Microthought: Safety isn't first, and it shouldn't be

"Safety first!" makes a great soundbite. But it's a silly way to make decisions. "Safety" isn't binary - if you really put maximizing safety before anything else you'd never leave the house! You make trade offs all the time, and you'll make better ones if you're explicit that you're doing so.

Everything you do has risks. Consider driving. About 10% of deaths for 25-44 year old Americans are traffic accidents! "Safety first" - best not leave the house! Is driving somewhere really worth a 10% increased chance of dying each day?

Of course! The absolute risk is still very low (that same age group has an all-causes risk of only about 4 micromorts each day). And getting around is really useful - how much less happy would you be if you could never go beyond walking distance?

But you're not putting "safety first". You're making a reasonable trade off. You try to mitigate the risk where practical to do so - you do wear your seatbelt don't you? - but you implicitly accept some risk in exchange for getting around.

You should do the same for other "risky" activities. Being able to get places, to do things, to have fun; these are all very valuable! Conversely, if you can reduce a small risk for low cost - like putting on your seatbelt - you probably still should.

Don't ask "is X safe?"; ask "is X worth the risk?".