feotakahari

“ I propose to use the same standard to identify the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor.  The deserving poor are those who can’t take - and couldn’t have taken - reasonable steps to avoid poverty. The undeserving poor are those who can take - or could have taken - reasonable steps to avoid poverty.”–Bryan Caplan

It would be very easy for me to die in a way that would win me a Darwin Award, and I would not realize I was doing so until it was too late.

For instance, I once read about a Darwin Award winner who saw a waterfall with a sign by it that said “IF YOU GO IN THE WATER, YOU WILL DIE.” Presumably, he must have figured that the sign must have been put up because people went in the deep part of the water and died. The shallows looked safe, so obviously, the people who put up the sign were just being cautious. This is exactly how I would think, and I would be just as surprised as he was when he went in the water and died.

Now, if you were to say that I’d “deserve” to die for that, there’s nothing I could say to argue you out of your point. “Deserving” is not an objective concept, so I can’t make objective statements about it. But I can objectively state that I have no idea how I would stop being a person who thinks in ways that might earn me a Darwin Award someday. Every so often, just far enough apart that I’ve stopped being wary, I put together enough information to come to a catastrophically wrong conclusion. I am dependent upon the rules and safeties other people create to mitigate the potential impact of my poor decision-making.

Subjectively, I think I’m a pretty decent person. I go to work and make my bosses happy, and I go home and make my mother happy. The world would not find itself greatly impoverished by my death, and you could name any number of people who deserve to live more than I do, but I still value this life, and I take threats to it quite seriously–even threats through implication.