What Is The Value Of Life, Pt. 1: What IS Life?

Summary: Equality is one of the major social and political issues around the world and has been since the late 18th century when a handful of upstart countries decided that feudal systems of landed gentry and enforced caste systems needed to be overthrown. Those early demands for equality changed the world, but there was one problem: they weren’t equal. People of color were valued less than the European Caucasians who were running everything. Indigenous people were considered disposable. Women? Forget it, they hardly had any value at all. That attitudes have changed since those days is good, but let’s not overlook for a minute how much of a struggle was required to establish those changes and how much those same people groups continue to struggle to maintain tenuous equality that is threatened constantly by those who maliciously believe in white supremacy. How we value human life is under constant attack and, as the world progresses, it is likely to get worse, not better, unless we start talking about it now at a pedestrian level, not academic. Part of the challenge is that we don’t realize how often the value of life is at the epicenter of our thoughts, actions, and conversations. When I look at some of the articles on my reading list this week, the titles tend to bury the lede in this regard. The Atlantic has “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/07/nora-ephrons-rules-for-middle-age-happiness/619535/">Nora Ephron’s Rules For Middle Aged Happiness</a>.” Author Deborah Copaken explores the value of a uterus and a friend. Slate asks, “<a href="https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/climate-change-wet-bulb-temperature.htm">When Will It Get Too Hot For The Human Body to Survive?</a>” Matthew Lewis considers that as one heat record after another falls, hundreds of people are unable to survive the high temperatures. Spoiler alert, there’s a link between the value of the environment and human life. The Guardian is on the list twice, once with the story of how a 71-year-old woman changed her life, and ostensibly the value of that life, by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jul/23/a-new-start-after-60-i-was-sick-tired-and-had-lost-myself-until-i-took-up-bodybuilding-at-71">lifting weights</a>, and again with the dark story of how “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/29/carbon-emissions-americans-social-cost">Three Americans Create Enough Carbon Emissions To Kill One Person</a>.” Whose life doesn’t matter in that scenario? Vice jumped into the conversation with an article on how <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgy7a/we-all-quit-how-americas-workers-are-taking-back-their-power?">workers are quitting jobs</a> that fail to sufficiently value their work, and their lives. One of the most disturbing articles this week, evoking emotions from compassion and grief to fear and distress, comes from the San Francisco Chronicle’s “<a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/jessica-simulation-artificial-intelligence/">The Jessica Simulation: Love and loss in the age of A.I.</a>” How does it change the value of a person’s life if we can simulate what they might have said months, even years after they’ve died? Producers of a documentary on the life of famed chef Anthony Bourdain came under fire when it was revealed they’d used artificial intelligence to duplicate his voice, causing it to sound as though he were reading letters that, in real life, he’d never read. At least, not out loud. What value do we have after we’re dead? What is the value of our own voice? We’re having these conversations, we’ve been having these conversations, without consciously realizing that at the essence of all these topics we’re questioning the value of life—ours, our friends, neighbors,

What Is The Value Of Life, Pt. 1: What IS Life?

Directory

Click for all Categories