Charles Brown writes: >> Myself, I think the benefit of reducing the speed limit substantially ( >> maybe not to 5 miles per hour), and more safety features of the type you >> mention would be worth it in the lives and injuries saved, and the cost >> would not be astronomical given what would be saved. In other words, the >> value of a human life _is_ astronomical, well, relative to the conveniences >> that are had by being able to go 75 instead of 40.
Why is your personal opinion relevant? I mean, I am sure I can find somebody (Melvin P.?) who apparently highly values going 100. Therefore, your opinion is cancelled out. Now what do we do? >> I think you are right that the problem wouldn't just go away with socialism. >> There might , in general, in socialism be more focus on some safety issues >> when the decision would not depend upon how the safer engineering impacted >> an individual corporation's bottomline. I can see a socialism more readily >> developing its transportation system with all the safety features you >> suggest, and not experiencing them economically as "astronomical". If there >> was safety focus comprehensively and for a long time, it might be very >> practical to do it better safety wise. Why do you assume such facts for a socialist society? We have 75 years of experience with socialist inspired economies. Did they place a higher value on safety compared to comparable capitalist societies? Were they able to implement safety concerns more economically than comparable capitalist societies? It seems to me that safety increases in value as a society becomes wealthier, and the value is not correlated to the economic system itself. David Shemano
