I don’t assign infinite weight to a single life in comparing it to the wants and needs of other people, this it is possible that saving a few lives is worth less than other things.
Once having done the math, then I don’t think it hurts anyone if I choose to be callous on a small internet forum, so I feel fine with expressing pleasure at things like the death of people on my enemies list.
I’ll heart it even though I think I still disagree.
Maybe I’m just grumpy this morning. But goddamn am I sick of this shit and all these people making it worse.
So you set up a straw man (infinite weight to a single life), do no math, and then claim to do math. You are a real scholar.
The basic math is the value of a life times the number of lives saved vs the value of the things people lose to restrictions times the number of people who are restricted. I feel like this is such a basic thing that most people in this forum, including you, understand that I didn’t think I need to spell it out and I don’t think I’ve had to in previous posts on the subject.
I’m not trying to solve the equation for everyone. I think reasonable people can input different values into that equation. What I disagree with is treating the value of a life as so high (effectively infinite) that preventing all preventable deaths becomes the dominant priority in a political decision.
When we get to the point that everyone who wants to be vaccinated has been vaccinated, then I think the numbers change and we should start to care more about giving people a less restricted life. How you evaluate the equation at that point probably depends primarily on what you think the cost is, both monetarily and in societal terms, of compulsory vaccination. I think that is a valid option that should be on the table, but I am unsure on whether its obvious effectiveness is worth the cost.
So it appears I single-handedly managed to get some fixes in place for DCAP participants. I talked to my old congressman, and my new congresswoman about this and I’m sure I’m the reason why the IRS has put out this notice. Special mention to @King_of_NY for dropping a note to AOC as well.
I did it!
I think the reason Caffeine has empathy is, most of the people he treats could have done or not done something that would have kept them out of the hospital. If your standard of “fuck em” is you don’t like the person and they made a mistake, you’re most of the way to being an asshole.
this topic comes up a lot recently, not just in the context of mask-wearing. (i’m hopefully going to wear a mask during seasonal illnesses for the rest of my life. but i’m also known to be lazy and self-serving, so we’ll see.)
there are actual values that economists and governments use as an equivalent to one human life. i’ve heard numbers in $5M range, and if it were me, i’d hopefully err too high, than too low. it’s keynes-esque, but there’s actual public policy that operates very differently based on the number. i’m in this slack group for state-level climate activism, and most of pre-pandemic hoopla there was about a bill with a multiplier on how oil and gas activity affected population health measurements. Like a value of 3 would mean progressives are going to GND, and a value of 1 and below means a virtually fascist takeover by an oil and gas fuhrer is next stop. in the end, i think the bill didn’t made it to the other chamber at all, so a push?
Exactly right.
I hate to tell you guys this, but a lot of people who come in with trauma got punched, shot, hit by a car, etc while being drunk inconsiderate assholes. We’ve all been drunk inconsiderate assholes in our lives, we’re just lucky enough to not nearly have died from it.
That doesn’t even get into the fact that most people’s health problems are the result of obesity, smoking, alcohol, being stupid about going to the doctor even when they have good insurance, etc.
This is just the ‘he was no angel’ crap applied to a set of people you don’t like.
The term often used is “value of a statistical life” and I think it is usually assumed to be closer to $10 million these days.
0 voters
I’ve been an inconsiderate asshole, but I’ve never been a drunk inconsiderate asshole.
I’m fine with applying “he’s no angel” to non-angels where their non-angelic nature is relevant. I am happy to do whatever the opposite of virtue signaling is to dance on the graves of the Herman Cains and Ron Wrights of the world.
well if you haven’t been drunk while being a dick, then nothing in that post applies to you at all right?
Sober douchebaggery and bad decisions are just fine.
More people probably listen to and care about the opinion of this person than any actual doctor and possibly Fauci himself. At least a third of people are going to refuse the vaccine. This country is just plain hopeless.
https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1363896822029312000?s=21
Why not try to be a better person instead of wishing death on large numbers of people?
I mean, thank god she hasn’t gone full anti-vaxx.
Why should I care about these people more than they care for themselves (and me and others)?
I take the lesson of the iterated prisoner’s dilemma to be that my enemies need to suffer in order to teach them to behave and become more fruitful partners in a more cooperative society. COVID present a potential teaching moment.
The real world doesn’t divide neatly into friends and enemies.
Some of the people you’re calling enemies are just badly led or corrupted by a rotten society/system and are in need of education - the short sharp shock of authoritarianism is absolutely the last thing needed and will only create more bad people from young people born into your brutal hellscape.
The badly-led people aren’t going to turn on their bad leaders until they suffer and some of them are still just going to double-down on their bad leaders because admitting they were wrong causes too much pain.
If they need education, maybe we can send them to re-education camps.
Look this pretend intellectualism is extremely annoying. This isn’t some logical mathematical position that you’re claiming it to be. It’s as simple as you don’t like these people, so fuck em. Stop pretending it’s anything else.
It can be both.