The looting of Iraq continues apace

[Geoffrey S]

Well, sure. But if that country doesn't (or can't) take responsible care of such heritage sites, should they be allowed such a role?

[doc_bean]

I think the military has a more important duty: trying to save as many lives as possible. It's the 21th century, anything remotely interesting there should have been investigated already and photographs or duplicates should exist. I'm all for history, but are we going to value a piece of 2000year old pottery above a human life ?

[rory_20_uk]

And so in cases such as the Taliban in Afghanistan (or the Communists in China) go on a rampage destroying items hundreds or thousands of years old do we just shrug our collective shoulders?

Lives are ten a penny. If we cared about lives we'd all donate to Oxfam as they save far more lives per buck.

I agree that every 1,000 year old cup isn't worth it, but many are.

[doc_bean]

I agree that every 1,000 year old cup isn't worth it, but many are.

Some historic evidence can be worth more than a life, perhaps, but like I said, archeologists have had plenty of time took around already, I'd assume anything important is already well documented enough. Other than information, historical pieces only hold sentimental value, and I won't easily value that over a life.

EDIT: I hardly see the value in a cup though, unless it has drawings on it perhaps, or contains remainders of food, a cup by itself is pretty worthless. Pottery barn will happily supply you with as many as you'd ever need.
The Buddha statues in Afghanistan were a different matter alltogether, first of all because it wasn't an if situation, there would have been nothing lost if they still stood, and second of all because they were a 'wonder' a rare (in scope) and unique achievement of ancient human civilization. Not quite a cup.

[rory_20_uk]

How much do you value a life?

Oh, I know how precious they are, and how of course we'd do nothing to end one...

In the UK, NICE values lives at £30,000 per year.

But funnily enough most people do close to nothing to stop deaths in the world, except say how terrible it is.

Luckily many people are prepared to cherish treasures for future generations. I'd rather private collectors had them than no one at all.

[doc_bean]

How much do you value a life?

Certainly a difficult question, it depends on what position you are taking, and who's life it is of course, but either you accept a life has an intrisic value or you don't, in the latter case it can still have an economic value of course, but then you're just looking at things from a utilitarian perspective.

In the end money only has value in as far as it can be used by humans to provide in their needs, amongst them the need for (personal) survival, so perhaps expressing things in terms of money is rather abstracting the problem to an unnecessary level for sake of comparison.

Oh, I know how precious they are, and how of course we'd do nothing to end one...

In the UK, NICE values lives at £30,000 per year.

What's NICE ? Seems like a reasonable figure to me, in line with most other economic estimates of the value of life I've seen. But like a said, economic value is just *a* means for comparison, it can be quite necessary to have a figure when making a budget for healthcare, but just because there's number doesn't mean it's the right number.

But funnily enough most people do close to nothing to stop deaths in the world, except say how terrible it is.

Does the fact that many people do something make it right ?

Luckily many people are prepared to cherish treasures for future generations. I'd rather private collectors had them than no one at all.

I never disagreed on that point. I just stated that wasting soldiers on protecting a bunch of old pottery when real, living people need protection is rather twisted.

[rory_20_uk]

Apologies, NICE is the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. It assesses the value of new treatments.

A "person" as an undefined object has little more than a utilitarian "value" to me. So of course my family has far more value than this, but I understand that few others would bias their worth in this way.

I would agree that using soldiers to protect antiques is not what they are for. So get the antiques out of the country! Since we are protecting the precious people, they can give us the pottery in return, and they even have the chance to appreciate it or its copies in future - something that is not possible if its full of bullet holes.