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.
Awesome username/post combo! (Mind you, I’m not referring to your intelligence in any way, just your handle).
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.
Well, if you reject humanism. I can understand your point of view.
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.
Exactly my view.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.