[HappMacDonald]

@idiotsecant is correct. Length of arc correlates to voltage, while most of the potential pain or damage from an arc will correlate more to amperage and/or to duration.

[kadoban]

You're correct, but just for fun's sake:

The amperage of static elecricity discharges like this can be quite high, tens of amps is common.

So walking across a carpet and getting a shock can easily be tens of amps at thousands of volts, and we're just totally fine (because it's for a tiny fraction of a second).

[HPsquared]

So it's not the Amps that get you, but the Coulombs? Or is it the Joules?

[myrmidon]

Lethality of electricity is multi-dimensional, trying to reduce it to a single quantity does not really work (exposure time and electrical frequency are very important).

[tuetuopay]

neither. even a shortcut saying like "total energy delivered" is not accurate, because it depends on how it is delivered and how it dissipates.

styropyro made a fascinating (if terrifying) video about it

[HPsquared]

Sounds a bit like fuse wire (except the frequency dependence)... There's both a current and a time component. High overloads can be tolerated for a very short time without blowing the fuse, while low overloads can be sustained for longer before the fuse reaches its maximum temperature and breaks.