How much would you sell a year of your life for?

[KillerGremlin]

Here's the deal....and what a devilish deal this is.

Let's say you could sell a year of your life for X amount of money. You can sell as many years of your life as you'd like...obviously up to a limit.

Let's negate serious discussion about afterlife and prolonging your life or living forever.

[Swan]

I think you are leaving out a serious option up there KG. Not money but anything you want.


To sell myself for a year I would want something other then money.

[Combine 017]

But you could get that something with money.

[uber_paddler]

In the grand scheme of things, I'd be fine with dying a year early for as little as a hundred grand. I'm sure that's just because it feels like a long time from now, so I don't care. Though, for the record, I'd obviously try to get as much as I could. But 100,000 would be the absolute lowest.

[KillerGremlin]

Originally Posted by Swan

I think you are leaving out a serious option up there KG. Not money but anything you want.


To sell myself for a year I would want something other then money.

What is it that you want that money cannot grant you?

I wish I could edit my own poll, so maybe an admin could help out.

[Typhoid]

KG, what do you want to edit?


Also, I don't know how much I'd sell a year for. It depends on what that year is.
Is the year removed from the end of my lifespan? If so, how long am I living for before I sell that year?
Is the year used as slavery, or some type of medical experiment?
Am I concious during this year, or completely comatose?

[Angrist]

Depends on what I have to do in that year. Or would I just lose a year of my life (will I die a year earlier)?

[uber_paddler]

Yeah, I just interpreted it as "you'll have one year cut off the end of your life".

[KillerGremlin]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

KG, what do you want to edit?

You could add an option for Swan, "I'd sell a year of my life for something other than money."

Although I find that category somewhat ambiguous myself.

Originally Posted by Typhoid

Is the year removed from the end of my lifespan?

Yes. So take:
[Length of your life] - [Year]

L - Y

Except it is more like

[Length of life] - [Amount of years] + [New found wealth]

L - Y*# + $$$ where # is the amount of years you want to ax off for added wealth.

Originally Posted by Typhoid

If so, how long am I living for before I sell that year?

As long as you would have lived regardless. That part is open to interpretation I suppose. So if you eat a pound of bacon everyday and recon you're gonna go at 45 cause of heart failure, you'll only live till 44.

[TheSlyMoogle]

10 million seems good. Substantial amount of cash, and probably the lessened amount of stress I would have from financial troubles in my life will actually lengthen my life in the long run.

So 1 year for 10 million, yeah worth it.

[The Germanator]

$100,000 is probably the lowest I'd sell a year for, but $10 million would be better. The way I look it is that it would make my 20s a little bit better, and I think I'd rather have some spare dough now then when I'm in my 70s. Basically, if I'm going to live to 75, I don't think 74 is such a big deal either. Plus, with more money you could buy healthier/organic/more expensive food and afford the gym membership/personal trainer which theoretically could extend a year or two anyway to balance it out...

[Typhoid]

I'm not putting that in the poll because it's ridiculously ambiguous, you're right.



Hm, I'd probably sell a year of my life for at least double of whatever my yearly income is at the time that I make the decision. I mean, I'd find it ridiculous to sell a year for anything less than your yearly income in the first place - but since it's a year you won't be getting it would at least have to be double what I would normally get.

[Dyne]

Let's see.. 8 hours a day for at least 50,000. For the rest over it, it would easily be $150k at the VERY most. Not accounting for overtime.

Overtime hours would go time and a half, then double, then quadruple.

You're looking at at least a million.

[Szymon]

This question really got me thinking. What does it mean to lose an entire year of life? 8760 hours (with the exception of leap years). If it's your last year of life, it may not be a very big deal if you come down with a wicked case Alzheimer's or some sort of crippling, painful disease like bone-itis. On the other hand, the last years of your life are considered to be the most precious, if not the most enjoyable (diapers, arthritis and wheelchairs). So if the question is the minimum I would ask in exchange for a year, the answer takes a bit of thought.

How much time are we really losing? Assuming we sleep an average of 7 hours a night (even less when you're really old), in a year we only spend 6205 hours awake. Out of those hours, we spend about 2000 working, but if these are your final years then you probably wont be working. 6205 hours of spare time are flushed away. 6205 of hours you could spend living out your final days. From a purely financial perspective, how much money would it take to make it worth it? Well $100,000 over the course of 6205 hours is less than I earn right now. However, considering that these are my final years of life, would add or subtract from their value?

Some would claim that watching your grand children grow another year older is priceless. The fact that most of us are still really young would mean that we have really only one side of the coin to look at and we would probably not even give a second thought to robbing our future selves of that year of time (except for one of you, as of this post). I want to ask an older person what they would do. If they answered that selling that one year of life would be a big mistake, would that be out of genuine love of life, fear of death, or the drive for immediate benefit that most people are currently experiencing in the vote tally? Honestly, asking us this question is probably the best thing this devil could do, as our youthful avarice would lead us to make possibly one of the worst decisions of our lives.

That being said, I answered $100,000 before I really really really thought about this question. Thank you for killing an hour of time today at work.

[Angrist]

"With the money I could actually lengthen my life" --> That's not fair imo. A year shorter is a year shorter.

So at least €100.000, although I probably wouldn't go through with it in the end...

And ehm, living a healthy life doesn't need to be expensive.