On Risk and STDs

I've recently been frustrated that people either tend to dramatically overestimate or underestimate risks of particular activities.  Neither one is good... people can end up paralyzed with fear or regretting their recklessness.  The frustration around unknown risk came up recently in  discussions of sexually transmitted diseases.  There are a lot of scary stories of bad things that can happen to you, and ... well... they can happen to you.  But if your response to these stories is to just sit around and remain abstinent until marriage like the Bush administration advises, well, you're missing the point and you're missing the fun. 

I decided to fix that.  After a few hours of research online, I now have as good a sense as I can about the risks of various STDs.  There are nice ways of quantifying risk.  For example, you can think of the risk of a particular activity or lifestyle in terms of the number of days it shortens your life on average.  For example, every time you skydive, you run about a 1 in 70,000 risk of dying.  If you're in your twenties, each skydive will cost you on average about six hours of your life.  I have a coworker who has done about 4000 skydives.  His lifetime of skydiving has carried a three year risk that he's fortunately beaten the odds on, but for him, it's worth it.

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Here's how this kind of thinking works:

( Fun risk calculations )