This is a special post for quick takes by AgentMa🔸. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
You might die. If you did, would your money go to your feelings-over-facts relative who thinks a Humane Society is the same thing as the Humane League? Would this be in accordance with your values?
The SSA’s Life Tables tell us that if you are 25, you have an annualized chance of death of 1.8 in 1,000. I don’t know how much money you have, but let’s be generous and say you have $100k.
0.0018 (annual chance of death) / 12 = 0.00015 monthly
0.00015*$100,000 = $15/month
Would you bother to cancel a subscription that charged you $15 per month? What if you knew you’d have to cancel it eventually and that it would become more expensive every day you lived?
I remember wondering the same a few years ago, and I came to the opposite conclusion. I think the biggest differences in my reasoning were:
I think in practice it takes much more than 30 minutes on average to write a will, even more so if it's a significant amount of wealth (like $100k)
I think the annualized chance of death for someone worth $100k at 25 is significantly lower than the population average
People with no risk factors (e.g. heart disease, cancer) have a significantly lower chance of death, and if someone discovers a risk factor they can think about a will after that discovery
I think this post's argument assumes your $100k is lost by default if you don't have a will, but on a quick GPT-5 query it looks like in the UK it goes to your spouse, parents, siblings or siblings' children, and in California something similar. Assuming you're survived by a spouse or these family members and you're happy with your assets going to them then it seems like it's not the same as cancelling a $15/mo subscription. (But plausibly still worth it, I think it just needs a bit more explanation!)
Yes good point. Was thinking of this as "how many potential QUALYs would be lost if your money went to your not-so-EA relatives". But yes, if you think they would spend the money wisely then this makes sense.
I've wondered about this, so thank you for thinking this up and calculating! Considering how I did about as much work this past week to get a $3 monthly subscription cancelled, this is kind of genius.
Why you, as a 25 y/o should write a Will
You might die. If you did, would your money go to your feelings-over-facts relative who thinks a Humane Society is the same thing as the Humane League? Would this be in accordance with your values?
The SSA’s Life Tables tell us that if you are 25, you have an annualized chance of death of 1.8 in 1,000. I don’t know how much money you have, but let’s be generous and say you have $100k.
0.0018 (annual chance of death) / 12 = 0.00015 monthly
0.00015*$100,000 = $15/month
Would you bother to cancel a subscription that charged you $15 per month? What if you knew you’d have to cancel it eventually and that it would become more expensive every day you lived?
My lawyer says it can be as easy as filling in his template. Could this be worth 30 minutes?
I remember wondering the same a few years ago, and I came to the opposite conclusion. I think the biggest differences in my reasoning were:
Also quickly noting that you're using the annualized chance of death for males in the US, but a significant percentage of EA Forum readers are women, so have less than half the mortality rate between 15 and 37, and/or live in countries with a much lower youth mortality risk (e.g.in the UK it's 0.6 per 1,000 25 y/o males, in Italy 0.4, in the Netherlands 0.4 if I'm interpreting this correctly, I expect Germany and other european countries to be similar, Canada 0.97, Australia 0.6)
I think this post's argument assumes your $100k is lost by default if you don't have a will, but on a quick GPT-5 query it looks like in the UK it goes to your spouse, parents, siblings or siblings' children, and in California something similar. Assuming you're survived by a spouse or these family members and you're happy with your assets going to them then it seems like it's not the same as cancelling a $15/mo subscription. (But plausibly still worth it, I think it just needs a bit more explanation!)
Yes good point. Was thinking of this as "how many potential QUALYs would be lost if your money went to your not-so-EA relatives". But yes, if you think they would spend the money wisely then this makes sense.
I've wondered about this, so thank you for thinking this up and calculating! Considering how I did about as much work this past week to get a $3 monthly subscription cancelled, this is kind of genius.