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Your child could have slipped when getting off a train and permanently injured themselves, or in any other number of ways. Low probability high severity events

Your child could have slipped when getting off a train and permanently injured themselves, or in any other number of ways. Low probability high severity events trigger a cognitive bias that makes people attempt to make things '100% safe'. There are two problems with that. 1: nothing can ever be made 100% safe so those low probability high impact events still happen from time to time. 2: making things safe hits a steep diminishing returns curve after some point, and the opportunity cost of creating said safety level starts to outweigh the benefits of not creating it.

dragontamer 7y ago
> Your child could have slipped when getting off a train and permanently injured themselves, or in any other number of ways. But thanks to our laws, we don't have to worry about playground sets. Low probability / high impact events are a fact of life and are a valid cause for regulations. Worker safety laws in the early 1900s were such that people more regularly lost fingers or even limbs in heavy machinery. It still happens today, but safety programs and safety regulations have made such events far less likely.
- Joof 7y ago
  But it also means that we're neutering some really important mechanisms of human development. It seems very costly to squeeze out those teensy little bits of extra safety.
- loup-vaillant 7y ago
  There's a difference between playgrounds and work environments: as far as I am aware, workers aren't any more miserable in safer work environment. Children in "safer" playgrounds, are. The value of life is not infinite. It is perfectly reasonable to sacrifice a few to improve the conditions of the many. Funnier, riskier playgrounds do exactly that. That said, the article stated the "safer" playground engendered more injuries, mostly because bored kids were taking inconsiderate risks. The more dangerous playgrounds actually looked more dangerous, and the kids in them ended up taking less serious risks. There's a good chance that more "dangerous" playgrounds are a one sided win. They could be better than the "safe" ones even if you disagree with my first two paragraphs.
  - TomMarius 7y ago
    > The value of life is not infinite. The whole western civilization is standing on the assumption that it is.
    - maxerickson 7y ago
      This is observably not the case, in all sorts of situations. Violence, vehicles, medicine, pollution, etc, etc, etc. Of course we've gotten to a place where we spend lots of dollars preventing 1 statistical death, but not even tens of millions most of the time.
      - TomMarius 7y ago
        I don't see how it's observably not the case when my mother is working in a hospital where people are kept alive for decades just for the slight chance that medicine might evolve enough to cure them or they just wake up one day; when they are spending extraordinary amounts of money and time of dozens of researchers and doctors on experimental treatments, etc. I don't understand how vehicles or pollution change anything. I never said there are no bad actors, there are in every civilization, and there are compromises you need to make but that doesn't mean you would not do anything to save someone. Awareness about pollution and its effects is just starting to exist. We didn't think it's bad a few decades ago.
    - TheDong 7y ago
      The concept of a micromort [0] argues that people often to put a value on their life, at least probabilisticly. Valueing life is also not unique to western civilization. Yes, it values individualism highly, but confucian values are also highly concerned with humaneness and the value of life. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort
    - scarejunba 7y ago
      Assume this is true. The NHS is in the UK and run by the government. The NHS has a maximum spend on a single person. The UK is part of Western Civilization. Therefore it rests on the assumption that life has infinite value. Therefore, the UK will spend infinite money to ensure a person lives. A contradiction.
- InitialLastName 7y ago
  > Worker safety laws in the early 1900s were such that people more regularly lost fingers or even limbs in heavy machinery. If it's regularly happening, it isn't a "low probability" event.
loup-vaillant 7y ago
To put it bluntly, the increased happiness of millions of children is worth a couple children's health, or even lives. That's a tough sell, but that sounds reasonable (well, I can talk, I don't have children). This is basically the same reasoning Yudkowsky presented with his dust speck vs torture argument argument: a sufficiently widespread benefit, however small, will outweigh a sufficiently improbable horrible event.
- souprock 7y ago
  Well, I have a dozen kids, and I agree. Of course, part of the reason for so many kids is to minimize the percentage of my family that would be lost if one did die. My wife's uncle had the postcard family, one boy and one girl in a cute little city house with a picket fence. The daughter died, and the father completely fell apart. He lost 100% of his daughters. It is too late for him to create a replacement. Most families today are tiny. I think this has affected our perception of loss. The risk of 100% loss has become so great that people can't allow the risk of traditional play.
  - justinator 7y ago
    Of course, part of the reason for so many kids is to minimize the percentage of my family that would be lost if one did die. I think I just read the most insane sentence I'll read all year.
    - bad_good_guy 7y ago
      How is it insane when this is the historic reason behind large families?
      - justinator 7y ago
        I'm not touching, "but it's historical!", because that's a problematic idea in of itself. Lots of things are, "historical", but don't make sense in the modern world. Say you had two kids, and you lost both. One way to think of it is your lost all the children you ever had. Fine. Say you had a DOZEN kids, and you lost six of them. Same thinking as above, you've lost half the children you ever had. Ok, but you still lost six kids!. Six kids have to go through life knowing they have lost six siblings. Having that somehow be better is pure insanity. Or at the very least the utmost self-centered thing I've ever heard of - you're hoping that the loss off 6 out of 12 kids is somewhat less of an impact on yourself when compared to losing two kids? These are human beings, not cupcakes you're bringing to a picnic. If you brought two cupcakes, and hoping to have one yourself, but both were eaten before you could have your own cupcake, that stinks - but you're just out of a cupcake. Then yeah: bring a dozen cupcakes to share, and have yourself your own cupcake.
craftinator 7y ago
Another thought that adds to this viewpoint: slightly more dangerous playgrounds teach kids how to play more safely, and they grow into adults who also know how to play responsibly. Kids who never get a chance to develop good balance (with the immediate feedback of bruises and scrapes) will not be as good at avoiding falls and other physical dangers as those who have good balance. They also won't know their own physical limits, and won't know which activities are too dangerous.
- lutorm 7y ago
  That's exactly the point. It's not that playgrounds should be more dangerous for the heck of it, or just because kids think it's more fun that way. It's because learning to deal with danger is an essential life skill and we are now depriving our kids of it.
- fjsolwmv 7y ago
  The discussion is about quadriplegia, not scrapes and bruises.
  - craftinator 7y ago
    The discussion began on the topic of playgrounds and safety. All people have the risk of injury and death at all times. Some types of injury are not severe and have few lasting consequences, others are of the converse type. Paralysis is incredibly uncommon when compared to scrapes and bruises, which is why I brought up that subtopic.

dragontamer 7y ago

> Your child could have slipped when getting off a train and permanently injured themselves, or in any other number of ways. But thanks to our laws, we don't have to worry about playground sets. Low probability / high impact events are a fact of life and are a valid cause for regulations. Worker safety laws in the early 1900s were such that people more regularly lost fingers or even limbs in heavy machinery. It still happens today, but safety programs and safety regulations have made such events far less likely.

Joof 7y ago
But it also means that we're neutering some really important mechanisms of human development. It seems very costly to squeeze out those teensy little bits of extra safety.
loup-vaillant 7y ago
There's a difference between playgrounds and work environments: as far as I am aware, workers aren't any more miserable in safer work environment. Children in "safer" playgrounds, are. The value of life is not infinite. It is perfectly reasonable to sacrifice a few to improve the conditions of the many. Funnier, riskier playgrounds do exactly that. That said, the article stated the "safer" playground engendered more injuries, mostly because bored kids were taking inconsiderate risks. The more dangerous playgrounds actually looked more dangerous, and the kids in them ended up taking less serious risks. There's a good chance that more "dangerous" playgrounds are a one sided win. They could be better than the "safe" ones even if you disagree with my first two paragraphs.
- TomMarius 7y ago
  > The value of life is not infinite. The whole western civilization is standing on the assumption that it is.
  - maxerickson 7y ago
    This is observably not the case, in all sorts of situations. Violence, vehicles, medicine, pollution, etc, etc, etc. Of course we've gotten to a place where we spend lots of dollars preventing 1 statistical death, but not even tens of millions most of the time.
    - TomMarius 7y ago
      I don't see how it's observably not the case when my mother is working in a hospital where people are kept alive for decades just for the slight chance that medicine might evolve enough to cure them or they just wake up one day; when they are spending extraordinary amounts of money and time of dozens of researchers and doctors on experimental treatments, etc. I don't understand how vehicles or pollution change anything. I never said there are no bad actors, there are in every civilization, and there are compromises you need to make but that doesn't mean you would not do anything to save someone. Awareness about pollution and its effects is just starting to exist. We didn't think it's bad a few decades ago.
  - TheDong 7y ago
    The concept of a micromort [0] argues that people often to put a value on their life, at least probabilisticly. Valueing life is also not unique to western civilization. Yes, it values individualism highly, but confucian values are also highly concerned with humaneness and the value of life. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort
  - scarejunba 7y ago
    Assume this is true. The NHS is in the UK and run by the government. The NHS has a maximum spend on a single person. The UK is part of Western Civilization. Therefore it rests on the assumption that life has infinite value. Therefore, the UK will spend infinite money to ensure a person lives. A contradiction.
InitialLastName 7y ago
> Worker safety laws in the early 1900s were such that people more regularly lost fingers or even limbs in heavy machinery. If it's regularly happening, it isn't a "low probability" event.

loup-vaillant 7y ago

To put it bluntly, the increased happiness of millions of children is worth a couple children's health, or even lives. That's a tough sell, but that sounds reasonable (well, I can talk, I don't have children). This is basically the same reasoning Yudkowsky presented with his dust speck vs torture argument argument: a sufficiently widespread benefit, however small, will outweigh a sufficiently improbable horrible event.

souprock 7y ago
Well, I have a dozen kids, and I agree. Of course, part of the reason for so many kids is to minimize the percentage of my family that would be lost if one did die. My wife's uncle had the postcard family, one boy and one girl in a cute little city house with a picket fence. The daughter died, and the father completely fell apart. He lost 100% of his daughters. It is too late for him to create a replacement. Most families today are tiny. I think this has affected our perception of loss. The risk of 100% loss has become so great that people can't allow the risk of traditional play.
- justinator 7y ago
  Of course, part of the reason for so many kids is to minimize the percentage of my family that would be lost if one did die. I think I just read the most insane sentence I'll read all year.
  - bad_good_guy 7y ago
    How is it insane when this is the historic reason behind large families?
    - justinator 7y ago
      I'm not touching, "but it's historical!", because that's a problematic idea in of itself. Lots of things are, "historical", but don't make sense in the modern world. Say you had two kids, and you lost both. One way to think of it is your lost all the children you ever had. Fine. Say you had a DOZEN kids, and you lost six of them. Same thinking as above, you've lost half the children you ever had. Ok, but you still lost six kids!. Six kids have to go through life knowing they have lost six siblings. Having that somehow be better is pure insanity. Or at the very least the utmost self-centered thing I've ever heard of - you're hoping that the loss off 6 out of 12 kids is somewhat less of an impact on yourself when compared to losing two kids? These are human beings, not cupcakes you're bringing to a picnic. If you brought two cupcakes, and hoping to have one yourself, but both were eaten before you could have your own cupcake, that stinks - but you're just out of a cupcake. Then yeah: bring a dozen cupcakes to share, and have yourself your own cupcake.

craftinator 7y ago

Another thought that adds to this viewpoint: slightly more dangerous playgrounds teach kids how to play more safely, and they grow into adults who also know how to play responsibly. Kids who never get a chance to develop good balance (with the immediate feedback of bruises and scrapes) will not be as good at avoiding falls and other physical dangers as those who have good balance. They also won't know their own physical limits, and won't know which activities are too dangerous.

lutorm 7y ago
That's exactly the point. It's not that playgrounds should be more dangerous for the heck of it, or just because kids think it's more fun that way. It's because learning to deal with danger is an essential life skill and we are now depriving our kids of it.
fjsolwmv 7y ago
The discussion is about quadriplegia, not scrapes and bruises.
- craftinator 7y ago
  The discussion began on the topic of playgrounds and safety. All people have the risk of injury and death at all times. Some types of injury are not severe and have few lasting consequences, others are of the converse type. Paralysis is incredibly uncommon when compared to scrapes and bruises, which is why I brought up that subtopic.