[extropy-chat] Fear of Death Much Worse Than You Think

[Robin Hanson]

Fear of Death and Muddled Thinking -- It Is So Much Worse Than You
Think. Death And Anti-Death, Volume 3: Fifty Years After Einstein, One
Hundred Fifty Years After Kierkegaard, ed. Charles Tandy, Ria
University Press, to appear, 2006.  http://hanson.gmu.edu/feardie.pdf

   Humans clearly have trouble thinking about death.  This trouble is
   often invoked to explain behavior like delays in writing wills or
   buying life insurance, or interest in odd medical and religious
   beliefs.  But the problem is far worse than most people imagine.  Fear
   of death makes us spend fifteen percent of our wealth on medicine,
   from which we get little or no health benefit, while we neglect things
   like exercise, which offer large health benefits.




Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323