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Scrub-Niggurath posted:The 'value' of a human life is relative to the personal values of each individual, just like the 'value' of every single thing in the world OwlFancier posted:A sum of all existing and potential experiences and capabilities of the life in question. Experience gives a life value by making it unique, and capability gives it value by making it useful. It's sort of depressing that you guys are flailing like this when there has been a lot of well-respected work on the question. I'm arguing against the inherent and necessarily >0 value of human life and I'm the only one who has actually referenced scholarly attempts to find the value of a human life.
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Mar 20, 2015 11:26
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Arglebargle III posted:We've arrived at this juncture faster than I anticipated. Okay, so you're trying another tactic, but you're demanding other people do all the work for you. Why don't you propose some qualitative values for a human life, and then we can go from there. As for your other questions, I am a nihilistic mass-murderer.
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Mar 20, 2015 13:03
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on the left posted:Say we locked up Hitler and allowed him to keep writing from jail. Wouldn't it be a big problem if he was basically able to paint himself as a political prisoner and build another following while in prison? In his final years, after his stroke, Salazar was given the illusion that he was still in charge of the country, even though he had been ousted and replaced by someone else. He was signing 'official' documents and generally being given the illusion of power, when virtually everything he did was immediately thrown in the trash. In a carefully controlled environment such a prison, it would be easy to implement such a system. Hitler could, in theory, continue his legacy unabashed in his own mind, while his actual influence would be minimal.
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Mar 20, 2015 14:01
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Effectronica posted:Okay, so you're trying another tactic, but you're demanding other people do all the work for you. Why don't you propose some qualitative values for a human life, and then we can go from there. 0. $100,000,000. $100,000,000 Pesos. IDK it's probably a continuum but there you go. Go to Ask / Tell and ask an actuary what a human life is worth. Prepare to be really depressed by the questions they ask you and the answer they give. You might want to lie about your particulars to avoid becoming suicidal. The idea that a human life has a finite value, in certain contexts, isn't even controversial. It's a necessary component, for instance, of government planning for everything from traffic intersections to environmental rules to food safety regulations and etc.
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Mar 20, 2015 14:22
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Effectronica posted:Okay, so you're trying another tactic, but you're demanding other people do all the work for you. Why don't you propose some qualitative values for a human life, and then we can go from there. I've provided figures from the US DoT and DHHS. If you want to make an argument then go ahead but as the conversation stands you've asserted that human life has an unquantifiable value and provided no explanation for what you mean by that or even a basic argument to support your assertion.
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Mar 20, 2015 14:23
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wateroverfire posted:0. Yeah but why apply the logic of governments to yourself, like some kind of...cape-wearing dictator who decides the value of everyone's life...
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Mar 20, 2015 14:31
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SedanChair posted:Yeah but why apply the logic of governments to yourself, like some kind of...cape-wearing dictator who decides the value of everyone's life... Sure, purely for the feels yeah the life of every special unique snowflake is precious and irreplacable and etc and nothing bad should happen to anyone ever even people who manifestly do not believe the lives of others have any value and demonstrate that by doing terrible things. Because we're all different and different is special and something something justice. I guess.
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Mar 20, 2015 14:36
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wateroverfire posted:0. I said qualitative. Arglebargle III posted:I've provided figures from the US DoT and DHHS. If you want to make an argument then go ahead but as the conversation stands you've asserted that human life has an unquantifiable value and provided no explanation for what you mean by that or even a basic argument to support your assertion. And yet you said "qualitative" earlier, so it seems that you, along with your fellow self-made madman wateroverfire, have some serious issues knowing the definitions of words. But it should be obvious- human life has a value, in that we value our own life, killing requires justification, etc. but when we attempt to quantify this value, we end up with nonsensical results, or results that contradict the spirit of saying that human life has value, or results that, like actuarial definitions, are completely unrelated to what people generally mean (for example, although the money paid to the families of dead soldiers is $600,000, you cannot pay $600,000 if you murder someone and thus avoid imprisonment). Therefore, the value of human life is not quantifiable, in the same way that beauty is not quantifiable. We can articulate relationships and greater or lesser values, but we cannot reduce them to numbers. wateroverfire posted:Sure, purely for the feels yeah the life of every special unique snowflake is precious and irreplacable and etc and nothing bad should happen to anyone ever even people who manifestly do not believe the lives of others have any value and demonstrate that by doing terrible things. Because we're all different and different is special and something something justice. I guess. Okay. I grab a mass-murderer, provide you with incontrovertible evidence of their crimes, an affidavit that guarantees you will face no repercussions for any actions you take, tie the murderer to a chair, and give you a crowbar. Do you beat them to death, or not?
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Mar 20, 2015 14:38
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Effectronica posted:I said qualitative. What would a qualitative value of human life be and why would that be important?
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Mar 20, 2015 14:44
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Effectronica posted:Okay. I grab a mass-murderer, provide you with incontrovertible evidence of their crimes, an affidavit that guarantees you will face no repercussions for any actions you take, tie the murderer to a chair, and give you a crowbar. Do you beat them to death, or not? IDK. Is she hot? That would influence my calculation. Maybe if you identified a particular mass murderer from history...
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Mar 20, 2015 14:46
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wateroverfire posted:What would a qualitative value of human life be and why would that be important? I'll take "Things a sociopath might say" for $1000. This is a really weird conversation. Of course we can have compassion for anyone. This is demonstrably true: Lots of people have compassion for people no matter how evil and/or wretched. It's also true that nobody gains anything, not even victims or their families, from seeing those who hurt them suffer physically. They do gain by seeing them publically held to account and socially held to account. That is something to consider: that if you are overly compassionate towards a criminal--not in terms of not torturing them, but in terms of saying "He's not really to blame for what he did"--then that does actually harm the victim and/or their friends.
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Mar 20, 2015 14:49
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wateroverfire posted:What would a qualitative value of human life be and why would that be important? Well, I was figuring that, since ArgyleBargain III used "qualitative" in a sentence, that he knew what it meant. I made a mistake in doing so. In any case, you haven't really addressed the problem that you can't pay the actuarial average, or an actuarial computation of the victim's value, to avoid prison time for murder. If that was the actual value of a human life, you'd think this would be part of the legal system. There's also the issue of where this leads us when all's said and done, but- wateroverfire posted:IDK. Is she hot? That would influence my calculation. Oh, goody, you dodged it~ Answer the question. You can assume that they're arbitrarily evil and have committed arbitrarily bad crimes.
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Mar 20, 2015 14:49
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Effectronica posted:I said qualitative. I don't know how to qualify the value of a human life, I was approaching the question quantitatively. You rejected the entire concept of quantification, so I asked you to qualify it or accept that you were making a statement of faith only. Then you asked me to make your argument for you. Effectronica posted:In any case, you haven't really addressed the problem that you can't pay the actuarial average, or an actuarial computation of the victim's value, to avoid prison time for murder. If that was the actual value of a human life, you'd think this would be part of the legal system. There's also the issue of where this leads us when all's said and done, but- There is no problem here. The argument "X is not part of the American legal system, therefore it cannot be true," is ridiculous on its face. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Mar 20, 2015 |
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Mar 20, 2015 14:54
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Arglebargle III posted:I don't know how to qualify the value of a human life, I was approaching the question quantitatively. You rejected the entire concept of quantification, so I asked you to qualify it or accept that you were making a statement of faith only. Then you asked me to make your argument for you. Okay, so you do want to have a society where you can pay to kill someone, perfectly legally. All right, so let's assume you have a significant other, and I jump out of nowhere, murder them with a hacksaw, and give you five million dollars in cash (the average value of an American life, which is definitely overpaying!!). Is this a fair exchange? Or, hell, let's say we have people who actuaries value at under ten thousand dollars of worth. I can easily finance a yearly, twice-yearly murder habit with a solid UMC job. Is this acceptable? Hey, you even said that human life is valueless earlier, so clearly, there would be nothing wrong with strangling you to death, right?
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Mar 20, 2015 15:09
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Effectronica posted:Hey, you even said that human life is valueless earlier, so clearly, there would be nothing wrong with strangling you to death, right? Are you really this obtuse or do you just have bad reading comprehension? Effectronica posted:Or, hell, let's say we have people who actuaries value at under ten thousand dollars of worth. I can easily finance a yearly, twice-yearly murder habit with a solid UMC job. Is this acceptable? You're getting really mad about things that actually happen all the time. How much does it cost to launch a missile from a Predator drone? How much does it cost for a polluting industry to lobby for the right to release pollutants that later lead to an increase in mortality? If we could divide the cost of their lobbying efforts by the number of premature deaths downwind/downstream, what sort of number would we get? Is it acceptable? These are the decisions that polities have to make all the time. Effectronica posted:All right, so let's assume you have a significant other, and I jump out of nowhere, murder them with a hacksaw, and give you five million dollars in cash (the average value of an American life, which is definitely overpaying!!). Is this a fair exchange? There are definitely societies that would call this fair! I would say that giving me all that money probably isn't what the DoT had in mind when they calculated the value of an American life at $6 million. I think you'd probably be overpaying me. Now would I want to make that exchange? I don't know, this is a hypothetical. But I think if you actually proposed this deal publicly (supposing it was legal) you'd be surprised at the response you'd get. I think there would not only be people willing to trade the lives of other for $5 million, there would be people willing to trade their own lives for $5 million. Welcome to actually having a conversation though, glad to see you do a 180 on your previous position that the value of human life is unquantifiable. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Mar 20, 2015 |
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Mar 20, 2015 15:25
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Arglebargle III posted:Are you really this obtuse or do you just have bad reading comprehension? Wait a second, you flipped my post upside down. You son of a bitch! I was specifically setting up more and more ridiculous scenarios, and you agree with all of them until you get to the point where it involves directly threatening you. Goddamn.
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Mar 20, 2015 15:39
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Well yeah. Obviously the victims of violence have a different perspective on the value of their own lives than other actors or society as a whole. Although some individuals see their own lives as having low enough value even to themselves that they consciously choose death for a variety of reasons. These facts tend to cast their weight against the idea that there is an objective, inherent, net positive value to a human life. Have you been paying attention at all?
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Mar 20, 2015 15:44
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Arglebargle III posted:Well yeah. Obviously the victims of violence have a different perspective on the value of their own lives than other actors or society as a whole. Although some individuals see their own lives as having low enough value even to themselves that they consciously choose death for a variety of reasons. These facts tend to cast their weight against the idea that there is an objective, inherent, net positive value to a human life. Have you been paying attention at all? Hold on... you're telling me that you have a difficult time understanding the difference between abstract and concrete? Color me S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E-D.
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Mar 20, 2015 15:46
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Humans and human life are the only things that matter in this world. Even though someone might for practical reasons be forced to put a pricetag on a human life, I find the whole notion ridiculous. Money is a social agreement, and a life is a life. It's someone like you. (You can exchange "humans" for "sentinent beings" if you like.)
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Mar 20, 2015 15:57
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Effectronica posted:Hold on... you're telling me that you have a difficult time understanding the difference between abstract and concrete? Color me S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E-D. You keep doing these smug one-liners and when pressed to explain what you mean you give up or retreat. But please, enlighten us as to the difference between abstract and concrete value.
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Mar 20, 2015 17:41
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Arglebargle III posted:You keep doing these smug one-liners and when pressed to explain what you mean you give up or retreat. That's not what I said. You're making inferences, but you're too stupid to do so, and should stop. When people say "human life has value", they are not talking about any concrete person's life. They are talking about an abstract entity that stands for human lives in general. So showing that individual, particular lives have different values to different people does not do what you want it to do.
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Mar 20, 2015 17:45
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Obdicut posted:They do gain by seeing them publically held to account and socially held to account. That is something to consider: that if you are overly compassionate towards a criminal--not in terms of not torturing them, but in terms of saying "He's not really to blame for what he did"--then that does actually harm the victim and/or their friends. I agree! Effectronica posted:Well, I was figuring that, since ArgyleBargain III used "qualitative" in a sentence, that he knew what it meant. I made a mistake in doing so. In any case, you haven't really addressed the problem that you can't pay the actuarial average, or an actuarial computation of the victim's value, to avoid prison time for murder. If that was the actual value of a human life, you'd think this would be part of the legal system. There's also the issue of where this leads us when all's said and done, but- Hmmm. It's almost like murder is a crime against the state and there's a separate civil obligation that, yeah, is going to involve compensating survivors for the loss of value of their loved one. Effectronica posted:Oh, goody, you dodged it~ I bash his/her/it's/xir's head in and escape from the stupid hypothetical.
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Mar 20, 2015 17:53
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Effectronica posted:That's not what I said. You're making inferences, but you're too stupid to do so, and should stop. When people say "human life has value", they are not talking about any concrete person's life. They are talking about an abstract entity that stands for human lives in general. So basically it's some meaningless masturbatory bullshit and whenever poo poo gets remotely real and there are choices to be made things are totally different?
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Mar 20, 2015 17:55
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wateroverfire posted:I agree! Okay, so killing people is not actually a crime, it's only when the state doesn't like it that it becomes a crime. This is how things ought to work, in your view. The only good framework. And you dodged it again, because you're uncomfortable with the thought of killing someone and don't really want bad things to happen to bad people, you just want them to maybe happen so long as you're not responsible for any of it. Well, at least you're a decent person deep down, under all the self-imposed insanity.
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Mar 20, 2015 17:56
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Effectronica posted:Okay, so killing people is not actually a crime, it's only when the state doesn't like it that it becomes a crime. This is how things ought to work, in your view. The only good framework. I answered your question with all the forthright seriousness it deserved. You should probably stop commenting on other peoples' mental health btw.
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Mar 20, 2015 18:02
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wateroverfire posted:I answered your question with all the forthright seriousness it deserved. You're the guy who wrote that bad things should happen to bad people, and then refuses to go along to the natural conclusion of that belief. You're also the guy who insists that, contrary to what the vast majority of people believe, the general rule is that killing is legally neutral and only certain types of killing are criminal in nature, rather than killing being generally illegal and only legal in specific cases. You're also the person who thinks that anything which cannot be valued in terms of numbers, and indeed, in terms of money, is valueless.
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Mar 20, 2015 18:06
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Effectronica posted:You're the guy who wrote that bad things should happen to bad people, and then refuses to go along to the natural conclusion of that belief. You're also the guy who insists that, contrary to what the vast majority of people believe, the general rule is that killing is legally neutral and only certain types of killing are criminal in nature, rather than killing being generally illegal and only legal in specific cases. You're also the person who thinks that anything which cannot be valued in terms of numbers, and indeed, in terms of money, is valueless. Dude get back on your meds, seriously.
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Mar 20, 2015 19:02
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Arglebargle are you just trying to make some pedantic point that human life doesn't have inherent value, just value projected by the overwhelming majority of society? If so, who gives a poo poo? Help me out here because everything you say is so stupid it makes my eyes go cross.
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Mar 20, 2015 19:13
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Arglebargle III posted:It's sort of depressing that you guys are flailing like this when there has been a lot of well-respected work on the question. I'm arguing against the inherent and necessarily >0 value of human life and I'm the only one who has actually referenced scholarly attempts to find the value of a human life. Everyone gets what you're arguing against champ, it's just that you are wrong.
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Mar 20, 2015 19:23
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wateroverfire posted:Dude get back on your meds, seriously. Those are all things you have said in this thread, carefully rephrased to make them less palatable.
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Mar 20, 2015 19:49
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Effectronica posted:Those are all things you have said in this thread, carefully rephrased to make them
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Mar 20, 2015 20:19
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You said that murder was a crime against the state, and not a crime against a person. This implies that killing is generally legal and only specific instances that the state deems harmful are illegal. You asked why non-quantitative value would be important if it existed, which implies that you don't think except in terms of things you can assign numbers to, and the only numbers you have assigned have been cash values. You sneered at the idea that nothing bad should ever happen to anybody, which naturally implies that there are people bad things should happen to, but you treat the idea of actually doing those bad things to such people with contempt. What would you call someone who repeatedly insists he wants a refrigerator but refuses to ever do anything to get one?
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Mar 20, 2015 20:30
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Arglebargle III posted:It's sort of depressing that you guys are flailing like this when there has been a lot of well-respected work on the question. I'm arguing against the inherent and necessarily >0 value of human life and I'm the only one who has actually referenced scholarly attempts to find the value of a human life. That's not flailing, that's my answer.
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Mar 20, 2015 20:31
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Effectronica posted:You said that murder was a crime against the state, and not a crime against a person. This implies that killing is generally legal and only specific instances that the state deems harmful are illegal. What do they give to schizophrenics? You need that bro.
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Mar 20, 2015 20:37
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wateroverfire posted:What do they give to schizophrenics? You need that bro. Maybe if you state he has mental illness a dozen times instead of defending and/or clarifying your point, you'll win by default!
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Mar 20, 2015 20:40
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wateroverfire posted:What do they give to schizophrenics? You need that bro. You know, I can sympathize. If I'd said any of those things, I'd be looking for some way to get out of it too. But this is pretty pathetic, you know?
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Mar 20, 2015 20:55
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On the one hand, it seems like we have all the people who share in the concept of human community and agree that all human life has inherent value, and on the other hand we have people who cannot see the value of anything unless it is assigned a value by those in power. I'm not sure if there is any thing else to communicate at this point, everyone has their positions.
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Mar 20, 2015 21:20
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Toasticle posted:
We also seem to have it ingrained in our social contract that someone's home is his or hercastle and intruders breaking in are forfeiting their lives.
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Mar 20, 2015 21:49
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SedanChair posted:On the one hand, it seems like we have all the people who share in the concept of human community and agree that all human life has inherent value, and on the other hand we have people who cannot see the value of anything unless it is assigned a value by those in power. I'm not sure if there is any thing else to communicate at this point, everyone has their positions. I genuinely do not understand their stance however. If human life having some sort of inherent value is a principle agreed upon by a vast majority of the world, then doesn't that give it inherent value by definition?
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Mar 20, 2015 22:55
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Scrub-Niggurath posted:I genuinely do not understand their stance however. If human life having some sort of inherent value is a principle agreed upon by a vast majority of the world, then doesn't that give it inherent value by definition? Only if the existence of God being believed by a majority of people in the world makes the existence of God objectively true.
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Mar 20, 2015 23:44
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