J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Gooseh

ise wrote:

That's a perfect example of those instincts from the Serengeti misleading you ) The classic newspaper trick of providing an extreme example of something without any context.

This is tuned to tweak your availability heuristic, the mechanism your gut has to look at a situation and judge the risk by finding an example, the gut's all emotion and doesn't analyze how good the example is though. That worked pretty well on the plains of Africa, when Ug heard a lion roar his gut searched for an example and found that when he'd heard one before the lion came and ate Ugi his mate, so the gut says run.

Most people reading that story see it's so extreme and know it's safe to use the stairs, if there's 70 million people in the UK and 1000 accidents then it sounds good odds to me :)

It's a good point, actually. Our brains really aren't naturally good at analysing risk in today's society, thanks mostly to the ease of transfer of information. Masses of data is very good news for people doing statistical analysis, but when we are exposed to only the examples of extreme situations in our day to day lives it does lead to a natural bias. The availability heuristic is pretty good when it works with your own experiences, but add in the tendency for 1% of situations to receive 99% of media coverage and it can go lead to quite misguided judgments.

Afternoon everybody,

Given that it looks like I'm only going to be able to get one week's skiing in this year ( :( :( :( , I am so deprived) I'm already thinking about the next season to try and ensure nothing so disastrous should happen again. From the sounds of things, my family are all keen to escape the madness of Christmas and spend the week skiing, but the question of where is a challenge.

We will most likely be a group of 6, consisting of two advanced skiers who like to challenge themselves, one ambitious high intermediate, two lower/middling intermediates who aren't super adventurous and one mid intermediate who will have had a knee operation in the previous year.

In the past we've spent most of our holidays in French "super resorts" such as L'Espace Killy, ParadiSki, and Les 3 Valleés. This year we'd like a change, and personally I'm keen to try an Austrian resort, although I'm certainly open to suggestion. St. Anton seems the obvious choice, but we've yet to find anything affordable and of a reasonable standard. Our preference is for Chalets, and I imagine we will opt for a catered one, being a smaller group than usual. Night life is not important.

All and any recommendations would be much appreciated!

Ben

ise wrote:

Gooseh wrote:When the payoff is so great, though, why not wear one?

As it happens I do wear a helmet ) But that's just the lottery argument isn't it? The payoff of winning is so great why wouldn't you buy a ticket? ) The trouble is it doesn't shine a lot of light on things, you could fall on the pavement and bang your head, people do, but by and large we're not going to wear a helmet so you know it's nothing like that simple.

Well, when you're talking about the lottery, you're dealing solely in money. It's easy to see that you're likely to lose out. In the helmet debate, we're comparing a financial outlay plus some inconvenience against a potential payoff in your own health. It's much harder to compare, and is subject to everyone's opinions on how great an inconvenience it is etc.. I'm only a recent convert, but now I have a helmet which fits well and is very light I struggle to see the disadvantages to wearing one.

I suppose it's not important really. Each to their own, and all that.

ise wrote:

The problem here is you've got one group of people who are convinced wearing a helmet prevents a likely fatal injury and another group who've correctly assessed that sort of accident is unlikely.

Mike Langran has a balanced view I think if you read his comments about Natasha Richardson.

Being a mathematician I'm well aware of things such as the availability heuristic, and having looked at the data, I realise the chances of my having a dangerous head injury that could be mitigated by a helmet are small. You seem to assume everyone wearing a helmet is under the impression that it's likely to save their lives. I'm not under this impression at all. By a similar logic to your own, one shouldn't take out any sort of insurance. Insurers must make money, after all, and so the number of cases in which one will financially benefit from insurance must be very small. People take out insurance though, even when they realise this. In some cases it's because they think they are a higher risk than the insurance company have assessed, and so are likely to do well out of it. In most though, it's simply a case of people realising that there are some mishaps they can't afford. They want some sort of safety net. Simply put, why not protect yourself? The rate of incidence of helmets making a significant difference in the outcome of a crash is indeed low. When the payoff is so great, though, why not wear one?

Skis!
Poles!
Ski bag!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.

Unfortunately, it looks like I'll only be going one week this year, and that's not until Easter. This makes me a sad Gooseh. Ah well, hopefully I'll make it up to Nevis range at some point...

Glad to see you posting again, pavel.

Ally,

Girton college is ON a hill! Not much of one, mind. It's certainly pretty noticable heading down Castle Hill in to the centre, though.

What I did today wasn't really skiing, to be honest, but it was worth it. Certainly fun.

Gooseh

Well, I hoiked my skis up on my back and trudged to the closest thing Cambridge has to a hill, and did 4 or 5 runs before getting bored. I've done it though, and that's all I wanted. Getting my bindings adjusted was super easy, it turns out!