a disposition to be reasonably careful with my life
When I read this, two images popped unbidden into my mind: 1) you wanting to walk over the not-that-stable log over the stream with the jagged rocks in it and 2) you wanting to climb out on the ledge at Benton House to get the ball. I suppose one person’s “reasonably careful” is another person’s “needlessly risky.”
This comment inspired me to draft a post about how much quantum measure is lost doing various things, so that people can more easily see whether or not a certain activity (like driving to the store for food once a week instead of having it delivered) is ‘worth it’.
Ha, good times. :) But being careful with one’s life and being careful with one’s limb are too very different things. I may be stupid, but I’m not stupid.
Unless you’re wearing a helmet, moderate falls that 99+% of the time just result in a few sprains/breaks, may <1% of the time give permanent brain damage (mostly I’m thinking of hard objects’ edges striking the head). Maybe my estimation is skewed by fictional evidence.
So a 1 in a 100 chance of falling and a roughly 1 in a 1,000 chance of brain damage conditional on that (I’d be really surprised if it was higher than that; biased reporting and what not) is about a 1 in 100,000 chance of severe brain damage. I have put myself in such situations roughly… 10 times in my life. I think car accidents when constantly driving between SFO and Silicon Valley are a more likely cause of death, but I don’t have the statistics on hand.
When I read this, two images popped unbidden into my mind: 1) you wanting to walk over the not-that-stable log over the stream with the jagged rocks in it and 2) you wanting to climb out on the ledge at Benton House to get the ball. I suppose one person’s “reasonably careful” is another person’s “needlessly risky.”
This comment inspired me to draft a post about how much quantum measure is lost doing various things, so that people can more easily see whether or not a certain activity (like driving to the store for food once a week instead of having it delivered) is ‘worth it’.
Ha, good times. :) But being careful with one’s life and being careful with one’s limb are too very different things. I may be stupid, but I’m not stupid.
Unless you’re wearing a helmet, moderate falls that 99+% of the time just result in a few sprains/breaks, may <1% of the time give permanent brain damage (mostly I’m thinking of hard objects’ edges striking the head). Maybe my estimation is skewed by fictional evidence.
So a 1 in a 100 chance of falling and a roughly 1 in a 1,000 chance of brain damage conditional on that (I’d be really surprised if it was higher than that; biased reporting and what not) is about a 1 in 100,000 chance of severe brain damage. I have put myself in such situations roughly… 10 times in my life. I think car accidents when constantly driving between SFO and Silicon Valley are a more likely cause of death, but I don’t have the statistics on hand.
Good point about car risks. Sadly, I was considerably less cautious when I was younger—when I had more to lose. I imagine this is often the case.