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I think they do. It's more, which should you fear more: your bath tub or someone rampaging in the street with a knife? The statistics say you should be far more

I think they do. It's more, which should you fear more: your bath tub or someone rampaging in the street with a knife? The statistics say you should be far more afraid of your bath tub, there is a decent chance it will be your cause of death. The 'stranger' in the street is about as likely as lottery odds. So when it comes to children, abuse at home is several (if not many) magnitudes more likely than a stranger trying to track and abduct your children.

newaccount2021 5y ago
you can care about vectors of harm that are not highly ranked....
323 5y ago
Depends on the street. If you are in downtown San Francisco for example, all bets are off...
- seadan83 5y ago
  At the risk of being offensive, it does not matter if you are in downtown SF - stop being afraid of the homeless and black people and assuming that they are more likely to harm you than someone you know. That statistics are not with you there. But let's look at some statistics: https://danger.mongabay.com/injury_death.htm https://danger.mongabay.com/injury_death.htm Bathtub: 341 Assault by sharp object: 1,805 From that, assuming their data is correct, for every one person that falls in a bathtub and then drowns, there are 5 that are killed via assault with sharp object. The latter includes premediated and not, the number of those from a 'rampage' would be a fraction. So, if you change the side of street you are walking on to avoid walking near someone homeless out of fear they would go on a random stabbing rampage, and if you do not also have traction stickers attached to your bathtub, then you are exhibiting rational irrational fear.
  - 323 5y ago
    > stop being afraid of the homeless and black people I'm not afraid of homeless and black people, I'm afraid of clinically insane people. The kind which are not legally responsible for their actions. And why did you pick "Assault by sharp object: 1,805" instead of "Assault by firearm: 10,801" or just "Assault: 16,765"? Maybe because that changes the odds from 1 vs 5 to 1 vs 50.
    - seadan83 5y ago
      Sorry, that was overly provocative and arguably unjustifiably personal. I apologize. The point is that the statistics do not back up many fears. > And why did you pick "Assault by sharp object: 1,805" instead of "Assault by firearm: 10,801" or just "Assault: 16,765"? The example was a 'stabbing rampage', that was specifically to try and find the number of knife attacks in the US resulting in fatality, and out of those number where someone is randomly attacking people in public. Overall, we are still dealing with pretty small numbers whether it's 1 vs 5 or 1 vs 50 (50x improved chance of winning the lottery is still nearly negligible odds). In the case of knife attack, based on these numbers, it would be at most 1 in 5. The ultimate point is the statistics do not back up many of these fears. For example in response to an actual knife rampage I observed a lot of chatter about getting a concealed carry permit etc. These same statistics show that assault by firearm is way more likely than by knife, and having more guns around is more likely to have examples where they are used. Hence, the irrational fear of a knife rampage is prompting people to carry a gun, which then dramatically increases the chance of an accidental shooting in their own household, suicide, and/or assault where that person gets into a confrontation they could have walked away from but instead had road rage and shot someone else. Household, accidental shootings are relatively common, and suicide is exceptionally common, yet all that seems like less risks for firearm possession compared to needing the firearm to actually protect yourself from a knife attack, which is at most 5 times more likely than slipping and drowning in your own bathtub. In the case of a bathtub, it's common and does not have the same confirmation bias we get from headlines of rampages, yet it poses a fairly similar danger to you as someone going on a knife rampage.
      - 323 5y ago
        > The point is that the statistics do not back up many fears There is a saying, Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics. Or "tell me what you want the conclusion to be and I'll tell you what statistical method to apply to the data". Also known as "torturing the data". In the case of bathtub fatality, the majority of them are either very young or very old (kind of like covid): > Drowning occurred most often in a bath tub for persons under 1 year of age and for adults aged 85 and over https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db149.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db149.htm If you adjust for age, that will make the bathtub/knife odds even worse. But on a more meta level, how do you feel about Nassim Taleb. My sense is that you don't like him, because he talks a lot about so called "irrational logic of fearing terrorists more than bathtubs", and he calls this behaviour extremely rational. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/832234355552559104 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/832234355552559104
  - desmosxxx 5y ago
    Not really, these statistics arguments are inane. A bathtub you have control over may not be especially risky. The stat itself probably includes unsupervised kids, elderly, etc. Take those out because they don't apply to me. You don't have as much control over strangers. And any given homeless person may or may not be judged as especially risky - that's up for the person there to decide. There's also little downside to just avoiding them entirely. To me, it seems like it can be completely rational. Individual events don't happen with dice like you seem to be implying.
    - seadan83 5y ago
      I'm not quite implying that events happen with dice. More that if we knew the true frequency, we would gauge there to be far less risk (because there is actually far less risk). Meanwhile, you don't fully control if you slip in a bathtub, a person ascribes much less risk to the bathtub than they should (due to lack of confirmation bias and lack of knowledge of the risk stats, bathtubs are surprisingly riskier than you think; but if you put it in the context of what is the chance of a fall, you would start to think the odds are not that bad - and any serious fall with that many hard surfaces around can easily have a very bad outcome. So it's more consider the risk of any fall, now compare that to the statistics of 'stranger danger'. The point is that everyday common events, your car, your bathtub, your daily commute, can pose magnitudes more risk than even the shadiest of homeless person).

newaccount2021 5y ago

you can care about vectors of harm that are not highly ranked....

323 5y ago

Depends on the street. If you are in downtown San Francisco for example, all bets are off...

seadan83 5y ago
At the risk of being offensive, it does not matter if you are in downtown SF - stop being afraid of the homeless and black people and assuming that they are more likely to harm you than someone you know. That statistics are not with you there. But let's look at some statistics: https://danger.mongabay.com/injury_death.htm https://danger.mongabay.com/injury_death.htm Bathtub: 341 Assault by sharp object: 1,805 From that, assuming their data is correct, for every one person that falls in a bathtub and then drowns, there are 5 that are killed via assault with sharp object. The latter includes premediated and not, the number of those from a 'rampage' would be a fraction. So, if you change the side of street you are walking on to avoid walking near someone homeless out of fear they would go on a random stabbing rampage, and if you do not also have traction stickers attached to your bathtub, then you are exhibiting rational irrational fear.
- 323 5y ago
  > stop being afraid of the homeless and black people I'm not afraid of homeless and black people, I'm afraid of clinically insane people. The kind which are not legally responsible for their actions. And why did you pick "Assault by sharp object: 1,805" instead of "Assault by firearm: 10,801" or just "Assault: 16,765"? Maybe because that changes the odds from 1 vs 5 to 1 vs 50.
  - seadan83 5y ago
    Sorry, that was overly provocative and arguably unjustifiably personal. I apologize. The point is that the statistics do not back up many fears. > And why did you pick "Assault by sharp object: 1,805" instead of "Assault by firearm: 10,801" or just "Assault: 16,765"? The example was a 'stabbing rampage', that was specifically to try and find the number of knife attacks in the US resulting in fatality, and out of those number where someone is randomly attacking people in public. Overall, we are still dealing with pretty small numbers whether it's 1 vs 5 or 1 vs 50 (50x improved chance of winning the lottery is still nearly negligible odds). In the case of knife attack, based on these numbers, it would be at most 1 in 5. The ultimate point is the statistics do not back up many of these fears. For example in response to an actual knife rampage I observed a lot of chatter about getting a concealed carry permit etc. These same statistics show that assault by firearm is way more likely than by knife, and having more guns around is more likely to have examples where they are used. Hence, the irrational fear of a knife rampage is prompting people to carry a gun, which then dramatically increases the chance of an accidental shooting in their own household, suicide, and/or assault where that person gets into a confrontation they could have walked away from but instead had road rage and shot someone else. Household, accidental shootings are relatively common, and suicide is exceptionally common, yet all that seems like less risks for firearm possession compared to needing the firearm to actually protect yourself from a knife attack, which is at most 5 times more likely than slipping and drowning in your own bathtub. In the case of a bathtub, it's common and does not have the same confirmation bias we get from headlines of rampages, yet it poses a fairly similar danger to you as someone going on a knife rampage.
    - 323 5y ago
      > The point is that the statistics do not back up many fears There is a saying, Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics. Or "tell me what you want the conclusion to be and I'll tell you what statistical method to apply to the data". Also known as "torturing the data". In the case of bathtub fatality, the majority of them are either very young or very old (kind of like covid): > Drowning occurred most often in a bath tub for persons under 1 year of age and for adults aged 85 and over https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db149.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db149.htm If you adjust for age, that will make the bathtub/knife odds even worse. But on a more meta level, how do you feel about Nassim Taleb. My sense is that you don't like him, because he talks a lot about so called "irrational logic of fearing terrorists more than bathtubs", and he calls this behaviour extremely rational. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/832234355552559104 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/832234355552559104
- desmosxxx 5y ago
  Not really, these statistics arguments are inane. A bathtub you have control over may not be especially risky. The stat itself probably includes unsupervised kids, elderly, etc. Take those out because they don't apply to me. You don't have as much control over strangers. And any given homeless person may or may not be judged as especially risky - that's up for the person there to decide. There's also little downside to just avoiding them entirely. To me, it seems like it can be completely rational. Individual events don't happen with dice like you seem to be implying.
  - seadan83 5y ago
    I'm not quite implying that events happen with dice. More that if we knew the true frequency, we would gauge there to be far less risk (because there is actually far less risk). Meanwhile, you don't fully control if you slip in a bathtub, a person ascribes much less risk to the bathtub than they should (due to lack of confirmation bias and lack of knowledge of the risk stats, bathtubs are surprisingly riskier than you think; but if you put it in the context of what is the chance of a fall, you would start to think the odds are not that bad - and any serious fall with that many hard surfaces around can easily have a very bad outcome. So it's more consider the risk of any fall, now compare that to the statistics of 'stranger danger'. The point is that everyday common events, your car, your bathtub, your daily commute, can pose magnitudes more risk than even the shadiest of homeless person).