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Comment by AmericanChopper | Hacker News Reader

I can’t stand articles that start with “we need to talk about…”. What the author is really saying is “This topic is important to me, and I’d like to pressure you into having the same views on it as I do”. Regardless of the merit of those views, the only thing that ever comes after “we need to talk about…” is a description of some hardship the author (or somebody the author knows) faced, an explanation of how that shaped the agenda they’re trying to promote, and some appeal to emotion suggesting that their views are the only valid views a person can hold.

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That's a pretty harsh view.

Let me try something else: the author notes that 6,000 people take their lives in the UK every year. That has a very substantial cost, potentially measurable in many ways, but let's measure it in dollars.

The US EPA uses a value of about 7 million dollars for a statistical life in 2006 dollars [1], or about 10 million 2021 dollars [2].

The cost of suicide in the UK in the aggregate is something like 6,000*10,000,000 dollars. That's a 60 billion dollar problem.

Nearly every 60 billion dollar problem is worth caring about. Hypothetically, if you could spend $10 billion dollars to prevent all of those suicides, you would be generating a $50 billion dollar gain.

It's worth at least asking of a "we need to talk about..." article how big the problem is (on some dimension, whether in dollars or otherwise). This one is quite large.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-v... [2] https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

>Suppose each person in a sample of 100,000 people were asked how much he or she would be willing to pay for a reduction in their individual risk of dying of 1 in 100,000, or 0.001%, over the next year. Since this reduction in risk would mean that we would expect one fewer death among the sample of 100,000 people over the next year on average, this is sometimes described as "one statistical life saved.” Now suppose that the average response to this hypothetical question was $100. Then the total dollar amount that the group would be willing to pay to save one statistical life in a year would be $100 per person × 100,000 people, or $10 million. This is what is meant by the "value of a statistical life.” Importantly, this is not an estimate of how much money any single individual or group would be willing to pay to prevent the certain death of any particular person.

I think it's important to note that the value of a statistical life has nothing to do with actual value, or money provided into an economy. So it's not something that can be taxed against etc. So to me it's false statement to say "spend $10 billion dollars to prevent all of those suicides, you would be generating a $50 billion dollar gain." there is no _actual_ dollar gain. The gain is that the average mortality goes down by 0.001%.

> The gain is that the average mortality goes down by 0.001%.

What made you come up with that nonsensical figure? Suicide is the leading cause of death in males under 45 in the UK. [0] And here's another tidbit [1]:

> Eliminating suicide as a cause of death would have increased life expectancy at birth by 1.92 years for males and 1.36 years for females from 2011 to 2015 [in the US].

We can debate whether and how much reducing mortality helps society, but please don't pretend that suicide is in minor in the grand scheme of things.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_Kingdom

[1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31733510/

The figures were not for suicide specifically but from their source for generating the cost of a statistical life.

I'm simply saying reducing mortality 0.001% doesn't equal 10 million dollars saved per 100,000 people as they somewhat implied. It's that society as a whole is perhaps willing to spend $10 million to reduce mortality 0.001%.

It’s not a false statement.

You are correct that saving lives in this way doesn’t put money in anyone’s pocket. Nor can the value generated be taxed.

However, it generates $50 billion relative to the actual state of the world in which there is a cost that large due to suicides.

>However, it generates $50 billion relative to the actual state of the world in which there is a cost that large due to suicides.

What does that mean? What if I say a life is worth 1 trillion dollars, of 1 google dollars? does that mean that if I save a life the world is 1 trillion dollars richer?

It would mean that if you decided a life was worth a trillion dollars.

This is intrinsically a very hard question to answer. Fortunately there are ways to make better estimates for that number than by guessing.

The way people behave when buying either insurance products, products which enhance their safety (in particular: reduce the risk of mortality) are informative about these implicit valuations.

There is a large literature in economics about this (Kip Viscusi at Vanderbilt has an accessible book about the topic, since he has written many of these papers) and of course the EPA and other government agencies have estimates as well.

I get that there are different ways to price a human life. I was mostly curious about what you meant by this statement

>relative to the actual state of the world

"the actual state of the world" does translate to any definition I know.

“Actual” == “not counter factual” in this context. How about “the current state of the world” ?

Imagine two worlds:

1. The current/actual state of the world: far too many people commit suicide every year.

2. A counterfactual state of the world in which spending $10 billion on mental health services prevents 6,000 suicides in the UK.

A $50 billion welfare loss has been averted in (counterfactual) world 2, relative to (actual) world 1.

> 1 google dollars

Unless this is a fancy way of saying “an amount of money equal to the value of the most well-known unit of Alphabet”, you probably mean “1 googol dollars”.

yup. Thanks

I'm not sure the 10 mil per life is correct. As a counter point value, a highway worker is $10,000.

The author didn't even write that. The subhed is typically written by an editor. So in addition to being grossly uncharitable, I believe your anger is directed at the wrong person.

I really don’t think it’s grossly uncharitable at all. The details of the editorial process aren’t especially relevant, the article itself is some grim anecdote being used to promote a policy agenda. Regardless of the merit of the position being promoted, it’s intentionally emotionally manipulative, it’s anti-rational and anti-intellectual. It’s also entirely based upon the presupposition that the problem they’re talking about only has one cause, and one possible solution. Framing issues in this way means that any criticism of the presuppositions of, or conclusions draw by the author, is likely to be seen as disparagement of a clearly sympathetic person. It’s not a rational way to discuss a problem, and it’s incredibly low quality journalism.

Your complaint is that she... has feelings about her husband's death and how that affected her kids?

You seem to have a belief that emotion and reason are incompatible. And a fantasy that problems get fixed in the real world without anybody making emotional appeals or having feelings about the problems.

As to the first, a good place to start is Damasio's "Decartes' Error": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes%27_Error

As to the latter, I don't know what to tell you, but it's obviously not the case, and believing otherwise is not any sort of intellectual or rational position. Which is obvious from your writing; you're clearly having a lot of feelings here.

I'd add that it's perfectly possible to critique the conclusions of somebody who's making an emotional argument. The basic point here is that we should have more and better health services. You could say, "This story is heartbreaking, and I feel for her and her kids, but here's why more money is not the way to solve the problem."

I think the actual problem here is that you don't want to "feel for her and her kids", which, yes, is going to make you look unempathetic and disparaging in your attempts to get her to hide her pain.

> I really don’t think it’s grossly uncharitable at all.

I agree and will state that whenever a thread like this is on HN you have to walk on eggshells. The minute mental illness or any sensitive topic (hardship, health, whatever is presented) all the compassion comes out from possibly the same people who would otherwise jump all over someone's point of view about a non compassion topic. It's kind of the HN version of 'we won't be angry at you on your birthday day after back to being a dick'.

I also love the predictable 'get help' ok great thanks I am sure the person writing doesn't know hasn't thought of or hasn't tried that already.

This is an account of a woman’s husband and the father of her children being severely ill and dying by suicide, not “some hardship” or a “topic”. Have some respect for goodness sake. You never know when you’ll need someone to do the same for you.

This is exactly the type of irrational, emotional reaction the active is designed to elicit. The article is advocating for a public policy position, it relates to the topic of suicide, and it describes the hardships of the author. The merit of the position is irrelevant to the fact that this article has been so effective in evoking an emotive response from you, that simply a rational description of its content has managed to offend you.

To me your reaction is just as emotional. Your emotions require you to attempt to be analytical, dispassionate and transcend the issue. It's possible to have empathy for the author and be agnostic to any perceived rhetorical goals.

I'm curious if you know of anyone in your family and friend circles with this disorder? If so, have you talked to them?

I have made 0 comments ITT on the merit of the ideas put forward by the author. I have exclusively commented on the use of rhetorical devices to persuade the audience of their policy positions. So I’m curious why you’re asking me about the merits of the points advocated in the article. Are you truly incapable of seeing the difference between those two things?

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