How many dollars is a Human life worth, if a vote would choose a tax to pay it?

[Anonymous]

I gave a theoretical event which could cause selling air to be a profitable business model. I shouldn't have to explain details of how to build something to ask a theoretical question about would its effects be fair or not. You're attacking the means of understanding the questions instead of answering the questions, which means you are afraid to answer the questions.

You think its fair to sell air and let people die to drive the prices up, if it could be done. That's good to know.

Air cannot be sold, period. It's too abundant. It's a god damn brain fart of an argument. If resources were scarce enough to justify this, there would be bigger issues.

[myrkul]

A democratic median-vote is not keynesian because keynesian is government making the choices instead of what the majority of people agree on.

It must be fun living in your world.

[BenRayfield]

When did the idea of real democracy become so unpopular? Money and political power are mostly interchangible, with some delay of the transaction. So why should we have different ideas about economy and government/anarchy/social-organization?

In a real democracy, the people can vote for certain groups to give money to other groups, since money is power and democracy is about the majority of people having most of the power.

It must be fun living in your world.

The only thing it has in common with keynesian economics is democracy, and keynesian doesn't have much of it.

[myrkul]

It must be fun living in your world.

The only thing it has in common with keynesian economics is democracy, and keynesian doesn't have much of it.

Well, that and economic controls, and 'the people' deciding where to set prices and...

[TheGer]

Honestly I wouldn't like living in a place where you have 2 Wolves and a Sheep deciding what's for dinner.

"When did the idea of real democracy become so unpopular?"

[JeffK]

I gave a theoretical event which could cause selling air to be a profitable business model. I shouldn't have to explain details of how to build something to ask a theoretical question about would its effects be fair or not. You're attacking the means of understanding the questions instead of answering the questions, which means you are afraid to answer the questions.

You think its fair to sell air and let people die to drive the prices up, if it could be done. That's good to know.

Air cannot be sold, period. It's too abundant. It's a god damn brain fart of an argument. If resources were scarce enough to justify this, there would be bigger issues.

That might be true, but what about water? If buying water supplies and driving up costs to the point where people couldn't get clean water and were dying was profitable, you would support it?

(Don't say it's too abundant and can't happen, as freshwater supplies are already being bought up and access is already becoming harder for people around the world - http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/08/the-race-to-buy-up-the-world-s-water.html)

[BenRayfield]

Well, that and economic controls, and 'the people' deciding where to set prices and...

The people deciding and controlling. That's the definition of democracy. So you agree?

Honestly I wouldn't like living in a place where you have 2 Wolves and a Sheep deciding what's for dinner.

Better than 1 wolf deciding what's for dinner, a wolf who eats the other wolf and the sheep, but that doesn't apply to the median-vote I proposed because its impossible for it to diverge powers. It can only spread power more evenly. If the majority of people vote 0 or less (we'll ignore the less, since its already being done in the form of wars), then it keeps things as they are now. If they vote 1 dollar, then anyone who can be saved for 1 dollar gets saved and a tax of 1 total dollar is spread to everyone proportional to how much money they have or how much they're making now. What I proposed can't make it more like "2 Wolves and a Sheep deciding what's for dinner".

[myrkul]

That might be true, but what about water? If buying water supplies and driving up costs to the point where people couldn't get clean water and were dying was profitable, you would support it?

Shit, they're multiplying!

That is not the way economics works. Please learn simple supply and demand before starting to pontificate about it.

[myrkul]

Well, that and economic controls, and 'the people' deciding where to set prices and...

The people deciding and controlling. That's the definition of democracy. So you agree?

Yes, I agree. You propose a Keynesian market strategy, which has been proven not to work. If you need evidence, look around you.

[BenRayfield]

Most of the water would have to be poisoned for it to work that way, with some group having access to the only water that can be cleaned enough to drink. Its still a theoretical question. Today its only true to the extent that patents limit what machines to purify water people are allowed to build, but theres lots of ways to purify water.

Yes, I agree. You propose a Keynesian market strategy, which has been proven not to work. If you need evidence, look around you.

If you're going to call my proposal keynesian, then call it democratic keynesian, compared to authoritarian keynesian which is how the world works today.

[myrkul]

Yes, I agree. You propose a Keynesian market strategy, which has been proven not to work. If you need evidence, look around you.

If you're going to call my proposal keynesian, then call it democratic keynesian, compared to authoritarian keynesian which is how the world works today.

OK, so you're going to pair the least efficient model for managing the economy with the least efficient model for managing a country. Good luck with that.

[BenRayfield]

I can say with full certainty you do not understand what a Human Life is or represents, or how it's beauty cannot be defined in Dollars.  For you sir, Human Life appears to be worthless.


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A Human Life is priceless, but Humans(on average) will not pay out of pocket to save one unless it is someone dear to them.

Then by "priceless" you mean "will not pay", as in a price of 0. If you won't pay $5 to save a Human life, but you will pay $5 to eat at a restaurant, then I say you think a Human life is worth less than your 1 meal.

That's not true. I write these things and try to get people to save lives more efficiently (by calculating numbers for the cheapest lives to save) because I value Human lives so highly. Also, I think that our subconscious minds are networked together some (which is called telepathy), and I know many people don't believe that, but to explain one of the reasons I value Human life so highly, I think that when any 1 of the 7 billion people die I have lost a part of my subconscious mind.

OK, so you're going to pair the least efficient model for managing the economy with the least efficient model for managing a country. Good luck with that.

My proposal would work as a voluntary thing too. Consider how http://kickstarter.com works. Money is donated to some project only if the total money exceeds some set amount in time, so money is only transferred if its enough money to get the job done. Many people could voluntarily agree that they will give some small fraction of their money toward saving lives of a maximum life-saving-cost of X dollars each, but only if enough other people agree to do it too. Its a little similar to those people who donate money for every mile walked because they see a big list of other people who are donating money, so they know that by giving a small amount more they increase the number of miles walked and cause the other people on the list to donate more.

Weighted by how much money each person offers, people median-vote on the max-life-saving-cost that the whole group would pay. If they start at $5 per life saved, then very few (or none) lives would be saved, but as it increased, the group would commit to saving all known lives which can be saved for the higher amount per life. As more people hear about this system, they would join to median-vote on what the group pays per life max and to add their money in the most efficient way of saving lives, by amplifying what others offer to pay.

Its a way of amplifying donations from others. My proposal could work voluntarily that way.

[NghtRppr]

Think of this in terms of optimizing government actions. Instead of all the stupid things governments spend money on to supposedly help people, lets tell them to spend some of it on saving the cheapest lives, which works by supply and demand instead of politics.

I think this could work, but it would have to be more official than a vote in this thread. We could get many people from different countries to median-vote on how much the cheapest Human lives are worth. Ask the question separately for terminally sick people, comas, and those who want to die, since that would lead to endless arguments over where to draw lines if it was asked in the same question. Through the median-votes, we learn what the Human species really values Human life at, in dollars (or other form of money), and then we use that as a legal argument (after having enough people supporting this) to take some fraction of everyone's money, depending on what supply and demand there is for saving lives, never spending more than the voted value of a Human life, and spend the money to save the lives.

Theres a thread called "What charities are worth donating to?" you may want to read if you're having difficulty putting a price on Human life.
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=28286.0

http://givewell.org researches charities and says Human lives can be saved for less than $1000 each. If people were willing to pay $1000, the price would rise as the cheaper people were saved. It behaves as supply and demand. Right now the supply is $1000 each. If people could stop arguing over how impossible it is to put a value on Human life and instead median-vote on the value and spend the money, we could save billions of lives while distributing the payments between everyone fairly as a percent of their total money, which would probably be a very small percent, and it would pay for itself in the increased productivity of the Human species.

Theft is injustice.

[BenRayfield]

Theft is injustice.

Almost all land was stolen from somebody if you look far enough back in history. Are you going to give back your land if the previous owners happen to still be alive? Or what about their descendants?

[speeder]

I voted negative.

Yes, NEGATIVE.

We need more deaths. Literally.



Our planet was not made for billions of people, much less our gene pool improves as we keep alive all sorts of people that would never live in first place.


Some research shows that in the last 50 years, sperm count for example is dropping.
Also, research suggests that our best olympic achievements, were something that a average person could do 2000 years ago.

Also, we are having a sharp rise in all sorts of genetic defects.


On average, people ARE valued negative. There ARE really better people than others, there are no way out of it, it is a fact, some people are better, those deserve to live, and they can do it by figuring how to live themselves. Those that fail to figure how to live, on general, do not deserve to live.



Some place will blame several things, but see Somalia, a drought hit them... They moved out of the drought area. After the rain resumes, they will probably return, even if their life is hard, they are figuring how to live, they deserve to live.

Now see that US women that spent several years sitting in a toilet and needed firemen to remove her... lots of taxpayer money was used to save the life of a idiotic slob that had not even desire to live, and was kept alive by someone else (that also spent lots of money).

[NghtRppr]

Theft is injustice.

Almost all land was stolen from somebody if you look far enough back in history. Are you going to give back your land if the previous owners happen to still be alive? Or what about their descendants?

Yes, if someone can prove any property that I possess is stolen, I will forfeit it.

However, for the sake of argument, what if I said that I wouldn't do that? Would that change the truth of "theft is injustice"? No, and to argue that it would is simply an ad hominem. If a rapist says "rape is immoral", does that change anything? No, it does not.

[BenRayfield]

speeder, if Human lives have negative value on average, then of course its good for more people to die, but which people is a harder question. You want to do it by who can survive the best, but that's like saying its good if theres more AIDS because it would be surviving better, instead of just killing the worst people (whoever is defined as worst in your crazy society where people have negative value). How about we pour gas on everyone and light them on fire and whoever survives the best gets to live? People have negative value and survival is the way to decide, so this should make sense to your psychotic ass.

I agree people have different value. I said:

I didn't say everyone was worth equal amounts. This vote is about the cheapest Human lives to save, which would start to cost more as we save the cheaper lives.

As I see it, a person is worth as much as how much they can help the world, including artistic or other hard to measure things, depending on which things people value about their skills. Those people you listed may be worth a lot. I'm not saying their lives are worth what this median-vote says.

Yes, if someone can prove any property that I possess is stolen, I will forfeit it.

All land was stolen from lower animals. There didn't used to be any parking lots or houses. There were jungles and other natural areas, and Humans stole them.

[myrkul]

OK, so you're going to pair the least efficient model for managing the economy with the least efficient model for managing a country. Good luck with that.

My proposal would work as a voluntary thing too. Consider how http://kickstarter.com works. Money is donated to some project only if the total money exceeds some set amount in time, so money is only transferred if its enough money to get the job done. Many people could voluntarily agree that they will give some small fraction of their money toward saving lives of a maximum life-saving-cost of X dollars each, but only if enough other people agree to do it too. Its a little similar to those people who donate money for every mile walked because they see a big list of other people who are donating money, so they know that by giving a small amount more they increase the number of miles walked and cause the other people on the list to donate more.

Weighted by how much money each person offers, people median-vote on the max-life-saving-cost that the whole group would pay. If they start at $5 per life saved, then very few (or none) lives would be saved, but as it increased, the group would commit to saving all known lives which can be saved for the higher amount per life. As more people hear about this system, they would join to median-vote on what the group pays per life max and to add their money in the most efficient way of saving lives, by amplifying what others offer to pay.

Its a way of amplifying donations from others. My proposal could work voluntarily that way.

You're warping the way kickstarter works, but sure, go for it. Just don't put a gun to anyone's head and say 'Pay.'

[TheGer]

It is poisoned.  Mercury, Lead, Lithium, Indistrial Runoff of all sorts.  Chemicals to castrate and labotomize us.  It's all there in your tap water.

"Most of the water would have to be poisoned for it to work that way"

[NghtRppr]

All land was stolen from lower animals. There didn't used to be any parking lots or houses. There were jungles and other natural areas, and Humans stole them.

Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my steak sizzling.