would you sign up for something where there's, quite possibly, a 3% chance you get killed? Or a 12% chance of a life-altering injury (assuming 5x frequency of f

would you sign up for something where there's, quite possibly, a 3% chance you get killed? Or a 12% chance of a life-altering injury (assuming 5x frequency of fatality)? Yes. Absolutely. Nothing is zero risk. And just because you can quantify the risk doesn't mean I won't still do something. The chance of my death is 100%. While I'm not going to tightrope walk across sky-scrapers, I'm not gonna sit at home eating funyuns in front of the TV forever either. Humans are really really bad at assessing risk. Perceived risk and actual risk are wildly different. And even when risk is assessed, we're doubly bad at dealing with the risk. We react differently based on the source of that risk (terrorism against an industrial system and an accident that takes it offline could have the same impact on operations). And we have less that zero ability to determine acceptable levels of risk. One day a 5% chance of X might seem like a lucky world to live in. Add in two months of media scaremongering and suddenly 5% is unacceptable. Politicians start a "War on X" and PSAs start rolling telling you not to engage in behaviors that might cause X. They'll use the phrase "don't be a statistic" as if you're any less quantified in the 95% than the 5%. It would be silly to suggest there isn't a baseline level of risk we have to be comfortable with as part of life. Take the murder rate for example. We could get it down to near-zero. But the intrusive policing and restrictive policy necessary might mean it's a net negative to society.