----- Original Message -----
From: "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 10:36 PM
Subject: Re: Ransom Re: Europe, the US, and Environmentalism
> At 10:26 PM 7/25/01 -0500 Dan Minette wrote:
> >> The only way to truly value your life, is to consider the following
> >question:
> >> How much would someone have to offer you to take a hypothetical
injection
> >> that will killy instantly and painlessly in one month's time?
> >
> >The only way? That is quite a statement.
>
> Eh, I take that back.
>
> I didn't mean really mean "only", so much as I was concentrating on all
the
> reasons why Jeroen's valuation was inaccurate.
>
> You have an interesting analysis though - and it also raises the question
> for me as to why the traditional economic method of valuing a human life
> (by analyzing jury awards, and such) comes up with what I consider to be
> the relatively low figure of around $1-2 million.
>
> Nevertheless, I still think that my method is at least *better* than your
> method. After all, humans are notorious for not properly valuing risks
> and probabilities. The question I propose, however, forces one to
> directly the consider the transaction of one's life for a certain number
of
> units of value.
No, because one will not enjoy the gains from the money for more than a
month. Money, by itself, is worth nothing. The only reason that billion
dollars would be worth anything is what you could do for others with it.
Workplace risk analysis also places about $1-$2 million as the value of a
human life, IIRC. Companies are not expected to pay much more than that to
save 1 human life.
Now, let me ask a question that bears on this. Do you agree that your life
is equally valuable as mine?
Dan M.
