Before I start this article, I want to just flat out spoil the ending and say its impossible to value human life. Its impossible to value to moments we share, the people we love and their impact, however small on the world as a whole. However that being said, there is a way that corporations and other agencies value human life and most of the time it has to do with risk. Every company does the calculation differently and most people don’t really want to know the calculation because it’s a grim topic. Companies are always going to do the calculation regardless of if you know it or not.
I once met a man at a career fair and asked him what he did for a living, which was work for a major car company as a statistician. I have always been interested in the topic of valuing human life and I had heard about a specific topic before involving recalls. I asked if he had ever done the calculation of human life and he smiled. He said he personally didn’t deal with those calculations but he knows the people who do and every time a product has a problem they need to see what one of their customers life is worth.
The way they do this is by calculating the percent of someone dying or being injured by their product, the percent chance they would be sued and ultimately what the settlements would cost. If the price is higher than what it would cost to do a full product recall, they won’t bother and let the person get injured and settle. An example would be if Apple created a new Iphone and it had a one in a billion chance of exploding and killing the user. They estimate a recall would cost 100 million , but if that person died , they could settle for 10 million. If likely only 7 people on the planet will die from the iphone, it will only cost them 70 million versus the 100 million recall, so they wont bother doing it.
Whether or not this is right or wrong, companies need to calculate their risk versus reward just to operate effectively, and we do it as well. When we go on a rollercoast, some people have higher risk tolerance than others. Some calculate the risk to go on it isn’t worth it so we pass up the fun we might have. Unknowingly we are doing it every day of our lives without really knowing. Risk is so imbedded in the normal person’s brain that it just seems like second nature to them.
Corporate cases are interesting, but I find the more interesting cases to be ones where people are convicted of a crime, then released years later after more evidence comes to light. These people who have been imprisoned may have lost the best 10 years of their life and now a judge must decide how much each day, filled with potential experiences, people, love and life was worth. The majority of the time it ends up being vastly understated and the wrongly convicted would have rather had the time on the outside. Ask yourself how much would it take for you to go to jail for 10 years?
Valuing human life is a very tricky and not pleasant subject, but it is something that needs to be done. Like I said in the beginning when I spoiled the ending, it really isn’t possible to value a life. Mostly this is because it is impossible to know what life may bring a certain individual. However, there need to be an alternative way to estimate the risk a life poses to a company and how much money they would lose. It is a bad situation when it happens, but corporations need to be equipped to handle it.
Thanks to @Elyaque for the badges