Since our goal in #life is maximising {well-being, quality of life, happiness, flourishing, utility} both for us and in the universe as a whole (nobody sits at either extreme of that spectrum; ie nobody’s absolutely selfish or absolutely altruistic), I would like everybody to know about QALY’s and use them more often than they use dollars, hours or calories.
We all have internalised (imperfect) convertibility between time and money already: we routinely give away the former for the latter (work), or vice versa (outsourcing, entertainment, services). Less clear is the relationship between those two dimensions and others such as physical health, physical safety, mental health, power, fulfilment, transcendence, etc… and yet we know there is one — because if pressed we know how many € or weeks we’d trade in exchange for more of those (or vice versa).
Perhaps a robust and granular version of QALY is the most comprehensive and least biased unit with which to assess individual an collective decision-making.
Ultimately, everything you do, don’t do, consume, use, avoid or covet should work towards that goal of maximising your #wellbeing or the well-being of others, right? What better unit than “QALY” for that?
“Currency” carries too much psychological and ideological baggage, and it keeps the spotlight in one very specific dimension (ie, money).
“Time” is better, but it ignores the vital distinction between time spent and time well spent (remember: it’s “live long and prosper” not just “live long”).
I know it sounds far-fetched right now, but a much more refined definition of #QALY could be used to estimate the expected value of all products, habits and public policies — and to measure their impact in hindsight.
Imagine QALYs being used in this way in food packaging, election manifestos, gym memberships, employment contracts, streaming services, etc. As in:
“Nutritional information (per 100 g of product): 145 kcal, 16 g of sugar, 3 g of protein, […]. Estimated benefit (500 g/week for a year, healthy adults): 0.0017 QALY.”
“This series has 4 seasons (32 chapters) and a total running time of 48 h. Longitudinal analyses of surveys conducted about similar shows predict a value of 2.8 μQ per season.”
“The study conducted by our think-tank estimates the likely impact of the policies proposed by all parties contesting the current election (in QALY per capita) in the following way: […]”
“Our research suggests that the last tax reform resulted in a net loss of ca. 369 MQ (10⁶ QALY) for the country.”
@tripu I cannot imagine a future in which doing this wouldn’t end up as “fake rigor”. There are too many degrees of freedom in investigating such things and controlling for other variables is never complete.
That being said, while I’m very skeptical about many applications of QALY, there are clearly areas in which they could be used more for specific interventions.
