3 ms·

> Something to consider if you see anyone trying to downplay this. I admit I'm the morbid one in the group, memento mori and all. But I think the real stat we

> Something to consider if you see anyone trying to downplay this. I admit I'm the morbid one in the group, memento mori and all. But I think the real stat we should track is years of lost life expectancy. That's the only statistic that makes sense when doing cross disease examinations. Not speaking specifically about covid, but more generally, something which primarily kills young people is much bigger deal than something which primarily kills old people.

exporectomy 6y ago
I wonder if that measure should be used for criminal justice as well. As well as showing that killing an old person is less harmful, it also excludes babies. Both these groups seem to have lives that are worth less even to themselves and so it's (however distasteful) not as bad if they die. We already do that with abortion by valuing an unborn baby's life less.
- username90 6y ago
  Many places already has laws around infanticide which is much lower than manslaughter. Canada for example sentences mothers to at most 5 years with no minimum for killing their baby.
jschwartzi 6y ago
YLL is a horrifying metric because it values someone who is 20 over someone who is 60. The only argument I can see for its "usefulness" as a statistic is if you want to imply that the old are less useful than the young. This kind of statement about the bare utility of a human life is the same statement that underlies a lot of how we have treated the disabled or those on welfare in the past. And it only makes sense if you think about a human life in terms of its economic usefulness as some sort of cog in the economic machine that wears out and can be discarded safely after age 67.
- orangecat 6y ago
  The only argument I can see for its "usefulness" as a statistic is if you want to imply that the old are less useful than the young. It's not about "usefulness", it's that saving the life of a young person produces a larger benefit in terms of expected future years of life. Take the extreme case: if a building is on fire and you can only rescue one person, would you be indifferent between saving the life of a 10 year old child versus a 90 year old with terminal cancer?
- Daishiman 6y ago
  Not necessarily. In my persona value system I would much rather live 20 more years when I'm 20 over living those same years once I'm 60. It makes sense if we consider the possibility of novel life experiences to be an important value of how we live life. If you've made it to 60 (a not uncommon life expectancy), you've had a chance to travel, have children, live through many different life occasions, etc. If you're 20, you've barely had two years as a legal adult where you could make something of your life. It has little to do with economic productivity.
- xkjkls 6y ago
  Someone who is 20 should be valued more than someone who is 60. Case in point, the deaths of the ~100,000 centenarians are going to be way less impactful than a disaster that wipes out the entire town of San Antonio.
- username90 6y ago
  Here is a choice for you: 1. You get killed at 20. 2. You get killed at 60. Which option would you choose?
- maerF0x0 6y ago
  see my comment here for a different angle than just pure utility: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27080048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27080048
- brandonmenc 6y ago
  > YLL is a horrifying metric because it values someone who is 20 over someone who is 60. Not to my father, who is in his late 60s and the most at-risk member of the family, and who has been more opposed to the lockdowns than any of us. His calculation is that at some point - for the good of the family, long-term - the economic damage and delayed social development of his grandchildren outweigh his personal safety. I have encountered very few older people who don't also think this way.
  - amznthrwaway 6y ago
    Well then your father should do us a favor and fucking die. But some older people aren't useless Fox News addicted dipshits.
nonameiguess 6y ago
If you're going to get super utilitarian about it, strict years of life lost is not the best measure. As nearly all of human history proved out, very young children, especially infants, are particularly easy to replace. It's losing people in the prime years that really hurts a society, why for instance the US Civil War and the two World Wars were so terrible, where huge regions lost a majority of 20-40 year old men. Although again, if we're being very utilitarian, men are a lot less valuable than women, which is at least one reason we've usually sent men to war. Childbearing doesn't scale nearly as easily as child seeding.
- maerF0x0 6y ago
  interestingly i take it more from an intergenerational contract that at some point it's the duty of the old to senesce and optimize for the good of subsequent generations. As I understand it this intergenerational contract used to be quite strong as people would see that previous generations invested in them and as a pay it forward sort of mechanism, they would in turn pay it forward to generations that proceed them . I suppose there was some "take care of me when I'm old" in the intergenerational contract too, but I understood that as secondary to the propagation aspect...
alan-crowe 6y ago
I agree that we should be tracking years of lost life expectancy. I also believe in attempting a quality adjustment; we get better public policy from counting Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY) lost. I think that the main obstacle to this approach is that people instinctively think cross-sectionally rather than longitudinally. When you say "kills young people" and "kills old people", listeners focus on 2021. A young person is somebody born in 2000 and an old person is somebody-else, born in 1940. That is cross-sectional thinking, with 2021 as the date of the cross section. But the real issue is that we nearly all live to grow old and get to experience both sides of the issue. Someone born in 2000 is likely to live until 2080. They will probably see a different respiratory virus going round then; it may even be what kills them. So what would you personally prefer? The pro-lockdown approach trades losing a year out of your twenties to lock downs, in return for some action (perhaps ineffective, perhaps unnecessary) to ensure that you survive the plague of 2080 and get to live a few years longer. The anti-lockdown approach makes the opposite trade-off. It is not really young versus old; it is now versus later. I'm getting old and rather dreading later. I would prefer that society prioritize letting the young get on with their lives, education, dating, etc. and if I lose some poor quality care-home years, well, I've seen my grandparents and parents get old and frail, and I'd rather not dwell on the details of what I'm dreading. If young people want to argue for the anti-lockdown trade-off, if they claim that in general young people shouldn't be locked down in the hope of protecting the elderly and they will accept their fate gracefully when they get old, well, I would think them wise beyond their years.

exporectomy 6y ago

I wonder if that measure should be used for criminal justice as well. As well as showing that killing an old person is less harmful, it also excludes babies. Both these groups seem to have lives that are worth less even to themselves and so it's (however distasteful) not as bad if they die. We already do that with abortion by valuing an unborn baby's life less.

username90 6y ago
Many places already has laws around infanticide which is much lower than manslaughter. Canada for example sentences mothers to at most 5 years with no minimum for killing their baby.

jschwartzi 6y ago

YLL is a horrifying metric because it values someone who is 20 over someone who is 60. The only argument I can see for its "usefulness" as a statistic is if you want to imply that the old are less useful than the young. This kind of statement about the bare utility of a human life is the same statement that underlies a lot of how we have treated the disabled or those on welfare in the past. And it only makes sense if you think about a human life in terms of its economic usefulness as some sort of cog in the economic machine that wears out and can be discarded safely after age 67.

orangecat 6y ago
The only argument I can see for its "usefulness" as a statistic is if you want to imply that the old are less useful than the young. It's not about "usefulness", it's that saving the life of a young person produces a larger benefit in terms of expected future years of life. Take the extreme case: if a building is on fire and you can only rescue one person, would you be indifferent between saving the life of a 10 year old child versus a 90 year old with terminal cancer?
Daishiman 6y ago
Not necessarily. In my persona value system I would much rather live 20 more years when I'm 20 over living those same years once I'm 60. It makes sense if we consider the possibility of novel life experiences to be an important value of how we live life. If you've made it to 60 (a not uncommon life expectancy), you've had a chance to travel, have children, live through many different life occasions, etc. If you're 20, you've barely had two years as a legal adult where you could make something of your life. It has little to do with economic productivity.
xkjkls 6y ago
Someone who is 20 should be valued more than someone who is 60. Case in point, the deaths of the ~100,000 centenarians are going to be way less impactful than a disaster that wipes out the entire town of San Antonio.
username90 6y ago
Here is a choice for you: 1. You get killed at 20. 2. You get killed at 60. Which option would you choose?
maerF0x0 6y ago
see my comment here for a different angle than just pure utility: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27080048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27080048
brandonmenc 6y ago
> YLL is a horrifying metric because it values someone who is 20 over someone who is 60. Not to my father, who is in his late 60s and the most at-risk member of the family, and who has been more opposed to the lockdowns than any of us. His calculation is that at some point - for the good of the family, long-term - the economic damage and delayed social development of his grandchildren outweigh his personal safety. I have encountered very few older people who don't also think this way.
- amznthrwaway 6y ago
  Well then your father should do us a favor and fucking die. But some older people aren't useless Fox News addicted dipshits.

nonameiguess 6y ago

If you're going to get super utilitarian about it, strict years of life lost is not the best measure. As nearly all of human history proved out, very young children, especially infants, are particularly easy to replace. It's losing people in the prime years that really hurts a society, why for instance the US Civil War and the two World Wars were so terrible, where huge regions lost a majority of 20-40 year old men. Although again, if we're being very utilitarian, men are a lot less valuable than women, which is at least one reason we've usually sent men to war. Childbearing doesn't scale nearly as easily as child seeding.

maerF0x0 6y ago
interestingly i take it more from an intergenerational contract that at some point it's the duty of the old to senesce and optimize for the good of subsequent generations. As I understand it this intergenerational contract used to be quite strong as people would see that previous generations invested in them and as a pay it forward sort of mechanism, they would in turn pay it forward to generations that proceed them . I suppose there was some "take care of me when I'm old" in the intergenerational contract too, but I understood that as secondary to the propagation aspect...

alan-crowe 6y ago

I agree that we should be tracking years of lost life expectancy. I also believe in attempting a quality adjustment; we get better public policy from counting Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY) lost. I think that the main obstacle to this approach is that people instinctively think cross-sectionally rather than longitudinally. When you say "kills young people" and "kills old people", listeners focus on 2021. A young person is somebody born in 2000 and an old person is somebody-else, born in 1940. That is cross-sectional thinking, with 2021 as the date of the cross section. But the real issue is that we nearly all live to grow old and get to experience both sides of the issue. Someone born in 2000 is likely to live until 2080. They will probably see a different respiratory virus going round then; it may even be what kills them. So what would you personally prefer? The pro-lockdown approach trades losing a year out of your twenties to lock downs, in return for some action (perhaps ineffective, perhaps unnecessary) to ensure that you survive the plague of 2080 and get to live a few years longer. The anti-lockdown approach makes the opposite trade-off. It is not really young versus old; it is now versus later. I'm getting old and rather dreading later. I would prefer that society prioritize letting the young get on with their lives, education, dating, etc. and if I lose some poor quality care-home years, well, I've seen my grandparents and parents get old and frail, and I'd rather not dwell on the details of what I'm dreading. If young people want to argue for the anti-lockdown trade-off, if they claim that in general young people shouldn't be locked down in the hope of protecting the elderly and they will accept their fate gracefully when they get old, well, I would think them wise beyond their years.