One year ago, we nearly died.

This is maybe an overdramatic statement, but long story short, nearly all of us underwent carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning[1]. The benefit is, we all suddenly got back in touch with a failure mode we had forgotten about, and we decided to make it a yearly celebration.

Usually, when we think about failure, we might think about not being productive enough, or not solving the right work-related problem, or missing a meeting. We might suspect that our schedule could be better organized or that one of our habits really sucks. We might fear not to spot an obvious psychological flaw or a decision-making issue.

We often forget that the single most important failure prior to all of these is dying. Yet even if we think about dying, the first picture that comes to mind can be a disease, or a car accident. We only have a few clichés loaded in our accessibility bias, instead of the full methodical A-B-C of death any human attempting life should know by heart.

Sometimes, checking back on the basics can be helpful. Since we found we didn’t do this nearly enough to avoid undergoing a definitely lethal threat [...]

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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First published:
January 31st, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dHFrKjgTC3zPfpodr/basics-of-how-not-to-die

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Basics of How Not to Die” by Camille Berger, Jérémy Andréoletti, elisareine, Charbel-Raphaël, Lucie Philippon, RationalHippy, T-bo🔸

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Basics of How Not to Die” by Camille Berger, Jérémy Andréoletti, elisareine, Charbel-Raphaël, Lucie Philippon, RationalHippy, T-bo🔸