Some years ago there was a docu-drama called “Day After Disaster.” This begins with a ten kiloton terrorist nuke going off in Washington, D.C. It trashes the Capitol building, the National Air and Space Museum, the Library of Congress, and a whole lot of people. The show then goes on to describe the aftermath, both in trying to pick up the pieces in D.C. and in continuity of government.
While there is much to consider in that scenario, there’s one philosophical point that has occurred to me many times over the years: the destruction of *stuff* is always considered of less importance than the lives lost… but is it *really*?
It is easy to say that lives cannot be valued in dollars. And yet… life insurance. Lawsuits. Kidnapping ransoms. Disney just collected $50 million after the death of Carrie Fisher. Like it or not, lives *can* be valued in terms of dollars.
But, ok. Dollars are fungible commodities. If a billion dollars vanishes from the economy as a whole to save one life, it’s straightforward enough to argue that the money can be replaced while the life cannot. But what about physical objects that are *not* replaceable? Let’s say someone steals the Mona Lisa or the original copies of the declaration of independence, the Constitution, the Magna Carta. Or they plant a sub-kiloton nuke in the National Air and Space Museum. Or they surround the Washington Monument or Eiffel Tower or the leaning tower of Pisa with truck bombs powerful enough to bring them down. And the demand is simple, straighforward and right out of bad fiction: they will push the button unless, say, some random twelve-year-old child is beheaded on live television.
Yeah, yeah, it’s a silly scenario. But just go with it.
Assume for the sake of argument that the Bad Guys have demonstrated adequately that they have the ability to carry out their evil deed. Their nuke is a recently stolen, known device and they’ve broadcast images of it properly set up for detonation with all the relevant serial numbers visible. They are sealed in adequately that no conceivable SEAL or Delta Force strike team could possibly get to them before they could push the button, and they have a demonstrated willingness to die to get the job done.
The Bad Guys have given a deadline a sufficient number of hours down the line that the region can be safely evacuated. Nobody except the Bad Guy sitting on the button need die. Or, the innocent child could die, and the bomb will be deactivated (let’s somehow assume that we for some reason trust the Bad Guys to actually back down if their demands are met).
Is the NASM, Eiffel Tower, Mona Lisa worth a single life? The easy answer is “it’s just stuff, and human lives are more important.” That sounds great… but it’s verifiably false. Humans have died for “stuff” for as long as we’ve been making “stuff.” Workers killed building bridges and buildings and dams. Miners dead digging up the coal used to make the paint used to create that masterpiece. Farmers mangled in agricultural equipment, auto workers mashed in car factories, test pilots splattered across the landscape. Now, in these cases those who die are essentially anonymous. And they have chosen to put themselves at risk. In contrast, the Bad Guys want someone who is not responsible, not involved and not willing. This someone will very quickly become non-anonymous. And *somebody* will have to help facilitate this sacrifice.
So is “stuff” worth a single life? I suspect that most people, after reading the preceding rambling gibberish, will continue to say “no.” But consider this: let’s say this exact scenario had occurred 300 years ago with the Mona Lisa… it had been stolen and unless one innocent life was sacrificed it would been burned. And that sacrifice had been made, and so we have the Mona Lisa today. Who would even give that one life a second thought today? Or what if the Library of Alexandria could have been saved if only one poor schmuck had been taken out? Would we say that that life lost so long ago to provide a cultural boon today was not worth it?
Hmmm.
This is the sort of thing I think of when I see a docudrama about D.C. getting nuked. The narrator says that the Mall and the Capitol are destroyed, with everyone in ’em… I shrug. But then the narrator says the LoC and the NASM are trashed, and that gives me a sad.