Yeah Iāve always been a bit sceptical of this as well. Surely itās just a yardstick that a department uses to decide between which investments it should make, rather than a considered (or even descriptive) āvalue of a lifeā for the US Government. Descriptivelyāthe US government would spend far more for a few lives if those lives were hostages of a foreign adversary, and probably has far less willingness to pay for cheap ways the US govt could save lives (idk what these are, probably there are examples in public health). BasicallyāI donāt think itās a number that can be meaningfully extrapolated to figure out the value of avoiding extinction or catastrophe, because the number was designed with far smaller trade-offs in mind, and doesnāt really make sense outside of its intended purpose.
Yeah Iāve always been a bit sceptical of this as well. Surely itās just a yardstick that a department uses to decide between which investments it should make, rather than a considered (or even descriptive) āvalue of a lifeā for the US Government.
Descriptivelyāthe US government would spend far more for a few lives if those lives were hostages of a foreign adversary, and probably has far less willingness to pay for cheap ways the US govt could save lives (idk what these are, probably there are examples in public health).
BasicallyāI donāt think itās a number that can be meaningfully extrapolated to figure out the value of avoiding extinction or catastrophe, because the number was designed with far smaller trade-offs in mind, and doesnāt really make sense outside of its intended purpose.