Given the quantities of calcium, magnesium, iron and other chemicals and compounds the human body is made up of, how much do we sell for on the open market?
I'll bid 92.56! A great number of people have spent a great deal of human and financial resources calculating the composition of, prior to the decomposition of, and the worth, or worthlessness of, the human body. When we total the monetary value of the elements in our bodies and the value of the average person's skin, we arrive at a net worth of $4.50! This value is, however, subject to change, due to stock market fluctuations. Since the studies leading to this conclusion were conducted by the U.S. and by Japan respectively, it might be wise to consult the New York Stock Exchange and the Nikkei Index before deciding when to sell!
It depends on how far you decompose the human body, and what methods you use to do it. Obviously just cutting a person, you're left with tens of thousands of dollars in organs and tissues. Grinding a person up an fractioning gives a bunch of expensive to synthesize organic molecules. I suppose the best way to render a body to the cheapest pieces would be by burning at a very high temperature to get nitrogen, water, carbon dioxide, and salts. That would be worth very little. Less than a dollar, I'd reckon.
But this sort of usefulness of the body is limited by the person's state of health, which can vary very much much from one person to another.
before we answer that question let us analyze what minerals make up our body: 1. Carbon (18%) is 50cents per 30 tons ... 2. water (75%) is 2.62 per cubic meter... 3. Nitrogen (3%) 4. Calcium (1.5%) 5. Phosphorus (1.0%) 6. Potassium (0.35%) 7. Sulfur (0.25%) 8. Sodium (0.15%) 9. Magnesium (0.05%) 10. Copper, Zinc, Selenium, Molybdenum, Fluorine, Chlorine, Iodine, Manganese, Cobalt, Iron (0.70%) 11. Lithium, Strontium, Aluminum, Silicon, Lead, Vanadium, Arsenic, Bromine (trace amounts)
my philosophy professor told me we are worth whatever we can pay, on the spot, to save our life. and yeah, philosophically speaking, it's true. You know how since elementary school our teachers always told us human life was priceless, but in reality, you're only worth the amount of money you can come up with on the spot to save ur life. If you only have $700 in your savings account, then that's pretty much what you're worth, that and if you have a car you could offer that too. But that's the situation. If I caught you in a dark alley and put a gun to your head, and said if you dont give me enough money and valuables to make me change my mind from killing you, that whatever you can come up with is what your life is worth. If you have $150 on you, and I felt it wasnt enough and just shot you, then yes, your life was worth theoretically $151... sad but true...
I used to work for an insurance company. The actuaries said, after analyzing the decisions people make about risks and rewards, that the average American values his life at $7 million.
Not really. No one actually builds his life around that figure. I don't know anyone who has even one million dollars worth of life insurance. The actuaries got it more from settlement amounts in civil lawsuits.
Indeed. One common method is to consider a human life as a productive asset and measure its worth as the discounted present value of its cumulative earning power. This would appraise the life of the average U.S. university graduate in the order of magnutide of one million dollars, which is considerably less than his widow would be awarded in a wrongful death lawsuit. Such settlements often include punitive damages and a bribe for promising not to publicize the case. These settlements, rather than the actual discounted earning power or the typical life insurance policy, are apparently what people are thinking of when they say they value their life at seven million dollars. So when a mugger kills a woman for $150, that does not mean her life was worth $150. It means that he has destroyed a million-dollar asset. If he is apprehended, her survivors will easily get a multi-million dollar judgment against him, but he will hardly have the assets to pay them. This is a useful illustration of why crime is a value-subtracting activity that impedes civilization.
I've read something about that. A married man supporting a wife and kids is valued much higher than a single guy, for instance.
Depends on who wants which part. You can sell a kidney for 125,000 INR Hmm American kidneys are more expensive: Desire to sell one (1) kidney for the price of $100000 US dollars http://www.engadget.com/2004/08/16/would-you-sell-your-kidney-s-for-a-hush/
I had a course last semester on mercury and its effects on the environment. Bush's Blue Skies Initiative (or was it an Act?) lowered the standards for the amount of Hg that could come out of a power plant, based on recalculation of the value of an American life. I wish I could remember those numbers. I think the government think tank came up with a figure between 1 and 2 million dollars for the average American who is at most risk to mercury poisoning from coal fired plants (poor people that live next to 'em), while another study put that estimate at around 7 million. The cost was calculated based on how many lives would be shortened, and that fraction of cost. Someone who died at 35 would be priced at one half of whatever figure they decided an American was worth. The major effects of mercury are on developing children, so most of the mercury cost actually came from killing babies. Ironically, the administration's stance was, essentially, that those babies weren't worth enough to increase regulations. I'll try and find those papers.
