it's 1 in 1000 per day. I don't buy it. That said, I
get the point of the article.

------
mattmaroon
I love it when people who don't understand the concept of expected value
circle around it intuitively without quite getting there.

------
chiurox
Shouldn't this problem be hugely mitigated by putting rubber or any non-
slippery material on the shower floor?

------
Qantourisc
You mean ... you people in the US don't all have rubber anti-slip mats in the
showers ?

------
eliben
Boy, I love Jared Diamond's books. An absolute _must read_ for any hacker.

------
Irregardless
"Cause of injury: Lack of adhesive ducks." - Sheldon

I'm not sure what the takeaway from this article is supposed to be. Always be
conscious of your safety but not to the point of constant paranoia?

Isn't that basically -- dare I say it -- _common sense_?

------
known
Interesting post for senior citizens. Thanks.

------
adamio
Where can I get that snake-head shower-head?

------
abraininavat
Not discussed is how the author's hyper-vigilance impacts his life in the form
of stress. Stress kills.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its possible to be careful and unstressed. I avoid caffeine. I don't even
think about it any more; I just don't choose drinks containing caffeine.

~~~
feintruled
Not so black and white though, caffeine may have health benefits, e.g.

[http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20120607/coffee-may-
hel...](http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20120607/coffee-may-help-turn-
tide-on-alzheimers-disease)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Sure, but I get squirrly and my blood pressure goes up. So all the studies in
the world don't mean more to me than my experience.

------
abraininavat
It remains to be shown that a hypervigilant attitude has any effect whatsoever
on what you're being vigilant about, and in particular shower falls.

