Value of Life

Part of the problem, MUCH of the problem, in the way most people think in 2005 is that human lives are just another commodity. As the population expands many mistakenly, very mistakenly, believe that one human life is not worth much because there are so many others. In a new sci-fi only 40,000 humans are left in existence, and one of the goals of the people is to have a lot of babies. One life is precious because there are so few others. Species preservation and all that. However, there really are over six billion of us alive today. Because people view the world as burgeoning and bursting at the seams, some view it as OK and even desirable to throw away some. Lives are discardable and expendable. How wrong this is! (Funny how those who hold to this philosophy rarely want to "help" the situation by leaving earth themselves.) People are not like diamonds or coal or steel or any other traded good or service. It does not work that way. The seven billionth life is just as valuable as the first. A new life is worth an infinite amount. It is unique in personality and soul, even when not unique in body (identical twins, and in the future, clones, I guess, that's another crazy thing). Every soul is of infinite value and untradeable, it is not redeemable for cash or services, this is not how it works. Whether there are ten people left on earth or ten billion, the next baby born is of the same value- infinite.