The workers’ compensation board in New York State has established a schedule of payments for the loss of a body part or the use thereof. It is based on the workers’ average salary and the payment is for a certain number of weeks wages.
Thumb
75
First Finger
46
Second Finger
30
Third Finger
25
Fourth Finger
15
The entire hand is worth a whopping 244 weeks pay.
I worked as a machinist in the days before OSHA, and injuries were pretty common. One guy lost a finger in a horizontal milling machine accident, and years later lost a whole hand in a hydraulic press accident. He was distressed to find out that they deducted the award he’d already received for the finger from the award for the hand, because; as they said; they’d already paid for that finger.
Agreed, the middle answers don’t make sense and I don’t think it’s a well-constructed hypothetical for that reason. Making it flatter would be more interesting. Maybe not perfectly flat - say, 2 million a finger - but something like 1=500k, 2=1.5m, 3=3m, 4=6m 5=10m, 6=15m, 7=21m would be more interesting. Each subsequent decision would significantly increase the value, but not so much that it trivializes the middle choices. In the original, the difference between 4 and 5 fingers is not that significant, but the difference between 10m and 100m is huge. In my revised proposal, the difference between 6m and 3m is significant, but not doubling the amount does not trivialize the previous amount. You’d want to stop at some point, and deciding where is tricky. That’s the fun in a hypothetical.
Except it evidently is a well constructed hypothetical since a bunch of people are picking 4. I just would like to better understand the logic of anyone who would pick 4, y’all are aliens to me.