Interesting headline, isn’t it? Why would anyone volunteer to write about this (your newspaper doesn’t)? When we were children we all learned that you can’t put a price tag on a single human life. It’s unethical and also violates the dignity of humans. Sure, that’s one way to look at it. When studying the fine print of my health insurance I’ve learned that other people have since stepped up to the task and actually put a price tag on my life. Mine is currently 2 million dollars. That’s the accumulated life benefit limit on my insurance. So after that you’re pretty much on your own – (get ready to die, no-body’s paying for you here any more). So after the initial shock, that some company has defined how much my life is worth, I thought who else might be inclined to put a value on human life. Turns out companies do it all the time (don’t they have a conscience?) – i.e. car companies that need to determine if they need to have a recall (number of cars with this problem * probability of failure * cost for lost life >=? cost for recall). Insurance companies do it (you carry life insurance, don’t you?). So in business it’s quite common to put a $$$ amount on a human life. Which leads me to the following thought: yesterday there was a suicidal man with a gun at the intersection of two of Austin’s most traveled highways, threatening to kill himself. After a two-hour stand-off with the Austin police the person was taken into custody unharmed. Meanwhile traffic came to a grinding standstill for those two hours. So can I now calculate the loss in GDP contribution from the created traffic jam and compare that with the value of the person’s life? Should the police use this to decide when to intervene or walk away? Police over megaphone: “You’ve 12min left to drop the gun. After that it’s cheaper to kill yourself!” … You obviously don’t want the police to pull the trigger. (Although it would be with the consent of the victim (but you would want to get that in writing) and it would make economic sense.) What a mess.
P.S.: Then imagine the next day – “we’re sorry to admit that we miscalculated the loss of GDP by assuming that all 3 highway lanes were open, when in fact one was closed. The victim would have had another 23 minutes. Our regrets go to the family.”
Interestingly enough, I was reading an article in today’s paper about a produce manager who got fired from Randall’s because he chased a man who stole a shopper’s purse. He managed to pursue until police caught up and recovered everything. However, he was in violation of store policy (he was expected to simply observe and provide information to police). I hope I never get stabbed at a Randalls because now I know I can expect all the employees to simply stare and call the police instead of helping, because my life isn’t worth them losing their jobs.
Was für ein interessanter Blog-Eintrag….. Du kommst wirklich manchmal mit den eigenartigsten Gedanken an, aber irgendwie treffen sie dann doch den Kern des…. was ? Problems ? Vielleicht. Auf jeden Fall möchte ICH weder den Wert/Preis eines Lebens beurteilen müssen noch selbst bewertet werden – denn Du hast Recht: Was, wenn da wieder mal jemand 1 und 1 nicht zusammenzählen kann ? Denn bekanntlich können ja 5 von 4 Leuten nicht rechnen ;-)))