Just how valuable are human lives?

Now, before someone jumps down my throat about human lives being "priceless," I'd like to point something out. There are two main things that need to be asked BEFORE you give something value:

1. How much does a person/group of people want it?
and
2. How much of it is in supply?

Now clearly, this is basic supply and demand principles. I'm sure that you all know this already. Most people want to live, so that's demand well covered, but the thing about the supply is, humans are practically mass-produced, with more being born every single day, and lives lasting longer as medical technology advances. Now, I'm not saying that you can buy and sell people (though I suppose if you have enough military power you CAN, but that doesn't mean I agree haha) but what I am saying is that, IF we were given a price tag and lined up on a shelf, we wouldn't be that great in market value. Agree? Disagree?

(NOTE: I want to make it very clear, I'm not saying I agree with buying and selling people, I'm just saying it'd be pretty cheap haha)

 

But human beings are not animals to be bought and sold!! If you believe in equal rights, then you should know that everyone is equal in dignity and in value, and that no person's life is of more or less value then another. And mass-producing humans MY ASS, look at the abortion rate!!!!!

 

It's a gift

Maybe we didn't order it, maybe we didn't want it. However it has no return address and thus we got it. I say if life gives you lemons...

 

It is indeed a gift from God!!

 

I was hoping I made this clear, but I guess I didn't. I did not say humans SHOULD be bought and sold, I simply said that according to supply and demand they HYPOTHETICALLY could be.

 

I wasn't misreading your intentions, I was just shocked at what you said

 

I wouldn't read it that way, no one would advocate that sort of stuff after all. It's only hypothetical.

Anyway it would be very expensive, people by nature band together against threats and the bigger the threat (forced slavery) the bigger the revolt. To counter you increase military power and police forces. Very expensive.

It's not just how many people or the need for forced labor there is. It's the necessary requirements that need to be filled to make the product (in this case people) comply efficiently. Namely total subjugation of will. Think ancient Rome for example where everything was linked back to Rome.

Try reading Mistborn, the ruler in that book is godlike and everyone below him are like slaves. He built a hell of a system to keep it running productively.

So yeah, it's too expensive and would never work in today's world. You would need probably a single entity (a super country I suppose) to be in complete control of everyday life in order to maintain the system. However once a "rebellion" rises outside their control it just a long spiral to the downfall of slavery.
Anyway that's why it would be really expensive.

 

[Engaging ethical override]
I hear of basic christian people in the middle east only being worth roughly $100. Who knows if this is true, ISIS would know. What is the point of having another person, other than yourself?

• Employees that need no rights or pay
• Sex toys
• Disposable assets (example: Landmine removal)
• Etc.

Now, just how valuable would each slave be? I'm not in charge of the market, so I can only guess, from Highest to Lowest.

• Showcase slaves
• Combat slaves
• Work slaves
• Reject slaves

If there was a nation that could utterly dominate other nations with ease, and could easily enslave, it probably would not be too hard to do. Now we just need to deal with insurgency.

And then when one dies, you can reap the decaying flesh of its materials. Probably worth $5-$15.
Of course, by this time, tech would be more favorable for these conditions. Mind control devices and decomposers.

In short, we might be in demand if needed for particular tasks. What free man will want to sweep mines, after all? No amount of money will make up for "Oops."

 

I read it clearly as a hypothetical/philosophical question, even though technically it is still a real-world market, frowned upon in most 1st world countries. But I try to look at it from both sides.

Now, to answer the hypothetical question, I think we would be dirt cheap. There are plenty of us around. There is always at least 1 human born everyday somewhere in the world. But we also have at least 1 human dying everyday somewhere around the world, so its not like the "market" has a resource that doesn't expire at all.

The reason why I think we would be dirt cheap is that we produce less "valuable" traits such as intellect, selflessness, etc these days than we did in the past. As our technology gets more advanced, most have become more lazy and stupid overall (less brain usage, more technology reliant). Most people don't have sufficient survival instincts compared to our ancestors of the past and that would lower our value overall as well, making those with the more "rare" traits more valuable in the market than the average person. What's interesting is you tend to see this kind of situation in a lot of movies, games, and books that deal with Armageddon/apocalypse/etc stories and it makes sense. If you wish the human race to survive a cataclysmic event, you tend to seek valuable traits such as survival skills to provide the training and expertise, you'll want a doctor to be the medical expert in the group, you might seek a police officer or soldier to provide the security expertise, etc. You would first need to place a price on these traits as well to get a better idea of what a person would cost (and this is basically what jobs do, they place the market value on these skills and you would basically be worth that much to the company). So in the real-world, we do have some kind of price tag. But no one actually sees it as a price for a human, at least not in a negative sense (unless you're one of those minimum wage workers that's demanding $15 just for flipping burgers as your starting pay).

 

How much is a life, you ask?...
Well,

Spoiler

exactly 100 of these little suckers, to be precise!

 

And also in other ways:

Spoiler

But you can only get 99 lives.

 

I don't think human lives should be used as hypotheticals. It's demeaning of the dignity of the person!