5 ms·

"Is life worth living if you're destitute and living in poverty or emotional turmoil?" It sounds like you're saying you think maybe poor people should just die

by afiler 6y ago

"Is life worth living if you're destitute and living in poverty or emotional turmoil?" It sounds like you're saying you think maybe poor people should just die.

smallgovt 6y ago
That's not my intention at all. I'm simply pointing out that both quality of life and quantity of life are valuable to most people.
- afiler 6y ago
  Again, with "quality" versus "quantity" it sounds like you're saying that there could be a lower quantity of people (some people die) in order to increase the quality of life for others.
  - smallgovt 6y ago
    If you're asking for my personal evaluation, yes, I believe that at a certain point, it's clearly worth trading quality of life for quantity of life. This applies to my own life. For example, I would rather take a 50% chance at survival versus living the rest of my life in abject poverty and emotional turmoil.
    - beepboopbeep 6y ago
      I'm going to guess that you're no where near having to actually make that decision for your self, thus you're comfortable making that statement on behalf of others.
      - smallgovt 6y ago
        I only speak for myself and would feel uncomfortable enforcing my values on others. That's why my comment posed this more as an open question and discussion.
    - afiler 6y ago
      So you'd rather be dead than poor? If you find yourself taking this thought seriously and you're in the US, you can call 1-800-273-8255. Please take care.
      - DuskStar 6y ago
        Not the GP, but I'd rather be alive and rich than alive and poor, and I'd rather be alive and poor than dead. But say I assign utilities like this: Alive+rich = 5 Alive+poor = 1 Dead = 0 So 50% alive+rich, 50% dead has utility 2.5, while 100% alive+poor has utility 1.
ako 6y ago
Well that is the opinion of a large part of the us voters, otherwise the US would have affordable healthcare for everyone by now.
Apes 6y ago
You seem to be aggressively avoiding any critical thinking, so here's a thought game for you to play: You have two choices: 1: 0% chance of dying from Covid-19, but you lose your job, you're evicted from your home, and have no clear path back to normalcy for the foreseeable future. 2: 3% chance of dying from Covid-19, but you still have a job, a home, and a fairly normal life. This is the choice being made for millions of people in the world without their input. It's not so black and white as you want to make it out to be.
- vkou 6y ago
  You have a third choice. 3. A social support system that will keep non-essential workers in their homes, and keep them fed, until the emergency ends. A particular political faction seems to be willing to sacrifice millions on their ideological altar, if it means avoiding option #3.
  - Apes 6y ago
    There's no free win option here. Every choice has its cost. That social support system has to come from taking a slice out of the economy. And who is going to be paying for that social support system while the economy is shut down? There's no god of socialism who will simply rain infinite amounts of manna upon us in the form of debt just because we will it to happen.
    - vkou 6y ago
      > That social support system has to come from taking a slice out of the economy. And who is going to be paying for that social support system while the economy is shut down? There's no god of socialism who will simply rain infinite amounts of manna upon us in the form of debt just because we will it to happen. Surely, you're aware that we're currently printing money hand-over-fist, to help corporations make ends meet in the short-term? We've already printed 1.7 trillion dollars, for this purpose, and that was entirely at the discretion of the Fed. When the dust settles, and QE ends, many of those loans will not be made good on. If a stroke of a pen by an unelected bureaucrat can parachute 1.7 trillion in corporate bailouts, surely, we can figure out how to make grocery bills for a few months.
panarky 6y ago
It's a real dilemma, and it's forcing uncomfortable questions about how many dollars a person-year of life is worth. We can avoid this terrible trade-off by realizing it's a false choice. We don't have to trade lives for GDP. There is a third option. We could take a lesson from Singapore, Taiwan and Korea. We could test millions of people, even those with no symptoms. We could aggressively isolate the positives, and allow the negatives to get on with life, with common sense disinfecting, physical distancing and universal mask wearing. There is a path out of this dilemma, but in the US it's pretty difficult to execute in the absence of national leadership, with every neighborhood, town, city, county and state left on their own to figure this out.
- Apes 6y ago
  It's too late for extensive testing. The US is analogous to someone who was just exposed to a massively lethal dose of radiation, but still mostly feels fine for now. The damage is already done, and it's going to start showing up regardless of what is done to prevent it. Covid-19 has already massively spread in the US, and it's just a matter of days before large amounts of the population become symptomatic. It's too late to do anything about what's coming, and what's coming is going to be really bad.
  - owenmarshall 6y ago
    > It's too late to do anything about what's coming On one side we have health officials saying "for the love of god, keep the barriers up". On the other, we have politicians saying "we waited as long as we can, send in as many people as we need to sweep up the supercritical plutonium, it 'won\'t make a difference now' if the PPE isn't there". Who is to say who is right?

by afiler 6y ago

"Is life worth living if you're destitute and living in poverty or emotional turmoil?" It sounds like you're saying you think maybe poor people should just die.

smallgovt 6y ago

That's not my intention at all. I'm simply pointing out that both quality of life and quantity of life are valuable to most people.

afiler 6y ago
Again, with "quality" versus "quantity" it sounds like you're saying that there could be a lower quantity of people (some people die) in order to increase the quality of life for others.
- smallgovt 6y ago
  If you're asking for my personal evaluation, yes, I believe that at a certain point, it's clearly worth trading quality of life for quantity of life. This applies to my own life. For example, I would rather take a 50% chance at survival versus living the rest of my life in abject poverty and emotional turmoil.
  - beepboopbeep 6y ago
    I'm going to guess that you're no where near having to actually make that decision for your self, thus you're comfortable making that statement on behalf of others.
    - smallgovt 6y ago
      I only speak for myself and would feel uncomfortable enforcing my values on others. That's why my comment posed this more as an open question and discussion.
  - afiler 6y ago
    So you'd rather be dead than poor? If you find yourself taking this thought seriously and you're in the US, you can call 1-800-273-8255. Please take care.
    - DuskStar 6y ago
      Not the GP, but I'd rather be alive and rich than alive and poor, and I'd rather be alive and poor than dead. But say I assign utilities like this: Alive+rich = 5 Alive+poor = 1 Dead = 0 So 50% alive+rich, 50% dead has utility 2.5, while 100% alive+poor has utility 1.

ako 6y ago

Well that is the opinion of a large part of the us voters, otherwise the US would have affordable healthcare for everyone by now.

Apes 6y ago

You seem to be aggressively avoiding any critical thinking, so here's a thought game for you to play: You have two choices: 1: 0% chance of dying from Covid-19, but you lose your job, you're evicted from your home, and have no clear path back to normalcy for the foreseeable future. 2: 3% chance of dying from Covid-19, but you still have a job, a home, and a fairly normal life. This is the choice being made for millions of people in the world without their input. It's not so black and white as you want to make it out to be.

vkou 6y ago
You have a third choice. 3. A social support system that will keep non-essential workers in their homes, and keep them fed, until the emergency ends. A particular political faction seems to be willing to sacrifice millions on their ideological altar, if it means avoiding option #3.
- Apes 6y ago
  There's no free win option here. Every choice has its cost. That social support system has to come from taking a slice out of the economy. And who is going to be paying for that social support system while the economy is shut down? There's no god of socialism who will simply rain infinite amounts of manna upon us in the form of debt just because we will it to happen.
  - vkou 6y ago
    > That social support system has to come from taking a slice out of the economy. And who is going to be paying for that social support system while the economy is shut down? There's no god of socialism who will simply rain infinite amounts of manna upon us in the form of debt just because we will it to happen. Surely, you're aware that we're currently printing money hand-over-fist, to help corporations make ends meet in the short-term? We've already printed 1.7 trillion dollars, for this purpose, and that was entirely at the discretion of the Fed. When the dust settles, and QE ends, many of those loans will not be made good on. If a stroke of a pen by an unelected bureaucrat can parachute 1.7 trillion in corporate bailouts, surely, we can figure out how to make grocery bills for a few months.

panarky 6y ago

It's a real dilemma, and it's forcing uncomfortable questions about how many dollars a person-year of life is worth. We can avoid this terrible trade-off by realizing it's a false choice. We don't have to trade lives for GDP. There is a third option. We could take a lesson from Singapore, Taiwan and Korea. We could test millions of people, even those with no symptoms. We could aggressively isolate the positives, and allow the negatives to get on with life, with common sense disinfecting, physical distancing and universal mask wearing. There is a path out of this dilemma, but in the US it's pretty difficult to execute in the absence of national leadership, with every neighborhood, town, city, county and state left on their own to figure this out.

Apes 6y ago
It's too late for extensive testing. The US is analogous to someone who was just exposed to a massively lethal dose of radiation, but still mostly feels fine for now. The damage is already done, and it's going to start showing up regardless of what is done to prevent it. Covid-19 has already massively spread in the US, and it's just a matter of days before large amounts of the population become symptomatic. It's too late to do anything about what's coming, and what's coming is going to be really bad.
- owenmarshall 6y ago
  > It's too late to do anything about what's coming On one side we have health officials saying "for the love of god, keep the barriers up". On the other, we have politicians saying "we waited as long as we can, send in as many people as we need to sweep up the supercritical plutonium, it 'won\'t make a difference now' if the PPE isn't there". Who is to say who is right?