865
Time is a circle. That's why clocks are round.
(discuss.online)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
865 points (100.0% liked)
Political Memes
12240 readers
2596 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
1) Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
2) No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
3) Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
4) No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
5) No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
I think I was always dimly aware of the notion, but one of the things that covid really highlighted for me was that people in power are able to put an actual cash figure on every human life.
"If we spend more than £X on a given solution to this problem, it will stop being financially worthwhile"
And £X+ was the point at which disabled people, or younger people, or both, or whoever, were just left to die. Governments spent a lot of money, for sure, but not a penny more than was necessary to keep the economy (somewhat) upright and their cronies in cocktails and bigger yachts.
That each human being has an estimated cash value is something that was taught in school when I went at least. It was more related to how much a death costs estimated based on how much value the person could have brought in if alive.
Even worse, the £X is the short-term financial gains. Reducing poverty and homelessnes DOES profit over long run, but we don't have anyone at top competent enough to tradeoff it with "slightly less profit margins increased by next year."
What's really wild is that every government has multiple numbers depending on what they're spending on. The amount that their departments associated with it will spend to rescue a citizen held hostage is different from the amount they'll spend to save a life from disease which is different from the amount any particular infrastructure related department will spend to save a life, which may all be different from each other, and may be different based on cause of death (my government will spend a lot more to save a life from a passenger train related death than from a freight train related death or an automobile death)
ETA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_a_statistical_life
Yup, it's like the old recall equation from Fight Club.
a * b * c = x
It doesn't matter how catastrophic the crashes are nor how many people, including kids, die as a result of them. The only thing that does matter is if the cost of a recall is cheaper than the estimated total cost of settlements.