I’m sure most people are aware that the difference in danger is quite large but maybe not just how absurdly large.
Sharks kill about 10 people per year.
For cars the number is 1,670,000 deaths. Every year.
As a point of comparison, in 2025, about 250k people were killed in armed conflicts, which was the highest number in decades.
A lot of people think it’s weird to hate cars as much as I do. But they are quantitatively in a similar category as the Holocaust in terms of how many people they kill. From the perspective, it seems a bit crazy not to hate them.
I think both metrics would tell you different things. Even unadjusted it gives you an idea about which thing you should be concerned about addressing and reducing your own risk or the risk of those you care about.
Plus, I don’t have exposure data like that to make the comparison. If you do then it would certainly be interesting to see.
This was exactly my thought. Like I grew up by the ocean where lots of people swam and there were sharks. Did car deaths outnumber shark deaths? Of course. Was it 6 orders of magnitude as much? Not even close lmao.
I want us to redefine “pro-life” to mean pro-urbanism, pro-renewables, and pro-universal-healthcare. Just those 3 things would make for such a dramatic increase in life expectancy and fall in child mortality, it’s crazy.
I am somewhat disturbed by how right you are about this. Car sales estimates are 90-100 million new cars per year, so assuming we’re not putting 99 million new cars on the road every year, we’re destroying a lot more than we’re making. I’m not even gonna look at the numbers for sharks cuz I know it’ll make me big sad.
I’m sure most people are aware that the difference in danger is quite large but maybe not just how absurdly large.
Sharks kill about 10 people per year.
For cars the number is 1,670,000 deaths. Every year.
As a point of comparison, in 2025, about 250k people were killed in armed conflicts, which was the highest number in decades.
A lot of people think it’s weird to hate cars as much as I do. But they are quantitatively in a similar category as the Holocaust in terms of how many people they kill. From the perspective, it seems a bit crazy not to hate them.
Sources: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692324000267 https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/yearly-worldwide-summary/ https://www.npr.org/2026/06/09/nx-s1-5850355/data-highest-conflicts-iran-israel-ukraine-russia-world-war-ii
While I don’t disagree much, let’s not be silly. The numbers need to be divided by hours of exposure.
I think both metrics would tell you different things. Even unadjusted it gives you an idea about which thing you should be concerned about addressing and reducing your own risk or the risk of those you care about.
Plus, I don’t have exposure data like that to make the comparison. If you do then it would certainly be interesting to see.
This was exactly my thought. Like I grew up by the ocean where lots of people swam and there were sharks. Did car deaths outnumber shark deaths? Of course. Was it 6 orders of magnitude as much? Not even close lmao.
I want us to redefine “pro-life” to mean pro-urbanism, pro-renewables, and pro-universal-healthcare. Just those 3 things would make for such a dramatic increase in life expectancy and fall in child mortality, it’s crazy.
Great idea!
Also, in both cases many more are killed by humans than the other way around.
I am somewhat disturbed by how right you are about this. Car sales estimates are 90-100 million new cars per year, so assuming we’re not putting 99 million new cars on the road every year, we’re destroying a lot more than we’re making. I’m not even gonna look at the numbers for sharks cuz I know it’ll make me big sad.
And yet people think I’m crazy for hating people as much as I do.
I’m the one that’s sick apparently not the world.
I’d ask if you come from !fuckcars@lemmy.world but I think we both know the answer is yes.
Me too.
I’ve always felt this way but that community has been huge for making me realize that a lot of other people feel the same way too!
#theydidthemath