@ The Prussian

How so? A human is just as much a product of the creator as a nugget of gold, or indeed a box of eggs, and no one has ever had trouble putting a price to them

$4.50 U.S. http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/worth.asp

If one does not believe in God my statements carry no merit. But if one believes we are created in the image of God, then human life has the worth of all of existence. We come from him and therefore are worth all that he is. Those objects may have been created by him, but their true being is not of Him. It would be more accurate to put a price on a human body, or its labor. But to put a price on existence is naive.

@ The Prussian

Perhaps, but the fact remains that despite the vast majority of the people claiming that human life is beyond value when asked, the vast majority of the people do actually act as if this is true. Human behavoir and human ideals are two very different things, and I can't help but feel that if we lowered our ideals to something that more closely resembles reality, perhaps our behavoir would likewise be pushed a bit closer to our ideals. If we have realistic targets we are more likely to try and achieve them.

Here's the problem, Octavious. There are _certain_ situations in which people will spend a lot more to save somebody than in other situations. Why is a complicated question (scale has a lot to do with it), but anyway, if we had an actual value attached to human life, and some miner got trapped somewhere, and we chose to let him die because the cost of removing him was greater than our value, even though we could save him, most people would feel really awful about that.
Now, you might say, well, the same thing happens with cancer all the time. Sure, and for whatever reason, people don't have exactly the same reaction. Maybe it's rational, maybe it's not, but the point is that if you tried to force this model, it wouldn't really work for these kinds of reasons.

@krellin: So a person of different nationality is worth less/more dependent on the exchange rate? :P

The Meaning of Life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlK62rjQWLk

Look out for: "At least I'm not working for Jews."

@ semck

Lets consider the current mine situation for a moment. Chinese miners die by the thousand each year mining coal for the West in truly awful conditions, and no one really gives a damn. The West doesn't care because Chinese miners don't make good news stories (you don't get exciting TV footage when you're not allowed to film), and the Chinese government don't care because they're bastards who don't give a shit about the lower classes. If you gave a human life a real economic value then the bottom line would say the Chinese human crushing coal mines don't make sense, and safety would be improved a certain amount to balance the books.

Giving human life a value does have a fundamental feel of wrongness about it, but the truth of that matter is that the current reality is a hell of a lot worse with a smiley face wallpapered over it so we don't notice.

It is naive to think that a value isn't put on human life every single day. You better learn to make yourself as invaluable as possible to your fellow man if you want to live a long life.
Right or wrong, God or no God, that is the way it has been since the advent of Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
You want to see that we all put a value on life then quit put your actions where your hypocritical rhetoric is, and don't buy one thing Chinese until mine safety is improved.
I'll read about you in the paper, or is all of your posturing in this thread pure BS?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uOfhHcRjF8

@Lordo -- thank yo ufor not being such an uptight asshole and taking this ***idiotic*** thread seriosly. And...yes....Canadians are not worth more than Americans...and for God's sake, that it just a horrific statement...

At least the Australian dollar is above parity with the greenback, w00t.

http://www.webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=716272

“So I won't ask you to say that [it] was wrong … just say that it was… sad. We won't talk about whether or not it was necessary, whether it was justified. I'll just ask you to say that it was sad that it happened. … If we start out by saying that every life is precious, that it's sad when anyone dies, then I know we'll meet someday.” – Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

And for all the rest of you FOOLS....uh....life has NO value. EVERY LIFE is going to end, and it's usefullness forgotten. Even Einstein will be forgotten and dismissed one day. And all of you? Dead and gone from human record in no less than 25 years from your death.

Human life has no value.

If you believe in God, then you are valueless in the sight of God's infinteness. If you believe in no God, then you are a fucking mistake, a lucky guess of evolution...but certainly nothing of *value*...and you are purely accidental, and untilmately, whatever you "evolve" in to, you and our offsrping will die with the death of the universe.

And thus....if you are ultimately to come to an end...if a hundred billion trillion trillion years from now there is no proof of your existance....because the universe as we know it has ceased to exist....then you have zero value....because, ultimately....time will erase any value you *think* you ever had.


Humanity has *zero* value, collectively, or individually.

Wow, krellin is the first person I've ever heard try to mix religion and existentialism. That said, he is right. In the scheme of the universe, we are quite useless. To Cthulu and the Old Ones, we are nothing but toys.

"...mix religion and existentialism..." Uh...you mean talk about the OBVIOUS? Religious or Non-religious, all agree that the universe as we know it will end. It is hardly a unique idea.

The only thing that is new is that, in the idea of FaceCrap, of TwitMe and all the other "LOOK AT ME" Social media, the notion that you are ***completely*** unimportant in the world, let alone the universe, is something anathema to modern, self-indulgent smart-phone life....

Well, krellin, if you believe in God and He has told you that you have value, then what about then? Do you get to defy Him and do your own math in that case, still?

No, it's just that religion implies that we have some sort of purpose or there is an inherent meaning in life, while existentialism rejects that (I think, obi will probably prove me wrong).

If not reject, I'm sure at least challenge the idea of inherent meaning.

Be glad that people will miss you on the webdip forums when you go. At least for a while.

"If people truly believed their fellow humans to be priceless then there'd be far fewer starving people in the world. "

Word up. The nail, on its head, has been hit.

This is what my original post was about. Though we SHOULD value all lives equally, and pricelessly, and though many pay lip service to it, we don't.

Witness the bullshit we allow to happen.

Witness fatass Americans getting fatter as Somalians starve. This is our world, this is our system, and the fact is we Westerners tend to like it the way it is.

Even as someone like myself who is attempting to do something about it, I admit freely that I am great offender on this level and have probably indirectly snatched food from the mouths of dozens of now-dead people. Same for medical care, and so on.

Some people in this world have lives that are, plain and simple, unfairly comfortable.

Talk to me about luxury goods *after* we end hunger and disease. Then worry about your gourmet prada 1080p lifestyle.

That's how I feel about it. Looking back on times we've talked about this on the forum I seem to remember the site is populated by a lot more cunts than I care to concentrate on who think, for instance, that an American is more valuable than a non-American, like obiwan, or who think that "society" in terms of all humanity does not exist, and that certain human beings are literally not part of our "society."

Fucking hell. I can only hope your medieval beliefs wither away over time.

Thucydides mistakes flaws in food distribution for intentional genocide.
Of course he is young and dumb so that accounts for it.
Thucy, you take more from the collective than you give with productive effort and you have the hypocritic gall to state "Even as someone like myself who is attempting to do something about it."
My God you are one delusion child.

" you take more from the collective than you give with productive effort"

yes I do. The sentence you partially quoted was where I stated that. My larger point is that about 100% of westerners take more from the collective than they give. i consume far more than my sustainable fair share. this brings me shame and i am attempting to change but as i have said i am not at all a good example.

tell me this:

if you see a man being stabbed to death and continue walking, is that not complicity in his death?

so answer me how it is different with somalia. we know they are dying. we arent fucking doing anything. we are complicit.

Thucy, do you know how sill you look in your posts claiming that you know anything about 100% of anything.
You have a lot of time on your hands to make an utter fool out of yourself this morning don't you.
Carry on kid.

I really think it's pretty complicated, Thucy, in all possible honesty. You can just go in and give people food, straight up, but that isn't going to be a long term solution. It just isn't, honest. Places are going to starve if they don't have stable economies and (therefore) stable governments, and it's a little awkward to go in replacing their governments all the time. I don't think the way forward is totally clear. I'd be interested in thoughts, obviously.

@Thucy - "so answer me how it is different with somalia. we know they are dying. we arent fucking doing anything. we are complicit. "

As semck points out, it is far more complicated than that. Give a man a fish and you feed hoim for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. the same applies here, only on a grander scale. Feeding starving Somalians = good. Helping them to grow and become self-sufficient = better and sustainable.

Yo... I definitely understand what you guys are pointing out semck and Draug.

But that doesn't change the fact that the status quo does amount to complicity in murder. I am no stranger to the complicated headache development is - this is what I am studying. But doing *nothing* IS a crime, and that's pretty clear cut.

"Thucy, do you know how sill you look in your posts claiming that you know anything about 100% of anything. "

Too bad you don't participate in our more interesting philosophy threads TC or you would know I do not claim to know anything with any degree of certainty. Go ahead and misinterpret that lol, but it's true. I wouldn't presume to know the truth of anything.

@Thucy, I can't entirely agree. Many times we have rushed in to do good somewhere and caused way more harm. Unless and until somebody presented me with a concrete plan and a reason to believe it would work, I do not think that just doing SOME plan to make ourselves feel better is preferable to inaction.

(Of course, perhaps discussing what to do counts as doing something. But I don't get the impression that would meet the standards you meant to imply earlier).