Steven Landsburg

Jamie Whyte, whose has been at various times an academic philosopher (and winner of the Analysis prize for the best paper by a philosopher under 30), a consultant to the banking industry with Oliver Wyman, a foreign currency trader, the leader of New Zealand’s ACT political party, the research director at the Institute for Economic Affairs, the author of several books that every thinking person should read, a frequent contributor to the European edition of the Wall Street Journal and other publications of that ilk, the incoming editor of Standpoint Magazine, an occasional guest poster on this very blog — and the deliverer of one of the most thought-provoking and entertaining lectures I’ve ever heard when he visited Rochester a few years back — will be here again next week, with two events open to the general public. They are: Is There Too Much Social Mobility? , Tuesday April 9 at 5:30 in Goergen 101 at the University of Rochester How to Make the Case for Liberty, Wednesday April 10 at 3:30 in Schlegel 102 at the University of Rochester. If you’re in the vicinity, I hope you’ll stop in.

What this means is that empirically, people are willing to pay about $1 to avoid a one-in-ten-million chance of death, about $2 to avoid a one-in-five-million chance of death, about $10 to avoid a one-in-one-million chance of death, and so on for various other small probabilities. The value-of-life calculation suggests, then, that people are willing to pay no more than about $600 to avoid a one-in-17,000 chance of death. If the risk is any lower than that, then people would rather take that risk than lose $600, and would rather lose $600 than wait for the next flight That means that a flight should be canceled only when the plane appears to be 1/400 as safe (i.e. 400 times more likely to crash) as the average plane in the sky.

If you get accepted to college because you faked being a sports star, pretty much everyone is outraged. That’s what I don’t get. Either way, you’ve climbed the ladder by prevailing in a largely meaningless zero-sum (and hence socially useless) game, thereby signalling a dollop of narcissism together with a few mostly irrelevant talents or advantages. Click here to comment or read others’ comments.

This week, I’ll be in Charleston, South Carolina as part of the annual Adam Smith Week celebration at the College of Charleston. You, along with the rest of the public, are invited to attend any or all of my talks: Thursday, March 7, 6:00PM, “ What Do the Rich Owe to the Poor? (discussion with Dr. Doug Walker) If you attend, be sure to say hello!