"New Reality for High School Students: Calculating the Risk of Getting Shot." If one were to read the headline alone, with a statistically-oriented mind, one might take this as an indication that people are finally realizing that the actual probability of getting shot in a school shooting is lower than the probability of dying of heart disease as a youth. Really. Denominators matter. I've done the math on this for you before. The risk of getting shot is very, very, very low. Lower than the risk of texting and driving by far. It's not even close. So, worry way more about one than the other. Strangely, though, the NYT article is about kids worrying about getting shot, with nary a word about how much danger they face every time they text and drive. As I know they do. And so do you.
And every time they do, they put you and me in danger too. I... don't appreciate that.
Probability of X happening, estimated, is as follows: number of occurrences divided by number of opportunities. What makes an event "news?" The fact that it is unusual. School shootings are unusual given the number of opportunities. You know what is more common? Well, there's my normal thing about deaths by waterborne pathogens and malaria, which are a) far more deadly, and b) far easier to address for anyone who actually, truly, really, sincerely cares about saving lives. Even then, though, as I wrote earlier, kids dying of heart disease. It's so common it doesn't make the news. That's why you don't think about it, and that's why they don't worry about it.
But it's a bigger risk. Math says so.
And texting and driving? A way bigger risk. And that one is far more in their control because while you can't control another driver's irresponsible behavior, you can choose to drive responsibly yourself. Certain people make fun of me for driving like a granny, but I get great insurance rates, at least!
Anyway, by focusing on the news stories, ignoring denominators and ignoring what is so common it doesn't get covered, people completely miss the point and fail to calculate risk. This isn't calculating risk. It is just getting scared about the wrong stuff because shootings are rare enough to get covered in the news, and texting-and-driving accidents are way too common to get covered by the news.
What should we be teaching high school students about shootings? We should be teaching them the math. The probability of getting hurt is very, very, very low. Don't teach them to shit their pants about necrotizing fasciitis or ebola because they aren't going to get necrotizing fasciitis or ebola. When there are news stories about necrotizing fasciitis or ebola, teach them the truth, and the truth includes the math. Stop teaching people to panic about shit that ain't gonna happen. Teach them the actual probability that X will happen.
Death by shootings among high school-aged kids happen. They happen almost entirely outside of schools. They happen in neighborhoods with high crime rates, and they happen when kids commit suicide with their parents' guns. Those are separate issues from how scared kids should be in school.
School shootings, by the numbers, are very low-probability events.
"Calculating the risk" would mean taking into account the denominator. I don't see that happening anywhere.
Now, by contrast, imagine if the murder rate in this country were zero. Not low, but zero. For 50 years. With over 300,000,000 people in the country at the end of that period with regular population growth. Then, for a period of several years, we had one murder a month. In a country with 300,000,000+ people in it. Every one of those murders would be a major national news story, right? What would be the effect? It would cause everyone to think that these murders are common. I call this, "the paradox of news"-- news stories make everyone think that events are common when the thing that makes a story newsworthy is its rarity. The result? People freak out, hide in their houses, give everyone sidelong glances like everyone is out to get them or might soon snap in a true epidemic of paranoia, and... did you notice I didn't say anything about what the other causes of mortality were in this hypothetical alternative universe? Wouldn't it make sense to look at that? Yes. By omitting that, I am forcing you to think about the denominator. That's the point. You don't get to ignore the denominator.
That's the difference between personal tragedies and that which justifies fear. Just because we have tragedies occurring-- and they are tragic-- doesn't mean you need to be afraid of them happening to you.
Stop being afraid. Stop teaching people to be afraid. Stop enabling fear. Stop encouraging fear. You are afraid of the wrong things. Always look at the denominator.
Your new homework assignment is something I haven't done in a while. Go watch "Child Abduction Is Not Funny," from South Park's 6th season. Parents see some news stories about child abduction, and freak out. They decide they need to... build a wall around South Park. Yeah... That plays a little differently today. They turn to the owner of the Chinese restaurant, because they're idiot, racist hicks. Of course, he starts building it, and as he does, Mongolians show up, 'cuz... Eventually, though, the news stories say that the abductions are usually from family members. Parents freak out even more, kick the kids out of South Park, where they find that the Mongolians are actually kids who have been kicked out of the house by idiot parents who were afraid that the other parent was going to abduct them.
Hey, I've got an idea. Let's look at denominators. Instead of teaching kids in high school to freak the fuck out about school shootings, maybe we should teach them to calm down, explain to them how unlikely they are to be hurt, by the numbers, show them that, for example, texting and driving is way more dangerous than showing up to school, and generally, you know...
... teach them about how to assess risk without just reading headlines and assuming that what gets a headline does so because it's common.
The opposite is true.
Because you know what? This freakout everyone is doing? You're letting the
