3 ms·

It is always possible anywhere in uncountable ways to spend money to save lives. Whether you like the idea or not, we all make trade-off decisions about money

It is always possible anywhere in uncountable ways to spend money to save lives. Whether you like the idea or not, we all make trade-off decisions about money vs lives every day.

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
I feel like it should be government making the decisions on whats safe or not, not companies.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  I'll say the opposite - the government should set the optimization target ($/life) and companies should do the optimization to meet that target themselves.
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    That could end up with cars with incredibly high tech laser collision detection system and no seat-belts.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      And if that was safe enough for the cost of installing seatbelts on a car to be more than the marginal safety benefit, I would want that to happen. What's the point of having seatbelts in a car that never crashes, after all? And if the cars still do crash occasionally, I would expect the manufacturers to leave the seatbelts in for as long as that made sense. Similarly, what if someone invents an airbag system that works significantly better than current setups, but requires that the user not be wearing a seatbelt because that leads to acceleration in the wrong direction? Should we have to wait for the government to update their standards, or should companies be allowed to improve things immediately? This is all an incentives problem, and so the idea is to make the incentives align. If the manufacturer is penalized for your death by an amount equal to your value of your life, the incentives are aligned. If the manufacturer just has to make it have a seat belt and airbags, they'll make the flashiest system they can advertise regardless of how it works in the real world. We have independent testing to attempt to validate those claims, but the incentive structure is still all wrong.

3 ms·

It is always possible anywhere in uncountable ways to spend money to save lives. Whether you like the idea or not, we all make trade-off decisions about money

by rwcarlsen 7y ago

It is always possible anywhere in uncountable ways to spend money to save lives. Whether you like the idea or not, we all make trade-off decisions about money vs lives every day.

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
I feel like it should be government making the decisions on whats safe or not, not companies.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  I'll say the opposite - the government should set the optimization target ($/life) and companies should do the optimization to meet that target themselves.
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    That could end up with cars with incredibly high tech laser collision detection system and no seat-belts.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      And if that was safe enough for the cost of installing seatbelts on a car to be more than the marginal safety benefit, I would want that to happen. What's the point of having seatbelts in a car that never crashes, after all? And if the cars still do crash occasionally, I would expect the manufacturers to leave the seatbelts in for as long as that made sense. Similarly, what if someone invents an airbag system that works significantly better than current setups, but requires that the user not be wearing a seatbelt because that leads to acceleration in the wrong direction? Should we have to wait for the government to update their standards, or should companies be allowed to improve things immediately? This is all an incentives problem, and so the idea is to make the incentives align. If the manufacturer is penalized for your death by an amount equal to your value of your life, the incentives are aligned. If the manufacturer just has to make it have a seat belt and airbags, they'll make the flashiest system they can advertise regardless of how it works in the real world. We have independent testing to attempt to validate those claims, but the incentive structure is still all wrong.