I just had a ten hour hospital shift from hell, apologies if my writing is lacking. I can't think of a better way to try to measure the scope of the damage caused by this.
Just completed a standing 24 due to this outage. My B-Shift brothers and sisters had to monitor the radios all night for their units to be called for emergencies. I heard every dispatch that went out.
We were back in the 1960's with paper and pen for everything, no updates on nature of call, no address information, nothing... find out when you show up and hope the scene is secure. It was wild as it was coupled to a relatively intense Monsoon storm.
Starting with an ER story kind of set up the expectation that you'll be "measuring the scope of the damage" in lives lost, not dollars. Though I guess at large enough scale, they're convertible.
Regardless, thanks for your report; seeing it was very sobering. I hope you can get some rest, and that things will soon return to normalcy.
A tiny bit of thought about your situation IMO should lead anyone to conclude that you just first-hand experienced the fallout of today's nightmare, and then took a step back and realized you were likely one of millions if not billions of other people experiencing the same, and relayed that thought in terms of immediately understandable loss. Someone else might see "wrong" but I saw empathy.
Billions in losses means a somewhat worse life for a huge number of people and potentially much worse healthcare problems down the line, the NHS was affected
When it comes to measuring the impact to society at scale, dollars is really the only useful common proxy. One can't enumerate every impact this is going to have on the world today -- there's too many.
I've told my testers for years their efficacy at their jobs would be measured in unnecessary deaths prevented. Nothing less. Exactly this outcome was something I've made unequivocally clear was possible, and came bundled with a cost in lives. Yet the "Management and bean counter types" insist "Oh, nope. Only the greenbacks matter. It's the only measure."
Bull. Shit. If we weren't so obsessed with imaginary value attached to little green strips of paper, maybe we'd have the systems we need so things like this wouldn't happen. You may not be able to enumerate every, but you damn well can enumerate enough. Y'all just don't want to because then work starts looking like work.
Why measure only death, as if it is the only terrible thing that can happen to someone?
That doesn’t count serious bodily injury, suffering, people who were victimized, people who had their lives set back for decades due to a missed opportunity, a person who missed the last chance to visit a loved one, etc.
There are uncountable different impacts that happen when you’re talking about events on the scale of an economy. Which is why economists use dollars. The proxy isn’t useful because it is more important than life, it it useful because the diversity of human experience is innumerable.
I understand your emotion but perhaps people simply don't value human lives.
At least putting a number to life is an genuine attempt even though it may be distasteful.
The fact is that there already is a number on it, which one can derive entirely descriptively without making moral judgements. Insurance companies and government social security offices already attempt to determine the number.
