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How can the amount of money a person earns over his lifetime equal the value of his life? Are Musk, Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg, Buffett 1 000 000 times more valu

• simmerup 3y ago
  From the wikipedia article where this number is taken from: > Suppose each person in a sample of 100,000 people were asked how much he or she would be willing to pay for a reduction in their individual risk of dying by 1 in 100,000, or 0.001%, over the next year. Since this reduction in risk would mean that we would expect one fewer death among the sample of 100,000 people over the next year on average, this is sometimes described as "one statistical life saved.” Now suppose that the average response to this hypothetical question was $100. Then the total dollar amount that the group would be willing to pay to save one statistical life in a year would be $100 per person × 100,000 people, or $10 million. This is what is meant by the "value of a statistical life.”
• michaelt 3y ago
  Did you notice the bit where I said it was right and just that the value not merely be the earnings, but more besides? As to Bezos and Gates, fortunately the statistical value of a life only has to concern itself with the median person, not with outliers.