Yeah I’ve always been a bit sceptical of this as well. Surely it’s just a yardstick that a department uses to decide between which investments it should make, rather than a considered (or even descriptive) “value of a life” for the US Government. Descriptively—the 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). Basically—I don’t think it’s 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 doesn’t really make sense outside of its intended purpose.
Yeah I’ve always been a bit sceptical of this as well. Surely it’s just a yardstick that a department uses to decide between which investments it should make, rather than a considered (or even descriptive) “value of a life” for the US Government.
Descriptively—the 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).
Basically—I don’t think it’s 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 doesn’t really make sense outside of its intended purpose.