How much do you value your life? - Page 9

MicroBob · #81 10-06-2005, 07:56 PM

Okay - I'm convinced and am changing my mind on this one.

Yes....your logic is correct and everyday activities (such as driving) SHOULD be factored into the equation.

If someone offered me $1-million and all I had to do was drive from Memphis to California to pick it up and then drive it back (with no other dangers involved) I would certainly take this bet...even though there is certainly some slim chance that I would be involved in a fatal car-wreck on the way.

In fact, if the rules stipulated that i only had 40 hours to get there to pick it up and I had to drive solo I would STILL probably try to do this...of course, this would mean that I would get very little sleep and I would have to drive reasonably fast to get there.

My chances of a fatal accident would obviously be greatly increased but I know that I would try to do this.

Not too long ago I was making several long, late-night drives for several hours from one city to the next. I was driving extremely tired and it was quite difficult and a little bit dangerous some of those times.

When I consider that on each of these drives I might have been at 1-in-a-million chances or even worse of being in a fatal car-wreck then I think I have to consider accepting $1-million at million-to-one odds (or something like that).

So in order to take the hypothetical bet as originally mentioned, I do need to consider the apporpriate odds involved and there IS indeed some point at which I would take it.

DWarrior · #82 10-06-2005, 08:34 PM

For all those who think their life is invaluable:

(EV of walking outside to get an ice cream) - (Infinity)*(odds of being hit by a falling anvil) = Stay at home

#83 10-11-2005, 03:13 PM

just gimme the girl in streets picture and we will call it even.

#84 10-13-2005, 06:04 PM

My first instinct was $20... then the more I thought about it, I realized this wouldn't change my life at all. Nor would 100, nor 1000.

Nor 5k, nor 10K really.... so I think it would be like 50K, or at least 30K after taxes.

ZeeJustin · #85 10-13-2005, 06:16 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I wouldn't take the bet even if it was an infinite amount of money. I really don't see how mathematics can be applied to this situation, because (.01)(-infinity)+(.99)($99999999999) is a negative expectation proposition.

To me, dying is infinitely negative. Maybe I use the word infinite a little loosely though, because if I hardly had any time to live at all I think you could imagine that this would be a much more attractive proposition. But, I'm 21 years old and don't have any terminal illnesses that I know of, so this isn't really the case.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you value your life at infinity, that means your life cannot possibly get any better.

The make this +ev, you simply need to find the amount that will make your life 1% more enjoyable.

To measure this, you need to take the estimated total joy /happiness in your life. Note that life expectancy is crucial to determining this. Now take 1% of that. The amount of money needs to equal that 1% of joy.

For me the number would be much lower than the amount people are asking for so far.

#86 10-13-2005, 08:11 PM

[ QUOTE ]

For me the number would be much lower than the amount people are asking for so far.

[/ QUOTE ]

I said 30-50K. Lower than that?

Darryl_P · #87 10-14-2005, 07:57 AM

How about putting it in poll form? It would be interesting to see the distribution of responses without having to sift through 10 pages.

FWIW my answer is somewhere around $100 million.

sholvar · #88 10-14-2005, 05:09 PM

[ QUOTE ]
This thought came to me yesterday:

If you had to pick one ticket from a bin of 100 tickets, where 99 of the tickets is a certian amount of money, and one ticket is immediate death (think giant Miller Lite can falling on your head), how much money would the 99 money tickets need to be worth each?

I know my answer, I am curious about you all, if you would take that bet at all, and if you did, how much would you need to stand to gain?

[/ QUOTE ]
If i loose my life i have no problems anymore.
If i win some Money i have not so much problems as I have now.

Its a win-win-Situation. But I think it should be something like 10thousand or more ^^

#89 10-15-2005, 02:18 PM

since I'm not sure that the money makes me happier I wouldn't take a ticket.

ClockWyze · #90 10-15-2005, 06:02 PM

40 Bucks!?!?! SEND IT!!!!