The biggest thing is that the doctor’s priorities are not your priorities. To him, a life is valuable… but not infinitely valuable -estimates usually puts the value of a life at (ballpark) 2 million dollars. When you consider the relative probability of you dying, and then the cost to the healthcare system of treatment, he’s probably making the right decision (you of course, would probably value your own life MUCH MUCH higher). Btw, this kind of follows a blindspot I’ve seen in several calculations of yours—let me know if you’re interested in getting feedback on it.
Finally, there are two other wrinkles—the possibility of complications and the possibility of false positives from a biopsy. The second increases the potential cost, and the first decreases the potential years added to your life. Both of these tilt the equation AGAINST getting it removed.
The biggest thing is that the doctor’s priorities are not your priorities. [...] When you consider the relative probability of you dying, and then the cost to the healthcare system of treatment
The doctor has no incentive to minimize the cost of treatment. He makes money by having a high cost of treatment.
Even adamzerner probably doesn’t value his life at much more than, say, ten million, and this can likely be proven by revealed preference if he regularly uses a car. If you go much higher than that your behavior will have to become pretty paranoid.
That is an issue with revealed preferences, not an indication of adamzerners preference order. Unless you are extraordinarily selfless you are never going to accept a deal of the form: “I give you n dollars in exchange for me killing you.” regardless of n, therefor the financial value of your own life is almost always infinite*.
*: This does not mean that you put infinite utility on being alive, btw, just that the utility of money caps out at some value that is typically smaller than the value of being alive (and that cap is lowered dramatically if you are not around to spent the money).
I think you are mistaken. If you would sacrifice your life to save the world, there is some amount of money that you would accept for being killed (given that you could at the same time determine the use of the money; without this stipulation you cannot be meaningfully be said to be given it.)
The biggest thing is that the doctor’s priorities are not your priorities. To him, a life is valuable… but not infinitely valuable -estimates usually puts the value of a life at (ballpark) 2 million dollars. When you consider the relative probability of you dying, and then the cost to the healthcare system of treatment, he’s probably making the right decision (you of course, would probably value your own life MUCH MUCH higher). Btw, this kind of follows a blindspot I’ve seen in several calculations of yours—let me know if you’re interested in getting feedback on it.
Finally, there are two other wrinkles—the possibility of complications and the possibility of false positives from a biopsy. The second increases the potential cost, and the first decreases the potential years added to your life. Both of these tilt the equation AGAINST getting it removed.
The doctor has no incentive to minimize the cost of treatment. He makes money by having a high cost of treatment.
Right, MattG is 100% backwards.
Even adamzerner probably doesn’t value his life at much more than, say, ten million, and this can likely be proven by revealed preference if he regularly uses a car. If you go much higher than that your behavior will have to become pretty paranoid.
That is an issue with revealed preferences, not an indication of adamzerners preference order. Unless you are extraordinarily selfless you are never going to accept a deal of the form: “I give you n dollars in exchange for me killing you.” regardless of n, therefor the financial value of your own life is almost always infinite*.
*: This does not mean that you put infinite utility on being alive, btw, just that the utility of money caps out at some value that is typically smaller than the value of being alive (and that cap is lowered dramatically if you are not around to spent the money).
I think you are mistaken. If you would sacrifice your life to save the world, there is some amount of money that you would accept for being killed (given that you could at the same time determine the use of the money; without this stipulation you cannot be meaningfully be said to be given it.)
Good point.