Pretty self-explanatory poll: If you could shorten your life in return for $1 million for every year you cut off, how many years would you cut off?
It’s a lump-sum payment. You shorten your life by five years, you get a one-time payment of $5 million.
**Note: This is before taxes. **Your pre-tax $5 million may become $2-3 million by the time all income taxes are paid.
Do I get the $5-million today, and then five years from today, I will be hunted down and executed? Or can I make it open ended, and for each year before 2024 I die, the corresponding number of millions will be awarded to my heirs – for example, $5 million in 2019?
I’m assuming by magical means the type of ones death is divined and then simply brought forward a year? In any case I’d refuse the deal; quite literally a poisoned chalice and a million or two isn’t worth it, I’d want some serious ‘fuck you money’ if my life is on the line. Maybe if it were billions instead of millions we could talk…
You get the $5-million today. You don’t die five years *from now, *you die 5 years *earlier *than you would have - say you would have originally lived until 94. You now would die at 89.
Do I know my death date ahead of time? What if I take the 5 million and it turns out I only have 4 years left?
Mr sin and I are watching our elders die now or linger on in dementia in their late 80’s and 90’s. We both have decided the last 10 years these elders live is totally not worth it. So yeah offer me money and so I don’t have to live those last yucky years.
Nobody said its the yuckiest years you lose. Maybe the whole schedule slides.
Yeah…this is precisely my thought…
If I could have 10 million, to die at a (relatively) healthy and active 65 instead of a lame, demented 75 I’d be quite happy.
10 million (USD) would be more than enough to provide a very happy life for me…
Especially if I were to (for the sake of the argument) retire at 55, then $1 million a year until 65 then die…
That’s part of the built-in unknown risk.
You could live decades more. You might drop dead tomorrow.
Suffering from depression, there have been times I’ve contemplated shortening my life by an unknowable amount…for nothing at all. A million smackers, for one year less… Sure!
I watched my dad fade away to Parkinson’s. His last year of life was pretty close to death anyway. I’d pay a fair amount of money to avoid that kind of last year of life.
But…just one year, no more. I can live the rest of my life in some comfort on a million.
On one hand, the last years of one’s life are likely to be the least worth living. Possibly even best avoided.
On the other hand, money has diminishing returns. 1 million would be a very substantial change in my life, and I would have uses for it. The second million, well…not so much…I couldn’t tell at the monent what I could do with it. But presumably, I could figure something. Or quit working. Above 2 millions? I begin to have troubles thinking I could put the money to use. I guess that for instance I could live in a very, very large apartment, decorated with very, very, nice stuff? But then, the extra happiness it would bring over an only very large apartment decorated with only very nice stuff would be really minimal. I suspect a large part of the extra millions would end up being donated. Being rich never has been one of my great ambitions.
So, I think 1 million would be enough for me. Trading for it one year possibly as an Alzheimer patient in a crappy nursing home sounds like a good deal.
Again, it’s before taxes. The million after taxes might be $600,000 or something like that.
Well, the poll didn’t say you’d lose the LAST year(s) of your life. What if you just skipped forward X number of years and still had the ugly dementia part anyway?
I’m in for five.
Not nearly enough money. Add 3 zeroes and maybe we’ll talk.
Maybe.
Well, rich people live longer healthier lives in general. Are we measuring lifespan from before or after the deal? I could quite easily turn 1 million into one extra year of life… possibly even turn 3 million into three years.
What if there is a breakthrough in life extension? It’d suck to throw a way eternal youth for a couple of mil.
Gonna die sometime, don’t know when it’s going to be. Ten years earlier than whenever is still whenever. I’ll take the maximum and use it, in turn, judiciously, wisely, and selfishly.
2 years for me.
My thinking is that it would take about 500k to pay off my debts and put my investments and retirements “on track” for where I am in my life. Another 100k could complete my home improvement wishlist (perhaps by buying a new house). Since we’re talking about taxable income, that means the first million pretty much goes away instantly. I gain a lot of security out of it, and it frees up most of my monthly income, but it’s not an instant lifestyle change if I’ve only got a couple hundred thousand extra.
So, the second million would be where I start getting money that I can blow on luxury items and nice vacations. It’s not enough for yachts or mansions, but I’m pretty happy without those things. (And, frankly, if I wanted those things, even 10 million isn’t so much.)
How do you know you’ve *got *a year?
(hours worked and commuted per year)(years left until retirement) -
(number of millions needed to maintain lifestyle on interest alone, adjusted for age and early death)(number of hours in a year)*discounted value of future years
If the value is positive, the person should take the money, because they’ll wind up saving more time than they’ll lose. They’ll also have a sizable inheritance for their heirs. It also doesn’t account for the fact that you’re giving up some nighttime hours for prime daytime hours if you take the money. I suspect most people would wind up saving time by taking the money, unless they were old or extremely wealthy. In my case, I’d save more than a decade of time. The downside is that work provides meaning and people who work are happier than those that don’t, an effect I can’t account for.