Oops. By accident, you have ingested the amount of toxin it would take to kill 50% of the population. There’s no antidote, the doctors say you’ll either be dead within the week or survive with no ill effects.
Instinctively, do you think you’re going to be pushing up daisies this time next week or do you think you will be one of the ones who survives?
I’m pretty healthy in general, and my body mass is about average for an adult human, so no worries about getting a greater than usual per-kg dose. I’ll be optimistic 
I’m dead. Although I’m pretty healthy, I’m tiny, so it wouldn’t take much to kill me. Yippee!
I’ve got quite a few extra kgs on me. I’ll survive.
Unable to stand the suspense, I go ahead and ingest the rest of it. Why leave things to chance?
I’m pretty tiny. I’m a goner!
I’ll linger long enough to be a burden to my children.
(Actually I am large enough to be likely to survive.)
If not -
Regards,
Shodan
I’m barely clinging to life as it is, but thanks to some unsuspected medicinal quality of marijuana I not only survive, but excel, feeling better than I have for decades.
I’m average weight, pretty healthy but a diabetic. I figure the odds at 50/50, which has to account as “other”. Still, I spend the week making sure my affairs are in order, such as they are.
I easily survive and market it as “NEW WEIGHT LOSS MIRACLE!!!”
Only mostly dead. Sorry, no loose change.
The only course of action is to be proactive about surviving… cocks shotgun…
Will Costco have 3.5 billion shells in stock?
I voted “other.” I, too, have a large body and am pretty damn tough. I’ll probably survive.
But I certainly won’t be “fine!” I’m gonna probably be sick as hell, and maybe suffer some permanent damage. I might lose a kidney, or half my liver, or five feet of intestines.
The idea of “I’ll be fine” seems insane. It’s like being half burned to death or half beaten to death.
I’m pretty sure I’m half alive and half dead simultaneously. But then again, theoretical physics was never my strong point.
I would survive… The worse for wear no doubt.
I am pretty sure I would be fine. I am a tall male with a bigger than average stature and I am not that old. I know from experience that it takes a whole lot more of most drugs or toxins to have any significant effect on me than it does for most people.
I’d probably assume the worst, but nevertheless will survive. Pessimist in an optimist’s body.
LD[sub]50[/sub] is an amount per unit mass. Being a bigger or smaller individual isn’t going to alter the 50:50 outcome (ignoring any non-linear relationships).
That’s the thing with a lot of drug overdoses or most toxin exposures though. You probably will get quite ill for a while but some people fully recover while others just die fairly quickly. The intermediate ground for acute exposure is pretty rare because it is a transient event. You aren’t going to lose half your liver from an acute poisoning. It doesn’t even function that way. The liver tends to shut down completely and kill a someone quickly or or you live through it and the whole thing regenerates just like new again (the liver is the only body organ that can regenerate). There are people that have triggered permanent liver damage with a combination of alcohol and Tylenol but that is a rare reaction and not something that could be used as a poison because most people don’t suffer anything from it at all.
You generally aren’t going to lose any intestines either through an acute exposure. I suppose you could destroy just one of your kidneys completely while leaving the other semi-functional by drinking something like antifreeze but it would be hard to hit the exact right dose to make that happen. In general, acute poisonings usually either result in a quick death or a mostly full recovery. There are exceptions to that of course but they require special circumstances and hitting the sweet spot that will permanently disable a person rather than kill them quickly and that isn’t easy to predict even for experts.
Ummm, you first…