
The Risk of Dying Doing What We Love - louis-paul
https://chessintheair.com/the-risk-of-dying-doing-what-we-love/
======
ijpoijpoihpiuoh
An important and oft-ignored aspect of participating in certain activities!
Even this doesn't capture everything. I am also very concerned about the
possibility of being maimed by my chosen activities.

For example, open water swimming seems pretty dangerous, but the outcomes are
(I would suppose) pretty binary. At the end you're either alive or you're
drowned. I suppose that, rarely, someone almost drowns and is left partly
brain damaged. But I think most of the time it's on or it's off. Motorcycling,
on the other hand, probably maims far more people than it kills. So that makes
it relatively more dangerous per hour!

But then you have to adjust by your risk factors. I am an extremely cautious
driver. I stay in the right lane, I follow the speed limit, I try to avoid
merging, and I check my mirrors. I do these things because, although I have
spent a lot of time behind the wheel, I don't trust my fallible human
perception and reflexes to take on riskier habits. I suspect, just based on
the frequency with which I get into collisions compared to other people I
know, that I'm safer than average. If I brought my driving attitude to
motorcycling, it seems reasonable to believe that I'd be at much lower risk
than the typical, weaving-in-and-out-of-traffic sport-bike rider. But how much
so? Nobody has done any study that will help me guess. So, for now, I avoid
it, and find fun in things that are less likely to leave me paralyzed.

Anyway, just some things that bumble through my head when I think about
activity risk.

~~~
japhyr
> If I brought my driving attitude to motorcycling, it seems reasonable to
> believe that I'd be at much lower risk than the typical, weaving-in-and-out-
> of-traffic sport-bike rider.

With motorcycling, there are a number of factors that significantly reduce the
risk of a significant injury or fatality:

\- overall experience as a rider \- high-visibility clothing \- professional
training (ie a safety course) \- age

When I started riding someone told me that most accidents happen in the first
six months of riding. I don't know if that particular number is accurate, but
that idea made me hyper-vigilant those first months of riding, and I sure
learned a lot in that time.

I moved to Alaska in my 30s and sold my motorcycle, but I sure do miss it at
times.

~~~
foxyv
I was watching a video by Trent Palmer talking about his friend who had
crashed his plane. It really opened my eyes when he answered one question
about who the most dangerous pilot was, complacent experienced pilots or low
hours pilots. Pretty much he said "I am always the most dangerous pilot."

We try to rationalize why we are the "Safe" ones because we can't imagine
getting hurt because we are different. The thing is, we aren't different. We
can all make the mistakes or be sleepy and we can't relax our vigilance when
we're engaging in these high risk activities. (Flying a plane, riding a
motorcycle, driving a car, riding a bike...)

We always have to look for better training, equipment, infrastructure, and
technology.

~~~
perl4ever
If everybody thinks they are above average, half of them are wrong, but half
are right.

I pay about 60% less than average for my car insurance, it appears.

------
franciscop
As explained in the article, there's no _perfect_ measure for this. Hour of
activity is very relative, but I agree that it's probably the safer bet.

In contrast, the only other remotely decent timeframe I could think is per-day
of activity since that'd account for a more down-to-earth top of the head
calculation. I'd be interested in e.g. what is the probability of dying on 1
day of skiing (3-4h) vs 1 day of skydiving (1 jump).

~~~
lb1lf
-While I agree with your point, I'd just like to chime in that skydivers tend to do several jumps in a day.

I tend to spend a few days at a skydiving hotspot every summer - not to do any
jumping myself, if the plane works I'm perfectly happy just staying in my
seat, thank you very much - but the kids love to watch, and it is one of few
places with a huge playground where I can just let my kids roam free and not
be worried about them at all.

Anyway - the Cessna Caravan managed 3-4 cycles/hour, and from what I could
tell, there were approx. 20-25 people jumping that day - so, every other trip
you got to jump, for perhaps a dozen jumps in a day for the most eager ones.

~~~
eunoia
A half dozen jumps in a day is pretty long day of skydiving although you can
certainly do more if you're committed. (and helps if you have someone else
packing your chute)

Anecdotally I've met old timers with over 10k total jumps.

Edit with some more info: Most common plane we jumped (in CO) was a DHC-6 Twin
Otter that seated about 25. That thing was turning non stop every day. Biggest
plane I've ever jumped was a DC-3/C-47 in AZ that seated somewhere around 50
and took two passes over the DZ to get everyone out.

------
gibspaulding
Wow.

I do a little bit of cycling on the road, but generally avoid it because I
don't trust motorists. I do a lot more mountain biking, including some lift
accessed downhill riding.

I've never thought of mountain biking, even downhill, as excessively
dangerous, but according to his chart, those lift days this summer were
something like 36 times as dangerous as road riding.

I think I'm just a lot more comfortable with the risk of dying because I
screwed up, rather than because someone else did.

~~~
antisthenes
Again, it's not a perfect measure.

Where I live, there are options to either cycle on a park path or on the road
with car drivers. The death risks are completely different for those modes.

When on the road, your primary cause of death will be an accident with a
motorist.

When on the bike path, it'll likely be heart failure.

------
embwbam
The climbing is all bunched together! I want to know if it’s mountaineering,
alpine Trad climbing, or all climbing that is causing that Tetons figure.

EDIT: I read the source. Looks like mostly mountaineering/unroped accidents.
Now I can delude myself again! Use protection!

“TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE ROUTES Most climbers were hurt during climbs of
lesser difficulty. (Table 3). The category of 5.1 to 5.3 yielded the highest
number of accidents, injuries, and fatalities.

CLIMBING EXPERIENCE OF INJURED CLIMBERS Climbers with less experience appeared
to be more frequently involved in accidents than were those with more
experience. (It was possible to precisely determine the experience of the
climbers in only about 50% of the accidents.) Of those climbers whose
experience levels were known, 50% either had no previous climbing experience
or less than one year of experience.

...

The errors observed in the rock climbing accidents fell into two categories:
seven cases of obvious lack of needed protection, and four cases where a rope
should have been used but was not available. In contrast to other climbing
areas, little intentional free solo (unroped) climbing was attempted in the
Tetons during this study”

~~~
Fricken
It's funny, the world of high end extreme alpinism has lost several of it's
very best climbers the past 3 years. Uli Steck, Marc Andre LeClerc, David Lama
and Hansjorg Auer all specialized in unroped climbing in extreme Alpine
terrain. Yet it wasn't falls that killed them, they were all killed by falling
snow and ice.

~~~
cbsks
Ueli Steck was killed by a fall when climbing alone. We don't know what caused
the fall. [https://www.outsideonline.com/2188941/last-days-ueli-
steck](https://www.outsideonline.com/2188941/last-days-ueli-steck)

~~~
Fricken
I thought he was killed by a collapsing serac, I'm not even sure how the idea
got into my head.

------
MandieD
That’s exactly the fib I’ve been telling myself about my husband's gliding
hobby: “Less dangerous than the drive to the airfield and far safer than a
motorcycle!”

But I’ll never ask him to stop - it makes him too happy.

Didn’t realize how incredibly safe my own bit of winter danger (downhill
skiing, in bounds) was... even a bit safer than my summer hobby: cycling.

------
Robotbeat
If we go by number of people-hours in space, then spaceflight is pretty
safe... 150 years of human life in space, and 17 deaths in orbital
spaceflight... mean time of 8 years between deaths, safer than general
aviation (7 years)...

Russian/Soviet spaceflight is particularly safe (about 20 years mean time
between deaths), especially if you exclude the first dozen or so years (no
orbital spaceflight deaths have occurred for the Soviets or Russians past
1971), making it about as safe as biking or driving (so long as you use a
Soyuz for launch and reentry).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records#To...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records#Total_human_spaceflight_time_by_country)

~~~
ijpoijpoihpiuoh
I would guess that if you broke it down, _being_ in space is quite safe, but
_getting to_ space is extremely dangerous. This matches intuition, since in
the former case you are just floating in freefall, but in the latter case you
are seated atop a metal tube filled with explosive chemicals travelling at
absurd speeds through an atmosphere.

~~~
Robotbeat
Very true. Of course, passenger aviation is really pretty similar... you're
inside a pressurized metal tube (with relatively small factors of safety)
surrounded by explosive chemicals traveling nearly the speed of sound (absurd
by ordinary standards), yet it's far safer than any mode of transport, even
per hour. Engineering is pretty crazy. If there's strong enough incentive to
make an activity absurdly safe, we can do so, even if the performance
requirements are also very stringent.

------
esotericn
Life without risk is not life. It's almost a law of physics that anything
interesting requires risk - whether it be to limb, financial, social, mental,
or whatever else. If you don't put yourself out there in _some_ way, boredom
and depression are probably inevitable

Anyone in a position of safety intimately knows this. The retired die early.
Trust fund kids spiral into depression if they have nothing to strive for. We
all know that boring "job for life" guy who's been doing the same thing inside
and outside of work for 20 years.

Damn I miss my bike. See, the risk of dying on a motorbike is quite high. The
risk of having it stolen is higher still. ;)

~~~
ijpoijpoihpiuoh
Hrm, I don't really agree. There are a lot of very interesting things that are
not very risky. Most productive activities are not very risky (art,
woodworking, home improvement, etc.), and are very interesting to some of us.
Sex is another example of something a lot of people like which carries little
risk of harm.

I don't think there is good evidence beyond anecdata that the retired die
early or that trust fund kids are depressed.

~~~
esotericn
Sex carries 'little risk of harm'? Do we live in the same world?

I think your definition of risk is rather narrow.

Going out, finding a wife, grinding at a job, taking a mortgage, starting a
company, not starting a company - all risk.

You might be able to claim that physical risks are harsher and less expected,
but getting a mortgage, having children, getting married, a lot of the good
stuff in life entails risk because you're making commitments that are
extremely difficult or impossible to walk back if you don't want them any
more.

~~~
ijpoijpoihpiuoh
I think you're focusing a little too much on that one example, but let me
engage with you on this regardless. Even after a person has taken all those
risks and they are sunk costs, the activity itself is still enjoyable,
interesting, etc., even though it entails minimal _marginal_ or _excess_ risk.
Similarly, hugging your kids is an enjoyable thing to do, and not at all
risky. Having kids is risky, but once you have them, hugging them is risk free
and still fun.

I also don't really find these things to be all that risky above the baseline.
They certainly don't pose much risk of physical harm. To your point, they do
pose some risk of psychological or financial harm, but the same can be said of
the choice to not have a child or not take out a mortgage. There are plenty of
happy childless people, but also a not inconsiderable number that wish they
could have had children and regret that they did not. Same can be said for
people who rented rather than bought. Either way, the choice is risky, and you
can't opt out of the choice.

The same cannot be said for climbing a steep rock wall or riding a motorcycle.
These choices impose excess risk above and beyond the baseline that comes from
living in a material world. It was my understanding that this excess risk is
what you were referring to when you claimed that enjoyment requires risk. If
that's not what you meant, then I apologize, but I'm also not sure what you
are actually trying to convey, since this article is mostly about excess risk.

\----

I can't reply to you, so I'm editing this comment instead.

> I disagree with your characterization of physical risk as being 'excess
> risk'

Ah, it is understandable for you to disagree, considering that is not what I
meant. :) Excess risk is risk you take above and beyond a baseline required
for a particular context. If I need to get from the bottom of a tower to the
top, the risk imposed by taking the elevator might be considered the baseline
risk. Suppose I decide to scale the exterior surface instead. To the extent
that activity is riskier than the baseline, that is excess risk.

This does not only apply to physical situations. Social, economic, etc. risk
can also be analyzed in terms of excess risk. For example, you earlier
mentioned the decision to marry or not. There is social risk in either choice.
Probably, which choice is riskier depends on your own psychological makeup and
your social context. But there are probably choices that are absolutely
riskier in your given society. For example, in most modern societies, entering
into multiple social marriages at the same time would impose excess social
risk. For more see:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_difference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_difference)

~~~
esotericn
I disagree with your characterization of physical risk as being 'excess risk'
(where other forms of risk are not), but I can't/won't elaborate on why,
because I think it's just a personal opinion formed through experience.

------
rozim
One thing left out that I have in my past is whitewater kayaking and I've
always wondered how safe it is statistically as there are always horrible
drowning stories...

------
hwj
This chart is probably the most interesting part:

[https://i0.wp.com/chessintheair.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/...](https://i0.wp.com/chessintheair.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/10/The-Risk-of-Dying-Doing-What-We-Love-1.png)

~~~
pintxo
Taking date from 1950 till today for Formula 1 seems to bit a bit biased
towards earlier, less safe times.

------
Fishkins
Many of these activities involve exercise, which means they'll significantly
_decrease_ your risk of premature death compared to a "safe" sedentary
activity. Just something to keep in mind when thinking about risks.

Here's a rough analysis for cycling:
[https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/06/13/bicycling-the-
saf...](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/06/13/bicycling-the-safest-form-
of-transportation/)

~~~
lostmsu
That is a very bad analysis. The neg effect of driving car severely
overstated. The effect of riding bicicle not only severely overstated: it is
assumed, that it is linear, where results likely quickly diminish.

UPD. Read more of the article. He is wrong in so many places I stopped
counting.

~~~
Fishkins
> The effect of riding bicicle not only severely overstated: it is assumed,
> that it is linear, where results likely quickly diminish.

It's rough envelope math, but gist of the reasoning is correct. He also
explicitly addresses your point on linearity.

> *Obviously, the life-extending benefits of exercise have limits, otherwise
> we could all live forever just by exercising enough to extend our lives by
> at least 24 hours each day. If you dig deeper into the linked articles and
> studies, you’ll find that the limit is somewhere in the 1-2 hours per day
> range, depending on exercise intensity (cycling is pretty low intensity, so
> let’s say two hours to max out the benefits). > > I don’t know about you,
> but even as a retired person with a bike, I still don’t always get 2 hours
> of exercise every day. For the average modern citizen, the stats tell us
> that the average level is far, far lower – many people get ZERO exercise
> beyond walking between the car, office, fridge, and couch. Maybe a visit to
> the gym or yoga a few times a week. For the average person, getting up to an
> hour a day will deliver spectacular benefits, and when you rule out “car
> clown” behavior (using a car for any trips less than 2-3 miles), it happens
> automatically. > > Your situation might be different, but remember the
> intent of this blog is to change the behavior of a big swath of smarter-
> than-average people stuck in average situations. So I stand by the general
> accuracy of this part of the argument.

------
djohnston
Another measurement could look at downstream effects. I expect boxing and
American football have low in-game mortality, but CTE evidence is pretty
damning for cascading effects down the line

------
dsfyu404ed
These numbers are all per man-hour instead of per trip. That's not good or bad
but it definitely biases things toward making slower activities look safer.
One hour of base jumping is on the order of jumping every weekend for 2-3yr
(assuming 30sec from jump to ground).

~~~
japhyr
With base jumping, you really need to separate out general base jumping from
proximity flying.

For anyone unfamiliar with the sport, base jumping implies jumping off of
something and then deploying a chute. This may or may not involve a wingsuit.
Proximity flying involves jumping off of something in a wingsuit, and then
flying closely along a mountain or other terrain for a while before deploying
a chute.

Proximity flying has an insanely high fatality rate, because people tend to
push their limits and at some point there is just no room for a mistake.

------
el_don_almighty
Not dying is not an option... we risk dying not doing what we love

