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THIRTEEN_DEATHS

                                               April 2, 2014

There was a thirteen day sensation
about thirteen deaths in auto crashes
that were supposedly preventable if
GM had been willing to spend an extra
buck per car on ignition keys.

dkos comment:

  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/02/1289059/-The-GM-Switch-and-Why-R-D-Engineers-Should-Speak-Out


This is as good a place as any to be a lone,
contrarian voice in the wilderness, so here
goes:

The case, as I understand it, is that
management at GM did something stupid or
sleazy and ended up killing 13 people.

But-- car crashes already kill tens of
thousands of people every year in the US.
Why are those 35k+ deaths "normal", and these
13 deaths a hideous crime against humanity?

What I'm getting at is I'm seeing people shut
off their brains because of their feeling
that the value of those human lives is
infinite, and letting them die just to save
money is abhorrent. How much money *should*
GM spend to save 13 lives?  Should we be
spending the same amount per life to save all
of the tens of thousands?

Any way you look at it, we don't have
infinite resources, and we have to allocate
them somehow, either using markets (or
better, modified markets that try to
internalize the "externalities"), or through
some form of triage by panels of experts or
some such.

It's all very well to roll your eyes at
strict utilitarianism and so on, but this
upwelling of hatred is starting to look
irrational in an all-too-familiar way.

(The CEO had the nerve to go before Congress
and did not offer to commit Hari-Kiri, can
you imagine?)


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