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The probability I mentioned in the original article is about your assessment of the probability of saving your life. If you believe your chances of a home invasion are one in ten, and I think they are closer to 1 in 2500 (without knowing your race), then it's about your estimate, not mine. Exactly my point ... I don't think people make such an assessment at all. I think they "satisfice" - that is, they perceive a problem, however ill-defined, and a possible solution whose cost is acceptable to them. They don't know how likely the problem is to occur, nor how well the solution reduces the likelihood of it occuring. How much would you pay for a device which would be absolutely guaranteed to extend your (quality) life by one year? Suppose that you could start saving now, and put some away and pay for it when your life was coming to and end to extend it. Not a good example - if I have a terminal disease I might be willing to pay a lot, if I am 12 I might not be willing to pay anything at all. Suppose I have a cake, and its huge. You offer me one more slice (5% more) for $1. If I turn if down you claim that I place a value of less than $200 on the cake. But I already have a cake - my marginal utility for another slice is low. Try taking my cake unless I give you $20 and you might get a better idea of how much I value my life. In short, the question is similar to valuing the king in chess ... the king is the whole game, and your life is the whole game. For insurance purposes you can come up with formulations, but saying the people in different cultures value their own lives differently is not supported by this logic. All (sane) people place a limitless value on their own lives, as evidenced by the basic fact that you couldn't pay them any amount of money whatsoever in exchange for their lives. They might trade them in the pursuit of some goal they thought worthy, but not in exchange for currency. You might, however, be able to do some cultural comparisons on the value people of different cultures place on the lives of others ...
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