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Ten Strangely Cruel Science Experiments
aalobode writes "The Times of London has a current story based on the review of a book by Alex Boase, Elephants on Acid and Other Bizarre Experiments. There they list the top science experiments — including the one from which the book gets its name — that were conducted by otherwise sane humans who tragically or otherwise ignored the effect of their research on the subjects themselves. Nowadays, most institutions have a review board for research on human subjects which would flag most proposals that could lead to harm for the subjects, but not so in the past. 'Another 1960s experiment, in which ten soldiers on a training flight were told by the pilot that the aircraft was disabled, and about to ditch in the ocean. They were then required to fill in insurance forms before the crash -- ostensibly so the Army was not financially liable for any deaths or injuries. They were actually unwitting participants in an experiment: the plane was not crippled at all. It revealed that fear of imminent death indeed causes soldiers to make more mistakes than usual when filling in forms.'"
Nothing beats the lolocaust. Mengele FTW!
Submissions from kdawson and Zonk. Oh the irony on the last one.
Fortunately the Geneva Convention made Slashdot fire JonKatz using the Junis fiasco as a reason.
http://weblogs.marylandweather.com/2007/11/first_earthling_in_space_died.html
RIP Laika
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
Vista as among the cruelest experiments wrought on unsuspecting test subjects?
Monstar L
I think conducting a study lacking informed consent where they denied syphilis treatment to over 300 people tops those in the list. And this went on until 1972. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Study_of_Untreated_Syphilis_in_the_Negro_Male
That most of our scientific advances were made with experiments that would now be classified as cruel. Particularly psychological, Zimbardo et al, Harlowe et al etc etc. Not suggesting that these are morally fine, but we should be careful about criticizing experiments that have contributed to our understanding. On a different note however, the experiments mentioned don't seem to have contributed an awful lot :P
i know not what weapons the next world war will be fought with, but world war IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
fear of imminent death indeed causes soldiers to make more mistakes than usual
Yes, mistakenly shitting one's pants instead of standard-operating-procedure use of latrine.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
1) I would assume I had already signed such a waiver when I first enlisted.
2) What was the Army going to do if they didn't? Suddenly save the plane to avoid any lawsuits?
they made this massive social experiemt about how a poor population, which has a 1000 year long history of ethnic conflict, reacts when you take over their country by military force.
Until today researchers have found no clear answer as to why the population neglects the truth, that it actually has been fried,äh freed.
High-school chemestry, on a geek-pr0n scale:
20,000 lbs of metallic Sodium being dropped in a lake.
Oh yeah baby, you roll those barrels in there!
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Sugar Experiments Of Mental Patients.
In 1947-1949 a group of mental patients in Sweden were used as subjects in a full-scale experiment designed to bring about tooth decay. They were fed copious amounts of candy, and many of them had their teeth completely ruined. But, scientifically speaking, the experiment was a huge success.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
Report here. Select a random group of ignorant African men, circumcise some of them. Give them vague advice on safe sex, then tell them to go out and have sex. See how many of them come back with HIV.
It was concluded that you're about 50% more likely to catch HIV if you're uncircumcised. I'd say, especially in a society where circumcision is not standard (i.e. not Israel, USA, Philippines, etc.), if you've just had part of your cock lobbed off, you're very likely to change your sexual habits and people are less likely to have sex with you. If you're just given advice and then told to go away, you're more likely to carry on as usual.
Experimentation on the negro is not exactly new, of course.
When I read that they administered 3000 times the amount of a human dose to an elephant, it got me curious. http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-elephant.html It says males can reach up to 15000 lbs, and females 8000 lbs. I assumed that the average male is 180 lbs and the average female is 130 lbs (I know I'm not really being accurate, but I just wanted ball park figures). That means that the average male elephant is about 83.33 times the weight of a human male, and the average female elephant is about 61.54 times the size of a human female. So the administered about thirty-six times what they needed for a relative average male elephant dose. YIKES! Let me know if my math or assumptions were silly, and correct them if you can. I think it's no surprise that the elephant died with that much of an overdose.
In 1960, a guy conducted a psychological experiment where he took identical twin girls from an orphanage and purposefully separated them to different families with the express intent of them having no communication with each other - not even to know they had a sister.
They both found out after 30 years that they were part of an experiment.
I can understand that some twins are separated by accident, but how would you feel to know that you missing 30 years of growing up with your sibling because of some experiment?
http://www.npr.org/blogs/news/2007/10/twins_separated_as_babies_beco_1.html
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Top/experiments/P0 This site details some more crazy experiments culled from the same book.
Thomas edison and the war of the currents. Edison did some very cruel experiments on animals to show that AC was more dangerous than DC. He electrocuted dogs, elephants and even advocated for the use of the electric chair powered specifically by AC current.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_currents
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
What about the Milgram Experiment of 1961, in which nearly 2/3rds of subjects were prepared to administer a lethal electrical shock to a partner hidden in another room, just because the scientist conducting the experiment said it was necessary? While no one was actually being shocked, many of the participants who inflicted the fake shocks were emotionally distressed by the ordeal. Derren Brown repeated the experiment in 2006, and obtained essentially the same results. Youtube videos of this are available.
What about the risks taken by the patients and surgeons who pioneered open heart surgery? A great recount of those gruesome days is provided by the book "King of Hearts", which details the career of Dr. C. Walton Lillehei?
/offtopic, I realize...
This is like saying that Rock sucks if you're listening to a high-school garage band tuning up.
Jazz is more than "soft" stuff that you probably associate it with. (like anything by Kenny G. which does, in fact, suck.)
Jazz has so many different genres inside of it. You should seriously look at some of the non-soft ones. Namely, Bebop and Free Jazz. Take a listen to Charlie Parker's "Ko Ko" from over 50 years ago. Insane chops on all the players. (Fast, hard... not soft.) Want something modern? Medeski, Martin and Wood albums are a start. (jam-based funky jazz)
Also, although you might consider it "soft" it should be considered "cool," - Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue." That's the album I buy for folks who "hate jazz" and all have enjoyed that album and opened up to Jazz after that. (Plus, all women I've introduced that to now love the thing.)
But perhaps I'm wrong, and you'll just continue to stagnate with Korn, or DethKlok, or whatever...
I would think that the soldiers made the mistakes willingly to avoid to let the "army not financially liable for any deaths or injuries.". Why the would like to save the Army (instead of their families) if they think tell are going to die?
Maybe because they are brainwashed?
From what little army personnel I've known, they've all been pretty brainwashed in the-Army-is-always-right manner.
My friend, who is almost as near-sighted as I am, was placed in sharpshooters.
He told the recruiting officer it must have been a mistake, only to hear the answer: "The Army makes no mistakes."
He then showed him his eye prescription, only to hear: "That must have been a mistake."
Ignore this signature. By order.
My favourite along these lines is Jack Barnes who discovered the extremely poisonous box Irukandji jellyfish (Carukia barnesi): "The jellyfish itself was identified in 1964 by Dr. Jack Barnes; in order to prove it was the cause of Irukandji syndrome, he captured the tiny jelly and stung himself and his son." from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carukia_barnesi They were both hospitalized, as was a life gaurd he also stung to make triply sure.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Perhaps more scientifically relevant than the rest, with better anesthesia, but freakish nonetheless:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdJGlYOL0r4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_transplant
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1263758.stm
http://www.freetimes.com/stories/14/46/whites-anatomy
In other news, Dr. White was my neurosurgeon once a long time ago. I suspect that's where my extra head came from, but you can never really know.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I don't see the experiment concerning running a human through giant laboratory mazes with potentially deadly pitfalls. Armed only with pogo shoes and a trans-dimensional gun, the person is forced to dodge machine gun fire, suffer taunting quips from the AI running the experiments, and even commit fratricide. I will say that the carrot at the end of the stick, the Portal Song, does make the reward outweigh the risk.
How about Dr. Jack Barnes who exposed himself and his son to the venom of the Irukandji jellyfish
Synergies are basically awesome, and they're even better when you leverage them. -PA
To Croatian army, it does matter.
We nearsighted ones are considered incapable of serving in the military, which is just as well as far as I'm concerned.
Though from 2008 on, the army is going pro anyway, so I no longer care at all.
Anyway, I agree with you as far as marksmanship goes; I wasn't too bad myself when I tried.
Oh, forgot one more thing: my friend was assigned to sharpshooters because of his psych profile: he's just psychotic enough to be able to kill someone from far away and not care, which is apparently how our sharpshooters are selected.
Ignore this signature. By order.
My guess is because they were going for a fairly light-hearted story, with a few light gasps and chills, and not trying to get people actually furious. The last thing I'd put the Tuskegee study in is with a bunch of experiements described as wacky. Would you?
Looking at the article, I think the summary is mistitled. The article doesn't talk about having the "cruelest" experiments, but simply the wackiest ones. For example, number seven about arousing male turkeys with a model of a female turkey is hardly cruel, and as the parent pointed out many really cruel ones are omitted.
I was also reminded of another famous experiment, the Milgram experiment where a group of test subjects were instructed to shock other test subjects. The entire setup was false - those said to be receiving shocks were only acting, but those told to administer the shocks did not know this. They still continued to administer (fake) shocks because they had been instructed to do so. This may not have been cruel to those pretending to be shocked, but I certainly would not want to have been one of those told to administer the shocks, as I would doubtless have had trouble sleeping at night after if I had done so. The Wikipedia article as usual has much more detail on this experiment.
Libertarian ideals never seem to work out in the real world do they? Our current hybrid system of capitalism and socialism seems to work pretty good. I don't understand why so many people believe we are better off with no taxes and basically no government.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
Also I don't see how the government is reducing my freedom by using some of my tax money to provide free health care.
If you're a real asshole you can look on it as an investment; healthy people work better, safe people may feel like they don't need a safety net and will spend more perhaps.
The argument that health care can't be provided because it would cost too much is also strange when you look at the amount of military spending, and how many countries do have successful health care systems.
It's the richest country in the world because its citizens can and do take care of their basic needs themselves. I'm in Australia where the government is involved in health care (you get refunds on necessary healthcare, and the amount you pay varies according to income), and we're not doing too bad. (ie we're not trillions of dollars in debt, though that may be about to change with Rudd poised to take over)
I don't get what you mean about citizens taking care of their basic needs themselves though. Citizens still pay for health care, but they do it via the government rather than an insurance agency.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
I built a news site for software developers and other geeks, which every 12 seconds flashes a message saying "Blow-up dolls are fun!" The goal is to see if I can substantially increase the sales of blow-up dolls world wide through subliminal advertising.
So far it's been quite a success. The cruel part is that dependency on blow-up dolls seems to dramatically decrease the subject's aptitude when dealing with the (living) opposite sex, but hey, all science exacts a price.
Ignore that.
I'd argue that a government has the obligation to protect the liberty and the lives of its citizens. A national health service is one way to fulfill that obligation.
If the basic needs of its citizens were actually being taken care of, then I'd agree with you. But, in fact, they are not. The cost of health care is beyond the ability of too many citizens to take care of that themselves. The cost of some medical needs can exceed the lifetime take home pay of the median citizen.
The health care costs are up for a number of reasons:
This may well be the richest country in the world. But it achieves that for the rich few on the backs of the many.
I genuinely do believe we would be far far better off with universal health care (covering everything, including dentistry). I'm just seriously worried that our government is entirely incapable of managing such a task.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
How has the Standford Prison Experiment not been mentioned yet?
Take a few volunteers pay them $15 a day and split them up into Prisoners and Guards. These are just normal people off the street. The experiment had to be canceled early because of the psychological trauma that the Prisoners were experiencing. And we're not talking 30 days of 60 days in, the experiment was canceled in 6 days.
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely
That works right up until you are diagnosed with a potentially expensive medical condition. Not when you have treatment for it mind you but when you are diagnosed. Try getting affordable private health insurance with rheumatoid arthritis. Or having ever had a bout with clinical depression. Or even something like severe excema. Your individual insurance premium for any of those conditions can run into multiple thousands a month, something you very likely won't be able to afford on 32K a year.
None of these are lifestyle diseases, there is nothing you can do to avoid them except be lucky. If you're unlucky, and don't have employeer provided health insurance, you're pretty much screwed.
Who says what the job of the government is? You? God? The constitution? I claim that the job of the government is to do what the people want it to do. In wellfare states that means that people willingly pay a bit more taxes to provide basic services for everyone. It means there's less poor, less homeless, less crime, less safelessness. In a wellfare state you don't NEED to own a gun to protect yourself, because the system isn't such that it makes people into criminals. (There will always be crime, but the system need not breed it.)
You say if government does anything beyond minimal regulation people suffer because of loss of "freedom". What kind of freedom is it to let your near ones go without food, shelter, health care? That's no freedom, that's cruelty.
I say, if the state does not some how guarantee a minimum of health care and social support a part of the populace suffer a real loss, a loss of dignity, a loss of life worth living. I am happy to pay taxes so that people around me can live a dignified life. I don't think it's okay for people to live on the streets, starve to death, be treated as criminals for simply existing at all. It's the task of the strong to take care of the weak, not to push them around.
What good is it being rich if people around you suffer?
I'd argue that a government has the obligation to protect the liberty and the lives of its citizens. A national health service is one way to fulfill that obligation. You could argue that, but you would be wrong. The police do not keep people safe from crime, the police rarely get involved until after the crime has occurred. The police are part of the system to arrest and punish those who violate the public order. The difference is significant and important. Likewise, the fire department doesn't keep people safe from fire. The fire department arrives and puts out the fire (btw, where I live the fire company is a private organization, not a government department. that survives on donations and volunteers). In both cases, the justification of the existence of a government department is the maintenance of public order.
Neither protecting liberty or lives is part of the job of government. I will repeat, the job of government is: provide for the common defense (military), maintain order, regulate commerce (this last might actually be part of the previous).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Personally, I would rather have that tax money so that I can give it to charities that do a much better job of helping those in need then the government. I believe that helping people in need is something that should be done voluntarily. I agree that it is the job of the strong to take care of the weak, but it is not the job of the strong to take from the less strong to give to the very weak (which seems to be what you propose.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The University of Iowa supported research, later dubbed "The Monster Study," that involved teaching young orphans how to stutter in an attempt to prove that stuttering is a learned behavior. While none of the children picked up stuttering, many began to exhibit the same mannerisms as stutterers (low self-esteem, hesitations, etc.)
The study's main researcher, Wendell Johnson, has a campus building named after him (the Wendell Johnson Speech & Hearing Center). Apparently the Univ. of Iowa still doesn't see anything wrong with conducting research on non-consenting children...
That's funny if true, because in German, the word "böse" (also spelled "boese" when umlauts are not available) means "evil".
If it's so secret, then how come I've never heard of it?
Some smart French guy said "The downfall of every government begins when its citizens find out they can vote themselves money from the common fund"
As for socialized medicine, When a Canadian finds out they have something serious they come to the USA to get it fixed. If they stay in Canada and wait for the socialized medicine there, they die of their ailment before their turn comes up.
It's fun to state your opinions as unqualified facts.
Your suggestions may be something approximating the bare minimum of services a government can provide, but merely because any government that didn't would have a tough time staying in power either because of invasions or revolt.
The role of the government is to do whatever its citizens have given it power to do and surrendered their individual rights and responsibilities for. Where those bounds are, varies widely.
I think someone needs to correct the units in the Wiki article. Is Wikipedia at fault, or is Slashdot at fault? Specifically, "1,200 g (1.2 mg)" suggests that Slashdot is deleting characters outside of ASCII, such as the micro sign.
MKULTRA was the code name for a CIA mind-control research program that began in 1950.
Some excerpts from the wikipedia article:
LSD and other drugs were usually administered without the subject's knowledge and informed consent.
(About experiments in Canada by Donald Ewen Cameron)
His "driving" experiments consisted of putting subjects into drug-induced coma for weeks at a time (up to three months in one case) while playing tape loops of noise or simple repetitive statements. His experiments were typically carried out on patients who had entered the institute for minor problems such as anxiety disorders and postpartum depression, many of whom suffered permanently from his actions.[18] His treatments resulted in victims' incontinence, amnesia, forgetting how to talk, forgetting their parents, and thinking their interrogators were their parents
[...]
The Canadian government was fully aware of this, and had later provided another $500,000 in funding to continue the experiments
Cutting off the entire cock reduces the chances of transmitting HIV by almost 100%. Clearly chopping off everyones penis at birth is the only ETHICAL thing to do.
Several of the womenfolk in my family worked as nurses to bring in a second salary. They gave up their positions in the health service after Mrs. Thatcher decided to partially privatize the health service (to create the "internal market").
One of the first things that she privatized was the ward cleaning services. In particular, Mrs. Thatcher was outraged that cleaners were using three different sets of disinfectants as well as spending what seemed to be half their time cleaning door handles. But there were sound scientific reasons for doing all of this. NHS scientists had determined that three levels of disinfectant were required. A high concentration disinfectant was used for cleaning floors where bandages, blood and outdoor shoes would bring in contamination. A middle concentration disinfectant for cleaning frequently contacted surface (door handles, panels etc.. ) and a low concentration disinfectant for clean walls and ceilings. As cleaners were part of the ward team, they got to know which areas needed the most attention
To stop this "waste", the government decided to privatize the cleaning services so that they would be specified only by a contract and not through team-work. Consequently we have all the problems we have now with infection.
For this reaon alone, many experienced nurses who have retired will not consider going back into the profession.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
As you can clearly see, the counseling, testing, and even treatment available to the study members was superior to the generally available treatment at the time.
Please do everyone a favor and save such clearly incitatory comments for the experimentations on subjects which are actually conducted in an unethical fashion, instead of merely those whose study population fits in with your preconceived notions of racism.
http://www.donarmstrong.com
Oddly enough this is starting to happen elsewhere in Europe. Not because nobody learned from that fiasco. Rather because they learned that there was lots of money to be made.
Which is why on some continental southern neighbours of the UK people are rather attached to the concept of public service because for all of its deficiencies there are a number of areas where it works much better than the private sector.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
No - that is a confidence trick and has worked because people actually feel they are doing good by paying more. Consider the recent vaccine against the virus that is a cause of cervical cancer. It's development was entirely funded by the Australian Taxpayer and yet people in the USA are paying more for it than anyone else on earth. In a lot of cases these products are just marked up to what the market can bear and people in the USA are used to paying more.
Personally I think the effect of corruption via the lobby system is the major impediment in US politics to getting anything done for the good of the country but others know a lot more.
1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.
2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.
3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.
4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.
5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.
6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.
I don't know about everybody else, but I was certainly aware that the system was totally broken in an evil kind of way while I was struggling through the middle of it. I just barely managed to crawl across the graduation finish line, having made enemies with several of the staff. I was young, and I could have done much better had I another go at it, but the whole thing seemed monumentally evil at the time. When I came across Ingli'e work, it made a lot more sense.
But the absolutely most mind-blowing points are covered in this video.
-FL
Wow, your comment had me convinced until I read the link provided by an AC:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/1/125028/8808
Very good argument that it was poorly done science in search of a pre-ordained conclusion by an interested party. I read through all the opposing comments as well, and they certainly don't seem satisfactory and are mainly just the Courtier's Reply. To be more explicit, The author of the article points out several ways in which the experiment did not have a sufficient control group and the counter-argument was that some of these are accounted for statistically. However it seems that list of things accounted for doesn't include all of the problems, and the counter-arguer just repeats himself more vehemently and seems to have absolute faith that sufficient rigor was taken despite lack of support from the research paper and multiple instances of other scientists and groups of scientists pointint out the exact same problems brought up in the article. Given the available options, we should in fact not trust the one scientist who has probable cause to fake the results and as the article points out, has already been suspiciously injudicious in his methodology. That's not just an ad hominem attack, the study itself has been attacked successfully, with a large variance on trustworthiness, and the circumstantial evidence only serves to point out that prudence urges caution in accepting the results. That some scientists agree with the research paper is not good support, as people (even scientists) who don't know tend to go with whoever's loudest, which creates false consensus.
(BTW, joe, this long reply is just to summarize the linked article and address possible concerns, not because of anything you said. I'm certainly interested in hearing any rebuttal if anyone has one)
Health care is certainly not a right. I want an XJ8 but I can't afford it so I have a Jetta. If you can't afford all the health care that you want then you will have to settle for less. It is just like everything else that you have to buy.
Here is another shocker. Most of the health care that you pay for provides no evidence based benefit whatsoever. When you go in for your sore throat and your doctor does a strep test which is negative, and then decide to treat you with an antibiotic anyway, there was $40 down the drain. I could have given you 10 days worth of placebo and it would have had the same benefit to you at almost no cost. Here's the kicker, it would have been much safer for you as well. You are going to in expecting something that can cause allergic reactions and contribute to antibiotic resistance with absolutely no change for any benefit to you.
The reason you need so much health care is because it has been sold to you. Just like all the other crap in your life that you have to have because it is sold to you. So when you are buying things you don't need don't complain about not being able to afford them.
Then once the artificial demand for unnecessary medical services is lessened, the price will go down because of oversupply. At that point people who really need the care will be better able to afford it.
Don't go to the doctor unless you need to. Expect to pay for the things you want. Understand you can't have everything you want or need.
Fancy semantics. If the founding fathers wanted to guarantee you health care it would have been written into the constitution. They had doctors then. They could have formed an anti-disease department. They didn't. Why? Because the governed people of the time would have never stood for it. They were independent and self sufficient.
They didn't yet have the entitlement mentality bred into them by the government. Why does the government want to provide more and more "services" to the people. To secure their votes, to secure their money, and to secure the power that comes with the wealth redistribution system of socialism.
How do they do it? They sell it to the public on one hand by creating a state of fear while on the other hand providing the easy remedy. Trade your freedom for "safety."
Do you feel safe yet?
Although many of the items on the list are indeed cruel and necessary, there are some that aren't really...
Take the guy who tried to infect himself with Yellow Fever in every way imaginable to prove that it wasn't contagious. He was so sure of his hypothesis, that he was willing to risk his own life to prove it.
As long as he's inflicting it upon himself, there's nothing terribly cruel about it
And of course, doing so did provide an important contribution to the development of modern medicine.
Why not put the Stanford Prison Experiment on the list instead.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Actually, that's exactly what The U.S. Constitution (or any, for that matter)is for--for specifically outlining what the job of of the government is. Federal constitutions describe federal governments; state constitutions define state governments--and so on. The last thing that the government should be doing is everything the people tell it to do. People can, do, and will give away their own freedoms for what, in the end, amounts to nothing. That nothing takes many forms, usually safety from terrorists, and, as in this case, safety from (death by) illness. Worse yet, people can, do, and will give away other people's freedoms for the same reasons! Don't believe me? Remember the Japanese internments of the 1940s, or Nazi Germany, or sex-offender laws that ruin people's lives for the stupid, mostly harmless things that they did when they were fifteen.
And when the money is created from thin air, because of rampant inflation, or demanded from the citizens at an ever-increasing rate, again due to inflation, to pay for it all, how is this any different than not providing those services? Instead of some people having quality health care while others don't, no one will have it. Will you be happy to pay so much in taxes that someone else, who may not have your work ethic, freeloads off the government while your quality of life takes a swim in the crapper? Let's see what you say when that possibility comes up, as it most certainly will if this country (the United States) continues its current course.
No, it's not okay for people to be forced to live on the streets, starving to death, being treated as criminals for daring to be alive. Yes, it is the human thing to do to help those in need, for the strong to assist the weak. Should it be forced by law? No. Freedom does include the right to be an ass to the rest of society, so long as you don't actively seek to destroy it. Just as is the rule with free speech, only permitting "popular" freedoms does not count as preserving freedom at all.
You say it is cruel to ignore those who have lesser means to get by, to throw them under the bus for your own gain. That is true. Do realize, though, that it is just as cruel to force someone to take care of another person without an implied or explicit agreement to do so (such as would be made in the case of parenthood). Legally, I have no responsibility for anyone other than myself, any children I help create, or anyone for whom I take legal guardianship of. Morally, I should help those in need, but the government has no place legislating based on all but the most basic moralities (such as the prohibition of murder). And yes, it is as morally wrong to force someone to degrade his own life to support the life of someone else, agreed-to commitments aside, as it is to leave a homeless man to die.
"osake no hou ga, biiru yori ii" to omotteiru.
In 1951, at McGill University, in Canada, a group of grad students were put in a dark chamber.
http://www.samadhitank.com/sensorydep.html
"Years later, 1961, Hebb published an introductory note in the book, "Sensory Deprivation" which shed light on the true original purpose..."the work we have done at McGill University began, actually, with the problem of "brainwashing".We were not permitted to say so in the first publishing. What we did say however was true-"
Wbat the found is for the unwitting subjects, the amount of time spent in sensory deprivation, the more personality changed. Most of those subjects who spent more then 3 days, deprived of only the minumum of senses, had experenced a complete change of personality. Almost all long term subjects dropeed out of school.
The subjects earned about $5/day as a stipend.
Ah yes; hello Godwin. Were that a civilized discussion were still possible.
First off, it's not exactly difficult to demonstrate the proper use of a condom in 15 to 20 minutes and explain that failure to wear one during intercourse will result in a higher likelyhood of contracting an STD and dying. Furthermore, that was the individualized, mandatory counseling session; participants were recommended to attend other sessions as well. Secondly, these individuals were not "dragged" off the street; they had to volunteer for the study, give informed consent, and were renumerated for their participation.
So you think that instead of attempting to find methods which may decrease the risk of STD transmission, scientists should do nothing?
Since there seems to be some confusion here, I don't particularly have a strong opinion on the actual treatment methodology used in this study or actually agree that the results are likely to be replicable. Those are valid things to attack this study for. What I completely disagree with is the characterization of this study as unethical on the grounds that it some how incited individuals in the control group to have unprotected sex (or failed to provide opportunities for the control group to minimize their risk of contracting HIV) without evidence indicating that that is the case. Is it bad science? Probably. Is the study design inherently unethical? Assuming informed consent was obtained before the treatment modality, not in my opinion.
http://www.donarmstrong.com
the article says one of the reasons for Ireland's economic growth is "decades of investment in domestic higher education". There go your libertarian ideals.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Who cares? I care if my EMT knows first aid, not if he's read Dickens.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Maybe it's not a right where you live. Move elsewhere if you want that right or influence your government through the standard means to get it where you live now. For example the Finnish constitution states in chapter 2, section 19 ("The right to social security"): "The public authorities shall guarantee for everyone, as provided in more detail by an Act, adequate social, health and medical services and promote the health of the population."
The sad part in what I have seen of countries like U.S. with their money-first policies is not that they just stare at the money, it's that they fail to realize that there's more money to be made by keeping your citizens healthy. Ill and dying people can't work so they need wellfare money from the state (or, in the best/worst case, they just die), people who are healthy and motivated go to work, and pay the state their income taxes. I know that in the U.S. there's also that silly "the federal government won't do federal healthcare because we don't do federal healthcare" thing, but that's, in my opinion, bullshit. Taking care of your sick and poor makes sense from both humanitarian and monetary viewpoint.
My sig will be released in 2015 third quarter. Rating pending.
I should have mentioned that this video is a very slow-starter, but the opening info is important in order to grasp the whole enchilada. --It's well worth watching all six parts. One of the weird points which led the researcher to start investigating was a test her son told her about having written in school. She asked him what some of the questions on it were, and found them odd enough that she decided to ask the principal to see the test. She was denied, and in fact told that parents were not allowed to see the test, and that the children were not allowed to see their own test results. Okay. So she made a big stink and after weeks of work, finally got to see the test; one of the questions on it was the following. .
"If you and you friends are planning an act of vandalism, do you. .
A. Report this to an adult.
B. Report this to the Police.
C. Leave the group and go home.
D. Go along with the group.
The correct answer to the above question is, "D. Go along with the group."
Watch all six parts of this video. By the end, your hair will be standing on end.
-FL
I don't think Americans pay more for medicine because they feel good about it. A few pay more because they are filthy rich and it has no effect on their finances. Many more "pay" for it through employer health plans, some of which have group bargaining power to get lower prices. Some more PAY for it and can't afford to eat. The rest don't pay for it because they don't have the money and don't qualify for the confusing maze of programs that help fund medicines for the very poor.
"What the market can bear" really means that some will always be forced to do without because there are enough that can barely manage to pay. If everyone had exactly equal finances, then a "what the market can bear" principle would be fair to all. When you're talking about luxuries like having the latest dual quad-core computer, people can at least live without, and these days they live with the 400 MHz P-II "hand me downs". Some people live in mansions but others have to do without and live in a small trailer. But at least they have a roof over their heads. Medicines essential to someone with a particular illness are either available or not; there's no "non-luxury" version that has the same healt care properties.
Yes, the corruption of law making through the lobby system is a major cause of the high medicine and health care costs in the USA.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Just the thought of living in a country with privatized healthcare is abhorrent to me, amongst others because it creates little incentive for anyone to actually look at the big picture and put in place proper preventative programs.
In the UK, for example, not doing enough to prevent health problems directly costs the NHS money in more care. As a result they put in a huge amount of effort in programs to help people stop smoking, for example, because it comes out of THEIR budget when people later get cancer or other health problems as a result of smoking.
And the use of foreskin is what, exactly? Other than being something you have to clean all the time so that it doesn't get infected, there is absolutely no use. The skin cut off is also used to help grow skin for burn victims, a worthy use of skin that has no practical purpose.
Having that money, and having a chance to buy a car or a house, are highly dependent on those people living in a community. So it's not far-fetched at all to expect members to benefit the community that will, as an entity, take care of itself. Even the worse parts, because it makes sense to keep the aid recipients away from crime and in a condition that might allow them to still get a job later on.
Prince John or the sheriff wouldn't be rich unless there were many many peasants around too. That's where the riches come from. It's not self-evident it really should be *their money*. That's the point of Robin Hood, I think.