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FBT • yesterday at 8:46 PM • 0 replies • view on HN

If one were to use a fairly standard number for the statistical value of a human life, $10MM, then $126MM is about the same amount of harm as the deaths of 12.6 people.

(You have to choose some number as the value of a human life, and the power of the "statistical value" measure is that it is self-determined, derived from the choices people make for themselves of how much money to pay to reduce the risk of dying, aggregated and averaged. You are free to advocate for a different measure, but if so, you need to actually make the argument, ground your measure in something, something that you then need to claim is a better measure than people's own revealed preferences.)