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Fredxx[_4_] Fredxx[_4_] is offline
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Default OT: Latering thinking puzzle "Why do more peoplre die on theirbithday than any other day?"

On 12/06/2021 20:14, Rod Speed wrote:


"Fredxx" wrote in message
...
On 12/06/2021 14:56, NY wrote:
Years ago, at a party while I was at university, the conversation
turned (as it sometimes does after a lot of alcohol has been
consumed) to lateral thinking puzzles, mostly involving people dying
is ways that make murder look like suicide - or indeed suicide look
like murder, and involving people of restricted stature, failed tape
recordings, piles of sawdust or puddles of water.

One person said "More people die on their birthday than any other
day. Why is this?" This was presented as if it were a fact. We had no
way of knowing whether it was indeed the case - it was long before
Wkipedia and articles such as
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_effect which describe the
effect and give various medical reasons.

We tried all the obvious things like "does this include babies that
are born dead or who die within a few hours" and "does it include
alcohol-related accidents when people do stupid things at their
birthday party". No, we were told. We were over-thinking the problem
and over-complicating it. The reason was blindingly obvious. The
question became really quite smug (to the point that I could see some
of my mates were itching to punch his lights out!) and said that the
teacher had asked the question when he was a lad at school; although
he'd never been asked it before or even thought about it, he got the
answer immediately. He was amazed than none of us could work it out.
"Is this true in all cultures?" "Is it true even if you don't know
the date and therefore whether today is your birthday?" He just
smiled smugly and repeated that we were thinking far too deeply and
analytically about it.

Sadly we never did find out the answer: it was left as "I'll let you
think about it. Come and tell me when you eventually work out the
answer" and I never saw him again.

Can anyone think of a logical reason, which doesn't involve
alcohol-related accidents, people who are terminally ill holding out
until their next birthday, depression/suicide "I'm a year older than
I was" etc? Something which is "blindingly obvious" even to a
ten-year-old at school?


I recall a change to death duties in either Australia or New Zealand
where dying after the implementation of a change in death duties was
beneficial to their family.


There havent been any death dutys in Australia for decades now.


Yes 1979. Although no MSM articles exists on the net from this time this
makes the point:
http://www.andrewleigh.org/pdf/DeathAndTaxes_BEP.pdf

"In 1979, Australia abolished federal inheritance taxes. Using daily
deaths data, we show that approximately 50 deaths were shifted from the
week before the abolition to the week after. This amounts to over half
of those who would have been eligible to pay the tax"

My understanding is that there was quite a significant skew of the
death rate around this date, where the death rate peaked significantly
after the date of implementation. I can't find a link any article with
a quick google.