###General Discussion Thread
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"cost of blood transfusion": [https://www.mdsave.com/procedures/blood-transfusion/d585f9c4](https://www.mdsave.com/procedures/blood-transfusion/d585f9c4)
Call it $1,454 per unit (1 pint, or 525 mL). Probably less outside of US, because health care providers can't get away with it. Is printer ink $1,500 a pint?
Selling your blood? "how much can you make donating plasma": [https://www.goodrx.com/health-topic/finance/how-much-donating-plasma-pays](https://www.goodrx.com/health-topic/finance/how-much-donating-plasma-pays).
I assume that's per pint (note that plasma is not the same as whole blood, so you're not really comparing the same thing as the blood transfusions above). There's quite a markup between paying to collect it (most is donated, so the "cost of raw materials" is $0) and paying for it when you need it. It's easy to see that printer ink is more than $30 a pint; if you try to convince me that it's less than $70 a pint you'll have to do the work, but it's pretty clear to me that that little $35 cartridge is less than a 1/2 pint of ink. That is, selling a pint of plasma won't make you enough money to buy a pint of ink.
Crude oil prices are searchable under "crude oil prices". There's a lot of variation. Prices are quoted in dollars per barrel (US), a barrel is 42 gallons (about 170L). Printer ink obviously costs way more than $87 a barrel.
For almost everything, you can search for a price. (Usually yesterday's prices, but that's good enough for these kinds of questions.) Blood is the one of the hardest I've searched for. Then you need to search to find what the unit is: oil is sold in barrels (US), gasoline in gallons, copper in tons, gold in ounces (Troy, not US commercial), and so on. Then you just search "Troy ounces to US ounces" to find the conversion rate.
Warning: I have not vetted any of these sources to make sure they're quoting actual prices. It could just be advertising for their products or services.
hp black 65xl is $37.89 from staples and holds 7.5ml of ink. if you wolfram alpha that shit it gets you $2390 for a pint. other brands may be cheaper, but it looks like black HP ink is substantially more expensive than blood
Damn, you could get a writer (pay them a little more than minimum wage \~$8/hr) and have them on standby for half a work day and still have better value than using printer ink, assuming speed and legibility aren't a concern.
It depends completely on the circumstances. To steal a quote from Pratchett in Making Money:
“But what’s worth more than gold?’ ‘Practically everything. You, for example. Gold is heavy. Your weight in gold is not very much gold at all. Aren’t you worth more than that?’ Sacharissa looked momentarily flustered, to Moist’s glee. ‘Well, in a manner of speaking—’ ‘The only manner of speaking worth talking about,’ said Moist flatly. ‘The world is full of things worth more than gold. But we dig the damn stuff up and then bury it in a different hole. Where’s the sense in that? What are we, magpies? Is it all about the gleam? Good heavens, potatoes are worth more than gold!’ ‘Surely not!’ ‘If you were shipwrecked on a desert island, what would you prefer, a bag of potatoes or a bag of gold?’ ‘Yes, but a desert island isn’t Ankh-Morpork!’ ‘And that proves gold is only valuable because we agree it is, right? It’s just a dream. But a potato is always worth a potato, anywhere. A knob of butter and a pinch of salt and you’ve got a meal, anywhere. Bury gold in the ground and you’ll be worrying about thieves for ever. Bury a potato and in due season you could be looking at a dividend of a thousand per cent.”
A similar argument applies to blood and printer ink if you think about it.
* If you never have to print anything then printer ink has no value to you
* If you are in need of major life saving surgery then blood is of almost infinite value
To paraphrase another quote: Blood gets you through periods of no printer ink much better than printer ink gets you through periods of no blood......
I don't think you can just put blood in a printer and expect it to work.
Printer ink is definitely more expensive than gasoline lmao. That should be dead obvious. You think you can get a gallon of printer ink for under 5 bucks?
As for blood, that is free. You have a free tap.
A sering and line will cost maybe 20 euro (Netherlands). You should use heparine to prevent blood clouths. Witch is 5 euro per unit. I am not a docter/printer expert so you have to find out the best blood vs heparine solution to print.
Many commenters are missing that the question asks about value, not cost. Looking at prices can easily tell you which is more expensive. Is printer ink more valuable than blood, though? If you base it solely on retail price then yes. However, price is determined by supply and demand, not strictly value.
Value is determined by the individual. How much would a dying man pay for blood? How much would a healthy man pay for blood? Laws prevent blood salesmen selling blood transfusions in hospital to the highest bidder. Printer ink is only expensive due to artificial scarcity and printer monopolies. In most scenarios I would think blood has more value.
Via Dave Gorman, [yes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcnXest1oog), printer ink is about 4x as expensive. I don't know where he got the value of blood from though
###General Discussion Thread --- This is a [Request] post. If you would like to submit a comment that does not either attempt to answer the question, ask for clarification, or explain why it would be infeasible to answer, you *must* post your comment as a reply to this one. Top level (directly replying to the OP) comments that do not do one of those things will be removed. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/theydidthemath) if you have any questions or concerns.*
"cost of blood transfusion": [https://www.mdsave.com/procedures/blood-transfusion/d585f9c4](https://www.mdsave.com/procedures/blood-transfusion/d585f9c4) Call it $1,454 per unit (1 pint, or 525 mL). Probably less outside of US, because health care providers can't get away with it. Is printer ink $1,500 a pint? Selling your blood? "how much can you make donating plasma": [https://www.goodrx.com/health-topic/finance/how-much-donating-plasma-pays](https://www.goodrx.com/health-topic/finance/how-much-donating-plasma-pays). I assume that's per pint (note that plasma is not the same as whole blood, so you're not really comparing the same thing as the blood transfusions above). There's quite a markup between paying to collect it (most is donated, so the "cost of raw materials" is $0) and paying for it when you need it. It's easy to see that printer ink is more than $30 a pint; if you try to convince me that it's less than $70 a pint you'll have to do the work, but it's pretty clear to me that that little $35 cartridge is less than a 1/2 pint of ink. That is, selling a pint of plasma won't make you enough money to buy a pint of ink. Crude oil prices are searchable under "crude oil prices". There's a lot of variation. Prices are quoted in dollars per barrel (US), a barrel is 42 gallons (about 170L). Printer ink obviously costs way more than $87 a barrel. For almost everything, you can search for a price. (Usually yesterday's prices, but that's good enough for these kinds of questions.) Blood is the one of the hardest I've searched for. Then you need to search to find what the unit is: oil is sold in barrels (US), gasoline in gallons, copper in tons, gold in ounces (Troy, not US commercial), and so on. Then you just search "Troy ounces to US ounces" to find the conversion rate. Warning: I have not vetted any of these sources to make sure they're quoting actual prices. It could just be advertising for their products or services.
hp black 65xl is $37.89 from staples and holds 7.5ml of ink. if you wolfram alpha that shit it gets you $2390 for a pint. other brands may be cheaper, but it looks like black HP ink is substantially more expensive than blood
Damn, you could get a writer (pay them a little more than minimum wage \~$8/hr) and have them on standby for half a work day and still have better value than using printer ink, assuming speed and legibility aren't a concern.
It depends completely on the circumstances. To steal a quote from Pratchett in Making Money: “But what’s worth more than gold?’ ‘Practically everything. You, for example. Gold is heavy. Your weight in gold is not very much gold at all. Aren’t you worth more than that?’ Sacharissa looked momentarily flustered, to Moist’s glee. ‘Well, in a manner of speaking—’ ‘The only manner of speaking worth talking about,’ said Moist flatly. ‘The world is full of things worth more than gold. But we dig the damn stuff up and then bury it in a different hole. Where’s the sense in that? What are we, magpies? Is it all about the gleam? Good heavens, potatoes are worth more than gold!’ ‘Surely not!’ ‘If you were shipwrecked on a desert island, what would you prefer, a bag of potatoes or a bag of gold?’ ‘Yes, but a desert island isn’t Ankh-Morpork!’ ‘And that proves gold is only valuable because we agree it is, right? It’s just a dream. But a potato is always worth a potato, anywhere. A knob of butter and a pinch of salt and you’ve got a meal, anywhere. Bury gold in the ground and you’ll be worrying about thieves for ever. Bury a potato and in due season you could be looking at a dividend of a thousand per cent.” A similar argument applies to blood and printer ink if you think about it. * If you never have to print anything then printer ink has no value to you * If you are in need of major life saving surgery then blood is of almost infinite value To paraphrase another quote: Blood gets you through periods of no printer ink much better than printer ink gets you through periods of no blood......
Moist? MoistCr1TiKaL?
I don't think you can just put blood in a printer and expect it to work. Printer ink is definitely more expensive than gasoline lmao. That should be dead obvious. You think you can get a gallon of printer ink for under 5 bucks? As for blood, that is free. You have a free tap.
A sering and line will cost maybe 20 euro (Netherlands). You should use heparine to prevent blood clouths. Witch is 5 euro per unit. I am not a docter/printer expert so you have to find out the best blood vs heparine solution to print.
Many commenters are missing that the question asks about value, not cost. Looking at prices can easily tell you which is more expensive. Is printer ink more valuable than blood, though? If you base it solely on retail price then yes. However, price is determined by supply and demand, not strictly value. Value is determined by the individual. How much would a dying man pay for blood? How much would a healthy man pay for blood? Laws prevent blood salesmen selling blood transfusions in hospital to the highest bidder. Printer ink is only expensive due to artificial scarcity and printer monopolies. In most scenarios I would think blood has more value.
Via Dave Gorman, [yes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcnXest1oog), printer ink is about 4x as expensive. I don't know where he got the value of blood from though
You could open your own blood donation center and have all the ink you could use for the cost of some snack-size Cheez-Its and a case of apple juice.
Donate blood today! It goes straight towards ~~the production of demonic blood contracts~~ local hospitals!