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Comment by ry0ohki | Hacker News Reader

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ry0ohki

Odds of dying from fireworks: 1 in 652,046

Odds of dying from lightning strike: 1 in 134,906

Odds of being legally executed: 1 in 111,179

Odds of dying from contact with bees/wasps: 1 in 79,842

Odds of being shot: 1 in 6,609

Odds of dying from a fall 1 in 163

Odds of dying in a terrorist attack: 1 in 3,500,000

Maybe we should switch the TSA to bee patrol.

(Source: http://www.nsc.org/NSC%20Picture%20Library/News/web_graphics...)

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Not all of these are comparable, since some of them are at least partially avoidable. For example, I'm sure the odds of dying from fireworks are much higher than the number listed if you use fireworks, and much less if you don't. And the chances of being legally executed are much higher if you murder someone than if you don't.

The numbers themselves aren't the real takeaway, it's how preventable these deaths are.

Exactly, and one can conclude that the dollars spent versus lives saved makes the waste seem even greater. Converting the TSA to bee control as mentioned above would lively save more lives (to take an extreme example).

Especially when you consider that TSA is yet to catch a single terrorist in their entire history.

Odds of dying in a car accident: 1 in 6700.

Maybe the TSA should enforce traffic laws or build commuter rail lines.

No! Keep the TSA away from everything. Just get rid of the TSA and less people will drive, exposing themselves to this higher risk.

Execution is out of place here since you have very high control over if you will be executed or not. If you aren't murdering anyone or participate in activities that can end up this way (such as violent crime), odds of your being executed is much lower - it's not zero, since you can still be falsely accused, but much lower than just execution statistics.

Also, odds of dying from bees, etc. probably depend a lot on if specific person is allergic to the particular toxin or not, which is not random for this person.

Odds of developing cancer: 1 in 3

Lets convert it to a cancer awareness foundation; where they touch you for actually important reasons.

Source: http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancerbasics/lifetime-probabili...

Don't give them any ideas. They might just add testicular cancer screenings to the current procedure.

That would require almost no changes, so I'd say win-win.

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