[ExI] libertarian (asteroid) defense

[Samantha Atkins]

On 02/28/2011 02:42 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> Samantha Atkins wrote:
>> On 02/27/2011 09:29 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>>> The total number of people currently employed in looking for asteroids
>>> in the NASA Near Earth Object program is reportedly less than the
>>> number of people working in a typical McDonalds. Since actuaries
>>> indicate that we each have a 1:20,000 chance of being killed by such
>>> an asteroid, that is a silly small number.
>>
>> What?? Are you seriously saying that 5 persons in every 100,000 will 
>> be or have been killed by an asteroid?  The actual number 
>> historically is closer to 1:1,000,000,000.  Or are you referring to 
>> the chance of dying IF an asteroid over a certain size impacts the 
>> earth without bothering to factor in the actual chances of that 
>> happening?
>
> If you calculate the expected number of fatailities times the 
> estimated frequency distribution of impacts, you get numbers like an 
> annual risk of dying of 1 in 2 million (a lifetime risk of 1 in 30,000).

The numbers I have seen lately have been adjust as to the probability of 
a > 1 km impact.  The latest I have seen range from 1 in 200,000 to  1 
in 700,000 argument from
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/10/13/death-by-meteorite/.



- s