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Comment by kazinator | Hacker News Reader

So a human life is worth somewhere between $0 and $27B in Vietnam. Useful to know.

Many countries actually have established value of life measures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life

This is especially apparent in societies with public healthcare, where it can become controversial, since individuals may not be able to access medical care they feel they deserve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year

Anywhere in the developing world. Life is worthless. This is why my parents immigrated to America.

Yeah, they found keeping inmates alive is lucrative:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-prison-wo...

Try dealing with Vietnam or Indian police as a Westerner "carrying" drugs.

You better pay up or you might find yourself with a bullet in your head in a ditch.

Oh, and body cams are not a thing.

Many of these countries have extremely harsh punishments for drug offenses, AND have corrupt law enforcement where bribery is normal, but I challenge you to provide a single example of where a Westerner refused to bribe police and were subsequently shot in the head and dumped in a ditch. That makes little sense on multiple levels.

Edit: Ironically, searching for examples of such an incident only brings up examples of Indians and Vietnamese folks getting shot by police in America.

Even in Midnight Express, it is the American who kills the Turk in the end. And one of the antagonists helping to enforce the draconian law is an American.

You really need to appreciate the difference between an average person living under a corrupt communist regime, and a country where jail conditions aren't all that nice after you commit a crime. Even the numbers in this case are 3% of Vietnam's GPD embezzled by one, or less than 0.1% of the US GDP produced by prisoners collectively (according to your link). I'm tired of seeing these one-line dismissive "zingers" that have taken over the internet.

Note that the GP is doing Whataboutism, which is actually an old Communist tactic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism#Soviet_Union_and_...

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