4 ms·

Nothing. A life saved is worth eminently more than a dollar earned.

corin_ 13y ago
I'd love to see some data on how many people draw the line where on that. $1 for a life, sure you save the life. $10? Life. $1m? $1b? Or $1b for 1000 lives? I'm sure not everyone would state that X lives is always worth more than Y dollars for all values of X and Y.
- rdl 13y ago
  In a lot of contexts, lives saved (in the US) are valued at $1-10mm. This is based on life insurance premiums for higher risk jobs, availability of marginal life savings for costs in other contexts, etc. Not sure how it applies outside the US.
  - corin_ 13y ago
    Interesting, thanks - though that's insurance, not necessarily the same as what people value
    - rdl 13y ago
      It's not just insurance -- it's that we could save a life for $2.49 million in traffic engineering, and tend to do so, but don't for, say, $20mm. It's irrational to spend $20mm to save 1 person from super-rare-expensive-thing but not to spend $2.49mm to save an equivalent person from less-expensive-thing. The complication is that not all lives are valued the same, and certainly not valued the same by everyone. We spend tens of billions per year to protect the President, which isn't just about his life but about the cost to the economy (and nation in general) if anything happens to him. We probably could save a kid in the ghetto for $50k in job training and mentorship, rather than having him kill someone and/or get killed himself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life is an introduction. It's a pretty fascinating concept.
      - corin_ 13y ago
        So what about when we don't know how to value the life in question, you just know that it's a person who will stay alive if you chose, or die if you take $x - I don't know what my own decision would be, yet alone an average decision. It's one of those odd situations that I think gets a different answer depending on what responsibility you feel. If the entirety of my wealth is $2.5m I don't think I would spend it to save the life of somebody I don't know. But would I go out and murder someone for that money? I don't think so.. and hope not. Both of the same are, I think, true for $100k.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  I think right now in the US a life is valued at around a million dollars. Context matters a lot, of course. But don't even try to do a survey because a lot of people will give such sky-high numbers that if they thought things through they'd be afraid to leave their house ever again.

I'd love to see some data on how many people draw the line where on that. $1 for a life, sure you save the life. $10? Life. $1m? $1b? Or $1b for 1000 lives? I'm sure not everyone would state that X lives is always worth more than Y dollars for all values of X and Y.

rdl 13y ago
In a lot of contexts, lives saved (in the US) are valued at $1-10mm. This is based on life insurance premiums for higher risk jobs, availability of marginal life savings for costs in other contexts, etc. Not sure how it applies outside the US.
- corin_ 13y ago
  Interesting, thanks - though that's insurance, not necessarily the same as what people value
  - rdl 13y ago
    It's not just insurance -- it's that we could save a life for $2.49 million in traffic engineering, and tend to do so, but don't for, say, $20mm. It's irrational to spend $20mm to save 1 person from super-rare-expensive-thing but not to spend $2.49mm to save an equivalent person from less-expensive-thing. The complication is that not all lives are valued the same, and certainly not valued the same by everyone. We spend tens of billions per year to protect the President, which isn't just about his life but about the cost to the economy (and nation in general) if anything happens to him. We probably could save a kid in the ghetto for $50k in job training and mentorship, rather than having him kill someone and/or get killed himself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life is an introduction. It's a pretty fascinating concept.
    - corin_ 13y ago
      So what about when we don't know how to value the life in question, you just know that it's a person who will stay alive if you chose, or die if you take $x - I don't know what my own decision would be, yet alone an average decision. It's one of those odd situations that I think gets a different answer depending on what responsibility you feel. If the entirety of my wealth is $2.5m I don't think I would spend it to save the life of somebody I don't know. But would I go out and murder someone for that money? I don't think so.. and hope not. Both of the same are, I think, true for $100k.
Dylan16807 13y ago
I think right now in the US a life is valued at around a million dollars. Context matters a lot, of course. But don't even try to do a survey because a lot of people will give such sky-high numbers that if they thought things through they'd be afraid to leave their house ever again.