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MattG comments on Open Thread, Jun. 22 - Jun. 28, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I went to the dermatologist and today and I have some sort of cyst on my ear. He said it was nothing. He said the options are to remove it surgically, to use some sort of cream to remove it over time, or to do nothing.
I asked about the benefits of removing it. He said that they'd be able to biopsy it and be 100% sure that it's nothing. I asked "as opposed to... how confident are you now?" He said 99.5 or 99.95% sure.
It seems clear to me that the costs of money, time and pain are easily worth the 5/1000(0) chance that I detect something dangerous earlier and correspondingly reduce the chances that I die. Like, really really really really really clear to me. Death is really bad. I'm horrified that doctors (and others) don't see this. He was very ready to just send me home with his diagnosis of "it's nothing". I'm trying to argue against myself and account for biases and all that, but given the badness of death, I still feel extremely strongly that the surgery+biopsy is the clear choice. Is there something I'm missing?
Also, the idea of Prediction Book for Doctors occurred to me. There could be a nice UI with graphs and stuff to help doctors keep track of the predictions they've made. Maybe it could evolve into a resource that helps doctors make predictions by providing medical info and perhaps sprinkling in a little bit of AI or something. I don't really know though, the idea is extremely raw at this point. Thoughts?
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.