We spend 3.5% of our time driving, but driving is only 1.4% of deaths

Robin Hanson is one of our more provocative and interesting public intellectuals. As Bryan Caplan has put it:

When the typical economist tells me about his latest research, my standard reaction is 'Eh, maybe.' Then I forget about it. When Robin Hanson tells me about his latest research, my standard reaction is 'No way! Impossible!' Then I think about it for years.

Some of his ideas can indeed seem almost kooky. But the range of his intellectual interests and achievements serve as a check on simply dismissing him.

Robin Dale Hanson (born August 28, 1959) is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He is known as an expert on idea futures and markets, and he was involved in the creation of the Foresight Institute's Foresight Exchange and DARPA’s FutureMAP project. He invented market scoring rules like LMSR (Logarithmic Market Scoring Rule) used by prediction markets such as Consensus Point (where Hanson is Chief Scientist), and has conducted research on signalling.

[snip]

Hanson received a B.S. in physics from the University of California, Irvine in 1981, an M.S. in physics and an M.A. in Conceptual Foundations of Science from the University of Chicago in 1984, and a Ph.D. in social science from Caltech in 1997 for his thesis titled Four puzzles in information and politics: Product bans, informed voters, social insurance, and persistent disagreement. Before getting his Ph.D he researched artificial intelligence, Bayesian statistics and hypertext publishing at Lockheed, NASA, and elsewhere. In addition, he started the first internal corporate prediction market at Xanadu in 1990.

Some of the most interesting people simply look at things differently and then try to find insights from that changed perspective. It is not a matter of true statements. It is a matter of paradoxes and perspectives which cause you to think more deeply and perhaps more clearly. You can see this from a recent tweet by Hanson.

In US, driving takes 51min/day, & causes 40K of 2.8M deaths. That's 3.5% of time, but only 1.4% of deaths. So relative to its place in our lives, driving is not that dangerous. Yet we see danger as justifying big freedom limits we not accept elsewhere: license, insure, visible ID

— Robin Hanson (@robinhanson) August 13, 2019

Click for the thread and discussion.

As can be seen, there is a lot of pushback along the lines of whether he has properly matched populations for comparison, what exactly is being measured, etc. Commenters who immediately dive into the weeds.

But there is a one-two to Hanson's frame.

The "3.5% of time, but only 1.4% of deaths" may or may not be a well-framed comparison, but it is an interesting and suggestive one. It is so plausible that it creates a conundrum which needs to be figured out. Teasing out the apparent paradox is of some value in itself.

But the more interesting aspect is in the second punch - a challenge to relook at the value of the regulations in regard to the actual reality of the risk. Freedom should always be the default position and yet we routinely and almost unconsciously give up small slivers of freedom in order to reduce (or so we think) danger. What frequently gets lost is that all the small slivers usually end up being large chunks and we don't recognize what has been given up nor what has been lost and gained.

Hanson's tweet is an effective prod to relook at those questions.

In some ways, his tweet is the mirror of the precautionary principle which enjoins us against action without ascertaining first all the possible outcomes. It basically posits that we should not be free to act unless we can prove net benefit.

Hanson is, in my reading, instead poking us and suggesting that perhaps we should be more free.

The precautionary principle constrains us with "Why" and Hanson asks "Why not".