Why the U.S. Values Your Life at $12,500,000

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ABOUT THIS VIDEO:
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This video is about the value of a statistical life and the cost-benefit analysis of the trade-off between saving lives and the limits of what society can afford.
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ABOUT THIS CHANNEL:
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Memeable Data is a Data Journalism KZbin channel that covers various topics from the perspective of Data Science and presents them to a broad audience through visual storytelling.
#datajournalism #datascience #dataanalysis #python #blender #valueoflife #valueofstatisticallife #operationsresearch #riskanalysis

[@memeabledata]

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[@Knytz]

Lol eu estava a ver o video do nada aparece o boneco com um pastel de nata

[@bobsterclause342]

Bro, thats a lot of money. As anoyed at the government, thats not to bad. If you think about it, your valued as a millionair at 12.5 mill. What do you think?

[@CLOCKROOK]

A

[@AK-kw5qm]

The 3 people who said no to treating the 20 year old and yes to treating the 80 year old lol

[@Lack_Of_Interest]

This is why they are called _outliars._

[@vVearon]

i’m totally not one of them

[@jaystrickland4151]

Generally they didn't read the question.

[@LUNE.44]

@@jaystrickland4151 or they want to stand out more

[@leocrabe2253]

You could think that knowledge and wisdom are worth more than lifespan, it's an interesting debate, and I don't think there is a purely right answer

[@dimon22323]

I think its worth to remember that: 1. More money spent doesn't necessarily mean the outcome will be better. There are other factors coming into picture like impossibility to sustain budget over the lifespan of project (if u plan to spend 20 years on this, there's a chance that project will never be finished and money will just burned). The case studies of some countries having success most of the time aren't applicable on others. 2. There are scenarios where technology or investment are not reaching to what they attempt to solve, but simply still get passed through $$$ allocations because of side developments they lead to. See where "space" or "internet" were built for absolutely unrelated military & surveillance goals, but leaded to enormous amount of technologies built around it. The space is something we still probably see as a money burner, but it still worth it.

[@Dogo.R]

Amazing tech first starting from the military is like winning at a casino. Just because you got a big win doesnt mean your spending your money in an efficent way. You have to compare options logically, not just look at your big wins.

[@BCrossing]

My government values my life at less than $100,000 and here you come swinging to its defence with 'But the edge-cases!' 'But the military gives us GPS!'. My life is much more important than $100,000. Why can't you fix that, before we talk about military technologies being worth it, which is true, but way further down the line. It's a question of priority, and life is clearly valued too little.

[@reedee589]

🤓

[@That_Daily_noko]

I always enjoy the animation in the video but that flood part in the beginning… it was so cool and well animated, great job as always

[@adrianv.v.4445]

OMG the animation at 3:31 I'm crying, also how you represent death sometimes, it's like a punch of humour inside the video lol

[@urielba]

The quality editing, rigurous academic research and use of data behind this video is truly impressive. Super entertaining and insightful to watch. Thanks a lot for this excellent work!

[@miguelpfeffermann]

Definitely some of the highest quality videos on YT rn! Great work🫶

[@twizzy_tt]

Bold to assume everyone is worth $12.5 million… certain people aren’t even worth 100 bucks

[@MidnightCamomile]

Dangggg 😢

[@MrPandaGoogol]

That’s why slaves costed 2 bucks

[@MrPandaGoogol]

Bro it a joke

[@Bianco207]

@@MrPandaGoogolnot even some bids back then were 50 cents

[@funeedev]

@@Bianco207 That's not even remotely true. The average price of a slave was around 800$ in the 1850, with some skilled slaves going up for $2,000, 800$ adjusted for inflation is $28,000 - $30,000 in modern dollars and for very skilled slaves up to 75,000$ each. Infact, slaves today actually cost less than slaves did back then even though it's illegal now.

[@ducksdog9996]

Netherlands is built different, they literally just uno reversed flooding

[@adrianv.v.4445]

Been following you since the second video, they are really well made and get better each time. The topics are also quite interesting. Keep up the work!

[@memeabledata]

Thank you!

[@bassiebe]

Dutch people know at 2:05 we see a Swapfiets

[@Matthew-li7we]

I chose $4.40, but honestly? I make 3x more now than I did just two years ago, so I can afford to pay the toll without much, if any hit to my wealth and budget. But if I was still making the same amount from a few years ago? Man that would hurt my wallet.

[@cai0]

I pay $5 toll to avoid 20min traffic, I find it insane that anyone would choose the riskier option (while spending $1k+ on iPhones). I don't get Americans.

[@-ZH]

@@cai0 Wait, what riskier option are you referring to here? The people who are driving the car/paying the toll aren’t likely to be the ones at risk with a more unsafe road.

[@mr.cauliflower3536]

The problem is that sometimes the cost benefit analysis is not worth it. As in we shouldn't be checking how much it costs to save a life because it's too hard to estimate how useful that thing will be.

[@Dogo.R]

You cannot act without an estimation. You have an estimation whether you are conscious of it or not. If there was no estimation then any choice that has any potential effect on any life ever, from now to infinately far in the future, would be impossible to choose. You make choice calculations using a value for it whether you like it or not. Not to mention that something being hard doesnt mean you shouldnt try to progress towards overcoming it. If you never started to try to climb everest you never will. Trying is how it becomes easier.

[@mr.cauliflower3536]

@@Dogo.R I am saying that if you have to write a paper on whether putting the sign there will be worth it, you probably are losing more money than it's worth.

[@xgamermudkip7154]

​@@mr.cauliflower3536no fucking shit. You shouldn't have to do detailed research to determine 1 outcome of something that basic, you should apply the knowledge we already have. That's called "memories."

[@guilhermelb1674]

In Brazil our life for the government probably worth less than 50.000 dolars. :(

[@maydelisar]

I'm proud of you! Excellent work like always ❤

[@memeabledata]

Thank you! :)

[@HowieDewitt535]

7:42 I think that should be left up to him, like how "pulling the plug" is left up to the family.

[@rainyhi]

10:54 WHAT IM CRYING THIS IS SO FUNNY

[@cai0]

Risking lives for $2.20, while criticising the governments for putting a dollar value on them. Sounds about right.

[@braineaterzombie3981]

$4.40 toll doesn't ensure safety. It is just less likely to be getting killed there.

[@cai0]

@@braineaterzombie3981 it's just $2.20 difference, so this is what matters. And you're only thinking about your individual life, whereas I prefer to think that these 2 bucks will save one life every year. This is probably the main difference in how Americans think vs. some other countries.

[@filip9564]

@@cai0its not 2.2$…

[@bizuplays]

"Or atleast I hope you do" BLUD ROASTED US 😭

[@bakersbread104]

A country or a person has limited resources and I think a countries duty is to spend those resources most effectively to improve its citizens lives. Any cost saved is money that can the spent elsewhere towards that goal. I think the video covers this nicely, but when looking at only one metric like dams or healthcare, its hard to put into perspective how that saved dollar amount can go into saving more lives. So in the full context its not about dollars to lives, its about maximizing the lives in general, and how to allocate money towards that goal. I think some people don't see that and get mad when the government doesn't throw the whole gdp at any given humanitarian problem. Also a thing I think may have impacted the polls is that for traffic deaths I can imagine it easier to blame the people who died for doing something stupid in the road than I can blame someone for getting a random deadly disease, and thus may be more favorable towards giving money to those who are suffering through no fault.

[@haagan]

Just wanted to say the effort and quality put into these videos are amazing and the animations are top notch. Love the style of presentation and the information that you provide is amazing ❤❤

[@memeabledata]

Thank you!

[@samuelthevenin]

This video really made me rethink quality of life because if the 20 year old has great health but get a life ending disease but before that he was usually in his house playing video games or on his phone his quality of life is poor then should he get the 1.5 million dollar treatment if he is just going to spend his life in is house doing nothing. Just a thought

[@Cinnamon38]

Love your work ! Keep going !

[@inseptus712]

The question of how long a society waited to implement lockdown isn't simply a question of lives vs economy. It also a question of freedom. People don't like being restricted from going out. It's the age old debate of safety vs freedom.

[@DerpHacks]

the us values our lives by as little as they can get away with. which is way less than 12.5m 😂

[@Honex15]

the Netherlands background needs more bikes

[@somethingwithat5787]

So basically It's all a minimum effort so that they can save more money for useless things like handouts and passing hundreds of useless laws.

[@cheesebusiness]

Government can also treat people as source of income (taxes) and evaluate the life accordingly

[@RasberryPhi]

Hey Memeable Data, I would love to see the impact of the gulf steam on our earth in the future and its development in the past.

[@Brontok]

I worked at the construction site and with such questions I always ask myself if the lives of the workers are being taken into account when calculating this. For example the work accident rate in the construction site is very high and sometimes it leads to death so imagine you're building something to save 1 life but building this 3 workers die, is it still worth it? Or just count the time all workers together spend on the project, from the architect and the engineers to the builders, is it worth it to spend a total of let's say 4000 years (summing together all the time spent by all the people working there) to save one single life that will probably live 40 years? I know all those risks are somehow implied with the money ypu spend but if you're a construction worker that gets paid 1000€ per month, does it mean you're ready to lose your life for that anount of money (monthly)?

[@iwsutw]

I like the running sound

[@MrGeek76]

such an interresting video, ty !

[@steadfastwolf2159]

I understand that there is likely many things to be said to reinforce the claim, but pre-watching the video, the value of us, is only how many stupid purchases we can be convinced we need.

[@disgusedbluewolf]

It's really good video better then what I thought from thumbnail

[@anj000]

10:09 more of an estimation of trust that the specific measures will do anything. And as we can see - they did nothing. It was at best huge corruption scandal.

[@ZahillSation]

excellent video

[@carros2578]

eu a ver o vídeo de boas, a pensar que era de um americano qualquer, e dps só ouço um "i'm portuguese", até deu mais vontade de ver

[@beniu1305]

It used to be a lot cheaper back in my day!

[@joaomachado3688]

WOOOOW PORTUGAL MENTIONED 🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🎉🎉🎉🎉🥵🥵🥵🔥🔥🔥nice video dude

[@bullydungeon9631]

I wish more people made choices based off of math like this

[@wesiboy]

The chance that your hit by a car is somthing you can make smaller by watching out for them

[@sodreigor]

Great video!

[@tar1en718]

Great, now can you make the same video but with Euros?

[@natepelham9028]

If anything, that valuation is high. I don't think I'll contribute anywhere close to 12.5 million Dollars to the economy in my lifetime

[@jaxonhopkins2691]

Build ten of the cheap walls for only 1B and a chance if a deadly flood at only 1.024 x 10^-7 (0.0000001024)

[@jaxonhopkins2691]

Yes I know that’s not how it works it’s just a joke

[@chujwie4028]

as a poker player i must say, 5% is way more than you think it is

[@Liberatios]

Well I guess I am not "Valuable" enough, no wonder why we have so many crazy people

[@kmcreativeholding3756]

such a good video well done

[@jonathan2847]

The question of how much is a life worth is an extremely flawed method to regulate spending. The question is how to allocate money to maximise welfare. We will always spend all the money. If it costs $10 billion to save 1 life, if there is no other more efficient mechanism we will spend $10 billion.

[@UnaliverOfChildren]

each life needs to worth 6 trillion dollars, if you are a chosen one

[@ditokelio7860]

I think 80 years is too old for the question. 60 or maybe 70 would be better. I think 80 years is a good run for anyone, past that are bonus years

[@BanterEdits]

I know it's just an example but that's really not how state finances work. Firstly, the netherlands can't go bankrupt because they can always pay their debt in Euros - they have infinite Euros to pay everything they want. Secondly, and this ties into the first point, the "national budget" is just a construct. If the Netherlands (or their Health Service) wants to spend 100B more than last year, they can finance it because money isn't a scarce resource. Real resources like labor and materials are scarce. Money can be created on demand. Good video though.

[@fleecejohnsonn]

Unfortunately YOU are the one that does not understand how state finances work, and most likely any finances for that matter.

[@viniciuskenji4445]

Vídeo muito bem feito. Parabéns!

[@SomeRandomDuude]

Excellent video!

[@davidhiggins2804]

Very good video.

[@fedethefico]

Excellent video

[@Draxi_1]

I thought this was a Fern or a Hoog video

[@Domebuddy]

Id be willing to cash out my life value and give it to my family :)

[@E-dart]

Can I withdraw some

[@commodoregohxiong558]

I would spend 10billion and keep the other 490 billion for myself

[@HyxejisKonto]

destroying the economy will also reduce the quality of life, so society might be far worse of even though more people survived

[@scantlamp34]

YOU SAYIN ELON LUST CAN BUY ME???

[@deathcraft2299]

engagement

[@mirzazmajschannel9779]

Leave the Dutch?

[@frostygenshinimpact3183]

mais um portugues aqui na holanda

[@zionlehnert3089]

Portuguese food

[@juan.araujonog]

Man I fuckig love your content

[@fejfo6559]

Don't confuse the value and the price of a life

[@OKmusi]

elon musk could buy 20080 people...

[@Rortti]

I feel like going from 5 to 1 percent, not worth it by itself

[@kaon1244]

Ah yes information, my favorite.

[@dwarian5252]

I am also an intellectual and enjoy the electrical and chemical signals in my noggin, from the consumption of this educational material of the medium coined as video.

[@henmanimationgames7304]

i watch because

[@Greenyx4219]

@@dwarian5252wdym Intelectual this just triggers the funky chemicals in my brain and makes me curious and happy well always

[@hydra8138]

@@Greenyx4219 pls never leave another comment again 🙏🙏🙏

[@Greenyx4219]

@@hydra8138 the fuck you talking about? I’m literally right

[@Gunnerz11]

Bro one of ur vids helped to get a A grade for Eff.Speech subject. Tysm

[@Dogo.R]

I love how the coversation is always lockdown vs no lockdown. Rather than talking about things other that lockdowns, like communication, hospital improvements, mitigation research, ect. Instead the conversation is always economy(money) vs lockdown... as if the world is that simple.

[@dinglesworld]

Simple is exactly what human brains want 💀 too tempting.

[@Hinodei]

There are 8 billion people. A human life is not priceless, people just think their own is because they only have one but a government has millions.

[@airtale8725]

I am going to say it: in most of the global south and eastern dictatorships, life is nearly worthless.

[@avial1063]

great work, I love the part where you mentionned the Covid policy paper

[@jauchi5078]

wow, your channel has to be one of the most underrated on KZbin. my studies are mostly on econometrics in transport and oftentimes cover CBA and therefore VSL. The way you explained these concepts while referencing further literature is not something that can be found often on KZbin, great job!

[@NikolasTsakonas-jo4wz]

With the question of the 19 year old, I think he should certainly get the treatment, both from a moral viewpoint, and an economical viewpoint, because in 61 years, that boy can generate more value than $1.5M , so in the long run the government would gain money

[@Brontok]

And what if the guy is from Senegal or comes from a poor family? I get your point and I'm with you but I think it's not only about the value you can generate to society because then we are probably letting die young people from poor families and at the same time saving old 80 years old men who are CEOs of big companies and who would die anyways in one year of something else. I always discussed and defended your point when talking with my economy teacher some years ago but I think there's more hidden value than the value you generate to society.

[@June_Hee]

unfortunately letting young poor people while saving old CEOs is exactly something that would happen irl

[@NikolasTsakonas-jo4wz]

@@Brontok I think that if the person comes from a poor family, they can still get the treatment, because it is paid by wealthier taxpayers, and if the person comes from Senegal as you said, the country doesn't have enough money for expensive procedures like that, so generally they can't offer that to people

[@Brontok]

@@NikolasTsakonas-jo4wz I mean someone from Senegal living in a country like the US or in Europe. The question is: If we could only save 1 person (because the treatment is too expensive or whatever), who would you save: - Joe Biden, Donald Trump or a very old CEO - a 15 year old from a very poor family That's a very hard question because Biden, Trump or the CEO probably generates more value to society in one year than the 15 year old in his whole life, whoever it's not the same psychological damage for the family if a +80 year old dies than a 15 year old. I'm so happy that I don't need to make that decision... In the past I would have chosen the CEO or president because of the value they can generate in their last months or even years but nowadays I'm not sure because there's a hidden value in saving the young person I can't really describe. I hope you get my point.

[@NikolasTsakonas-jo4wz]

@@Brontok I would save Donald Trump, cause his brain still works, unlike Joe Biden, but I wouldn’t need to, because Trump can afford private healthcare, and I think that wealthier people can afford to pay for themselves, but I understand morally why you would want to save the poor young kid, although I believe that money is more important than morality for a government, also Trump is nearly 78 not 80

[@SebeastMr-zh4px]

It’s not entirely unethical to put a dollar price on a human life its unethical when those prices differ from person to person.

[@TopGtrade]

No if you're a drug addict and do nothing you're useless and you are gonna be valued less but if you're a hard working man you're gonna be valued more

[@JB0576]

Is it still unethical if a rapist who has shown to be a repeat offender has a lower value than a school teacher

[@xgamermudkip7154]

That's simply not true though. If you had to choose between MLK and Hitler surviving, you'd choose MLK 100% of the time. Which means that you value Hitler less. Hypocrite.

[@TopGtrade]

@@JB0576 no it's not . JB it's hard to hear but you're a not smart person.

[@Jon_Snowhite]

​@JB0576 If you believe human life is sacred then yes for the sake of objectivism. If you believe in inequality of souls and not in the sacredness of life then no, because deeming one life as having more value than another is entirely subjective and arbitrary based on personal feelings or societal reasoning.

[@mbathroom1]

man this channel is so fascinating. What a great video

[@ducksdog9996]

Really high quality video great job

[@stylaah12]

Really glad I am subscribed, the quality of your videos is astonishing! You motivated me to actually read Balmford et al., 2020.

[@nicolassandoval4528]

So the title was clickbait then It’s a joke, great video

[@7w82isntReal]

The sponsor was actually genius the way you put it in, I can tell when a ad read is coming up but I didn't get suspicious until you said "aboard"

[@blacklight683]

I feel it makes sense for a value of a life(i get its priceless but as the video said there has to be a cut-off point) being the number of money in the country/the numbers of live living in said countries So its more of a dynamic price and it accounts for inflation and economic state of the country at the moment

[@Dragon8uk1]

Yay i'm in the video :) also, a very informative video as always

[@icekiller1594]

Nunca na minha vida teria adivinhado que eras português lol

[@cryonuess]

I was waiting for this video. It turned out great. Also, fascinating topic. Thank you!

[@SonAy-vh5em]

My country, Turkey is completely made up of mountains and I am happy with it 🙂 Having mountains for a second means having fault lines and we are exposed to earthquakes at least once a year, bruhh In our last earthquake, we lost 100,000 people and suffered a loss of $90,000,000,000 😢

[@oak6302]

The road safety one doesn't really make sense though because pedestrians don't die randomly they have to walk in front of cars so if you're just vigilant around roads then it doesn't decrease your chance of death at all since you're already completely safe

[@secretman5053]

lets go i was waiting for this

[@blacklight683]

I was about to make a joke about how black market think you cost more but after some searches(thay shit will forever be on my search history now) according to the black market you are worth 3M$

[@vinvenus4581]

Happy you are back - and with such a banger of an ethics-statistics-public health video! I enjoyed it a lot. // I think you'd be wise to continue picking topics like this. Your style is pretty similar to "fern" but they switched to storytelling. So by staying with abstract concepts, you differentiate yourself. For me, as a subscriber of both channels, this would be a reason to continue watching your channel even if "fern" has an even higher production value. All the best!

[@dumbosdumbas1566]

E tuga caralho❤❤❤❤❤ sempre soube 🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹

[@Dogo.R]

This video and its comments section is another great example of how poor the education system is. People have no idea what money is, and how life is about choosing priorities. And that priorities means something of higher priority gets ALL the attention. + other things. Its crazy how little our enviroment teaches us about how life and the world works.

[@ChairEnjoyer1]

I am honored that somebody thinks I’m worth 12.5 million

[@goncalovieirafig]

Thumbs up if you're way cheaper than your government when valuing your own life

[@ScottLucian]

I have to say, the people who switched sides (those who chose no to the road safety question yet chose yes to the treatment question) are literal idiots. They were fooled by a different question, which ultimately means the same thing. They are unintelligent because the question/outcome is the same (a person dies vs. a person lives), yet different wording was able to fool them into changing their answers. Edit: Furthermore, they said no to paying $2.20 more for a toll to save a life, yet chose yes to $1,500,000 more for a treatment to save a life??

[@technicalmaster-mind]

Means changing perspective of question changes answers for same result Data manipulation

[@MidnightHalfPastThree]

I wonder what value does north korea put on their people

[@EdwinMartin]

So the USA put a higher “price tag” on a life, but they have much higher mortality rates than other parts of the world. For traffic accidents, homicide, covid, drugs overdose etc. So in the USA, practice is far worse than theory.

[@6725r]

By other parts of the world, I think you are most likely referring to Europe but you don’t mention the fact that the usa(a country) has literally half the population of Europe(a continent) so no shit the mortality rate will be higher💀

[@EdwinMartin]

@@6725r That’s not how mortality rate works. It’s not only Europe. For example, Brasil, Thailand and Saudi Arabia have a higher life expectancy.

[@6725r]

@@EdwinMartin Brazil one isn't true