How much do you value your life?

[Abbaddabba]

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rational does not imply self preservation..


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It does for anyone who has the will to live, or as i put it in my original post,

"you would never be neutral to death unless the only thing keeping you from commiting suicide was the effort it took to put a gun to your head"

The exception would be people who perceive there to be an exceptionally high external cost directy associated with them taking an active role in bringing on their own death; ie: if they thought it could send them to hell. In those cases, they _may_ prefer death to life, but the cost of taking an active role of making it happen is too great.


If they could delude themselves into believing that, they would likely come to a similar rationalization with respect to playing this hypothetical game though, and self preservation would be rational to them too (since they're obligated to make a concerted effort of self preservation at the risk of going to hell, or whatever).

[mackthefork]

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You have a pretty poor understanding of the value of life. I assume you consider yourself to be religious.


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It's a one time deal, then i get to rot in the ground and be eaten by worms. Cash may make peoples lives easier, but I doubt anyone could seriously put an absolute cash value on their lives, this is what you are effectively doing here, I'll take a 10% chance of dying for $1m is not really much different from taking $10m for a 100% chance of dying, it's different but not much. The only thing to consider is that most people take minute risks of death everyday, however if they didn't take those small risks they would certainly die anyway, I think that small fact makes those types of arguments ridiculous. Another point would be, I don't take these small risks to accumulate the maximum wealth possible, I take them because I need some amount of money to survive in a capitalist system.

People argue that the value of a life isn't infinite, I pity them, they resort to symantics as it's surely worth more than all money available on this planet, which is as good as infinite in my honest opinion. I'm sure Microbob is a sensible guy and I agree with him I wouldn't take this 1% chance of dying for 10 times Bill Gates wealth or any other amount, and I'm not even all that happy. Reduce the risk of dying to 0.0001% and it becomes silly to turn the bet down, for reasons already mentioned above.

Regards Mack

[Abbaddabba]

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It's a one time deal, then i get to rot in the ground and be eaten by worms. Cash may make peoples lives easier, but I doubt anyone could seriously put an absolute cash value on their lives, this is what you are effectively doing here, I'll take a 10% chance of dying for $1m is not really much different from taking $10m for a 100% chance of dying, it's different but not much.

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Well, you're wrong.

You could never arrive at an absolute value for a 100% certain death. As the certainty approaches 100, the necessary level of compensation would approach infinity in cases where the marginal utility of a dollar was constant. In reality, the necessary level of compensation would approach infinity WELL before the certainty of death approached 100%, simply because the marginal utility of a dollar approaches zero for a relatively small number of dollars.

Once you get to, say, 10 million, the marginal utility of a dollar is almost nothing, and you'd be willing to forego virtually _no_ risk of death in order to get a larger expected value in dollar terms. For many people, that limit is approached very early on. If you're fully content with the $25,000 a year you make doing something that you already enjoy, each dollar is worth progressively less _and_ it's already at the point where you've reached a high level of... contentment with your life, such that another $1,000,000 is nearly inconsequential relative to the happiness that you already have.

[Abbaddabba]

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I'm sure Microbob is a sensible guy and I agree with him I wouldn't take this 1% chance of dying for 10 times Bill Gates wealth or any other amount, and I'm not even all that happy. Reduce the risk of dying to 0.0001% and it becomes silly to turn the bet down, for reasons already mentioned above.


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Do you drive to work and back 5 days a week, almost every week each year?

If so, you're facing considerable risk of death each year - and the value of that risk can be seen as significantly _less_ than your annual wage (unless prefer working to leisure, or are completey indifferent to it).

If you're a typical american citizen, you earn roughly $40,000 and, for any given year, you undergo risk that is equivalent to a specific percentage chance of death. Im not sure what that figure is exactly in percentage terms, but it _is_ quantifiable and is certainly not negligable.

You could forego that risk of death by foregoing your annual salary. If life has infinite value, why do you take so many unnecessary risks? You could increase your life expectancy (or similarly, reduce the risk of death) by staying within the confines of your own home.

[mackthefork]

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. As the certainty approaches 100, the necessary level of compensation would approach infinity _at most_.

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At least we can agree on that, you'll never convert me on the money=happiness line though, it just won't work for me.

Regards Mack

BTW You suck at putting your replies in the right place. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[mackthefork]

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If so, you're facing considerable risk of death each year - and the value of that risk can be seen as significantly _less_ than your annual wage (unless prefer working to leisure, or are completey indifferent to it).


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Not when you compare that against the risk of doing nothing at all, never leaving your house or turning on the lights or the oven. I refute your arguments based on large numbers of small risks on those grounds. These small risks improve our chances of survival not reduce them.

Mack

[Abbaddabba]

Whether leaving your house increases life expectancy or not is immaterial.

The general sentiment behind what you're saying is wrong.

I can absolutely guarantee you that you live a life filled with unecessary risks. This is unquestionably true. You're insane if you deny it.

When i say unecessary risk, i mean that they are not necessary in order to survive. They may be desirable, but they still increase the probability of death (or in other words, decrease your life expectancy).

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
Whether leaving your house increases life expectancy or not is immaterial.

The general sentiment behind what you're saying is wrong.

I can absolutely guarantee you that you live a life filled with unecessary risks. This is unquestionably true. You're insane if you deny it.

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I don't deny it, what I deny is that these risk were taken with financial gain as the prime motivation.

Mack

[Abbaddabba]

Financial gains are a component of the motive.

If you want, you can take a blatantly obvious circumstance.

Would you drive to the bank right now if they were willing to give you a million dollars?

There are risks associated with driving.

There is a monetary reward for having undergone those risks.


How do you weigh the costs and benefits? Do you _never_ put your life at risk for financial gain? Would you?

You would.

Would you do it for $1,000?

Of course.

$100?

Almost certainly.

$10?

Probably not.


Why not for $10? Is it because of the risk of death? It's probaby a combination of the costs associated with driving there more than it is the risk of death.

Now suppose a chauffer was going to pick you up and drive you to the bank to claim your $10. I'd for sure go for it now.

For $5? Well, maybe if you've got nothing else going on.

At what point does the risk of death, however small, become the deciding factor?

The point here is - a very remote risk of death is worth very little. If life had infinite dollar value, you would never take these risks, no matter how remote the risks were.

In real life situations, the risks are far more severe than anything in these hypotheicals, yet we all still undergo the risks for both financial gains and tangible but non-financial gains.

[Abbaddabba]

Look at driving to the bank as one event within a large universe of potential oucomes.

There is a given probability of death from driving a given length.

Hypothetically, suppose it's 1 in one 1,000,000 (it could be more, it could be less). This is analogous to playing the hypothetical game for a million dollar reward where 1 in 1,000,000 tickets results in your death.

You would _gladly_ play this "game", would you not?

When you put it in real world terms and outside the realm of picking a "death ticket", it seems like a no brainer. [censored], drive to the bank and you get $1,000,000 bucks? Sign me up. Pull a death ticket out of a hat? Ehh... death ticket doesnt sound quite as appealing.