nut allergies.<\/a> Exposure to various sorts of nuts can cause anaphylactic shock. The person (victim? potential survivor?) gasps, unable to breathe. Without help (usually epinephrine), they can die. That\u2019s pretty bad, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe question is \u201cTo what length should we go, as individuals and as a society, to protect these folks?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A rational approach to this would probably use some sort of calculus of suffering. How prevalent is the sensitivity? How great is the risk to each person? What potential actions could we take to help? What do those actions cost? Which possible courses of action are incompatible (i.e: Doing this *or* that makes sense \u2013 but not both).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s hard to stay rational when dealing with these numbers. If your child died, gasping on the floor, or was even at risk of such a fate then you probably \u2013 very reasonably \u2013 consider the risk to be infinite. A child\u2019s death from a preventable cause is a horrible thing. On the other hand, I know for a fact that if kids were dying in horrible and cheaply preventable ways an hour off the coast of Florida in, say, Haiti \u2013 then a majority of Americans would rank that as having \u201czero\u201d importance. Seriously. On the whole, we\u2019d rather have a latte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Infinities and zeros make the math a bit tricky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I believe that the USDA requires food manufacturers to disclose if their foods contain or may contain nuts and \/ or shellfish. That\u2019s the result of legislation \u2013 and legislation is usually derived from a downright nasty set of compromises. It tends to come down to a fight for limited attention between those with personal and those with financial interests in the problem. In this case, any requirement placed on the food producers makes food more expensive for everyone. Even pennies multiplied by \u201cevery person in the country,\u201d get big in a hurry. There\u2019s a common strawman argument involved when it\u2019s an essential good like food. \u201cYou can\u2019t make us do anything different,\u201d goes the argument, \u201cbecause then people on a fixed income won\u2019t be able to eat.\u201d It\u2019s a compelling argument, and it is (in modified form) working out nicely for the as a hedge against dealing with global climate change. The risk is huge but hard to measure. The costs, rather specific. We can\u2019t have grandma going cold over Christmas, can we? Especially not when we\u2019re all just sad that Al Gore lost the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My father in law made a strong point over the holidays. \u201cSome people have no choice,\u201d he said \u201cbut to believe that you have an ulterior motive. They must<\/strong> believe this because their only other choice is to admit that they are cheapskate bastards. If you really were sensible, honest, and painting a comprehensive picture \u2013 then they would have to admit that they don\u2019t live up to their stated morals. That they would rather,\u201d in the case we were talking about, \u201cclose down the schools instead of paying a penny more in property taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nFor these people, caught between making crap up about your motives and admitting their own cheap meanness, \u201clogic is not enough. You must use overwhelming, browbeating logic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re asking someone to admit that they value human life at zero \u2013 it may take a bit of doing. That\u2019s the cost, for some folks, in changing their mind on topics like climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thinking about numbers, fairness, and justice lately. Consider nut allergies. Exposure to various sorts of nuts can cause anaphylactic shock. The person (victim? potential survivor?) gasps, unable to breathe. Without help (usually epinephrine), they can die. That\u2019s pretty bad, right? The question is \u201cTo what…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy","category-politics-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1795,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions\/1795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}