The value of a human life.

[The Funslinger]

As anybody who took an economic class will tell you, the more of a product you have, the less expensive it becomes. So with the human population growing, would it be more acceptable to kill another human? Or am I just morbid? Anyway, I just think it's weird, what value does the life of another person have to you?

Captcha: Iveryta Tumors (should this worry me)

Well, from a purely economic standpoint, humans are almost worthless. We are in excess of six billion (although that's been the go-to statistic for years now, so it's probably much more) so we're about as common as pennies in, say, the British Economy.

In terms of morals, I'd say it's acceptable to kill in self defense if the situation calls for it. Though this sort of has to be judged on a case by case basis. Human life, however, isn't to my mind "sacred". As such, I'm pro-choice for abortions and euthanasia.

Terry Pratchett argues it better than I can:

 

[ThyReaper]

Never. I couldn't live with that massive guilt trip, I'd just turn into what I hate- greedy, selfish, devoid of humanity.

 

[Kevlar Eater]

Human life is basically worthless. We haven't reached Warhammer 40k numbers yet, but there is enough soylent green to throw at any superpower country's defenses, as long as they don't drop nukes.

 

[dragonhunter21]

I value another human's life like I value my life. Would I want to die? Of course not. So why would I think I can make a decision like that about someone else's life?

 

[chadachada123]

You can't put a specific number on every person, but I would say that your proportionate worth scales with how old you are.

When you're not born yet, you're worthless. You have no memories and no consciousness and no feeling of pain.

After you're born, you're "worth" a little bit. You have a feeling of pain but little else. Dying here might be sad for the parents, but not as sad as the next step, since you haven't even experienced life yet.

As you get older, into the teen years and up until the late 20s, you gain friends and the love of your family, millions of dollars are being invested in you, in the hope that you'll grow up to do something good or at least not-bad for the world. Dying here would be the biggest detriment to society, the biggest waste of money, and thus, here is where you are worth the most. On top of that, you've gotten a good taste of life but are being cut down in your prime.

Into the 30s and onward, as long as you have decent life insurance, your life is not worth as much, and you are not expected to do any great learnings or investments or anything like that. Your death, while sad, is not nearly as sad or nearly as much of a waste as deaths in the earlier point. You've already experienced most that life has to offer.

Elderly people, unless they hold great secrets, are comparatively as infants as far as worth goes.

Not that none of this, in and of itself, should necessarily be reflected in our laws or public policy.

 

[FEichinger]

The human race itself has done more harm than good to Earth, managed to nearly destroy it thrice and still continues - even though it pretends it finally realizes ...
Given that, the collective human race is comparable to a parasite. Buying a parasite doesn't make much sense, unless you plan on using it - in which case we'd have the scenario of someone willing to destroy Earth.
Now, working from that, we'll see one thing: The human race as a whole should have most value to those who hate Earth, and humanity.

Here comes the irony ... Those, who value a single human's life least, should value the entire race most. The collective has an entirely different impact than the individual. But the impact of the individual on both the collective and the environment is what gives the individual value.

 

[Jakub324]

Some people are worth next to nothing. I'm talking about chavs. Some people are worth billions. Useful people, like dear Stephen Hawking.

 

[Tizzmarelda]

People mean everything to me. Even the assholes. Especially the assholes. They give me a better perspective of all the lovely peeps in my life. human life is invaluable period.

 

[Vault101]

yes, to me its very important, based on the simple logic that it could be ME or somone I care about, if you were to give somone the power to affect other people

 

[Manji187]

The value of a human life is not something you can measure. Period. It is not a commodity to be bought and sold, and a human is not an inanimate object like a widget that you buy and sell (unless you're the kind of person who deserves only the worst things to happen to them). Also, value=/=price. Something can have infinite value and be priced at a penny, or have no value and be ten million dollars. Human life is not something you can put a value on, because it's in a fundamentally different class of things than any other sort of thing.

Indeed, damn free market capitalists and their creepy, distorting views. They'll commodify ANYTHING (regardless of morality/ ethical considerations) if there is money/ profit to be made.

 

[Knife]

As anybody who took an economic class will tell you, the more of a product you have, the less expensive it becomes. So with the human population growing, would it be more acceptable to kill another human? Or am I just morbid? Anyway, I just think it's weird, what value does the life of another person have to you?

Captcha: Iveryta Tumors (should this worry me)

You seem to be missing an important point - "the more of a product you have" is an average of the amount of products you have compared to people, basically a product to human ratio (1000 cows may be a lot for one man, but rather little to a country of 100,000 people for instance).
And the ratio of human lives to people is a constant 1:1. Hence human life is always the same value (though everything else might be inflated in comparison...).

 

[Risingblade]

Depends on the economy,whose life you're selling and whose buying.

 

[HerbertTheHamster]

around 255516800 kJ

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet, but the US government literally puts a price on a human life, which they update every year based on a variety of factors. Different agencies actually have different values. Currently, it's sitting at $9.1 million according to the EPA, $7.9 million according to the FDA, and $6 million according to the Department of Transportation. I'm pretty sure the Department of Defense keeps one too, but I couldn't find it. In all cases, they use it to justify spending or not spending on things that would save lives -- for example, in the case of the Department of Transportation, adding new stoplights, widening highways, and so on. If they would wind up spending more money than the cost of the lives the change would save, they generally don't bother. Source.

As for my personal value of a human life? Priceless. The only time I see it as acceptable to take one is if the person whose life is being taken is actively trying to take that of yourself or someone else -- in other words, self defense. Once you get into executions carried out by the legal system, you're no longer looking at self defense, but cold blooded murder. Like, 0 degrees kelvin blooded.

 

[jimahaff]

As anybody who took an economic class will tell you, the more of a product you have, the less expensive it becomes.

Captcha: Iveryta Tumors (should this worry me)

That only works with products or commodities(manufactured goods and raw materials). The reason for this is the law of supply and demand. If everybody and their mum has a twenty foot statue of a cock on their lawn, you wouldn't feel special for buying one. but if nobody had one, you become the talk of the town. Essentially the less of it there is the more valuable it is; this is also why gemstones are so valuable. So this only works for things you buy and sell.

If slavery were still around then it would apply, the more slaves there are in total, the easier it is to buy one and the cheaper they are. But slavery for the most part has been done away with in the (at risk of sounding egocentric and for lack or a better title) civilized world.

The only possible way to measure the value of a life (without slavery) in my opinion is to assign a value to all their actions thoughts or ideas and potential actions and thoughts or ideas. Since human potential is unlimited, this value becomes impossible to calculate as long as we are using fiat currency as a medium of judging value.

So the only possible conclusion becomes...
1 humane life = 1 humane life. Kinda stupid, but this is my conclusion. The only way to buy a person in my humble opinion is by trading your own life for theirs. This is my final conclusion, and I stand by it. P.s. if you read my entire post pat your self on the back.

 

[Thaius]

To me, human life is incredible potential, and that potential is worth more than anything else. The ideas and aspirations are what define a person, rather than the processes of life, and those are, in a fragile, transient and futile universe, in which the meaning of existence is likely simply without, those neurons firing pulses across to protein bound cerebral matter, the single most precious glimmer in an endless predictable infinity of boundless entropy.

All human life is uniquely precious, regardless of how much there appears to be; simply due to it's ineffably unlikely occurrence and it's ability to reverse the decay of the universe, entropy.

Additionally, sentience itself has value in that is can ascribe value and importance, to events, objects, and other life. In this, the likes of elephants, dolphins and primates, are eminently worth protecting.

So yes, great; more-so than any financial value.

Comment #13. Your comment was how long it took for anyone to suggest there is value in a human life. I simply cannot believe there are so many people who see no inherent value in humanity. I'm going to go curl up in a ball and cry now.

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

While, I'm not "above" killing for money, it's an EXPENSIVE THING TO DO, and it gets more expensive the more the law enforcement tightens in a region or the more tech they develope to catch people...

Personally if I were in the trade, I'd put the price at between $10,000 and $15,000 for a normal person if you want it done clean and without any incriminating connections to the payor... someone in high public profile is worth anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000 because at that point there's bribery and generally double/tripple-crossing within their organization to do to get close to them and sometimes elimitation of secondary tertiary and nuissance targets... which also have to be covered up...


Life is worth a combination of what you make it worth and what someone would pay to see it end... so everyone's is different.

Just so it's clear I am NOT advertising my prices for a kill or anything this is hypothetical, no attempts at hiring me please...

also, the CAPTCHA is Adjust audios, I'm listening to Dubstep... lol

 

[emeraldrafael]

snip

Well let me put it this way, I cannot imagine a sum of money big enough to make me want kill some random stranger. I cannot imagine a sum of money big enough to silence my conscience.
...

Thats fine. I never said the amount I would kill for, and while I dont know it off the top of my head, I know its out there.

Offtopic, my captcha was C12H25SiCl3 houllga.

Captcha made a new (EDIT compound

 

[Hitokiri_Gensai]

1500 dollars in small untraceable bills left in a duffel bag under the overpass on 3rd street with a yellow ziptie around the handle at 11:15. Target name, and general activities should be left on a white envelope on top of the money. No, you will not meet me, nor will you ever know my identity, but if you need someone taken care of, follow the directions. xD


in all seriousness, a human life is priceless, and neither i, nor anyone else, should be able to give a value to one.

Captcha: Entr For reference. epic.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

snip

Well let me put it this way, I cannot imagine a sum of money big enough to make me want kill some random stranger. I cannot imagine a sum of money big enough to silence my conscience.
...

Thats fine. I never said the amount I would kill for, and while I dont know it off the top of my head, I know its out there.

Offtopic, my captcha was C12H25SiCl3 houllga.

Captcha made a new element.

No, you're right it's easy to say things when everything is up in the air and hypothetical. I just cannot imagine myself taking someone's life that I did not feel truly deserved it and I cannot imagine a sum of money large to allow me to live with myself afterward.

Off topic: If I remember my chemistry, I believe that's a compound not an element. I think that'd be Carbon Hydrosilocloride.