If you believed you had a very high probability of death soon, then that knocks one of the basic assumptions of this potential-rule-of-thumb out from under it, rendering it much less relevant for that particular situation...
… but as one potential answer for your question—how about taking the time to wrap up your conversations with loved ones in a way that you feel would be suitable as your potential last words with them?
If you believed you had a very high probability of death soon, then that knocks one of the basic assumptions of this potential-rule-of-thumb out from under it
You’re right, I should rephrase. What are things you actually do or might do, at your current estimated probability of death within 24 hours, to prepare for death, that fit in 30 seconds daily?
For me the answer is: none. If that is your answer is well, then your rule of thumb is telling you to ignore entirely sufficiently improbable things, on the order of 30/1000000 est. probability or less. Was that your entire intention in proposing this rule?
It’s not my /entire/ intention, as it’s possible to group enough individual unlikely items together to collect enough probability-mass to pass that threshold. But it’s definitely a significant part of it. The classic example seems to be lottery tickets; if the odds of winning a significant prize are roughly 0.5 out of 1 million, then I can gauge that however much time I’ve spent dealing with my death for the next day, it makes sense to spend 1/60th of that amount of time dealing with that ticket—which could easily mean that I wouldn’t even have time to pull out my wallet before my time becomes better spent dealing with near-immediate death instead.
If you believed you had a very high probability of death soon, then that knocks one of the basic assumptions of this potential-rule-of-thumb out from under it, rendering it much less relevant for that particular situation...
… but as one potential answer for your question—how about taking the time to wrap up your conversations with loved ones in a way that you feel would be suitable as your potential last words with them?
You’re right, I should rephrase. What are things you actually do or might do, at your current estimated probability of death within 24 hours, to prepare for death, that fit in 30 seconds daily?
For me the answer is: none. If that is your answer is well, then your rule of thumb is telling you to ignore entirely sufficiently improbable things, on the order of 30/1000000 est. probability or less. Was that your entire intention in proposing this rule?
It’s not my /entire/ intention, as it’s possible to group enough individual unlikely items together to collect enough probability-mass to pass that threshold. But it’s definitely a significant part of it. The classic example seems to be lottery tickets; if the odds of winning a significant prize are roughly 0.5 out of 1 million, then I can gauge that however much time I’ve spent dealing with my death for the next day, it makes sense to spend 1/60th of that amount of time dealing with that ticket—which could easily mean that I wouldn’t even have time to pull out my wallet before my time becomes better spent dealing with near-immediate death instead.