The point of this whole assignment is to prove that there is always an amount of effort put in to everything you get. Someone or something had to preform an action to create what you want, have, or need. For example, oxygen isn’t free since a plant had to make it. Even if you don’t use currency it still cost labor.
@ProfSrlojohn@ToaNoah_Wafflemeister@Holi
I’m not including things that death causes as a cost. A proper burial is not contributing to the death itself. If it is not necessary to cause the death, then it doesn’t count as a cost. Trauma as a result of a loved ones death did not kill the one who died.
The first scenario I thought of was a man with no connections to people drowning. The water is free of course and the man not is trying to survive whatsoever. That man is putting no effort into trying to live, or trying to die. Is it a free death?
@Hawkflight
Tanstaafl is exactly what I’m getting at.
The only way i can say this properly is in a religious discussion I can’t say here, nor do I think the economics professor would appreciate it.
otherwise, he still had to pay his life didn’t he? Even if he gave it freely, it still cost him. You give up money freely in exchange for goods and services right?
True, but you are, in a sense, taking something away from them, that being your presence.
Though there’s no way to quantify what that cost is. Take the scenario you posted; that man could have gone on to be a saint who was beloved by his community. Or he might have become a serial killer. It’s impossible to know.
And, as prosperjohnlo points out, you are paying your life. A life that could be used for other things, so you’re surrendering the right to do anything in the future.
@ProfSrlojohn
If you want to use a religious stand point, please do so. As for the other part of what you said. Even though we give money away freely, almost everybody would rather get what they want and pay nothing. The man’s life has no value since he is dieing. No one would pay for a corpse.
@Racie02
As I said in my scenario this man has no connections with other living things. He has nothing. His future would have been nothing.
Also I don’t think a consequence of death is a cost of death. That is just a biproduct of death, not death itself.
But does a bill cause the purchase of a treadmill? No, the purchase of a treadmill causes a bill. The mourning doesn’t cause the end of a life, but a life causes the mourning. You can’t have the death without it. That’s a cost, or an expense. The effect of the cause.
Which is already asking for a lot. He’d pretty much have to never interact with anyone or anything ever as to not establish patterns that would be “missed.”
The human mind physically won’t let you drown yourself, so you’d have to find something heavy and tie it to yourself, costing labor. Plus, you’re also spending the ability to breathe.
I don’t think it’s fair to say the man would never have connections simply because he doesn’t now. But even if he would never have any future connections, a life need not have connections to have value. For example, the man is giving up the right to sit in his room and read a book, or build with Lego, or anything else he could do with his life. So I would say that life is a commodity just as money is, and death essentially takes all of it.
Also, if you do use this topic for your paper, you might at least briefly mention religion as a potential ‘cost’. Something vague like “and if you’re a religious person, there may be another cost after you die.” A way to mention religion without bringing up any specific religion.
I don’t want to start any religious discussion from this post, I’m just mentioning that as a possible idea.
Now, man still has to pay for nothing, since they have to put time, energy and resources into reaching and creating a void. Rockets are required to go into space, and vacuum chambers are required to create a vacuum. Even if nothing is free, you still have to pay for nothing.
@Everyone
Thank you all for the responses. I can most definitely see some holes in my thought, and will probably have to find another thing to use as my example. While nothing is a decent suggestion, it’s hard to know if nothing actually exists, and I can’t bring nothing to class. One thought I had was darkness, or lack of sight.
Nothing is the absence of something, which is what happens in a vacuum chamber. All you have to say is that vacuum chambers aren’t free and you couldn’t afford one.