While it is tempting to say that "people aren't numbers", a refusal to quantify human impacts just results in poor decision making. Because we still do make de

While it is tempting to say that "people aren't numbers", a refusal to quantify human impacts just results in poor decision making. Because we still do make decisions. We still do allocate resources to our own pleasure that could have gone to saving someone else's life. We pass regulations limiting how much people can be exposed to chemicals that impact health. And trade off the convenience of being able to travel in cars for how many of us will die from doing so. We still make those decisions. The only question is whether we think clearly while making them, or whether we shy away from the ideas that could let us think clearly.