A quick PSA on not falling down the stairs and other manageable life risks.

[Wes Reisen]

Image taken from Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell’s https://​​youtu.be/​​LEENEFaVUzU?si=7d9mA_tT7Rj-Ee2U.

Please don’t downvote without saying why. I want to improve this article.

In short, if there’s an avoidable [small chance of a terrible scenario], such as how you, not being careful when going down the stairs, could lead to a risk that you fall down the stairs, break your head open, and die.

This shows how it’s not worth it to get something small (a bit more time that you otherwise would’ve spent walking carefully down the stairs) to risk something big (your life).

Update: Kurzgesagt made a video on this topic, here it is:

If you’re not convinced, here’s some statistics to back it up.

let’s say, in an hour, on average, you have some positive impact $A$.

let’s also say that you save a full 15 minutes^[1] by going down the stairs faster.

Now, let’s assume that there’s only a 1 in [one thousand] chance that you die from going down the stairs if you’re not careful.^[1] That’s a bit less likely than you get cancer in your entire lifetime (In the US.) .(“Age And Cancer Risk,” n.d.)^[2] (We’re ignoring the chance that you fall down the stairs if you are careful, since it won’t effect our conclusion.)

Let’s also assume you only spend 5 more years of your life working, 40 weeks of working per year, 30 hours of working per week.^[1]

by going down the stairs quickly, you spend an extra 15 minutes working, so $0.25\cdot A$, but we need to account for the risk that you fall down the stairs and die. (1 in one thousand)

So, if you did die, you would loose $0.25A+[5\cdot 40\cdot 30\cdot A]$ impact, not accounting for how you dying affects you and those arround you.

There’s an assumed 1 in one million chance that you die, and $(0.25A+[5\cdot 40\cdot 30\cdot A\left]\right)\cdot \frac{1}{1000}=3.00025\cdot A$.

so which is bigger?$3.00025\cdot A$ or $0.25\cdot A$ ?

Well, if we assume A to be a positive real number, which is a reasonable assumption since A is your hourly impact, then it’s $3.00025\cdot A$.

More specifically, it’s 2.75025 hours of work better.

List of other easily avoidable risks:

1. Don’t go to dangerous places without good reason. (e.g., Cuba (communist regime), Japan (earthquakes)(Maybe. I’m not sure if they handle them well.))

2. Make sure you’re protected against hackers. [I will eventually have some resources on how to be safe from hackers at a later date.]

3. Make sure all your electronic devices (e.g. your computer, you phone, etc.) are protected against falling.

   1. Sidenote: one time, my computer fell down the stairs (not me), and it took over 1 month to get it fixed.

4. Don’t get food from a suspicious seller.

5. don’t order food from a new place with a yelp score lower than 1.

6. Don’t go into public pools. (They’re full of bacteria*, and there are better ways of having fun)

7. Don’t go to other germy areas, such as a daycare, sewer system, etc.

8. Don’t go into dark alleyways, especially when your son’s name is Bruce Wayne, and they talk about bats a lot.

9. Don’t make your religion extremely public, since there might be extremists who would want to kill you for it.

10. Don’t talk about the basilisk owned by Mr. Roku (intentionally cryptic) (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s something “reproduce-related”.)

11. Don’t drive while under the influence of substances such as “irresponsible” hormones, drugs, alcohol,etc.

12. Don’t “trust-fall.”^[3]

13. Don’t go into white vans, even if the driver says “I have a solution to the alignment problem in the back of my van—and free candy.”

14. Don’t go on random online dates. Make sure you only date people who you’re sure aren’t murderers.

Let me know if I’ve missed any!

1. ^

   This exaderated restimate is used to demonstrate how my point is true even if it really would seem like i’m wrong.

2. ^

   Age and Cancer Risk. (n.d.). National Cancer Institute. Retrieved January 10, 2024, from https://​​www.cancer.gov/​​about-cancer/​​causes-prevention/​​risk/​​age#:~:text=The%20incidence%20rates%20for%20cancer,groups%2060%20years%20and%20older.

   “from fewer than 25 cases per 100,000 people in age groups under age 20, to about 350 per 100,000 people among those aged 45–49, to more than 1,000 per 100,000 people in age groups 60 years and older.”

3. ^

   If you don’t know what trust-falling is, I won’t explain it, since I don’t want to tempt you to do it.

[Larks]

Thanks. Do you have any concrete tips on how to avoid falling down stairs?

[Joseph Lemien]

This may seem silly, but when I walk up or down stairs that have a handrail, I almost always hover my hand near/​over the handrailing. This a just in case behavior of mine: if my feet slip/​stumble my hand can quickly grab the railing. If it is in my own house I just allow my hand to hold the railing, but if it is in a public place that I assume is filthy (such as a subway handrailing) I don’t want to touch something that so many other people have touched, so my hand hovers.

If you own a house with stairs that lack hand rail, I suggest getting one installed. That seems like a fairly easy preventative measure.

[Jason]

Build elevators everywhere?

(To generalize, consider whether to use fancy technology like commercial airplanes rather than dangerous cheaper older technologies like personal automobiles.)

[Wes Reisen]

Another one is to lean forwards when going up the stairs. That way, if you fall, you fall forwards, not backwards; forwards = face first into stairs, backwards = roll down the stairs.

when going diwn the stairs, lean BACKWARDS; simmilar reasoning applies.

[Wes Reisen]

hold onto the handrails.

[Wes Reisen]

maybe, if the stairs have bars, like this one

, put your hand near the handrails, so that, if you start to slip, you can catch yourself.

[Wes Reisen]

you could also try only going down the stairs when there’s someone to catch you