4 ms·

Okay rationalist, what if you were sick and someone important deemed that you were "extremely unlikely to generate quantifiable benefit"?

• biot 15y ago
  You're reading it wrong. Here's an annotated version of what you replied to: I'd say the opposite [everything is NOT a cost/benefit analysis]. [As evidence of this,] We spend vast amounts of money prolonging the life of people who we know in advance are extremely unlikely to generate quantifiable benefit. How do you suppport what you've said [that everything is a cost/benefit analysis]? [The evidence shows your position to be incorrect, therefore my position that life is more valuable than cost/benefits indicate is true.]
  • rhygar 15y ago
    That's a stretch, to put it mildly.
    • biot 15y ago
      I don't see how you can read it any other way. There was no judgment made in cturner's post; only a presentation of evidence to refute the claim that everything is a cost/benefit analysis.
• arbitrarywords 15y ago
  Well one perspective from the sick persons point of view, "The entire resources of the universe should be spent on keeping me alive". If you decide that there is something wrong with this, you need a strategy to allocate the resources. Then you've got a cost/benefit analysis.
• xibernetik 15y ago
  How about if you were sick, but there was a serial killer who had a 98% of dying that, due to this sort of argument, was utilizing resources that would increase your chance of survival from 10% to 95%? This argument fails to show that when it comes down to it, there's more than one person and their associated who get affected by the decision to invest those resources. The benefits to one person come at the expense of another in current healthcare situations.