Saving instead of killing

[sunnyside]

We've got a number of "killing people" threads going on.

This is the inverse of that and perhaps plays more on how our world operates. I think we've established that almost none of us wouldn't be willing to kill some random person for even a million dollars, and most of us wouldn't even perform an assissted suicide for a pile of money.

But how much would you pay to SAVE a random (or not so random) life.

I'll give two sets. The first is for a random person, the second is for a person you would consider "good" or that meets some other caveat of yours (i.e. you only save children), and whom you have some knowledge of. And I'll throw some more general options in there. So I'll let you have up to 3 choices you can select. Presume that the payment would be effective. i.e. if you do nothing, they die, if you pay they go on to live a full life.

[Sionnach Glic]

Technicaly, many of us already do pay to save the lives of strangers. Most of us live in countries where tax money goes to healthcare systems, after all.

[Nickswitz]

Yeah, I'm an extremely kind person. I would pay a lot to save someone, and if someone were going to die I would save them even if it meant I died, that's always been a huge thing that people liked about me, is that I not only say it, bu I've done stupid things to help people before even if it ended up hurting me, although not physically, but mentally surely.

[sunnyside]

Technicaly, many of us already do pay to save the lives of strangers. Most of us live in countries where tax money goes to healthcare systems, after all.

I'll change the "vote" selection slightly than (remember you can select multiple options). Just paying your taxes doesn't really capture what I'm shooting for here, especially if you really don't want to have tax money go toward lifesaving stuff.

[Captain Seafort]

Just paying your taxes doesn't really capture what I'm shooting for here, especially if you really don't want to have tax money go toward lifesaving stuff.

How about if we do? If I had to pick the top three most important things my taxes go towards it would be the NHS, defence and the police.

[sunnyside]

How about if we do? If I had to pick the top three most important things my taxes go towards it would be the NHS, defence and the police.

Than check the "taxes" box.

If you would be willing to pay directly outside of taxes in some situations, you could check other boxes as appropriate as well.

Though that situation is actually somewhat interesting in that, unless you own a business or are in the top two quintilles for income, than you probably are just paying into your cut of those things.
Now I'm guessing on where the thresholds are where you go from being subsidized, to paying for yourself, to paying for others, but under progressive taxation the thresholds are probably pretty high so paying for others via taxes probably doesn't apply to many of us on this board.

[colmquinn]

I can't believe I'm the only one who picked the prostitute option!
oops, did I just say that out loud

[sunnyside]

Technicaly, many of us already do pay to save the lives of strangers. Most of us live in countries where tax money goes to healthcare systems, after all.

This actually got me thinking. Ironically, people in countries without a national health service are probalby doing more to "save lives" with their tax dollars than people in such countries.

The reason is that while you pay into the system, you also draw from it. Using the UK budget and population states, I guesstimate that the threshold where you're putting is as much as you draw is somewhere between 8,000 and 9,000 pounds in federal taxes. If you're below that threshold votes for social programs are largely votes to make other people give their money to others.

In the US however, you typically have to be poor to get governemnt assistance.

So in the US if you pay enough federal taxes to cover your share of police/defense/infrastructure type things ($4,000-$6,000), and don't draw any benifit in the form of government assistance than some percentage of your taxes are likely going to help others less fortunate.


The other intersting thing in this thead is that, while I expected people to be willing to pay far less to save a life than they would need to take one, they are also willing to risk their lives in cases where they wouldn't be willing to spend money.

[Graham Kennedy]

At risk of being hypocritical....

If I ran across some guy in the street and he was going to die unless I paid out £20, I'd almost certainly do it. Yet at the same time I could probably save lives by donating that money to charity... but I don't. The problem is too distant, too removed from me when it's some starving kid in another country. And then there's the issue that those problems seem to just keep recurring anyway; it's cold, but why pay out to save people from this year's Ethopian famine when we all know that there will just be another one along next year, or the year after, or whenever.

I'm content enough that some part of my taxes go to things like that... after all it's not a lot, it does do good, and it lets me feel like I'm helping at least.

But if it was somebody I know... that changes things. I'd pay out a lot to save the life of somebody I know and like.

And for a rather small and select group of people, I'd pay out anything I had or could get hold of.

[Sionnach Glic]

I think most people are the same in that respect. Seeing someone needing urgent help seems more "real" if they're right in front of you. I think most of us would give a guy a hand if he was right in front of us and we could save him.

When you're talking about large multi-national organisations collecting funds from millions of people and building wells and stuff, it all seems very removed. It seems less real, or less urgent, than the guy lying on the ground in front of you. I suppose it's just one of those odd quirks of the human mind.

Personaly, I'm quite content with the concept of having a portion of my tax money go towards helping others (and if necessary, myself) and I consider that to be enough. The only time I'd ever really pay more is if, as was mentioned, there was a guy in front of me needing urgent help.

[sunnyside]

I think there's some other trick involved as well.

If I understand correctly, you two wouldn't accept a million bucks if it meant you had to kill some random starving African "box" style, however you wouldn't give a dime to save said starving African.



Also I'm curious about the philosophy of the tax situation.

For example take a simple three person system of rich person A, "regular" person B, and person C who would be dead of starvation or exposure but for the support they get.

A pays $100,000 in taxes
B pays $20,000 in taxes
C pays nothing

They each collect $40,000 worth of benifits (health care, police, infrastructure etc).

Does person B deserve a warm fuzzy because their tax dollars are supporting C?

[Mikey]

I think most people are the same in that respect. Seeing someone needing urgent help seems more "real" if they're right in front of you. I think most of us would give a guy a hand if he was right in front of us and we could save him.

When you're talking about large multi-national organisations collecting funds from millions of people and building wells and stuff, it all seems very removed. It seems less real, or less urgent, than the guy lying on the ground in front of you. I suppose it's just one of those odd quirks of the human mind.

Personaly, I'm quite content with the concept of having a portion of my tax money go towards helping others (and if necessary, myself) and I consider that to be enough. The only time I'd ever really pay more is if, as was mentioned, there was a guy in front of me needing urgent help.

Indeed. Aside from being removed and impersonal, as SG mentions, the scale of global problems like you mention is just too large for a typical person to carry in the forefront of their brain. A starving man is a lot easier to cognate than a starving nation, or continent.

[Tyyr]

Well part of it is that as an individual there is literally NOTHING you can do about much more than a handful of people in distress. Cities, continents, its utterly out of the scope of possibility that your average person can do squat about that. So naturally when confronted with problems of that size that cannot be dealt with the average human will not do anything and conserve their resources.

[Sionnach Glic]

Indeed. Aside from being removed and impersonal, as SG mentions, the scale of global problems like you mention is just too large for a typical person to carry in the forefront of their brain. A starving man is a lot easier to cognate than a starving nation, or continent.

"One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic." - Stalin

[Tyyr]

He was a cold bastard but he's right.