#improbable events

From: Mac and Laura

Sent: 25 March, 2010

Never been to LA? Well, if you're anything like me, holy geez doesn't this postcard make you want to go?!  What other place is so cool that a pitched battle between airships, biplanes, helicopters, and comically large house cats doesn't even make a ripple in the news?  Yup, clearly it's all happening in LA, and this postcard I got is dine-O-mite!

“We fear being murdered, kidnapped, raped and assaulted by strangers, when it’s far more likely that the perpetrator of such offenses is a relative or a friend.”“We worry about airplane crashes and rampaging shooters instead of automobile crashes and domestic violence — both far more common.” “In the United States, dogs, snakes, bees and pigs each kill more people per year (.pdf) than sharks. In fact, dogs kill more humans than any animal except for other humans. Any given shark is more dangerous than any given dog, yes, but we’re far more likely to encounter dogs than sharks.” I thought this comment on “news” was particurlarly interesting: I tell people that if it’s in the news, don’t worry about it. The very definition of “news” is “something that hardly ever happens.” It’s when something isn’t in the news, when it’s so common that it’s no longer news — car crashes, domestic violence — that you should start worrying.

Amplify’d from takethu.com

Poor Risk Assessment for Improbable Events

Posted in News May 17, 2007 8:13 pm

From Wired: Virginia Tech Lesson: Rare Risks Breed Irrational Responses

The article discusses how our brains are not very good about judging the probability of rare yet horrible events, and consequently overreacting to them.

Here are some interesting tidbits:

“We fear being murdered, kidnapped, raped and assaulted by strangers, when it’s far more likely that the perpetrator of such offenses is a relative or a friend.”

“We worry about airplane crashes and rampaging shooters instead of automobile crashes and domestic violence — both far more common.”

“In the United States, dogs, snakes, bees and pigs each kill more people per year (.pdf) than sharks. In fact, dogs kill more humans than any animal except for other humans. Any given shark is more dangerous than any given dog, yes, but we’re far more likely to encounter dogs than sharks.”

I thought this comment on “news” was particurlarly interesting:

I tell people that if it’s in the news, don’t worry about it. The very definition of “news” is “something that hardly ever happens.” It’s when something isn’t in the news, when it’s so common that it’s no longer news — car crashes, domestic violence — that you should start worrying.

Read more at takethu.com