4 ms·
Are you kidding us? You cannot compare 'human lives' by comparing dollars. And surely, the site does not "cost" one 50th of "a" human life.
by lysium 14y ago
Are you kidding us?
You cannot compare 'human lives' by comparing dollars. And surely, the site does not "cost" one 50th of "a" human life.
- podperson 14y agoEconomists figure these things out by looking at how much people value their own lives (e.g. how much of a salary increase people expect for high risk jobs). The figures calculated are surprisingly low (IIRC ~$300,000 for an Australian in the late 90s). You need to do this kind of analysis to do cost/benefit analysis -- e.g. should we spend money on making a road safer or building a new hospital? According to Wikipedia -- $6-7M per life in the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life
- selter01 14y agoNot to be a dick, but is an MIT student life valued higher than an average US citizen? I ask this in terms of average production value. I wonder if someone would be brave enough to even predict these figures.
- aidenn0 14y agoIf you can save 1 life by spending $2.5M and instead you build 50 websites for $50k then it is reasonable to say that the site cost 1/50th of a human life.