|
|
>>> Would you choose that 60 million people
>>> were all delayed by an extra 30 minutes every day to save one single
>>> life?
>>
>> Yes?
>
> Because you are looking at the problem selfishly and not the whole
> system. Of course, if you said to an individual that if they were forced
> to wait an extra 30 minutes every day to save a life, they might say
> yes. But goverments need to look at the whole system in order to make a
> decision, try the following:
>
> How much would someone have to pay you if it meant you lost 30 minutes
> each day to being stuck in traffic?
>
> Ask 60 million people that question and add up all their answers, what
> do you think the total would be? I'd guess around $10 per person on
> average, so say $600 million.
>
> A hospital near you wants to buy some new piece of equipment that will
> save more lives than the old bit. It's very expensive, let's say it
> will save an extra 10 lives, and costs 10 million dollars.
>
> So, what you are effectively saying is that you'd rather waste $600m of
> peoples time, to avoid having to spend $1m to save a single life. Good
> job you aren't an economic adviser for your government ;-)
>
> BTW you can substitute the hospital equipment for anything that puts a
> value on human life. Actually, whenever you buy or use anything that is
> not 100% safe, you are putting a value on your life.
I hate it when people put economics in the way of human lives. The "it's
not worth saving them" conclusion after doing maths with money.
Post a reply to this message
|
|