Jesper L.'s Shortform

Jesper L.

This is a special post for quick takes by Jesper L.. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.

"Common sense" advice that is highly rational and easily overlooked by A LOT of people, including smart people

This is your regular reminder.

1. Buy fire alarms, a fire blanket, a strong light torch for blackouts, and a first aid kit (this is the bare minimum low-cost emergency kit that can save you a lot of hassle and potentially your life).

1.2 Do NOT have heavy power-draining appliances connected via extension cord. Fridges and washing machines should never sit in an extension cord unless you know what you are doing and that it can handle the strain.

A leading cause of accidental death in many countries, especially if we discard traffic accidents, relate to fires. If you live in a city, it's probably much more common than you think to die or suffer serious injuries in a fire there. Power blackouts and power surges cause a lot of accumulating risks and issues too, but are harder to pinpoint in statistics. Minor accidents that dominate at home are cuts and infections.

2. Get private insurance, especially a good home insurance

3. Invest some savings in low-cost index funds, regularly, if you invest in nothing else

4. Take care of your BASIC health PROACTIVELY: Basics is to eat enough, sleep now and then, and watch your mental health. I constantly fail this one. I only notice danger levels when I am already crashing out. Admittedly more important for certain people, but many of them would be found on LW.

5. Have someone you can call in a crisis. Really, make sure you get this down. We are 8 billion people and far too many of us has a fragile or non-existent social support network.

2habryka1y

Come on, if you want to argue the fire death point at least give some kind of statistic or do a micromort estimate. [...] Most people do not own fire blankets, as such there is little survivorship bias going on here. You can just estimate using base rates. The expected annual property damage from fire is around $60/year per homeowner per this random ChatGPT analysis (in other words not worrying about). A fire blanket would need to result in a 50% reduction of all fire risk to start being worth the cost and attention. Honestly, this whole conversation just feels like I am on Reddit with people giving random anecdotes without statistical literacy. You can disagree with me, but you speak with weird authority on issues that you seem to not have actually thought that clearly about.

Thinking about this much harder, I would rewrite the post to clearly phrase it as damage prevention you can do fast and cheap from your home.

I notice I forgot to mention a first aid kit. First thing to correct.

Secondly, when thinking hard on what of your feedback might actually be useful, I realized that statistically speaking you may do more good by buying slip mats for wet floors, and potentially investing in premium ladders. Since fall accidents dominate injury statistics. Not something I thought about intuitively but makes sense.

https://injuryfacts.nsc... (read more)