Do you believe in "The Greater Good"?
Discussion
Morning all,
I suspect that most of us would say that yes, in general, we support the principle of "the greater good", but I wonder if that's truly the case?
The classic ethical/pyschological Trolley Problem does a good job of addressing a key aspect of this question. For those who don't know it, basically you're standing next to a railway points lever. A runaway train is barrelling down the track out of control, and if you do nothing, it's going to run over five people tied to the tracks and kill them. If you pull the lever, the train diverts into a siding, and will kill one person tied to THAT track. The dilemma is whether it's easier to take no action and view it as "what will be will be", or to pull the lever, knowing that you've reduced the number of deaths from five to one, but also knowing that you've chosen the person to die.
From the above, you move into more complexities... What if the person in the siding was a single parent in the prime of life with four young kids and the five in the siding all had terminal illnesses and only a year or two to live?
The above, of course, is theoretical, so let's make it real and justify this being in "News, Politics and Economics"!
As you may have noticed, the government has been doing quite a lot to try and protect people from Covid this year. I've been asking myself two questions....
Have the government's actions been taken in pursuit of the Greater Good?
I started out by trying to figure out how many deaths their actions might potentially have saved. The average Covid infection to death ratio for developed economies such as the UK is approximately 1.5%, so if some evil super-villain were to successfully implement a dastardly plan to infect every one of the 66 million people in the UK, we could realistically expect the result to be as high as 990,000 deaths, so with around 70,000 deaths so far, in theory at least we could say that the government has prevented 920,000 deaths!!! That's a huge number, but also of course totally unrealistic, as there is no super-villain, and not everyone is going to catch Covid, but never mind, let's run with it for now, and even round it up to a million to make the maths easier!
At this point, my immediate instinct is to think "of course they've acted in the greater good, they've saved a million lives!!!", but what has been the cost of saving those lives?
According to the November update from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the government's borrowing requirement projection for this year has increased from a pre-Covid estimate of £55Bn to £394Bn, an increase of £339Bn, GDP has shrunk by 11.3% rather than growing by 1.1% as expected and unemployment is expected to hit 7.2% by the end of next year, vs 3.9% projected prior to Covid.
So what does that actually mean?
- The increase in PSBR is, rather obviously, £339Bn.
- The decrease in GDP is a further £269Bn.
- An extra 3.3% of people out of work means around 1.15 million jobs lost.
In other words, even in my "worse than worst case Doomsday scenario", every single one of those million lives saved has cost £608,000 and put a person out of work! In reality, even the most pessimistic modelling scenarios put forward to the government have topped out at around 250,000 deaths if no action was taken at all, and with 70,000 already dead anyway, a potential 180,000 people "saved" means over £3m and more than 5 jobs lost for each averted death.
Given that all of the above is before you even start considering any of the avoidable deaths caused by lockdown to date or the impact incurring additional debt equivalent to almost three times the entire budget for the whole of the NHS last year will have on the future health of the country, I think it's absolutely 100% clear that the government's actions to date cannot in any way be considered to have been "in the greater good".
This leads on to the second question...
If I'd been in Bojo's position, would I, could I have acted in the greater good?
This is a really difficult question!!! To do so would've required standing up in front of the country and saying "our experts tell us that if we do nothing about Covid, it is likely to cost 250,000 lives, but that's what we're going to do because we cannot justify the cost of the proposed actions".
This is hand on the lever time... you're being told that there are quarter of a million people tied to the tracks who might be run over and killed if you do nothing. If you pull the lever, you can save some of them - maybe even most of them - but even if you didn't pay any interest on the extra debt and charged every income tax payer in the country an extra £50 per month, it would still take over two decades to pay it all off, and you'd also have an indeterminate number of people tied to the tracks in the sidings. Do you pull it or don't you?
Even more complicated... If you've gone a certain way down the road thinking - on the basis of limited data - that you're acting in the greater good but it later becomes very clear that you're not, would you have the guts to stand up and say "sorry, we got it wrong, we should've let your granny run the risk"?
There's a popular myth that King
was an arrogant numpty because he tried to command the tide to turn back. The more recent view is that he did so to prove to his advisors that he couldn't turn back the tides because he wasn't God. I'd like to think I could've been more like in telling my Scientific Advisors to consider the Greater Good than Bojo and his cabinet have been, but at the same time, probably condemning a lot of people to death vs probably saving a lot of people at an undetermined price isn't an easy choice.
What would you have done?
I suspect that most of us would say that yes, in general, we support the principle of "the greater good", but I wonder if that's truly the case?
The classic ethical/pyschological Trolley Problem does a good job of addressing a key aspect of this question. For those who don't know it, basically you're standing next to a railway points lever. A runaway train is barrelling down the track out of control, and if you do nothing, it's going to run over five people tied to the tracks and kill them. If you pull the lever, the train diverts into a siding, and will kill one person tied to THAT track. The dilemma is whether it's easier to take no action and view it as "what will be will be", or to pull the lever, knowing that you've reduced the number of deaths from five to one, but also knowing that you've chosen the person to die.
From the above, you move into more complexities... What if the person in the siding was a single parent in the prime of life with four young kids and the five in the siding all had terminal illnesses and only a year or two to live?
The above, of course, is theoretical, so let's make it real and justify this being in "News, Politics and Economics"!
As you may have noticed, the government has been doing quite a lot to try and protect people from Covid this year. I've been asking myself two questions....
Have the government's actions been taken in pursuit of the Greater Good?
I started out by trying to figure out how many deaths their actions might potentially have saved. The average Covid infection to death ratio for developed economies such as the UK is approximately 1.5%, so if some evil super-villain were to successfully implement a dastardly plan to infect every one of the 66 million people in the UK, we could realistically expect the result to be as high as 990,000 deaths, so with around 70,000 deaths so far, in theory at least we could say that the government has prevented 920,000 deaths!!! That's a huge number, but also of course totally unrealistic, as there is no super-villain, and not everyone is going to catch Covid, but never mind, let's run with it for now, and even round it up to a million to make the maths easier!
At this point, my immediate instinct is to think "of course they've acted in the greater good, they've saved a million lives!!!", but what has been the cost of saving those lives?
According to the November update from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the government's borrowing requirement projection for this year has increased from a pre-Covid estimate of £55Bn to £394Bn, an increase of £339Bn, GDP has shrunk by 11.3% rather than growing by 1.1% as expected and unemployment is expected to hit 7.2% by the end of next year, vs 3.9% projected prior to Covid.
So what does that actually mean?
- The increase in PSBR is, rather obviously, £339Bn.
- The decrease in GDP is a further £269Bn.
- An extra 3.3% of people out of work means around 1.15 million jobs lost.
In other words, even in my "worse than worst case Doomsday scenario", every single one of those million lives saved has cost £608,000 and put a person out of work! In reality, even the most pessimistic modelling scenarios put forward to the government have topped out at around 250,000 deaths if no action was taken at all, and with 70,000 already dead anyway, a potential 180,000 people "saved" means over £3m and more than 5 jobs lost for each averted death.
Given that all of the above is before you even start considering any of the avoidable deaths caused by lockdown to date or the impact incurring additional debt equivalent to almost three times the entire budget for the whole of the NHS last year will have on the future health of the country, I think it's absolutely 100% clear that the government's actions to date cannot in any way be considered to have been "in the greater good".
This leads on to the second question...
If I'd been in Bojo's position, would I, could I have acted in the greater good?
This is a really difficult question!!! To do so would've required standing up in front of the country and saying "our experts tell us that if we do nothing about Covid, it is likely to cost 250,000 lives, but that's what we're going to do because we cannot justify the cost of the proposed actions".
This is hand on the lever time... you're being told that there are quarter of a million people tied to the tracks who might be run over and killed if you do nothing. If you pull the lever, you can save some of them - maybe even most of them - but even if you didn't pay any interest on the extra debt and charged every income tax payer in the country an extra £50 per month, it would still take over two decades to pay it all off, and you'd also have an indeterminate number of people tied to the tracks in the sidings. Do you pull it or don't you?
Even more complicated... If you've gone a certain way down the road thinking - on the basis of limited data - that you're acting in the greater good but it later becomes very clear that you're not, would you have the guts to stand up and say "sorry, we got it wrong, we should've let your granny run the risk"?
There's a popular myth that King
was an arrogant numpty because he tried to command the tide to turn back. The more recent view is that he did so to prove to his advisors that he couldn't turn back the tides because he wasn't God. I'd like to think I could've been more like in telling my Scientific Advisors to consider the Greater Good than Bojo and his cabinet have been, but at the same time, probably condemning a lot of people to death vs probably saving a lot of people at an undetermined price isn't an easy choice.What would you have done?
The Greater Good of the country would have been to let COVID do its thing as fast as possible and let the NHS do what it could.
The UK may have lost 1m of its most vulnerable and unlucky but financially it'd be much better off. The NHS would have a large reduction in its 'clients' for a few years.
This is clear survival of the fittest and what would happen in nature.
But we are not animals, we are compassionate and every life is worth saving even if its not for The Greater Good.
The UK may have lost 1m of its most vulnerable and unlucky but financially it'd be much better off. The NHS would have a large reduction in its 'clients' for a few years.
This is clear survival of the fittest and what would happen in nature.
But we are not animals, we are compassionate and every life is worth saving even if its not for The Greater Good.
toasty said:
The Greater Good of the country would have been to let COVID do its thing as fast as possible and let the NHS do what it could.
The UK may have lost 1m of its most vulnerable and unlucky but financially it'd be much better off. The NHS would have a large reduction in its 'clients' for a few years.
This is clear survival of the fittest and what would happen in nature.
But we are not animals, we are compassionate and every life is worth saving even if its not for The Greater Good.
Right there, though, you're on the very horns of the dilemma! The UK may have lost 1m of its most vulnerable and unlucky but financially it'd be much better off. The NHS would have a large reduction in its 'clients' for a few years.
This is clear survival of the fittest and what would happen in nature.
But we are not animals, we are compassionate and every life is worth saving even if its not for The Greater Good.
If every life is worth saving, then giving a little old granny a couple of extra years by keeping her safe from Covid is good.
What, though, if the cost of keeping her alive is her son - father and breadwinner for her grandchildren in primary school - dying in 5 years as a result of terminal cancer which would've been treatable if his diagnosis hadn't been missed because of the lockdown protecting his mum?
I know what the granny would say - take me and save my son! - but what would you do? You've said that every life is worth saving, but you can't save both. What do you do?
Or on a broader scale, every life is worth saving, but if you're spending three times the entire cost of the NHS annual budget on it, how long before saving every life turns into "we're sorry but the NHS can't afford to provide any A&E cover for the next five years, please be extra careful and always carry some plasters with you?"
I don't believe every life has an equal value.
The value of life decreases as age increases.
By that I mean if you have to choose between saving 1 of 2 people.
One person is 30 and the other is 90
It's a very easy choice
In the same way that if someone is 5 and the other is 50.
Again, an easy choice.
Of course taking emotions out of it.
The difficulty would be saving two people who are of equal age.
The problem is we cannot save everyone nor should we try to save everyone.
Certainly , we should not be saving a minority of people at the expense of a majority.
The issue is because we've had a few years of low deaths people think it's normal to live to 95 and it really isn't.
"The greater good" reminds me of the scene in Hot Fuzz when they're all gathered round the table in their cloaks, anything "for the greater good" is generally a by-word for "We're doing what we want and making the excuses up as we go along".
The value of life decreases as age increases.
By that I mean if you have to choose between saving 1 of 2 people.
One person is 30 and the other is 90
It's a very easy choice
In the same way that if someone is 5 and the other is 50.
Again, an easy choice.
Of course taking emotions out of it.
The difficulty would be saving two people who are of equal age.
The problem is we cannot save everyone nor should we try to save everyone.
Certainly , we should not be saving a minority of people at the expense of a majority.
The issue is because we've had a few years of low deaths people think it's normal to live to 95 and it really isn't.
"The greater good" reminds me of the scene in Hot Fuzz when they're all gathered round the table in their cloaks, anything "for the greater good" is generally a by-word for "We're doing what we want and making the excuses up as we go along".
To those saying let the oldies die, are you also against state-funded care homes? They cost us a small fortune. Not to mention medicines, operations, pensions. We could be so much richer without all that.
I like to think we have a bit more humanity than to let people die for the sake of the economy, or some what-if scenarios in the future.
I like to think we have a bit more humanity than to let people die for the sake of the economy, or some what-if scenarios in the future.
320d is all you need said:
I don't believe every life has an equal value.
The value of life decreases as age increases.
By that I mean if you have to choose between saving 1 of 2 people.
One person is 30 and the other is 90
It's a very easy choice
In the same way that if someone is 5 and the other is 50.
Again, an easy choice.
Of course taking emotions out of it.
The difficulty would be saving two people who are of equal age.
The problem is we cannot save everyone nor should we try to save everyone.
Certainly , we should not be saving a minority of people at the expense of a majority.
The issue is because we've had a few years of low deaths people think it's normal to live to 95 and it really isn't.
"The greater good" reminds me of the scene in Hot Fuzz when they're all gathered round the table in their cloaks, anything "for the greater good" is generally a by-word for "We're doing what we want and making the excuses up as we go along".
So, better save someone who could potentially contribute to the economy, rather someone who already has contributed.The value of life decreases as age increases.
By that I mean if you have to choose between saving 1 of 2 people.
One person is 30 and the other is 90
It's a very easy choice
In the same way that if someone is 5 and the other is 50.
Again, an easy choice.
Of course taking emotions out of it.
The difficulty would be saving two people who are of equal age.
The problem is we cannot save everyone nor should we try to save everyone.
Certainly , we should not be saving a minority of people at the expense of a majority.
The issue is because we've had a few years of low deaths people think it's normal to live to 95 and it really isn't.
"The greater good" reminds me of the scene in Hot Fuzz when they're all gathered round the table in their cloaks, anything "for the greater good" is generally a by-word for "We're doing what we want and making the excuses up as we go along".
Means tested healthcare.
Any consideration of lockdown on the grounds of saving lives needs to consider all lives lost not just the ones the media will blame the government for.
Recessions kill people. Either directly through increased suicide or indirectly through deprivation and lack of government resources in the future. There is no trade off between "lives" and "the economy", not in the long run.
It is pointless asking for a cost benefit analysis on this though as the governments actions were not motivated by any such rational measure, but by the desire to avoid media criticism.
Recessions kill people. Either directly through increased suicide or indirectly through deprivation and lack of government resources in the future. There is no trade off between "lives" and "the economy", not in the long run.
It is pointless asking for a cost benefit analysis on this though as the governments actions were not motivated by any such rational measure, but by the desire to avoid media criticism.
My spanner in the works is the pubs and popularity factor.
Making greater good calls based on ages of those affected, and the effects to the health and livelihood of working age people and their families is tough enough, but this situation has been made so much worse due to trying to appease the voters who just care literally about popping up the Winchester and waiting for it to all blow over
Making greater good calls based on ages of those affected, and the effects to the health and livelihood of working age people and their families is tough enough, but this situation has been made so much worse due to trying to appease the voters who just care literally about popping up the Winchester and waiting for it to all blow over
320d is all you need said:
I don't believe every life has an equal value.
The value of life decreases as age increases.
By that I mean if you have to choose between saving 1 of 2 people.
One person is 30 and the other is 90
It's a very easy choice
In the same way that if someone is 5 and the other is 50.
Again, an easy choice.
The first, probably agree. The value of life decreases as age increases.
By that I mean if you have to choose between saving 1 of 2 people.
One person is 30 and the other is 90
It's a very easy choice
In the same way that if someone is 5 and the other is 50.
Again, an easy choice.
The second, consider this; the five year old can be replaced easily with little lost - a middle-aged person with decades of experience and knowledge, not so easily replaced and much lost.
I think there's a tipping point at both ends of the scale.
ReallyReallyGood said:
To those saying let the oldies die, are you also against state-funded care homes? They cost us a small fortune. Not to mention medicines, operations, pensions. We could be so much richer without all that.
I like to think we have a bit more humanity than to let people die for the sake of the economy, or some what-if scenarios in the future.
You are confusing two things.I like to think we have a bit more humanity than to let people die for the sake of the economy, or some what-if scenarios in the future.
1) The care for people no longer able to take care of themselves
2) Shutting down large parts of the economy in the hope that this will stop the spread of a naturally occurring virus to those most vulnerable to it, at massive economic and fiscal cost, with no clear idea how successful many of these measures even are at slowing spread to the vulnerable.
Also, as already pointed out, lockdown measures also have a cost in lives so where is your "humanity" then?.
Alucidnation said:
So, better save someone who could potentially contribute to the economy, rather someone who already has contributed.
Means tested healthcare.
My view is nothing to do with the economy.Means tested healthcare.
Where in my post did I mention anything to do with the economy?
It's about potential of life to enjoy
a 30 year old is going to have a long and healthy life with laughter and memories
a 90 year old will have already had a good life.
So the 90 year old might live another 18 months were as the 30 year old has another 50 years or so of living to do
Of course either could get hit by a bus the next day, but we are talking statistical averages.
The economic aspect wasn't even a consideration on my decision.
You have jumped to a conclusion. Made an assumption.
I suspect if you ask most 90 year olds , one has to die, them or a much younger person every single old person I know is very self-less and would give their life and say something like "i've had a good run" etc.
Kermit power said:
What would you have done?
I think, as with everyone, there is bias in your initial framing of the question.Jobs can be replaced, but people cannot. Sounds flippant to the person just made redundant with limited job prospects, but they have the potential to get another job.
Money can be replaced, but people cannot. By various measures we recovered or exceeded where we were after the financial crisis in 2008, despite many people losing their jobs then.
Human beings are not rational, because if they were we would be killing anyone who we decide is a burden on society, instead of trying to save as many of them as we can. The savings on welfare and medical bills would be immense. We also wouldn't be killing each other over spurious reasons, so no need for defence budgets or police. Instead, as a society we would institute clear criteria over a person's worth and then eliminate anyone that failed at those criteria. Simples. Of course, most of the people complaining about the lockdown are the people also complaining about authoritarian overreach, so I suspect they would find state sponsored removal of 'undesirables' to be a problem (unless they never thought they would end up in the 'undesirable' bracket of course).
Once the decision was made to start saving people, the ball was already rolling and it was never going to stop.
Roofless Toothless said:
There were about 10 million Jews in the world in 1939.
The Second World War cost 75 million lives.
Perhaps we should have just let Hitler get on with it.
(Am I doing it right?)
First of all Hitler started it, we didn't have much choice in the matter! The Second World War cost 75 million lives.
Perhaps we should have just let Hitler get on with it.
(Am I doing it right?)
More seriously, once he'd finished with the Jews, the plan was to work all the inhabitants of eastern Europe to death and colonised the East. He would have pretty much enslaved all the Africans in our colonies at some point as well. There's a hell of a lot more than 75million people in Eastern Europe right now!
And that's before we even consider quality of life...
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