At 11:29 AM 7/19/01 +0200 Baardwijk, J. van DTO/SLBD/BGM/SVM/SGM wrote:
>John, when are you going to wake up and realize you can't base every
>decision on a cost-benefit analysis?
Actually, when will *you* recognize that every rational decision is based
on cost-benefit analysis?
>Let's say you spend $50 to take your girlfriend out to dinner. Do you do
>that because you enjoy her company, or do you do that because you think
>"when I spend that $50 on buying her dinner, she'll have sex with me later,
>which I value at $100, so it's beneficial for me to take her out to dinner"?
>(Forget for a moment that you're one of those "no sex before marriage"
>people.)
Forgetting also that I don't have a girlfriend (at least for the moment. :)
In this case, I spend $50 because I value the experience of an evening with
my girlfriend as being worth @$50 more to me than an evening alone/evening
with my best male friend. This is why I take her out to Maggiano's for
dinner and not Le Bic Fin. I value the expereince at @$50, but not @$120.
>Other example: unemployed people cost the country a lot of money in
>Unemployment Benefits and Welfare, but they don't give anything in return.
>The same goes for people who can't work because of some medical condition.
>Based on a cost-benefit analysis, it would be economical to shoot them all.
>It may cost you 25 cents per person for the bullet, but it will save you
>billions of dollars in Social Security and Health Care expenses...
Once again, you are making an incomplete analysis. I place a great deal
of value on the protection of the "Right to Life" by the government, based
on my religious views, my secular ethical views, and my desire for
assurance that my Right to Life will be protected in the future.
Likewise, I also place a great deal of value on the contributions to
society that those people might make to society in the future, times the
probability that they might make those contributions. The loss of these
benefits are all costs to me that greatly increase the cost of killing a
homeless person.
Jeroen, whenever an analysis produces a ridiculous conclusion - like
killing everyone with a 25-cent bullet, even you should be able to
recognize that your analysis is deeply flawed.
>> We can lower pollution by cutting power to hospitals too.
>
>Are you at all capable of discussing this seriously, or are you only going
>to come up with idiot remarks like that one?
You're the one who attacked people who oppose environmental regulations
because of the cost, not I.
If I were to take your "idiot remark" completely seriously, then you should
logically not have a problem with cutting power to hospitals. After all,
this action will benefit the environment, and by your own logic, costs
don't matter.
If you're willing to admit (along with Kat, Sonja, et al.) that all
environmental proposals should be subjected to a thorough cost-benefit
analysis, then I think that our discussion will be much more profitable.
JDG
__________________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
We are products of the same history, reaching from Jerusalem and
Athens to Warsaw and Washington. We share more than an alliance.
We share a civilization. - George W. Bush, Warsaw, 06/15/01
