Random Thought?

[alendark]

Human life...supposedly the most valuable/precious thing on the planet. At least that is what I was raised to believe.

Todays thought:

Does the value of a human life change in relation to the population of the planet?

My mind tends to think that it does, and that the relation is inversely proportional.

Thoughts?

Comments

[alendark]

I fail to see how this question can be addressed without being subjective.

Obviously the question is very general, and its meant to be that way. As soon as you list specific Lives instead of life in general, the entire question changes based upon the viewpoint of the individual persons relation with those listed.

I suppose I was trying to imply what is the value of a human life, to the rest of humanity. Does the value change for humanity as a whole based upon the population.

People talk about how much they value human life, and how its such a great and wonderful thing and while I dont dispute this....I look at what is happening around the world and I tend to think that the value of a human life diminishes the more of us there are.

In your example. If a parent has 2 children, and 1 dies is it still a drastic blow...Yes. Now take that same parent and give them 100 children...does it stay the same....how about 1000, 10,000, 1 million, or 1 billion. I tend to think that once you get over a certain number (probably somewhere in the hundreds) the impact of 1 death upon the parent diminishes when compared to the original scenario of 2 children and 1 dying. The reason for this is simply familiarity. Its hard to mourn the lose of someone you never met or only met once.

In another example: If the iraqi people have had 400,000 casualties in the war. Is that number more impacting if the world only have 500,000 people? I tend to think that it would have more impact....the remaining 100,000 people would be more likely to realize how fragile human life (as a whole, not an individual) is and respond appropriately. Odds are the war would stop and peace would happen very fast. Now the converse to that...a world of 6 billion people. 420,000 people die and everyone is all boohoo, stop the war blah blah blah. They talk about the problems of the war, some people justify the deaths as the price of doing what is right. Others ignore the numbers and continue life as normal, but its a rare few that actually truly oppose the lose of life and work to put an end to it.

I actually do think our casual attitude over the death of 400,000 people is related to the overall population of the planet. Increased population = decreased familiarity, and in I think for the majority of people that familiarity is what makes life valuable.

Interesting debate, I am curious to hear your response.