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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024

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You think a lot of people get run over by buses? Or for that matter you think a lot of healthy young people get cancer or even break a leg?

  1. I think that having accident severe enough that hospitalization / doctor help is highly useful are relatively common to the point that I would care about it

  2. yes, I think that broken leg is not something unusual - and if I would break leg it would not be some black swan event

It seem even even more frequent than I expected from looking at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/core/lw/2.0/html/tileshop_pmc/tileshop_pmc_inline.html?title=Click%20on%20image%20to%20zoom&p=PMC3&id=5732068_nihms896931f1.jpg

See also

Over the 3-year study period, 2009–11, 2,482 Olmsted County residents age 18–49 years experienced one or more fractures, for an overall age- and sex-adjusted incidence of any fracture of 1,291 per 100,000 p-y (95% CI, 1,240–1,342). There were 1,447 men and 1,035 women, and 91% were white by self-report, in keeping with the racial composition of the community in this age-group (84% white in 2010). The age-adjusted annual incidence for women was 1,007 per 100,000 (95% CI, 945–1,069) compared to 1,567 per 100,000 (95% CI, 1,486–1,648) for men

from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5732068/

(note: not verified this study at all)

"You think a lot of people get run over by buses?" in USA alone about 40 000 - 50 000 people die in traffic accidents each year. (not checked injuries statistics as it is more likely to be creatively inflated and would require more effort to process it)

That’s like what 0.01%ish of the population? And of those, how many people die on the spot? It can’t explain the presence of “healthcare is super important”

As for broken bones, 1%ish every three years isn’t that much either. Also probably isn’t that bad of an experience from a medical perspective either.

For start, it is 1% annual incidence, right? Which is 46% over 60 years assuming flat 1% chance per year.

And even 0.3% annual is 16% chance over 60 years.

(and if you are unsure why people care about reverse lottery where they have say 0.1% chance of losing 50 000$ each year - then I am just confused)

(number very roughly estimated, I guess that you could pull real numbers but I expect them in this kind of area - how much USA people in the top 0.1% of medical payments in given year pay typically? how much in say Germany or Poland?)

That’s like what 0.01%ish of the population? And of those, how many people die on the spot? It can’t explain the presence of “healthcare is super important”

many more are seriously injured. That is 40-50k dead outright.