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From: desj@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (David desJardins)
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Re: What price safety? (was: Escape tower for shuttle orbiter?)
Message-ID: <12535@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 21-Mar-86 18:05:50 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.12535
Posted: Fri Mar 21 18:05:50 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Mar-86 23:01:15 EST
References: <418@watcgl.UUCP> <627@bentley.UUCP> <2024@peora.UUCP> <635@bentley.UUCP> <12388@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <2035@peora.UUCP>
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Reply-To: desj@brahms.UUCP (David desJardins)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In article <2035@peora.UUCP> jer@peora.UUCP (E. Roskos) writes:
>No, I disagree with that.  It makes the assumption that you can put a dollar
>value on a person's life, and further that such a value is defined in
>terms of the amount being paid to protect it.
>This definition of a "value of life" is one that was proposed earlier, but
>it is not one that I accept in making my assertion.  I maintain that no
>dollar value can be placed on anybody's life; by demonstration I would point
>out that murder is a capital offense, not one that a person can pay a fine
>as punishment for.
>Instead, my argument was based on "willingness to mitigate risks" in a
>risky endeavor.

   Let me clarify my point by making the following *definition*: "value
of life" ::= "amount to be paid to protect said life."  This is what I
mean when I use these words; if you object we can use "mortality cost"
or some other euphonism instead.  Certainly I do not mean that lives can
be bought and sold!

>Using the example that you accept as demonstrating your claim, that of
>airbags in a car: If I drive my car, I must acknowledge that it is a
>dangerous proposition.  I deal with this in several ways: I don't drive
>as often as I would if it was not dangerous; I drive defensively; and I
>use safety features (and choose a car with good safety attributes).  All
>of these are efforts to reduce the risk in proportion to the alternatives
>(e.g., driving a motorcycle, constantly, in a reckless manner).  I choose
>to do each of these things, even though the alternative might be desirable
>for various reasons, because I feel that the reduction in the probability
>of personal injury offsets the tradeoffs of convenience.
>[and now the point!]
>However, I in fact don't have airbags in my car, despite the fact that
>I believe in them.  The sole reason I don't is that they are so expensive.
>Now, I realize that having them would be safer; however, I don't feel that
>it would be safer in proportion to the cost.  (On the other hand, air
>bags that protected one's head from colliding into the left door window
>I would consider worth the cost.)

   Exactly!!  Let us estimate that airbags for your car would cost $1000
and would have a 1/1000 chance of saving your life.  Clearly the ratio is
the relevant quantity; if it cost $2000 and had a 1/500 chance of saving
your life the decision would be essentially the same.
   You have made the decision that this is not worth the cost.  Let us
further suppose that each astronaut has made the same decision (this seems
likely, right?).

>On the other hand, if I were flying in the shuttle, and assuming I had
>control over the budget decisions, I would make a linearly proportional
>comparison of costs vs. risks.  Since the shuttle is by nature a more
>expensive vehicle, to get a proportionately greater amount of protection
>(proportionate WRT the increase in protection from car airbags) I would
>expect to pay a proportionately greater price (proportionate WRT the cost
>of the two vehicles).  So I might be willing to pay, say, $200,000 for
>shuttle airbags whereas I wouldn't be willing to pay more than $1000 for
>car airbags; I would expect the airbags in the shuttle to cost more due to
>their being bigger, having to meet military specs, etc. (Assuming here
>that the shuttle:car cost is 200,000:1000, which I am sure is not correct
>in reality).  The same reasoning would hold for some other safety feature
>of the shuttle that gave an equivalent reduction in risk.

   But now the point becomes clear.  Suppose you are an astronaut.  Would
it make sense for the government to spend $200,000 to save your life 1/1000
of the time (by putting airbags in the shuttle) when they could spend $1000
to achieve the same effect (by putting airbags in your car!)?  After all,
your life is your life!  Why should the government waste $199,000 saving
your life in a very inefficient way (actually $199,999,000 using the true
figures!!!)?

   -- David desJardins