What value life? (1 Viewer)

[loquasagacious]

How do you/how should society value human life?

One the one hand does human life possess some kind of intrinsic value which is more important than anything else? If so how should we make decisions between differing
uses of money?

Or on the other hand is human life something we can attach a specific dollar value to? If so what value should we use?

 

[A High Way Man]

Value is proportional to the effort that an individual makes in improving their life and surroundings

 

[Iron]

I was struck by your comment in another thread Locky that human life must have a specific value.

I dont understand your connection between treating life as precious/invaluable and consequent difficulty in assigning values to personal property

 

[Silver Persian]

I dont understand your connection between treating life as precious/invaluable and consequent difficulty in assigning values to personal property

I think he's more talking about whether we can/should assign monetary value to a human being, or whether there is some kind of inherent irreconcilability or injustice to this notion.

Or maybe he isn't.

 

[Lentern]

How do you/how should society value human life?

One the one hand does human life possess some kind of intrinsic value which is more important than anything else? If so how should we make decisions between differing
uses of money?

Or on the other hand is human life something we can attach a specific dollar value to? If so what value should we use?

Yeah I think most people would say human life is invalulabe. However it would be curious to see how many people if asked when they were say, 20, would shave 5 years off their life for say 5 million.

 

[Silver Persian]

Although, the entire concept of employment is based on the sale of our time. Which is not the same thing as the sale of the self, I suppose.

 

[loquasagacious]

I was struck by your comment in another thread Locky that human life must have a specific value.

I dont understand your connection between treating life as precious/invaluable and consequent difficulty in assigning values to personal property

It was the other thread which kicked me off thinking about this.

Basically if human life is truly regarded as invaluable then we must logically expend all of our resources in protecting it. To borrow a scenario from the other thread perhaps if we paid for a bushfire fighting force which was 4 times as large as the volunteer one then lives would have been saved. But at what cost? Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. Money which could perhaps be better spent on other things which did not save lives.

If stationing a police officer on every street could reduce the number of murders would it be a good thing? Or would the massive amount of money been better spent on education?

Within the invaluable human life framework you can certainly compare decisions based on their human cost but without translating humans into dollars there is no common measurement to consider non-human and human costs.

We place a value on human life all the time, insurance and employment are but two examples, however generally speaking we persist in espousing a misguided belief that human life is invaluable, while I understand the sentimentality involved I think that this hypocritical and counter-productive.

IMO the value of life can be calculated the same way as any investment by using Net Present Value, meaning the present value of all future income.

 

[loquasagacious]

Yeah I think most people would say human life is invalulabe. However it would be curious to see how many people if asked when they were say, 20, would shave 5 years off their life for say 5 million.

Would you? Because if you would you just valued your life at $375million, which is imo absurdly high and much higher than the real value of human life. If I was offered that much I would recognise the massive profit between the offer and the true value and take it.

Without actually doing the maths using NPV the value of human life would be more like $5million.

 

[loquasagacious]

It was the other thread which kicked me off thinking about this.

Basically if human life is truly regarded as invaluable then we must logically expend all of our resources in protecting it. To borrow a scenario from the other thread perhaps if we paid for a bushfire fighting force which was 4 times as large as the volunteer one then lives would have been saved. But at what cost? Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. Money which could perhaps be better spent on other things which did not save lives.

If stationing a police officer on every street could reduce the number of murders would it be a good thing? Or would the massive amount of money been better spent on education?

Within the invaluable human life framework you can certainly compare decisions based on their human cost but without translating humans into dollars there is no common measurement to consider non-human and human costs.

We place a value on human life all the time, insurance and employment are but two examples, however generally speaking we persist in espousing a misguided belief that human life is invaluable, while I understand the sentimentality involved I think that this hypocritical and counter-productive.

IMO the value of life can be calculated the same way as any investment by using Net Present Value, meaning the present value of all future income.

Oh and while libertarians avoid much of this problem by rejecting the existence of the state (and therefore it's decisions regarding life saving services) they still need to address this question because contract law requires a value for life that a wronged party may be fairly compensated.

 

[Silver Persian]

Um. So what are the implications of this way of valuing human life? If someone's life will only be saved by spending more than 5 million, they should be allowed to die?

 

[Iron]

lol so locky you view the human life as valuable only in material terms, or more specifically as valuable as the wage it receives for work...

This is because you have no belief in God and have never loved another human being. \

What a cold and mechanical world you athiestic bastards must see

 

[jb_nc]

Sentence fragment in title. B-

 

[lolokay]

(my) answer to everything = utilitarianism

the value is not on the life, but on the experiences had. we should allocate resources in whichever way we estimate to produce the most net gain in ~happiness when all things are reasonably considered etc etc

I don't see why you would place an intrinsic value on life unless you're religious or something.

 

[Fish Tank]

Although, the entire concept of employment is based on the sale of our time. Which is not the same thing as the sale of the self, I suppose.

In some lines of work it could be regarded not only as sale of one's time, but of one's self. I'd regard soldiers partially in this category, as they place their lives on the line for their work. Or a better example, prostitution, where the body is literally considered a commodity of sorts. (Back in the days of slave labour, you could count slaves in this category, but in the Western world today at least I don't think this is relevant.)


My two cents...

Who is to determine the monetary worth of a human being? That is suggesting a life can be compared to something constant. As an extension, by comparing human life with money, you are also comparing people with each other. Each human being has different genetics, experiences, background, views, and talents. The combinations of these factors is limitless, and you can't objectively justify the worth of one talent over another.

Some aspects are desired in certain situations, yes, but in general you can't compare different people to each other.

 

[Lentern]

Would you? Because if you would you just valued your life at $375million, which is imo absurdly high and much higher than the real value of human life. If I was offered that much I would recognise the massive profit between the offer and the true value and take it.

Without actually doing the maths using NPV the value of human life would be more like $5million.

Probably not, I'm not all that confident I'm going to particularly enjoy the next life.

 

[yoddle]

The whole notion of putting a monetary value on life (human or nun-human) because of perceived "rationality" is a symptom of our fundamentally flawed culture.

That at some point the value of money begins to exceed to the value of human life so more time and energy can be spent on building roads to support an inherently unsustainable and destructive economic system is insane.

It's another microscopic manifestation of a society which puts the survival of capitalism and the systematic status quo before the very idea of existence.

 

[David Spade]

Although, the entire concept of employment is based on the sale of our time. Which is not the same thing as the sale of the self, I suppose.

Time + effort & knowledge imo

 

[Funky Monk]

the monetary value system totally ignores the non-monetary contribution an individual makes to the lives of those around them. I can appreciate the desire to be pragmatic about it, but fail system. Basic example - Fiona Stanley vs that wet-back spic fuck who was running telstra.

 

[_trickster_]

some people would shave 5 years off their life to have the 5 million as they think that the money would better their life and hence, theoretically, 5 more years after the 5 years would 'cost' more if we were to base the monetary value of a persons life on their experiences, talent etc.

its true that our culture is flawed because of the fact that we are in fact putting a price on life (and even how we die is a part of it), but this does not mean that all people are like this and it would be cynical to think so

if the world were forced into anarchy, everyone would be on the same page, and hence, theoretically, peoples lives would all 'cost' the same, but human nature wouldnt allow this as the selfishness that we succumb to fueled by what other people think and other things would allow us to try and make a 'logical' decision about who has to die, if one of us has to


imo, human life is priceless, regardless of if whether or not youre a philanthropist or a prostitute, we all have the right to live and experience life, the fact that people can take that away from you can sometimes be justified such as murder/torture as that afflicts another persons life directly

 

[Raaaaaachel]

The whole notion of putting a monetary value on life (human or nun-human) because of perceived "rationality" is a symptom of our fundamentally flawed culture.

That at some point the value of money begins to exceed to the value of human life so more time and energy can be spent on building roads to support an inherently unsustainable and destructive economic system is insane.

Feel free to start living by your own ethics.

If the value of life is infinite and we should devote as much resources as possible to keeping people alive, feel free to stop "insanely" squandering your money on the "destructive" pursuits of our capitalist system.

All you need to spend money on is basics like food, water, shelter, clothing and transport so that you can continue to work and produce income to use to help keep people alive.

There are plenty of children quite literally starving to death right now who would greatly appreciate it if you cut back on any luxuries you enjoy and instead gave the money to them to buy food and get clean water and medicine.

Surely any luxury you treat yourself to is an absolute waste of resources that could better be used to help those whose lives are in real jeopardy. Why are you wasting time on this forum instead of out working a second job to help the poor?

Obviously at some point you do value certain things more than human life, we all do. Until you pious cunts start living by your own idealistic, nonsensical ethics how about you shut the fuck up.

Basically if human life is truly regarded as invaluable then we must logically expend all of our resources in protecting it. To borrow a scenario from the other thread perhaps if we paid for a bushfire fighting force which was 4 times as large as the volunteer one then lives would have been saved. But at what cost? Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. Money which could perhaps be better spent on other things which did not save lives.

If stationing a police officer on every street could reduce the number of murders would it be a good thing? Or would the massive amount of money been better spent on education?

Within the invaluable human life framework you can certainly compare decisions based on their human cost but without translating humans into dollars there is no common measurement to consider non-human and human costs.

We place a value on human life all the time, insurance and employment are but two examples, however generally speaking we persist in espousing a misguided belief that human life is invaluable, while I understand the sentimentality involved I think that this hypocritical and counter-productive.

IMO the value of life can be calculated the same way as any investment by using Net Present Value, meaning the present value of all future income.

ITT: loquasagacious makes a brilliant post explaining the fallacy of the life is sacred argument. Everyone ignores it and throws in their two cents, going on precisely the same sentimental, emotionally charged rant he had already discredited, totally ignoring his challenge to explain their position.

Anyone care to explain how we deal with the problem of scarcity if we are view all life as infinitely valuable? How do we make decisions about how to ration finite resources.

Also if all life is equally valuable, should we spend the same amount of money saving the life of a 70 year old as on a 5 year old? Or the same amount on a convicted rapist as on a renowned scientist?