Ask A Genius 437 – Tolerance for Risk (4)
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/08
[Beginning of recorded material]
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Does this relationship with less willingness to die more impact men’s self-image than women’s because women tend not to be the ones doing the deadly activities as much?
Rick Rosner: Yes, there are gender differences. But the mindset that we should die for stupid reasons has become more and more part of our culture. That when you look at cars; cars have metal dashboards and no seatbelts in the 1930s.
They also went as fast then as now. There were fewer streets or freeways where you could go 80 and most cars could not. But most people probably regularly drove more than 40 miles per hour in the 30s from time to time.
If you got in a wreck driving 45 miles per hour in 1938, there is a high probability you’d be dead. You would hit the dash or fly through the front windshield, be impaled by the steering wheel, and then be crushed by the crunching of the car.
Now, cars have acquired probably more than 100 safety features. If you buy a car now, you would be surrounded by 100 airbags, have a passenger compartment not crumpling with the rest of the car, and a seatbelt plus shoulder harness.
You have computerized collision dynamics prevention. You have a self-driving doodad setup. Even though, people drive crappier now than in the 30s, probably. The risk of dying in a car wreck is – I don’t know – probably a tenth of what it was then because of the safety features.
[End of recorded material]
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 