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The value of a human life is in most cases next to nothing. A life is priceless to the closest friends and family. Beyond that its value drops rapidly. If live

The value of a human life is in most cases next to nothing. A life is priceless to the closest friends and family. Beyond that its value drops rapidly. If lives were anywhere near as precious to politicians as they like to pretend, we wouldn't be sending kids off to war. We would be investing in anti-poverty measures. The value of a life to someone in power is proportional to the likelihood of being overthrown or pushed out of office due to that person's death. Often a life has negative value to such a person.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
lowdose 6y ago
When there's a person, there's a problem. When there's no person, there's no problem. Josef Stalin
bilbo0s 6y ago
>Often a life has negative value to such a person. Never thought about it this way, but it's true. A dead person can't vote against you. So to the extent that a given person, or group of people, can be relied on to vote against you, it wouldn't be that bad for you game theoretically if they were not around.
- clairity 6y ago
  that's why we shouldn't let power concentrate in any person or organization, public, private, or religious.
  - bilbo0s 6y ago
    At least no organization that requires votes. Absent illegal activity, money will continue to flow when a person dies, but votes can be guaranteed to stop.
    - clairity 6y ago
      i'd say it generalizes pretty well to any threat to power, not just votes.
david38 6y ago
It’s all relative and decreases exponentially the further from the person you get. Value ~= (sentimental value) + (entertainment value) + (financial value) + (time value) time value being how much time you add to my life, so someone inventing a vaccine has high value to lots of people who aren’t friends. It’s very fashionable to say everyone is priceless as you say, but this simply isn’t true. A better way to phrase it might be “everyone is worth the access to goods that are cheap enough to make for everyone, but aren’t available to everyone because of profit motives”. People typically only demand a right to something when someone else has it, or at least demand equal access. People are more or less ok with dying on a waitlist for a transplant when the rich are thought to die at the same rate.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

lowdose 6y ago

When there's a person, there's a problem. When there's no person, there's no problem. Josef Stalin

bilbo0s 6y ago

>Often a life has negative value to such a person. Never thought about it this way, but it's true. A dead person can't vote against you. So to the extent that a given person, or group of people, can be relied on to vote against you, it wouldn't be that bad for you game theoretically if they were not around.

clairity 6y ago
that's why we shouldn't let power concentrate in any person or organization, public, private, or religious.
- bilbo0s 6y ago
  At least no organization that requires votes. Absent illegal activity, money will continue to flow when a person dies, but votes can be guaranteed to stop.
  - clairity 6y ago
    i'd say it generalizes pretty well to any threat to power, not just votes.

david38 6y ago

It’s all relative and decreases exponentially the further from the person you get. Value ~= (sentimental value) + (entertainment value) + (financial value) + (time value) time value being how much time you add to my life, so someone inventing a vaccine has high value to lots of people who aren’t friends. It’s very fashionable to say everyone is priceless as you say, but this simply isn’t true. A better way to phrase it might be “everyone is worth the access to goods that are cheap enough to make for everyone, but aren’t available to everyone because of profit motives”. People typically only demand a right to something when someone else has it, or at least demand equal access. People are more or less ok with dying on a waitlist for a transplant when the rich are thought to die at the same rate.