THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Helmet and seatbelt laws also correct for an externality.  If I am negligent or at fault in a car crash and you are injured, you are more likely to be seriously injured without a helmet or seat belt.  Since I am liable, I (or usually my insurance company, so this is similar to what you are saying) am faced with easily avoidable costs because of your decision.

I disagree that the reason seat belts and motorcycle helmets are mandatory is that, otherwise, the injured will use more social services.

If that were the case, then motorcycles would be banned outright: helmets prevent a lot less than 50% of motorcycle injuries, and motorcycle riders in general use a lot more medical services than drivers of cars.

There are hundreds of ways some people use more social services than others, but relatively few things that are banned.  Skiers break bones.  Skydiving is very dangerous (even life insurers charge for it).  Bicycle riders in general, wearing helmets or not, get injured.  The “you use more social services!” argument doesn’t apply to them.

I think the reason motorcycle helmets are mandatory is that people are busybodies who take inconsistent moral stands, and have decided that not wearing a helmet when riding is a freedom that they don’t particularly value.  It allows voters to signal their caring, wisdom, and moral superiority in a way that costs them nothing.  The apparent low cost of wearing a helmet—to me, the cost is zero, because there’s no way I’d ride a motorcycle without a helmet anyway!—allows them to think that those who value helmetless riding are irrational, and that the law is for their own good.

I think the “we make them do it because of socialized medicine” thing is just rationalization after the fact.  If we banned everything that was as draining on the social system as going helmetless, a whole lot of things would be banned. 

That’s something that wouldn’t be difficult to figure out.  There are injury rates for various activities all over the internet.  I am quite certain that going helmetless is NOT higher than every activity that is unquestioningly legal.

The activity itself can never be banned.  It’s anything peripheral to that.

I certanly would not want to regulate it legaly and I think it is quite apropriate to leave it in the hands of the union, league and federation(s) etc to regulate it in terms of in-game rules.

That said I think those parties as well as the respective madia personalities, companies and even fans needs to realise and take responsibilty on a moral level for the fact that there is probably a fairly large “role-model” effect in what they do and say.

If you glorify (uneccesarily) violent and potentially dangerous play by NFL players on sunday, chances are there are going to be thousands of High School kids trying to emulate that style of play come friday…

I think Phil is partially right:  in some cases, externalities is the stated justification, but in reality society just doesn’t want to allow people to do very stupid things if the cost to liberty is low (as is the case with motorcycle helmets).  Where I disagree with Phil is in thinking this is a bad thing—I favor a reasonable amount of paternalism.  As Larry Summers once said, in the context of arguing that economic markets are not perfectly efficient, “There are idiots.  Look around.”

However, measuring the injury or fatality rate of non-banned activities is not proof of this claim.  Policy seeks to balance safety gains against costs (economic and other).  There may be non-banned activities with higher social costs than riding helmetless, yet the social benefits of those activities may be greater (wouldn’t be hard). 

And we know historically that the understood social costs do change policy.  The discovery of the impact of “second-hand smoke” clearly led to far more regulation of public smoking.  In many cases (auto insurance is another), the social costs clearly are a main motiviation of the policy.

Guy/5: I would phrase it as,

“There are people we think are idiots that we want to control.  Look around.”

I agree that part of the rationalization involves an evaluation that the social costs are low, that forcing people to wear helmets is a small price for them to pay.  But I disagree with that evaluation.  People are different, and if someone values riding helmetless enough to be willing to accept the risks, I don’t think it’s up to me to second-guess them.

There are a lot of people with idiosyncratic (but strong) preferences, and any time you try to tell people that they only *think* they want what they want, you’re taking a step down a slippery slope.

Personally, I think I understand why you might not want to wear a helmet, and why it would mean a lot to you not to.  People scoff when bikers talk about the freedom of the wind in their hair, like, what kind of idiot would risk his life for a false feeling of freedom?  But I say, people who have different preferences and risk tolerances than you do are not necessarily idiots.

NOBODY thinks that anything they do carries excessive risk (or they wouldn’t do it).  Paternalism is always, always for other people.  To people who want to ban helmetless riding, I ask, I’ll make a deal.  You ban riding a motorcycle without a helmet.  But in exchange, I’ll look at the things you do in your life, and I’ll find the one where *I* think you’re taking too much risk (whether you are or not), and ban *that*. 

Personally, I think riding a bicycle in winter is dangerous and nuts.  I think riding a bicycle on busy streets in rush hour (even with a helmet) is dangerous and nuts.  I think driving a snowmobile over frozen lakes is dangerous, because every year there are idiots who go out too early or too late and drown.  I think getting married to someone you’ve only known a month is dangerous to your mental health.  I think that being in a bad marriage is a horrific way to live, and forcing people to divorce if they pass a specific threshold of badness would actually be good for them.

I probably haven’t hit anything that you guys disagree with yet—but don’t worry, I would if I went on.  And you’d hit something in my life (actually, you probably would very easily: I like to ride my bicycle without a helmet).  I am 100% sure that you would NOT make a trade with me, where you get to choose something that I have to do, and I get to choose something that YOU have to do. 

The entire premise of paternalism is that *I* do things perfectly, but *YOU* are not as smart as me and do things that are too risky.  So *I* have to tell *YOU*, the idiot, what to do.  I don’t buy that.  I think I might be just as big an idiot as you (especially when “I” am the government).  I think I may abuse my power and ban something that you find very, very valuable just because I don’t value it.  And I certainly don’t want YOU choosing to ban something that *I* like to do!

There are better ways to solve the helmet issues: we could “nudge” them (as per the book “Nudge").  We could force them to get a “helmet-free” license by passing a test to make sure they understand the risks.  Those who are truly “idiots” would realize from studying that the risks are high and would wear a helmet.  Only those who highly value going helmetless, the non-idiots, would qualify.

We could ask helmetless riders to pay for the expected social service costs (like we claim we do for alcohol, with alcohol tax).  Actually figuring out those costs might show that the expected cost is actually low, in which case the paternalists might change their minds (which would be a good thing, if society is overestimating the risk). 

We could make it illegal to ride without a helmet unless you’ve proven that you’ve told your insurance company that you do that.

We could do any of those things, which address the alleged issues while letting intelligent helmetless riders do something they like.  But we don’t.  And the reason we don’t, is that we’d rather call people idiots than let them prove they’re not.  And once it turned out that going without a helmet really costs only X dollars a year, but (for instance) having sex without a condom costs 2X dollars a year and skiing a double-diamond without a helmet costs X+10 dollars a year ... well, then we’d be exposed as hypocrites for keeping those things legal.

Phil, as long as they don’t use social services, then I don’t care what they do.

Basically, the community is bearing part of their risk of paying for their injury.  It’s our tax dollars that’s going to send the police to the scene of the accident, our tax dollars that sends the ambulance, and our tax dollars from the hospital services.

So, it’s not a question of paternalism.  I have the same problem with John John flying his airplane over the ocean, and millions of dollars spent trying to find him.  It’s only because he was John John that the manhunt existed.  Otherwise, a cessna goes down, and limited resources is spent looking for the plane.  Same deal with mountain climbers.  If they get in trouble, they know that there’s going to be limited effort trying to find them.  Drive in icy conditions on a major road, then yes, the police will respond quickly… that’s because you are a danger to others.  Drive in icy conditions in some far away town, and expect very limited response.

It’s purely a question of who is going to bear the risk.  The person involved is assuming most of the risk, the the tax-paying resident is going to “insure” the rest… to a point.

The more the taxpayer is insuring, the more he can demand what the insured has to do.  This is no different from the insurance company.

So, when it comes to headshots, the ONLY thing the doctor can do is describe the risks.  Education is the extent of his involvement.

The actual limits of rules of hockey is entirely driven by the insured and the insurer.

Insurance companies, for example, require players to wear a helmet.  It’s not that the player necessarily chooses to wear a helmet.  Given the option, some would still be helmetless, like the grandfathered Lafleur and others.

Whoever bears the risks sets the rules.

Another example is public arenas and private arenas.  In a public arena, there is netting in addition to the glass around the ice.  That’s to protect the public, who is not entering the arena on a non-ticket assuming a risk they might get hit by a puck from their kids’ team.  So, the insurer (the arena, its insurance company, the town, which is the towns’ taxpayers) will force the netting around the ice. Plus, of course, an underage person can only assume a limited amount of risk.

But, pay for a ticket, go to a private NHL game, and the risk transfers to the ticket buyer.  The team will not put up the netting unless enough people die.  Even one death is not enough.  The paying public will live with a fair amount of deaths in order to watch a game with no netting.

The same applies to motorsports, where flying wheels entering the seating area, and killing dozens of people will still have the event continue, while the living people one section away from the dead ones will continue to cheer (yes, it actually happened… in this country).

Paternalism would demand decency and respect for human life.  But, that’s not how the world operates, nor should it.

The equation is entirely insurance-based driven.

I really like this discussion.  There are some fairly complicated ethical issues here.

On risks for things like motorcycle driving, we are all mortal, so the one thing certain in life is that we will drive.  The only thing you control by deciding how much risk of injury or death to assume is maybe the timing of your death and the quality of life.  If you move to a well supplied and well ventiliated bunker, you can live a really long time, but your quality of life will be affected by never leaving the bunker.  Or you can leave the bunker, get on a motorcycle, get into an accident, and be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life, and your quality of life will be affected that way.  But you get a motorcycle ride.  Also, we are not talking about living forever, but potentially shaving off years here and years there from your expected life.

If you read much history, its obvious that people living in past centuries assumed much more risk than late twentieth century Americans did, since they just didn’t expect to automatically live three quarters of a century if they played it safe.  People were also more willing to get and stay married -marriages for life were often shorter than modern US style marriages until divorce.

I don’t ride a motorcyle, because it doesn’t sound particularly appealing.  I don’t think someone who rides a motorcycle without a helmet, unless they really believe that is a safe activity, is stupid or evil.  Its just a trade off of ten more years of life doing what you want versus thirty more less exciting years.  Or maybe ten more years doing what you want and another fifteen physically restricted due to an accident.  For some people and some activities this can be worth it.  When life expectancy for the riskless life goes up, the value of all risky activities diminish.

So generally I agree with the posts.  What we want is to reduce the extent that people are forced to assume risks (you have to work in the salt mines if you want to pay the rent, and you have to live next to the processing plant), and educate people as much as possible as to the risks they assume voluntarily.  Ideally society should care for the consequences of forced risks, and the individuals for vountarily assumed risk, but this is very difficult to put into practice.

"The entire premise of paternalism is that *I* do things perfectly, but *YOU* ....do things that are too risky.”

No, the premise is that WE, not I, know what is best.  It’s a collective decision in a democratic society.  If the majority overreaches, the minority can and does push back.  If there really is no social cost, the majority often relents (and even sometimes when there is social cost—see U.S. gun laws).  The minority and it’s supporters can also try to persuade the majority their proposed regulation deprives people of a more important freedom than the majority realized, or that there are less coercive solutions available—just as Phil is doing here on his blog.  In the end, the majority will only rarely impose its view if the social costs are truly zero.  I’d say the system works pretty well most of the time. 

“Paternalism is always, always for other people.”

That’s simply not true.  The majority establishes all kinds of restrictions on itself.  Take food safety rules, or approval of Rx medicines.  We could let people sell anything they wanted, as long as all risks were disclosed.  We don’t do that.  We’ve decided it’s better/easier to just let experts decide when the benefits exceed the risks, and then we can just buy things and not have to spend our time assessing the risks.  Assessing risk is hard, and there is lots of evidence that humans often aren’t good at it.  So we often outsource the job to experts.  That’s a totally rational decision.  And if some people don’t like that, then do the work to try to convince people you should be allowed to buy dangerous foods and medicines.

We also have decided to force people to save for retirement—it’s called Social Security.  We know that many of us won’t save enough for retirement, even if we know we should, so it’s not a personal choice.  Again, the majority lives under its own paternalistic rule—its not only imposed on a minority.

"No, the premise is that WE, not I, know what is best.”

Someone I know has a T-shirt that says, “You’re not smart enough to tell me how to live.” Guy, you’re disagreeing with that.  You think that “WE” are smart enough to tell me how to live. 

Of course, “WE” weren’t smart enough to tell Jews how to live in the 30s.  We weren’t smart enough to tell blacks how to live in the 50s.  We weren’t smart enough to tell gays how to live until at least the 70s (and we still tell them they can’t get married).  We weren’t smart enough to let some couples live the way they wanted to—without benefit of marriage—until approximately the 80s.  We weren’t smart enough until at least the 50s to know that “what’s best” for interracial couples was to let them get married and live in peace.

And you’re trying to persuade me that “WE” know what’s best?  Any society that thinks “what’s best” for every gay person in the country is to not get married ... well, any society like that is absolutely incapable of being able to figure out whether “what’s best” for John Smith is being able to ride without a helmet, or “what’s best” for John Smith is to be forced to wear a helmet against his will.

For John Smith of Dubuque, IA, it might be the case that forcing him to wear a helmet is what’s best for him.  But “WE” are completely incapable, for political, organizational, and physical reasons (i.e, mind reading is not yet possible), to make that decision. 

That’s why we have a bill (charter) of rights.  It acknowledges that “WE” will often overreach and try to control people’s lives in ways we shouldn’t. 

It’s interesting, is it not, that adult Jehovah’s Witnesses are legally allowed to refuse a blood transfusion for religious reasons, even if it means they will die?  But other adults are not legally allowed to refuse a motorcycle helmet, even if they have an IQ above 175 and fully understand that the statistical risk is fairly low.

“WE” are willing to protect the rights of people to certainly die because of their faith, but not protect the rights of people who wish to take a small increased risk of death because of their capability to reason.

This is not a “WE” I am willing to trust with decisions about how I should live my life.  “WE” do not even come *close* to knowing what is best, at the disputed margins.

"And you’re trying to persuade me that “WE” know what’s best?”

No, I wouldn’t try to do that.  I’m just telling you that we WILL tell you how to live, whether you think we’re smart enough to do that or not (except as limited by the Bill of Rights).  You say “This is not a ‘WE’ I am willing to trust with decisions about how I should live my life,” but for better or worse, that’s not your call.

So rather than appeal to some liberties that I think you are arguing people have, but in fact don’t, better to spend your energy educating/persuading the majority to change the regulations you think are most onerous and least justified.

"The majority establishes all kinds of restrictions on itself.”

Yes, the majority has established a restriction on itself that prevents it from marrying someone of its own sex.

Of course, the majority that established that restriction is comprised of individuals that would never want to do that anyway!  That’s not people restricting themselves.  That’s people restricting other people, as I said. 

Guy, your examples, such as FDA approval, are meant to force OTHER PEOPLE (drug companies) to do something that benefits us.  That’s a completely different case from forcing people to wear helmets, which is meant to force other people to do something that (presumably) benefits THEMSELVES.

I ask you: name one thing that you, personally, do, that’s an important part of your life, that you think you should be banned from doing for your own good.

I doubt there would be ANYONE who would be able to think of anything, except maybe people with no self-control (because they’re addicted to gambling or tobacco, for instance) who need threats.

I bet you could survey every helmetless rider in the USA and you’d find only a handful who thought what they do should be banned.

What do you do that should be banned?  My answer is “nothing”.  Your answer is “nothing.” The helmetless riders answer is also “nothing.” Are you sure that you’re smart and the motorcycle rider is dumb?  Or does your argument depend on the majority agreeing with you?  Are you equally willing to accept that the majority is right when you DISAGREE with it?

Here’s a challenge to anyone reading this who thinks it’s a good idea to ban riding without a helmet: are you prepared to have the government evaluate the risks of everything you currently do in a year, and immediately ban everything you do that has a higher risk than riding helmetless? 

Or even a weaker form: are you prepared to have the government evaluate the risks of everything you currently do in a year, and immediately ban everything you do that has a higher risk than riding helmetless, *even subject to the condition that you enjoy those things less than helmetless riders enjoy being bareheaded?*

(You may assume the government is omniscient and knows exact statistical risks and your exact brain chemistry.)

">I’m just telling you that we WILL tell you how to live, whether you think we’re smart enough to do that or not (except as limited by the Bill of Rights).  You say “This is not a ‘WE’ I am willing to trust with decisions about how I should live my life,” but for better or worse, that’s not your call.”

Fair enough.  That’s what the segregationists said to the blacks.  That’s what the religions said to the gays.  And that’s what the safety advocates say to the motorcycle riders.

I realize that’s the way the world is.  What I’m saying is, that way of thinking leads to moral outrages: some large, like segregation, and some smaller, like motorcycle helmets.

You need to give me some principle for why it’s wrong to say “tough s**t, that’s just the way the majority wants it” to blacks in 1950s Alabama, but that it’s OK to say “tough s**t, that’s just the way the majority wants it,” to motorcycle riders in 2010 Ontario.