Dog Days...if we can value humans, then do we also owe it to dogs?

[mackthefork]

In a recent post David Sklansky stated that the US government values an American life at around £1.65m ($3m) million. Now i'm going to make a couple of assumptions for the sake of simplicity, firstly older people on average must be worth less than young people, I think a valuation based on life expectancy is the fairest way, I will also assume that life expectancy is 70 years, and that the $3 million valuation applies to a 35 year old man.

I have always disagreed with these monetary valuations of human lives, but I guess I need to get with the program. Anyway I was thinking, in light of all the recent dog questions and some of the answers (like a couple of minutes of human life is worth more than a dogs entire life) which I found astonishing at times, about how much a dog is worth to his owner. Well as you can imagine finding such a valuation is next to impossible, some people love their dogs more than others, I don't think the actual cash amount matters so much in principle anyway. Now I'm going to make yet another assumption, erring on the conservative side, the dog is 2 years old and is expected to live to 12 years, so it has 10 years of life left in which time it will give pleasure to its owner, I value the dogs life at £10,000 ($18,200).

Anyway based on these figures, and again I emphasise the actual figures don't really matter, what matters is that people accept that both man and dog deserve some value, arguments over what that value is are meaningless.

First the man he will live 365x35 years=12,775 days
£1,650,000/12,775=£129 per day (at arms length)

Now the dog he will live 365x10 years=3,650 days
£10,000/3,650=£2.75 per day (not arms length)

So in effect 129/2.75= ~47

A strangers life might be worth about 47 days of your own dogs life, so if you take these figures at face value (apart from being crazy) then the 3,650 days of your dogs life would be worth the same as about 11 weeks of a strangers life. Doesn't actually seem totally unreasonable to me.

Regards Mack

Sklansky's many posts in this forum have finally achieved something.

I now know how to calculate the EV of saving an animal vs a human life, if such a situation ever comes up. I really, REALLY hope I have a calculator handy if it's a quick decision (like a saving a 90year old man vs a dog from being run over by a bus)

Actually, that's a good one - two buses, 10 dogs, one old man...

[mackthefork]

Haha I think I love you.

Regards Mack