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Right, so, mathing it out, the US has a population of around 340 million but Spain has a population of around 49 million. 340/49 is roughly 7, so the per capita

by wk_end 9mo ago

Right, so, mathing it out, the US has a population of around 340 million but Spain has a population of around 49 million. 340/49 is roughly 7, so the per capita equivalent in the US would be a single incident killing 21*7=147 people. So that'd be one incident killing 1.5x the average number of people usually killed across the rest of the country combined. Like I said, a pretty bad day.

deaux 9mo ago
A completely unremarkable day, more like it. Given stochasticity there's bound to be at least a dozen days per year with 50% more than the average, especially since car deaths depend a lot on weekday, holidays, weather and so on - much moreso than train deaths. No one would look up from it, wouldn't make the news.
- wk_end 9mo ago
  You're assuming it was the only incident in America that day, rather than an exceptional outlier stacked on top of the usual day in America. Yes, a single car crash killing 150 people would make the news. It would be among the worst, if not the single worst, car accident of all time [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-vehicle_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-vehicle_collision
  - deaux 9mo ago
    > And I think if you math it out with something per capita equivalent, this would actually be an exceptionally bad day/incident for the US. This is now how I interpreted "bad day", think it would be clearer to remove "day" if that's what you meant. Of course you're right in that it would be awful as a car accident, they simply don't happen that many as a time. Which is why our monkey brain's lack of emotional response to "many small cuts" vs "one big cut" incorrectly causes the belief that cars and e.g. coal/gas are much safer than they are.
    - Dylan16807 9mo ago
      > "many small cuts" vs "one big cut" incorrectly causes the belief that cars and e.g. coal/gas are much safer than they are Did anyone say that? This conversation was mostly about newsworthiness.

by wk_end 9mo ago

deaux 9mo ago

A completely unremarkable day, more like it. Given stochasticity there's bound to be at least a dozen days per year with 50% more than the average, especially since car deaths depend a lot on weekday, holidays, weather and so on - much moreso than train deaths. No one would look up from it, wouldn't make the news.

wk_end 9mo ago
You're assuming it was the only incident in America that day, rather than an exceptional outlier stacked on top of the usual day in America. Yes, a single car crash killing 150 people would make the news. It would be among the worst, if not the single worst, car accident of all time [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-vehicle_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-vehicle_collision
- deaux 9mo ago
  > And I think if you math it out with something per capita equivalent, this would actually be an exceptionally bad day/incident for the US. This is now how I interpreted "bad day", think it would be clearer to remove "day" if that's what you meant. Of course you're right in that it would be awful as a car accident, they simply don't happen that many as a time. Which is why our monkey brain's lack of emotional response to "many small cuts" vs "one big cut" incorrectly causes the belief that cars and e.g. coal/gas are much safer than they are.
  - Dylan16807 9mo ago
    > "many small cuts" vs "one big cut" incorrectly causes the belief that cars and e.g. coal/gas are much safer than they are Did anyone say that? This conversation was mostly about newsworthiness.