I said mains voltage won't kill you every time but it definitely can. We wouldn't put it in residential settings if it was instant death. The problem is that the conditions that can lead to a deadly accident don't trigger any of our ape-brain fear response. Like any risk it should be approached with knowledge and care.
If you think any of the things you listed are fine and safe just because they don't result in "instant death" then I would say we have very different ideas about risk management.
I don't appreciate you calling me a liar for presenting facts and urging caution.
>The problem is that the conditions that can lead to a deadly accident don't trigger any of our ape-brain fear response.
No. The problem here is that you are peddling fear to get the reaction you want out of people. Potential energy, electric or otherwise is potentially dangerous. Pretending like it's more dangerous than it is to scare people straight is bad. Just because reality doesn't scare people into behaving how you like doesn't entitle you to be dishonest.
>If you think any of the things you listed are fine and safe just because they don't result in "instant death" then I would say we have very different ideas about risk management.
If you think it's ok to just lie to people because you think the end goal is noble I don't care what your ideas are.
The former puts the information into the hands of individuals, and let's them draw the appropriate conclusions. With the latter, you risk someone saying "I played Russian roulette and it was fine, this whole safety thing is BS”
This risk is even bigger if millions of people have tried and survived the purportedly deadly activity, such as home wiring shocks.
Yes, pretty much. 400 people are electrocuted in the US every year, usually in industrial situations. Thousands of people will get shocked today. The odds of a heart problem are low enough that suggesting people should be terrified of light sockets because it may stop their heart is just fearmongering, and reduces the effectiveness of other safety-related communication. This is like California proudly proclaiming that everything causes cancer. Counterproductive.
> Thousands of people will get shocked today
Before I come to any conclusions.
According to [0], “There are also at least 30,000 shock incidents per year that are non-fatal” and “ In the United States, there are approximately 1000 deaths per year, as a result of electrical injuries”
So about 1 in 30(ish) if we assume they accounted for nonreporting. If we assume they underreported by 10x, 1/300 is still pretty bad odds
They said that you can die if you're shocked. If you have a substantial chance of death doing something it's common sense to avoid that thing, especially when it's trivial to do so. If you want to be a manly man who don't need no safety, go for it, but you're setting up a straw man in OP's post and safety awareness in general that isn't there.
Oh please, Officer Do Good who's doing his guest lecture doesn't tell the class that most of those people who's overdose he responded to probably wouldn't have been saved if they eschewed pot. Presenting the edge case as worst case as though it's the common case is lying. Gating it with verbiage designed to make it not provably lying doesn't change that. There's a reason I compared it to DARE. The dishonest messaging is common to both contexts and does more harm than good to the core messaging.
Getting people worried about low voltage or low amperage serves no useful purpose in any context. It is pure manipulative fear peddling of the same level as making people think pot and alcohol are likely to lead to hard drugs.
I'm not saying electricity can't be dangerous. I'm not saying to be cavalier about stuff in general. I'm saying people engaging in dishonest messaging are doing harm by casting shade upon all the people who are preaching similar messages but with honesty.
Disrupting the heart's rhythm is way easier than restoring it. Especially if the disrupting current punctured the skin (which the defibrillator is not allowed to do)
> a couple amps from arm to arm
This is incredibly bad advice. A couple amps at 220VAC is devastating if actually delivered inside your body. The reason people routinely survive mains shocks is dry skin, no path across their body, or no path to ground, which is totally a matter of luck.
But that's what a defib does. It disrupts your heart's rhythm. And then you hope it goes back to normal.
If you through further education come to possess a more nuanced view of risk analysis this doesn't invalidate the simpler process it just adds value to your understanding. For instance YOU don't seem to have concluded that there is zero risk through your more nuanced understanding. Why are you assuming everyone is is dumber?
In a lab, sure. In reality you need a lot of amps going into the body to get enough amps across the heart to screw with it. Defibrillators wouldn't be chock full of capacitors if that wasn't the case.
Constantly repeating these sorts of misleading DARE-esque talking points is why nobody takes what the safety preachers have to say seriously.
People find out through life experience that smoking while filling gas, a couple amps from arm to arm, working under suspended loads, side rolling big cylinders long distances, using ladders on less than perfect surfaces and other little stuff like that isn't the instant death and dismemberment that they were told it was supposed to be and that throws doubt at everything else.
You can't lie to people 50% of the time even if it's "for their own good" and expect them to believe the other 50% of stuff you say.