From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Feb 05 2003 - 16:37:49 MST
Michael Dickey writes
> I am still not seeing how [Chernobyl] is worse than the 3 million people who
> are dying every year, right now. Do you feel that this number is perhaps
> inaccurate? You lost some veggies and some lambs, while 3 million people
> every year lose there lives.
I've always thought that figures such as these---three million---do
need to be adjusted for "expected number of years of life lost".
That is, although it's still a tragedy, the loss of an eighty-five
year old ought not to be regarded with the sense of loss as a
fifteen year old. Their deaths (on the first reading) cannot
be equated because the eighty-five year old is nearly certain
to die anyway shortly. And, if I recall correctly, your figure
did pertain to the elderly or already very fragile.
(That being said, of course, it's still always important for
extropians and cryonicists to emphasize that so far as we
know, all deaths today are needless. The technology currently
exists to banish death (again, so far as we know). Hence, from
this point of view, one can consider the death of an 85 year
old to be an even *greater* tragedy.)
So concerns about the safety of nuclear reactors which could
kill hundreds---or of coal mines which presently DO KILL
hundreds---should be compared to traffic accidents, or other
statistics which automatically take into account natural
lifespan, it seems to me.
Lee
P.S.
> Citing Chernobyl as an example of unsafe nuclear reactors is like citing the
> titanic as a reason to think cruise liners are unsafe.
Yes, good point!
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