SF accounting

[dsrtao]

Denominate all projects in lives.

40 hours, 50 weeks, 40 years: 80000 hours is a standard working life. In addition to reporting how much money your project took, account for how many lives it took.

Add in the actual dead, too.

Comments

[iheronimus.livejournal.com]

And don't forget to carry the cripples...

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

This implies lives are fungible.

[dsrtao]

Partially, yes. But it also suggests that we currently do not value lives enough.

I'm not suggesting this as anything other than a thought-experiment. But, for instance: Wal-Mart uses at least 13 lives a year, just in employee-time. HP uses 4. The US government, including the Post Office but not including any of the military and especially not actual deaths, uses 25.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

(Since my intentions are often obscure, let me just say here I think it's an interesting idea, but it didn't ring quite right and I'm trying to poke at it to strengthen it.)

Or perhaps we value lives exactly the right amount? (I'm Devil's Advocating here.) The economy keeps finding ways to come up with a dollar value for a life, and it always seems low.

E.g. -- 80,000 work hours. Assume a low-mid earner; $20/hour. Pretend dollars are constant, since their expenses occur at the same time as their income. We end up at $1.6mil, which is almost exactly the number I've heard bandied about for things like traffic improvements. ("If it only saves one life, and it costs $1mil, it's not worth it.")

Hmm. That seems very low to us if we look at, say, wrongful death suits. ...ah. Those include the impact on the 128 hours a week you're *not* at your job.

So perhaps something to use to expand your initial assessment -- you're not counting in "lives" but in "work lives". For jobs where employees are working 60+ a week, and it ruins the other 100 hours completely, it's closer to the truth.