What Is A Human Life Worth? Is It Even Worth Anything?
Life is all around us, but what is the value of a life?
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Life is precious.
“Babies are miracles of life” we say.
But what is a life truly worth? As I was donating blood the other day, I had some time to ponder this question.
On one hand when an airplane crashes, the families are typically paid a settlement amount. Currently around $170K per passenger
On the other hand the world wide industry for birth control was about $28.3 Billion in 2022 in which we actively try to avoid creating life. If it’s so precious, why would we spend so much money to not make more of this valuable asset?
The question gets really interesting when you consider we spend an average of $556,539 per year to incarcerate a prisoner in NYC, but we send some of the healthiest young men half way around the world to fight in wars that have very little direct impact on our lives here at home.
I posed this question on twitter and one response suggested that we humans are actually a net negative to the earth and its environment. But I don’t believe that either. The reason the environment has any value is because it affects other humans. It has to affect people. We don’t really care if a meteor hits the moon, it happens all the time. We only need to look up to the night sky to see the many craters in the moons surface as evidence. But if one of those same large meteor were to impact earth… it would be a terrible event!
The Cold Truth
Life has no value, except what society collectively will pay for it. For anyone who claims a life is priceless, simply ask them to contribute 100% of their paycheck to save one life. They won’t do it because of course they have needs too. There is a price at which point people are unwilling to pay to save a life.
Another harsh reality is If you really think about it over a long enough time line we will eventually die and anything and everything we do today is ultimately meaningless. The value people are really looking for when they ask this question is the value of time. If a young child is killed, we are very upset and demand that this injustice is paid with a steep price! We view a young life as something of great value. But if a very old person dies in their sleep we accept that their time had come and that’s “just part of life”.
Its very value is time!
Which naturally leads us to what Purpose Does Life Have?
The cold hard truth is the ability to make a baby isn’t special or unique. Literally every woman in the world has this ability. Many animals are better at it than us humans even. But we do value babies because they have so much potential to grow into something wonderful, carry our name forward, and we all hope make the world a little better in their own way with the time they are afforded here on earth.
At any given point in time the value of the human life may be calculated by estimating what the most society will collectively will pay for that life. Or pay to remove that life from society. Generally speaking society will pay more to preserve a young life than an older one because of the additional time it preserves. Additionally society is much less likely to care about a young gang member that takes life (a net negative) than the life an old man who has the skills to save a life such as a doctor (a net positive).
There is clearly more to life than just dollars & cents
Why am I talking about porn in an article about the value of human life? An industry that some say takes advantage of young women for the pleasure of others. So far in this article we’ve mainly focused on the intrinsic value of a life, such as how much someone will pay to save a given life, or how much that life can earn, or what society as a whole is willing to pay to care for or remove a life.
Extrinsic value is part of the value of life too and the sex work industry offers a graphic illustration (Pun Intended) of extrinsic value. Sex is the oldest profession in the world. There has been more hours of porn produced than you could possibly watch in your lifetime. There is no real world value or utility to making more porn yet its still the largest category or search traffic online with 20% of mobile search being porn. Why?
Feelings!
As people we want the feeling of not being alone, having a connection with another person, excitement seeing something you shouldn’t have seen, catching someone in the act. This is what the porn industry works very hard to do for its viewers. Life is about experiences. Without them it is largely meaningless.
“It’s not the years in your life, but the life in your years that matter” Abraham Lincoln
I know that quoting Abraham Lincoln and porn in the same article is probably not your standard argument. I’m highlighting the porn industry here because there is no denying that it has no real practical utility or value to society other than to provide entertainment and create a specific feeling. Other industries do this too such as the travel industry and Hollywood the primary function of these industries is to create an experience to make people feel a certain way. But porn is unique in its uselessness to improve humanity yet is remarkable just how big the industry is, because for many people it offers some kind of value.
Do terms like Intrinsic and Extrinsic Value confuse you? Check out our Site Dictionary where we break down these core terms into easy to understand language.
Every baby has potential value to society over time this value changes, maybe it goes up if the life grows into someone who is desirable. While on the flip side the value may go down if that person becomes a burden to society or actively takes from it such is the case for a murder where society collectively pays to remove that life from society.
We will all die someday, and humanity will eventually become cosmic dust and be washed away from the cosmic history. A life’s value to others is only for a short period of time which constantly changes. However in general a life really isn’t worth that much in terms of money. This makes sense because money is largely an imaginary tool we used as a means to exchange value. A way of keeping score. Lifes real value is our ability to improve the lives of someone else in a pedicular moment in time. This is largely what religion teaches us too. when we pass the real value we leave are the people we’ve helped along the way.
So spend your time wisely and try to make every day a little better for someone else in your life. That’s why we are here. And try to have a little fun along the way, because after all without experiences life is largely pointless.
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