3 ms·
The optionality value of not being dead is surprisingly high, meaning that most folks would trade 1 hour of not-death for many hours of not-delayed.
by jacques_chester 5y ago
The optionality value of not being dead is surprisingly high, meaning that most folks would trade 1 hour of not-death for many hours of not-delayed.
- aeternum 5y agoShouldn't the equation be how many hours of delay you would trade for one hour of not-death? Taken to an extreme, suppose we found 5 hours worth of airline safety video prior to a flight saved 10 human lives per year as it made it less likely people would evacuate the plane with their belongings. If you led the FAA, would you mandate each passenger watch this video before each flight in order to save those lives? Put another way, is 5 hours * 5 billion airline passengers / year worth 10 humans lives / year?
- jacques_chester 5y agoIf I led the FAA, I'd stay the course. Being dead is infinite. Delays due to safety are not.
- yuliyp 5y agoAt some point the total life duration cost of the safety actions exceeds the sum of the extended lives due to the safety actions. In the 5 billion hours example, 10 people live for under 10 million hours in total (1 million hours = 114 years). You'd have spent 5000 lives worth of time to save 10, which is not worth it in the aggregate.
- shadowgovt 5y agoThat's assuming that all of the people that aren't traveling have just been put in stasis or something. People waiting for their plane when it's delayed go on about their lives. They're not on plan A, but they're still living. People who die in a plane crash don't get to execute on plans A through Z. Even if you run the numbers as a comparison of hours lost waiting for your plane to years lost from somebody's actuarial life expectancy because they died in a crash, it's not a one for one comparison.
- aeternum 5y agoYes, this is a good point, an hour of being dead has zero utility whereas an hour of being delayed has at least partial utility.