hey Vsauce Michael here when will you
die I don't mean you specifically I mean
the mean of you all the average Vsauce
viewer by combining world health
organization life tables with YouTube
analytics for Vsauce viewers we can
calculate that the average date everyone
over the age of 15 watching this video
right now will die on is 8:40 2:00 in
the morning November 28 2015 ein the
mode is in 20 73 morbidly but
mathematically about 340 of the people
who watch this video this week will not
be around at this time next year these
statistics are based on averages but
interestingly the average person
considers him or herself anything but
average studies have consistently shown
that the average person believes he or
she will live a longer and healthier
life than the average person we
overestimate the likelihood that bad
things will happen to other people and
underestimate the likelihood that they
will happen to us it's a natural part of
our psychology but yeah we miscalculate
risk in many fascinating ways casey cole
points out that we are often more
responsive to threats that are personal
exotic erratic and dramatic than we are
to threats that are well more likely i
love one of her examples imagine a world
where cigarettes are harmless but one
cigarette pack out of every 18,750
contains a single cigarette laced with
dynamite that when lit violently
explodes blowing the users head off
people would be loudly and messily
losing their heads every day all over
the world but in that imaginary universe
the same number of people would die
every day because of smoking that
already do the results would just be
more shocking more immediate and
probably more likely to affect our
decisions last month I and some of my
favorite YouTube creators met with
President Obama about the decisions
Americans make when it comes to
protecting themselves from the cost of
staying healthy the issue of health care
is mired in conflict and debate matched
only by the turmoil of risk assessment
going on in our own minds our myelinated
machines use more biases and shortcuts
to evaluate probabilities than can fit
in a single video but a particularly
strong example is the availability
heuristic our tendency to think that
something is more likely because it
happened recently or there are more
examples of it happening available in
our memories not because it actually is
more likely we also over exaggerated
risks we don't have control over while
being comparatively fearless in the face
of equal risks we nonetheless can
control Chauncey Starr's famous 1969
study on risk found that people were
willing to accept risks 1000 times
greater if they could control them for
instance driving a car then if they
didn't have control for instance a
nuclear disaster let's talk about
Abraham Wald only so much extra armor
can be added to an airplane before it
becomes too heavy to fly now during
world war ii the US military noticed
that planes returning from enemy
territory were usually damaged around
the wings the body and the tail gunner
so they put more armor on those areas
but it didn't make a difference the same
number of planes continued to be lost so
the military hired Wald for his
mathematical superpowers he told them to
put what little armor they could on the
parts of the planes that weren't being
hit why well because returning planes
were survivors they took damage in areas
where a plane can take damage and
survive damage to other areas caused the
plane to not return Wald was protecting
them
inst survivorship bias only paying
attention to successes a similar
phenomenon is partly responsible for why
music feels like it was just better back
in the day than it is now is that really
true or are we just remembering the good
stuff Wald's work saved thousands of
lives and made flying safer for many
more tragically a few years later Wald
and his wife died in an airplane crash
you can't predict how and when you will
die it's not that easy but a few risk
scoring systems have been created to
make the discussion and comparison of
hazardous behaviors clearer the
micromort was conceived by Ronald a
Howard and is an amount of risk equal to
a 1 in 1 million probability of dying
John Green discussed micro morts in a
fantastic Mental Floss video you should
watch if you haven't already he points
out that a single skydive temporarily
increases your death risk by 7 micro
morts a 7 in 1 million chance of dying
that's the same as smoking 5 cigarettes
it's been estimated that you gain 1
micromort for every half liter of wine
you drink every year you spent drinking
my tap water every 1000 miles you fly in
a jet plane every 230 miles you travel
by car every 20 miles you travel by
bicycle and every 6 miles you travel by
motorcycles or canoe there is a happier
unit of risk the micro life proposed by
David Spiegel halter and Alejandro Oliva
a micro life is gained by doing
healthful things in small quantities
their benefits are roughly linear and
one micro life is the equivalent of 30
extra minutes of life 20 minutes of
moderate exercise gives you 2 more micro
lives
two hours of sedentary behavior negative
1 micro lives plenty of non-scientific
websites exist that allow you to
calculate when you will die based on
your life expectancy and habits poke my
birthday calm is a kind of goofy site
that takes a nonetheless interesting
look at not your death but your birth
enter your birthday and see when you
were conceived when your mother probably
first realized she was pregnant with you
and the dates your parents created or
moved into position the two cells that
eventually became the 30 trillion cells
that are now watching this video
every single person who ever died died
right here on planet earth except for
three the crew of Soyuz 11 on June 30th
1979 their cabin depressurized while
returning to Earth before they crossed
the agreed-upon boundary between Earth
and outer space far from any populated
area a three-sided metallic column sits
where their craft landed in Kazakhstan
it's a remote memorial to humankind's
remotest deaths we haven't all died here
on earth but so far we have all been
born here thanks for being here stay
safe and as always thanks for watching
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