<story><title>Heuristics that almost always work</title><url>https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/heuristics-that-almost-always-work</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kadoban</author><text>Is 1:5000 an actually good assessment? I&amp;#x27;d suspect it&amp;#x27;s very much not, especially if you avoid obviously dead trees and maybe move if a storm comes.</text></item><item><author>inglor_cz</author><text>This story reminded me of a story written by a Czech biologist who studied animals in Papua-New Guinea and went to a hunt with a group of local tribesmen.&lt;p&gt;The dusk was approaching, they were still in the forest and he proposed that they could sleep under a tree. The hunters were adamant in their refusal: &lt;i&gt;no, this is dangerous, a tree might fall on you in your sleep and kill you&lt;/i&gt;. He relented, but silently considered them irrational, given that his assessment of a chance of a tree falling on you overnight was less then 1:5000.&lt;p&gt;Only later did he realize that for a lifelong hunter, 1:5000 are pretty bad odds that translate to a very significant probability of getting killed over a 30-40 year long hunting career.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>robocat</author><text>If the story is based on Jared Diamond’s story, the tree was dead, and the estimate was 1:1000. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.openculture.com&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;jared-diamond-underscores-the-real-risks-in-everyday-life.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.openculture.com&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;jared-diamond-underscore...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Heuristics that almost always work</title><url>https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/heuristics-that-almost-always-work</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kadoban</author><text>Is 1:5000 an actually good assessment? I&amp;#x27;d suspect it&amp;#x27;s very much not, especially if you avoid obviously dead trees and maybe move if a storm comes.</text></item><item><author>inglor_cz</author><text>This story reminded me of a story written by a Czech biologist who studied animals in Papua-New Guinea and went to a hunt with a group of local tribesmen.&lt;p&gt;The dusk was approaching, they were still in the forest and he proposed that they could sleep under a tree. The hunters were adamant in their refusal: &lt;i&gt;no, this is dangerous, a tree might fall on you in your sleep and kill you&lt;/i&gt;. He relented, but silently considered them irrational, given that his assessment of a chance of a tree falling on you overnight was less then 1:5000.&lt;p&gt;Only later did he realize that for a lifelong hunter, 1:5000 are pretty bad odds that translate to a very significant probability of getting killed over a 30-40 year long hunting career.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gpm</author><text>1:5000 would suggest an average lifetime of 13.7 years for a grown tree (i.e. not counting the years where it&amp;#x27;s too young to sleep under), and that&amp;#x27;s before the ability to avoid trees that look more likely to fallover.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know anything about trees around there, maybe they&amp;#x27;re really short-lived? For forests around here, it&amp;#x27;s a gross overestimate.</text></comment>