12/28/2007

Really Interesting observation from the World Clock

The "World Clock" is a statistically increasing clock for various world conditions like population and causes of death, from the same web site as the Life Expectancy Calculator. http://www.peterrussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
 
Here is what I found interesting this time:
It took 11 minutes and 25 million dollars to kill 4 people worldwide as a result of war.  That is one death every 2min 45seconds, each costing $6.25Million to achieve.  During the same period:
 
1185 people died from heart disease
345 people died from cancer
65 people died from AIDS
 
All of whom pretty much died for free (or possibly could have).
 
Clearly, the global war machine generates amazing amounts of cash but has a very low fatality rate, "soldier" isn't even in the top ten for dangerous jobs, by the way.
 
It almost makes you want to say "Everybody just put down the weapons and go home, they'll be dead anyway without even knowing they were under attack."
 
But now I want to see the global calculator for:
Number of jobs created as a result of military spending
Deaths averted due to higher standard of living resulting from those jobs
Money spent on medical care
 
Obviously, I cannot be saying that we should all go to war, because that's a richer better lifestyle, any more than I could intelligently say we should all become miners or farmers, or any other profession.
 
But if you want to knock somebody down for costing too much money and not getting their job done, look at the medical profession.  Their job is to keep people from dying (prematurely).  Unfortunately, the World Clock does not have a statistic for medical expenditure, but everybody knows it is sky high, and obviously (from the numbers on the World Clock) they are simply not achieving their purpose.
 
Now if that little dichotomy doesn't present a funny little irony, I don't know what does:  The soldiers are paid to kill people, but they aren't very good at it.  The doctors are paid to keep people from dying but they aren't very good at it.  The reasons that both of these groups of people fail at their profession has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with each other!