One year ago, we nearly died.

This is maybe an overdramatic statement, but long story short, nearly all of us underwent carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning^[1]. The benefit is, we all suddenly got back in touch with a failure mode we had forgotten about, and we decided to make it a yearly celebration.

Usually, when we think about failure, we might think about not being productive enough, or not solving the right work-related problem, or missing a meeting. We might suspect that our schedule could be better organized or that one of our habits really sucks. We might fear not to spot an obvious psychological flaw or a decision-making issue.

We often forget that the single most important failure prior to all of these is dying. Yet even if we think about dying, the first picture that comes to mind can be a disease, or a car accident. We only have a few clichés loaded in our accessibility bias, instead of the full methodical A-B-C of death any human attempting life should know by heart.

Sometimes, checking back on the basics can be helpful. Since we found we didn’t do this nearly enough to avoid undergoing a definitely lethal threat, we decided to update you on How Not to Die : The Basics edition. Happy New Year, everyone.

This is far from polished (we haven’t even included the base rate of each incident). Feel free to suggest lessons or additional tips in the comments.

Lesson 1 : Detect Death

Smoke detectors. CO detectors (buy here). Radon detector (depending on where you live). You have all the death detectors you can dream of in our day and age : buy them. A hundred dollars or so isn’t a lot if it can prevent you from dying. If you’re a true rationalist, you should have the ultimate collection of death detectors, because sitting on a pile of utility means pretty much being alive.

If they run out of battery (they’ll beep with a very short beep every minute or so), put back a battery in them. Do not turn them off. Worst case scenario, buy a new one. If you already turned a detector off in your life, put a small sticker reading “Turning This Off Endangers Your Life” on the detector as a kind reminder.

You should also know where your enemy dwells: you should be able to locate the system that organizes your heating, the one that distributes electricity, the one that distributes water. Where are its vaults and what keys, if any, are needed to access them?

Lesson 2 : Carry Your Anti-D...

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