You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

FrameBenignly comments on Wear a Helmet While Driving a Car - Less Wrong Discussion

47 Post author: James_Miller 30 July 2015 04:36PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (116)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: FrameBenignly 07 August 2015 07:56:03PM *  0 points [-]

The original estimate which gwern based his analysis on used a speed of about 60 mph, which is necessary to use when reversing the calculation back into miles. I would agree average speeds are probably lower.

Edit: I just noticed my calculation was wrong. I'm not sure where I got 32850 from. It's more like 60 something thousand. Whoops.

Comment author: jkaufman 09 August 2015 02:18:29PM 0 points [-]

Sorry, I'm not seeing where gwern uses 60mph?

Comment author: FrameBenignly 09 August 2015 04:00:47PM *  0 points [-]

He's making a calculation using hours based on an analysis originally written in micromorts per mile. He has to convert from miles to hours to do that. He uses the estimate you gave him which assumed 57.5 mph to be exact to make that conversion. I used 60 as a rough approximation. To calculate the miles he's using for his analysis, I have to use the same estimate. It's an unstated assumption gwern makes to get to $50k in a lifetime. A lower average speed would make Nick's argument stronger and gwern's cost estimate lower.