5 ms·

$10M may be the monetary value used for these type of calculations, but when you look at our country's yearly budgets, it's clear that each live is valued much

by moonka 6y ago

$10M may be the monetary value used for these type of calculations, but when you look at our country's yearly budgets, it's clear that each live is valued much lower than $10M. Especially after seeing our response to Covid-19.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Proven 6y ago
In reality it's not $10M (to the government - although it may be to you personally). My government doesn't own me and doesn't get most of my income, so why should its budget reflect the whole of value of my life? Most people don't pay any tax. Should the government spend millions of taxpayer money to save each such life?
sandoooo 6y ago
The government thinks $10M per life is about the right number on the margin given US's economic situation and the slack they have in the annual budget. Obviously if there's a nuclear war tomorrow, or something else that drastically changes either the money supply or the number of people who need saving, the exchange rate would be different. Realistically I think the value should be a lot lower, considering there are many interventions you could do that saves more than 1 life per $10M, even if we confine calculations to the US. (World-wide the marginal cost of a life is probably less than $10k). Of course you have to also take into consideration what is politically and organizationally feasible, so perhaps $10M is the government's marginal cost of a life considering its set of permissible policies. ...Or maybe somebody just pulled a number out of a hat to justify an expensive piece of legislation in the 80's, and nobody's bothered to update the number since.
- pyuser583 6y ago
  This is the thing - it’s likely the exact value for a human life varies dramatically depending on the context. That’s because they’re not usually attempting to assign a value to human lives in any abstract sense.

5 ms·

$10M may be the monetary value used for these type of calculations, but when you look at our country's yearly budgets, it's clear that each live is valued much

by moonka 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Proven 6y ago
In reality it's not $10M (to the government - although it may be to you personally). My government doesn't own me and doesn't get most of my income, so why should its budget reflect the whole of value of my life? Most people don't pay any tax. Should the government spend millions of taxpayer money to save each such life?
sandoooo 6y ago
The government thinks $10M per life is about the right number on the margin given US's economic situation and the slack they have in the annual budget. Obviously if there's a nuclear war tomorrow, or something else that drastically changes either the money supply or the number of people who need saving, the exchange rate would be different. Realistically I think the value should be a lot lower, considering there are many interventions you could do that saves more than 1 life per $10M, even if we confine calculations to the US. (World-wide the marginal cost of a life is probably less than $10k). Of course you have to also take into consideration what is politically and organizationally feasible, so perhaps $10M is the government's marginal cost of a life considering its set of permissible policies. ...Or maybe somebody just pulled a number out of a hat to justify an expensive piece of legislation in the 80's, and nobody's bothered to update the number since.
- pyuser583 6y ago
  This is the thing - it’s likely the exact value for a human life varies dramatically depending on the context. That’s because they’re not usually attempting to assign a value to human lives in any abstract sense.