Same reason people are much more afraid to fly than drive, despite statistics- We're not scared of dying so much as dying in a catastrophe. Also notice that natural gas is especially low, even though everyone who's ever had gas heat has imagined their house exploding.
I'm pro-nuclear myself, but you could argue that these stats are somewhat misleading, since nuclear deaths would tend to come in bunches and the fears are based on what could happen, not what has happened.
You could also conclude that nuclear weapons are extremely safe to have around since they haven't killed anyone for 65 years.
I don't disagree in principle, I'm just saying that putting up aggregated statistics for something that lends itself to once-in-a-lifetime catastrophic events doesn't tell us a whole lot. I think even the biggest MAD proponents would agree that the risk of nuclear war is greater than zero.
Risk of something being greater than 0 is an equally uselss measurement. Otherwise we would have multi-trillion dollar asteroid defense networks, alien invasion detectors in the oort cloud, personal lightning shields, lottery backed retirement funds and so on.
There have been many more asteroids passing really close to earth in recent history than "almost nuclear wars". My point still stands -- nonzero chance is a terrible reason to do anything.
I think in our lizard brains we prefer to have an imaginary measure of control over how we go. So we'd rather have a 20-foot wall of water bearing down on us at 80mph than to be exposed to invisible radiation. We imagine that we have a chance with the tsunami, but culturally we "know" that we're screwed with the fallout. This is cultural detritus from the duck-and-cover times, when we were told that even if we survived the initial blast of a nuclear weapon, the radiation would inevitably kill us (which isn't necessarily true).
I read a book years ago called WarDay, about a hypothetical limited nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the US in the mid-80s. In the beginning of the book, after the attack, the authors describe how they took refuge in a school building and constructed a makeshift geiger counter, which told them how safe it was to go outside to scavenge for food and water and help other survivors. The credit that with saving their lives. In other words, they approached the fallout exposure problem from a scientific standpoint, rather than an emotional one. People can't seem to approach the irradiation problem in other than emotional terms, so the end result is sheer panic. If more people were aware of how to measure and limit exposure, that would give them the control they need to function successfully. Sadly, very few do.
If you compare flying vs. car driving upon the live-time spent with this activities, then 2h flying is much more dangerous than 2 hour car driving.
Usually this is compared by distinance, but this is wrong. For example last year I spent my holiday nearby driving by car, this year maybe I am going to fly to a distant place utilizing the same transport time. The flying holiday is far more dangerous than the driving one. I do never decide between car and plane for a given goal, therefore the risk relation to the distance is wrong.
I don't think I agree with your logic here. It seems like you're saying that traveling to far away places is more dangerous than close places, regardless of how you get there. I don't see how that makes flying more dangerous.
Well just about everyone other than Pilots spends a lot more of their life driving than flying, which is still irrelevant to which is the safer mode of transportation. When you boil it down, you're still saying "Going somewhere is more dangerous than not going somewhere."
no I am saying that "2 hours flying is more dangerous than 2 hours driving."
For the estimate of the risks in my live I am asking what is the safer mode of living. Therefore the risk of an activity hast to be related to spent livetime.
I see what you're saying and it's an important point to remember, but rather than one way be wrong, I think it depends on the question. "I need to get from New York to L.A. Which is the safest way to do it?" is about comparing two travel methods (or three if you want to think about trains) for the same distance. The time based answer is suited to your vacation quandary where you have a week off and you wonder whether to drive somewhere or fly someplace else.
Correct. But I never ask the question if I go by car or plane from New York to L.A because it would take too long by car. This simply not a practical relevant comparison.
The question what to do or not do in my livetime is the relevant one. And for the answer to this question the risk of a activity has to be related to livetime.
OK I'll play along- I also can't fly to work everyday because there's no airport nearby and I would be broke within weeks. Therefore, driving is more dangerous because I'm forced to spend more time doing it.
I'm pro-nuclear myself, but you could argue that these stats are somewhat misleading, since nuclear deaths would tend to come in bunches and the fears are based on what could happen, not what has happened.
You could also conclude that nuclear weapons are extremely safe to have around since they haven't killed anyone for 65 years.