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Western societies don't aim for safety at any cost. The states place a cost on each life, and you'll feel that the numbers are too high, but they're numbers, ba
by Arnt 6y ago
Western societies don't aim for safety at any cost. The states place a cost on each life, and you'll feel that the numbers are too high, but they're numbers, backed by rationales and research.
I looked up the number for one country now, and the report that contains the number also contains references to four decades of academic literature.
- himlion 6y agoI recently read that the number is €2.6 million euro for the Netherlands.
- dash2 6y agoYou might be optimistic to think that car safety regulation is designed so as to maximise consumer welfare. See eg https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.24.3.233 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.24.3.233
- onemiketwelve 6y agoExactly, any regulatory decision large or small usually has a ton of research and thought behind it. An interesting episode of planetmoney goes over the history of how to quantify harm/ a human life vs the cost of protective measures. https://www.npr.org/2020/04/15/835571843/episode-991-lives-vs-the-economy https://www.npr.org/2020/04/15/835571843/episode-991-lives-v... Apparently the value sits at $10 million USD/ life now. If you take 57 babby * 10M / $200 / car seat = 2.8M car seats. There's apparently 3.7M babbies born in the US/ year. So I think if you accept these numbers it does still make sense.