When it comes to measuring the impact to society at scale, dollars is really the only useful common proxy. One can't enumerate every impact this is going to have on the world today -- there's too many.
I've told my testers for years their efficacy at their jobs would be measured in unnecessary deaths prevented. Nothing less. Exactly this outcome was something I've made unequivocally clear was possible, and came bundled with a cost in lives. Yet the "Management and bean counter types" insist "Oh, nope. Only the greenbacks matter. It's the only measure."
Bull. Shit. If we weren't so obsessed with imaginary value attached to little green strips of paper, maybe we'd have the systems we need so things like this wouldn't happen. You may not be able to enumerate every, but you damn well can enumerate enough. Y'all just don't want to because then work starts looking like work.
Why measure only death, as if it is the only terrible thing that can happen to someone?
That doesn’t count serious bodily injury, suffering, people who were victimized, people who had their lives set back for decades due to a missed opportunity, a person who missed the last chance to visit a loved one, etc.
There are uncountable different impacts that happen when you’re talking about events on the scale of an economy. Which is why economists use dollars. The proxy isn’t useful because it is more important than life, it it useful because the diversity of human experience is innumerable.
I understand your emotion but perhaps people simply don't value human lives.
At least putting a number to life is an genuine attempt even though it may be distasteful.
The fact is that there already is a number on it, which one can derive entirely descriptively without making moral judgements. Insurance companies and government social security offices already attempt to determine the number.
