Let’s say “the typical pain of the top 5% most painful of the cases of a given condition”.
My sense is that the pain scale is exponential. Let’s say that kidney stones rank on average at a 7⁄10 level with a standard deviation of 1. In that case, about 2% of the kidney stone cases are a 9⁄10, which might be hundreds of times more painful than the 7⁄10 typical case. In other words, you can’t really judge how many hell-seconds a given condition contributes by observing a *median* case… you need either the average or to look at the more painful side of it.
It’s just that your first comment sounded a bit like you’re implying that 10% of the population suffers from excruciating kidney stones. With your estimated numbers (10% of population affected at some point in their lives, 2% of cases at 9⁄10 on the pain scale), it would be more like 0.2%.
That’s probably still a lot if you multiply by the world population and total pain episode lengths. I don’t know how long such a case typically lasts with modern medical care, but plenty of people don’t have access to it.
Of course, this all depends on whether the 2% number is a reasonable estimate, and whether the pain scale is exponential.
But my guess is that a better strategy will probe better medical prevention and treatment of underlying causes in most cases. After all, flooding the USA with powerful painkillers hasn’t exactly been a boon to the nation (see opioids).
Let’s say “the typical pain of the top 5% most painful of the cases of a given condition”.
My sense is that the pain scale is exponential. Let’s say that kidney stones rank on average at a 7⁄10 level with a standard deviation of 1. In that case, about 2% of the kidney stone cases are a 9⁄10, which might be hundreds of times more painful than the 7⁄10 typical case. In other words, you can’t really judge how many hell-seconds a given condition contributes by observing a *median* case… you need either the average or to look at the more painful side of it.
It’s just that your first comment sounded a bit like you’re implying that 10% of the population suffers from excruciating kidney stones. With your estimated numbers (10% of population affected at some point in their lives, 2% of cases at 9⁄10 on the pain scale), it would be more like 0.2%.
That’s probably still a lot if you multiply by the world population and total pain episode lengths. I don’t know how long such a case typically lasts with modern medical care, but plenty of people don’t have access to it.
Of course, this all depends on whether the 2% number is a reasonable estimate, and whether the pain scale is exponential.
But my guess is that a better strategy will probe better medical prevention and treatment of underlying causes in most cases. After all, flooding the USA with powerful painkillers hasn’t exactly been a boon to the nation (see opioids).