Isn't your first bit of advice right there a classic gotcha?
Encryption doesn't mean anything unless the access routes to that encrypted data are well defined and understood - since at some point it has to be unencrypted to be used. So who's doing the unencrypting, who holds the keys etc.
That many institutions have access to MS Source Code is kinda like instituting a needle-inna-haystack search.
Yes you might find a needle, but unless you're a needle-collector or perhaps a seamstress what in this universe d'you think you're gonna do with it?
At least with Open Source you can (1) fix the problem with the code (2) submit the code back to The Author (3) expect that The Author will either accept the fix as is or perhaps integrate the solution with more elegance
Sure not *always* but the expectation would be more-often-than-not your fix (in one form or another) reaches the wider community of users.
You also fork the code and encourage people to download the fixed version, or to use your patch against the official sources until the upstream realizes the significance.
Digging through a small patch to ensure it's not overtly malicious is actually pretty easy.
Most whines about GPL on Linux don't make a terrific amount of sense. Except for when it comes to actual driver issues, there's nothing about GPL which stops you releasing proprietary binaries. And even with regard to drivers - we've had closed source drivers on Linux for a very long time now - though that's mostly defined by making zero sense when the company is supposed to be in the business of selling you hardware.
NBNCo are predicting in the Corporate Plan that only 70% of premises passed by fibre will connect. 13% of premises passed by fibre will opt for wireless, primarily because it is cheaper.
I total agree that for anything beyond basic email and web browsing, wireless is not the best. However I'm not foolish enough to think that everyone has the same wants as a poster on slashdot and is prepared to pay for the privilege. Have a read of Google's Fiber channels NBN woes.
I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of Slashdotters and tech-savvy people have been underestimating what people think of as "basic" web browsing for quite some time now though. Most people these days would consider the use of websites like YouTube, the ability to video conference on Skype etc. as "basic" applications, but there's nothing "basic" about the level of data use they imply. Doesn't NetFlix account for something like 30% of net traffic in the US?
even in my company 12 hour shifts are common, in the hearland of the USA... boo who for the Asians?
I worked construction for a few summers after high school -- 12 hour shifts weren't uncommon (on my feet the whole time), and I took all the overtime I could get, sometimes putting in 80 hours or more of overtime a month (six 10 hour days/week), If I didn't have to drive up to 90 minutes each way to the job site on the other side of the state, I probably would have put in more overtime. When I was lucky, I'd get to drive an escort vehicle for a wide-load truck on my way to or from the job site so I'd rack up a couple hours of work while driving to work).
It was hard work, but I still found time to party with friends on the weekends, and the work paid most of my first two years of college.
Two things: (1) this was more or less your choice, and you were rewarded for it with bonus pay to boot. Even if your employer had made it clear at certain times they needed everyone to put in some overtime, you would've had to be paid for it at least.
(2) you were in high school. You can do a lot of really over the top physical feats while in high school, and it's easy. It's a very different thing to being a whole career, and different again to the sort of advancement opportunities you had.
With many many trillions of years with which to ponder that question, one supposes we might eventually come up with a solution. Of course, we won't have those trillions of years if we don't engage in some basic future-proofing of our survival in the meantime.
The problem with all the high tech approaches is power. We simply don't have a portable power source that could supply energy for long enough to make any of the really cool ideas work.
And notably, you can make enzymes from RNA as well - which is one of the hypothesized ways that life might've bootstrapped itself from the primordial ooze in the first place. There are a lot of RNAzymes floating around in your cellular nuclei right now.
Doesn't sound likely to me. The most likely outcome of an appeals process with an obviously biased jury would be for the Court of Appeal to declare a mistrial and pass the case back down to District Court for a do-over. In otherwords you are right back to square one, only both sides have now shown their cards. Other than the lawyers getting paid for a lot more hours, I don't see much benefit for anyone in that circumstance. Well, unless Samsung thought there that was no way they could prevail and were just trying to drag things out as long as possible in order to get non-infringing products to market and render the eventual verdict moot.
There's a lot of benefit to being able to redo a trial, but already know your oppositions case.
But I think the more likely observation is that keeping it tied up in litigation is probably cheaper then paying settlement costs, and a lot cheaper then the injunctions future litigation could bring. Not to mention, the longer this goes on, the more Apple is likely to tank it's public favor.
Which summarizes my problem with the rulings in this case: it very much doesn't seem to be about any underlying innovative technology i.e. unique algorithms, but rather just the "look and feel" of iOS devices. It's about completely nebulous user interface elements, which involve no actual improvement in our tools or techniques to create - a rounded or square button is literally a matter of preference.
If these are just simply user preference of no importance then why did Samsung so aggressively copy them instead of of sticking with the direction they had been going in? Why were they moving the Bada UI towards Android? If Apple did nothing of value then why did Apple's approach cause everyone to start doing the same things?
And if you are going to answer its the only way to do things let me point you to an excellent alternative: http://swipe.nokia.com/
Because it's a matter of user preference. It's an item of fashion practically and it did not involve substantial new technology to implement. Note the original iPhone designs were very rounded, but the newer models have started to square things off again. That's part of a larger trend back towards soft but precise lines in UI design, because people are getting sick of "rounded everything".
It is not sufficiently unique that Apple should be granted legal protection on the styling of basic user interface elements. There is precisely no public interest in allowing them to have that protection - which is what the patent system is all about. It also leads to stupid places and oppresses innovation because minor graphical details (which are important, but not standalone innovations) become grounds for litigation - which - make no mistake, Apple will use against everyone making anything remotely similar.
Consider this case: would you believe Apple should be able to patent to the iOS interface styling, if the iOS interface could have the parameters of those elements altered to taste by the user? For example if you could adjust the springiness of the menu scrolling, or the rounding applied to the buttons, or turn change the speed of the slide transitions between windows?
It's the thing I hope people keep an eye on - judging Apple for what they did is stupid. Companies do whatever's profitable and possible, in order from easy to hard.
What this should do is underscore just how ridiculous the whole system of software patents is (which I'd squarely put this in since it dealt primarily with non-implementation focused design details) and the need for reform.
A better argument is that patents should be applied to things which require considerable capital expenditure to get involved in, and for which it would be a loss to have trade secrecy. Remembering, the patent system was created first and foremost to encourage people to disseminate their knowledge, so valuable arts and methods couldn't be lost if say, the creator died.
Which summarizes my problem with the rulings in this case: it very much doesn't seem to be about any underlying innovative technology i.e. unique algorithms, but rather just the "look and feel" of iOS devices. It's about completely nebulous user interface elements, which involve no actual improvement in our tools or techniques to create - a rounded or square button is literally a matter of preference.
Removing the antenna and some of the buttons is only subjectively good
Apple didn't "innovate" by removing the antenna. Lots of phones had already done away with the visible antenna; that was an industry-wide improvement following the development of fractal antennas, which provide better reception, can handle a wide variety of frequencies and have a flat, compact form factor that's most easily embedded inside the body of the device.
The Nokia handsets which were everywhere when I was in high school distinctly didn't have an antenna.
Come to think of it I was using an iPaQ back then as well - that was definitely in the iPhone form factor, and later on before the iPhone was released I was using an iPaQ with telephone functionality. The resistive display wasn't great for direct touch input, but you could dial with your thumb quite effectively. That phone I replaced a few years later with an iPhone.
I'm living in Australia. We have socialized healthcare. Our dollar is also fluctuating around parity with the USD at the moment, and despite global recession we have low unemployment.
Also if we want to discuss fallbacks, these days I'd say the minimum we should be aiming for is KBaM input, a web browser and net access since that's the minimum you need to solve computer related problems IMO these days.
Honestly that stuff should be burned into BIOS ROM.
I'm aware, but most of them extend a dish or make a minimal configuration change once in orbit. Few of them are folded like complex origami into a rocket nose.
I want this to work, I'm just expressing a concern.
It does occur to me that it would not be so far away that we couldn't launch a robotic vehicle with manipulators to do maintenance on it.
I imagine being a satellite, it wasn't designed to support it's own mass against gravity when fully deployed - after all for launch it would need to be as light as possible.
>> Making a profit is fundamentally incompatible with good healthcare.
Why? It might cost more, but the USA is mostly profit driven, and it has some of the best healthcare available in the world. There's no universal coverage (hospitals can't refuse you, though), but as an individual "good healthcare" means that I get good services, not my neighbor.
Well, you think you get good service. Part of the drive for healthcare reform is the enormous number of Americans who pay for healthcare that doesn't actually cover anything, or with which they will be retroactively dropped from as soon as they make a claim.
That's without getting into what happens once you do make a claim - the classic example being that if you contract something serious like cancer, your employers insurer tacks a $1 million dollar extra charge onto the bill for the new risk balance, and then strongly hints that if "certain risks" weren't present then this cost would disappear.
But don't worry - I'm sure this will never happen to you or anyone you care about. And in final analysis, apparently that's all American society is about.
Notable too that you ignore the experience of the entirety of the rest of the first-world. And had to invoke the Soviet Union to try and find someone who's doing it worse.
The Mexican system is imperfect. It's still a lot better than the US system, which is a disgrace and serves the medical business sector ahead of the people.
Sorry, that's bullshit. In most regions of Mexico you'll be lucky to find a doctor, let alone a hospital. You're going to have to travel a good distance for any kind of serious treatment or care. When you arrive you're going to quickly learn that although you're supposed to be treated free of charge, the person actually giving treatment will require payment "under the table". In other words, a bribe. Sure, things are pretty good within the major cities and population centers, at least relatively speaking, but even so the quality of care is vastly inferior to the US system. And much of the training, supplies, equipment, and a lot of funding for things like advanced cancer treatment centers is only in place because of US-based donations and aid programs. It also doesn't hurt that most of their prescription drugs are produced by sub-standard facilities which don't actually have a license to make them, which lets them sell expensive drugs for pennies on the dollar.
Yeah, you do realize that even with all this, you're defending the healthcare system of the wealthiest country on the planet by contrasting it to one of the poorest (that's also wracked by drug wars largely due to the policies of the wealthiest)?
Every generation needs to convince the ones after them to buy in to the insurance/Social Security scam. Please explain how else it could work.
Simple: the population of people requiring healthcare treatment at any given moment, even at 0 population growth, is always going to be much smaller then the population who are able-bodied and working. Across the volume of that total population, if everyone kicks in a small amount of money, then we can ensure that there's cash available for all of them when they themselves need medical treatment.
Also, since insurance gets more efficient as you dilute the risk pool, expanding it up to the size of the entire country's population has enormous benefits - as well we follow on ones such as providing for government collective bargaining on the cost and purchase volumes of pharmaceuticals (the government is the largest possible purchaser, ordering the largest possible volumes, which means it'll always be able to negotiate a good deal).
Social Security (in the US) is not a scam, incidentally. It only becomes a scam if the American populace let that happen, which will be if they allow the government (screw it - allow the current batch of GOP politicians) to reduce SS benefits to future generations. The scheme has been enormously well-funded, and is owed billions by the US government, which has avoided raising taxes by "borrowing" against SS savings. It's alleged bankruptcy is due to the fact that that money was never paid back, because it was never used for anything profit earning in the long-run: it was wasted away as tax cuts to the rich, and still is.
It's been beaten to death (working on a pun here) but those with a drug habit ended up there in a lot of cases because they were already destitute and making crack $1 a hit instead of $10 a hit isn't going to make them less likely to want to steal to get it... they don't have a job and legalizing it won't change that. Drug use, joblessness, homelessness, mental illness, burglary, violence, and emergency health care are all tightly intertwined. The first 3 might be easy to ignore but the last 4 are *your* problem as a member of a first world country. The solution is not to simply take away the criminal atmosphere surrounding issue #1...
As a student of Economics, I admit that this is appealing and possibly beneficial if part of a larger solution, but only if.
Then make them free?
Drugs are staggeringly cheap to produce. That's why criminals can do it in the first place. Given the current cost of the "war on drugs", I suspect that if we redirected the enforcement cost to government manufacture, it would cost us a tiny fraction that we spend now, and we'd still see overall usage decline.
7. The price of the drugs will be 5-10x lower, making the theft crime needed for unemployed addicts to support their habits will be proportionally lower.
I agree with everything except point 7. Introduce it at a low enough cost to put all of the illegal avenues out of business. Then slowly increase the price and make it more expensive that it used to be. Just like alcohol and tobacco. Overall usage will decrease dramatically and the government will make money in the form of taxes that can be used to fund rehab, abstinence campaigns and hospitals.
Eh. Why bother?
When you have a few million dollars a year of taxpayer money being spent on a police helicopter, who's sole job is to fly over a national part in Victoria (Austraila's southern state) to try and spot marijuana plantations, I can't help but think that any effort to try and turn them into a revenue stream is just ignoring how much money we currently spend on enforcement. And this is just enforcement.
It's false economy - even if we spent money subsidizing drugs and treating addicts, we do all those things now and the lessons from countries with legalized drugs is that usage falls off pretty dramatically, especially for harder drugs (hard to make heroin seem appealing when the only public perception of it is a line of sickly looking folks at the hospital waiting for it).
There should be doctors who specialize in non-medical drugs. In order to purchase drugs you will need to go to a doctor and get ok'd for specific drugs, you then get a card allowing you to purchase said drugs. If you do not go back for quarterly check-ups your card will be revoked.
If a significant portion of people who use currently illegal drugs go this route then there will not be enough of a market for illegal suppliers.
Sure there is. When this un-doctor (prescribing you drugs to make you less healthy) is required to report the use to the insurance companies, after they realize there is a pretty solid correlation with legal blow and heart attacks (or whatever) and want to jack rates for any confirmed users. Black markets will always be around since there are many undeniably negative trade-offs to recreational drug use, and therefore benefits to concealing their use will always be present.
Concealing their use is one thing, dealing with the massive negative consequences of allowing large criminal empires to flourish across borders is quite another. I'd much rather that people buy them in bulk (cheaply) and distribute them illegally, then large cartels operate across multiple countries borders and build armies which are serious threats to government and citizens.
Let's see people try and fund a mercenary army when $10 buys a few kilos of marijuana.
You're conflating the consequences of many of the things surrounding drugs (illegality, expense) with the actual consequences of taking drugs. People who drink alcohol have done far more damage to my property then drug users ever have.
If we're so concerned about the effects of drugs on society (we're evidently not but whatever) then we could just subsidize them into being free, and let people go and do them in supervised zones. Sydney has one of Australia's only Heroin injecting rooms - for example. Now, they don't supply the heroin, but they do supply safe, clean needles and syringes, disposal facilities for them, access to medical help and access to counselling for those who want to quit the habit. The result? A massive decrease in used needles in the streets, which are what present the actual public health hazard.
People on heroin are pretty docile. Most of their damage is robberies committed to try and get more heroin. But heroin isn't expensive to produce, whereas enforcing it is. If we also just gave them heroin, then that's about the cheapest possible way to solve the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't your first bit of advice right there a classic gotcha?
Encryption doesn't mean anything unless the access routes to that encrypted data are well defined and understood - since at some point it has to be unencrypted to be used. So who's doing the unencrypting, who holds the keys etc.
That many institutions have access to MS Source Code is kinda like instituting a needle-inna-haystack search.
Yes you might find a needle, but unless you're a needle-collector or perhaps a seamstress what in this universe d'you think you're gonna do with it?
At least with Open Source you can
(1) fix the problem with the code
(2) submit the code back to The Author
(3) expect that The Author will either accept the fix as is or perhaps integrate the solution with more elegance
Sure not *always* but the expectation would be more-often-than-not your fix (in one form or another) reaches the wider community of users.
You also fork the code and encourage people to download the fixed version, or to use your patch against the official sources until the upstream realizes the significance.
Digging through a small patch to ensure it's not overtly malicious is actually pretty easy.
Most whines about GPL on Linux don't make a terrific amount of sense. Except for when it comes to actual driver issues, there's nothing about GPL which stops you releasing proprietary binaries. And even with regard to drivers - we've had closed source drivers on Linux for a very long time now - though that's mostly defined by making zero sense when the company is supposed to be in the business of selling you hardware.
NBNCo are predicting in the Corporate Plan that only 70% of premises passed by fibre will connect.
13% of premises passed by fibre will opt for wireless, primarily because it is cheaper.
I total agree that for anything beyond basic email and web browsing, wireless is not the best. However I'm not foolish enough to think that everyone has the same wants as a poster on slashdot and is prepared to pay for the privilege. Have a read of Google's Fiber channels NBN woes.
I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of Slashdotters and tech-savvy people have been underestimating what people think of as "basic" web browsing for quite some time now though. Most people these days would consider the use of websites like YouTube, the ability to video conference on Skype etc. as "basic" applications, but there's nothing "basic" about the level of data use they imply. Doesn't NetFlix account for something like 30% of net traffic in the US?
even in my company 12 hour shifts are common, in the hearland of the USA ... boo who for the Asians?
I worked construction for a few summers after high school -- 12 hour shifts weren't uncommon (on my feet the whole time), and I took all the overtime I could get, sometimes putting in 80 hours or more of overtime a month (six 10 hour days/week), If I didn't have to drive up to 90 minutes each way to the job site on the other side of the state, I probably would have put in more overtime. When I was lucky, I'd get to drive an escort vehicle for a wide-load truck on my way to or from the job site so I'd rack up a couple hours of work while driving to work).
It was hard work, but I still found time to party with friends on the weekends, and the work paid most of my first two years of college.
Two things: (1) this was more or less your choice, and you were rewarded for it with bonus pay to boot. Even if your employer had made it clear at certain times they needed everyone to put in some overtime, you would've had to be paid for it at least.
(2) you were in high school. You can do a lot of really over the top physical feats while in high school, and it's easy. It's a very different thing to being a whole career, and different again to the sort of advancement opportunities you had.
With many many trillions of years with which to ponder that question, one supposes we might eventually come up with a solution. Of course, we won't have those trillions of years if we don't engage in some basic future-proofing of our survival in the meantime.
The problem with all the high tech approaches is power. We simply don't have a portable power source that could supply energy for long enough to make any of the really cool ideas work.
And notably, you can make enzymes from RNA as well - which is one of the hypothesized ways that life might've bootstrapped itself from the primordial ooze in the first place. There are a lot of RNAzymes floating around in your cellular nuclei right now.
Doesn't sound likely to me. The most likely outcome of an appeals process with an obviously biased jury would be for the Court of Appeal to declare a mistrial and pass the case back down to District Court for a do-over. In otherwords you are right back to square one, only both sides have now shown their cards. Other than the lawyers getting paid for a lot more hours, I don't see much benefit for anyone in that circumstance. Well, unless Samsung thought there that was no way they could prevail and were just trying to drag things out as long as possible in order to get non-infringing products to market and render the eventual verdict moot.
There's a lot of benefit to being able to redo a trial, but already know your oppositions case.
But I think the more likely observation is that keeping it tied up in litigation is probably cheaper then paying settlement costs, and a lot cheaper then the injunctions future litigation could bring. Not to mention, the longer this goes on, the more Apple is likely to tank it's public favor.
Which summarizes my problem with the rulings in this case: it very much doesn't seem to be about any underlying innovative technology i.e. unique algorithms, but rather just the "look and feel" of iOS devices. It's about completely nebulous user interface elements, which involve no actual improvement in our tools or techniques to create - a rounded or square button is literally a matter of preference.
If these are just simply user preference of no importance then why did Samsung so aggressively copy them instead of of sticking with the direction they had been going in? Why were they moving the Bada UI towards Android? If Apple did nothing of value then why did Apple's approach cause everyone to start doing the same things?
And if you are going to answer its the only way to do things let me point you to an excellent alternative: http://swipe.nokia.com/
Because it's a matter of user preference. It's an item of fashion practically and it did not involve substantial new technology to implement. Note the original iPhone designs were very rounded, but the newer models have started to square things off again. That's part of a larger trend back towards soft but precise lines in UI design, because people are getting sick of "rounded everything".
It is not sufficiently unique that Apple should be granted legal protection on the styling of basic user interface elements. There is precisely no public interest in allowing them to have that protection - which is what the patent system is all about. It also leads to stupid places and oppresses innovation because minor graphical details (which are important, but not standalone innovations) become grounds for litigation - which - make no mistake, Apple will use against everyone making anything remotely similar.
Consider this case: would you believe Apple should be able to patent to the iOS interface styling, if the iOS interface could have the parameters of those elements altered to taste by the user? For example if you could adjust the springiness of the menu scrolling, or the rounding applied to the buttons, or turn change the speed of the slide transitions between windows?
It's the thing I hope people keep an eye on - judging Apple for what they did is stupid. Companies do whatever's profitable and possible, in order from easy to hard.
What this should do is underscore just how ridiculous the whole system of software patents is (which I'd squarely put this in since it dealt primarily with non-implementation focused design details) and the need for reform.
A better argument is that patents should be applied to things which require considerable capital expenditure to get involved in, and for which it would be a loss to have trade secrecy. Remembering, the patent system was created first and foremost to encourage people to disseminate their knowledge, so valuable arts and methods couldn't be lost if say, the creator died.
Which summarizes my problem with the rulings in this case: it very much doesn't seem to be about any underlying innovative technology i.e. unique algorithms, but rather just the "look and feel" of iOS devices. It's about completely nebulous user interface elements, which involve no actual improvement in our tools or techniques to create - a rounded or square button is literally a matter of preference.
Removing the antenna and some of the buttons is only subjectively good
Apple didn't "innovate" by removing the antenna. Lots of phones had already done away with the visible antenna; that was an industry-wide improvement following the development of fractal antennas, which provide better reception, can handle a wide variety of frequencies and have a flat, compact form factor that's most easily embedded inside the body of the device.
The Nokia handsets which were everywhere when I was in high school distinctly didn't have an antenna.
Come to think of it I was using an iPaQ back then as well - that was definitely in the iPhone form factor, and later on before the iPhone was released I was using an iPaQ with telephone functionality. The resistive display wasn't great for direct touch input, but you could dial with your thumb quite effectively. That phone I replaced a few years later with an iPhone.
I'm living in Australia. We have socialized healthcare. Our dollar is also fluctuating around parity with the USD at the moment, and despite global recession we have low unemployment.
Look it up.
Also if we want to discuss fallbacks, these days I'd say the minimum we should be aiming for is KBaM input, a web browser and net access since that's the minimum you need to solve computer related problems IMO these days.
Honestly that stuff should be burned into BIOS ROM.
I'm aware, but most of them extend a dish or make a minimal configuration change once in orbit. Few of them are folded like complex origami into a rocket nose.
I want this to work, I'm just expressing a concern.
It does occur to me that it would not be so far away that we couldn't launch a robotic vehicle with manipulators to do maintenance on it.
I imagine being a satellite, it wasn't designed to support it's own mass against gravity when fully deployed - after all for launch it would need to be as light as possible.
>> Making a profit is fundamentally incompatible with good healthcare.
Why? It might cost more, but the USA is mostly profit driven, and it has some of the best healthcare available in the world. There's no universal coverage (hospitals can't refuse you, though), but as an individual "good healthcare" means that I get good services, not my neighbor.
Well, you think you get good service. Part of the drive for healthcare reform is the enormous number of Americans who pay for healthcare that doesn't actually cover anything, or with which they will be retroactively dropped from as soon as they make a claim.
That's without getting into what happens once you do make a claim - the classic example being that if you contract something serious like cancer, your employers insurer tacks a $1 million dollar extra charge onto the bill for the new risk balance, and then strongly hints that if "certain risks" weren't present then this cost would disappear.
But don't worry - I'm sure this will never happen to you or anyone you care about. And in final analysis, apparently that's all American society is about.
Notable too that you ignore the experience of the entirety of the rest of the first-world. And had to invoke the Soviet Union to try and find someone who's doing it worse.
Personal sneers I Fuck off with that .
The Mexican system is imperfect. It's still a lot better than the US system, which is a disgrace and serves the medical business sector ahead of the people.
Sorry, that's bullshit. In most regions of Mexico you'll be lucky to find a doctor, let alone a hospital. You're going to have to travel a good distance for any kind of serious treatment or care. When you arrive you're going to quickly learn that although you're supposed to be treated free of charge, the person actually giving treatment will require payment "under the table". In other words, a bribe.
Sure, things are pretty good within the major cities and population centers, at least relatively speaking, but even so the quality of care is vastly inferior to the US system. And much of the training, supplies, equipment, and a lot of funding for things like advanced cancer treatment centers is only in place because of US-based donations and aid programs. It also doesn't hurt that most of their prescription drugs are produced by sub-standard facilities which don't actually have a license to make them, which lets them sell expensive drugs for pennies on the dollar.
Yeah, you do realize that even with all this, you're defending the healthcare system of the wealthiest country on the planet by contrasting it to one of the poorest (that's also wracked by drug wars largely due to the policies of the wealthiest)?
Every generation needs to convince the ones after them to buy in to the insurance/Social Security scam. Please explain how else it could work.
Simple: the population of people requiring healthcare treatment at any given moment, even at 0 population growth, is always going to be much smaller then the population who are able-bodied and working. Across the volume of that total population, if everyone kicks in a small amount of money, then we can ensure that there's cash available for all of them when they themselves need medical treatment.
Also, since insurance gets more efficient as you dilute the risk pool, expanding it up to the size of the entire country's population has enormous benefits - as well we follow on ones such as providing for government collective bargaining on the cost and purchase volumes of pharmaceuticals (the government is the largest possible purchaser, ordering the largest possible volumes, which means it'll always be able to negotiate a good deal).
Social Security (in the US) is not a scam, incidentally. It only becomes a scam if the American populace let that happen, which will be if they allow the government (screw it - allow the current batch of GOP politicians) to reduce SS benefits to future generations. The scheme has been enormously well-funded, and is owed billions by the US government, which has avoided raising taxes by "borrowing" against SS savings. It's alleged bankruptcy is due to the fact that that money was never paid back, because it was never used for anything profit earning in the long-run: it was wasted away as tax cuts to the rich, and still is.
It's been beaten to death (working on a pun here) but those with a drug habit ended up there in a lot of cases because they were already destitute and making crack $1 a hit instead of $10 a hit isn't going to make them less likely to want to steal to get it... they don't have a job and legalizing it won't change that. Drug use, joblessness, homelessness, mental illness, burglary, violence, and emergency health care are all tightly intertwined. The first 3 might be easy to ignore but the last 4 are *your* problem as a member of a first world country. The solution is not to simply take away the criminal atmosphere surrounding issue #1...
As a student of Economics, I admit that this is appealing and possibly beneficial if part of a larger solution, but only if.
Then make them free?
Drugs are staggeringly cheap to produce. That's why criminals can do it in the first place. Given the current cost of the "war on drugs", I suspect that if we redirected the enforcement cost to government manufacture, it would cost us a tiny fraction that we spend now, and we'd still see overall usage decline.
7. The price of the drugs will be 5-10x lower, making the theft crime needed for unemployed addicts to support their habits will be proportionally lower.
I agree with everything except point 7. Introduce it at a low enough cost to put all of the illegal avenues out of business. Then slowly increase the price and make it more expensive that it used to be. Just like alcohol and tobacco. Overall usage will decrease dramatically and the government will make money in the form of taxes that can be used to fund rehab, abstinence campaigns and hospitals.
Eh. Why bother?
When you have a few million dollars a year of taxpayer money being spent on a police helicopter, who's sole job is to fly over a national part in Victoria (Austraila's southern state) to try and spot marijuana plantations, I can't help but think that any effort to try and turn them into a revenue stream is just ignoring how much money we currently spend on enforcement. And this is just enforcement.
It's false economy - even if we spent money subsidizing drugs and treating addicts, we do all those things now and the lessons from countries with legalized drugs is that usage falls off pretty dramatically, especially for harder drugs (hard to make heroin seem appealing when the only public perception of it is a line of sickly looking folks at the hospital waiting for it).
There should be doctors who specialize in non-medical drugs. In order to purchase drugs you will need to go to a doctor and get ok'd for specific drugs, you then get a card allowing you to purchase said drugs. If you do not go back for quarterly check-ups your card will be revoked.
If a significant portion of people who use currently illegal drugs go this route then there will not be enough of a market for illegal suppliers.
Sure there is. When this un-doctor (prescribing you drugs to make you less healthy) is required to report the use to the insurance companies, after they realize there is a pretty solid correlation with legal blow and heart attacks (or whatever) and want to jack rates for any confirmed users. Black markets will always be around since there are many undeniably negative trade-offs to recreational drug use, and therefore benefits to concealing their use will always be present.
Concealing their use is one thing, dealing with the massive negative consequences of allowing large criminal empires to flourish across borders is quite another. I'd much rather that people buy them in bulk (cheaply) and distribute them illegally, then large cartels operate across multiple countries borders and build armies which are serious threats to government and citizens.
Let's see people try and fund a mercenary army when $10 buys a few kilos of marijuana.
You're conflating the consequences of many of the things surrounding drugs (illegality, expense) with the actual consequences of taking drugs. People who drink alcohol have done far more damage to my property then drug users ever have.
If we're so concerned about the effects of drugs on society (we're evidently not but whatever) then we could just subsidize them into being free, and let people go and do them in supervised zones. Sydney has one of Australia's only Heroin injecting rooms - for example. Now, they don't supply the heroin, but they do supply safe, clean needles and syringes, disposal facilities for them, access to medical help and access to counselling for those who want to quit the habit. The result? A massive decrease in used needles in the streets, which are what present the actual public health hazard.
People on heroin are pretty docile. Most of their damage is robberies committed to try and get more heroin. But heroin isn't expensive to produce, whereas enforcing it is. If we also just gave them heroin, then that's about the cheapest possible way to solve the problem.