The Dead Child thing isn’t morbid enough. We should figure out how many punches to the face are equal in moral badness to one death. Then if it’s say a thousand, we could rename the dollar to the punch-to-the-face.
Worth noting that the dead baby value is very different from the actual amount which most Westerners regard the lives of white, middle-class people from their own country as being worth. In fact, pretty much the whole point of the statistic is that it’s SHOCKINGLY low. I suppose we could hope that Dead Baby currency would result in a reduction to that discrepancy… although I think in the case of the actual example given, the Malthusians* have a point where it would dramatically increase access to life-prolonging things without increasing access to birth control much, resulting in more population and thus more people to save.
*To clarify: I actually agree with the Malthusian ecology- it’s just a basic fact of ecology, I’m amazed that anyone seriously disagrees with it- but not to the objection to charitable donations on that basis; anyone who actually thinks that would go “you should instead give money to provide birth control”.
If the demographic transition continues, I’m not too worried about Malthusian scenarios. It seems that people who are less worried about their children being wiped out by disease have fewer children.
Another option is interventions that improve lives without saving them, such as deworming.
The Dead Child thing isn’t morbid enough. We should figure out how many punches to the face are equal in moral badness to one death. Then if it’s say a thousand, we could rename the dollar to the punch-to-the-face.
That would create an interesting schelling point for torts of assault.
Worth noting that the dead baby value is very different from the actual amount which most Westerners regard the lives of white, middle-class people from their own country as being worth. In fact, pretty much the whole point of the statistic is that it’s SHOCKINGLY low. I suppose we could hope that Dead Baby currency would result in a reduction to that discrepancy… although I think in the case of the actual example given, the Malthusians* have a point where it would dramatically increase access to life-prolonging things without increasing access to birth control much, resulting in more population and thus more people to save.
*To clarify: I actually agree with the Malthusian ecology- it’s just a basic fact of ecology, I’m amazed that anyone seriously disagrees with it- but not to the objection to charitable donations on that basis; anyone who actually thinks that would go “you should instead give money to provide birth control”.
If the demographic transition continues, I’m not too worried about Malthusian scenarios. It seems that people who are less worried about their children being wiped out by disease have fewer children.
Another option is interventions that improve lives without saving them, such as deworming.