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How you can measure risk better, why we suck at it, and how to do it better.
I spent the last couple of weeks in California, mostly Yosemite National Park. It was amazing! One of the most beautiful places on earth. Go if you ever get the chance. I would say it is worth the risk of going to California and going unarmed.
While I was there with my family, we stopped to play some games in the Guest Lodge because it was raining. There was a lady with two young boys, probably 5 and 7. The kids were wearing masks, but she wasn’t.
During our game, I had moved around the table towards the side of her boys. She asked me to move because I wasn’t six feet away and her kids were not vaccinated yet. I did so because I was on vacation and not there to start an argument. My wife was proud of me for keeping my mouth shut and just moving.
But it reminded me, most people, including professionals, suck at measuring risk. Let’s break down a simple risk calculation for her kids dying in Yosemite versus from Covid.
There have been 126 deaths in Yosemite national part over the last 10 years according to Outforia and an article about deaths in national parks. And, about 4.5 Million people visit per year according to Statista.com.
I couldn’t find actual COVID numbers for kids’ deaths in America, so I used the Texas numbers to get an equivalent. In Texas, there have been 20 kids 9 and younger that have died from/with COVID (not sure how to say that right now). The population of Texas is about 29.2 Million.
If we break those numbers down to look side by side you get:
When you break it down, being in Yosemite was way more dangerous than getting COVID and dying.
As a contractor, I was in charge of base security at a large FOB (Forward Operating Base) in Iraq. The base commander wanted me to make sure no one ever got hurt on his base. I tried explaining to him that I could simply mitigate the risks from outside the wire but I couldn’t stop everything. Someone will fall out of their rack or worse, and what did happen, a soldier committed suicide on the base right after I left. It was horrific, but it was something I couldn’t stop or even begin to work on as a security specialist focused on the threats from the outside.
At your home, work, and when you travel, you should be looking to mitigate the most dangerous potential risks. You have to weigh the risks of something happening versus something that you know and understand.
I just got back. California is not friendly towards guns. I decided the risk was higher of a police officer messing with me over having to use my firearm to save myself or my family. And, as I was hiking through the backcountry I wished I had my gun in case I ran into a bear. The risk of being attacked by a bear in Yosemite is almost zero as long as you don’t try and feed them, or mess with a mothers’ cubs. Doing those two things is the best way to mitigate my risk of a bear attacking me while out on some back-country trail in Yosemite. Yes, that danger is different in other parts of the country.
As I implied earlier, there is not a zero chance of being attacked by a bear, but an almost zero chance. I could still come across a starving animal, or cross a trail at the wrong moment right after her cubs crossed but before the mother did.
Everything in life has a risk. Getting out of bed, or not getting out of bed has a risk of death. There have been car crashes and even plane crashes that hit the house where someone was sleeping and killed them in their own bed. Life happens.
We have to be able to judge risk on an intellectual scale, not our feelings. A bear is scary as shit! I’ve been chased by one back when I was a teenager. Scariest moment of my life. But the reality is, the roads in and out of Yosemite are tight winding and on the side of a cliff most of the time. The chance of dying on the road in and out of the park has to be close to a hundred times more likely than being attacked by a bear. But the bear still feels scarier because the risks of driving are something we got used to and have excepted as part of our lives every day.
If you start measuring your risk against everything with your risk of dying in a car crash is 1 in 107 over your lifetime according to the National Safety Council. Of dying each year in a car crash the odds are about 1 in 8,393. If the actual number risk isn’t as high as dying in a car crash, maybe it shouldn’t take up very much of your time. Just a suggestion.
Put your time and effort into those things that are the most likely to kill you first, then work on the lesser things. Just for some examples, you don’t think about: about 22,000 people die a year in America from medical mistakes, about 45,000 commit suicide, about 655,000 dies of heart disease, about 79,000 die of diabetes, and about 609,000 deaths from cancer (more than COVID19 per year). And for more perspective, in 2019 (according to the FBI) 16,425 murdered in the United States.
All this is me trying to put your risk into perspective. Take care of those things that are most likely to get you first, then go down to the other things.
I’m on the list pretty high for cancer and type 2 diabetes. That’s why I’m starting another 75 Hard Challenge. You can check it out on my other site at 75Hard.biz. It is a 75-day challenge to get you mentally and physically tough. It will start you down the right road.
Stay Safe,
Ben