> What scarce resources are you referring to in the developed world?
What kind of question is this? You think we have infinite medical researchers with infinite resources and infinite budgets? All countries, including the richest ones, have budgets.
> Bill Gates turns 60 this year. It's pretty safe to assume he'll accomplish more in the next 20 years than you will in your lifetime.
Oh god you can't really think that's a good argument, can you? Citing Gates as your anecdotal evidence to make a point about policy that affects millions of people is outright silly. It's like saying government policy should prevent people from going to university, and dropping out once they get in, because hey Bill Gates did it and look how that turned out. Why refer to one of the most extreme outliers in modern history as a justification for medical policy for completely different, average people?
I don't even get what your point is. I made the point that it probably makes more sense to save 1% of 15 year olds (or 25 year olds for that matter, considering the other post on how children distort our perspective of morality), than 1% of 80 year olds, or 60 year olds for that matter, given a common situation of scarce resources and the need to make a trade off. (again in cases where resource scarcity doesn't matter, the discussion is irrelevant).
If you want to counter that with the point that 'but some 60 year olds are still productive, look at bill gates, his impact will be tremendous the next decades' then you fail to see how statistically that 60 year old may have already been dead 35 years earlier, and that statistically for every bill gates you'd save at 60, in this hypothetical situation, you'd give up a younger bill gates who now dies at 25, and it may be said that despite his tremendous impact late in life, it doesn't rival his impact earlier in life, and that this (having more impact before 60 than after 60) probably holds true on average, generally speaking. No amount of anecdotal evidence changes that fact.
You don't need infinite resources for a finite amount of people. You are exaggerating the choice.
The point is that you don't need to give up a younger Bill Gates for an older one.
As for the impact of his accomplishments, I think we'll need to wait until the end to evaluate it. You could argue that saving millions of lives and offering tens of millions better, healthier lives is more impactful.
The scarce resources implied here is the money that the government spends on medical treatment for the elderly, poor and disabled. Bill Gates obviously could always buy his own medical treatment.
Sure, but the money Bill Gates spends on medical treatment takes resources away from other things. Even if supply is elastic enough to adjust, it's unlikely to adjust immediately, and the adjustment will still reduce resources that would have been consumed elsewhere.
Money is a claim on future productivity. Spending it causes people in the world to adjust what they're doing to satisfy what you're asking for. Most of our claims aren't very large though, so this isn't particularly noticeable except in aggregate.
Yes, if you have to treat everyone with Alzheimer's or cancer, that could be expensive. On their the hand, once you develop inexpensive cures, it's not such a burden.
Bill Gates turns 60 this year. It's pretty safe to assume he'll accomplish more in the next 20 years than you will in your lifetime.