> On the contrary, there certainly is a dollar figure, but it's far higher than any individual would be able to provide. That dollar figure is: whatever amount of money-effort it would take to save one hundred times as many people as the people I love, such that that one hundred times as many people were at least as good as the people I was killing.

With so many arbitrary qualifications there, how could you begin to evaluate the net result? Or simply, what is "at least as good as"?

> How much money would it cost to provide everlasting peace? Probably far more than the total economic output of the world in a year (that's sixty-six trillion dollars).

Continuing with the hypothetical, the species that will disappear would have prevented a global pandemic that wipes out all of humanity. And here you weren't willing to pass on a single years worth of global economic output to save the species that saved humanity. How could you! I can't really understand your prioritization, and I vehemently disagree.

There's a Zen koan that I'm going to murder here:

A boy in a village falls from his horse and breaks his leg. The village elders gather around the monk and cry "oh no, how terrible! isn't this sad for the boy to break his leg?" To which the monk replies "perhaps it is, perhaps it is not". The elders walk away in bemusement. A week passes and the despot ruler of the kindom declares war against a peaceful neighbor. Soldiers come to the village to round up all the able young men to fight. The boy with the broken leg is passed over. The village elders gather around the monk and cry "oh how fortunate for the boy to have broken his leg so that he does not have to go off to war and die! isn't it fortunate for the boy?" To which the monk replies "perhaps it is, perhaps it is not".

It's a Zen koan, so the meaning is probably buried layer under layer (assuming there's a meaning at all). But perhaps it means that everything is priceless because you can never know the real value of anything.

> Continuing with the hypothetical, the species that will disappear would have prevented a global pandemic that wipes out all of humanity.

You've just changed the hypothesis in order to ridicule it. Playing a different game and saying "see? I won" is worthless. If you had stated that previously, I'm sure effectively everyone in the world would have agreed that a year's global output would be worth saving it - it also saves them.

Without that part of the hypothesis, there's the vanishingly-small chance that this could actually happen. As it could happen, it should be factored into any of the replies... but at what probability? Certainly not 100%. And as we are not yet extinct, but have been around for / caused the extinction of thousands of species...

Not that it can't happen, just that it would be an exceptionally unlikely occurrence, and should be treated as such. It's entirely possible that, on your next inhale, you'll die. Will you hold your breath until you die to prevent it?

> how could you begin to evaluate the net result

It's not always easy to estimate large prices . . . that doesn't mean there isn't one.

> Continuing with the hypothetical, the species that will disappear would have prevented a global pandemic that wipes out all of humanity

I can see why you would factor that into your estimate, considering there have been so many species to go extinct so far that have had that property.

The difference between your part of the hypothetical and mine is that mine is a likely understatement of the costs for your demand, and yours is a likely overstatement of the value of an extinct species.

Let's put it another way where quibbles over estimates and hypotheticals would not come into play. You said that the minimum you would accept for one extinct species is world peace. That means that any less value than world peace per extinct species is not sufficient.

So if I were to offer you world peace in exchange for two extinct species, you would presumably turn that offer down. Say, this species of mussels and a species of bottle fly. Now I very much doubt that this is actually true: you seem to be more than capable of putting two and two together. But it does mean that your claim that world peace was your minimum price for an extinction was false.

> It's not always easy to estimate large prices . . . that doesn't mean there isn't one.

There isn't one. There are multiple guesses all based upon assumptions and limited knowledge.

Here's an example:

m: I have a book, how much will you give me for it?

f: Uh, nothing, I don't want a random book.

m: I forgot to mention it's a first printing Tom Sawyer.

f: Oh, ok. I'll give you $10 for it.

m: Collectors regularly pay $5000 for it.

f: OK. How about $1000?

m: It's signed by Mark Twain.

f: $2000?

m: It's missing a cover.

f: $500?

etc.

Which value was the true value of the book?

Value is entirely contingent upon knowledge, which is always imperfect. Given just two pieces of information - the oil spill is damaging the environment and a species may become extinct - it is entirely within the realm of reason to state that there is no dollar value that can be assigned to that extinction. Therefore that species becomes priceless. Given more information the value of the species may become something less than priceless. And given even more information the value may become priceless once again.

That an exact value cannot be arrived upon just by thinking about the issue in no way limits the usefulness of estimates. I have shown your estimate of the value of a single likely extinction to be completely out of whack. Your comment seems to indicate you believe I'm trying to arrive at a mathematically perfect resolution, and that my inability to do so is proof that my entire position is without merit. This could not be further from my intent. Any any charitable reading of my comments would have shown that clearly.

There is no species or even combination of species that is threatened by this oil spill that is LIKELY to have anywhere near the value you have assigned by any rational measure. That's my point. If you can't address that point, then there's really nothing more to discuss.

You're right. If you can't accept my examples as a demonstration of the point that nothing has a quantifiable value, there is no point in continuing the discussion.

You're certainly free to guess at any value you wish for any thing you think of. The validity of your guesses will always be directly proportional to the limited extent of your knowledge on the thing. Ultimately, you appear to assign far too much value to the concept of value.