So if you were really that concerned, you’d be wearing hiking pants everywhere, even when not hiking.
It doesn't even have to be that cold to die of hypothermia. Just cold enough that your body can't maintain above 82°F. If immobile, like due to injury, that can happen at 50°F. Quite possible in the mountains, esp with windchill.
Sure, there are a lot of ifs in that scenario. But it does happen. And it is usually easy enough to buy polypro pants.
Your example actually makes his point almost exactly. The 7 day thru hike is akin to when hiring a data engineering team and investing super heavily makes sense, the day hike is when you’re chatting with users and figuring out the domain. The “wrong” tools are less consequential at the start and when the stakes are lower.
They are roughly equal in absolute terms, say 0.000001% and 0.00001%, but not in relative terms (10x). These are made-up numbers, but I think they convey the idea behind the numbers accurately.
The reason for the wide disparity is not really about the situation. Our ancestors spent every day of their lives walking miles on rough unpaved trails in the wilderness. It's about experience. Most people, even fairly avid hikers, simply don't spent anywhere near as much time hiking as they spend doing other things.
Inexperience radically increases risk. Clear evidence for this is that every single high stakes profession places an extreme emphasis on training and practice.
If you're doing an activity that you aren't an expert at, it behooves you to increase your level of caution to compensate. If that activity happens to take place in a setting where consequences are more dire (in the wilderness, far from access to healthcare), then increase your level of caution to compensate for that too.
> So if you were really that concerned, you’d be wearing hiking pants everywhere, even when not hiking.
I mean, they do appear to be a Seattleite, so that wouldn't exactly be unusual around here...