No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn

[Hauldren Collider]

gepap failing to understand what money actually is

It's not the MONEY that is more valuable than the human life, it's the PRODUCTION that the money represents. HELLO. THIS IS OBVIOUS. EARTH TO GEPAP.

[Kuciwalker]

Perhaps this is a minor note but:

Fiat Money (which is what all modern currencies are since no one is on a "gold standard"*) is an artificial convention invented by man with no intrinsic value in and of itself.

That modern societies have been formulated in such a way that this intrinsically worthless convention can be valued more highly than human life (or the basics most necessary for human life in the case of shelter) says a lot about our system.

Money represents resources. e.g. $1000 is worth a couple tons of steel, based on a quick google search. When the government spends money on something, it is generally appropriating real resources that could have otherwise been directed towards a different use. Those resources do have intrinsic value. Unless you think there is some good that is infinitely valuable in comparison to all other goods (in which case you should be willing to exchange any amount of those other good in return for one unit of that good), then you admit that money is a fair and meaningful way to measure the value of that good.

[Asher]

The moment that you admit the government shouldn't always spend as much money as it can to save one life, you admit that there must be some dollar cost where the answer changes from "they should spend this" to "they shouldn't".

I thought I already explained this, but you still do not comprehend.

Morality exists outside of economics. The moral thing to do is to help your fellow man. You obviously cannot give everything you have to help him out. But the morality of the concept of helping your fellow man continues to exist.

We cannot be perfectly moral people because we are constrained with the logistics of the real world -- with budgets, etc. So there will be economic considerations in the details of implementing systems like public health care. But the morality of helping people in need is there regardless.

The whole point is academic, because we all know the US can afford public health care. I don't understand why you keep obsessing over it.

[Kuciwalker]

xpost, @ gepap

The US consumes ~10tn barrels of oil each year (order of magnitude). Would an entire year's supply of oil be a worthy trade for one life? What about half a year? And so on...

[Asher]

It genuinely bothers me that you reduce everything in life down to numbers and values.

[GePap]

It's not the MONEY that is more valuable than the human life, it's the PRODUCTION that the money represents. HELLO. THIS IS OBVIOUS. EARTH TO GEPAP.

1. People produced before money existed and would produce regardless of money (unless we all decided to die off).

2. What was the value of wealth destroyed by this fire in monetary terms? I would assume that it was much higher than $75 bucks - so in essence, we as a society allowed the destruction of tens of thousands of dollars worth of goods because one family had not transfered $75 in notional worth from their account to another account prior to the incident.

Yes, that is a very sane action.

[Hauldren Collider]

I thought I already explained this, but you still do not comprehend.

Morality exists outside of economics. The moral thing to do is to help your fellow man. You obviously cannot give everything you have to help him out. But the morality of the concept of helping your fellow man continues to exist.

We cannot be perfectly moral people because we are constrained with the logistics of the real world -- with budgets, etc. So there will be economic considerations in the details of implementing systems like public health care. But the morality of helping people in need is there regardless.

The whole point is academic, because we all know the US can afford public health care. I don't understand why you keep obsessing over it.

THREE CRUCIAL POINTS FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND:
1. Decisions are made on the margin
2. Resources are finite
3. RESOURCES ARE FINITE

The fact that "the US can afford it" does NOT mean that it is a good idea. We could use our entire workforce of doctors doing $1 million surgeries for old people to live another year, which would "save lives", but that is at the expense of the lives of everyone else who needs a doctor. By assigning healthcare resources (or ANY resources) in a certain way, you are denying those same resources to other people. Economists call this "opportunity cost".

This means we may end up saving fewer lives by having "universal healthcare", even though we would no longer have your stupid sob stories involving minimum wage working women.

[GePap]

xpost, @ gepap

The US consumes ~10tn barrels of oil each year (order of magnitude). Would an entire year's supply of oil be a worthy trade for one life? What about half a year? And so on...

It would depend on the life, no?

Simple thought experiment: Tomorrow you get a call telling you that the entire oil supply of the United State for the next year will be terminated unless you kill HC by the end of the day. Will you kill your brother?

[Elok]

It genuinely bothers me that you reduce everything in life down to numbers and values.

It seems to me that he's not actually being ghoulish, you just got his Kuci-senses tingling when you said "not a question of economics" and now he won't let go until you admit economics play some role in the decision.

[Hauldren Collider]

I'd die anyway if the US couldn't get oil for a year.

xpost

[Asher]

THREE CRUCIAL POINTS FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND:
1. Decisions are made on the margin
2. Resources are finite
3. RESOURCES ARE FINITE

Please do not regurgitate obvious econ/business 101 to me.

The fact that "the US can afford it" does NOT mean that it is a good idea. We could use our entire workforce of doctors doing $1 million surgeries for old people to live another year, which would "save lives", but that is at the expense of the lives of everyone else who needs a doctor. By assigning healthcare resources (or ANY resources) in a certain way, you are denying those same resources to other people. Economists call this "opportunity cost".

HC, now you're just being condescending. "opportunity cost" is a 9th grade social studies concept.

All of this goes unsaid, as it's part of the feasibility. Unfortunately for your case, it is bull****. If the US spent money keeping their own people healthy rather than angering muslims and shooting Afghanis and Iraqis, the US would be better off. The opportunity cost of public healthcare in the US comes down to decreased "defense" spending. And by "defense" spending, I mean "offense" spending with stupid, needless, expensive wars on the other side of the world which only serves to generate more international ill-will towards your country.

[Kuciwalker]

I thought I already explained this, but you still do not comprehend.

Morality exists outside of economics. The moral thing to do is to help your fellow man. You obviously cannot give everything you have to help him out. But the morality of the concept of helping your fellow man continues to exist.

We cannot be perfectly moral people because we are constrained with the logistics of the real world -- with budgets, etc. So there will be economic considerations in the details of implementing systems like public health care. But the morality of helping people in need is there regardless.

At some point, your moral obligation to help your fellow man recedes in the face of your other financial constraints. Clearly, you think that at some point as you obtain more money you are obliged to spend some of it to help others. (You can apply this individually or collectively, I don't care.) That necessarily implies some kind of balancing, some way of measuring the relative moral value of spending money on things you want (or cutting taxes) and spending money on charity (or universal healthcare).

Answer this one question: do you think that there genuinely is a balance, that these things have a relative value that is not "one is infinitely more valuable that the other"?

The whole point is academic, because we all know the US can afford public health care. I don't understand why you keep obsessing over it.

Health care is an example.

[Hauldren Collider]

It genuinely bothers me that you reduce everything in life down to numbers and values.

It bothers me that you don't. Valid economic thinking enables more lives to be saved than your pathetic emotional reasoning that you pretend to be "morals".

[GePap]

I'd die anyway if the US couldn't get oil for a year.

Hey, if you want to sell yourself short, go ahead.

Besides, you are Issac, not Abraham, in this scenario. The choice is up to Kuci.

[Kuciwalker]

Asher, he's being condescending because you managed to avoid understanding concepts that are obvious to middle schoolers.