If It Saves Even One Person

An experience that I often have is agreeing with a person's viewpoint while disagreeing with their arguments. So here's one gripe I've had recently.

Is it a good idea to place a country in isolation? Probably, given that most experts suggest it. Caveat here, data hole there, but sure, a good idea for lots of complicated reasons.

The argument I don't like is "If it saves even one life then it's worth it." This is similar to the "you can't put a value on a human life" argument. It's a great sentiment, but fails due to being totally wrong both factually and morally. It's wrong factually because we constantly don't spend money to save human lives. There are easy, affordable things we could do to save lives, like making it illegal for a car to be able to exceed 80km/h. Read that carefully, I'm not just saying we could lower the speed limits, I'm noting that my car can maybe reach 200km/h (I haven't checked). That's ridiculous. We don't change it because we like things to go vroom vroom.

It's immoral because it ignores all the other consequences of saving the life in front of you. Sometimes this is a trolley problem (the money spent to perform one heart transplant could save X lives in Gabon), but sometimes it's simply recognizing that there are other things we care about more than just human life: freedom, love, joy, fulfillment. Lately I've seen that point maligned on both sides of the aisle, which surprises me. It seems uncontroversial if people examine their own lives.

To end, here's a list of things you have to support if you think "it's worth it if it saves even one human life" (probably, based on the best evidence):

• Bicycle helmets

• COVID19 quarantines

• Amber alerts (loudly at all hours)

• Mandatory bike helmets

• Mandatory seat belts

• Mandatory driving helmets

• No cars capable of >80 km/h

• State torture

• Vaccines

• Banning cigarettes

• Banning alcohol

• Banning sugary drinks

• Forced institutionalization for schizophrenics (suicide)

• Banning American Football

• Banning scrambling and mountaineering