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Chernobyl's Downplayed Victims | 49 comments (49 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
A few ideas (none / 0)
  • what orphan diseases really need is fundamental research, and that is (i)usually a good investment overall, even if it is impossible to tell beforehand precisely what research will yield new breakthroughs, and thus (ii) definitely within the purview of the government, precisely for that reason that it needs to be spread over enough topics to have a chance to find the major new thing that will yield results/progress in many other sector;

  • there is a qualitative difference between investing EUR 1 billion to save a  average 50 statistical, unidentified lives (the "return" of building bridges instead of railway crossings), and investing EUR 20 million to save the life of one identified person (or doing that 50 times). One is in the realm of macro policies, and needs to be compared to other macro policies (say, investing EUR 1 billion in carbon scrubbers will save, statistically, 1,000 lives from respiratory diseases, for a net gain of 950 lives). The other is in the realm of solidarity, and public support for rare life accidents that one cannot bear on one's own;

  • limiting waste/inefficiency in macro policies will precisely free more resources for other smart macro policies AND for solidarity spending on individual, identified cases.

Does that make sense?

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sun May 7th, 2006 at 08:23:59 AM EST
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Chernobyl's Downplayed Victims | 49 comments (49 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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