4 ms·

This is why I always get mad when people say something like "you are more likely to be struck by lightning than eaten by a shark!".... we'll, that REALLY depend

This is why I always get mad when people say something like "you are more likely to be struck by lightning than eaten by a shark!".... we'll, that REALLY depends on where you are.

Dylan16807 5y ago
> that REALLY depends on where you are There's only 10 fatal shark attacks per year. What's your calculation for the sharkiest area to live? It has to be something like 100+ times sharkier than average for your claim to be true. And keep in mind that half the US population can easily day trip to the ocean. Edit: Actually, that's using a number of 2000 lightning fatalities which might be 10x too low. And lightning injuries are another 10x higher than that. So you'd need somewhere that shark attacks are a thousand or ten thousand times more likely than average. That's also without interpreting "eaten" literally...
- Jensson 5y ago
  You focused on the shark side and not on the lightning side. You will never get struck by lightning in a city, so there the probability is 0. Similarly if you go out swimming in the ocean on a sunny day the probability of getting struck by lightning is also 0, but the probability of getting eaten by a shark is not 0.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    You're going too granular. This is about populations that live in certain areas, not specific people on specific days. "depends on where you are" when talking about an over-time risk ratio. The goal isn't to find some dude with weird habits. And while a population that mostly stays inside a city has a reduced lightning chance, it also has a reduced shark chance. I don't think that's anywhere near the point of equalizing the rate. If you have an idea for a factor that dramatically reduces lightning risk but doesn't reduce shark risk much, I'm interested.
  - kragen 5y ago
    0 is not a probability; trying to use it as one leads to division-by-zero errors.
    - cortesoft 5y ago
      How do you represent the probability of an impossible thing, then?
      - kragen 5y ago
        You could always be wrong about it being impossible. People do make mistakes sometimes.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  It also depends on what you are doing. If you are spear fishing in shark filled waters, you have a much higher chance of being bitten by a shark. And if I live in a place where there is very rarely lightning, that chance gets really low as well.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > If you are spear fishing in shark filled waters Like I said in my other comment, it's not about finding one specific guy. Picking a place where people live is a reasonable starting point for making a rebuttal to a general statement like that. I don't think pointing at Fisherman Sam is. > And if I live in a place where there is very rarely lightning, that chance gets really low as well. How low can that number go? The numbers I picked made consideration for some amount of variation in lightning. Does lightning have a huge variance? It's important to have real numbers when you're making the claim that there are places where the lightning:shark ratio is multiple orders of magnitude lower than the average. That's not a claim you can justify by merely pointing out that the risks will vary by location.

This is why I always get mad when people say something like "you are more likely to be struck by lightning than eaten by a shark!".... we'll, that REALLY depends on where you are.

Dylan16807 5y ago

> that REALLY depends on where you are There's only 10 fatal shark attacks per year. What's your calculation for the sharkiest area to live? It has to be something like 100+ times sharkier than average for your claim to be true. And keep in mind that half the US population can easily day trip to the ocean. Edit: Actually, that's using a number of 2000 lightning fatalities which might be 10x too low. And lightning injuries are another 10x higher than that. So you'd need somewhere that shark attacks are a thousand or ten thousand times more likely than average. That's also without interpreting "eaten" literally...

Jensson 5y ago
You focused on the shark side and not on the lightning side. You will never get struck by lightning in a city, so there the probability is 0. Similarly if you go out swimming in the ocean on a sunny day the probability of getting struck by lightning is also 0, but the probability of getting eaten by a shark is not 0.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  You're going too granular. This is about populations that live in certain areas, not specific people on specific days. "depends on where you are" when talking about an over-time risk ratio. The goal isn't to find some dude with weird habits. And while a population that mostly stays inside a city has a reduced lightning chance, it also has a reduced shark chance. I don't think that's anywhere near the point of equalizing the rate. If you have an idea for a factor that dramatically reduces lightning risk but doesn't reduce shark risk much, I'm interested.
- kragen 5y ago
  0 is not a probability; trying to use it as one leads to division-by-zero errors.
  - cortesoft 5y ago
    How do you represent the probability of an impossible thing, then?
    - kragen 5y ago
      You could always be wrong about it being impossible. People do make mistakes sometimes.
cortesoft 5y ago
It also depends on what you are doing. If you are spear fishing in shark filled waters, you have a much higher chance of being bitten by a shark. And if I live in a place where there is very rarely lightning, that chance gets really low as well.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  > If you are spear fishing in shark filled waters Like I said in my other comment, it's not about finding one specific guy. Picking a place where people live is a reasonable starting point for making a rebuttal to a general statement like that. I don't think pointing at Fisherman Sam is. > And if I live in a place where there is very rarely lightning, that chance gets really low as well. How low can that number go? The numbers I picked made consideration for some amount of variation in lightning. Does lightning have a huge variance? It's important to have real numbers when you're making the claim that there are places where the lightning:shark ratio is multiple orders of magnitude lower than the average. That's not a claim you can justify by merely pointing out that the risks will vary by location.