>
> 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.
>
Yea, but it is a certain number of units of value that one would not
receive. Let me give you an example, what is the value of my house? I
would argue that it is not what I would agree to sell it for if I knew a
charity of my choice would get the benifits of the sale, while I would be
left with a mortgage and no house.
It is true that people have truble valuing risk and probability. Heck, they
have trouble consistantly assigning value. That doesn't make the assessment
invalid, it just makes it hard to do.
Now the reason I asked:
>>Now, let me ask a question that bears on this. Do you agree that your
life
>>is equally valuable as mine?
to which you responded
>
> Valuable to whom?
>
> I agree that your right to life is just as valuable as my own.
>
> I can't speak for how much money it would take to convince you to take a
> suicide pill.
is that I wanted to get back at safety. We can get good estimates of how
many lives will be saved by a safety measure. We are certainly not willing
to spend $500 million per life saved, or even $50 million. Yet, we know
that the life saved can be our own.
Indeed, the reason for this is the actual tradoff between an assured loss of
the things money can buy and a small increase in the probability of living.
Lets assume that you do understand probability. (You do, don't you?) So you
can answer the next question straightforwardly. How much are you willing to
pay per year to eliminate a 1 in 100,000 per year chance of dying?
The advantage of this question is that you benifit/lose both ways. With
your question, you lose one way.
Dan M.
