Intelligence Squared
Can You Put a Price Tag on a Life? with Jenny Kleeman
Mar 13, 2024
Jenny Kleeman, a seasoned journalist and author of 'The Price of Life', teams up with Carl Miller, a researcher and author focused on social media and organized crime. They delve into the unsettling reality of how human life is assigned monetary values across industries like insurance and philanthropy. Kleeman exposes the chilling underground market for crimes and the ethics of healthcare resource allocation, challenging our perceptions of life’s worth while questioning the effectiveness of altruism. A thought-provoking discussion on the true price of life.
35:29
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Quick takeaways
- Organizations routinely assign monetary value to human lives for business purposes, from insurance calculations to criminal enterprises.
- Valuing human lives based on market forces leads to ethical dilemmas and challenges the notion of inherent worth.
Deep dives
Putting a Price on Lives: The Dark Side of Valuation
The podcast delves into the unsettling practice of assigning monetary value to human lives, ranging from insurance calculations to criminal enterprises. Investigating the hyper-rational principles of philanthropists seeking to save lives cost-effectively, the podcast reveals the disturbing aspects of valuing lives in terms of efficiency and profitability. The discussion extends to the world of life insurance, highlighting cases of individuals attempting to fake their own deaths for financial gain. Furthermore, it explores how prices on lives vary in different contexts, such as criminal injury compensation disparities and the market valuation of hitmen.
