micromort

LiptonCambell: A micromort is a unit of measurement to measure the probability of death. These are based on averages.

The interesting thing to note is, studies have shown that the average person does not consider themselves...average...That an average person believes they will live a longer and healthy life than the average person. We over-estimate that bad things will happen to others, and under-estimate that bad things will happen to us. It seems it's perfectly natural for people to miscalculate risk. We are more responsive to risks that a personal, erratic, dramatic, and exotic than we are to risks that are more likely.

In K.C. Cole's book, "The Universe and the Teacup", they presented a thought experiment where cigarettes are harmless, but 1 cigarette pack out of every 18,750 contains, rather than tobacco, has it laced with dynamite. When lit, it would explode the persons head.

This would cause peoples heads to exploding all the time, everyday- but there would be no more people dying, than if the cigarettes are as they are now.

micromorts, as mentioned earlier, gauges a persons likelihood to die, based on historical data and hard facts. Each event is given a rating of a micromort to represent how likely the event will cause your death. It isn't flawless- for example, no one has died from traveling to the moon- so the moon has a rating of 0 micromorts- but it's fairly accurate in revealing the likelihood of everyday dangers that people tend to think are unlikely.

A few quick examples- keep in mind these things can add up- so if you drink 0.5 litres of wine in your life, it'll be 1 micromort- if you drink 1 litre, it'll be 2 micromorts

(continued below- ran outta space, so here's some sources/videos)





en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Equivalent_Dose

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microlife

LiptonCambell:
The following would give you 1 micromort each, which amounts to a 1 in 1 million probability of dying;

Drinking 0.5 liter of wine
Smoking 1.4 cigarettes
Spending 1 hour in a coal mine(black lung disease)
Spending 3 hours in a coal mine(accident)
Living 2 days in New York or Boston in 1979
Living 2 months with a smoker
Drinking Miami water for 1 year
Eating 100 charcoal-broiled steaks
Eating 40 tablespoons of peanut butter
Eating 1000 bananas
Travelling 6 miles by motorbike or canoe
Travelling 17 miles by walking
Travelling 10 miles by bicycle
Travelling 230 miles by car
Travelling 6000 miles by train
Travelling 1000 miles by jet (accident)
Travelling 6000 miles by jet (cancer due to increased background radiation)
Travelling 12,000 miles by jet in the United States (terrorism)

If you're a fan of Hang gliding, you'll receive 8 micromorts per trip -Scuba diving nets you 4.72 micromorts per dive,
Skydiving (in the US) is 7 micromorts per jump, Horse-riding is 0.5 micromorts - a hit of Ecstasy is 0.5 micromorts
and Skiing (1 day) is 0.5 micromorts. Not waking up from general Anesthesia is 5 micromorts, and giving birth is around
170 micromorts(in the US...all these are in the US), 100 micromort for death by falling

some of the most dangerous things you can do include climbing Alaska mt Denali would score you 3080 micromorts, or climbing Everest will get you 10,000 micromorts

Now, not all of these are all that significant- to eat enough Bananas to guarantee your death, for example, to reach 100% likelihood that Bananas would
kill you(from the radiation absorbed from eating a Banana), you would have to eat 2 Bananas a day, for over 137 years. You're more likely to die from an airplane falling on you(0.6 micromorts) than
you are to die from a hurricane, at 0.4 micromorts(although these odds change depending on where you live)- and death by lightning strike is 0.02 micromorts, while shark attacks is 0.002 micromorts- meaning you
have a ten times as many risk from lightning strikes than from sharks- the combined risk is equal to that of going on a single, 1 mile bike ride.

But it's not all bad- to counter this, people have developed a concept such as "microlife"- an activity that off-sets your likelihood of death. Its not directly the same, since a single microlife is associated with 30 minutes
of additional life, not a probability of continued existence, but still. Some examples of a positive microlife is having 5 servings of fruits and vegetables being worth 5 microlifes, or 2 1/2 ours of additional
life, or your first drink if alcohol(10g grain alcohol) being worth 1 microlife, while each additional(up to 6
) is worth -0.5 microlife

smaccaroni: Jeez, just traveling I should be dead by now, once flew form USSA to Hong Kong, over 12,000 miles, and rode bike to work once, 15 miles in one direction and dirve to Virginia( 3 or 4 times a year) one way is over 275 miles...