Re: equation to describe the economy

On Mon, 30 May 2005 13:57:07 -0400, "Robert J. Kolker"
<nowhere@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Quirk wrote:
>>
>> Yes, it is. No idea what you think is a universal human good if infant
>> survival is not one. In anycase, it is to me and many others. IMO, the
>> survival of the species is the basis of our very idea of good.
>
>Survival of the species does not equate to the survival of every infant.

True. And it is precisely the non-survival of every infant that has
produced the species.

>There is nothing inherently unreasonable about getting rid of infants
>who will never grow up to be self-sufficient.

_If_ keeping them alive is going to compromise the community's
outcomes.

>They are a drain on the
>rest of us. They should be permitted to die, if no one volunteers to
>take care of them.

I have to say I have a certain sympathy with this view. It costs
money to keep infants alive, in some cases a very great deal of money,
and in many of those cases that money doesn't buy a commensurate
return. Even if you assume that public expenditures on keeping
incurably disabled infants alive are all paid for by taxing rents,
which means that those paying the taxes have no more right to the
money than anyone else, it is still the case that a million dollars
spent keeping one severely disabled infant alive for a year could have
been spent on road improvements, medical research, or any of a zillion
other things that would have kept a lot more than one person alive for
a lot longer than one year (and the other issue is, how much do we
want to compromise quality of life for quantity?).

-- Roy L
.

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