Back when I worked in an office, I saw more than one coworker get carted off (heart attack) from sitting at a desk all day. These days I move around a lot and

Back when I worked in an office, I saw more than one coworker get carted off (heart attack) from sitting at a desk all day. These days I move around a lot and I regularly have to put on a harness for working at height, and I've never seen or heard of anyone actually falling into their pro, much less getting hurt from a fall. Heart disease is still the #1 killer in America, by a fair margin, and has been for many decades. Is my new job "riskier"? I'm not sure I agree or disagree with the statement, but only because I'm no longer convinced that capitalism is a viable system for allocating resources. In fact, I think this is a great argument against it. Dangerous jobs often do pay more, so people who need money will take these jobs -- even though the people who are desperate for a good paycheck are also often the least able to deal with the consequences of this risk. Financial desperation makes people ignore the long term, and people simply aren't good at understanding very-low-probability events. Dangerous jobs mean people will get hurt, which further limits their earning potential, and limits economic mobility. It's a terrible feedback loop. But then, salaries have never made much sense to me. I'm not able to look at two friends and say "Yeah, X makes 10 times as much money as Y, and deserves it". Most of the people I know doing the most worthwhile things for society are also those earning the least money.