[TheRedDragon]

DS- Do you consider death to be infinitely -EV? I don't think you logically can. To illustrate, let us suppose that you were given the choice between living for 20 years with full use of your body or 20 years and 1 day without sight, hearing, or sensation, you would most assuredly (I should hope) select the former.

Prolonging life, therefore, is not of infinite value. The conditions in which that life is lived also weigh into account. Money in our society has a great impact upon the quality of a person's life. Consequently, risking duration of life for a medium by which the quality of life can be improved is not inherently illogical.

Whether or not that 1% chance at death for $10,000 makes sense is largely a question of pre-existing economic status. If you were to be offered that proposition, it would most certainly be -EV. $10,000 isn't terribly much to you, a few big bets perhaps.

If that same proposition were offered to a man starving to death on the streets of some third world hell-hole, he would take it in a flash, and logically so. The improvement in the quality of his life that would most likely be brought by that money outweighs the risk that the duration of his life might be cut short. If I were to be offered $1,000,000 in return for a 1% chance that I would die, I would likely accept the proposition.

Consider also that any action carries with it some small chance of death. When you cross the street, there's a small possibility that you won't make it to the other side. Evidently you conclude that the benefit of being able (or willing) to cross streets outweighs the potential risk of death, which proves that death isn't infinitely -EV.