4 ms·
I used to tell people I was an order of magnitude more likely to die from a traffic related accident driving to work than from any hostile action during the two
by austin-cheney 3y ago
I used to tell people I was an order of magnitude more likely to die from a traffic related accident driving to work than from any hostile action during the two years I was in Afghanistan. People seemed challenged by that.
- ttyprintk 3y agoReminds me of Jared Diamond explaining why he might not have taken a shower: https://archive.ph/fNeaH https://archive.ph/fNeaH HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5145268 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5145268
- epolanski 3y agoYou weren't joking, and actually it's much more than a magnitude. The chances of dying in a traffic accident in US are between 0.9 and 1.2%, whereas the mortality rate of US military servicemen in Afghanistan has been below 0.004%. That's 3 order of magnitudes.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago1.2% is over the lifetime. Don't know what the 0.0004% figure means, but in the active war phase coalition forces sustained 1-2%/year fatalities rate in Afghanistan https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/36/4/841/670068?login=false https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/36/4/841/670068?login=f....
- bongodongobob 3y agoProbably because they are different time frames. Your chances of dying in Afghanistan are over say a 4 year period. When someone says you have a 1% chance of dying in a car accident, that's spread over a lifetime. The chance of someone dying in a car accident in that 4 year period is much lower.
- nonameiguess 3y agoThis often remains true even over smaller scales. For instance, between 2009 to 2012 I was in a combined arms battalion that deployed to Iraq twice and we experienced three deaths in combat and nine in traffic accidents near Fort Hood during those years. Another drowned in a lake near post. Also, one death due to suicide in theater.