4 ms·
> Let's say it would collapse with 100% certainty randomly in the next three years, and you're in the danger area for 2 minutes, with a 20% chance of fatality
by jameshart 2y ago
> Let's say it would collapse with 100% certainty randomly in the next three years, and you're in the danger area for 2 minutes, with a 20% chance of fatality
Or how about let's say it would collapse with 100% certainty randomly in the next three years, and a school bus with twenty kids in it drives over the bridge twice a day, with each child facing a 20% chance of fatality.
‘I probably won’t be the one who dies when it collapses’ is a terrible metric for whether or not we should try to mitigate the risk of a bridge collapse.
- quesera 2y agoSchool buses are never a useful way to think about risk. You might not be intending it, but this is a cheap manipulation technique. Bridges sometimes fail catastrophically, with risk to life. Modeling risk is a necessary way to consider the costs of mitigation. Leaving aside the poor helpless babies, what metric would you suggest?
- jameshart 2y agoSchool buses are an excellent way to think about risk if you are a school transportation planner. I was trying to give you an example of someone who might make a different risk calculation than an individual.