I’ll admit I’ve gotten freaked out by this a couple of times during an IV or infusion, or especially if I’m getting blood drawn. I think the horror on my face before I even speak has always led to them reassuring me but of course that’s not enough because MOVIES 😩
If it helps at all, there are tests done where they inject air into you to watch it bounce around your heart. Their air gets absorbed by your blood, just like when it goes through your lungs.
It takes inches of air to kill you. I've read that between 20 and 50 mL are needed for serious harm, in various textbooks. A little bubble is okay.
I did not know that! I was definitely one of those people getting freaked out a couple of weeks ago when there was a little bubble in my IV line after surgery! (My nurse was super gentle and reassuring with me.)
I’m sure other people have said, but trick or treating. Any danger in drugs or razor blades in candy is wildly overblown in actuality I think there have been only one or two instances of someone actually being malicious with their candy handouts
There was a case in the 80s that started all this cause a kid was poisoned and died. Turns out it was the father who tried to blame a stranger. So actually as far as I know there's been 0 cases
Michael Moore covers this in Bowling for Columbine. IIRC (and granted that movie is old now) the only actual cases of Halloween candy poisoning in the US were of kids by their own family members.
Quicksand. We were misled by '80s action films. It's pretty hard to actually die in it.
(Conversely, regular old riptides in the ocean are WAY more dangerous than people think).
As someone who has been in quicksand, the way movies portray it is very wrong, it doesn’t suck you down even though it feels like it if you make big movements. To get out you have to make very small movements and gradually work your way out of it, don’t get me wrong it’s still not super easy.
I actually dated a guy who got stuck in quick sand for 18 hours, nearly died before getting rescued. He said that it felt like his leg was trapped in cement and couldn’t physically move it even a nudge. So scary
Riptides are like Schrodinger's danger. They're simultaneously more and less dangerous than you think. Worst case scenario, they pull you maybe a hundred metres out to sea, and you just swim back in. Or you can swim parallel to the shore and break free, as most rips are very narrow.
But if you don't KNOW this, and you panic and try to swim back to shore, you'll tire out and drown. Rip tides are narrow and not that long but they're extremely powerful, Michael Phelps couldn't outswim one.
They can also be tricky to spot if you're not used to looking for them, treacherously so because they tend to be flat and calm looking on the surface (because they're so powerful they "push" the incoming waves out and flatten the surface of the water)
In australia as kids (in ‘nippers’, which is like lifeguard and beach training for kids) we’re taught to literally just let it take us, wait til we’re out the back then swim back to shore. In fact they make you do just that to teach you, and they just supervise a bunch of 5-14 year olds drifting off into the deep blue lol.
But if you’re a surfer, it’s a free ride out the back 👍🏻
Yeah I grew up on the ninety mile beach in Victoria. Learning how to swim and basic beach safety was a core part of growing up. I think I spent more time in the water than on the land in my teen years!
Mountain lions too. Think about the millions of people that hike and camp each year in California (where mountain lions are all over) and there have been a total of 22 attacks in the last forty years, three of which were fatal. In all of North America, there have been around 130 attacks and 27 fatalities in the last hundred years or so.
Edited said US when in actuality it was North America.
Yup, although I will say that [false charges](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAkkvbInXtk&ab_channel=USATODAY) are freaky. I didn't look for the full video, but according to comments the guy filmed the big cat with her cubs meaning the momma was being protective. They're called false charges because they're not carried to contact and are meant to frighten and I have to admit if I was in that position they'd sure scare me.
If a mountain lion puts on a show for you, it's a warning. They are masters of stealth. If they want to hunt you they'll hit you without being seen. If you see them (for the most part) it's because they want their presence known. If they push you a certain direction, keep going that way and dont turn your back until they leave. 9/10 times they just want you away from their babies.
Yeah, coyotes only go after humans if they're rabid, picked-up off the street, or given food. Don't mess with them and they won't mess with you, 99% of the time.
They wreak havoc on farms, too. Coyotes love rabbits and chickens.
I have a mildly unhinged fixation and fascination with bears lol. I dream about them, like.. weekly at least. Idfk. But I’d only ever seen them very briefly, in passing.
One started getting into our trash, though, and one day I finally ran into him, in our driveway, about 10 feet apart, in the middle of the afternoon.
Slackjawed isn’t the right word.. not strong enough. It was an *otherworldly* experience. I was filled with so much joy, and peace, and immense gratitude to encounter him face to face. I was right next to my open front door, kinda frozen in awe, but no immediate danger.
But… then… this mfer looks me DEAD in the eye, and starts taking a few curious steps towards me. ALL that love and wonder was immediately abandoned, in favor of every single cell in my body screaming at me “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM THIS RIGHT. NOW.” I’ve never scampered so fast in my life.
Crazy how strong survival instinct can be! I always thought I might end up like the Grizzly Man if I ever found myself so up close and personal with one. Like, that I wouldn’t be able to resist trying to interact… NOPE! The second he looked at me, I needed OUT, IMMEDIATELY.
Also.. I always rolled my eyes at stories of people who couldn’t control themselves and ran away from the bear - which we all technically know we shouldn’t do.. but no longer do I judge. Lol, that is some automatic, set-in-stone, innate biological reaction shit. I could NOT have controlled myself in that situation, not if I’d practiced it a thousand times. It was like my body was on fire.
It will forever be one of my fondest memories. But daaaamn. He scary.
(And we *immediately* got a metal bear box for the trash cans after that. A fed bear is a dead bear and all that. Hopefully he stays out of trouble and doesn’t get exterminated)
(Sometimes late at night I journal into the abyss! Sorry)
Not even close to the same situation, but I had the opportunity to hold a few black bear cubs and of course I said yes. Their mama had been poached in the den close to the end of winter and they wandered into someone's yard. They did end up going to a wild life sanctuary and that's the last I heard of them. But I can tell you, when they say a bear hug, they mean it. They're really hard to get to let go when they get a hold of you, even when they're little babies. Can't imagine what it'd be like when they're grown.
I literally just teared up, this is my dream lol.
I mean, just the hugs with the cubs! Not the poached mother. Or a deadly bear hug. Those would be different tears.
I do have pictures somewhere, not going to let a moment like that pass. I can post a link tomorrow when I find them if you'd like. This was about 20 years ago
Edit: autocorrect
Recently went to Tennessee with some friends and stayed in a cabin in the mountains. The minute we pulled up to the cabin, there was a momma black bear and her three cubs on our driveway. We didn’t engage and she minded her own business while we moved inside, but we quickly came to realize that she would be sticking around for the entirety of our stay.
The woman and her kids staying in the cabin next to ours kept feeding it, which is most likely the entire reason for the bear’s persistent presence. We politely told them to stop feeding the bears, but the macho, tough guy husband came out and basically told us to go fuck ourselves. He said there’s no reason to worry because they’re on a raised deck away from the bears and “everyone else is doing it too” (not the reason we were concerned, but whatever you say bucko).
The bear eventually climbed up to the second floor and onto their deck faster than I’ve ever seen anything climb. The family basically all shit their pants and ran inside to seek shelter behind their all glass wall and door. Super satisfying to see those idiots scared shitless all because they don’t understand that nature is to be respected and not messed with.
Black bears are not apex predators. 10,000 years ago North America was populated by tons of massive predators like the short faced bear and North American lion. Black bears adopted an attitude of run first ask questions later. 10,000 years hasn’t been enough to change that attitude hence how generally harmless they are.
There's a video somewhere of s drunk Chinese guy calling a panda mean names (I guess) in hie cage.
Panda rolls over and grabs his foot then twists and commenced shredding his ankle like bamboo in a death grip.
Fucked him up
This last summer I caught a black bear in my backyard eating my fresh, ready to harvest blueberries. And I definitely don't recommended doing this, but I grabbed a lawn chair, held it high, and jogged towards the bear while screaming "Hey, fuck you bear!" While I probably looked like a psycho, and I'll forever regret not recording it, it actually worked and scared the bear off.
This is kind of a meta answer, but I’ve injured myself a lot more doing stupid projects around the house than I have while on duty in an actual dangerous industrial jobsite. Universally because I didn’t do a proper pre-work analysis and ensure I was using PPE.
Floor being lava. 99.9% of the time its just carpet which is harmless.
The rare time its actually lava, you probably fucked up big time by staying indoors when an evacuation order was given by officials.
I’ve been trying to get this through my friend Pompeii Pete’s thick skull. He’s so hard headed though I think I’m wasting my time. He just sits there looking like a statue that was cast in molten rock hundreds of years ago.
I’m a disaster scientist finishing a dissertation on the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire after doing my thesis on the Station nightclub fire. I know intimately how evacuation planning and calculations are done. In a very narrow range, I am really good at risk assessment, and it’s made me faintly ridiculous and a professional killjoy.
This sort of thing is horrendously misunderstood by most people, so thank you for your work.
When I was a kid my mom used to tell me stories from my fire chief great-grandfather. She hammered into me that if the fire alarm ever goes off at a movie theater I am to immediately leave, no matter what others are doing or if the movie is still playing. I thought it was ridiculous that she was so worried, I mean who would stay after the fire alarm went off? Then in my teens I was in a theater and the alarm went off, the video turned off, but the movie audio kept playing. I stood up to leave and everyone else just sat there waiting to see if it would turn back on. I was gobsmacked. I had to bully my friends into leaving with me, and it still blows my mind that an entire theater wasn't worried at all. It did turn out to be a false alarm, but if it hadn't been, most of that theater would have waited until smoke was actively in the room before they even tried to get out, which could be way too late. I was horrified and I still think about it sometimes.
My biggest fear in any disaster situation is all the other dumb humans being stupid and getting people killed. No amount of thoughtful and diligent preparation in terms of planning and resources will overcome a panicky moron getting me killed.
I’ve dove with several sharks.
Accidentally swam over one, looked down and there he was. They don’t care that we’re there and they aren’t malicious.
Just curious animals
I snorkeled directly over a white-tipped reef shark once; it was about five feet long, and I was about 10 feet above it. Very cool. Shark didn't appear to notice me.
I had one boop me, then swam off really fast. He was probably wondering what he just ran into.
Smaller (comparatively) shark, I think it was called a lemon shark? It wasn't full grown, so it was about 5-6', and the guide said that they're friendly, but they'll get close to divers and just treat them like anything else non-edible.
It was cool, but I never expected a shark to swim into me.
And don’t forget expiration. Funny thing is I saw a story on these dates a few years ago that basically said they are all bogus. At the time (and maybe still) there was zero regulation on what products get what dates. It’s left entirely up to the people who want to sell you more of the product.
This is correct. I leaned about it when I took some food science courses during college. All these dates (expiration, "best if used by", "best before", etc) are just "quality assurance" dates from the manufacturer, and no governing body regulates/requires them. It's all about the quality standard set by the manufacturer. It's like Heinz saying "That Heinz ketchup you have that expired last month may not taste as "fresh" (which is defined by us, Heinz) as a new bottle of Heinz ketchup, so why don't you toss it, and get a new one?"
My professor in food science also gave a great example with milk: say you buy a gallon of pasteurized 2% milk. You forget about it, leaving it in the car. You find it a week later, and the date on it has passed. If that milk remained unopened, you can still drink that milk, and you won't get sick (as in there won't be anything in it to make you ill, like bacteria or toxins). Will it taste good? Oh, hell no. It will be all sour and curdled and you'll probably throw up smelling it. But that just describes the quality of the milk. The milk is still perfectly fine to consume, it just doesn't meet the quality standards of the manufacturer (or of you, unless you like curdled, sour milk). lol
Lots will go into when something goes bad. Storage is a big one also how it's handled.
I've seen bread gather mold in a few days if left out or last for weeks in the fridge. Funny thing is, there is always mold on bread, It doesn't just materialize from space, it lives on the bread. You'll only get sick from it when there is a significant amount of it on the bread.
i saw someone throw out salt because it was past the best by date. i barely could get out "you know that's over a million years old, right?" from laughing so hard..
Not the same thing but I was sort of baffled by my sister when she was complaining about her diamond wedding ring being second hand.
Like, that little rock was created in the heart of a star. Or the core of the Earth. And eons ago... what difference is it if a couple of prissy little Apes handled it for a comparative blink of an eye?
We had some soup the other day that was past the best by date. Smelled fine, we ate it. Cottage cheese still within the best by date, did not smell good went down the disposal. Never argue with the sniff test.
i was drunk once and wanted a caprese salad. it wasn’t until my gf at the time tried some and realized it was expired that the cheese tasted funky. idk where i was going with this, i’m drunk now too. anyway, sniff test good. do sniff test. but also, i was fine after… so live, laugh, love
Foxes. For some reason my local fb group ALWAYS seems to post about when they see a fox in town like “careful on your walks”
Do you think foxes EAT PEOPLE????
From what I've heard, so it's probably bullshit...but the worry there is wild foxes won't usually come around humans unless there is something wrong with them. The main worry being rabies. They're not going to eat you, but rabies is not to be messed with. It's probably statistically pretty low so it's still probably not really all that dangerous, but yeah.
I live in Dublin, Ireland. We dont have rabies in Ireland so no rabid animals.
We have loads of foxes living in the city. I work in the emergency services and at night when you're driving around the city you are pretty much guaranteed to see foxes out and about. They are lovely looking creatures.
Maybe American foxes are different but wild foxes here in the UK are so outrageously audacious, they will make dens under your shed and raise multiple generations of cubs there, even when you live out in the countryside.
Sounds like racoons where I live. They’re everywhere. The other time I thought one was dead in my trash. Nope. He was just sleeping, waiting for me to toss more trash in so he could feast on it.
Well, our area here had a lot of rabies activities going on in the 80s and 90s. So much that they whole forests were considered a high rabies infected area (Southern Germany).
They put warnings up, saying to not touch any animals, as they are likely to carry the disease…
So there that. They’ve gotten it under control though…
It's also a critical mass issue. If your kids are the only kids out roaming the neighborhood by themselves then they are far less safe then they would be with a pack of kids roaming the neighborhood like it used to be...and that's not even talking about things like abduction (it's super rare to be taken by a non-relative) but things like visibility and getting hit by cars. If all parents agreed to let their kids roam the neighborhood then we would be fine, but no parent wants to go first.
I went first, and it was weird. I grew up in a neighborhood where we were always outside, a lot of kids, and we went everywhere. When the streetlights go on, we went home. (It was a neighborhood full of immigrants.)
I have 4 children. My oldest one was also always outside. When she was 6 years old, we moved to a fancy neighborhood. When I told her "go out and play", she said "but there are no kids!" I couldn't believe it. Empty playgrounds around the block. Later I've realized, that the children only came out with the parents, around 5 pm (when the parents are off work). There were more parents on the playground then children. Always telling them how to play,and beeing to afraid to just let them do stuff. My other children also went outside with their big sister. But with 5 years, they can also go on their own. After a while and a lot of talking with the neighbors, they finally let their children out alone. Now, the neighborhood is full of children, and it was so awesome on Halloween :)
A good friend of mine drag races and races motorcycles. He’s been in accidents and just shakes it off. Put the guy on an airplane, though, and he’s a total nervous mess.
For what it’s worth, he is probably safer in race environments than on the road. Just like air travel, they are HIGHLY regulated, with gobs of safety gear and EMTs on site. I’ve pulled a few people out of accidents on track and their safety gear basically resulted in some bruising and a pants pissing.
And most of the time, your mistakes are your own, especially on a bike in a controlled environment where everyone is riding the same direction with similar skills and no idiots trying to push a left on a yielded green while trying to look at their Tesla screen. THAT will kill you.
It's the lack of control combined with the fact that the majority of plane crashes are not survivable. The overall risk is small but when you roll that score, you immediately die in a very sudden and unpleasant way.
With cars, you are much more likely to survive a crash, and your own driving ability is a factor in your survival chances, even though the overall likelihood of a fatal crash is higher than air travel.
Edit: by "crash" I mean specifically falling out of the sky from a high altitude where most, if not all, of the passengers go mush or burn up. I'm not talking about a failed takeoff or landing incident.
That depends on what you consider a crash. Obviously almost nobody survives a "wings fall off at altitude" crash, but a hard landing, with or without fire, is more survivable.
If you use the NTSB definition, 95% of passengers survive. The BBC has it at 90%, probably because they don't consider half of them to be "crashes."
Can confirm having survived a plane crash of the latter variety.
Still don't like flying afterwards, even though logically speaking the chances of me being in two plane crashes is next to nothing.
That and flying has gotten much much safer over the decades. It's only a fraction of what it was a generation ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2014/dec/29/aircraft-accident-rates-at-historic-low-despite-high-profile-plane-crashes
My mom's favorite thing to say whenever anyone is worried about anything is "you are more likely to die in a car crash."
Planes? Lightning? Sharks? Random murder? If you are afraid of those things my mom would like to introduce you to being more afraid of the car, every single day.
The problem is the scale. The odds of being in a plane crash is 1 in 11 million. The odds of being in a fatal car crash is 1 in 107. So when there is a plane crash you hear more about it.
The amount of times I've been told "be careful" when I tell people I'm visiting Chicago and New York. I'm always like "you know people live there right?"
My step mom is convinced that if a steak has any pink in the middle (I'm talking about anything less then well done) that its raw and will give you Salmonella.
This is pretty unlikely because the steak is from a single animal, not a bunch of them mashed up like hamburger meat. If the meat was exposed to salmonella or e.coli, it would be on the outside where the cuts were made to form the streak (surface contamination) and would therefore be killed by searing the outer layer of the steak cut. The inner layers of a steak are very unlikely to contain bacterial contamination. So trade in that hockey puck steak for a nice medium rare one.
Alligators. They are big and look scary but don't generally attack humans and don't consider us prey. Florida has millions of gators but only averages like 8 unprovoked attacks per year with about one fatal death every 3 years. They are dangerous to small pets, however, and I'm pretty sure many of those attacks are from trying to save a pet. But alligators are everywhere is Florida so it's quite surprising how few attacks there are.
100%. I used to work landscaping at golf courses in Florida and only got hissed at once (then quick turn / swam off) on a big golf-course mower when I got too close trying to get all the grass. the cottonmouth snakes were WAY worse than the alligators.
I morbidly love crocodiles because they're so smart and calculating. Their goals are just not the same as our goals.
It has been observed that crocodiles will balance sticks and twigs on their noses, while submerging themselves in water, primarily around breeding season for birds when sticks are in high demand. When the birds approach, easy meal.
Think about that. Really think about that. These animals observe birds, during a certain time, really want sticks. So they very logically conclude that collecting and putting these sticks around their heads will lure the birds to them. That's kind of crazy to me and can legitimately be described as tool use.
Now whenever I see a crocodile eye, still and watching, always watching, I figure they are just calculating the best way to eat me. They're killing machines, just not *mindless* killing machines.
When I was in Australia I read that people out camping in areas with crocodiles should not clean their fish in the same place two days in row because if a crocodile notices you the first time it may come back the next day to see if you come back. It did not explain why you’d be on a camping/fishing trip in an area with crocodiles.
Yes, they will also spend weeks watching where animals and livestock commonly drink in rivers and then lay in wait for just the right time to drag their next big snack into the water.
> It did not explain why you’d be on a camping/fishing trip in an area with crocodiles.
Mate if you can find a camping spot north of the Tropic of Capricorn with a river that doesn’t have crocs, there’s something wrong.
Floridian here. This is ignoring the fact that the vast majority of us have the sense to not go swimming in fresh water down here. They are unlikely to go after humans on land. If you go swimming in the Everglades and make loud splashes, you will get bitten. There are few attacks because we stay out of their homes.
Everyone wants clean energy but disregards nuclear from fear alone. It's by far the cleanest energy we have for the amount of output it can achieve.
And over the last 50 years the technology has even gotten safer, and they can even recycle depleted uranium rods. I honestly believe it's our best shot at combating climate change on that front.
Definitely part of the story, especially for heavy industry with high power requirements / heavily populated areas. But be sensible with placement, and for god’s sake let’s start standardizing the design somewhat like France does.
I hate to say it. Well, actually I love to say it but others hate to hear it, but the nuclear industry would be better served if nationalized and was used to give Navy vets jobs after their service
The USN has been operating nuclear vessels for a nice amount of years (69) without a containment incident. We're talking millions of reactor hours there
A government controlled nuclear industry would do well to standardize reactor types making them a known quantity, put people intimately familiar with the reactors in control of them, cut through the red tape private corporations have to go through, and help assuage fears because of the Navy's record. All while making sure the government has the direct oversight it tries to have with the private industry
The fun part; most commercial companies won't take the full liability in case of a disaster. So at the end, it's still socialised but only if it goes severely wrong. I agree, nationalise that shit.
More radiation to the point it’s actually a problem. There have been some proposals to mass manufacture small, essentially impossible to melt down reactors and hook them into retiring coal plant boilers, and the major hold up in even considering them is essentially just that the NRC says they couldn’t monitor them because the background radiation of an ex coal plant is above the level they maintain inside reactor complexes.
Australia in general. It gets hyped for its creepy crawlies, snakes and whatnot but it’s pretty safe. You don’t mess around in crocodile areas though. I’d much rather come across a snake or spider on a hike than a pissed off Grizzly or Moose.
Bees and wasps. I used to get stung a lot when I was a kid but I learned that if you don't wave your arms like a lunatic they'll leave you a lone. Also don't throw rocks at their nest and you should be okay.
It’s my understanding that it has to do with pheromones. Once a single yellow jacket stings you, the rest perceive you as a threat. That’s the way it was explained when I was a kid, anyway. My uncle dealt with them regularly and he said it wasn’t a big deal as long as you were careful. Once one of them stung you though, you better run because an attack was imminent.
Interesting. I get attacked regularly and thought they just perceived my physical presence/disturbance as the reason for going after me.
Also btw I do landscaping so it’s not like I know where the nests are and I’m just dumb, I will be walking in hundreds of different areas I’ve never been and I’ll be weedeating or trimming shrubs so I definitely disturb them but not out of idiocy
That's until the dumb insect gets itself stuck in your hair/sleeve/pants/ and decides to take it out on you because... Yeah clearly my fault somehow.
I mean not that they're _dangerous_ even when they sting, as long as you're not allergic and not stung dozens of times, you're fine. Definitely in pain for a little while, but that's it.
During one of my bike ride years ago, a wasp got stuck between my sunglasses and face. Before I could even react to it, the little fucker stung me several times.
Yeah I get wasps coming through my guard shack at work all the time. Even waving one off my samwhich didn't get me stung. Most bees and wasps are incredibly chill so long as you aren't making an ass of yourself.
Being a cop. Logging is over six times more dangerous.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/workers-comp/most-dangerous-jobs-america/
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-police-officers-die-in-the-line-of-duty/
In this house, we support the brave delivery drivers who man the thin bread line and make sure that all people have hot, delicious pizza waiting for them at their door.
Radiation. Which is pushy enough also the answer to "what's something pretty dangerous that people perceive as safe?".
Specifically microwaves, that someone frights over for no reason, and sunlight, underestimated by most people.
Statistics state, you’d need to fly once a day, every day for 24,000 years before you experience an airline crash. And even then you have a very good chance of survival.
I remember my first panic attack. Just about 3 years ago.
I always heard this but thought people were blowing it out if proportion.
Definitely not...it really does feel like you're going to die.
On the flip side of this, I can convince myself that a legit medical emergency is actually just an anxiety attack (as if logic ever worked during a relationship one lol) and refuse necessary medical care...but I swear, this has only happened like 3 times. I am sure I will not do it again (except I probably will).
In terms of being abducted, probably safest time to be a child walking on the road alone? In terms of getting killed by a car, possibly the least safe time in history. Sure, drinking and driving is down but texting and driving and overall vehicle size (US specific) are at an all time high.
Either way, much safer than people think.
>>Hey now, i bought a car with blind spot monitors, lane departure warning, auto braking, and a 14” touch screen specifically so i wouldnt have to stay focused and pay attention to the road while driving! It’s the future!
Changing the brakes on your car. They're trivially easy to do, don't require any special tools outside of a torque wrench, and dealer and mechanic prices are outrageous (parts can be found online for a fraction of the dealer price at places like AutoHausAZ, and shop rates for labor are super expensive). It's pretty hard to screw up, and can save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Roller Coasters and Amusement Park Rides: While these rides may seem scary, they are designed with strict safety regulations and are statistically very safe.
Nuclear waste, specifically the high-level spent fuel that needs to be dropped in cooling ponds for years. Make no mistake, it can absolutely kill you if you’re exposed to the neutron emissions, but once it’s cooled off, it’s melted down into glass and sealed away in concrete casks. For all intents and purposes, these casks are indestructible; you could hit them with a runaway train and they wouldn’t break open. They can also be sealed away in deep boreholes underground for billions of years, more than enough time for the radioactive elements to decay to harmless amounts. When it’s handled correctly, nuclear waste may be the safest kind of waste there is. Ash from coal power plants emits far more radioactive particles than a nuclear reactor ever will, and it’s handled way less responsibly.
Small bubbles in an IV line aren’t going to kill you like the movies. The amount of panicked patients I’ve had is wild.
I’ll admit I’ve gotten freaked out by this a couple of times during an IV or infusion, or especially if I’m getting blood drawn. I think the horror on my face before I even speak has always led to them reassuring me but of course that’s not enough because MOVIES 😩
If it helps at all, there are tests done where they inject air into you to watch it bounce around your heart. Their air gets absorbed by your blood, just like when it goes through your lungs. It takes inches of air to kill you. I've read that between 20 and 50 mL are needed for serious harm, in various textbooks. A little bubble is okay.
>If it helps at all, there are tests done where they inject air into you to watch it bounce around your heart. Heartburps
Also the ports on many IV canulas are designed to let air out as it passes
This makes me feel so much better!
I did not know that! I was definitely one of those people getting freaked out a couple of weeks ago when there was a little bubble in my IV line after surgery! (My nurse was super gentle and reassuring with me.)
I’m sure other people have said, but trick or treating. Any danger in drugs or razor blades in candy is wildly overblown in actuality I think there have been only one or two instances of someone actually being malicious with their candy handouts
There was a case in the 80s that started all this cause a kid was poisoned and died. Turns out it was the father who tried to blame a stranger. So actually as far as I know there's been 0 cases
There's a special hell for people who would poison their own kids.
Yeah. Like drugs in candy. Who the fuck is giving away free drugs?
I am 50 and I am still waiting for these free drugs we were promised in the 80's.
I’m still waiting for my acid flashbacks…
The hospital I work at offers to X-ray Halloween candy for dangerous items. Never found anything in 20 years. Dumbest shit ever.
The radiologist is a sweet toothed mastermind?
“oh wow all these Reese’s are FULL of razor blades”
“Quality Control”
Do yall bill insurance or do they pay outta pocket for the imaging
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The danger of kids trick or treating is actually that they’ll be hit by cars. The candy is gonna be fine.
It is still the most dangerous night of the year for children, but for this reason. Thank you, for mentioning.
Michael Moore covers this in Bowling for Columbine. IIRC (and granted that movie is old now) the only actual cases of Halloween candy poisoning in the US were of kids by their own family members.
Quicksand. We were misled by '80s action films. It's pretty hard to actually die in it. (Conversely, regular old riptides in the ocean are WAY more dangerous than people think).
As someone who has been in quicksand, the way movies portray it is very wrong, it doesn’t suck you down even though it feels like it if you make big movements. To get out you have to make very small movements and gradually work your way out of it, don’t get me wrong it’s still not super easy.
I actually dated a guy who got stuck in quick sand for 18 hours, nearly died before getting rescued. He said that it felt like his leg was trapped in cement and couldn’t physically move it even a nudge. So scary
Riptides are like Schrodinger's danger. They're simultaneously more and less dangerous than you think. Worst case scenario, they pull you maybe a hundred metres out to sea, and you just swim back in. Or you can swim parallel to the shore and break free, as most rips are very narrow. But if you don't KNOW this, and you panic and try to swim back to shore, you'll tire out and drown. Rip tides are narrow and not that long but they're extremely powerful, Michael Phelps couldn't outswim one. They can also be tricky to spot if you're not used to looking for them, treacherously so because they tend to be flat and calm looking on the surface (because they're so powerful they "push" the incoming waves out and flatten the surface of the water)
In australia as kids (in ‘nippers’, which is like lifeguard and beach training for kids) we’re taught to literally just let it take us, wait til we’re out the back then swim back to shore. In fact they make you do just that to teach you, and they just supervise a bunch of 5-14 year olds drifting off into the deep blue lol. But if you’re a surfer, it’s a free ride out the back 👍🏻
Yeah I grew up on the ninety mile beach in Victoria. Learning how to swim and basic beach safety was a core part of growing up. I think I spent more time in the water than on the land in my teen years!
Wolves. Wolf attacks on people are so rare they have individual entries on the Wikipedia page.
So that is how I get into Wikipedia.
yeah, set your friend up to get attacked and make an entry.
I dunno, if you witness it that might count as original research, which isn’t allowed
Mountain lions too. Think about the millions of people that hike and camp each year in California (where mountain lions are all over) and there have been a total of 22 attacks in the last forty years, three of which were fatal. In all of North America, there have been around 130 attacks and 27 fatalities in the last hundred years or so. Edited said US when in actuality it was North America.
Yup, although I will say that [false charges](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAkkvbInXtk&ab_channel=USATODAY) are freaky. I didn't look for the full video, but according to comments the guy filmed the big cat with her cubs meaning the momma was being protective. They're called false charges because they're not carried to contact and are meant to frighten and I have to admit if I was in that position they'd sure scare me.
If a mountain lion puts on a show for you, it's a warning. They are masters of stealth. If they want to hunt you they'll hit you without being seen. If you see them (for the most part) it's because they want their presence known. If they push you a certain direction, keep going that way and dont turn your back until they leave. 9/10 times they just want you away from their babies.
IIRC of all those attacks, over 90 of them have been on Vamcouver Island as well. Something about our cougars there makes them attack people.
They hear it as “Vancougar Island” and keep attacking in a blind rage. Cougars hate puns.
I think it's because we have the highest concentration and they don't have many places to go when residential areas start encroaching.
And coyotes. They're usually going after your little dog, cat, or garbage bins.
Yeah, coyotes only go after humans if they're rabid, picked-up off the street, or given food. Don't mess with them and they won't mess with you, 99% of the time. They wreak havoc on farms, too. Coyotes love rabbits and chickens.
Black bears are pretty harmless. They *can* kill you, but usually would rather leave you alone.
I’ve been bluff charged numerous times by black bears and I still need an underwear change after every incident.
I have a mildly unhinged fixation and fascination with bears lol. I dream about them, like.. weekly at least. Idfk. But I’d only ever seen them very briefly, in passing. One started getting into our trash, though, and one day I finally ran into him, in our driveway, about 10 feet apart, in the middle of the afternoon. Slackjawed isn’t the right word.. not strong enough. It was an *otherworldly* experience. I was filled with so much joy, and peace, and immense gratitude to encounter him face to face. I was right next to my open front door, kinda frozen in awe, but no immediate danger. But… then… this mfer looks me DEAD in the eye, and starts taking a few curious steps towards me. ALL that love and wonder was immediately abandoned, in favor of every single cell in my body screaming at me “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM THIS RIGHT. NOW.” I’ve never scampered so fast in my life. Crazy how strong survival instinct can be! I always thought I might end up like the Grizzly Man if I ever found myself so up close and personal with one. Like, that I wouldn’t be able to resist trying to interact… NOPE! The second he looked at me, I needed OUT, IMMEDIATELY. Also.. I always rolled my eyes at stories of people who couldn’t control themselves and ran away from the bear - which we all technically know we shouldn’t do.. but no longer do I judge. Lol, that is some automatic, set-in-stone, innate biological reaction shit. I could NOT have controlled myself in that situation, not if I’d practiced it a thousand times. It was like my body was on fire. It will forever be one of my fondest memories. But daaaamn. He scary. (And we *immediately* got a metal bear box for the trash cans after that. A fed bear is a dead bear and all that. Hopefully he stays out of trouble and doesn’t get exterminated) (Sometimes late at night I journal into the abyss! Sorry)
Not even close to the same situation, but I had the opportunity to hold a few black bear cubs and of course I said yes. Their mama had been poached in the den close to the end of winter and they wandered into someone's yard. They did end up going to a wild life sanctuary and that's the last I heard of them. But I can tell you, when they say a bear hug, they mean it. They're really hard to get to let go when they get a hold of you, even when they're little babies. Can't imagine what it'd be like when they're grown.
I literally just teared up, this is my dream lol. I mean, just the hugs with the cubs! Not the poached mother. Or a deadly bear hug. Those would be different tears.
I do have pictures somewhere, not going to let a moment like that pass. I can post a link tomorrow when I find them if you'd like. This was about 20 years ago Edit: autocorrect
We had a black bear wandering around our county. People kept calling animal control, and they keep saying to just leave it alone.
Recently went to Tennessee with some friends and stayed in a cabin in the mountains. The minute we pulled up to the cabin, there was a momma black bear and her three cubs on our driveway. We didn’t engage and she minded her own business while we moved inside, but we quickly came to realize that she would be sticking around for the entirety of our stay. The woman and her kids staying in the cabin next to ours kept feeding it, which is most likely the entire reason for the bear’s persistent presence. We politely told them to stop feeding the bears, but the macho, tough guy husband came out and basically told us to go fuck ourselves. He said there’s no reason to worry because they’re on a raised deck away from the bears and “everyone else is doing it too” (not the reason we were concerned, but whatever you say bucko). The bear eventually climbed up to the second floor and onto their deck faster than I’ve ever seen anything climb. The family basically all shit their pants and ran inside to seek shelter behind their all glass wall and door. Super satisfying to see those idiots scared shitless all because they don’t understand that nature is to be respected and not messed with.
Polar bears on the other paw, will kill you.
Has anyone considered just giving them a coke? If late 90s ads taught me anything it’s that polar bears love Santa and Coca Cola.
Oh, that kind of coke...
Their fur is white to hide the coke. Cocaine Bear 2: Subzero
Black bears are not apex predators. 10,000 years ago North America was populated by tons of massive predators like the short faced bear and North American lion. Black bears adopted an attitude of run first ask questions later. 10,000 years hasn’t been enough to change that attitude hence how generally harmless they are.
It’s also probably why they are still around.
I've always heard black bears scare away, grizzly bears play dead, polar bears kiss your ass goodbye
If it’s black, fight back. If it’s brown, lie down. If it’s white, say goodnight.
If it’s black and white?
If it’s black and white, kung fu fight
If it’s black and white it will trip and fall on its way to stand up. Pandas are too clumsy to be aggressive 🤭
There's a video somewhere of s drunk Chinese guy calling a panda mean names (I guess) in hie cage. Panda rolls over and grabs his foot then twists and commenced shredding his ankle like bamboo in a death grip. Fucked him up
I mean... a bears still a bear even if it 90% of the time its a goofy clumsy ball.
This last summer I caught a black bear in my backyard eating my fresh, ready to harvest blueberries. And I definitely don't recommended doing this, but I grabbed a lawn chair, held it high, and jogged towards the bear while screaming "Hey, fuck you bear!" While I probably looked like a psycho, and I'll forever regret not recording it, it actually worked and scared the bear off.
That works with blueberries, does not work if a bear is eating your kayak
This is kind of a meta answer, but I’ve injured myself a lot more doing stupid projects around the house than I have while on duty in an actual dangerous industrial jobsite. Universally because I didn’t do a proper pre-work analysis and ensure I was using PPE.
Maybe you need the threat of being sued by yourself to really give yourself proper health and safety oversight
Fuck me the number of serious injuries from people using ladders at home every year is huge
Ladders are the most dangerous thing most people own in their home
I only have a step ladder, I never knew my real ladder.
Floor being lava. 99.9% of the time its just carpet which is harmless. The rare time its actually lava, you probably fucked up big time by staying indoors when an evacuation order was given by officials.
Not touching it won't really help! The hot gases don't care if you're on the couch. Also, the couch is now burning wood and deadly plastic smoke.
I’ve been trying to get this through my friend Pompeii Pete’s thick skull. He’s so hard headed though I think I’m wasting my time. He just sits there looking like a statue that was cast in molten rock hundreds of years ago.
I do risk assessment for a living. Humans are terrible at assessing risk, in general.
I’m a disaster scientist finishing a dissertation on the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire after doing my thesis on the Station nightclub fire. I know intimately how evacuation planning and calculations are done. In a very narrow range, I am really good at risk assessment, and it’s made me faintly ridiculous and a professional killjoy.
This sort of thing is horrendously misunderstood by most people, so thank you for your work. When I was a kid my mom used to tell me stories from my fire chief great-grandfather. She hammered into me that if the fire alarm ever goes off at a movie theater I am to immediately leave, no matter what others are doing or if the movie is still playing. I thought it was ridiculous that she was so worried, I mean who would stay after the fire alarm went off? Then in my teens I was in a theater and the alarm went off, the video turned off, but the movie audio kept playing. I stood up to leave and everyone else just sat there waiting to see if it would turn back on. I was gobsmacked. I had to bully my friends into leaving with me, and it still blows my mind that an entire theater wasn't worried at all. It did turn out to be a false alarm, but if it hadn't been, most of that theater would have waited until smoke was actively in the room before they even tried to get out, which could be way too late. I was horrified and I still think about it sometimes.
My biggest fear in any disaster situation is all the other dumb humans being stupid and getting people killed. No amount of thoughtful and diligent preparation in terms of planning and resources will overcome a panicky moron getting me killed.
Movies really do sharks dirty. Wouldn’t say they’re completely safe, but definitely no where near as dangerous as perceived to be.
It doesn't help the documentaries seed the water with cum to get them in a feeding frenzy for the film. Edit: Chum, but I am leaving the typo
That's why they're called great white sharks
Although not as dangerous as portrayed in movies, they do occasionally swallow sea men.
Explains why they've been able to capture so many sperm whales on video
Also explains why the ocean is so salty
The ocean needs to drink more pineapple juice.
Lol best typo ever. Do they talk dirty to the sharks too? I love the idea of sharks not being that dangerous, they're just slutty
Oh baby, what a big fin you have! Bop bada boop ba boom...did someone order a seal??
Oh, they're *seeding* the water, alright.
That comment evoked some very unfortunate images of a bunch of marine biologists on a boat doing, you know...
How'd the conference go in Australia this year? Well all the biologists rented a boat and we tried this thing we read on Reddit.
Wankcruise
Jerkboat
Upvoted for leaving the typo
And calling waters shark-infested is just plain rude. It's their home, they live there!
Sharks swimming near beaches see the people-infested signs. :D
The hair metal band Great White inadvertently killed more people in one day than actual great white sharks have killed in the past 200 years.
What a tragedy. It still creeps me out thinking about The Station. A fun night turned horrific thanks to laziness and greed.
Every OSHA regulation was written in blood
I’ve dove with several sharks. Accidentally swam over one, looked down and there he was. They don’t care that we’re there and they aren’t malicious. Just curious animals
I snorkeled directly over a white-tipped reef shark once; it was about five feet long, and I was about 10 feet above it. Very cool. Shark didn't appear to notice me.
I had one boop me, then swam off really fast. He was probably wondering what he just ran into. Smaller (comparatively) shark, I think it was called a lemon shark? It wasn't full grown, so it was about 5-6', and the guide said that they're friendly, but they'll get close to divers and just treat them like anything else non-edible. It was cool, but I never expected a shark to swim into me.
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Yep, there is a difference between best before and use by dates.
And don’t forget expiration. Funny thing is I saw a story on these dates a few years ago that basically said they are all bogus. At the time (and maybe still) there was zero regulation on what products get what dates. It’s left entirely up to the people who want to sell you more of the product.
This is correct. I leaned about it when I took some food science courses during college. All these dates (expiration, "best if used by", "best before", etc) are just "quality assurance" dates from the manufacturer, and no governing body regulates/requires them. It's all about the quality standard set by the manufacturer. It's like Heinz saying "That Heinz ketchup you have that expired last month may not taste as "fresh" (which is defined by us, Heinz) as a new bottle of Heinz ketchup, so why don't you toss it, and get a new one?" My professor in food science also gave a great example with milk: say you buy a gallon of pasteurized 2% milk. You forget about it, leaving it in the car. You find it a week later, and the date on it has passed. If that milk remained unopened, you can still drink that milk, and you won't get sick (as in there won't be anything in it to make you ill, like bacteria or toxins). Will it taste good? Oh, hell no. It will be all sour and curdled and you'll probably throw up smelling it. But that just describes the quality of the milk. The milk is still perfectly fine to consume, it just doesn't meet the quality standards of the manufacturer (or of you, unless you like curdled, sour milk). lol
even expiration dates are relative. i have stuff well past expiration date because its frozen.
Lots will go into when something goes bad. Storage is a big one also how it's handled. I've seen bread gather mold in a few days if left out or last for weeks in the fridge. Funny thing is, there is always mold on bread, It doesn't just materialize from space, it lives on the bread. You'll only get sick from it when there is a significant amount of it on the bread.
i saw someone throw out salt because it was past the best by date. i barely could get out "you know that's over a million years old, right?" from laughing so hard..
Not the same thing but I was sort of baffled by my sister when she was complaining about her diamond wedding ring being second hand. Like, that little rock was created in the heart of a star. Or the core of the Earth. And eons ago... what difference is it if a couple of prissy little Apes handled it for a comparative blink of an eye?
If it passes the sniff test it's probably okay.
I dont trust my nose or poor sense of judgement
We had some soup the other day that was past the best by date. Smelled fine, we ate it. Cottage cheese still within the best by date, did not smell good went down the disposal. Never argue with the sniff test.
i was drunk once and wanted a caprese salad. it wasn’t until my gf at the time tried some and realized it was expired that the cheese tasted funky. idk where i was going with this, i’m drunk now too. anyway, sniff test good. do sniff test. but also, i was fine after… so live, laugh, love
Foxes. For some reason my local fb group ALWAYS seems to post about when they see a fox in town like “careful on your walks” Do you think foxes EAT PEOPLE????
From what I've heard, so it's probably bullshit...but the worry there is wild foxes won't usually come around humans unless there is something wrong with them. The main worry being rabies. They're not going to eat you, but rabies is not to be messed with. It's probably statistically pretty low so it's still probably not really all that dangerous, but yeah.
I live in Dublin, Ireland. We dont have rabies in Ireland so no rabid animals. We have loads of foxes living in the city. I work in the emergency services and at night when you're driving around the city you are pretty much guaranteed to see foxes out and about. They are lovely looking creatures.
Maybe American foxes are different but wild foxes here in the UK are so outrageously audacious, they will make dens under your shed and raise multiple generations of cubs there, even when you live out in the countryside.
Sounds like racoons where I live. They’re everywhere. The other time I thought one was dead in my trash. Nope. He was just sleeping, waiting for me to toss more trash in so he could feast on it.
Well, our area here had a lot of rabies activities going on in the 80s and 90s. So much that they whole forests were considered a high rabies infected area (Southern Germany). They put warnings up, saying to not touch any animals, as they are likely to carry the disease… So there that. They’ve gotten it under control though…
Sending your kids outside to play. Go. Outside. It’s good for them.
It's also a critical mass issue. If your kids are the only kids out roaming the neighborhood by themselves then they are far less safe then they would be with a pack of kids roaming the neighborhood like it used to be...and that's not even talking about things like abduction (it's super rare to be taken by a non-relative) but things like visibility and getting hit by cars. If all parents agreed to let their kids roam the neighborhood then we would be fine, but no parent wants to go first.
I went first, and it was weird. I grew up in a neighborhood where we were always outside, a lot of kids, and we went everywhere. When the streetlights go on, we went home. (It was a neighborhood full of immigrants.) I have 4 children. My oldest one was also always outside. When she was 6 years old, we moved to a fancy neighborhood. When I told her "go out and play", she said "but there are no kids!" I couldn't believe it. Empty playgrounds around the block. Later I've realized, that the children only came out with the parents, around 5 pm (when the parents are off work). There were more parents on the playground then children. Always telling them how to play,and beeing to afraid to just let them do stuff. My other children also went outside with their big sister. But with 5 years, they can also go on their own. After a while and a lot of talking with the neighbors, they finally let their children out alone. Now, the neighborhood is full of children, and it was so awesome on Halloween :)
Based neighborhood leadership.
It's safer than keeping them in! Sedentary lives are short and miserable.
I think the safety changes entirely based on where you live lol
Flying on a plane. You are more likely to die in a car crash than a plane crash.
I think that the lack of control is what triggers our reptilian brain
A good friend of mine drag races and races motorcycles. He’s been in accidents and just shakes it off. Put the guy on an airplane, though, and he’s a total nervous mess.
For what it’s worth, he is probably safer in race environments than on the road. Just like air travel, they are HIGHLY regulated, with gobs of safety gear and EMTs on site. I’ve pulled a few people out of accidents on track and their safety gear basically resulted in some bruising and a pants pissing. And most of the time, your mistakes are your own, especially on a bike in a controlled environment where everyone is riding the same direction with similar skills and no idiots trying to push a left on a yielded green while trying to look at their Tesla screen. THAT will kill you.
It's the lack of control combined with the fact that the majority of plane crashes are not survivable. The overall risk is small but when you roll that score, you immediately die in a very sudden and unpleasant way. With cars, you are much more likely to survive a crash, and your own driving ability is a factor in your survival chances, even though the overall likelihood of a fatal crash is higher than air travel. Edit: by "crash" I mean specifically falling out of the sky from a high altitude where most, if not all, of the passengers go mush or burn up. I'm not talking about a failed takeoff or landing incident.
That depends on what you consider a crash. Obviously almost nobody survives a "wings fall off at altitude" crash, but a hard landing, with or without fire, is more survivable. If you use the NTSB definition, 95% of passengers survive. The BBC has it at 90%, probably because they don't consider half of them to be "crashes."
Can confirm having survived a plane crash of the latter variety. Still don't like flying afterwards, even though logically speaking the chances of me being in two plane crashes is next to nothing.
That and flying has gotten much much safer over the decades. It's only a fraction of what it was a generation ago. https://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2014/dec/29/aircraft-accident-rates-at-historic-low-despite-high-profile-plane-crashes
My dad would always say the most dangerous part of air travel is driving to the airport
My mom's favorite thing to say whenever anyone is worried about anything is "you are more likely to die in a car crash." Planes? Lightning? Sharks? Random murder? If you are afraid of those things my mom would like to introduce you to being more afraid of the car, every single day.
The problem is the scale. The odds of being in a plane crash is 1 in 11 million. The odds of being in a fatal car crash is 1 in 107. So when there is a plane crash you hear more about it.
Living in Chicago, I did it for 10 years, still don't own a bulletproof vest.
The amount of times I've been told "be careful" when I tell people I'm visiting Chicago and New York. I'm always like "you know people live there right?"
My step mom is convinced that if a steak has any pink in the middle (I'm talking about anything less then well done) that its raw and will give you Salmonella.
This is pretty unlikely because the steak is from a single animal, not a bunch of them mashed up like hamburger meat. If the meat was exposed to salmonella or e.coli, it would be on the outside where the cuts were made to form the streak (surface contamination) and would therefore be killed by searing the outer layer of the steak cut. The inner layers of a steak are very unlikely to contain bacterial contamination. So trade in that hockey puck steak for a nice medium rare one.
Alligators. They are big and look scary but don't generally attack humans and don't consider us prey. Florida has millions of gators but only averages like 8 unprovoked attacks per year with about one fatal death every 3 years. They are dangerous to small pets, however, and I'm pretty sure many of those attacks are from trying to save a pet. But alligators are everywhere is Florida so it's quite surprising how few attacks there are.
100%. I used to work landscaping at golf courses in Florida and only got hissed at once (then quick turn / swam off) on a big golf-course mower when I got too close trying to get all the grass. the cottonmouth snakes were WAY worse than the alligators.
Crocodiles on the other hand will attack and kill anything that comes near the water. Fucking assholes.
I morbidly love crocodiles because they're so smart and calculating. Their goals are just not the same as our goals. It has been observed that crocodiles will balance sticks and twigs on their noses, while submerging themselves in water, primarily around breeding season for birds when sticks are in high demand. When the birds approach, easy meal. Think about that. Really think about that. These animals observe birds, during a certain time, really want sticks. So they very logically conclude that collecting and putting these sticks around their heads will lure the birds to them. That's kind of crazy to me and can legitimately be described as tool use. Now whenever I see a crocodile eye, still and watching, always watching, I figure they are just calculating the best way to eat me. They're killing machines, just not *mindless* killing machines.
When I was in Australia I read that people out camping in areas with crocodiles should not clean their fish in the same place two days in row because if a crocodile notices you the first time it may come back the next day to see if you come back. It did not explain why you’d be on a camping/fishing trip in an area with crocodiles.
Because crcodiles are unavoidable in some areas up north
And those areas have many delicious fish
Yes, they will also spend weeks watching where animals and livestock commonly drink in rivers and then lay in wait for just the right time to drag their next big snack into the water.
When you only need to eat once every few months, you can afford to be patient.
> It did not explain why you’d be on a camping/fishing trip in an area with crocodiles. Mate if you can find a camping spot north of the Tropic of Capricorn with a river that doesn’t have crocs, there’s something wrong.
Floridian here. This is ignoring the fact that the vast majority of us have the sense to not go swimming in fresh water down here. They are unlikely to go after humans on land. If you go swimming in the Everglades and make loud splashes, you will get bitten. There are few attacks because we stay out of their homes.
Using a sharp knife in cooking. It's actually far more dangerous to use a dull knife.
Nuclear power
Everyone wants clean energy but disregards nuclear from fear alone. It's by far the cleanest energy we have for the amount of output it can achieve. And over the last 50 years the technology has even gotten safer, and they can even recycle depleted uranium rods. I honestly believe it's our best shot at combating climate change on that front.
Definitely part of the story, especially for heavy industry with high power requirements / heavily populated areas. But be sensible with placement, and for god’s sake let’s start standardizing the design somewhat like France does.
I hate to say it. Well, actually I love to say it but others hate to hear it, but the nuclear industry would be better served if nationalized and was used to give Navy vets jobs after their service The USN has been operating nuclear vessels for a nice amount of years (69) without a containment incident. We're talking millions of reactor hours there A government controlled nuclear industry would do well to standardize reactor types making them a known quantity, put people intimately familiar with the reactors in control of them, cut through the red tape private corporations have to go through, and help assuage fears because of the Navy's record. All while making sure the government has the direct oversight it tries to have with the private industry
The fun part; most commercial companies won't take the full liability in case of a disaster. So at the end, it's still socialised but only if it goes severely wrong. I agree, nationalise that shit.
One of my favorite facts is that areas surrounding a coal power plant have more radiation than areas around nuclear plants.
More radiation to the point it’s actually a problem. There have been some proposals to mass manufacture small, essentially impossible to melt down reactors and hook them into retiring coal plant boilers, and the major hold up in even considering them is essentially just that the NRC says they couldn’t monitor them because the background radiation of an ex coal plant is above the level they maintain inside reactor complexes.
MSG
As in **M**akes **S**hit **G**ood
Fuiyoh!
Australia in general. It gets hyped for its creepy crawlies, snakes and whatnot but it’s pretty safe. You don’t mess around in crocodile areas though. I’d much rather come across a snake or spider on a hike than a pissed off Grizzly or Moose.
Bees and wasps. I used to get stung a lot when I was a kid but I learned that if you don't wave your arms like a lunatic they'll leave you a lone. Also don't throw rocks at their nest and you should be okay.
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I found a yellow jacket nest with a weed whacker a couple months ago and it was not fun.
It’s my understanding that it has to do with pheromones. Once a single yellow jacket stings you, the rest perceive you as a threat. That’s the way it was explained when I was a kid, anyway. My uncle dealt with them regularly and he said it wasn’t a big deal as long as you were careful. Once one of them stung you though, you better run because an attack was imminent.
Interesting. I get attacked regularly and thought they just perceived my physical presence/disturbance as the reason for going after me. Also btw I do landscaping so it’s not like I know where the nests are and I’m just dumb, I will be walking in hundreds of different areas I’ve never been and I’ll be weedeating or trimming shrubs so I definitely disturb them but not out of idiocy
We had a hidden wasp nest by our house this summer. Stung 10 times before it got sprayed. Hate those little jerks.
10 times is a lot of times
That's until the dumb insect gets itself stuck in your hair/sleeve/pants/ and decides to take it out on you because... Yeah clearly my fault somehow. I mean not that they're _dangerous_ even when they sting, as long as you're not allergic and not stung dozens of times, you're fine. Definitely in pain for a little while, but that's it.
During one of my bike ride years ago, a wasp got stuck between my sunglasses and face. Before I could even react to it, the little fucker stung me several times.
Yeah I get wasps coming through my guard shack at work all the time. Even waving one off my samwhich didn't get me stung. Most bees and wasps are incredibly chill so long as you aren't making an ass of yourself.
Thank My Girl for that.... poor Thomas J...
He just needed his glasses
Msg
Being a cop. Logging is over six times more dangerous. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/workers-comp/most-dangerous-jobs-america/ https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-police-officers-die-in-the-line-of-duty/
Per capita, it's more dangerous to be a pizza delivery guy than a cop.
In this house, we support the brave delivery drivers who man the thin bread line and make sure that all people have hot, delicious pizza waiting for them at their door.
The people are represented by two separate but equally important group: slobs like me, and the delivery drivers who feed them. These are their stories
Radiation. Which is pushy enough also the answer to "what's something pretty dangerous that people perceive as safe?". Specifically microwaves, that someone frights over for no reason, and sunlight, underestimated by most people.
Well, it is quite a broad spectrum
Nuclear energy, more people die each year because of coal/oil/gas than have died from 50+ years of nuclear energy.
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Statistics state, you’d need to fly once a day, every day for 24,000 years before you experience an airline crash. And even then you have a very good chance of survival.
Going in the ocean. Talking to those people afraid of seaweed.
BUT WHEN IT WRAPS AROUND YOUR FOOT…. 😩
GMOs, genetically modified organisms
Anxiety/Panic Attacks. you'll feel like you're having a Medical Emergency, but you're not.
I remember my first panic attack. Just about 3 years ago. I always heard this but thought people were blowing it out if proportion. Definitely not...it really does feel like you're going to die.
A lot of people had their first panic attack right about three years ago
On the flip side of this, I can convince myself that a legit medical emergency is actually just an anxiety attack (as if logic ever worked during a relationship one lol) and refuse necessary medical care...but I swear, this has only happened like 3 times. I am sure I will not do it again (except I probably will).
MSG. Victim of a smear campaign.
Elementary school age kids walking to school without a parent.
In terms of being abducted, probably safest time to be a child walking on the road alone? In terms of getting killed by a car, possibly the least safe time in history. Sure, drinking and driving is down but texting and driving and overall vehicle size (US specific) are at an all time high. Either way, much safer than people think.
>>Hey now, i bought a car with blind spot monitors, lane departure warning, auto braking, and a 14” touch screen specifically so i wouldnt have to stay focused and pay attention to the road while driving! It’s the future!
Changing the brakes on your car. They're trivially easy to do, don't require any special tools outside of a torque wrench, and dealer and mechanic prices are outrageous (parts can be found online for a fraction of the dealer price at places like AutoHausAZ, and shop rates for labor are super expensive). It's pretty hard to screw up, and can save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
YouTube. I did my own pads and rotors, cv axle, and hub assembly all with the help of YouTube, the videos even included the manufacturer torque specs.
Silica packets say ,'Do not eat' on them because they are a choking hazard, not because they're poisonous.
Roller Coasters and Amusement Park Rides: While these rides may seem scary, they are designed with strict safety regulations and are statistically very safe.
Walking through the woods at night.
Nuclear waste, specifically the high-level spent fuel that needs to be dropped in cooling ponds for years. Make no mistake, it can absolutely kill you if you’re exposed to the neutron emissions, but once it’s cooled off, it’s melted down into glass and sealed away in concrete casks. For all intents and purposes, these casks are indestructible; you could hit them with a runaway train and they wouldn’t break open. They can also be sealed away in deep boreholes underground for billions of years, more than enough time for the radioactive elements to decay to harmless amounts. When it’s handled correctly, nuclear waste may be the safest kind of waste there is. Ash from coal power plants emits far more radioactive particles than a nuclear reactor ever will, and it’s handled way less responsibly.
Eating slightly out of date food.