I agree with the sentiment about all lives being equal.
That is why I enjoyed challenging myself to think about it purely from an economic perspective one day. We were on the plane, and the guy next to us was studying "humanitarian economics". It is somewhat related to the issues that the gates foundation has to think about when distributing their funds.
There was some curious dilemmas you need to face, and most of them seem to be faced by removing yourself somewhat from the moral aspect, and thinking purely about assigning a monetary value to them. The bit that I remember was thinking about the financial value of a human life, as determined by its remaining potential. What this means is [0]:
- Small babies: haven't invested much time and effort into developing them, so they are not worth as much.
- Teenagers: Have spent considerable amount of time getting them ready to contribute to society.
- Older people: Although there has been a lot of effort invested in them, and they have contributed a lot to society, there is only so much more "potential" left.
Another interesting thing about this approach, is that in a funny way, it mimics the sentiment of Belinda's statement of all lives being equal. This is because (equally aged) people from Africa and Australia have the same monetary value according to this.
[0] - Please don't hate me! I' actually quite a nice person, I just found this interesting :) It's not how I normally think about people.
Actuaries need to do the same things all the time e.g. - probabilistic value of remaining life for life insurance settlement/pricing.
Yes it feels weird to discuss these things - but it doesn't make you an evil person or anything - life insurance must be priced, taxes distributed and money donated.
The problem with "hands up in the air - everything is precious!" thinking is that you can't make any decisions. If you assume that - all your money should be flooding Africa.
You'll notice that this isn't the case.
You'll also notice that people only pay lip service to their morals - but they never back it up with cash - and that's where actuaries and economists come in.
That is why I enjoyed challenging myself to think about it purely from an economic perspective one day. We were on the plane, and the guy next to us was studying "humanitarian economics". It is somewhat related to the issues that the gates foundation has to think about when distributing their funds.
There was some curious dilemmas you need to face, and most of them seem to be faced by removing yourself somewhat from the moral aspect, and thinking purely about assigning a monetary value to them. The bit that I remember was thinking about the financial value of a human life, as determined by its remaining potential. What this means is [0]:
- Small babies: haven't invested much time and effort into developing them, so they are not worth as much.
- Teenagers: Have spent considerable amount of time getting them ready to contribute to society.
- Older people: Although there has been a lot of effort invested in them, and they have contributed a lot to society, there is only so much more "potential" left.
Another interesting thing about this approach, is that in a funny way, it mimics the sentiment of Belinda's statement of all lives being equal. This is because (equally aged) people from Africa and Australia have the same monetary value according to this.
[0] - Please don't hate me! I' actually quite a nice person, I just found this interesting :) It's not how I normally think about people.