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.turn on "α"
.cb THE RISKER


	Imagine a society in which people didn't die of natural causes
at a socially acceptable rate, given the desire for children, so that
it was necessary to kill people regularly in order to keep the population
in balance.  The theme has often been treated in science fiction, but
usually the method was rather inflexible, such as a fixed bound on length
of life, for some reason chosen as young as sixty.  The plot would then
concern the protagonists effort to escape death or to bring down the system
which is often depicted as being operated unfairly, e.g. with favoritism.

	Here is a better scheme of the same sort.  There is a machine called
the %2risker%1.  In its simplest mode of operation, a person walks through
it, and has a fixed probability of being killed by it - say one percent.
If everyone walks through it annually, his chance of dying in 100 years
is very close to %21/e%1, and his expected life time is 100e years.
Changes in the probability of death and in the frequency of risk have
the obvious effects on the expected lifetime.

	Presumably, the object of the system is to limit expected length
of life, and society would not be interested in the detailed structure of
the risk.  This permits the  individual considerable flexibility.  Thus
he might choose to take 20 years risk at once, and if successful, to undergo
no risk at all for another 20 years.  Actually, he could avoid it for
somewhat longer than 20 years in exchange for taking the risk at the
beginning, and should take more than 20 years's risk if he wants to
take it at the end of a twenty year period.  One extreme would be a person
who wanted a fixed lifetime, and he would take the certainty of death
after 100e years.

	Risks could be correlated within a group - positively or negatively.
Thus a family could go through the ⊗risker together - either all surviving
or all dying.  Going through the ⊗risker together hand in hand would be
a fine gesture for lovers.  Rivals, on the other hand could negatively
correlate their risks, i.e. the risker would arrange that not both would
be killed.  This might also be appropriate for parents and top executives
of businesses.

	A whole new world opens up if people are allowed to buy and sell
trips through the ⊗risker.  At that point a market price for human life
develops.  It is interesting to speculate what this price would be.

	If you could get someone to go through the ⊗risker for you for
α$1,000, then the price of a life is α$100,000.  Certainly, there are
many people who would do it today.  However, it seems unlikely that the
market would clear at that price - there would be more buyers than sellers
of life.  My guess is that the clearing price is more like α$1,000,000.

	I am sorry if I have offended anyone.

	I am also sorry if I have given anyone an undeserved opportunity to
show off his righteous indignation.