= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
DanielVarga comments on [LINK] Larry = Harry sans magic? Google vs. Death - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (55)
I fully agree with this point, and I fully agree with Page's goals. But I think there are things here that a simple total-years-of-potential-life-lost framework can not capture. As you might have guessed even from my first comment, this issue is very personal to me. Not long ago a good friend died after terrible suffering, leaving three young children behind. That's very sad, and I really don't know for what values of N could this be balanced in a utilitarian sense by lengthening the healthy old age of N of my friends with 10 years. Obviously, such trade-offs are taboo, but even if I try to force myself into some detached outside view, I still believe that number N must be large.
Agreed that not all years are equal, and the impacts of early deaths can be large.
For measuring N, I wonder how much of this is availability bias. I know a number of old people who have outlived half of their friends, as well as seeing a few friends lost early in life. My weak suspicion is that they would favor a lower N, just by more familiarity with death due to old age and a better idea of what old age deaths do to the culture / friend groups / family.