A discussion in the covid thread got me thinking about this.

Generally, if there's a bonehead thing that you can do to hurt yourself or others, it gets legislated to be illegal, regardless of whether it's strongly enforced or not. For example, you're not allowed to drive drunk or not have balcony rails or climb power poles.

But there are some things that I think are dangerous, but they're not illegal. For example, you can legally hurtle yourself off a cliff into the ocean for recreation, which seems dangerous to me. That one guy a while back jumped out of a plane without a parachute, which was apparently not illegal at all.

There are some things that are dangerous, but they're an occupation. You can launch yourself into space on a rocket and that's fine as long as you get launch permits. Or you can go be a fuel truck driver in Iraq. Apparently a lot of risky stuff is legal if it supports the economy. Or maybe it's just not risky to the extent that the risk outweighs the rewards.

It's not illegal to stick a fork in your breaker box, or at least I don't think it is. So there's another category that's pretty much rampant stupidity, and that's mostly legal because apparently our society doesn't mind a little Darwinism. And if you make it illegal to stick forks in breaker boxes, it's probably not going to stop the people who do it.

Stuff like skydiving seems dangerous and it's legal, but statistically it's not very dangerous.

So I'm not sure how to ask the question other than to just ask it. What's the most dangerous thing that you do that's not illegal? And do you do it because you have to do so to earn a living, or is it something recreational, or is it something where you're just a knucklehead?
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