Talk:1113: Killed in Action

The title text is essentially the beginning of the hanging paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexpected_hanging_paradox

It's not quite the same thing. The unexpected hanging paradox only applies when you have a measure of foreknowledge. Davidy22 (talk) 05:50, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I think there's also a strong indication that this is mocking cop films from the 80's/90's, such as Lethal Weapon, where a character would always die just before retirement. --46.246.31.111 07:08, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

This one is a variant of the old Czech joke: "The study has proved that statistically the most casualties happen in the last car of a train. Therefore the committee suggests to make all trains one car shorter." --Mity (talk) 09:59, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

This comics's explanation is complete bollocks, I think. Of course it is NOT a "fact that such a room exists". This comics parodies trope often used in cop movies - an elderly cop goes to work for the last time before his retirement, packs things, plans fishing the next day ... only to be called to one more case (possibly with a new, young and brash partner). And despites his efforts not to screw anything and stay clear of danger, he is either mortally wounded or screws big time and is degraded. So much clichè, that if someone says "It's my last day or service", you might be sure one of the two options above happens. See http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retirony for all the use cases and examples. Edheldil (talk) 10:25, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I added the tv trope to the explanation. Didn't even see your comment at first, but why didn't you just change and add to the explanation yourself? That would be the whole point of the wiki. --Buggz (talk) 10:34, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

To add a little irony to the irony, the dead cop actually IS in a "locked, heavily guarded room." (There's a Sufi story along those lines.) The real solution to the retirony risk would be for their retirement day to fall within a 12 month window, chosen by some randomly generated number chosen before the shift begins. Thus they could avoid building up a hazardous "retirony field" focused around the point-source retirement day. Sort of like this thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_ring Noni Mausa (talk) 12:11, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

...But that doesn't eliminate the "retirony field", it only dispurses it over a larger area. The retirony claim would shift to "(s)he was due to retire this year" times the number of retirees within that retirement window. Assuming these tragic events are "uniformly distributed" the probability they'll happen will be present right up to the end of one's active tour of duty, no matter what. Shorten the train, indeed. :) -- IronyChef (talk) 14:29, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

How about simply not planning your retirement at all, and instead just spontaneously quitting at some point? Erenan (talk) 15:38, 27 September 2012 (UTC)