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[Playergamer]

As a capitalist, might I say that the problem you guys are having is that you think human life actually has value? Once you correct that, it'll work itself out.

[RedKing]

The comment sections over at Breitbart, Stormfront, etc. regarding Bannon's ouster are delicious, juicy schadenfreude.

As a capitalist, might I say that the problem you guys are having is that you think human life actually has value? Once you correct that, it'll work itself out.

2edgy5me

[smjjames]

People knew capitalism was a bad idea before it even started being a major force. It's right there in Wealth of Nations.

The postcapitalist epoch is upon us with automation alone, let alone our cultural changes. We only don't know how many will die before people accept that.

We aren't QUITE there yet. or anywhere close... unfortunately.

It's going to have to be something that involves the entire world because capitalism is almost everywhere, or at least would have to start in the major engines in the world. Meaning, it'd most likely have to start here because for all the problems that we're having and the pseudo-isloationism, we're STILL the biggest engine in the global economy.

[Il Palazzo]

As a capitalist, might I say that the problem you guys are having is that you think human life actually has value? Once you correct that, it'll work itself out.

Wasn't putting a price tag on human life a capitalist idea? You know, like the Ford Pinto case.

[Neonivek]

As a capitalist, might I say that the problem you guys are having is that you think human life actually has value? Once you correct that, it'll work itself out.

Wasn't putting a price tag on human life a capitalist idea? You know, like the Ford Pinto case.

It was a concept where they did a study where they tried to see how much a country is willing to spend if they find out something is harmful to the public.

What they found is like... the value of human life in the USA is something like 200 million.

It isn't that they put an actual value on human life, but more an affect on that.

THEN there is Civil Court and how it awards punitive damages. It tends to favor people who are already earning an income over those who are not. Children are thus valued less in Civil Court a lot of the time because their "value" is indeterminate... and Civil court MUST apply values to life.

Yet no to my knowledge no one put an actual value on Human Life at a point...

[misko27]

As a capitalist, might I say that the problem you guys are having is that you think human life actually has value? Once you correct that, it'll work itself out.

Wasn't putting a price tag on human life a capitalist idea? You know, like the Ford Pinto case.

Anyone can put price tag on life. You do it all the time, every day. You can convert it into seconds, dollars, anything.

As an example: the very root of most criticisms of aggressive counter-terrorism is precisely that: the number of lives saved relative to the cost in time, effort, manpower, peace of mind, etc. And you can calculate very precisely how much we spend on terrorism, and how many people die to terrorism and how many plots are stopped, and come to a rough estimate of the value of a human life in counter-terrorism dollars. And what would be the alternative to thinking like this? You could, you know, say "every life is precious",  but logically that demands that we put infinite resources to the business of counter-terrorism. Alternatively, you could say "Terrorism is worth the price of not having counter-terrorism", but then you're willfully ignoring potential cost-effective solutions that could save many lives for very little price. For anyone for whom both of these alternatives are immoral, the question comes down to simply "how much are we willing to pay for how many lives saved?" Money is simply the medium.

Also, have we discussed Bannon's exit already?

[smjjames]

Also, have we discussed Bannon's exit already?

Somewhat, yes. It's sort of in 'wait and see what sort of havoc he'll wreak outside the WH' mode.

edit: And, to nobodys surprise, he's returned to Brietbart.

[Trekkin]

Yet no to my knowledge no one put an actual value on Human Life at a point...

What's life insurance, then?

[ChairmanPoo]

Yet no to my knowledge no one put an actual value on Human Life at a point...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#Estimates_of_the_value_of_life

[Neonivek]

Yet no to my knowledge no one put an actual value on Human Life at a point...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#Estimates_of_the_value_of_life

Those are ESTIMATES... I mean no country has ever said "Yes, we value human life at this price"

[Draignean]

Yet no to my knowledge no one put an actual value on Human Life at a point...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#Estimates_of_the_value_of_life

Those are ESTIMATES... I mean no country has ever said "Yes, we value human life at this price"

'Has Ever'

Neon, you are aware that slaves were a thing that happened? And that older empires had explicitly priced fines for killing them?

[Playergamer]

Yet no to my knowledge no one put an actual value on Human Life at a point...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#Estimates_of_the_value_of_life

Those are ESTIMATES... I mean no country has ever said "Yes, we value human life at this price"

'Has Ever'

Neon, you are aware that slaves were a thing that happened? And that older empires had explicitly priced fines for killing them?

Except those fines are based off the value of the property and labor, not the value of the life itself.

[EnigmaticHat]

As a capitalist, might I say that the problem you guys are having is that you think human life actually has value? Once you correct that, it'll work itself out.

Wasn't putting a price tag on human life a capitalist idea? You know, like the Ford Pinto case.

Anyone can put price tag on life. You do it all the time, every day. You can convert it into seconds, dollars, anything.

As an example: the very root of most criticisms of aggressive counter-terrorism is precisely that: the number of lives saved relative to the cost in time, effort, manpower, peace of mind, etc. And you can calculate very precisely how much we spend on terrorism, and how many people die to terrorism and how many plots are stopped, and come to a rough estimate of the value of a human life in counter-terrorism dollars. And what would be the alternative to thinking like this? You could, you know, say "every life is precious",  but logically that demands that we put infinite resources to the business of counter-terrorism. Alternatively, you could say "Terrorism is worth the price of not having counter-terrorism", but then you're willfully ignoring potential cost-effective solutions that could save many lives for very little price. For anyone for whom both of these alternatives are immoral, the question comes down to simply "how much are we willing to pay for how many lives saved?" Money is simply the medium.

Also, have we discussed Bannon's exit already?

I would describe more as you can't call human life "priceless", but yeah, I agree.  Money and property isn't just materialist crap, it keeps people alive and happy.  At least some of it does.  If you spend 50 million keeping one person alive, but then you have to cut a bunch of money out of a housing initiative, did you actually "save a life" net?  Maybe, but it was at the cost of reducing many people's quality of life, which is tied to length of life anyway...

Of course, society is built on the faith that we won't murder our neighbors even if there's nothing stopping us.  So applying that math directly is kind of useless, if you have to justify letting someone suffer by saying "saving them isn't worth it" that person is going to start questioning why they have to pay taxes or follow laws.

edit: changed "correctly" to "directly", I think the math is useful I just mean that complete utilitarianism is kind of insane even tho partial utilitarianism has good things to say

[misko27]

That's why the math is very rarely set up to be "we'd like to save you, but we're over budget as is" and tends to be more about probabilities of dying, shared by all (or some). No one is marked out to be screwed by not investing in some super expensive program to prevent terrorism against post offices (unless you're omniscient), it's just that people at the post office will have a slightly higher chance to die then they would have if you had. Statistically, eventually, with enough time and people someone will die who wouldn't have if you paid for the anti-post-office-terrorism program; it's just that that person could have been anyone. So the question becomes how much were you willing to pay for how long to save a life instead of, as you said, investing in housing, or research, or subsidies for the poor, or simply not spending it at all.

So money spent for life/QoL/likelihood-of-dying is actually a pretty good measure of government accountability (for lack of a better word). If we can save more lives with the same amount of money by investing in infrastructure or something, well, we should! Granted that won't work with everything, but even though its pretty gross (and gives rise to that sort of mindset that worries about "Death Panels"), it's really useful.

[sluissa]

Here's an interesting article.

The TL;DR of it is that Wisconsin, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to pay a Chinese company (Foxconn), 3 billion dollars to set up a factory in their state and employ somewhere between 3000 and 13000 workers.

On a passing glance, that's not that big of a deal. States make deals with companies for factories all the time. Give them grants and tax breaks and what have you. It tends to be kind of shady, but it's just plain how business is done.

However simple math will show that Wisconsin (mostly through tax payer money) is paying something between $200,000 and $1,000,000 per employee to have them employed in their state. Avg salary expected to be somewhere in the mid $50k a year range.

For that price Wisconsin could just flat out pay their salary from state coffers for between 4 and 15 years without those people ever having to work during that time period.

This is all, in addition, going to a company, notorious for poor working conditions. The article also states that Wisconsin is waiving some environmental regulations for them as well.

Also Trump unsurprisingly supports this plan. The slightly more mind boggling thing is that it wasn't just Wisconsin that had this massive failure of logic. There was competition for the plant:

Other states vying for the plant are Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.