Costs and Benefits

[james_davis_nicoll]

Suppose one was near a large, old country that was largely cut-off from external trade (using Canada as the norm) and suppose that various of their social traditions resulted in a somewhat decreased lifespan. If opening the country to trade might reasonably be expected to undermine the social patterns that lead to decreased lifespans, how does one calculate how many people in the large old country could suffer unrequested lifespan truncation without outweighing the total lifespan gained? Is it as simple as saying "They live on average 77.43 years. After being opened, they may live 79.96 years (to pick values out of the hat), an increase of one part in 30. Therefore as long as the shrinkage getting there is no more than one part in 30, this is a net gain for the people in the old, large country."

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

That's how to calculate the lifespan tradeoff, yes. I'm not sure that such simple arithmetic can be enough evidence to justify doing things that will *cut off* a number of lives, though.

Besides, is that the right metric? People will risk their lives to decrease the amount of time they spend sitting in their car, for example (speeding).

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

It's not clear to me that the people who speed understand that they are risking their lives, though. Don't virtually all drivers think that they are better than average?

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Certainly most drivers think they are above average.

I've seen many people making the argument that the lives saved by the 55MPH speed limit were less important than the time wasted -- just on a simple comparison of hours of life not driving. That seems to suggest that those people, at least, *did* understand that driving faster caused more fatalities, and still favored higher speed limits.