3 ms·

> Can there be anything but a subjective estimate of what someone's health and life are worth? The requirement is that society reaches an agreement on what tha

by rlpb 9y ago

> Can there be anything but a subjective estimate of what someone's health and life are worth? The requirement is that society reaches an agreement on what that estimate is. Relying solely on the estimate of the victims [and other local people] is not reasonable. There needs to be an equitable way of determining a value. Dismissing studies trying to establish an approach to this is not the way. Sure, it still has to be subjective. But the line between subjectivity and objectivity is a spectrum. More objectivity is possible, and dismissing this out of hand because complete objectivity is not possible is not reasonable.

mikeash 9y ago
We take that approach as a last resort, when direct compensation is not possible. Imagine if I dumped a bunch of toxic waste into your carpet. Would you accept it if I said, well, it would cost $X to completely remove the toxic waste, and the economic value of the DALYs lost by members of your household is $Y < $X, therefore I don't have to do anything? I'm pretty sure such a thing would get laughed out of court. I'd be required to clean it up regardless, or if the value of the cleanup exceeds the value of the house, to buy you out. I'm not allowed to keep poisoning you just because it's too expensive for me to stop. Why should a nuclear accident be handled any differently? The answer to that semi-rhertorical question for other types of pollution is often, "Because there are N polluters and M victims and it's not practical to handle N x M transactions to settle the damages." That doesn't apply here, where there's only one polluter.
- wbl 9y ago
  Why should it be $X and not $Y you pay?
  - mikeash 9y ago
    My understanding is that the standard legal remedy is for the perpetrator to be required to make the victim whole, i.e. to restore them to the state where they were before the damage. So, for example, if I destroy your car, I have to give the money it would take to buy another one. I can't argue that you didn't use the car much and so its value to you was less, so I only need to pay that much. It's also standard to look at the less tangible losses suffered by the victim (like health damage or pain and suffering) and come up with a fair monetary amount based on that. But my understanding is that this is only done when it's necessary. Without a time machine, it's not always possible to put the victim back in the exact same state they were in before the damage. When it is possible, that's what you do. Otherwise you do the best you can to compensate them. In the case of pollution, you'd have to come up with a monetary equivalent to the health damages done to the victims if that damage was already done and couldn't be reversed. If the damage hasn't been done yet (e.g. because I just polluted your property very recently) and can be prevented (e.g. because I can clean it up, or buy your property so you can move to a house that isn't polluted) then I can still restore you to your pre-damage state. Another problem is that $Y is highly probabilistic, whereas $X is not. Calculating DALYs lost due to some contamination works on populations, but not individuals. You, personally, might die from that pollution tomorrow, or you might live to the age of 120 regardless. Compensating you based on the expected amount you'll lose, when the real amount might be much different, means the amount is likely to be incorrect. If we can instead ensure that the pollution doesn't impact the individual, either by removing it or removing the individual, we avoid that problem.
- rlpb 9y ago
  I don't understand your point. I agree that compensation is due. I'm saying that calculation of the losses needs to be as objective as possible, that your market-driven approach is flawed, and that therefore it is reasonable to consider scientific methods that try to come up with as objective an answer as possible.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    How can you get more objective than looking at either the cost of removing the pollution or the value of the property contaminated by it? That's a lot more precise than trying to apply DALYs in an entire population to individual households. The whole point of my post is to illustrate why compensating someone based on the health risks incurred is ridiculous if you can instead fix the problem or buy them out. In my example, do you think it would be fair for me to compensate you only the value of the DALYs lost in your household if you continue to live there, rather than the cost of cleanup or the cost of your property?

by rlpb 9y ago

mikeash 9y ago

We take that approach as a last resort, when direct compensation is not possible. Imagine if I dumped a bunch of toxic waste into your carpet. Would you accept it if I said, well, it would cost $X to completely remove the toxic waste, and the economic value of the DALYs lost by members of your household is $Y < $X, therefore I don't have to do anything? I'm pretty sure such a thing would get laughed out of court. I'd be required to clean it up regardless, or if the value of the cleanup exceeds the value of the house, to buy you out. I'm not allowed to keep poisoning you just because it's too expensive for me to stop. Why should a nuclear accident be handled any differently? The answer to that semi-rhertorical question for other types of pollution is often, "Because there are N polluters and M victims and it's not practical to handle N x M transactions to settle the damages." That doesn't apply here, where there's only one polluter.

wbl 9y ago
Why should it be $X and not $Y you pay?
- mikeash 9y ago
  My understanding is that the standard legal remedy is for the perpetrator to be required to make the victim whole, i.e. to restore them to the state where they were before the damage. So, for example, if I destroy your car, I have to give the money it would take to buy another one. I can't argue that you didn't use the car much and so its value to you was less, so I only need to pay that much. It's also standard to look at the less tangible losses suffered by the victim (like health damage or pain and suffering) and come up with a fair monetary amount based on that. But my understanding is that this is only done when it's necessary. Without a time machine, it's not always possible to put the victim back in the exact same state they were in before the damage. When it is possible, that's what you do. Otherwise you do the best you can to compensate them. In the case of pollution, you'd have to come up with a monetary equivalent to the health damages done to the victims if that damage was already done and couldn't be reversed. If the damage hasn't been done yet (e.g. because I just polluted your property very recently) and can be prevented (e.g. because I can clean it up, or buy your property so you can move to a house that isn't polluted) then I can still restore you to your pre-damage state. Another problem is that $Y is highly probabilistic, whereas $X is not. Calculating DALYs lost due to some contamination works on populations, but not individuals. You, personally, might die from that pollution tomorrow, or you might live to the age of 120 regardless. Compensating you based on the expected amount you'll lose, when the real amount might be much different, means the amount is likely to be incorrect. If we can instead ensure that the pollution doesn't impact the individual, either by removing it or removing the individual, we avoid that problem.
rlpb 9y ago
I don't understand your point. I agree that compensation is due. I'm saying that calculation of the losses needs to be as objective as possible, that your market-driven approach is flawed, and that therefore it is reasonable to consider scientific methods that try to come up with as objective an answer as possible.
- mikeash 9y ago
  How can you get more objective than looking at either the cost of removing the pollution or the value of the property contaminated by it? That's a lot more precise than trying to apply DALYs in an entire population to individual households. The whole point of my post is to illustrate why compensating someone based on the health risks incurred is ridiculous if you can instead fix the problem or buy them out. In my example, do you think it would be fair for me to compensate you only the value of the DALYs lost in your household if you continue to live there, rather than the cost of cleanup or the cost of your property?