It’s a wonderful, awful, and perplexing life

Time for another Ted talk.  Commenter Ted asked me a bunch of interesting questions, including this:

How you have thought about death and how you wish you thought about death.

This is going to be a long and dreary post, mostly focusing on my “outside view”, which features a rather apathetic attitude toward death.  So let me first reassure my readers that my inside view is much like yours.  If I’m on a Boeing jet plunging toward the ground, I’m going to be screaming in terror with the other passengers. I’m just as horrified by the prospect of death as the average guy.  Woody Allen put it this way:

There’s an old joke – um… two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ’em says, “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah, I know; and such small portions.” Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life – full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.

I’ve been reading My Struggle, Vol. 6, and thus I’ve been thinking a lot about the meaning of life, and also the meaning of death—which sort of seems like the same thing.  AFAIK, death itself is nothing; what seems to matter is the life one misses out on and/or the impact of death on the lives of your loved ones.  Let’s put aside the loved ones for a moment, and think about death selfishly.  Bryan Caplan asks:

Suppose you receive the following option.

  1. You flip a fair coin.
  2. If the coin is Heads, you acquire healthy immortality.
  3. If the coin is Tails, you instantly die.

The expected value of this option seems infinite: .5*infinity + 0 is still infinity, no?  . . .

Nevertheless, I suspect that almost no one would take this deal.  Even I shudder at the possibility.  So what gives?

Statistically speaking, I have about 20 years left.  Putting aside the impact on my loved ones, I’d take that bet in a heartbeat.  But only if the immortality part were eliminated.  Just give me a 50/50 chance at living to roughly 83 in perfect health, then hit by a bus while crossing the street.  The kind of health I had at age 14, or even 24.

Borges once referred to Nietzsche’s eternal return as “the most horrible idea in the universe”.  I agree.  But why is that?  Suppose you had the option of living your life over a trillion times in exactly the same way, each time with no memory of what came before.  Would you take it?  If life is good, then why not?  My visceral reaction is “hell no!” But I’m not sure I can explain why I feel that way.  That thought experiment makes me instinctively recall painful experiences I had earlier in life that I don’t want to relive, not all the pleasant experiences I’ve also had.  I’m not even sure I’m able to think about the thought experiment in the right way.  I am presumably thinking, “once is enough”, but the person being reincarnated would have no memory of previous lives, with previous miseries and blissful moments.

When it comes to life and death, I don’t trust my intuitions.  Am I happy?  It depends on what day you ask me.  Not just in the sense that I may not be happy on a given day; rather on days that I’m unhappy I often think my whole live has been bleak and miserable, and vice versa when I’m happy.  I’m not able to see my life clearly, past my current moods.  Am I more or less happy than other people?  Again, how would I know? I’m an unreliable narrator of my own life.  I’d trust someone else’s judgment of my happiness more than my own.  (Hey, wasn’t that once a corny movie?)  With the exception of Karl Ove Knausgaard, I don’t know what it’s like to be anyone else but me.  Are Karl and I unusually moody Nordics?  Or typical people?

BTW, here’s Knausgaard describing how he’s viewed by his best friend:

[Geir] took all of this and composed a picture of my psychological and social character he then analyzed and discussed.  He construed me as a kind of baroque entity, abnormal and warped, whose inner being was utterly out of sync with its outward expression — completely the opposite of how I saw myself, which was ordinary to the point of self-erasure

Literary critics have paid too little attention to the role of this fascinating friend, who even came up with the near perfect title of Knausgaard’s book.

In previous posts, I’ve remarked that my “outside view” rejects concepts like objective truth, free will and personal identity.  In contrast, my inside view of this stuff is just like yours.  Because my outside view tells me that personal identity doesn’t exist; there is actually no “me” to die.  There are a bundle of thoughts that will no longer swirl around in my brain, but billions of other people will still have similar thoughts.  No great tragedy.  My inside view that my death would be a much greater tragedy than the death of a random 63-year old shepherd in Turkmenistan is an illusion, reflecting the bias of my own perspective. (Yes, I know, my language implies the existence of personal identity; I know of no other way to write.)

Think about the Edmund Spenser line:

Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas, Ease after war, death after life does greatly please.

This is why I find the concept of immortality (or the eternal return) to be so frightening.  I fear (and expect) something like the end of the film Avatar, where death is immediately followed by rebirth into another body.  No rest for the weary.

In a book entitled Why Buddhism is True, Robert Wright remarked:

I asked [Gary Weber] about a line of his I recall reading, something to the effect of: The bad news is that you don’t exist; the good news is that you’re everything.

That latter claim is not good news to me. I don’t want to be Donald Trump, much less a trillion future Trumps, but I fear that Weber is right.  Without personal identity, we’re everybody.  Wright also says:

Meditation can weaken the link between perceptions and thoughts, on the one hand, and the feelings, the affective resonances, that typically accompany them on the other.  Well, if you do a really thorough job of that weakening, and perceptions become increasingly free of affective associations, this could change your view of the world.  It could leave things looking the same on the outside but seeming as if they lack some inner something.

I’ve never done meditation, but that sounds like growing older.  When I went to Wisconsin basketball games at age 16, there were times late in the game when the entire arena seemed to be pulsating with swirling, delirious waves of energy, which went right through my body.  The noise was deafening and the players and the crowd were almost one in the same.  Now I’m more analytical, watching games on TV and noticing whether teams are playing “moneyball” by avoiding mid-range jumpers.  (Thank God for Coach Budenholzer!)

It seems to me that nature prepares us for death with a series of “little deaths”. (No, not in the French sense!)  As we get older, our earlier selves are repeatedly shed like the skin of a snake.  These are the little deaths.  Life is gradually drained of magic and meaning—we get wiser and grayer. We keep repeating the same basic experiences, but each time with a bit less “color”.

About 25 years ago I bought a vintage French railway poster.  Unfortunately the skin tones gradually faded from tan to grey.  I never noticed this until I recently saw a clean copy on the internet.   So I went onto eBay and bought a fresher copy, had it delivered from France, and put it in an expensive frame with UV protection.

Screen Shot 2018-10-16 at 3.19.35 PMOf course my wife thought I was crazy to spend all this money in an pathetic attempt to reclaim the color of my earlier life.  (Or maybe she saw something ominous in my desire to trade in old grey skin for young tan skin, noticing that I’ve recently been reading a Michel Houellebecq novel.)

So why keep living, with such a dreary attitude toward life?

1. Option value.

2. Most importantly, for my loved ones. (And let’s face it; that means one’s spouse.  Others may pretend to care, but at my age only one person is severely impacted by my death.)

3.  Still some good films and novels to see and read. Last week I took delivery on a 77 inch LG C8 OLED TV.  I can finally watch films at home.

4. To see how Giannis’ career plays out.

Remember, evolution doesn’t want us to be content; it wants us to struggle.  But it also wants us to hate dying, even if we are not content with life.

Recall Dylan’s line:

But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only.

PS.  I didn’t answer the second part of Ted’s question.  How do I wish I thought about death?  Like a Buddhist.  Maybe I need to start meditating.


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36 Responses to “It’s a wonderful, awful, and perplexing life”

  1. Gravatar of Iskander Iskander
    21. October 2018 at 12:24

    I don’t know if I would like to see more posts like this or more econ posts. Both types are much much better than the Trump-centric ones.

    Nice to see both types coming in a pair!

  2. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    21. October 2018 at 13:45

    Iskander, Thanks.

    The beatings, er Trump posts, will continue until the morale improves.

  3. Gravatar of bill bill
    21. October 2018 at 13:57

    I like the Trump posts. A lot.

  4. Gravatar of Kgaard Kgaard
    21. October 2018 at 15:50

    Wow that coin-flip wager is fabulous. I sure as &^%$ wouldn’t want either option either!

    I admit I find it hysterical you are reading Houllebecq. He is the best Frenchman since Camus. But he is also extremely alt-right … and you hate the alt-right, no?

  5. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    21. October 2018 at 17:02

    Even though death is still death, I know almost nobody around my age or older who considers extremely likely powerful advances in medicine such as stem cell or gene therapy and health pills that already show modest benefits.

    So statistically speaking, as Scott puts it, at 63 he has about 20 years left. But logically speaking, he has many more years than that left and will have much better health than the elderly today. There will be a big difference in what an 85 year old looks and feels like in 2038 than one in 2018. No cancer, heart disease, dementia, muscle atrophy, etc. and sooner than 2038.

    Consider a 40 year old today who will be 85 in the year 2063. Any idea what health will be like *then*? But so far almost no economist has figured this out yet.

  6. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    21. October 2018 at 17:28

    I am not sure why you use the terms “inside” and “outside” and not common terms such as “subjective” and “objective” or “rational” and “irrational”. I guess you seem to think that there is a relevant difference or that you have made a new observation. Personally, I just don’t see yet what the new observation might be.

    This is why I find the concept of immortality (or the eternal return) to be so frightening. 

    So many people find immortality to be frightening. But why? My suspicion is that it is a trick of the brain to accept death and the status quo. I don’t understand this cowardice and mental ludicrousness.

    Imagine a world that doesn’t know death because death doesn’t exist. Do you really think that in such a world people would be such crybabies about immortality? Of course not. Whining about immortality is a trick of the brain to accept our miserable fate of death and despair.

  7. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    21. October 2018 at 20:31

    A film about opportunity costs; ‘The Party’, with Kristin Scott Thomas, Patricia Clarkson, Emily Mortimer and other equally talented actors. Though I watched it on my laptop, not a 77″ TV.

    Great jokes about the NHS and other left-wing hypocrisies.

  8. Gravatar of Rajat Rajat
    22. October 2018 at 00:29

    Very stimulating post, thanks.

    Personal question, but don’t you think your daughter would/will be really sad when you die? Maybe it depends on the age she is when you die. Put it this way, if you threw yourself off a cliff tomorrow, I’m sure she would be devastated. Perhaps the greatest value one can add is to as live long and well as possible to minimise the sadness felt by others who care about you when you die. For example, if you outlived your wife and died when your daughter was in her 60s, you would have done a lot more good than dying tomorrow.

    As for your coin toss and trillion lives choices, they’re interesting mental exercises, but neither exist. The only fundamental choice you have is to live or die.

  9. Gravatar of dtoh dtoh
    22. October 2018 at 00:53

    Scott,
    1) There is nothing interesting about the coin toss. It’s just a discount rate problem. (The in years are worth more than the out years.) Most people who are 99 years old would take the bet in a heart beat.

    2) I think kid’s are pretty impacted by the death of a parent. Even at a ripe old age.

    3) I reckon we are here to leave things better for those who follow… and maybe have some fun along the way. Harder to find thrills when you’re older, but not impossible.

  10. Gravatar of Todd Ramsey Todd Ramsey
    22. October 2018 at 05:56

    Because of your circumstances of time and place, your death WOULD be a greater tragedy than that of a herder in Turkmenistan.

    You have developed/promoted a monetary theory that will eventually alleviate human suffering. Had you died 20 years ago, your theories would not have come to light, or would have taken longer to do so.

    As the father of NGDPLT, you have an outsized role to play in seeing it through to adoption. If you aren’t around to play that role, we will take longer to get there, extending the time humans suffer from old central bank policies.

    Because of the circumstances of his life, the Turkmenistan herder can’t possibly have the effect on humankind that you can. Therefore your death today would be more of a tragedy than would his.

  11. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    22. October 2018 at 08:19

    Kgaard, I don’t consider him to be “extremely alt-right”. If he were, I’d probably have no interest in reading him, as extremely alt-right types tend to be pretty uninteresting. He’s a very talented author, which is hard to do if you can’t empathize with “the other”.

    Rajat, I can’t say. When my dad died I was very sad, but quickly got over it. (Although I still think about him frequently, 28 years later.) It’s different for one’s spouse.

    dtoh, Yes, it would seem to depend on age, as you say.

    Todd, I’d like to think I’ve been influential, but my “outside view” suggests I will not have much impact. NGDPLT will either be the inevitable next step, or it won’t. But yes, in order to live you need to think that you matter, no matter how unlikely that is.

  12. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    22. October 2018 at 08:31

    I agree with bill.

  13. Gravatar of Tristan Tristan
    22. October 2018 at 08:51

    Scott,
    When it comes to the concept of happiness I recommend reading Aristotle’s view of it which is that happiness, the telos of Man, is not an emotional state, but rather is a state of well being that comes from acting rightly in all aspects of one’s life. The ancient greeks called this happiness “eudaimonia”. Also, I don’t find Nietzsche’s test of eternal recurrence to be a doctrine for living, but I do see it as an insightful thought experiment that Nietzsche meant to be joyful; yet the test would not be called “The greatest weight” if it were easy to see the joy in passing it.

    P.S,
    Regarding your comments on objective truth: to state that objective truth does not exist is itself a statement of objective truth. Is it not self contradicting to deny the existence of objective truth?

  14. Gravatar of Doug M Doug M
    22. October 2018 at 09:00

    Life is tedious yet brief.

    In the last year and a half I have lost both my mother and my brother.

    And the thought that runs through my mind, is if my time is finite, why do I put up with the tedium?

    And the answer I have, is that I don’t know how to break out of it.

  15. Gravatar of Carl Carl
    22. October 2018 at 15:16

    “I’m going to be screaming in terror with the other passengers.”

    I think a better example would be what you would do if you found a syringe filled with a deadly dose of muscle relaxants that would allow you to drift off painlessly to oblivion. Would you inject yourself with it. In the case of the plunging plane, you might just be screaming in fear of the excruciating pain you are about to experience upon impact.

    Why not use the syringe? The simple answer for all but those in excruciating emotional or physical pain is that life seems the best alternative.

    You may be right about 99 year olds choosing a few years of feeling 20 over immortality feeling 99, but because suicide rates never reach 50% for any age group, and because we haven’t figured out to reverse aging, we haven’t yet found an age which most people consider worse than death.

  16. Gravatar of Rajat Rajat
    22. October 2018 at 17:20

    I also wanted to say I really liked this part of the post:

    Am I happy? It depends on what day you ask me. Not just in the sense that I may not be happy on a given day; rather on days that I’m unhappy I often think my whole live has been bleak and miserable, and vice versa when I’m happy. I’m not able to see my life clearly, past my current moods. Am I more or less happy than other people? Again, how would I know? I’m an unreliable narrator of my own life. I’d trust someone else’s judgment of my happiness more than my own. (Hey, wasn’t that once a corny movie?) With the exception of Karl Ove Knausgaard, I don’t know what it’s like to be anyone else but me. Are Karl and I unusually moody Nordics? Or typical people?

    I feel the same way, except I would go further and say I don’t think I would trust anyone else’s judgment as to how happy I am either. I probably share different (happy or unhappy) thoughts more with some people than others, and I don’t share my bleakest thoughts with anyone. But even if one shares everything, another person can’t really understand how frequently or what proportion of the time one feels those thoughts.

  17. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    22. October 2018 at 20:48

    @Todd

    and will have much better health than the elderly today. There will be a big difference in what an 85 year old looks and feels like in 2038 than one in 2018.

    I think this has already happened. The 85 year olds of today are much fitter than the 85 year olds of, let’s say, 1968. I doubt that this has much to do with medicine, I think it’s mostly because of changes in nutrition and working conditions. This trend can not go on forever. I think most of it has already happened.

    No cancer, heart disease, dementia, muscle atrophy, etc. and sooner than 2038.

    As always you are way too optimistic. Just go back to 1998 and look what has changed until 2018. Not too much. Cancer, heart disease, and dementia are still there. Your whole assumption is based on the unrealistic hope that you will be the lucky guy who was born right in the extraordinary era in which scientists find the cure for cancer, heart disease, dementia, and so on. Good luck with that.

  18. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    22. October 2018 at 22:30

    @Christian

    As with Scott, you have not been paying attention to recent trends. Top scientists in Alzheimer’s research think that disease will be beaten by 2025. Heart disease therapies with stem cell patches from the U of Wisconsin and the U of Arizona are expected to be available in a few years. Cancer therapies are showing great promise and this is still 2018. No advances by 2038?

    Scott is a typical social scientist, which isn’t bad, but he isn’t paying attention to what is happening inn the real sciences.

  19. Gravatar of Todd Ramsey Todd Ramsey
    23. October 2018 at 05:19

    “NGDPLT will either be the inevitable next step, or it won’t”.

    That step is more likely, and more likely to happen sooner than later, with you alive. The herder can have no effect on the likelihood or timing of NGDPLT adoption. Therefore, your demise would be more of a tragedy for humankind than would his.

  20. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    23. October 2018 at 07:13

    Todd Kreider is to immortality pills what Thiago Ribeiro is to Brazil.

  21. Gravatar of Anon Anon
    23. October 2018 at 07:33

    Haha

  22. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    23. October 2018 at 09:06

    msgivings, it isn’t my fault you think immortality and healthier elderly years are the same thing.

  23. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    23. October 2018 at 09:12

    Tristan, You said:

    “a state of well being that comes from acting rightly in all aspects of one’s life.”

    That’s really hard in two distinct ways. One is having the self control to act rightly. The other, much harder problem, is figuring out which course of action is right. Think about when you are 25-30 years old, perhaps in one dating relationship after another. What relationship choices are “right”? Or when to get divorced? How much weight on your happiness? The spouse? The kids? How to help a family member who is an alcoholic? Tough love? Should politicians always tell the truth? These are not easy questions. Great literature is full of tough choices, including “To be, or . . .”

    Doug, Sorry to hear that.

    Carl, Suicide rates tell us nothing about whether people enjoy life more than death, just that we are genetically programed to want to “hang on for dear life”.

    Rajat, You mean that Frank Capra film was just a con job? Seriously, I agree with you. We have no idea whether it’s a wonderful life (for most people), or if it’s nasty, brutish and short.

    Todd, You said:

    “Therefore, your demise would be more of a tragedy for humankind than would his.”

    I appreciate the flattery, but I still don’t buy your 20 year forecast. There were “promising” cancer breakthroughs 20 years ago. You might be right, But I’d say 40 or 50 years is more plausible for curing most cancers.

  24. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    23. October 2018 at 09:18

    ” Just go back to 1998 and look what has changed until 2018. Not too much. Cancer, heart disease, and dementia are still there. Your whole assumption is based on the unrealistic hope that you will be the lucky guy who was born right in the extraordinary era in which scientists find the cure for cancer, heart disease, dementia, and so on. Good luck with that.”
    ——————-

    Since 1998, smoking has declined from 25% to 17% but obesity has increased from 20% to 31%.

    1) Viagra! (first available in April 1998)

    2) the heart disease mortality rate has declined 45%

    3) the stroke mortality rate has declined 30%

    4) the cancer mortality rate has declined 25%

    5) The map of the human genome

    6) CRISPR

    7) NR (Nicotinamide Riboside – a Vitamin B3 derivative) increased walking speed and balance by 8% among healthy, non-obese people aged 60 to 80 in a 120 person trial.

    8) Hepatitis C is now curable 95% of the time.

    9) deep brain stimulation (Almost nobody had this in 1998, the year after it was approved.)

    2020 to 2030:

    1) much more advanced cancer treatments

    2) stem cell therapies common for strokes, heart disease and more

    3) the end of Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease (experts)

    4) health pills for those over 40

    5) inexpensive 3D printed organs and arteries

    Then things improve in the 2030s.

  25. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    23. October 2018 at 12:09

    Scott wrote:
    “There were “promising” cancer breakthroughs 20 years ago. You might be right, But I’d say 40 or 50 years is more plausible for curing most cancers.”
    ——————-

    I think only a very small minority of cancer researchers would agree with a 40 to 50 year time frame as computer power and knowledge continues to advance exponentially. Moore’s Law – the doubling of transistors on a chip- will end in a few years but different techniques have been found to further the acceleration in the 2020s and maybe the 2030s.

    1998: excitement over a potential cure for one type of leukemia but not available until 2001.

    2018:

    * immunotherapy (various approaches)

    * genetic testing for cancer

    * first gene therapy drug for leukemia approved

    * therapeutic viruses to attack brain tumors

    * self-regulating nano-particles (tests in the UK and China)

    * advances in tumor starvation techniques.

    There will be a significant decline in the cancer mortality rate from 2018 to 2028. Lead cancer researcher David Lane of p-53 gene fame has said he expects cancer to be manageable like HIV in the 2020s. Of course, he is just one researcher.

  26. Gravatar of Carl Carl
    23. October 2018 at 12:15

    Scott:
    I have to respectfully disagree. I think suicide rates tell us s lot about whether people enjoy life more than death or, perhaps more accurately, what we assume we know about death. I believe that whether we appear to be clinging to a life we profess to hate or relishing life, we are choosing it so long as we aren’t killing ourselves (and we are not incapable of doing so). And even if we are genetically programmed to “hang on for dear life”, we are not fated to do so as evidenced by fact that some people do commit suicide.

  27. Gravatar of Ricardo Ricardo
    23. October 2018 at 16:19

    Oh, maybe we need a futures market for Global Temperature. How it might help fix climate change: those on the political right-wing that currently don’t believe climate change might believe it if there was free-market determined prediction of future global temperature and so might tip the political balance.

  28. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    23. October 2018 at 19:50

    Todd,

    As with Scott, you have not been paying attention to recent trends. 

    I’m a GP, I like to think I know a few things about the topics you mentioned. You sound like one of those pharmaceutical sales representatives who annoy me every day. They have similar promises for the last 20 years, just a little bit smarter. I tell them the same thing as you: Come back, when it’s reality. Until then: Get lost.

  29. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    23. October 2018 at 21:22

    Actually, since you are a GP my guess is that you know almost nothing about what I’m talking about. Notice you say nothing of specifics at all. Is CRISPR-Cas9 technology a fraud? You seriously see no advances in cancer treatments? Have you learned anything about medicine in the past decade?

    Funny that I know a leading cancer researcher who is quite optimistic about where research is heading. I highly doubt you know more than a PhD in microbiology about his own area.

  30. Gravatar of c8to c8to
    24. October 2018 at 11:02

    no, no – without personality we’re not everybody.

    theres no “we are” to be anything.

    so “you” won’t be trump. and “you” cannot even want to not be trump.

  31. Gravatar of c8to c8to
    24. October 2018 at 11:12

    I think Christian and Todd are both right.

    A couple of thoughts:

    we tend to overestimate in the short term, and underestimate in the longer term.

    there’s a broad technology front. so some parts will fall quickly and somewhat unexpectedly (to the more pessimistic or longer estimates)

    some parts will linger and not be tackled for a while.

    there may be lots of regulatory, cost and access type hurdles. We’ve had the yamanaka factors for a while, why can’t i grow some stem cells from my own cells and inject them into a wound to see what happens – seems like pretty low risk but I have no idea what the cost of me trying to do this would be.

  32. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    24. October 2018 at 12:47

    Carl , I don’t understand your comment. You seem to concede my point that we might be generically programed to hang on for dear life. The fact that some commit suicide tells us nothing about whether people are good judges of whether they are happy. If some commit suicide despite this bias, imagine how many would kill themselves if they could view the issue rationally.

  33. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    24. October 2018 at 12:48

    Ricardo, Aaron Jackson and I published a paper on global temperature prediction markets.

  34. Gravatar of Ricardo Ricardo
    24. October 2018 at 17:05

    I assumed someone had that idea before. But wow, did not realize you’d worked on that 10 years ago. Thanks. I’m going to check this out: http://www.econmodels.com/upload7282/efae68d98251d757b48dfaef0295c28e.pdf

  35. Gravatar of anon/portly anon/portly
    25. October 2018 at 09:23

    “In previous posts, I’ve remarked that my ‘outside view’ rejects concepts like objective truth, free will and personal identity.”

    “Great literature is full of tough choices, including ‘To be, or . . .'”

    You don’t see any “tension” (or something like that) between these two statements? Why are the choices we encounter in art so interesting if personal identity doesn’t exist and there are no “true” choices?

    I know, I know, the response to this will be (the standard dodge) that the word “rejects” in the first statement has no actual meaning or importance, but still.

    “My inside view that my death would be a much greater tragedy than the death of a random 63-year old shepherd in Turkmenistan is an illusion, reflecting the bias of my own perspective.”

    This seems like an odd statement to put forward simply because, who would disagree with it? Yeah, we look out for #1. But that doesn’t mean that on reflection, we think that other people are living less rich or less important lives than our own, it just means that we can’t experience what they experience. With 7 billion people on the planet, it would be somewhat unwieldy to mourn every death.

    “(And let’s face it; that means one’s spouse. Others may pretend to care, but at my age only one person is severely impacted by my death.)”

    This is ridiculous. Your wife is probably counting the days until she gets to live the life of a wealthy widow, unencumbered by the old ball and chain. Imagine the fun she will have! The only people that will really care, if you were to die tomorrow, are us, your loyal blog readers. Keep this thought in mind at all times.

    “Last week I took delivery on a 77 inch LG C8 OLED TV. I can finally watch films at home.”

    The light finally came on! I guess those travel times from “Southern California abode” to “Southern California theatre where interesting film is playing” finally beat the ol’ “films must be seen in a theater” thing out of you.

    “Rajat, You mean that Frank Capra film was just a con job?”

    The importance of being able to watch a film more than once is well illustrated by IAWL. Remember it didn’t catch on until people started watching it over and over as a Christmas staple.

    IAWL is objectively a “bad” film – the “Pottersville” sequence is unintentionally funny, and the idea that a George Bailey would really jump is a pretty thin McGuffin – yet somehow it is a great film. It is genuinely touching. One of the fun things about the golden age of Hollywood is how films sometimes ended up being way better than they should. (“Vertigo” is another example).

    In some ways the closest thing to a successful remake is “Die Hard.” (Instead of Clarence getting his wings, we have Al being able to squeeze the trigger on a perp – same thing, basically).

    Anyway now you can avoid the agony of watching crappy new films, and just get a library of Ozu and Bresson (et al)classics and watch them over and over and over! Yay!

  36. Gravatar of bdunne bdunne
    26. October 2018 at 08:01

    I disagree with your Caplan example.

    The result of 0.5 * infinity is undefined. You can’t perform simple mathematics on infinity. How is one supposed make a rational impact calculus when one of the two outcomes is irrational?

    The example SHOULD make a rational actor shudder. If we are intellectually honest about the math, i.e. if we are approaching the problem as true economists, it is just as easy to intuit the meaning of an infinite life as it is to intuit that the sum of all positive integers is equal to -1/12.

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