“After COVID-19, Nothing Will Be The Same”
I’ve been meaning to write this post ever since a trip to the wonderful Aquarium du Québec in Quebec City last summer. There I saw, among many other interesting things, a poster comparing the odds of being attacked by a shark to the odds of experiencing various other traumatic events. Unfortunately I’ve lost my photo of the poster, but it turns out such comparisons aren’t hard to find. Just Google “infographic shark deaths” to see quite a selection.
One estimate puts the lifetime odds of an American dying in a shark attack at 1 in 3.7 million. For perspective, the National Safety Council reports the lifetime odds of an American dying from various causes:
- 1:165,000 for a lightning strike
- 1:55,800 for contact with hornets, wasps, or bees
- 1:6,700 for firearms discharge
- 1:112 for a motor vehicle crash
- 1:109 for unintentional poisoning by and exposure to noxious substances (think drug overdose)
- 1:100 for intentional self-harm
- 1:7 for heart disease and cancer.
Of course, despite exciting forecasts for the distant future, the lifetime odds of dying of all causes remain 1:1.
What’s the point? It’s hard to stay focused on the things that matter most. And the popular media aren’t a reliable guide. Every summer we see plenty of reports of shark attacks and every year we’re treated to another edition of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. But if you’re worried about maximizing your lifespan—or improving public health—there are a lot of things you should address before you think about the risk of dying in a shark attack.
What does this have to do with foresight? Futurists confront this issue all the time as we search for driving forces, trends, and weak signals of future trends. The phenomenon that’s getting the most press at the moment may or may not be important in the long run. It may not be a real trend—lots of other factors can make something newsworthy. And even if we’re hearing about a real trend, it may not become an important driving force as the future unfolds. Recognizing the important driving forces requires experience and careful thought about the way systems behave and their various elements interact.
So imagine that you are interested in the future of public health. You will need to get past the sharks to address complex, difficult issues with major impact—issues like mental health, highway safety, drug use, and gun violence.
And one final aside: the real story about shark violence isn’t the one you hear in the media. While sharks might kill a dozen humans in a year, humans kill about 100 million sharks.
Image: Miusam CK (Flickr)
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