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> those lost lives will cost the US billions in lost productivity over time It's so strange how prevalent it has become in the past few years to talk of human

> those lost lives will cost the US billions in lost productivity over time It's so strange how prevalent it has become in the past few years to talk of human beings in terms of productivity. Growing up in the 90s, all the talk was about how we were mindless consumers. Now, all I hear is people talking of others and themselves as producers and productivity. How they feel about themselves and their worth depends on whether they had a 'productive day'. What does that really even mean? It's amazing how quickly the vernacular changes. Never in a million years would I have ever thought of someone dying and juxtaposing that with productivity. Why even bring it up? Are we here just to produce for society or the wealthy or the government? 20 years ago, would we have been upset at all the consumers or consumption being lost through suicide and death? We are talking of others and ourselves like farmers talk about produce and livestock. Maybe that's what modern society has reduced us to. Livestock that needs to produce.

hirundo 8y ago
Reporting on productivity change is a reasonable way to quantify the social impact of a phenomenon, which allows people to compare it in scale to other issues, and prioritize scarce resources accordingly. Of course it's imperfect, and data is lost compared to a qualitative assessment of individual lives. But can you think of a consistently better quantitative measurement? Longevity? We've recently seen a lot of coverage of the forecast that climate change could cause a 10% reduction in GDP by 2100. Your objections apply to this measure equally. But by quantifying the magnitude we can compare it to things like the cost of remediation. Quantifying an effect also has the benefit of exposing the estimate to more effective refutation. The more numerate debate we subject policy preferences to, the stronger they'll be.

hirundo 8y ago

Reporting on productivity change is a reasonable way to quantify the social impact of a phenomenon, which allows people to compare it in scale to other issues, and prioritize scarce resources accordingly. Of course it's imperfect, and data is lost compared to a qualitative assessment of individual lives. But can you think of a consistently better quantitative measurement? Longevity? We've recently seen a lot of coverage of the forecast that climate change could cause a 10% reduction in GDP by 2100. Your objections apply to this measure equally. But by quantifying the magnitude we can compare it to things like the cost of remediation. Quantifying an effect also has the benefit of exposing the estimate to more effective refutation. The more numerate debate we subject policy preferences to, the stronger they'll be.