Nobody is Too Expensive
Once you label entire groups “too expensive,” friction-based eugenics is always just one step away
Modern capitalism rarely admits, “We’re letting you die because you’re too expensive.” Instead, it quietly funnels people—those with disabilities, chronic illness, deep poverty, or a refusal to “fit in”—into endless application loops, labyrinthine waitlists, or defunded community programs. Meanwhile, officials bemoan “funding shortfalls” or “tight resources,” even as expansions cater to less costly demographics and lofty executive salaries balloon.
Quietly, entire populations get labeled “unprofitable” and culled via friction-based gatekeeping.
It’s not a historical glitch; it’s the same pattern with new language. Nazi Germany’s T4 program openly deemed disabled people “useless eaters,” justifying mass murder for “national efficiency.” American eugenicists once forced “undesirables” into sterilizations, alleging they protected public coffers. Victorian workhouses claimed “poor relief” but forged conditions so punishing that only the desperate would comply.
Beneath all these cultural spins, the logic stands: once labeled “too expensive,” you’re shunted out—sometimes overtly, sometimes under an avalanche of red tape.
In today’s friction-based approach, no one explicitly says “You’re not worth saving.” Instead:
Hospitals use “risk-scoring” to flag “complex” cases—dissected in my piece Actuarial Medicine & Hidden Exclusion—then drown them in re-verification purgatory.
Insurers champion “anti-fraud” efforts, stalling real claims with perpetual re-checks.
Agencies boast “universal coverage” but design labyrinthine eligibility that penalizes the chaotic and under-resourced.
Workplaces tout “inclusivity” while disclaimers and ROI metrics quietly edge out employees who need actual accommodations.
The refrain is always, “We want to help, but we just can’t.” Scarcity gets trotted out as an alibi to bury the fact that expansions, top salaries, or rebranding are plentiful—just not for “unprofitable” folks.
Historical parallels run deeper. Forced relocations of Indigenous peoples, debtors’ prisons, or “Olympic beautifications” bulldozing poor neighborhoods—these were all done under the veneer of “We can’t sustain them,” “We can’t accommodate them.” The same dynamic emerges at a larger scale in, say, Israel’s occupation of Palestine, which I discuss in Jains Everywhere Must Stand With Palestinians. “Security” there functions much like “profit” here—branding entire communities as “inconvenient,” gating them behind walls, checkpoints, or indefinite permit restrictions. A militarized friction-laden apparatus does the job of quiet removal.
The tragedy is that people who get squeezed out often blame themselves. They assume they “didn’t push hard enough,” “missed deadlines,” or “fell through the cracks,” never seeing how meticulously those cracks were built.
Minor reforms—friendlier forms, staff training—do little if the core premise stands: once your needs exceed what the system deems “manageable,” friction-based culling kicks in.
I argue in Designing Systems Where Coercion Is Structurally Impossible that the only real fix is to build institutions that literally can’t discard someone for being “too expensive.” That means guaranteed essentials, no cyclical re-verifications for permanent conditions, budgets managed collectively (so nobody profits by excluding high-need folks), and success measured by how well the toughest cases are handled—not by cheaply rushing the easy ones. Yes, it’s radical, but continuing centuries of eugenic or colonial logic is arguably far more so.
If we fail to uproot this cost-based moral boundary, AI will simply intensify the same injustice. Algorithms trained on historically exclusionary data will instantly classify entire demographics—disabled, trans, poor, or Palestinian—as “high risk” or “low ROI,” auto-denying them in a blink. Officials will shrug: “It’s not us, it’s the machine,” while friction-driven culling ramps up behind a facade of technological “objectivity.”
Across time, from forced sterilizations to indefinite re-check mania, the message remains: “They cost too much.” As soon as cost decides whose life matters, new forms of discard surface. Whether I’m examining a corporate healthcare fiasco or the blockade of a colonized people, the lesson is identical: once we treat certain humans as “too expensive,” we greenlight a slow-motion extermination of those crossing that cost line.
We must reject that entire notion. If we keep asking “Can we afford you?” we’ll keep replaying eugenics, just wrapped in disclaimers or AI code. Our only move is to tear up the blueprint that sanctions quiet culling—and design frameworks that never weigh survival against expense.
Either we stop letting capital (or “security”) define moral worth, or we watch friction-based eugenics roll on under new titles, again and again.
Further Reading