[anm89]

People love to get outraged when economists talk about human tragedy in monetary terms because they assume the sub text of discussing things in terms of money is that that's what they think is really important about the situation. This entirely misses the point.

The economists want something they can measure. They are using dollar losses as a proxy for the gravity of the situation and as a proxy for relative value that people place on things.

If you want someone to analyze people's feelings about the tragedy get a psychologist but there's a reason that economists are more likely to get invited to a climate summit than psychologists.

[ianleeclark]

> The economists want something they can measure. They are using dollar losses as a proxy for the gravity of the situation and as a proxy for relative value that people place on things.

This is a poor proxy, as it over-values areas with high, uneven distributions of capital accumulation. If the Netherlands were to succumb to the impending boiling sea-waters, that would necessarily have a higher "economist cost" than a similar tragedy befalling Nigeria, despite Nigeria having over 10x the population of the Netherlands.

Rather than viewing the very real human impact, the "economist cost" rides the coat-tails of chauvinist mythology by saying that, yes, in fact a Dutchman is worth 11x a Nigerian.

> there's a reason that economists are more likely to get invited to a climate summit than psychologists.

I can guarantee you it's not the reason you think it is.

[anm89]

So you what do you want do? Run around and poll everyone on their feelings and make decisions based on anecdote points?

You fail to present a better alternative.

[ianleeclark]

> Run around and poll everyone on their feelings and make decisions based on anecdote points?

Democracy sounds pretty dope when you put it that way.

> You fail to present a better alternative

I just want people to treat human life with dignity. Chile 1973--we've seen what happens with your line of rationalization and commoditizing human lives.

[anm89]

Yeah, try enacting an infrastructure project at the implementation level via direct vote democracy. No evil quantifiable data needed.

I'm sure it will be "dope".

>I just want people to treat human life with dignity.

I want an airplane made of gold. Who cares what you want? You dislike the only practical method of achieving what you want and present no alternative so you'll get nothing.

[ianleeclark]

> Yeah, try enacting an infrastructure project at the implementation level via direct vote democracy. No evil quantifiable data needed.

It's almost like there are multiple methods of organizing democratic systems of governance and not all of them rely on direct democracy. Maybe, if we had some roughly representative system, wherein people elected people to represent their interests, then those elected officials would hold town-halls to hear their constituents complaints, worries, and get a general feel for their "feelings." That sure seems capable of addressing infrastructural needs.

> Who cares what you want?

I am generally pretty interested in that. Maybe in the above fictional system of governance we recently conjured, my elected official might even have some interest in what I want.

> You dislike the only practical method of achieving what you want

What do I even dislike again? I critiqued you defending monstrous humans for prioritizing dollar values above human lives. Is the Pinochet model really the only viable model in your opinion?

> I want an airplane made of gold

At this point, it seems you'd sooner have a solid gold helicopter.

[iikoolpp]

> by saying that, yes, in fact a Dutchman is worth 11x a Nigerian.

I'm pretty sure economists actually genuinely believe this statement.

[anm89]

These figures aren't used to compare tragedies across countries in a professional setting. It is always about how a government should allocate aid resources or distributions within their own economy.

Except for foreign aid in which being devalued works strongly in the favor of poorer nations. Ie if I have 10 million in aid money to spend and I can buy 10 housing units in Germany or 1000 housing units in Uganda because the currency goes further, that money is going to be routed to the poorer place.

So this is a total strawman. No one respectable (and I mean 0) is using these figures to compare human worth between economies.