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43 Price of safety?
Article 11 of this blog considered how we use our time on the
world stage.
Article 17 raised issues of sharing resources among the whole
human family. Today we consider the cheerful aspect of
morbidity.
I have seen a billboard proclaiming that
the first human to live 1,000 years has already been born.
Instead of considering that a triumph of science, think of its
consequences. Granting all people equal right to live, how would
that lifespan affect the population? Even if human fertility were
limited to 20 of the 1,000 years of human lifetime, population
expansion would become problematical. Can “immortality
projections” encompass all possible factors of
sustainability?
Changes affect humanity gradually.
Lifespan has increased; both production of, and efficient use of,
resources have also increased. We are not sure of a defined limit
to growth, although we intuit that there is one. Infinite supply
is likely out of our reach. Moreover, quality of life is not
synonymous with length of life. There is a balancing of
factors.
Balancing has been evident in my
lifetime. Smallpox was severely injurious and fortunately
controllable, so we eliminated it. On the other hand, motor
vehicle deaths have been significantly reduced but not
eliminated. That leaves us with a balancing problem: what level
of death rate is acceptable at what cost?
I was a child when seat belts were
unheard of. When my children were small, child safety seats were
effectively unheard of. (We sometimes had all five children in
one back seat.) Today’s safety standards impose a significant
cost burden on families. This is justified by scientific evidence
from cost-benefit analysis. We agree to regulations when they
improve life.
Covid19 belongs within this discussion.
Just as we did not save lives by outlawing motor vehicles, we are
not about to shut down the entire economy to stop a viral
infection. Like it or not, we are daily exploring the
cost-benefit analysis of our precautions. The higher death rate
brings more urgency than we had with seat belt research. At the
same time, disease investigation is far more complicated than
analyzing crash statistics. We have greater urgency and less
clarity.
The irony of “the cheerful aspect of
morbidity” calls attention to the role that death plays in
clearing the stage to make room for future people. The examples
suggest resisting death, but not at all cost. On the one extreme,
we refuse to welcome Covid19 as divine eugenics and rescue from
overpopulation. On the other extreme, we have not committed to
zero deaths at any price.
As usual, this blog is not the repository
of answers. Hopefully, readers increase their patience by briefly
considering the current question: How much inconvenience will we
pay for uncertain health improvement?
Being For Others Blog copyright © 2020 Kent Busse
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