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> Today you're a productive member of society, seeking pleasure and satisfaction in family, career, hobbies and curiosity, tomorrow you're an absolutely happy w

> Today you're a productive member of society, seeking pleasure and satisfaction in family, career, hobbies and curiosity, tomorrow you're an absolutely happy wreck in the corner. By that token, anything that could disable a healthy member of society would be a huge problem warranting a war on it. Cars litteraly killing people fits the description but you don't see governments pannicking. Same way severe disabilities from workspace risks are mostly seen as a business risk and the OSHA won't have half the budget of what is spent on anti-drug efforts.

jojobas 3y ago
>By that token, anything that could disable a healthy member of society would be a huge problem warranting a war on it. Er, yes? You might have heard of this whole "healthcare" thing that is war on diseases, for one. Cars are a bit more complicated, sure they kill ~40k people per year in the states, stealing let's say 30 years of productive life per casualty on average = 1,2M man-years per year. In order to offset that, they'd have to save 1.2M man hours over the entire US population (let's say 300M) = 35 hours a year per person. I'm pretty sure cars save 6 minutes a day for an average American, compared to any possible alternative, so the bottom lines is that cars are worth it. (Kick me if I stuffed up my maths)
- bagacrap 3y ago
  Setting aside that there are plenty of viable alternatives to building a city that requires cars, our cars also have plenty of room to get safer with no loss of utility. We really could get by with 95% fewer ginormous pickups, and cars don't need to be able to go >80 mph.
  - jojobas 3y ago
    If you want a car that does 0-60 in less than 20 seconds (and you do) it will also go >80. Wearing a motorcycle helmet in a car would instantly make them a lot safer.
    - bagacrap 3y ago
      I feel like it would be pretty easy to artificially limit cars to 75mph. Also I drove a car that took 15 seconds to get to 60 throughout high school and it was fine. Wearing a motorcycle helmet inside a car does nothing for pedestrians, cyclists, etc. Also I would argue there's a loss of utility because it probably interferes with peripheral vision and messes up your hair. But sure, make people wear a helmet, fine by me. The point is that there's room for easy improvement in car safety, and a helmet counts, I suppose.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  > Er, yes? You might have heard of this whole "healthcare" thing that is war on diseases, for one. I heard about rising prices of healthcare and how much of a business it is in the US. "war on diseases" would never be how it's qualified, it's more like a "diseases business" at this point. On cars, the math should not be limited to deaths, any accident that results in a disability would enter the count. I wouldn't try to do such complex calculation, and look at countries that have similar geography but a history of actually caring about the human cost: Canada's average mileage per driver is short of 10 000 miles [0], that's 25% less than US drivers, and Canada already has 25% less cars per capita [1]. The US is at least that far from the equilibrum, with little political will to do something about it. [0] https://www.mychoice.ca/blog/whats-the-average-mileage-driven-per-year-in-canada/ https://www.mychoice.ca/blog/whats-the-average-mileage-drive... [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/registered-vehicles-per-1000-people https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/registered-vehicles-per-1...
  - jojobas 3y ago
    There are some 1.2 million car-crash-disabled people in the US, let's say they've accumulated over last 20 years on average, basically we need to triple the road toll and add for maintaining the disabled, so maybe cars need to save people 20 minutes per day. Still an easy win for cars. Reducing car use and other measures to reduce car fatalities i.e. speed limits are only meaningful in this "productive man-years" dimension if you don't end up stealing more time from people's lives waiting for buses and driving 40kph. In terms of fighting diseases that reduce productive man-years over say last 80 years, it's a very successful war, and there's little surprise that business is the best way to do it, just like many other things. Looking at age-at-death, all causes plots for the US [0], where most people die past productive age, one can reasonably guess that the war on disease is in some sort of diminishing returns equilibrium, where saving an extra man-year costs more than one man-year, go figure. [0] https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/life-expectancy-and-inequality-life-expectancy-united-states https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/life-ex...

jojobas 3y ago

>By that token, anything that could disable a healthy member of society would be a huge problem warranting a war on it. Er, yes? You might have heard of this whole "healthcare" thing that is war on diseases, for one. Cars are a bit more complicated, sure they kill ~40k people per year in the states, stealing let's say 30 years of productive life per casualty on average = 1,2M man-years per year. In order to offset that, they'd have to save 1.2M man hours over the entire US population (let's say 300M) = 35 hours a year per person. I'm pretty sure cars save 6 minutes a day for an average American, compared to any possible alternative, so the bottom lines is that cars are worth it. (Kick me if I stuffed up my maths)

bagacrap 3y ago
Setting aside that there are plenty of viable alternatives to building a city that requires cars, our cars also have plenty of room to get safer with no loss of utility. We really could get by with 95% fewer ginormous pickups, and cars don't need to be able to go >80 mph.
- jojobas 3y ago
  If you want a car that does 0-60 in less than 20 seconds (and you do) it will also go >80. Wearing a motorcycle helmet in a car would instantly make them a lot safer.
  - bagacrap 3y ago
    I feel like it would be pretty easy to artificially limit cars to 75mph. Also I drove a car that took 15 seconds to get to 60 throughout high school and it was fine. Wearing a motorcycle helmet inside a car does nothing for pedestrians, cyclists, etc. Also I would argue there's a loss of utility because it probably interferes with peripheral vision and messes up your hair. But sure, make people wear a helmet, fine by me. The point is that there's room for easy improvement in car safety, and a helmet counts, I suppose.
makeitdouble 3y ago
> Er, yes? You might have heard of this whole "healthcare" thing that is war on diseases, for one. I heard about rising prices of healthcare and how much of a business it is in the US. "war on diseases" would never be how it's qualified, it's more like a "diseases business" at this point. On cars, the math should not be limited to deaths, any accident that results in a disability would enter the count. I wouldn't try to do such complex calculation, and look at countries that have similar geography but a history of actually caring about the human cost: Canada's average mileage per driver is short of 10 000 miles [0], that's 25% less than US drivers, and Canada already has 25% less cars per capita [1]. The US is at least that far from the equilibrum, with little political will to do something about it. [0] https://www.mychoice.ca/blog/whats-the-average-mileage-driven-per-year-in-canada/ https://www.mychoice.ca/blog/whats-the-average-mileage-drive... [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/registered-vehicles-per-1000-people https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/registered-vehicles-per-1...
- jojobas 3y ago
  There are some 1.2 million car-crash-disabled people in the US, let's say they've accumulated over last 20 years on average, basically we need to triple the road toll and add for maintaining the disabled, so maybe cars need to save people 20 minutes per day. Still an easy win for cars. Reducing car use and other measures to reduce car fatalities i.e. speed limits are only meaningful in this "productive man-years" dimension if you don't end up stealing more time from people's lives waiting for buses and driving 40kph. In terms of fighting diseases that reduce productive man-years over say last 80 years, it's a very successful war, and there's little surprise that business is the best way to do it, just like many other things. Looking at age-at-death, all causes plots for the US [0], where most people die past productive age, one can reasonably guess that the war on disease is in some sort of diminishing returns equilibrium, where saving an extra man-year costs more than one man-year, go figure. [0] https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/life-expectancy-and-inequality-life-expectancy-united-states https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/life-ex...