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[umiman]

Once again proving my ability to procrastinate:

Laser eye corrective surgery, LASIK, has a really high success rate. It's probably one of the highest success rates for corrective surgery in the entire medical literature. However, there's this huge stigma behind it that you could go blind or people end up with worse eyesight and so on and so forth. The official statement is that chance is 2-5%.

So, I ask you this. Assuming the following conditions:
1. You're unbelievably rich to the point where your child can buy a Ferrari with the money obtained from rooting through your couch.
2. The operation is not critical to your health, but will improve your standard of living greatly if it succeeds and make you regret your birth if it fails. If you could put it in numbers, you'd be 30% happier with your life with a successful operation and probably 100% unhappier with your life with a failed operation.

If someone told you your boob job / nose job / LASIK / skin graft / etc. had an X percentage chance of failure, what would that X be for you to live with your minor improvishment?

Personally, if I could afford it, I'd do the LASIK surgery. It's not a cosmetic thing for me like a boob job or whatever as there's a lot of things I cannot do with glasses. I have very very strong flinch reflexes which make wearing contacts nearly impossible (I can't even put eyedrops in my eyes properly). I can't go deep sea diving, can't do most sports that need protective eyewear, etc. When you can barely make out the faces of people standing 1 meter from you without glasses, it gets really irritating.

And 98% chance of success is very good for me. I'm sure you all know this, but I don't think the concept of "risk averse" applies to people like me. Heck, I'd do it if there was a 40% chance of success, as that's my cutoff point.

[Armok]

What is the purpose of this topic?

[Cthulhu]

What is the purpose of this topic?

Oh you.

But yeah, maybe you should get a blog or something.

[userpay]

What is the purpose of this topic?

Discussion on failure rates and how they affect what surgery's you'd allow?

[umiman]

If someone told you your boob job / nose job / LASIK / skin graft / etc. had an X percentage chance of failure, what would that X be for you to live with your minor improvishment?

[Cthulhu]

Is improvishment some kind of version of improvement, as in what you might gain, or impoverishment, as in how low the chances would be to get you to risk some kind of permanent disability?

Anyway, glasses are sexy.  I wouldn't get surgery.

[umiman]

It's more of a "how you define it" kinda thing. I mean, in the end, all that matters is how you yourself consider the thing you're trying to fix an issue. Since if you're considering some sort of corrective surgery, it means there's something you'd like to repair right?

Then that's the minor improvishment. You've lived with it all your life until now.

Hmm... think of it as this really fugly mole on your face with hairs growing out of it that you want removed. I mean, it doesn't do anything to you per se, but you just want it removed. so for that operation you've got 98% of mole-free-ness and 2% chance of massive blood loss followed by death.

[Cthulhu]

I don't think there's any chance of massive bloodloss with getting a mole removed.  Maybe a 2% chance of necrotizing fasciitis or something equally horrible, though.

[umiman]

Yes, so would you do it? If you won't, at what confidence level would it take for you to do it?

[Cthulhu]

I'd do it if it were a huge and obvious mole, otherwise no.  I don't need surgery.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

The problem is that a 2-5% chance of catastrophic failure is still too high; if it were a 10% chance of a minor failure instead I'd happily do it. By minor failure I mean that my vision gets worse but it can still mostly be corrected by wearing lenses.

It's the severity of the failure and not the chance of failure that's more important to me.

Let's use a game example. You have a magic sword. It's very valuable. You will never find another one no matter how long you play the game. And if you play another game you will never find anything this valuable. It is a once in a lifetime thing.

To upgrade it you have to use a magic scroll which is also very expensive, but not as much as the sword. 1% of people can afford a magic scroll. And you can buy one.

One type of magic scroll has a 2-5% chance of failure but if it fails your magic sword disintegrates.

The other type has a 10-30% failure rate but if it fails, you just wasted the scroll. 

Which do you prefer?

[ChairmanPoo]

Bear in mind that these percentages are rarely straight. Meaning that surgery is not a toss of dice, there are reasons for those complications, and in many cases they can be predicted.

[umiman]

The problem is that a 2-5% chance of catastrophic failure is still too high; if it were a 10% chance of a minor failure instead I'd happily do it. By minor failure I mean that my vision gets worse but it can still mostly be corrected by wearing lenses.

It's the severity of the failure and not the chance of failure that's more important to me.

Let's use a game example. You have a magic sword. It's very valuable. You will never find another one no matter how long you play the game. And if you play another game you will never find anything this valuable. It is a once in a lifetime thing.

To upgrade it you have to use a magic scroll which is also very expensive, but not as much as the sword. 1% of people can afford a magic scroll. And you can buy one.

One type of magic scroll has a 2-5% chance of failure but if it fails your magic sword disintegrates.

The other type has a 10-30% failure rate but if it fails, you just wasted the scroll. 

Which do you prefer?

That's hardly a similar example. That would be like me being born with a super eye that can shoot lasers and explode sheep from a distance and getting surgery to make it even more awesome but if it fails, I can just get a normal eye.

A game example would be:
You have a subpar sword compared to everyone else in the game because the admins hate you. You're never going to get a better sword and in fact, the sword is going to get worse as time passes. Some other player offers to hack the game and gift you a normal sword for in game money. If he fails, both him and you get banned from the game but if he succeeds, at least you have a level playing field.

[G-Flex]

Bear in mind that these percentages are rarely straight. Meaning that surgery is not a toss of dice, there are reasons for those complications, and in many cases they can be predicted.

On the other hand, sometimes a success can wind up actually being a failure a few decades down the road. Complications don't always turn up right away.


The thing about LASIK is that, if you only get it done to one eye, the worst case is that you wind up with one eye. This would suck, but it's not like you'd go blind.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

The problem is that a 2-5% chance of catastrophic failure is still too high; if it were a 10% chance of a minor failure instead I'd happily do it. By minor failure I mean that my vision gets worse but it can still mostly be corrected by wearing lenses.

It's the severity of the failure and not the chance of failure that's more important to me.

Let's use a game example. You have a magic sword. It's very valuable. You will never find another one no matter how long you play the game. And if you play another game you will never find anything this valuable. It is a once in a lifetime thing.

To upgrade it you have to use a magic scroll which is also very expensive, but not as much as the sword. 1% of people can afford a magic scroll. And you can buy one.

One type of magic scroll has a 2-5% chance of failure but if it fails your magic sword disintegrates.

The other type has a 10-30% failure rate but if it fails, you just wasted the scroll. 

Which do you prefer?

That's hardly a similar example. That would be like me being born with a super eye that can shoot lasers and explode sheep from a distance and getting surgery to make it even more awesome but if it fails, I can just get a normal eye.

A game example would be:
You have a subpar sword compared to everyone else in the game because the admins hate you. You're never going to get a better sword and in fact, the sword is going to get worse as time passes. Some other player offers to hack the game and gift you a normal sword for in game money. If he fails, both him and you get banned from the game but if he succeeds, at least you have a level playing field.

Nope.

Your eyesight is incredibly important to you. It doesn't matter how important it is to everyone else. Heck, I couldn't possibly care less about your eyesight. But mine is of paramount importance.

Without your eyesight you are pretty much done. People can complain about not being able to play lacrosse without safety glasses, but being blind means life pretty much 100% sucks. Again, my perspective on the importance of vision.

So using your subpar sword example,

You are playing a game. It is the only game you will ever get to play. No chess, no cards, no Minesweeper. This is absolutely the only game. If this hacker screws up you can still play the game if you like, but your monitor will never display anything again. Go ahead and try having fun with it when your sole interaction with the game is the dying sound and voice chat.