You're Most Likely To Die In This Really Horrific Way, According To Statistics

Guys, we have great news.

Statistically, you're probably not going to die in a car crash. In fact, as a human being, you only have a one in 9,395 chance of dying in one this year. And as The Atlantic points out, that translates to a roughly one in 120 chance throughout your entire life.

So what then, is more likely to kill you than a car accident? Oh, just a mass extinction event, that's all.

A mass extinction event can come in many forms, say, climate change or "accidental nuclear war." Not sure how that even works, but OK.

You may be thinking, "There is no way in hell climate change ramps up that quickly," or "There is no way in hell Kim Jong Un actually has nuclear bombs." But sorry to break it to you, my friends: Like I said before, you're just on the wrong side of statistical history.

The Atlantic further reports, "The Global Challenges Foundation estimates a 9.5 percent chance of human extinction within the next hundred years." And even this number may be on the low end because the foundation only accounts for events that will wipe out 10 percent of the total population.

Sebastian Farquhar, the director of the Global Priorities Project, told The Atlantic,

We don't expect any of the events that we describe to happen in any 10-year period. They might—but, on balance, they probably won't. But there's lots of events that we think are unlikely that we still prepare for.

Well that's comforting.

Beyond nuclear war, global warming, super-volcanos, rogue asteroids and the machines rising up to kill us all, what else are you really more likely to die from?

Heart disease is still the number one killer of Americans, taking more than 600,000 lives in the US in 2014. Cancer is still the second most common way Americans die. These diseases combined account for more than half of all deaths each year in America.

So, what can we do to stem the tides of fate? For starters, eat your vegetables.

Next, maybe let's all be a little kinder to one another and back off those nuclear codes. Lastly, let's all be a hell of a lot kinder to the planet. She's the only one we've got.

Here's to stacking the odds ever in our favor.

Citations: Human Extinction Isn't That Unlikely (The Atlantic)