Bertrand Russell objected to the notion of causation in the 1900s, because merely stating the updated dynamics of a system doesn't imply causation in any grand sense. Like hume, he dismisses causation, but not because of the problem of induction or anything, but because the concept seems incoherent to him. He especially emphasized this in physics - although maybe you can argue that for everyday human language, causation is good (Alice caused BCD to happen), in physics it doesn't belong.

Not that I entirely agree with his account but just some food for thought.

Initially I assumed it to be negligible but the numbers are actually very close!

I calculate around a 3% drop in speed (from 60mpg) for holding an average sized book out of the window. That's surprising to me.

It's not quite right to use hazard ratios to calculate life expectancy. But if we force it, it looks like being in the top 20% of "regular" sleepers compared to the bottom 20% confers 3-4.5 years of extra life (from birth, assuming everything else equal, assuming USA, etc.). That's 3.8%-5.7% more life (79 year life expectancy at birth in the USA as of 2025). So the numbers are actually close.

I made a bad analogy :)

But you get my point!

In this example you're determining the speed of the car based on the wind flow on your hand. Putting the book in front might slow down the car, and it will probably also slow down the flow on the hand. However, if you still try to determine the speed of the car from the air flow on the hand, you'll probably be off, because car speed and wind flow aren't linked like that when the book is in the picture.

Sorry but it's counterproductive to people's understanding of the causation vs correlation distinction to provide an example of the former and call it the latter.

IDK. I got a hand-me-down sporty car when I was in high school, which was initially white, then I had it painted orange as a birthday gift a year or two later. Comparing the before and after, there was a noticeable shift in how other drivers responded to me, and not universally for the better. I was less likely to go unnoticed (think people trying to merge into me, or jumping out in front of me when they have a yield), but a subset of people (mostly other young men, sometimes older men driving minivans) would act significantly more aggressively. No one ever tried to race me when my car was white. It'd happen like once a week once the car was orange. People actively speeding up to avoid me passing them also increased substantially.