Micromorts
💀 We are all going to die 💀
Dying! It is what humans do. We do, however, attempt to delay this end for as long as possible. We continue to make horrible decisions around risk and death.
We can use micromorts to help track how risky an activity is and compare it to other activities. This will help us understand what is dangerous and what isn’t.
From wikipedia
A micromort (from micro- and mortality) is a unit of risk defined as one-in-a-million chance of death Micromorts can be used to measure riskiness of various day-to-day activities. A microprobability is a one-in-a million chance of some event; thus a micromort is the microprobability of death. The micromort concept was introduced by Ronald A. Howard who pioneered the modern practice of decision analysis.
For instance, living one day at age 20 is 1 micromort, running a marathon is 7 micromorts, and riding a motorcycle for 60 miles is 10 micromorts. We can easily see that riding a motorcycle is more dangerous than running a marathon.
This is helpful.
The following is a collection of activities and the micromorts of each activity. You can than compare, understand risks and then make decisions.
At the bottom of the table is a form where you can contribute values for other activities. Let’s collect them all.
Activities
| Activity | Micromorts |
|---|---|
| Mountaineering Ascent to Mt. Everest | 37932 |
| Mountaineering in the Himalayas | 12000 |
| Being infected by COVID19 | 10000 |
| Being infected by the Spanish flu | 3000 |
| Mountaineerin Ascent to Matterhorn | 2840 |
| Living in US during covid19 pandemic (July 2020) | 500 |
| Getting out of bed (age 90) | 463 |
| Base Jumping (per jump) | 430 |
| First day of being born | 430 |
| Giving birth (caesarean) | 170 |
| Giving Birth | 170 |
| Scuba diving (Trained) per year | 164 |
| Giving birth (Vaginal) | 120 |
| Getting out of bed (age 75) | 105 |
| Giving Birth | 80 |
| Night in Hospital | 75 |
| Living in NYC during Covid19 (March 15 to May 9) | 50 |
| Giving Birth | 50 |
| Using Heroin | 30 |
| serving in the U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan throughout 2010 | 25 |
| Playing American Football | 20 |
| Getting out of bed (under age 1) | 15 |
| Ecstasy (MDMA) | 13 |
| Going for a swim (Drowning) | 12 |
| General Anesthetic (Emergency Operation) | 10 |
| Riding a motorcycle (60 miles) | 10 |
| Skydiving (per jump) (genera) | 10 |
| SKydiving (US) (per jump) | 8 |
| Skydiving (UK) (per jump) | 8 |
| Hang gliding | 8 |
| Running a Marathon | 7 |
| Living in Maryland during Covid19 Pandemic (March 15 to May 9) | 7 |
| Getting out of bed (age 45) | 6 |
| Scuba diving (Trained) per dive | 5 |
| Rock Climbing (per climb) | 3 |
| Living 2 months with a smoker | 1 |
| Walking 20 miles per day (Accident) | 1 |
| Traveling 230 miles per day by. car. (accident) | 1 |
| Traveling 1000 miles per day by plane(accident) | 1 |
| Traveling 1000 miles per day by. train (accident) | 1 |
| Eating 1000 bananas | 1 |
| Spending 1 hour in a coal mine | 1 |
| Eating 40 tsp of peanut butter | 1 |
| Eating 100 char broiled steak | 1 |
| One day alive at age 20 | 1 |
| Skiing (per day) | 0.7 |
| Horseback Riding | 0.5 |
| Kangaroo Encounter | 0.1 |