Are some Peoples Lives Simply more Important that Others?

[Venant]

Well, there's a difference between talk and action. Just because they said they valued everyone equally, doesn't mean they actually did.

Maybe it was all just a ploy to get into a position of power and wealth.

It does sound much better to say 'I want to make everyone equal' than 'I want to make myself wealthy and powerful'. Maybe people should be more skeptical of bold claims of altruism.

[nanook12]

I didn't say you could. But you can to a degree predict risk via associations with behaviors, for example. As in, if you're a smoker, you have a higher risk of lung cancer and heart disease. It's not determinative, but you're pretending like actions are essentially random, which they are not.

So yeah, you can assign objective value and potential value to someone while they're still alive. Risk is captured in potential value.

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This is simply a description of how individuals assign subjective value.

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If you have perfect information you can predict the future. So, you're wrong.

Perfect information is also impossible to obtain. Perfect information would imply that all of our scientific theories absolute and math reality exactly. Our scientific theories are merely good models for approximations, and we will never obtain scientific theories that perfectly model and explain reality.

[Mihalik]

What if a genius child is born into a poor family or a meth addict into a wealthy family. Statistics say that children born into poverty tend to remain poor while children born into wealthy tend to remain wealthy. By your methodology the genius kid could be looked over and his vast potential for society wasted while the meth addict from the wealthy family receives praise. Statistics do a bad job when it comes to out liners that don't fit the typical mold.

That is why society invented universal compulsory education and child protection services. While it is not a foolproof system, it is intended to place children into a system where their potential can be traced and exploited, while the negative environmental factors can be contained or removed.

Unfortunately some countries do a lot better with this than others. Two important elements come into play here, one being funding and the other being whose rights having primacy, the children's or the parents. Societies that underfund or are unable to fund education and social services tend to do poorly, just as societies that place too much importance on the rights of the parents to the detriment of the children.

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we will never obtain scientific that perfectly explain reality.

That is your personal subjective opinion, based on hot air and nothing more.

[Deleted]

Practically speaking, of course they are.

If a town has to choose between sacrificing their doctor to the god of darkness or the unemployed guy, who are they gonna choose?

[Sykol]

Most of them are worthless. Above them are those who make a change for the better in the world. Above them are those I love.

[Mihalik]

Practically speaking, of course they are.

If a town has to choose between sacrificing their doctor to the god of darkness or the unemployed guy, who are they gonna choose?

Considering how tribal and stupid humans can be in mobs, the likely answer to that will be -Whoever has more friends or is able to marshal more violent supporters to deter being sacrificed.

While humans are intelligent we are also capable of profound stupidity and actions that go against our own self interest.

[Deleted]

What if a genius child is born into a poor family or a meth addict into a wealthy family. Statistics say that children born into poverty tend to remain poor while children born into wealthy tend to remain wealthy. By your methodology the genius kid could be looked over and his vast potential for society wasted while the meth addict from the wealthy family receives praise. Statistics do a bad job when it comes to out liners that don't fit the typical mold.

Well he did say that with perfect information you can predict the future, and technically he is right if you believe in determinism.
You are trying to say statistics can do a bad job, but i think when he said perfect information he meant PERFECT information, as you would know pretty much all risk assigned to the person, and again, following determinism some would wager you could even predict that whole persons life from start to end because there is no free will, and there are no coincidences. Its all about the amount and grade of our information.

For the sake of discussion many of these arguments we know everything, of course the current reality is much more inked. But that just makes risk assessment even more important when assigning potential worth, as long as the statistics give the best overall picture. Imperfect information is always gonna create a few rotten apples.

Besides the argument about truly random space-time anomalies/events determinism is technically correct unless im mistaken.

[nanook12]

Yes, in the eyes of society, some lives are more important then others. This is completly natural and there is nothing wrong with it. People are not equal when it comes to their donations to the society they live in, so they value rises the more they give back to the society they live in. If you pay 50k in taxes every ýear, you are 10 times more important in the eyes of society when compared to one person who pays 10k in taxes. Also, if you are a woman, you get a bonus, because woman are in general more important to the survival of societies and their decisions have greater impact then that of men, since woman creates kids - the most important resourse of society.


This is how things are and it is pretty okay.

Again I agree that certain lives are more important than others in the context of society; however, I wouldn't be so quick to agree that contribution is the reason society deems some lives more important the others. In short, I am saying that I am not sure who contributes more to society. For example, the doctor that saves lives, or the field worker that is a link in the food supply chain. Clearly one is far more financially rewarded than the other, but financial compensation is not the same as societal contribution. Monetary gain and contribution to society may not be linked at all.

[callipygoustp]

Are some Peoples Lives Simply more Important that Others?

Yes
{10char}

[nanook12]

So you are advocating violent social engineering and eugenics. You know we played around with those concepts between the end of the 19th century up to the mid 20th and then we figured out that it's all a bunch of horseshit that makes all our lives objectively worse?

If we can figure out all the constituents of what makes a good productive member of society and constantly refine the process of find beneficial traits to society, then wouldn't the practice of eugenics cease to be such a terrible thing? This is probably a good question for another thread.

For example, the Hindenburg blimp seemed like a horrible idea and complete failure at the time, but did we stop build blimps forever? No. We realized the mistakes of the past and improved upon them. Just because eugenics didn't work in the past doesn't mean that it couldn't work now. We have far more analytical and psycho social tools at our disposal now to make the idea of eugenics a potentially better evolutionary path than our current method of evolutionary selection.

A potentially radical and hard to accept idea is that eugenics could work now due to the advances in science we have developed.

[Stelio Kontos]

If we can figure out all the constituents of what makes a good productive member of society and constantly refine the process of find beneficial traits to society, then wouldn't the practice of eugenics cease to be such a terrible thing? This is probably a good question for another thread.

Sure, are you willing to be sterilized or worse, euthanized, because it will make some boffin's idea of a society better?

[IIamaKing]

How do you know you will not do something 1000 time more valuable than everything Einstein did combined?
That is my argument, because we cannot value ones life before they die, all the lives ( of living people) are equal in value.

I did say assuming current course.

Arguments based on hypotheticals are not great arguments. SO, you are worth what you are worth now, improve that, then you may be worth more.

[HumbleDuck]

I did say assuming current course.

Arguments based on hypotheticals are not great arguments. SO, you are worth what you are worth now, improve that, then you may be worth more.

By that logic, Einstein's life was worth nothing before 1905, which is obviously wrong.
You cannot value someone life before they are done.

[Rudkobing]

Plumbers aren't expendable. How can they charge so much for their services?

[IIamaKing]

By that logic, Einstein's life was worth nothing before 1905, which is obviously wrong.
You cannot value someone life before they are done.

In 1904, Einstein's life was worth w/e a patient clerk was worth.

I WILL not value a life on what they MAY do. I will value it based on what they HAVE done.

[Flurryfang]

Again I agree that certain lives are more important than others in the context of society; however, I wouldn't be so quick to agree that contribution is the reason society deems some lives more important the others. In short, I am saying that I am not sure who contributes more to society. For example, the doctor that saves lives, or the field worker that is a link in the food supply chain. Clearly one is far more financially rewarded than the other, but financial compensation is not the same as societal contribution. Monetary gain and contribution to society may not be linked at all.

The difference between the doctor and the field worker is that the field worker can be replaced quite easily by any availible citizen in the society, while the doctor requires time and will from another citizen to replace the former. The doctor can do the field workers job, but the feild worker can not do the doctors work. Simple as that

While i will partly agree that monetary gain does not automaticly increase your value in the eyes of society, in a day and age where you can leach off other societies strong sides by giving them money, money has alot of power in the eyes of the society.

[Maxilian]

No, all lives are equal as important.

That does not mean that every life will have the same value to you/me or anyone else.

And that does not mean that every life is as influential.

[frogger237]

I'll destroy the entire human population before I let any of my family members die. IDGAF.

You wont be getting any fucks either, unless you got a sister or mom you wanna bang if you take out everyone else.



I'd say rapists and serial killers are less important than pretty much every other person on the planet.

[Pantupino]

yes /10char

[Sting]

Fuck the plebs.