A friend of mine is afraid of flying. He asked me once why I’m not afraid. I told him that every time I board a plane I am accepting the fact that it is possible I might crash and die. He was horrified, but I brought up that driving 80 mph on the highway is the same trade-off, and the difference is just that one allows the illusion of control.
He’s still afraid of flying, but now he’s afraid of driving, too
Driving is many times more dangerous than flying commercially
Traffic kills about 1.2m a year worldwide. Flying kills a few hundred.
Good job improving the rationality of your friend! Now tell him he’s about as likely to die of the flu as he is of a car accident. Then he can have another fear. Either he’ll turn into a house-bound agoraphobe or he’ll realize nothing has changed since before he started worrying about these things.
Now tell him he’s about as likely to die of the flu as he is of a car accident.
That’s not remotely true, even looking at world-wide stats. Flu kills something like 300 to 650k per year. Traffic deaths max about 1200k per year. So even in a really bad flu season, traffic is twice as likely to kill you worldwide. If you’re not looking at everyone combined, and assuming your friend is between 5 and 65 the odd of dying from flu drop a lot, while the odds of a traffic deaths go way up.
The EU has 9.000 flu deaths and 19.000 traffic deaths in 2025/2026.
EDIT: I just realized if your friend is American, that’s actually true. The US had 45.000 flu deaths and 36.000 traffic deaths. sidenote: the US has a population about a third smaller than the EU…
Car deaths in 2024 in America: 44k as per the National Safety Council
Flu deaths in 2024 in America: 45k as per the CDC, but 2024 was higher for flu deaths than some other years.
So it varies, but in North America the number of people who die from flu vs. car accidents is between 60 and 102% as likely.
Car deaths are much higher in some countries than in others, and the same applies to flu deaths, but in places where people are flying more miles are going to have good enough health care to deal with the flu and have traffic safety laws that bring the risk down to the level of flu deaths.
Edit: just saw your edit so looks like we’re mostly on the same page. But even in the EU, do you really think most of them realize that you’re only twice as likely to die from as car crash as you are from the flu?
Don’t tell him that he could just keel over dead at any moment from an embolism or something.
Damn you really made it worse lol
“Professional Poker Player”
Also
“Decimator of arguments”
“Human encyclopaedia”
“Comedian”
“TV Presenter”
“Only person who has survived living with David Mitchell”
A woman was afraid of flying on a plane. She expressed her fears to her friend; “What if someone brings a bomb on the plane?”
“Lady, the chances of that happening are a million to one.”
“What about the chances of TWO people each bringing a bomb onto the plane?”
“…That’d be even more ridiculous. That would be something like a quadrillion to one.”So now, that woman always feels perfectly safe flying on a plane - as long as she always brings a bomb with her.
People miss out that the reason some fear flying isn’t the chance of death itself, but how long it takes for you to die once you realize it. It takes a long while for a plane to fall and crash. And it’s usually guaranteed death.
Meanwhile a truck hitting you can kill you fast enough for you to get isikai’d to another realm where you’re reborn as a plane but also the secret final boss of the princess of the car kingdom and must decide between her and the prince, season 2
how long it takes for you to die once you realize it. It takes a long while for a plane to fall and crash. And it’s usually guaranteed death.
Couple misconceptions here
-
Nearly all plane crashes happen on takeoff or landing. Most issues causing a crash from cruise are novel issues that are quickly rectified so they don’t happen again
-
The average person has little to no ability to differentiate a fatal issue from a non-fatal one. Basically every time there is an engine failure on takeoff, half the plane is screaming, “we’re all going to die!” when there is no real cause for concern. It’s the most common issue a multi-engine pilot trains for. Something really catastrophic has to happen for it to be life threatening (such as with the UPS crash a year ago)
Yes but a lot of us still have this recent event fresh in our minds.
-
a truck hitting you can kill you fast enough
oooor, it could snap your neck, paralyze you from the tongue down, leading you to feel nothing but pain for the rest of your life. Or cause permanent brain damage, leading you to only occasionally remember a shred of your former self.
Yeah but technically so can a plane crash if you do survive one as well, but you’ll still get the horror ride first.
The second option is just isikai again though.
Waiter, I’ll have whatever Lumisal is having.
That would be
Reborn as a Plane but also the Secret Final Boss of the Princess of the Car Kingdom and must Decide between Her and the Prince, season 1
Professional TV host, Screenwriter, Book Writer and Comedian who happens to do Poker as a side thing but it’s not her main thing, btw
Also she’s married now, it’s Victoria Coren-Mitchell
Well, she is good at doing all those things, but she’s one of the best poker players in the world, as far as I can tell. It’s not what she’s most well known for though.
I mean she has on TV said that Poker is a hobby for her, not a passion
I had no idea she was a poker player. Thought she was a professional contestant on british panel shows!
Probably depends on where you live, and what you’re into,by how you know of her?
Low key always crushed on her though.
Also same on the last sentence, a funny genius with a dry wit, I can see why David fell for her
I know she’s one of the greats at it and all, but as a big fan of UK comedy and a knower of the existence of game shows, I’d staunchly refute the suggestion that “professional poker player” is her main claim to fame except in professional poker fandom specifically 😄
Either way, she’s probably the smartest person on the comedy panel show circuit and I’m including Brian Cox when I say that 😄
PS: I also ADORE her hilarious husband, comedy pedantry world champion David Mitchell 😁
Also, no-one has mentioned Only Connect?? Which I feel like is a quiz programme made for lemmings.
I’d like to see her in Last One Laughing. She’s got such a different approach to comedy than her husband, and I bet she’d be killer at it.
She is not on the (kinda decent?) 2027 list.
(Huh, they did a UK Halloween special? Missed it.)
on*
Lol, thx
Kinda decent? Ayoade is back, and Katherine Ryan and Morgana Robinson are joining? That will be great
Yes (the other Katherine & Lee too)! And how I expect all those to interact with each other.
I want to see Richard Ayoade, Sam Campbell, and James Acaster locked in the same room.
and Joe Wilkinson
Came here to say all of this 👆
Smart can mean a lot of very different things, and on TV it’s a bit easier to “be smart” … eg on Taskmaster (random tasks with wide open thinking) she came across as smart once (I’m not saying she isn’t smart, I have about the same opinion about her, but having read a lot of things & be a bit ‘quick’ is just one aspect of smart is all I’m trying to say).
Taskmaster is kinda designed to break smart people and get them to do dumb/silly things.
She was wonderful on Taskmaster and I never thought less of her intelligence, that’s just what happens to people on the show.
I adored her on Taskmaster! Loved her completely!
She’s a world class poker player, a comedian & an Oxford graduate, I think she does quite a few smart things, one being marrying David Mitchell.
Def agree.
Not sure I blame anyone for having a fear of flying these days assuming you’ve seen how cheaply boeing has been servicing their planes.
Your Boeing to die.
It’s not just the plane servicing, it is all sectors of the industry being squeezed.
Huh. Didn’t know she used to be a professional poker player.
An exceptional one at that. She’s in the Poker Hall of Fame. She was the first woman to win an EPT main event and the first person to win two EPT main events.
She also directed porn.
Anyway everything else in her career pales in comparison to Only Connect.
This is amazing! For my intellectual curiosity, what did she direct?!
A very special edition of Question Time.
Damn, I was hoping for Countdown
Cuntdown
Bit of a funny contrast, considering that her husband is quite reserved, being rather uncomfortable when something approaching that matter came up on Would I Lie to You. (He was okay with that, since he’s one of the main cohosts, and it’s doubtful it would have been recorded if he wasn’t).
That’s funny, I only know her from poker. I’ll have to check out her comedy!
Totally watching some only connect later today
She’s an amazing woman - definitely a role model
Yes. “Cars are still much more dangerous than any of those modes of transport.”
Self-driving cars already have a much better safety record, and they’re still under development. But even people who know this are generally way more afraid of the idea than of riding with a human driver.
Which is to say: A person’s risk assessment is heavily influenced by the amount of perceived control they have
No. They are still cars. Also, I live in a climate where self driving cars won’t probably work.for like 2 or 3 months of the year.
I’d love to see a self driving car on a normal snow day with the sun glaring in its camera while stuck in a snow bank that the plow left behind. Sometimes there’s a layer of snow on the road, covering the markings, so that nearly two tons self driving machine will get confused and end up stuck everywhere.
Plus even if they dont physically crush people, car tires still emit microplastics that are bad for our health and environment.
https://www.sciencealert.com/almost-50-of-microplastic-pollution-comes-from-cars-heres-why
Parking lots and cars themselves are also contributing to heat island effects and heat up our surroundings.
Cars are a blight on humanity. Fuck cars.
EDIT: Really, we are far from self driving cars anyway. Tesla is faking the footage they show to the public. Waymo has to be remote controlled in some cases. They get stuck everywhere and block emergency services. None of this over enthusiastic tech bro bullshit is even close to being fully functional. Yes, some can drive themselves in controlled environments, but some also get confused easily and end up in bike lanes.
Climate change is bad yet most humans ignore that. Red meat and processed meat are linked to cancer yet most humans (who can afford) still eat that. Smoking kills yet most humans smoke.
Humans aren’t as rational as they’ll like to be.
Only travels by rail or boat
Hmm. Grocery shopping must be quite a chore.
She lives in London, so probably not.
Getting groceries through the Underground is still a chore. Better to walk or bike.
I’ve never tried shopping by boat though, maybe that’s super convenient.
If you live in a car brained city. Living in big cities in France and Japan, I always did groceries by foot. It adds a bit of weight lifting too as a bonus.
I always did groceries by foot.
Which is neither rail nor boat.
once you dig the canals from home to the market it gets surprisingly easier.
Living in England it’s entirely possible she could take a canal boat to the market. Their recreational canal system is kind of impressive.
and if you have one those super nice live-in boats, you can literally take your house to the market.
Victoria Coren is also a TV presenter.
A little too ironic
Yeah, I really do think
It’s like Raaaeeeeaaaaaiiiiiin
I assume the therapist was a woman, but what do I know
One does not simply fly any plane.
But if course your options and security standards are limited by country.
(I have no idea which accident the one I’m question is. But I also assume the therapist will have gone more like ‘isn’t it ironic…’ knowing that was just unlucky statistics)
I wonder if she’s tried a valium and a double bourbon on the rocks as soon as she gets on the plane. Because that works for me.
