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Comment by wk_end

13 hours 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

> 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.

  • > "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.