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[RAM]

Okay, firstly, I am extremely gullible and even I think this has some chance of being a troll thread. I mean, it starts with "Some human life have more value than others" and then proceeds to "One American life is equal to 58.75 Afghanis". Let's just say that I can see some people entering into a blind rage if they take this seriously...

Secondly, this is a hopelessly flawed theory here. It ignores cause of death, one north american dies from tuberculosis, nobody notices. One dies in a car accident, it might show up in a newspaper. One dies in a school shooting, it will be in conversations all over the place. Then is someone is kidnapped by terrorists, held for a couple of weeks, then killed during a rescue attempt. Then there will be people foaming the moth and crying for public executions and a change of government...

If someone is born in afghanistan, is an afghani citizen, but regularly appears on north american news broadcasts. Then north american people will care more about their death than some north american fop who earns twice as much and dies in some juicy scene with sex and drugs and videotape...

Primarily the value one person will place on another is based largely upon exposure, similarity, and personal impact. Countries with a largely european background will be more concerned about people from countries with european backgrounds. Everyone cares if a citizen of the united states of america is killed nearby, because there is a very real chance that a missile will be following. And celebrities are infinitely more valued than people with no public exposure.

Realistically, you can't get any decent data on someone until 20 years after they are dead, and then you need to make a detailed study, and even then it will be hopelessly contaminated by your own values...

[Puck]

Okay, firstly, I am extremely gullible and even I think this has some chance of being a troll thread.

Oh yeah, and this.

But I expect better from bay12 

And again, if you want to take this seriously
Dunbar's Number / Monkeysphere. Read about it.

[Duke 2.0]

Okay, firstly, I am extremely gullible and even I think this has some chance of being a troll thread.

Oh yeah, and this.

But I expect better from bay12 

You have not been here for several weeks, have you?

[Puck]

I just had a very fun and exhausting weekend. Maybe I killed off enough braincells and didnt notice by now. (But other than that, I've been around)

[Servant Corps]

Let me test this sytem I just jury-rigged. This system is based on a fundemental assumption: Some human life have more value and influence than others. (This could explain why there is much shock if an American dies and less shock when other people from other countries die.)

I stopped reading right there.

This is just a matter of perception, and I suggest, just like akroma, reading up on "Dunbar's Number" or, if you want it presented in a more entertaining way "The Monkeysphere". Just google either of the terms, imho those give the best available answer (at this point of history) why there is a difference in perception of the suffering of others.

(and seriously, when the rest of the world hears on the news -again- how horrible it is that a double digit number of marines died on a mission, while 10 times the numbers of locals had to die, we usually wonder how skewed the american perception of reality is. the average dirt farmer isnt worth less to us...)

I already know of Dunnbar's Number. That's exactly what I am trying to avoid here. I don't want people to care only for themselves. That seems far too insular, far too isolationist. There is a world outside of your own community, outside of America, and to avoid all that and only focus on yourself...gah. I also don't think you can quanitfy human sympathy, as woose1 suggested, and I don't like having any sort of subjectivity, at all. I suppose you could do surveys to determine how sympathic a sample population from each country is, then assume that to be the sympathy level of each country, but that would be very expensive and you have to craft the sympathy questions very carefully.

I know the system has some flaws, but I would like to have the value of a human being be tied to some objective stat, if it is HDI or GDP (PPP) per capita or something like that, to represent how much economic value a person has. The only thing I can argue in favour of this system is that the more money a person has, the more influence that person has. Hence, the more important that person is in the world. So since a rich person is more important than a poor person, I would argue a person who live in a rich country and hence have a higher living standard is more important than a person who live in a poor country and hence have a lower living standard. That's it. They are more important, in the sense that a rich person have more influence, and hence can affect the world more than the poor person. That is how I am defining value, in this context. The most importnat flaw is the vast economic disparity within countries, harming in the attempt to use one singular figure to determine economic worth.

Gah. I just want to compare human lives as a way to avoid insularity and avoid people caring only for themselves. By actually attaching numbers, I hope to get people to start caring about events where non-Americans die, by providing figures that would show the equivliance, and hence get people worried. Many people are not going to accept the standard that each human life is equal, that a death in Somailia is equal to a death in America, so there has to be a new system, a new standard.

Think of it this way. A banker from Liechtenstein dies. You would not care normally. If I told you the equviliant of 2.5 Americans die though, you would think about the 2.5 Americans that you know within your own community. Your own mom, your own dad, or your own neighbor, or your own friend. You would know the shock and horror if you knew if 2-3 of them die suddenly. Then you begin to realize how much important that death in Liechtenstein really is, it is as if you really lost 2-3 of your best friends. It's like how charities show people of dead humans to try and get you to start feeling what would happen if you are in their shoes, only this time, it's being done with numbers. Plus, the system can be used eto convert the casualities in any nation over to the casualites in your nation, so the system can't really be subjective just to America...

[Puck]

I already know of Dunnbar's Number. That's exactly what I am trying to avoid here. I don't want people to care only for themselves.

I think becoming aware of the biological background is exactly the first step of overcoming those barriers. Bringing numbers and stats into this will only further the alienation.

If you want to put a pricetag on a human being, try it with biomass  How much fertilizer can you make out of Joe Average?

[Akroma]

Let me test this sytem I just jury-rigged. This system is based on a fundemental assumption: Some human life have more value and influence than others. (This could explain why there is much shock if an American dies and less shock when other people from other countries die.)

I stopped reading right there.

This is just a matter of perception, and I suggest, just like akroma, reading up on "Dunbar's Number" or, if you want it presented in a more entertaining way "The Monkeysphere". Just google either of the terms, imho those give the best available answer (at this point of history) why there is a difference in perception of the suffering of others.

(and seriously, when the rest of the world hears on the news -again- how horrible it is that a double digit number of marines died on a mission, while 10 times the numbers of locals had to die, we usually wonder how skewed the american perception of reality is. the average dirt farmer isnt worth less to us...)

Think of it this way. A banker from Liechtenstein dies. You would not care normally. If I told you the equviliant of 2.5 Americans die though, you would think about the 2.5 Americans that you know within your own community.

bullshit

2.5 americans are still just numbers, and not suddenly my closest friends

to create encompassion, you need to create a private link, which will not suddenly be created just because omg same country


however this guy in lichtenstein is called Jaques Lichtfels, and on the day he died, he had an arguement with his wife, because she wanted yet another child, whereas he was happy that their eldest son has finaly moved out. His relationship to his son is good, and last month they made a trip to germany. In this one hotel they had very high quality bathrobes, one of which he tried to steal, but a week later he got a letter about paying the damage, which left him pretty emberassed.
Jaques works halftime as a volleyball coach for a youngster team, though his team fails horribly. Though, when they win, he always invites the entire team for pizza. Jaques always wears those horrible hawai-shirts with colors so bright they could burn out your eyes, and he loves the policeacademy movies.
When he died, he wore one of those shirts, his team bought it for him when they made it into the top 10 of the last tournament.
His wife was terrible at getting it together when she heared he died, and no one ever bothered telling his volleyball team. Though some were worried about what happened, the rest was angry at the time they wasted in front of the gym and at how Jaques is an incompeted idiot who didn't call them that he was gonna be sick.



of course, you will never admit that reading this actually made you sad, because

A) internet arguement, no one ever admits the other ones point
B) shitty writing
and C) because you are a socipathic fuck that counts the value of human life in how much money they earn

but in the end, my point stands
which one of those gets closer to you ?
the one you knew random details about, or the version that sais that his death amounts to the death of 2.5 americans ?

[Akroma]

the more I think about it, the more disgusting this idea gets

measuring human value by GPD of the country they life in.

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GDP_PPP.pdf


so, I live in germany

if I die now, that is only about 1/4th of the tragedy it is when an american dies huh ?

so, if you break your leg, it's as bad as me dying, because you as an american are worth more ?


and you say you use this system because you want to create more compassion ?

the basics that are implied by this system, that rich humans are worth more than poor humans, or that one american is worth 1000 somalians, would by FAR be much much worse than any compassion that would be created by a news anchor saying that in lichtenstein, a dude killed and raped 2.5 americans

[Jude]

Gotta be more to it than that. As noted above, tragedies in rich, white countries evoke attract much more attention than tragedies in countries such as Sudan.

Well yeah, because rich white people are more like us.

[Sergius]

This topic makes me sick to my stomach.

If we're talking "absolute" worth (if there was such a thing) I'm worth far more than any US school dropout white trash living in a trailer park that beats his wife and spends his days bowling and chugging beer while reminiscing of his high school days as a football quarterback.

This thread automatically implies the opposite, because, 1 US american = 999999 whatever of me.

[Akroma]

on a different note, I find it strange that VN gets locked because it was a bit spamish, and this guy can run free making topics about an american life being worth more than 50 afganistanian lives


topic reported

if it is just a troll, then yeah, trolling has no place here

if he is for real, even worse

[Servant Corps]

I am not a troll. This is really an attempt to test a system that could attempt to provide sympathy providing a way to compare human life. Otherwise, we just have insularnism and think only of ourselves and think only of our network...Gah. Providing equviliance is one way I think that can resolve that. And I based it on money because people associate money with power.

My OP had it that 78 Somailans is the equalivant of 1 American in terms of PPP? Not 1000 Somailians, it's 78.

That story you quoted Akroma won't inspire any emotion because it is likely something that is not true and rather something you wrote up as an example. And providing a big story about that one person seems to dehumanize other people who do not have a great story too, making them less valuable...so it doesn't help with the main problem you seem to have...the problem of people not treating other people equally...

EDIT:

* Servant Corps sighs.

I'm locking it pre-emptively to avoid this from escalating.

[Puck]

Seriously, when people are WILLING to add arbitrary strangers to their own monkeysphere, you get compassion. If they are unwilling to, youre screwed. Simple as that.

But the majority of the world doesnt even know of that packsize-limitation and thus will never try to circumvene it.

[Toady One]

Servant Corps warned.  The OP by itself reads almost like a strange eugenics article, and since that wasn't the intent, this should have been stated initially, at the very least.  Please try to be respectful of the other forum members.

[Toady One]

on a different note, I find it strange that VN gets locked because it was a bit spamish, and this guy can run free making topics about an american life being worth more than 50 afganistanian lives

I can't read everything as it happens.  Your report today was the first on the thread.