Covid and Flu highlight the difficulty of placing an economic value on human lives

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Steve3007
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Covid and Flu highlight the difficulty of placing an economic value on human lives

Post by Steve3007 »

This winter, restrictions like social distancing and masking have had the additional bonus effect of massively reducing the number of cases of seasonal flu. Here in the UK this winter not a single case has been detected by public health officials. In a normal year it's expected that there will be a certain number of deaths, mostly among the elderly, from flu. But of course very few people would advocate using these restrictions to fight flu because of the economic and social harm that they do. We tolerate this harm when fighting Covid-19 because the number of deaths caused by that virus is higher.

But this highlights the interesting point that the amount of economic harm we're willing to tolerate in order to save a given number of lives is difficult to quantify. Is it essentially arbitrary? The circumstances of death and various characteristics of the people who die (age, nationality, relationship to us) also massively affect our tolerance of death numbers. So does this make it impossible for governments to shape policy on economic health versus population health with any objective criteria?
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Re: Covid and Flu highlight the difficulty of placing an economic value on human lives

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Steve, this is an interesting topic. You post some very thoughtful questions.
Steve3007 wrote:But this highlights the interesting point that the amount of economic harm we're willing to tolerate in order to save a given number of lives is difficult to quantify. Is it essentially arbitrary?
I suspect it is much worse than arbitrary. If we look at the behavior of some humans and ask ourselves why they behave the way they do, we will not get correct answers if we assume humans are rational agents. Humans are not rational agents. Likewise, if we asked those irrational humans themselves why they do what do, they would probably give all sorts of rationalizations, but to hold our breath waiting for those rationalizations to be rational would result in our own suicide via breath-holding.

In the case of things like COVID, automobile deaths, and obesity-caused deaths, I suspect a major factor in the way humans tend to react to these things has to do with the rate of change. Many humans seem change-adverse, especially in proportion to the rate of change. In terms of clinging to the status quo or otherwise being change-adverse and attached to regularity and to their own habits, the following types of humans seem to me to stick out as especially change-adverse at least in terms of rapid change, especially significant changes in the rate of change itself:

- Older humans (i.e. it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks)

- Those who have had more or longer consistency in their lives and habits (e.g. someone who has been an active alcoholic who has drank every day for the last 20 years straight may find change more disruptive or difficult than an alcoholic who started drinking a year ago and hasn't consistently drank every single day during that time)

- Those who find themselves on the financially wealthier or more comfortable side of the status quo (e.g. Fortune 500 companies are more likely to see disruptive start-ups, or even disruptive technology like blockchain and Bitcoin, as too disruptive, scary, or unpredictable)

- Those who find themselves on the top of the political hierarchy of the status quo (e.g. rich white millionaires in Washington D.C. passing laws that micromanage the lives of poor Americans living in states thousands of miles away)


All humans seem to run the risk of the following, but the above listed humans seem to me to be some of those who tend to to be most at risk of it, and that thing is: being like the proverbial frog who never jumps out of the boiling water because the heat turns up too gradually.

The water has been boiling since long before any of us as human were even born.

The difference between a sudden pandemic like COVID and other deadly things like the millions of human beings who die each year from the obesity epidemic or from automobile accidents is that the latter two preventable problems gradually emerged, but the heat may have turned up too quickly in the case of COVID for comfortable people to stay easily trapped in their comfort zone rather than to get jumpy.

I think that helps explain not only (1) why rich powerful policymakers who live thousands of miles away from the people who they violently govern would react so much (arguably overreact) to something disruptive like COVID, or even Facebook or Uber, but yet fail to respond (arguably underreact) to things like the fact that 10,000 children starve to death every single day, but also (2) why an individual human might get so angry and active about some schoolkids stepping on their lawn or their spouse suddenly not doing the dishes one day or their neighbor suddenly not mowing their lawn for a couple weeks, rather than the fact that 10,000 children starve to death every day. It might help explain why some angry lady named Karen yells so viciously at a manager because her soup wasn't hot enough instead of staying home and donating the money she spent on soup to save the lives of starving kids who would be happy to have lukewarm soup.

In terms of irrationality, including the excessive toleration of the status quo in relation to excessive change-aversion, which in their relation to each other are possibly laughably irrational in their utter absurdity, we are all guilty as humans. I am neither religious nor a believer in supernatural morality (e.g. literal "evil" or "sin"), but nonetheless I see vast important meaning in phrases like "all humans are sinners" and "let he who has not sinned cast the first stone".

It would be easy to point our fingers and say, look how irrational everyone is. I do it. I'm doing it here. But I don't think it's fundamentally different than Karen yelling about her soup. At the end of day, I think we are all Karen. I am Karen too.
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Steve3007
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Re: Covid and Flu highlight the difficulty of placing an economic value on human lives

Post by Steve3007 »

Scott wrote:I suspect it is much worse than arbitrary. If we look at the behavior of some humans and ask ourselves why they behave the way they do, we will not get correct answers if we assume humans are rational agents. Humans are not rational agents. Likewise, if we asked those irrational humans themselves why they do what do, they would probably give all sorts of rationalizations, but to hold our breath waiting for those rationalizations to be rational would result in our own suicide via breath-holding.
If a rational agent is somebody who always bases their decisions on a process of looking at evidence and patterns of causality and assessing which course of action is statistically more likely to lead to the agent's goals, then no, clearly all people, for at least some of the time, aren't rational agents. We make decisions based on various emotions, instincts, visceral reactions, etc. But I think it's important to note that this doesn't make the decisions random, or necessarily less predictable than if they were what we think of as rational. Just statistically less likely to achieve the desired outcome.
In the case of things like COVID, automobile deaths, and obesity-caused deaths, I suspect a major factor in the way humans tend to react to these things has to do with the rate of change. Many humans seem change-adverse, especially in proportion to the rate of change. In terms of clinging to the status quo or otherwise being change-adverse and attached to regularity and to their own habits, the following types of humans seem to me to stick out as especially change-adverse at least in terms of rapid change, especially significant changes in the rate of change itself:

- Older humans (i.e. it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks)

- Those who have had more or longer consistency in their lives and habits (e.g. someone who has been an active alcoholic who has drank every day for the last 20 years straight may find change more disruptive or difficult than an alcoholic who started drinking a year ago and hasn't consistently drank every single day during that time)

- Those who find themselves on the financially wealthier or more comfortable side of the status quo (e.g. Fortune 500 companies are more likely to see disruptive start-ups, or even disruptive technology like blockchain and Bitcoin, as too disruptive, scary, or unpredictable)

- Those who find themselves on the top of the political hierarchy of the status quo (e.g. rich white millionaires in Washington D.C. passing laws that micromanage the lives of poor Americans living in states thousands of miles away)
Yes, I think that's a good point about rate of change. People have a strong tendency towards conservatism in the sense of being comfortable with the way things are, and people with more to lose from change (generally older and richer) naturally tend to be more so. I think you're right that that's a large factor in determining the level of death-rate we can tolerate as a function of the method of death.
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Re: Covid and Flu highlight the difficulty of placing an economic value on human lives

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Steve3007 wrote: February 23rd, 2021, 11:36 am ...the amount of economic harm we're willing to tolerate in order to save a given number of lives is difficult to quantify. Is it essentially arbitrary?

Yes, in practice, it is. The trouble is that you can't meaningfully place a financial value on a life, so whatever we decide will probably appear arbirtrary, won't it?
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Re: Covid and Flu highlight the difficulty of placing an economic value on human lives

Post by LuckyR »

Humans have demonstrated a lack of skill in managing relative risk logically. Thus it is unreasonable to assume such logic moving forward. Where does that leave us? Where we are now, as we lurch from predictable, yet unaddressed crisis to crisis.
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Re: Covid and Flu highlight the difficulty of placing an economic value on human lives

Post by Sculptor1 »

Steve3007 wrote: February 23rd, 2021, 11:36 am This winter, restrictions like social distancing and masking have had the additional bonus effect of massively reducing the number of cases of seasonal flu. Here in the UK this winter not a single case has been detected by public health officials. In a normal year it's expected that there will be a certain number of deaths, mostly among the elderly, from flu. But of course very few people would advocate using these restrictions to fight flu because of the economic and social harm that they do. We tolerate this harm when fighting Covid-19 because the number of deaths caused by that virus is higher.

But this highlights the interesting point that the amount of economic harm we're willing to tolerate in order to save a given number of lives is difficult to quantify. Is it essentially arbitrary? The circumstances of death and various characteristics of the people who die (age, nationality, relationship to us) also massively affect our tolerance of death numbers. So does this make it impossible for governments to shape policy on economic health versus population health with any objective criteria?
It's like you think there was a clear plan.
WHo is "we"? WHen you ask what we are willing to tolerate?

The UK has the perfect storm of a government unwilling to risk the economy ended up ruinung the economy AND causing tens of thousand of unneccessary deaths, and all the harm of those that suffered during infections and after with recovery with long covid; all due to late poorly planned lockdowns.
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Re: Covid and Flu highlight the difficulty of placing an economic value on human lives

Post by WarrenZ »

Steve3007 wrote: February 23rd, 2021, 11:36 am But this highlights the interesting point that the amount of economic harm we're willing to tolerate in order to save a given number of lives is difficult to quantify. Is it essentially arbitrary?
Well, I guess the easiest way to quantify the 'economic value' of a person is to find out how much they will be able to earn throughout their lives. But that is of course not a satisfactory way to do so as we all have lives outside of work, and perhaps human life has some intrinsic value unto itself.

It would be arbitrary in the sense that there is no clear-cut answer to the question, and there wouldn't even be a consensus. This is perhaps related to Isaiah Berlin's Value Pluralism, in that both economic prosperity and the preservation of lives are ultimate ends that are in conflict with each other, and the best we can do in a democracy is to deliberate and achieve a somewhat balanced opinion. This is not necessarily a terrible thing either—the difficulty in deciding and the ability to decide even when values are in conflict—since it is, at least for now, what distinguishes us from machines.

There is also another dimension to the question, I think, in that economic harm and saving lives are not necessarily in conflict all the time, since to be in a bad economic situation can cause lives (suicide would be an obvious example, but also poor nutrition and others), and the death of people can impact the economy (see the Soviet Union after WWII, for example).
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Re: Covid and Flu highlight the difficulty of placing an economic value on human lives

Post by LuckyR »

WarrenZ wrote: February 27th, 2021, 8:03 am
Steve3007 wrote: February 23rd, 2021, 11:36 am But this highlights the interesting point that the amount of economic harm we're willing to tolerate in order to save a given number of lives is difficult to quantify. Is it essentially arbitrary?
Well, I guess the easiest way to quantify the 'economic value' of a person is to find out how much they will be able to earn throughout their lives. But that is of course not a satisfactory way to do so as we all have lives outside of work, and perhaps human life has some intrinsic value unto itself.

It would be arbitrary in the sense that there is no clear-cut answer to the question, and there wouldn't even be a consensus. This is perhaps related to Isaiah Berlin's Value Pluralism, in that both economic prosperity and the preservation of lives are ultimate ends that are in conflict with each other, and the best we can do in a democracy is to deliberate and achieve a somewhat balanced opinion. This is not necessarily a terrible thing either—the difficulty in deciding and the ability to decide even when values are in conflict—since it is, at least for now, what distinguishes us from machines.

There is also another dimension to the question, I think, in that economic harm and saving lives are not necessarily in conflict all the time, since to be in a bad economic situation can cause lives (suicide would be an obvious example, but also poor nutrition and others), and the death of people can impact the economy (see the Soviet Union after WWII, for example).
Actually the insurance industry has a very mature process for quantifying just this sort of information.
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Robert66
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Re: Covid and Flu highlight the difficulty of placing an economic value on human lives

Post by Robert66 »

Scott: '... In the case of things like COVID, automobile deaths, and obesity-caused deaths, I suspect a major factor in the way humans tend to react to these things has to do with the rate of change. Many humans seem change-adverse, especially in proportion to the rate of change. In terms of clinging to the status quo or otherwise being change-adverse and attached to regularity and to their own habits, the following types of humans seem to me to stick out as especially change-adverse at least in terms of rapid change, especially significant changes in the rate of change itself:

- Older humans (i.e. it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks) ...'

As an older human who has never stopped learning, I call BS on this point. And I point out that it is older humans who have adapted more than others in wearing masks (though I suppose the counter argument will be that they are just adverse to the rapid change between being alive and dead).

Scott is right to highlight the rate of change as an important factor. Rapid change invokes different responses to gradual change. Consider the phenomena of a shark biting a human. I write "biting" rather than "attacking" as the latter is an incorrect human idea. In Australia, historically, a low number of shark bites have occurred each year. More recently, with many more humans in the water, shark bites have become more common. Every so often a "spate" of bitings will occur (eg 3 in a week or two) and "all hell breaks loose", with politicians seizing the moment, spurred on by a media frenzy, to call for the culling of sharks, shark nets to be installed up and down the coastline, drone patrols, shark apps for phones etc.
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