# Are human brains the world's most precious resource? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 18, 2016, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-human-brains-the-worlds-most-precious-resource/757656 "2016-06-18T01:42:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2016, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-human-brains-the-worlds-most-precious-resource/757656/21 "2016-06-19T03:03:55Z")
It’s land-mammalian-centric to rate trees so highly. Phytoplankton are even more important than trees from either a human or all-species POV. Phytoplankton produce more oxygen than trees (50-70% of total earth production with trees, grasses, and all other land plants **combined** contributing the remainder), draw atmospheric CO2, and are a key food for a larger portion of the biomass of earth. > [@spamforbrains](#): > > well, if you bring it back to a little less abstract, the most highly paid humans in current society don’t use their brains all that much. Awesome username/post combo! (Mind you, I’m not referring to your intelligence in any way, just your handle). ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2016, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-human-brains-the-worlds-most-precious-resource/757656/22 "2016-06-19T03:04:24Z")
Human brains? Absolutely not. They’re not scarce, they can be grown from common materials in a sea-level environment in a matter of years, and they’re mostly really only useful to the body they’re grown in. Now, your platinum-group metals, helium, stuff like that, that’s precious. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2016, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-human-brains-the-worlds-most-precious-resource/757656/23 "2016-06-19T03:07:07Z")
Can a moderator lock this thread and open it up in three years so we can properly address the question about the value of brainnzzzzzz. To answer the question, that depends on whether you think humans in general are the world’s most precious resource. ---
**Author:** ![Gozu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gozu/32/6615_2.png) [@Gozu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2016, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-human-brains-the-worlds-most-precious-resource/757656/24 "2016-06-19T16:17:56Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > That is a circular definition (i.e. human brains are the most powerful thing because they help enable human brains to the goals that they aspire to). > > All of this argument is too humanistic to me and I reject humanism completely. It is self-congratulatory and basically a just-so story. […] > > Your question is just a rephrasing of the self-evident observation that humans seek to maximize things that benefit themselves. So do monkeys, snakes, frogs and even bacteria. Well, if you reject humanism. I can understand your point of view. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > That’s a different question. You originally asked about the “world’s most precise recourse”. No you’re asking what is our species most precious resource. Clearly, our brain and what it can do is the most distinguishing feature of our species, but without the DNA that creates it and the ability to reproduce we would be, to keep with your gem analogy, a flash in the pan. I’m not sure you can just separate out our brains and say that is our most precious resource, because we are a system and without all the essential parts of the system, no individual part is worth much, if anything, at all. > > Our brains do allow us to create technologies that can replace some of those essential parts, and eventually we may be able to replace all of them. Even the brain. Then what? We are humans so everything we talk about is viewed through that prism by definition. I focus on the brain because it’s about the only thing that we can seriously claim differentiates us from other forms of life. Lots of them have bones, muscles, etc. > [@panache45](#): > > The planet as a whole is incapable of deeming anything important. It’s only intelligent beings that are capable of valuing. Exactly my view. > [@spamforbrains](#): > > well, if you bring it back to a little less abstract, the most highly paid humans in current society don’t use their brains all that much. Sport stars, movie stars, and rock stars are all apparently worth a lot more than physicists and biologists. And most people perform jobs that don’t require much thinking, if at all. I don’t think that’s quite true. They use their brains in different ways. Mohammed Ali or Messi would not have become the Champs if they were not using their brains better than their opponents. To say they’re less intelligent than, say, Fisher or Einstein might demonstrate a bias towards certain forms of intelligence. Granted, athleticism is also a big factor in those cases. But then we can take Michael jackson or Elvis and say they’re geniuses. Shakespeare was probably a terrible physicist/biologist. Etc. Maybe we should ditch the word “intelligence” and replace it with “intelligences” or something. > [@foolsguinea](#): > > Human brains? Absolutely not. They’re not scarce, they can be grown from common materials in a sea-level environment in a matter of years, and they’re mostly really only useful to the body they’re grown in. > > Now, your platinum-group metals, helium, stuff like that, that’s precious. Are human brains truly not scarce? There are only about 12 million tons worth of human brains on earth. almost 100 times more than mined Gold and platinum so far, to be sure, but 3 lbs of gold is only $57k. My brain is probably worth almost 100 times that, in lifetime earning potential so I could argue brains are more precious. If you look at it in terms of computing power, there are many tasks that one person can do better than all computers on earth combined, and those are worth a lot. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-human-brains-the-worlds-most-precious-resource/757656/25 "2016-06-21T18:06:47Z")
How precious can they be? We have billions of them all over the place, they never seem to work properly and most of the time no one bothers to even use them. ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-human-brains-the-worlds-most-precious-resource/757656/26 "2016-06-22T13:37:16Z")
Yeah, the planet doesn’t need to worry about running out of human brains. We can easily make more. (Some people even make them accidently). If we ever don’t have the ability to make more, we probably aren’t around to worry about it. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2016, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-human-brains-the-worlds-most-precious-resource/757656/27 "2016-08-02T21:07:02Z")
“I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.”" - Emo Philips The OP’s view is pragmatic if you want more of the things that human brains think up, like medical cures or bad Hollywood movies. Usually it’s wrapped in poetic language to make it more respectable, with descriptors like “precious” meaning ineffable qualities like consciousness, free will, moral reasoning, or some other religious concepts that make human lives worth something more than other animals. You sometimes see the stone cold pragmatic view in politics, like when states worry about brain drain, people hypothetically wondering how many “lost geniuses” there have been due to X or Y policy, or like when U.S. leaders castigate misogynistic cultures for hurting their economy by not utilizing 50% of their national intelligence. It was the impetus behind public education. Harvesting humanity’s intelligence is a concern of both private and state interests. What happens to the supposed moral worth of humans after the advent of super intelligent machines is something else to ponder. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-human-brains-the-worlds-most-precious-resource/757656/28 "2016-08-03T00:07:55Z")
> **[Value of life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life)** > > The value of life is an economic value used to quantify the benefit of avoiding a fatality. It is also referred to as the cost of life, value of preventing a fatality (VPF), implied cost of averting a fatality (ICAF), and value of a statistical life (VSL). In social and political sciences, it is the marginal cost of death prevention in a certain class of circumstances. In many studies the value also includes the quality of life, the expected life time remaining, as well as the earning potentia As... The human brain, as a subset of a human life, has a dollar value less than $8-9 million in the US. In other countries, the value will be different. Younger people are worth more. Older people are worth less. I’m venturing to guess that there’s something out there which costs more than $8-9 million. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-human-brains-the-worlds-most-precious-resource/757656/29 "2016-08-03T00:15:54Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I’m venturing to guess that there’s something out there which costs more than $8-9 million. Yet the concept of dollars is meaningless without human brains. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-human-brains-the-worlds-most-precious-resource/757656/30 "2016-08-03T05:49:54Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Yet the concept of dollars is meaningless without human brains. Well yes, but the OP didn’t seem to be implying a case where life on Earth is extinguished. (And alien brains might still exist - and be worth more.) ---
**Author:** ![Chihuahua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dec6dc/32.png) [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-human-brains-the-worlds-most-precious-resource/757656/31 "2016-08-03T11:52:27Z")
We have 7.4 billion of them and the vast majority are completely useless. So no, not at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-human-brains-the-worlds-most-precious-resource/757656.md?page=1)