What everyday objects can pose a danger to our health and safety?

[Moonbear]

Sexy males?

Yep, and they make the doors more dangerous too, staring at them and not noticing you're walking into a door, not to mention the puddle of drool on the ground that someone could slip on.

 

[~christina~]

We are constantly getting told that life is priceless. That's completely different discussion, but I have my doubts.

So, Borek..how much is your life worth

You can't move ahead without looses. General approach that everything can be done without any risk leads to absurds. Chemistry teachers have problems with finding experiments that will be not considered too dangerous. Test tubes are dangerous because you can cut your finger. That's ridiculous.

That's very true. It could also be the explanation of why I never had a chemistry class until college. (we had a lab in lower school but it had absolutely no chemicals and everything chemistry related on paper )

It is not about chemicals contacting teeth, rather about chemicals lowering general immunity.

I am at risk then.

 

[DaveC426913]

So, Borek..how much is your life worth

Yep. Christina's right.

For how many experiments that advance our knowledge would you give up your own life? If you knew your life were standing in the way of - what? 10? 20? 50? - experiments, would you offer it?

 

[Borek]

So, Borek..how much is your life worth

15 years ago I have been visited by insurance agent and he calculated it. Methodology used was "how much does it cost to make sure your kid will be able to start on its own". TLV limits are calculated with some approximation of life worth (or rather cost of the therapy, be it necessary, but it they assume limit of the therapy cost, that translates to your life worth).

So, if you know where to look, there is a price tag. It is not advertised, but nonetheless it exists.

That's very true. It could also be the explanation of why I never had a chemistry class until college. (we had a lab in lower school but it had absolutely no chemicals and everything chemistry related on paper )

Some time ago someone on some other forum told a story about his daugther taking art class in sculpture, where they were not allowed to use sharp knifes, because they could harm themselves. It made some of the tasks they should perform impossible. That's part of the same problem.

 

[DaveC426913]

15 years ago I have been visited by insurance agent and he calculated it. Methodology used was "how much does it cost to make sure your kid will be able to start on its own". TLV limits are calculated with some approximation of life worth (or rather cost of the therapy, be it necessary, but it they assume limit of the therapy cost, that translates to your life worth).

So, if you know where to look, there is a price tag. It is not advertised, but nonetheless it exists.

Not the same thing at all. As you acknowledge, insurance is very careful to limit itself to replacing income potential in the family unit. That can in no way be compared to the price of a person, especially in the context of "how many lives can we afford to lose to keep research going?"

 

[Borek]

Let me reverse your question - "can we afford to stop the research to not risk any loses?" For example Chinese will have no doubts about, they will push ahead and can pass us without trouble. Can we afford it?

In fact it is not about loss of life, it is about throwing kid with a bath. We are getting paralysed thanks to our efforts to minimalize risks of every kind, real and imaginary. I have nothing against reasonable regulations that minimalize risks, but at some point they become absurd. For example when we start to require students to use gloves for handling 1M sodium chloride, but we have nothing against the same students engaged in wrestling or futball. Somewhere on the road we have lost a balance.

That's much longer discussion and I am afraid my English is too weak to express myself properly.

 

[~christina~]

In fact it is not about loss of life, it is about throwing kid with a bath. We are getting paralysed thanks to our efforts to minimalize risks of every kind, real and imaginary. I have nothing against reasonable regulations that minimalize risks, but at some point they become absurd. For example when we start to require students to use gloves for handling 1M sodium chloride, but we have nothing against the same students engaged in wrestling or futball. Somewhere on the road we have lost a balance.

I handled 1M H2SO4 with gloves but I also handled more potent things during the same day as well. I think it's not so much the danger of 1M NaCl but rather the idea of safety in whatevery you do, no matter the risk factor. (it builds up good habits)

That's much longer discussion and I am afraid my English is too weak to express myself properly.

It is understandable and if you can type a whole paragraph, well..

So, if you know where to look, there is a price tag. It is not advertised, but nonetheless it exists.

If you say there is a price, how much would you pay to purchase someone like a mother/father/child.

 

[Borek]

Please stop asking me "How much would you give for" and "what's the price of". I don't know the answer to that question and I have never stated I know. What I am stating is that whether we like it or not there are many ways of calculating life worth, that are used in different places. Be it life insurance, be it health insurance, be it estimates of loses due to war or natural cataclysms. Just because they are not advertised us such doesn't mean they don't exist. They rarely deal with the worth of individuals, rather with some generalization and statistics, but you can always divide to get an average. And I am not going to play the game in which I am pointing you to different methodologies used in different places and you are going to tell "that's not the life worth, because they concentrate on their gains/losses/aims and so on". In all these cases this is life worth from different points of view. You don't have to agree with each of these points of view, but they all deal with the same thing. Life worth.

Also note that I am not pretending to know the answer to the question "how many lives can we afford to lose to keep research going?" It is rather that I am aware of the question and its implications, and I wonder if we can afford to pretend that the question doesn't exist. Things neglected have tendency to change from bad to worse.

Finally, it is not simply a thing of research vs price tag on life. It is a much broader problem. Can you win a war without loosing soldiers? Does it make sense to implement systems dealing with specific pollutants that cost billions a year and potentially save 1 person per decade? Does it make sense to implement medical procedures that are irrationally costly?

Death was always part of our lives, and it won't change in the foreseeable future. We are doing everything to hide it from our view and to pretend we can trick it. Does it make sense to trick ouserlves that we can trick the death spending billions of dollars? Wont it be easier to accept the death as inevitable part of our lives? Accept that we will be getting older and then one day we will make place for others? Accept that everyone has to die one day and while it is better to die later, some of us will die earlier?

Could be I have stated it before - I am not against reasonable regulations that minimize risks. But we have gained momentum into enforcing more and more restrictive regulations. We are probably already past the common reason level and it doesn't look like we are going to stop, avalanche is just starting to speed up. That's in the name of false assumption that we can trick the death.

PS. I have spent over 30 minutes editing this post and I am still not sure it says what I wanted. That's why my English is an obstacle.

 

[lisab]

I understand your point, Borek, and I agree. We (meaning humans) aren't consistant in our approach to the value of life.

For example, when it comes to the perceived risk of chemical exposure, I find people to be irrational when it comes to calculating risk. But if we're late for work, we'll drive well over the speed limit - even though that's much, much riskier.

People rationalize some hazards, such as lighting fireworks or driving after a few drinks, but then do irrational things like wash their hands with anti-bacterial soap.

 

[~christina~]

Please stop asking me "How much would you give for" and "what's the price of". I don't know the answer to that question and I have never stated I know. What I am stating is that whether we like it or not there are many ways of calculating life worth, that are used in different places. Be it life insurance, be it health insurance, be it estimates of loses due to war or natural cataclysms. Just because they are not advertised us such doesn't mean they don't exist. They rarely deal with the worth of individuals, rather with some generalization and statistics, but you can always divide to get an average. And I am not going to play the game in which I am pointing you to different methodologies used in different places and you are going to tell "that's not the life worth, because they concentrate on their gains/losses/aims and so on". In all these cases this is life worth from different points of view. You don't have to agree with each of these points of view, but they all deal with the same thing. Life worth.

It was not my intention to offend and I apologize if I did. I did not take it too seriously and it was not a very serious conversation in my opinion. I will stop asking. There is a monetary worth put on everyone's head but not when it comes to one another. Value is put only put on individuals by companies that have to put a value on them.
(okay now you can whack me with a fish http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/8264/shakefishfq0.gif

Death was always part of our lives, and it won't change in the foreseeable future. We are doing everything to hide it from our view and to pretend we can trick it. Does it make sense to trick ouserlves that we can trick the death spending billions of dollars? Wont it be easier to accept the death as inevitable part of our lives?

I absolutely agree with this. I have heard that people spend 60% of the money they have sete aside for health insurance during the last days of their lives. In the end, they die anyway and all the money cannot help.

 

[Borek]

I was not offended, I was just clarifying. I am not that easy to offend. Fish saved for more dense situations

 

[~christina~]

I was not offended, I was just clarifying. I am not that easy to offend. Fish saved for more dense situations

http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/1406/whewcz2.gif

 

[stickythighs]

My son once accidentally shut his wifes cat in their bottom freezer refrigerator.

They found the frosted cat after hearing a strange muffled sound coming from the fridge.

An old lady in my neighborhood once put a wet cat in a microwave in order to dry the cat. The cat exploded. It was big news in our neighborhood. I was amazed at how many sickos there are. So many people thought it was funny

 

[BobG]

An old lady in my neighborhood once put a wet cat in a microwave in order to dry the cat. The cat exploded. It was big news in our neighborhood. I was amazed at how many sickos there are. So many people thought it was funny

The cat wouldn't have exploded. It would have died, but the old lady must not have stuck around for the cooking. Being microwaved is a slow, painful way to die. The cat would have let out many loud, long painful screams over the approximately 10 minutes it takes to kill a cat in a microwave.

Teens plead guilty to microwaving cat

 

[thomasxc]

how do you know how long it takes to kill a cat in a microwave?! pencils are dangerous. especially recently sharpened, needle like ones. i was flipping one on my desk. it landed wrong side up. it went pretty deep. i almost passed out in the nurses clinic. i still have graphite under my skin from it, and this was threee years ago.

 

[DaveC426913]

pencils are dangerous. especially recently sharpened, needle like ones. i was flipping one on my desk. it landed wrong side up. it went pretty deep.

How heavy was this pencil? And how high did you throw it??

 

[DaveC426913]

The cat wouldn't have exploded. It would have died, but the old lady must not have stuck around for the cooking.

I thought the same thing but didn't feel like dragging it out (the argument, not the cat).

 

[thomasxc]

it was a standard wood no.2 pencil. i was throwing it up about a foot or so. after i would slip it up, i woud try to slap it down on the desk. its kinda hard to explain.

 

[rootX]

The cat wouldn't have exploded. It would have died, but the old lady must not have stuck around for the cooking. Being microwaved is a slow, painful way to die. The cat would have let out many loud, long painful screams over the approximately 10 minutes it takes to kill a cat in a microwave.

Teens plead guilty to microwaving cat

Those teenagers should be microwaved for 5 minutes.

 

[thomasxc]

sometimes i find it hard to grasp just how epicly stupid people can be:-(

 

[Garth]

An old lady in my neighborhood once put a wet cat in a microwave in order to dry the cat. The cat exploded. It was big news in our neighborhood. I was amazed at how many sickos there are. So many people thought it was funny

Perhaps you are thinking about this myth: Microwaved poodles, McCoffee spills – and other phoney lawsuits.

Apparently a cup of coffee is also a dangerous object....

Garth

 

[DaveC426913]

...i woud try to slap it down on the desk.

aaaaaaaaannnnd there's the other shoe...


(wherein we learn that it is not the pencil that is the dangerous item in this scenario. The danger lies in the chair-pencil interface )

 

[thomasxc]

lol.../

 

[stickythighs]

The cat wouldn't have exploded. It would have died, but the old lady must not have stuck around for the cooking. Being microwaved is a slow, painful way to die. The cat would have let out many loud, long painful screams over the approximately 10 minutes it takes to kill a cat in a microwave.

Teens plead guilty to microwaving cat

All sources said that this cat exploded.

 

[~christina~]

How heavy was this pencil? And how high did you throw it??

 

[~christina~]

The cat wouldn't have exploded. It would have died, but the old lady must not have stuck around for the cooking. Being microwaved is a slow, painful way to die. The cat would have let out many loud, long painful screams over the approximately 10 minutes it takes to kill a cat in a microwave.

Teens plead guilty to microwaving cat

This is so sad..I looked it up after and found this story.

I don't believe the story that the todler did this. If they first mention that they did not have the money to pay for medical bills or even to have the cat, what is the chance that they did not place it in there themselves?

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4709733&affil=wtnh

 

[hypatia]

I sprained my ankle early this morning on a slippery rawhide chewie, which somebodies dog left on the step down to the laundry room.

 

[ThomStev222]

I know it can be funny to make light of getting a tie caught in a shredder, but today, I read more than a couple of stories where pets were injured badly by shredders. Common sense would have kept that from happen. I mean why can't people just unplug the shredder when they aren't using it? If you aren't going to do that, then at least get a shredder that will automatically shut off when a hand, finger, or paw is near it, you can found out more by going http://www.fellowes.com/Fellowes/site/safesense/default.aspx" .

Paper shredders. Never wear a tie around those things. A person's head will never fit down the little slot, but most people panic anyway. The panic attack can result in serious neck strain.

Legos, especially on the stairs ... especially if walking barefoot down the stairs with a cup of coffee.

Complex math problems. They're always fun until someone loses an i.

 

[ThomStev222]

An old lady in my neighborhood once put a wet cat in a microwave in order to dry the cat. The cat exploded. It was big news in our neighborhood. I was amazed at how many sickos there are. So many people thought it was funny

Theres evil people in the world. Sadly, I heard of the story last year, that was worst than a cat in the microwave. But I don't want to go into it. Cruelty to humans or animals should not be tolerated.

 

[turbo]

Very dry oak firewood looks innocent enough until you go to shove a stick of it in the stove and it hangs up on something. I've picked enough splinters out of my hands to start a lumberyard. A sharp knife with a fine point and a bottle of Isopropyl alcohol are standard tools for that.

 

[BobG]

I know it can be funny to make light of getting a tie caught in a shredder, but today, I read more than a couple of stories where pets were injured badly by shredders. Common sense would have kept that from happen. I mean why can't people just unplug the shredder when they aren't using it? If you aren't going to do that, then at least get a shredder that will automatically shut off when a hand, finger, or paw is near it, you can found out more by going http://www.fellowes.com/Fellowes/site/safesense/default.aspx" .

Or by going here. I never really thought of what happens when people or animals with smaller appendages play near shredders.

I have noticed the new shredders at work have a clear plastic cover creating a slot to insert the paper into. You can't get any closer to the blades than about 6 inches unless you intentionally lift the plastic cover. Which probably makes 1"x1" post-it notes an office hazard, as well. Some people never think of just sticking them to a full-size sheet of paper (or between two full-size sheets of paper if they keep getting caught).

 

[DaveC426913]

Or by going here. I never really thought of what happens when people or animals with smaller appendages play near shredders.

You know, I am normally immune to stories such as this, but this one actually made my stomach flip.

 

[Artman]

Incandescent light bulbs. They get very hot to the touch, if you cover a lighted bulb with a piece of cloth or paper it can catch fire, they can break off in the socket, they are sharp when broken, they create an electrical hazard when they break off in the socket, if you drop one they can shatter all over the place. Also, if you inject one with gasoline, and then turn it on, it'll explode (saw it in a movie, so it must be true ). Deadly little buggers.

 

[Borek]

Does it make sense to implement systems dealing with specific pollutants that cost billions a year and potentially save 1 person per decade? Does it make sense to implement medical procedures that are irrationally costly?

I should ban myself for necroposting, but I remember this discussion and I just found these pages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life

http://www.cdc.gov/owcd/eet/CostEffect2/fixed/PrintAll.html

I was reading some article in Polish press and found information that CDC uses value of something like $7M per life when doing cost effectiveness analysis. At the moment I can't find this particular number, but at least it is obvious they apply exactly the kind of thinking I was referring to back in 2008.