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Resources are scarce. There's no way around that. There is always a way to spend more resources to decrease the probability of death by some amount. We could,
by ikeboy 6y ago
Resources are scarce. There's no way around that. There is always a way to spend more resources to decrease the probability of death by some amount.
We could, say, ban driving except by professional trained drivers, and get rid of tens of thousands of deaths per year, at the cost of "only" a hit to the economy. Should we do that?
- alex_young 6y agoHighway fatalities are not an epidemic. Would this analogy hold up if we instead considered the cost of defending against an invading army? Would it really be reasonable to ask if we had enough money to build the machinery to hold them at bay? In past times we and other successes societies have worked in concert to defeat threats to our collective and worried about fixing any economic consequences later.
- ikeboy 6y agoI mean, that's a different argument than saying value of life doesn't matter. Value of life is relevant when comparing different possible actions that cost different amounts of resources. If it's clear that the benefit is more than the cost, you might not actually have to do the analysis. But if the cost is measured in trillions of dollars, then it becomes very relevant to see exactly what the expected benefits are. If the invading army is going to kill a hundred thousand people, and defending against them requires using up resources equivalent to letting five hundred thousand people die, then it's very much a question that should be asked.