The Risks of The Everyday - with Jared Diamond

How dangerous is taking a shower? Jared Diamond shares what he learnt about risk from the tribes of Papua New Guinea. This audio is taken from a 2013 conversation, ‘The world until yesterday’. Watch the full discussion here: • Jared Diamond - What c...
Pullitzer Prize-winner Jared Diamond discusses how insights from the lifestyles of far-removed cultures can impact the way we think about our own lives. Is it worth worrying about the risk of everyday actions like falling in the shower or tripping on the street? Each time you do these things, the risk of mishap is low, but we do them every single day. Over time, does that mean these tiny risks accumulate to become almost inevitable?
This animation is based on audio from a 2013 event at the Royal Institution with Jared Diamond. You can watch the full discussion on how tribal societies offer an extraordinary window into how our ancestors lived here: • Jared Diamond - What c...
This animation was produced by Andrew Khosravani, thanks to generous support from the Sfumato Foundation.
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[@ThePoptartster]

The animation is stunning. I wish the video had been longer.

[@TheRoyalInstitution]

ThePoptartster Thanks! Glad you like it! Animation like this takes a huge amount of time to make, so we couldn't make it too long, but you can watch the whole 90 minutes of Jared Diamond discussing this topic, and what else we can learn from traditional societies, here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mZavppScbNGirZY

[@ThePoptartster]

The Royal Institution That's exactly what I wanted. Thx!

[@ThePoptartster]

***** what is this i don’t even

[@chrisofnottingham]

***** or buy a shower mat

[@ThePoptartster]

chrisofnottingham Or a shower stool/seat/bench! Brilliant!

[@brettnemecek8388]

Jared is one of my favorite authors and I'm currently reading this book (in fact I'm currently reading this same chapter!)

[@flyod26]

On a long enough time line, everybody's survival rate drops to zero. -Fight Club

[@el.joaco.cuevas]

The risk is not that a piano could fall over you in the street. Jared is reffering to the sensitivity towards the little things we do every day that put us in risk, like eating junk food or using dispossable plastic

[@cocoarecords]

awesome video with stunning animation work

[@pbp6741]

Any backpacker in his own country could have taught the same lesson. P.S., Even just one dead branch falling could be fatal, never mind the whole tree.

[@MozartJunior22]

Clearly he never studied Probability Theory

[@AttilaAsztalos]

...except I'm not aware of *anything* we do daily-ish that would have a 1/1000 risk of *serious* consequences. Mostly because if there would be something like that we would be acutely aware it's likely to get us about every three years and WE WOULDN'T BE DOING IT (or rather more likely we would do something to mitigate the risk to a much less likely value). Obviously, if the risk is something like 1/100000 instead the numbers change and we just hope not to be unlucky. For this video to apply to you in any significant way, you need to be a BASE jumper at the very least...!

[@MarinusMakesStuff]

Beautiful video. However, what does this story have to do with science? You can't just smear out statistics over 'everybody'. I'm 31 and I for example, never fell down while under the shower. It all depends on so many variables, it's just nuts to keep everything in mind. I compare the Papua view with religion. It's fine that people live in fear of stuff, but I'm not part of it. Besides this, the video is one of the most beautiful animations I've seen in a long time, and for that, I thank you! :)

[@riggersHDFTW]

Not correct because after 1 day passes the chance of dying doesn't get mor likely up until it's certain its stays at 1/1000 therefore after 1000 days chance of you being dead would be 1/1000 * 1000 or is this not correct???

[@dutchjay1515]

+Waudy and 1/1000 x 1000 = What? pray tell = 1 meaning its a certainty 100% LMFAO, though even that calculation presumes a certain model, there are several other models that could be less than 1 over 1000 days and indeed even the FACT may be that does NOT eventuate just as the prob of a heads on a coin toss is 1/2 does NOT guarantee that in 2 tosses you will get a heads NOT that you may very unlikely though toss a coin say 1000 times and NOT get a heads very unlikely but NOT impossible...got study Probablilty Theory more just as the Video author did not....LOL

[@riggersHDFTW]

+jay dutch yes the probability of getting all tails for 1000 times would be 1000*1/2 as the probability isn't changing

[@riggersHDFTW]

+Waudy which by the way gives an outcome of 500 which is still 50% therefore the probability never changes

[@jonault199]

that was cool.

[@jimidybobidybo]

How has this video got 50 likes and 3 dislikes yet only 31 views?

[@TheRoyalInstitution]

Jonathan Lowe The KZbin view-counting algorithm just takes a little while to catch up with itself when a video is first released as it confirms that views videos receive are authentic. Hopefully they'll even out (and keep rising!) soon.

[@jimidybobidybo]

+The Royal Institution keep on releasing the content you do and I'm sure the view count will do nothing but rise. 👍

[@ReevansElectro]

Having read two of Jared's books, I realize that he has a point but his points are biased and are just opinions and not based in science or mathematics. Generally, in my opinion, he is nearly clueless.

[@dutchjay1515]

and 1/1000 x 1000 = What? pray tell = 1 meaning its a certainty 100% LMFAO, though even that calculation presumes a certain model, there are several other models that could be less than 1 over 1000 days and indeed even the FACT may be that does NOT eventuate just as the prob of a heads on a coin toss is 1/2 does NOT guarantee that in 2 tosses you will get a heads NOT that you may very unlikely though toss a coin say 1000 times and NOT get a heads very unlikely but NOT impossible...got study Probablilty Theory more just as the Video author did not....LOL...ie with replacement style model, eg a new tree grows every day for the one dead tree that falls the prob on ANY day including a TOTAl of 1000 days may STILL BE 1/1000.... etc etc ^^