Quote:
Originally Posted by Natalya
LOL do those people not deserve to live? How many people need to die before the threshold is reached to do something about this pollution? Is there a magic number? Are the lives of other living breathing human beings less valuable than some "pain" at the gas pump? Is paying an extra 30 cents for a gallon of gas a "punishment" so intolerable that it warrants the deaths of others?
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I'll take a stab at this one...
My first objection is regarding how the data shows x number of people die due to y every t amount of time.. How was that determined? The worlds people are living longer than at any other time in history, and that despite whatever the pollution levels are. Then, who's to say they were killed by pollution? It may have been a contributing factor and they would have died a day later had the pollution not been around. So the fact is suspect to begin with and lacks any context at all.
We put monetary value on human life all the time. Absolutely everything made could be made safer if only some incremental amount more was spent. At some point we determine that something has been made safe enough, and we accept that people will still die.
So, would I personally spend $0.30 more per gallon to save 1 human life; absolutely. I'd do that the rest of my life if I knew some person whose life would have been cut much shorter could instead live a "full life". If instead the $0.30/gallon saves 1/100,000th of a life that was cut 1 month shorter than it otherwise would have, then no, I'm not spending the extra thirty cents.
It's absolutely pointless and evil to try to paint someone as heartless just because they understand that everything is a trade-off and that their calculus for that trade-off differs.
...as to MPG guy; the way he phrased the response was either intended to provoke a reaction, which you provided, or perhaps he doesn't actually care that much.