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Okay, I've designed a new pill. 1 out of 4 people have adverse reactions to its contents and die instantly, but people who don't live long virile lives until, o

Okay, I've designed a new pill. 1 out of 4 people have adverse reactions to its contents and die instantly, but people who don't live long virile lives until, on average, the age of 100! Your expected gain would be nearly 5 additional years of life! Should I sign you up?

nostrademons 10y ago
This is a pretty attractive proposition. The long, slow decline during your last decade of life is miserable, on both you and on loved ones. There are certain strategic times in life where you'd want to take this, though. Ideally after the kids are grown up and don't need you anymore (so you either drop dead painlessly & predictably, or get a nice long life in great health so you can see the grandchildren grow up), or if that's cheating, in childhood or right after college so you haven't invested much into your life yet. Same reason they sell life insurance.
- Nition 10y ago
  I'd suggest keep the pill in your pocket until you're about to die, and take it then. That way you have a 1/4 chance of the same result and a 3/4 chance of major improvement. Not taking the pill already of course risks dying in your sleep.
  - aetherson 10y ago
    The pill only works before you're 40 because it's a magic thought experiment.
JamesBarney 10y ago
These years aren't comparable because I'm trading years in the immediate future for years in the distant future. Not many people would trade next year for a year and 2 months when they're 80.
- sebastos 10y ago
  Okay. Suppose that you spend 30 minutes on your commute each day for the rest of your working life, until you're 65. That means you'll waste almost a full year's worth of waking hours driving. I've invented a teleporter that will reduce your commute to 1 second every day. The only glitch is that your molecular makeup may be incompatible with my device, and there's no way to tell for sure. If it is, you'll disintegrate instantly the first time you try to use it. Don't worry, only 1% of the population is incompatible. From a probability standpoint, you should expect to gain more than 1% of your life in extra time. Care to give her a whirl?
  - JamesBarney 10y ago
    No. Because your proposal is very different for two reasons. One risk vs reward. In the robo-car example the pay off is 20-80x of lost life to gained time. You get a lot of time for very little risk. But your example is 1.03x. The second is the distribution of risk over the years. With the driving I take a little risk to gain a little time each day for 30 years. In your example I take all of the risk up front and then have small a pay out over the next 30 odd years.
    - sebastos 10y ago
      Right. Point being that expected value of drawing from a probability distribution isn't enough to explain people's preferences. We care a lot about the whole shape. So it's a little reductive to just tally up the expected time cost and call it figured.

nostrademons 10y ago

This is a pretty attractive proposition. The long, slow decline during your last decade of life is miserable, on both you and on loved ones. There are certain strategic times in life where you'd want to take this, though. Ideally after the kids are grown up and don't need you anymore (so you either drop dead painlessly & predictably, or get a nice long life in great health so you can see the grandchildren grow up), or if that's cheating, in childhood or right after college so you haven't invested much into your life yet. Same reason they sell life insurance.

Nition 10y ago
I'd suggest keep the pill in your pocket until you're about to die, and take it then. That way you have a 1/4 chance of the same result and a 3/4 chance of major improvement. Not taking the pill already of course risks dying in your sleep.
- aetherson 10y ago
  The pill only works before you're 40 because it's a magic thought experiment.

JamesBarney 10y ago

These years aren't comparable because I'm trading years in the immediate future for years in the distant future. Not many people would trade next year for a year and 2 months when they're 80.

sebastos 10y ago
Okay. Suppose that you spend 30 minutes on your commute each day for the rest of your working life, until you're 65. That means you'll waste almost a full year's worth of waking hours driving. I've invented a teleporter that will reduce your commute to 1 second every day. The only glitch is that your molecular makeup may be incompatible with my device, and there's no way to tell for sure. If it is, you'll disintegrate instantly the first time you try to use it. Don't worry, only 1% of the population is incompatible. From a probability standpoint, you should expect to gain more than 1% of your life in extra time. Care to give her a whirl?
- JamesBarney 10y ago
  No. Because your proposal is very different for two reasons. One risk vs reward. In the robo-car example the pay off is 20-80x of lost life to gained time. You get a lot of time for very little risk. But your example is 1.03x. The second is the distribution of risk over the years. With the driving I take a little risk to gain a little time each day for 30 years. In your example I take all of the risk up front and then have small a pay out over the next 30 odd years.
  - sebastos 10y ago
    Right. Point being that expected value of drawing from a probability distribution isn't enough to explain people's preferences. We care a lot about the whole shape. So it's a little reductive to just tally up the expected time cost and call it figured.