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Re:Deaths at a California skydiving center, but the jumps go on by margalabargala on Thursday April 04, 2024 @03:15PM (#39934607)
> This puts the LD50 of parachute jumps around 1,700 jumps.

This suffers from the same issue as saying "200 years ago the life expectancy was 35".

Most of the people who die skydiving are inexperienced, reckless, or both. They are not the sort of people who are likely to make it to 1700 jumps.

If you say "among people who have survived 1700 skydives, how many died skydiving before reaching 3400?" I bet you will find it to be even safer.

Re:Deaths at a California skydiving center, but the jumps go on by foxyv on Thursday April 04, 2024 @04:46PM (#39935599)
It's more of a rhetorical LD50. Otherwise Don Kellner would be dead as a doornail long before reaching his record.

https://www.uspa.org/about-uspa/uspa-news/uspa-posthumously-...

Edit: If the statistics held the same for him, at 46,000 jumps he had a 99% chance of dying from a failure.

Re:Deaths at a California skydiving center, but the jumps go on by eek2121 on Thursday April 04, 2024 @08:17PM (#39937397)
The same could apply to economics. I feel like US stats still haven't caught up to actual numbers. For example, the number of six figure jobs.

A big problem is that when numbers change quickly, median numbers, or even average numbers, don't immediately capture that change. It can take YEARS for the real stats to come out.

That being said, it is absolutely ridiculous that this has become the drama it has. Federal departments should be given lawyers and be allowed to go after people.

Re:Deaths at a California skydiving center, but the jumps go on by Stibinator on Sunday April 07, 2024 @08:51PM (#39965245)
In rock climbing there's some evidence that there is a U-shaped risk curve. Newbs who do dumb stuff on one end and experienced climbers who get complacent on the other.
Re:Deaths at a California skydiving center, but the jumps go on by foxyv on Monday April 08, 2024 @11:01AM (#39970477)
That holds the same for airplane pilots as well. I love this lecture by Mike Patey:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1nXjPhGrwY&t=2943s&pp=ygUZb...