Friday, November 4, 2011
Merely saying something does not make it an opinion, does it?
It's kind of weird that when I actually had time, I did not post anything. During that time I had enough time to do something else. Something more worthwhile than spreading good music and some peculiar thoughts and theories. Now that I have returned to the almost normal nearly standard full time load, I start coming back at it. Makes sense, really.
How to measure the worth of a life? If it is measurable (for instance by assessing the amounts of money paid for ransom to save lives), are some lives actually more valuable than others? In case of the ransoms, it is quite evident - the worth of the life of a hostage is directly linked to the potential size of the ransom. But if one were, to say, eliminate the monetary factor, what would a life be worth? If you had a choice between 2 people (strangers to you), one of whom you need to sentence to death, how would you choose? How could you choose? Would it simply be a standard case of flipping a coin or would it be subjective assessment to the importance of the people "for the greater good"? In the first case the people have about the equal chance of survival, which means that you as a judge become redundant. This is generally the case of diseases that sweep through human settlements, killing off random people. In the second case on person clearly has the upper edge. The main problem with this is the subjectiveness of the evaluation of value that very often tends to tilt a little too much to give the other guy even a fighting chance. Tends to kill a type of democracy - it is nothing even close to equal opportunities for everyone. however people are at power, making subjective and often enough ineffective and even harmful decisions that affect merely the whole world (if the decision is repeated for some time with different subjects). Is that any better than death by bioweapon? Technically both results can be tinkered with, ensuring the survival of the people who carry it out. The only difference is in the result. Hence there is only one question: Does man make more mistakes than he would if he were to leave it to pure chance?
Sheldon Cooper, PhD, made some research into the matter, but his system of randomness lacked "true" randomness. By any chance, it was missed by me. But he did prove that living by order of chance does indeed care for the basic necessities and quite a lot of luxuries. Well, not "proved", per se. More like "demonstrated". After all, he is a doctor for pretend. And yes, that was a hint to NPH. Inappropriate.
Basically one could take any choice and compare the human choice and the random result, but only when a life is a stake do people pay attention. I am not saying we should kill lots of people, I'm just trying to figure out what is the most efficient method for it (the method giving the "best" result) so that the survivors would have a better chance for a better life. The subjectiveness of the subject is subject to subjectiveness.
But think about it, if you were asked why you should live, as opposed to someone else, how would you answer?
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Read the heading again. And I also suggest you should read that:http://www.economist.com/node/21530078
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