Your broader point is a fair one, and I appreciate that you’ve raised it. This is generally hard to do, and speaks to a larger question about how to measure across different “benefits”—how do you measure freedom versus DALYs, or climate effects, or animal welfare. Of course that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it—with or without social resistance! Cross-cause work is something we’d like to do more at RP.
In the case you’ve mentioned above, I wonder if QALYs might be relevant. (This may be your point about quantitative vs qualitative). Your example calculations directly compare the 1.2 minutes of extra driving to 0.7 minutes of being alive. But how does the time driving compare to the additional time you would spend at your destination? I would imagine that the gap between those two states is smaller than “alive (at some average level of happiness) vs dead”. As you note, the calculations are rough enough that it’s hard to work out what the overall conclusion is, but I think we’d probably need to apply another factor to the 1.2 minutes to capture that the time spent in the car is unlikely to be worse than death.
Separately—and more as a point of interest—I wonder what would actually happen if speed limits were drastically reduced in the way that you mention. Yes, there would definitely be negative effects like you describe, but I think peoples’ habits would also change so that they can avoid sitting around driving all day. (To clarify, I’m not in favour of such a drastic change, I just find it interesting to consider)
Your broader point is a fair one, and I appreciate that you’ve raised it. This is generally hard to do, and speaks to a larger question about how to measure across different “benefits”—how do you measure freedom versus DALYs, or climate effects, or animal welfare. Of course that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it—with or without social resistance! Cross-cause work is something we’d like to do more at RP.
In the case you’ve mentioned above, I wonder if QALYs might be relevant. (This may be your point about quantitative vs qualitative). Your example calculations directly compare the 1.2 minutes of extra driving to 0.7 minutes of being alive. But how does the time driving compare to the additional time you would spend at your destination? I would imagine that the gap between those two states is smaller than “alive (at some average level of happiness) vs dead”. As you note, the calculations are rough enough that it’s hard to work out what the overall conclusion is, but I think we’d probably need to apply another factor to the 1.2 minutes to capture that the time spent in the car is unlikely to be worse than death.
Separately—and more as a point of interest—I wonder what would actually happen if speed limits were drastically reduced in the way that you mention. Yes, there would definitely be negative effects like you describe, but I think peoples’ habits would also change so that they can avoid sitting around driving all day. (To clarify, I’m not in favour of such a drastic change, I just find it interesting to consider)