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Comment by paulhauggis | Hacker News Reader

It seems like you are saying that the effort is futile because they won't find them anyway.

It doesn't matter of they are "incredibly rare". We are talking about human lives here. If it saves one life, it's worth it.

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Please read this: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=psychology-...

> When people are asked to trade their sacred values for values considered to be secular—what psychologist Philip Tetlock refers to as a “taboo tradeoff”—they exhibit moral outrage, express anger and disgust, become increasingly inflexible in negotiations, and display an insensitivity to a strict cost-benefit analysis of the exchange. What’s more, when people receive monetary offers for relinquishing a sacred value, they display a particularly striking irrationality. Not only are people unwilling to compromise sacred values for money—contrary to classic economic theory’s assumption that financial incentives motivate behavior—but the inclusion of money in an offer produces a backfire effect such that people become even less likely to give up their sacred values compared to when an offer does not include money. People consider trading sacred values for money so morally reprehensible that they recoil at such proposals.

An interesting article about human behavior. How nice. However, I don't see a categorical disproof in there of the idea that saving lives is something worth spending time and money on, so could you take a minute and connect the dots for us plebs? Thanks.

I assume zmj's point is that we implicitly make this trade-off all the time. For example, cars could be safer, but then they would be more expensive. Anytime we opt for a cheaper car with less safety features, we are making a cost-benefit analysis involving our own lives and the lives of the people who will travel in our car. (Who are probably the most important people to us.) There becomes a point where the actual gains in life-saving potential is negligible, and we don't think it is worth the cost. But we rarely state it that way.

We could easily make cars way, way safer - put a giant, sharp spike sticking out of the center of the steering wheel, pointed at the driver's heart, and forbid seatbelts. Nobody would ever go over 5mph, or put themselves at risk of crashing into anything.

You have completely botched this example. This example is useful to explain why airbags increase collisions. Putting a spear in cars would not make cars safer.

I don't understand your objection. Do you see a meaningful distinction between "cars are safer" and "cars are driven more safely"?

There is a major difference. The number of traffic accidents did not change significantly from 1990 to 2009, but the number of deaths from traffic accidents dropped 23%[1]. This is most likely due to cars being built in a way so that their passengers are more likely to survive accidents.

[1]: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.p...

This is one of the better comments I've seen lately - perfect execution of the "take the parent post's example to an absurd, irrelevant extreme and say Q.E.D."-style comment that seems to be all the rage around here lately. Love it, A+!

From http://squid314.livejournal.com/260949.html: Contrary to popular belief, you can put a dollar value on human life. That dollar value is $5.8 million. Denying this leads to terrible consequences. Let me explain.

I'm guessing these 404 pages aren't at all cost-effective. The chances of saving a life are incredibly low, and the cost of implementing and maintaining them is pretty high. Also, there's value lost to users. They'll see a missing child instead of helpful navigation suggestions.

These things sound inconsequential compared to a human life, but they add up extremely quickly. Our minds can't intuitively do the math.

A common example of trying too hard to save lives is the unintended consequences. Example: making airplanes more safe -> flights cost more -> more people opt to drive -> more people are killed in car accidents than saved by safer airplanes

Whether that fits here or not I'm not sure.

Why don't we make the speed limit 5 MPH and save a large number of the 45k deaths a year in the US? We could save thousands of lives, but it won't happen.

So, in your mind, a nearly zero cost repurposing of the 404 page is equivalent to reducing the speed limit by 75-95%? Not saying it's a good idea to apply this, but the detractors are blowing the cost way out of proportion.

We are talking about human lives here. If it saves one life, it's worth it.

Ah, one of my favorite arguments. The good 'ol, "there is no price which is too high to save a life (period, full-stop)".

Do you actually believe that? Really? Or am I just reading you wrong here?

We think human lives are priceless because we like to believe that everyone is unique. There is no warranty replacement for children born defective; nor could you replace them when they break, go missing, etc.

Well obviously everyone is unique in that there's only one of any given life, regardless of whether or not anyone's life is qualitatively unique. But it seems obvious (at least to me) that what's much more relevant is that as self-reflective human beings, we have a responsibility to protect other human lives, within reason. Of course, what "within reason" means is a whole subject on it's own.

That "within reason" is the key.

Looked at from one (unreasonable) level, everything is unique. Looked at from another (unreasonable) level, most humans could be replaced with other humans and very little would change.

There's no obvious-to-me level to look from where this argument applies to humans, but not to pet cats and dogs.

Everyone is unique, in a sense. The real trip-up in that logic is, just because something is one-of-a-kind doesn't mean it has infinite value.

You don't have a child, do you? Are you an only child? Would you admit it now if you are?

Why does it matter if he has a child? Because it makes a purely emotional argument less effective on him?

Talking as someone with 5 siblings (4 brothers, 1 sister), I find that one brother is generally as good as another whereas my sister is unique.

Based on this, your question of "Are you an only child?" seems only to be helpful to your argument when used against people with a relatively small amount of siblings of a particular gender. This condition is, let's be honest, a relatively new development in the first world and simply doesn't generally exist in the developing world.

Is the cost (price) of this solution really so high though?

If you're a parent of a kidnapped child who you lost most hope of finding, what effect would seeing this on each and every 404 have? My guess is "not that great", to say the least.

If it's really that much ineffective as some are arguing, I think the costs to our mental health far outweigh the benefits.

You're absolutely right,

After all, why shall we even try to save human lives?

According to the current population growth rate[1], we have a relatively high supply of humans on earth, so anyone dying or disappearing will most definitely be replaced within a short period of time. Merge that data with the kidnapping statistics[2] and you'll see there's nothing to worry about.

Moreover, a child had likely not accomplished much in his life, so his disappearance could only affect a limited number of people.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping#Statistics

It would be of massive costs to change your 404, so those missing kids could suck it.

Maybe this makes me a terrible person or someone with a bad photographic memory, but I literally cannot recall any missing person's face that I've seen on a billboard, a website, a milk carton, etc. even if I saw them daily. Worse, the more sites that adopt this concept, the less likely I am to remember those faces and - out of how plain awful and sad it is it is - the less likely I am to even want to spend time looking at them.

There's got to be a better way.

We've come a long way from annual telethons or weekly tithings to every spare second of everything in our lives needing to be philanthropized - including 404 pages! You know those pages in books "this page intentionally left blank" - think of all the children we could save!!!!

Over-exposure will only serve to desensitize us to worthy causes. Everything in moderation.

Ditto. I'd also imagine that if I were the loved one of such a victim, the last thing I'd want while perusing the internet is another reminder. And this isn't even getting into what the scum of the internet would/could do to exploit or otherwise vandalize these databases or the content therein.

I would argue the opposite. A lot of people don't pursue worthy causes because they're unaware of causes worth pursuing. Plus, it's only on the 404 page.

To clarify: The idea isn't that you'll remember a picture, but rather that you might recognize a child you already know.

I just think it is a slippery slope where the ratio of false leads to legitimate tips weighs too heavily on the former for this to be practical and not threatening to real families when someone wants to play the hero. I'd be interested in seeing statistics about the percentage of abductees that are allowed to be seen in public without any sort of cosmetic alterations or other such obscurations, particularly in the first few months/years. Perhaps their captors are more lazy about that than I'd assume.

What if it's not worth it? Can notfound.org keep up with increasing server loads? Do Missing Children Europe and Child Focus have adequate resources to run this project along with everything else they do? Will people become desensitized to missing children photos on 404 pages? What about all the other potential issues I'm not thinking of? Yeah launching this website is definitely a morally good action, but whether or not it will prove to have any actual positive consequence will need to be seen.

If it's that important, it shouldn't go on a 404 page (which, ideally, people won't see). You should dedicate space on all of your pages for pictures of missing kids. And escaped convicts.

We live in a world with finite resources. That means nothing is free and everything has a cost associated with it.

That means you have to think a little bit about the cost and benefit of doing something.

You cannot save all children.

We are talking about human lives here. If it saves one life, it's worth it.

That is a good sentiment, but unfortunately it's not how a lot of society works. For example, many people die of poor nutrition, or from lack of the best medical care. If the wealth of the top 30% of the population (y'know all the billionares, millionares & upper class (maybe some middle class)) was confiscated then we could save these lives. However many societies do not make this decision, for some societies & cultures, that price is too high.

The inevitable economic collapse from the warped incentives would likely cost more lives.

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