Not all shares are voting shares. What you suggest just isn't realistic for shares owned through mutual funds and the like.
Holding shares in a mutual fund is a choice. Holding voting versus non voting shares is a choice. Nobody forced you to buy those shares. If you are fine with holding non-voting shares and letting someone else speak for you then that is fine but understand and own your actions.
By that logic it would have made more sense to try to get supersonic flight working before lighter-than air craft.
Nice reductio ad absurdem. Seriously, analogies like this almost never are relevant. And this is slashdot so please use a car analogy if you must.:-) Anyway some things about a Moon base will be harder but others will be easier, not the least of which are the logistics involved.
Much more extreme temperature swings
Which if you can handle those, the ones on Mars should be a piece of cake. Don't forget about the effects of the moon passing through the Earth's magneto-tail either. Huge charge buildups will be challenging to say the least.
- Razor-sharp abrasive dust that will quickly destroy seals, gaskets, and other soft materials (no weather to wear it smooth like on Earth and Mars)
Last I checked there is an awful lot of abrasive dust on Mars too AND the dust on Mars has an atmosphere to blow it into all kinds of inconvenient places whereas the Moon does not. Is it the same? Of course not. The moon dust has different properties. But there will likely be overlap in lessons learned.
2-week nights that make solar power nonviable without massive battery banks
Versus the occasional planet wide dust storm. If we're going to Mars with people we're probably going to have some form of nuclear power along for the ride. Solar will be important but we'll need to learn to work around the occasional bit of darkness on Mars or the Moon
much lower gravity, making adapting Earth-based nuclear reactor designs more challenging
Since we're not going to be on Earth why would we use a reactor designed for operation on Earth? We actually understand the physics of this problem rather well.
very few resources relevant to sustaining life (contrast to plenty of water and CO2 on Mars)
There is apparently water on the Moon. Furthermore it's close enough that we can deliver supplies to the moon while we figure out what works and what doesn't. With a Mars mission you pretty much have zero margin for error thanks to the distance. We already have the technology to get to and from the Moon (comparatively) safely. The same cannot be said for Mars and no matter what Elon Musk claims we're not going to go there for some time yet. Why not go where we can and learn what there is to learn?
Furthermore you are forgetting about many of the advantages of a lunar base: 1) Smaller gravity well than Earth so it can act as a forward base of operations. Comparatively cheap to get to. 2) Excellent location for astronomy given the lack of atmosphere 3) Effects of lower gravity (versus micro-gravity) on human physiology can be studied. 4) Evacuation is actually possible should the need arise. 5) Round trip communication delay is ~3 seconds versus 8-30 minutes for Mars.
By the way, I own stock, but it doesn't mean I am for every type of corporate abuse that makes the company a few extra bucks.
So as a shareholder what are you doing about it? Are you attending shareholder meetings? Are you putting forth proposals? Are you voting on the board of directors? Are you doing these things even if they are unlikely to make much difference?
Just so we're clear I agree with you, but if you are a shareholder and you say nothing then the blood is on your hands too. If you own stock then you are an owner of the company and you are tacitly condoning any actions you don't speak out against.
Except going to Mars is propaganda and not science. No scientific value in sending man to Mars.
That's not true at all. We would learn a tremendous amount from sending a man to Mars. There would have to be great advances in medicine, agriculture, life support, power, shielding, and much more. Much of it would be technology we are unlikely to develop any other way. We would learn a tremendous amount by sending a man to Mars or even to the Moon.
Lots of scientific value sending probes and what not to explore the galaxy. Cheaper too.
Of course there is value in probes. But there are things you cannot learn by sending probes. That's like saying you can learn everything about Earth by using satellites and ROVs. It simply isn't true. You cannot learn anything about human physiology for one. You learn nothing about life (ours or alien) in these remote places. Probes have their value but the idea that they can completely replace sending people is absurd.
Sending people to Mars is aspirational, but ridiculous.
Why is it ridiculous? The idea is fine though some of the notions for how to get there are a little absurd and/or optimistic.
We need to find a commercial basis for a self-sustaining colony on the moon first.
Any colony on the moon will be funded at first by governments and tax dollars. You cannot make a credible business case for going there until it has already been explored and the resources and risks have been quantified. The costs are huge, the returns unknown, and the risks are mostly unquantifiable. That is the the basis for the worst business plan ever. No profit seeking institution can or would fund such a venture. No, governments will have to get us there first and figure out the technology and the risks and only then will businesses consider it. Pure exploration on a large scale like this is ALWAYS funded by governments first because they are the only institution which can take the risks.
Space is big, there is loads of it, it's all dead apart from Earth as far as we know, who gives a fuck if we 'contaminate' things with life?
Because we have no idea if it is "all dead". The only thing we know for certain is that we haven't found life elsewhere yet. It doesn't follow that because we haven't found it yet that it cannot exist.
As for whether we should "give a fuck" I guess that's a matter of perspective but it seems rather foolish to contaminate places we have no intention of going ourselves in person. You lose the ability to study what is there if you screw it up carelessly. If we go ourselves then we WILL contaminate wherever we go. No way to avoid that. Humans carry a biological payload whether we like it or not. But that doesn't mean we have to do more damage than necessary.
Mars is not some pristine paradise environment. It's a dead rock.
And you've confirmed this beyond any reasonable doubt how exactly?
Other than the "getting there" stage, Mars will be much easier to colonize than the moon.
Taking what you claim as a given (the Moon being more challenging) then wouldn't that be a good argument for colonizing the Moon first? If it is actually more challenging in most ways but easier to reach then we can test bed all the technology 3 travel days away and get much of it figured out before taking the long trip to Mars. Not so much from a safety standpoint but from a logistics and cost standpoint. Testbed as much as possible in harsh conditions close to home and then you "only" have to figure out the transit. A lot of the problems will be very similar either place so start close and work your way out.
My point is that fax is a stupid legal requirement...
I doubt anyone would disagree with you about that. Nevertheless it remains a legal requirement and probably will for some time to come. Insane but true.
Electronic record systems that are not compatible is the islands-of-automation problem.
True but that is well understood. It does not appear to be in any danger of being resolved either.
As medical groups adopt electronic records, it should be to a common standard.
The beautiful thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from. There are few common standards for EMR systems. There also are minimal legal requirements for compatibility and few market incentives either. I agree that it SHOULD be to a common standard but it isn't and probably won't be any time soon.
Once again this is typical of leftist types, don't like the rule of law just ignore it.
You mean like Bush did with torturing people?
Its amazing how when right right leaning politician wants to do something like keep poorly vetted refuges out of their state
You mean when a right leaning politician wants to pander to his racist and xenophobic base to get re-elected?
or some kid who happens to be tan in color ignore his teachers and wounder around a school with something that looks dangers
"Happens to be tan in color"? Is that how we're being racist now? Pretending that the color of his skin didn't play any role in calling the cops? Next you'll be telling me that cops don't arrest black people disproportionately or that brown people don't get their luggage searched more often than white people.
and technological advances clearly have drastically improved outcomes.
Often yes but not always. It's trivial to find cases where technology improvements have either minimal or no improvements in patient outcomes. Sometimes we use the expensive shiny new tool in ways that don't actually improve medical outcomes. Sometimes the tools are used more for medico-legal reasons than for actual patient safety. My wife is an MD and she has to do things all the time which are unnecessary for treatment but guard against potential lawsuits. She has to order tests which confirm what she already knew with 99.9%+ certainty just for the unlikely chance she is wrong. If a hospital buys a new MRI machine you can bet your ass they are going to find ways to keep it busy to recoup the cost. Often this means ordering unnecessary tests.
Why does our medical system still depend on fax machines?
Several reasons. Among them: 1) Legal requirements. Believe it or not it is literally illegal to email certain types of documents. It is legally ok to fax these same documents. No it doesn't make much sense and the law hasn't caught up yet. HIPPA is a factor in this. 2) Fax machines are kind of a lowest common denominator technology and it works even if it isn't efficient. Staff know how to use them and every doctor's office has them, even ones that don't have email. 3) Electronic records systems are routinely not compatible even when they are available. Faxes provide a straightforward (albeit inefficient) way to transfer documents between incompatible system or to offices lacking and EMR.
Attempting anything at scale in space with chemical rocketry is utterly foolish.
While I generally agree, we don't have anything else at present nor does there appear to be any promising replacements in the near future outside of a few corner cases. We have NOTHING else to get us out of Earth's atmosphere. Until we come up with an alternative for getting into space that is economical and has a similar safety record we're going to be using chemical rockets. While I'm hopeful we can develop something clever one day, I'm realistic that it is going to be a while. Probably longer than my remaining lifespan.
Also, even if we put people on Mars, they need a dense, compact, and reliable source of power. Nothing but nuclear engines and reactors even remotely fit the demanding requirements for long-term space activites.
I think we need to figure out how to get there first without it being a suicide mission. Other than RTGs we don't currently have any reactor designs that are ready for space travel and none are being seriously worked on to my knowledge.
A molten salt reactor can be made compact enough to power an airplane, and would be suitable for use in a Mars colony, providing electricity, heat, and production of chemical fuels.
Did you read your link? They never got a system that powered an aircraft. Yes we could probably design a fission reactor that could power a Mars colony and we could probably get it there. Furthermore how do you know that a molten salt reactor is an appropriate design for space or for use on Mars? There could be lots of better designs. But there are a LOT of problems to solve before that that are a LOT harder, including designing a (safe) reactor for the trip there and getting to Earth orbit economically and designing the life support systems to keep people alive and healthy for the journey.
I don't see you listing any barriers that can't be overtaken.
Then you have an insufficient understanding of the problem, particularly of the economics involved.
Get the remote site the equipment needed.
So you are going to send a bunch of expensive equipment to a remote location where it will be infrequently used and operated by people who have no expertise. What could possibly go wrong... Or are you suggesting we staff a quasi-remote location? In that case it isn't really telemedicine anymore is it? Then it's just a branch office with Skype.
Perhaps the staff can't treat the patient for every diagnosed condition, but they can get a better diagnosis
Sometimes yes, very often no. If you are going to have a remote site staffed with trained medical professionals then you don't need telemedicine except for the odd specialty consultation. We can do some fancy remote surgery stuff but we haven't worked out the technology completely and aren't even close to solving the economics of that technology. (hint: it's REALLY expensive) Telemedicine has its uses but they are going to be edge cases for the foreseeable future. It is NOT the panacea that many imagine it to be.
One imagines that you don't realize how complex the human body is, and how many things can be solved remotely.
Well I'm married to an MD who would be happy to explain it to you.
One thing I will never understand is why neo-luddites like yourself even bother to read slashdot. You are clearly against technological progress.
Nice. "Neo-luddites"? Seriously? Are you a medical professional or do you just imagine that you understand the problems involved in telemedicine better than those who are?
How do we guarantee we don't contaminate Mars and vice versa?
We don't. If we are going there ourselves we are going to contaminate Mars. There is a non-zero chance we already have with some of the equipment we have sent there. If Mars already supports some form of life then you may as well assume it will happen the other way around unless we do nothing but one way trips. The only way to not contaminate Mars is to not go to Mars.
You could say that about any product. You could argue that McDonald's shouldn't be allowed to advertise because it increases the price of a Big Mac.
There are huge and important differences. 1) If the drug is available it will be prescribed by a doctor who is aware of the drug already and who will utilize his professional judgement about efficacy. There is no health care benefit to advertising to me. 2) As a non medical professional I have NO clue if what the drug company is advertising is appropriate treatment. Having me ask my doctor about the treatment does not change that fact. 3) Advertising a drug to a patient directly is expensive and unnecessary. Healthcare costs are too high already without adding to the pile with sleazy marketing to nervous patients. 4) It doesn't benefit patients and results in no demonstrably improved health care outcomes. If it doesn't improve care then it shouldn't be allowed.
Why not just ban advertising in general?
Because that would be stupid. If you can't see the difference between advertising a Big Mac and advertising a drug then you're pretty clueless.
If people want to take something, and it doesn't do physical harm to anyone else, they should be allowed to.
But that's the thing. It DOES harm someone else. It harms people in the future because don't know whether a medicine works or not. Stop thinking that the only person that matters is the person suffering currently.
Whether some third party is happy about it or not should never be a consideration in what is legally permitted.
It matters very much when that third party is directly affected. Experimental treatments are NEVER just about the patient being treated. It's about saving as many lives as possible. There are ways to reduce suffering (pain, nausea, etc) that do not sacrifice our ability to improve medicine.
If large numbers of people take a drug about which you want to learn more, data can be collected from learning their experiences. Sure, there'll be more noise, but as you have pointed out, with enough data points, the noise can be filtered out.
First, many conditions simply do not have large numbers of people affected so you cannot rely on large numbers. Second, collect what data exactly? What exactly are you studying and how do you direct large numbers of uncoordinated people to collect useful data on a drug that by definition is experimental? Third, who is going to keep track of the data and how do you ensure the data is accurate, unbiased and untainted? Fourth, even when large groups are possible there usually is STILL is too much noise to know if a treatment is effective unless the effectiveness is really, really strong and immediate. Fifth and most importantly, you are literally sacrificing lives in the future to give an experimental treatment that in all likelihood is futile at best.
Frankly your assumptions simply don't hold in the real world. We do medical studies the way we do for VERY good reasons. If it really was as simple as you claim we would already be doing it that way. It would be a lot cheaper and easier but unfortunately what you suggest very rarely actually works. You are suggesting things that have already been considered and dismissed by people who know what they are doing because doing studies in that fashion does not work well.
I have not doubt that double blind studies do a fine job. If you want people to participate in a study, redirect some of that advertising money and pay them.
Putting a profit motive to a medical study is a BAD idea for all sorts of reasons. You think no one has ever thought of that? Doing that creates all sorts of ethical problems not to mention introduces even MORE noise in to the data itself. Seriously, go talk to someone who actually runs these sort of studies or a medical ethicist. It would take me a long time to run through all the reasons your suggestion is a Really Bad Idea.
So, you're saying that if people aren't part of a "clinical trial" you couldn't possibly record information about whether the treatment actually worked?
If you aren't part of a clinical trial in most cases you CANNOT know if the treatment works. Sometimes people recover and it has nothing to do with the medicine. Happens all the time. So did that aspirin cure your headache or did it go away for other reasons? With one data point you cannot possibly know for certain. Even if you collect a lot of data points you still may not be certain of whether a drug works. Unless you structure a study and can control for variables (typically with a trial) and have a control group it is in many cases literally impossible to be certain if a treatment actually works. There are exceptions of course but not often.
Not all trials have to be double blind studies (many aren't). Anecdotal evidence of treatments administered has some value in some cases but generally it is useless because you have no well defined control group to compare against or because there are too many variables to account for to understand the mechanism of action. I have a lady I work with who is convinced that echinacea has kept her from getting the flu despite the fact that every credible scientific study says that it has no effect. It's the logical fallacy of Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. There are countless other factors that can explain why she has avoided the flu which have nothing to do with her taking that supplement.
My now deceased neighbor was part of several clinical trials. She always lied about her drinking and thc consumption, so I don't think that data from clinical trials is necessarily more pure than data from people who try experimental treatments without being a member of a clinical trial would be.
Doctors who run these trials are well aware that people lie. I have family who are involved in running these sorts of trials. Examples like what you cite are one of the many reasons why you need large groups so that you can control for the noise. Plus in many cases they will actually do a physical to check for lying. And if it is a double blind study they have a 50/50 chance of getting a placebo anyway.
Your way isn't the only successful way.
Double blind studies are the gold standard of clinical trials for a very good reason. There are times when other things will work or when they aren't feasible but that doesn't mean we should start accepting bad scientific data. Utilizing experimental treatments for compassionate care is almost the very definition of hurting many people in the long term to (probably futilely) help one person in the short run.
If more people had a general understanding of statistical terms and concepts, there wouldn't be as great a need for protecting them from the surface-level misrepresentations.
The simply fact is however that most people have very poor understanding of statistics and worse understanding of biochemistry, physiology, drug interactions, etc which are important when evaluating medicines. If people buy snake oil like homeopathy do you really think they are going to look objectively at real medicines? Even fairly smart and ostensibly well educated people buy into pseudo-science and quackery on a routine basis.
That said, I agree that people shouldn't have to suffer just because of the state of the educational system in this country at the time when they were coming through it.
It wouldn't matter if we had the best educational system possible. Some people simply aren't very bright and are easily taken advantage of and no amount of education will fix that. We have to protect everyone, not just the high achievers.
I'm betting most doctors don't either these days, and I'm also fairly sure the only source of this is the marketing material provided by the company
Drug company marketing materials are routinely NOT the only source of information. Furthermore doctors are well aware of that information from drug companies is suspect AND unlike you or me they have the training to understand what they are being told. My wife happens to be a physician and she has to interact with drug reps all the time. She regards anything that comes out of their mouth as a lie until proven otherwise by independent sources. Most doctors do not think very highly of drug companies.
The more we remove the pharmaceutical companies from driving decisions around healthcare and determining which products to use the better... because having the conversation be dictated by multi-billion dollar corporations trying to maximize profits is a terrible idea.
No, but it means it should actually be a free fucking country and not a country where you get to put your hand over someone's mouth just because you don't like what they are saying or it's going to cost you money.
Your freedom of speech does not permit you to harm me fiscally or physically. In this case direct advertising of drugs does both. It drives up the cost of medicine so fewer people can get it and it encourages people to take medicines that they might not actually need. People DIE because of that and you think I'm the bad guy here?
Spin it how ever you want but you are advocating putting your hands on someone else to shut them up simply because they are saying WORDS.
Words matter and freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to say whatever stupid thing you want regardless of consequences, especially when people are physically and financially hurt by it.
The only case where consumers should be allowed to override their doctors concerns about drugs and treatments is in cases where there is substantial loss of quality of life involved.
The knock on effects of doing this are worse for society than the problem you are trying to correct. The problem is that you hurt our ability to determine if our experimental treatments actually work.
When doctors invoke the "do no harm" clause to keep someone from accessing experimental treatments or drugs when that person is terminal or in severely degraded quality of life, its ridiculous.
Because when the patient takes that treatment that does harm them or doesn't fix the problem (just like the doctor promised it would) then the doctor gets to spend some lovely time in a court room. But that's not the worst thing. If it was just some extra lawsuits we could deal with that. No, THE worst thing is that by doing what you propose we badly hurt our ability to get people into clinical trials to find out if medicines actually work. The simple fact is that to find out if drugs work we have to do trials. This necessarily means that some people are going to die so that more may live. You cannot find out if the treatments actually and objectively work if you allow everyone to get access to experimental treatments in pursuit of improved quality of life. By advocating for free access to experimental unproven treatments you are unintentionally advocating for eliminating our ability to determine scientifically if treatments actually work.
I think your sense of compassion is admirable but you shouldn't forget about who will be unintentionally hurt by your actions. We all want to help the person we see suffering in front of us but we shouldn't forget the others who will suffer in the future if we act irresponsibly today.
Whims set the price of medication, advertising is what, 1% of that?
Who cares what percent of the price the advertising is? If it is greater than 0% then it is too much. I have no interest in paying for advertising budgets for drug companies.
Being a free country doesn't mean we should do whatever stupid thing pops into our head. There are lots of reasons why we shouldn't allow such advertising.
1) These advertising costs get passed on to patients (read you and me). While I can only speak for myself I have NO interest in paying for advertising for the medicine I am consuming. 2) Furthermore this sort of advertising creates all sorts of bad incentives for patients to ask about medicines that may not be appropriate for their condition. Most people without medical training demonstrably do not understand what these drugs do nor do they understand the side effects. 3) Trust me that the doctors are already getting pestered by drug company representatives. Patients asking for medicines too serves no useful societal purpose. It's just drug companies co-opting patients to do marketing for them.
If people are too stupid to listen to their doctor, they deserve to die.
No they do not. Just because someone isn't very bright doesn't mean they deserve to die. The entire reason we require prescriptions is because people are easily swayed by fancy marketing and pseudo-science (see homeopathy) for things that don't work or even are harmful.
While I agree with the sentiment, surely that same logic applies to all websites. Any random site could serve up malware at any time.
It could but advertisements have some extra bonus features that make them worth blocking. First, I haven't ever gone to a website looking for advertising. Any advertising that is present is at best a distraction that consumes my bandwidth. They serve no useful purpose to me. Second, most random websites do not attempt to track my activities outside of that site. If Facebook wants to know what I do on Facebook then that's fine. Facebook knowing what I am looking at on eBay is not acceptable. Third, there is the general obnoxiousness of the ads as well as the sense of entitlement by the folks serving them. Pop ups, pop overs, interstitials, huge banner ads, flash, etc. These things basically do nothing but cost me time and money to get rid of. Every once in a while I have to use a computer without ad blocking software and wow is it annoying. If they want to advertise to me, making increasingly obnoxious ads is not how to get my goodwill of make me pay attention to an ad. Fourth, most random websites take a little more care in what they display. They don't generally run random content from companies they aren't familiar with. Ads are a vector because no one is paying any attention to what is displayed.
Once you add on the security problems basically ad companies have dug their own grave as far as I'm concerned.
Slashdot Mirror
Not all shares are voting shares. What you suggest just isn't realistic for shares owned through mutual funds and the like.
Holding shares in a mutual fund is a choice. Holding voting versus non voting shares is a choice. Nobody forced you to buy those shares. If you are fine with holding non-voting shares and letting someone else speak for you then that is fine but understand and own your actions.
By that logic it would have made more sense to try to get supersonic flight working before lighter-than air craft.
Nice reductio ad absurdem. Seriously, analogies like this almost never are relevant. And this is slashdot so please use a car analogy if you must. :-) Anyway some things about a Moon base will be harder but others will be easier, not the least of which are the logistics involved.
Much more extreme temperature swings
Which if you can handle those, the ones on Mars should be a piece of cake. Don't forget about the effects of the moon passing through the Earth's magneto-tail either. Huge charge buildups will be challenging to say the least.
- Razor-sharp abrasive dust that will quickly destroy seals, gaskets, and other soft materials (no weather to wear it smooth like on Earth and Mars)
Last I checked there is an awful lot of abrasive dust on Mars too AND the dust on Mars has an atmosphere to blow it into all kinds of inconvenient places whereas the Moon does not. Is it the same? Of course not. The moon dust has different properties. But there will likely be overlap in lessons learned.
2-week nights that make solar power nonviable without massive battery banks
Versus the occasional planet wide dust storm. If we're going to Mars with people we're probably going to have some form of nuclear power along for the ride. Solar will be important but we'll need to learn to work around the occasional bit of darkness on Mars or the Moon
much lower gravity, making adapting Earth-based nuclear reactor designs more challenging
Since we're not going to be on Earth why would we use a reactor designed for operation on Earth? We actually understand the physics of this problem rather well.
very few resources relevant to sustaining life (contrast to plenty of water and CO2 on Mars)
There is apparently water on the Moon. Furthermore it's close enough that we can deliver supplies to the moon while we figure out what works and what doesn't. With a Mars mission you pretty much have zero margin for error thanks to the distance. We already have the technology to get to and from the Moon (comparatively) safely. The same cannot be said for Mars and no matter what Elon Musk claims we're not going to go there for some time yet. Why not go where we can and learn what there is to learn?
Furthermore you are forgetting about many of the advantages of a lunar base:
1) Smaller gravity well than Earth so it can act as a forward base of operations. Comparatively cheap to get to.
2) Excellent location for astronomy given the lack of atmosphere
3) Effects of lower gravity (versus micro-gravity) on human physiology can be studied.
4) Evacuation is actually possible should the need arise.
5) Round trip communication delay is ~3 seconds versus 8-30 minutes for Mars.
By the way, I own stock, but it doesn't mean I am for every type of corporate abuse that makes the company a few extra bucks.
So as a shareholder what are you doing about it? Are you attending shareholder meetings? Are you putting forth proposals? Are you voting on the board of directors? Are you doing these things even if they are unlikely to make much difference?
Just so we're clear I agree with you, but if you are a shareholder and you say nothing then the blood is on your hands too. If you own stock then you are an owner of the company and you are tacitly condoning any actions you don't speak out against.
Except going to Mars is propaganda and not science. No scientific value in sending man to Mars.
That's not true at all. We would learn a tremendous amount from sending a man to Mars. There would have to be great advances in medicine, agriculture, life support, power, shielding, and much more. Much of it would be technology we are unlikely to develop any other way. We would learn a tremendous amount by sending a man to Mars or even to the Moon.
Lots of scientific value sending probes and what not to explore the galaxy. Cheaper too.
Of course there is value in probes. But there are things you cannot learn by sending probes. That's like saying you can learn everything about Earth by using satellites and ROVs. It simply isn't true. You cannot learn anything about human physiology for one. You learn nothing about life (ours or alien) in these remote places. Probes have their value but the idea that they can completely replace sending people is absurd.
Sending people to Mars is aspirational, but ridiculous.
Why is it ridiculous? The idea is fine though some of the notions for how to get there are a little absurd and/or optimistic.
We need to find a commercial basis for a self-sustaining colony on the moon first.
Any colony on the moon will be funded at first by governments and tax dollars. You cannot make a credible business case for going there until it has already been explored and the resources and risks have been quantified. The costs are huge, the returns unknown, and the risks are mostly unquantifiable. That is the the basis for the worst business plan ever. No profit seeking institution can or would fund such a venture. No, governments will have to get us there first and figure out the technology and the risks and only then will businesses consider it. Pure exploration on a large scale like this is ALWAYS funded by governments first because they are the only institution which can take the risks.
Space is big, there is loads of it, it's all dead apart from Earth as far as we know, who gives a fuck if we 'contaminate' things with life?
Because we have no idea if it is "all dead". The only thing we know for certain is that we haven't found life elsewhere yet. It doesn't follow that because we haven't found it yet that it cannot exist.
As for whether we should "give a fuck" I guess that's a matter of perspective but it seems rather foolish to contaminate places we have no intention of going ourselves in person. You lose the ability to study what is there if you screw it up carelessly. If we go ourselves then we WILL contaminate wherever we go. No way to avoid that. Humans carry a biological payload whether we like it or not. But that doesn't mean we have to do more damage than necessary.
Mars is not some pristine paradise environment. It's a dead rock.
And you've confirmed this beyond any reasonable doubt how exactly?
Other than the "getting there" stage, Mars will be much easier to colonize than the moon.
Taking what you claim as a given (the Moon being more challenging) then wouldn't that be a good argument for colonizing the Moon first? If it is actually more challenging in most ways but easier to reach then we can test bed all the technology 3 travel days away and get much of it figured out before taking the long trip to Mars. Not so much from a safety standpoint but from a logistics and cost standpoint. Testbed as much as possible in harsh conditions close to home and then you "only" have to figure out the transit. A lot of the problems will be very similar either place so start close and work your way out.
My point is that fax is a stupid legal requirement...
I doubt anyone would disagree with you about that. Nevertheless it remains a legal requirement and probably will for some time to come. Insane but true.
Electronic record systems that are not compatible is the islands-of-automation problem.
True but that is well understood. It does not appear to be in any danger of being resolved either.
As medical groups adopt electronic records, it should be to a common standard.
The beautiful thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from. There are few common standards for EMR systems. There also are minimal legal requirements for compatibility and few market incentives either. I agree that it SHOULD be to a common standard but it isn't and probably won't be any time soon.
Once again this is typical of leftist types, don't like the rule of law just ignore it.
You mean like Bush did with torturing people?
Its amazing how when right right leaning politician wants to do something like keep poorly vetted refuges out of their state
You mean when a right leaning politician wants to pander to his racist and xenophobic base to get re-elected?
or some kid who happens to be tan in color ignore his teachers and wounder around a school with something that looks dangers
"Happens to be tan in color"? Is that how we're being racist now? Pretending that the color of his skin didn't play any role in calling the cops? Next you'll be telling me that cops don't arrest black people disproportionately or that brown people don't get their luggage searched more often than white people.
the cost of medicine today hasn't been driven in very large part by technological advances
Twenty seconds on google would have disabused you of this incorrect notion. Technology advances have played a HUGE role in the rapidly increasing cost of medical care. Don't take it from me, take it from The New England Journal of Medicine.
and technological advances clearly have drastically improved outcomes.
Often yes but not always. It's trivial to find cases where technology improvements have either minimal or no improvements in patient outcomes. Sometimes we use the expensive shiny new tool in ways that don't actually improve medical outcomes. Sometimes the tools are used more for medico-legal reasons than for actual patient safety. My wife is an MD and she has to do things all the time which are unnecessary for treatment but guard against potential lawsuits. She has to order tests which confirm what she already knew with 99.9%+ certainty just for the unlikely chance she is wrong. If a hospital buys a new MRI machine you can bet your ass they are going to find ways to keep it busy to recoup the cost. Often this means ordering unnecessary tests.
Why does our medical system still depend on fax machines?
Several reasons. Among them:
1) Legal requirements. Believe it or not it is literally illegal to email certain types of documents. It is legally ok to fax these same documents. No it doesn't make much sense and the law hasn't caught up yet. HIPPA is a factor in this.
2) Fax machines are kind of a lowest common denominator technology and it works even if it isn't efficient. Staff know how to use them and every doctor's office has them, even ones that don't have email.
3) Electronic records systems are routinely not compatible even when they are available. Faxes provide a straightforward (albeit inefficient) way to transfer documents between incompatible system or to offices lacking and EMR.
Attempting anything at scale in space with chemical rocketry is utterly foolish.
While I generally agree, we don't have anything else at present nor does there appear to be any promising replacements in the near future outside of a few corner cases. We have NOTHING else to get us out of Earth's atmosphere. Until we come up with an alternative for getting into space that is economical and has a similar safety record we're going to be using chemical rockets. While I'm hopeful we can develop something clever one day, I'm realistic that it is going to be a while. Probably longer than my remaining lifespan.
Also, even if we put people on Mars, they need a dense, compact, and reliable source of power. Nothing but nuclear engines and reactors even remotely fit the demanding requirements for long-term space activites.
I think we need to figure out how to get there first without it being a suicide mission. Other than RTGs we don't currently have any reactor designs that are ready for space travel and none are being seriously worked on to my knowledge.
A molten salt reactor can be made compact enough to power an airplane, and would be suitable for use in a Mars colony, providing electricity, heat, and production of chemical fuels.
Did you read your link? They never got a system that powered an aircraft. Yes we could probably design a fission reactor that could power a Mars colony and we could probably get it there. Furthermore how do you know that a molten salt reactor is an appropriate design for space or for use on Mars? There could be lots of better designs. But there are a LOT of problems to solve before that that are a LOT harder, including designing a (safe) reactor for the trip there and getting to Earth orbit economically and designing the life support systems to keep people alive and healthy for the journey.
I don't see you listing any barriers that can't be overtaken.
Then you have an insufficient understanding of the problem, particularly of the economics involved.
Get the remote site the equipment needed.
So you are going to send a bunch of expensive equipment to a remote location where it will be infrequently used and operated by people who have no expertise. What could possibly go wrong... Or are you suggesting we staff a quasi-remote location? In that case it isn't really telemedicine anymore is it? Then it's just a branch office with Skype.
Perhaps the staff can't treat the patient for every diagnosed condition, but they can get a better diagnosis
Sometimes yes, very often no. If you are going to have a remote site staffed with trained medical professionals then you don't need telemedicine except for the odd specialty consultation. We can do some fancy remote surgery stuff but we haven't worked out the technology completely and aren't even close to solving the economics of that technology. (hint: it's REALLY expensive) Telemedicine has its uses but they are going to be edge cases for the foreseeable future. It is NOT the panacea that many imagine it to be.
One imagines that you don't realize how complex the human body is, and how many things can be solved remotely.
Well I'm married to an MD who would be happy to explain it to you.
One thing I will never understand is why neo-luddites like yourself even bother to read slashdot. You are clearly against technological progress.
Nice. "Neo-luddites"? Seriously? Are you a medical professional or do you just imagine that you understand the problems involved in telemedicine better than those who are?
How do we guarantee we don't contaminate Mars and vice versa?
We don't. If we are going there ourselves we are going to contaminate Mars. There is a non-zero chance we already have with some of the equipment we have sent there. If Mars already supports some form of life then you may as well assume it will happen the other way around unless we do nothing but one way trips. The only way to not contaminate Mars is to not go to Mars.
I didn't see any shit, only a few dots, and some drawen animation, you call that sience ?
No we call it science.
You could say that about any product. You could argue that McDonald's shouldn't be allowed to advertise because it increases the price of a Big Mac.
There are huge and important differences. 1) If the drug is available it will be prescribed by a doctor who is aware of the drug already and who will utilize his professional judgement about efficacy. There is no health care benefit to advertising to me. 2) As a non medical professional I have NO clue if what the drug company is advertising is appropriate treatment. Having me ask my doctor about the treatment does not change that fact. 3) Advertising a drug to a patient directly is expensive and unnecessary. Healthcare costs are too high already without adding to the pile with sleazy marketing to nervous patients. 4) It doesn't benefit patients and results in no demonstrably improved health care outcomes. If it doesn't improve care then it shouldn't be allowed.
Why not just ban advertising in general?
Because that would be stupid. If you can't see the difference between advertising a Big Mac and advertising a drug then you're pretty clueless.
If people want to take something, and it doesn't do physical harm to anyone else, they should be allowed to.
But that's the thing. It DOES harm someone else. It harms people in the future because don't know whether a medicine works or not. Stop thinking that the only person that matters is the person suffering currently.
Whether some third party is happy about it or not should never be a consideration in what is legally permitted.
It matters very much when that third party is directly affected. Experimental treatments are NEVER just about the patient being treated. It's about saving as many lives as possible. There are ways to reduce suffering (pain, nausea, etc) that do not sacrifice our ability to improve medicine.
If large numbers of people take a drug about which you want to learn more, data can be collected from learning their experiences. Sure, there'll be more noise, but as you have pointed out, with enough data points, the noise can be filtered out.
First, many conditions simply do not have large numbers of people affected so you cannot rely on large numbers. Second, collect what data exactly? What exactly are you studying and how do you direct large numbers of uncoordinated people to collect useful data on a drug that by definition is experimental? Third, who is going to keep track of the data and how do you ensure the data is accurate, unbiased and untainted? Fourth, even when large groups are possible there usually is STILL is too much noise to know if a treatment is effective unless the effectiveness is really, really strong and immediate. Fifth and most importantly, you are literally sacrificing lives in the future to give an experimental treatment that in all likelihood is futile at best.
Frankly your assumptions simply don't hold in the real world. We do medical studies the way we do for VERY good reasons. If it really was as simple as you claim we would already be doing it that way. It would be a lot cheaper and easier but unfortunately what you suggest very rarely actually works. You are suggesting things that have already been considered and dismissed by people who know what they are doing because doing studies in that fashion does not work well.
I have not doubt that double blind studies do a fine job. If you want people to participate in a study, redirect some of that advertising money and pay them.
Putting a profit motive to a medical study is a BAD idea for all sorts of reasons. You think no one has ever thought of that? Doing that creates all sorts of ethical problems not to mention introduces even MORE noise in to the data itself. Seriously, go talk to someone who actually runs these sort of studies or a medical ethicist. It would take me a long time to run through all the reasons your suggestion is a Really Bad Idea.
So, you're saying that if people aren't part of a "clinical trial" you couldn't possibly record information about whether the treatment actually worked?
If you aren't part of a clinical trial in most cases you CANNOT know if the treatment works. Sometimes people recover and it has nothing to do with the medicine. Happens all the time. So did that aspirin cure your headache or did it go away for other reasons? With one data point you cannot possibly know for certain. Even if you collect a lot of data points you still may not be certain of whether a drug works. Unless you structure a study and can control for variables (typically with a trial) and have a control group it is in many cases literally impossible to be certain if a treatment actually works. There are exceptions of course but not often.
Not all trials have to be double blind studies (many aren't). Anecdotal evidence of treatments administered has some value in some cases but generally it is useless because you have no well defined control group to compare against or because there are too many variables to account for to understand the mechanism of action. I have a lady I work with who is convinced that echinacea has kept her from getting the flu despite the fact that every credible scientific study says that it has no effect. It's the logical fallacy of Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. There are countless other factors that can explain why she has avoided the flu which have nothing to do with her taking that supplement.
My now deceased neighbor was part of several clinical trials. She always lied about her drinking and thc consumption, so I don't think that data from clinical trials is necessarily more pure than data from people who try experimental treatments without being a member of a clinical trial would be.
Doctors who run these trials are well aware that people lie. I have family who are involved in running these sorts of trials. Examples like what you cite are one of the many reasons why you need large groups so that you can control for the noise. Plus in many cases they will actually do a physical to check for lying. And if it is a double blind study they have a 50/50 chance of getting a placebo anyway.
Your way isn't the only successful way.
Double blind studies are the gold standard of clinical trials for a very good reason. There are times when other things will work or when they aren't feasible but that doesn't mean we should start accepting bad scientific data. Utilizing experimental treatments for compassionate care is almost the very definition of hurting many people in the long term to (probably futilely) help one person in the short run.
If more people had a general understanding of statistical terms and concepts, there wouldn't be as great a need for protecting them from the surface-level misrepresentations.
The simply fact is however that most people have very poor understanding of statistics and worse understanding of biochemistry, physiology, drug interactions, etc which are important when evaluating medicines. If people buy snake oil like homeopathy do you really think they are going to look objectively at real medicines? Even fairly smart and ostensibly well educated people buy into pseudo-science and quackery on a routine basis.
That said, I agree that people shouldn't have to suffer just because of the state of the educational system in this country at the time when they were coming through it.
It wouldn't matter if we had the best educational system possible. Some people simply aren't very bright and are easily taken advantage of and no amount of education will fix that. We have to protect everyone, not just the high achievers.
I'm betting most doctors don't either these days, and I'm also fairly sure the only source of this is the marketing material provided by the company
Drug company marketing materials are routinely NOT the only source of information. Furthermore doctors are well aware of that information from drug companies is suspect AND unlike you or me they have the training to understand what they are being told. My wife happens to be a physician and she has to interact with drug reps all the time. She regards anything that comes out of their mouth as a lie until proven otherwise by independent sources. Most doctors do not think very highly of drug companies.
The more we remove the pharmaceutical companies from driving decisions around healthcare and determining which products to use the better ... because having the conversation be dictated by multi-billion dollar corporations trying to maximize profits is a terrible idea.
I could not agree more.
No, but it means it should actually be a free fucking country and not a country where you get to put your hand over someone's mouth just because you don't like what they are saying or it's going to cost you money.
Your freedom of speech does not permit you to harm me fiscally or physically. In this case direct advertising of drugs does both. It drives up the cost of medicine so fewer people can get it and it encourages people to take medicines that they might not actually need. People DIE because of that and you think I'm the bad guy here?
Spin it how ever you want but you are advocating putting your hands on someone else to shut them up simply because they are saying WORDS.
Words matter and freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to say whatever stupid thing you want regardless of consequences, especially when people are physically and financially hurt by it.
The only case where consumers should be allowed to override their doctors concerns about drugs and treatments is in cases where there is substantial loss of quality of life involved.
The knock on effects of doing this are worse for society than the problem you are trying to correct. The problem is that you hurt our ability to determine if our experimental treatments actually work.
When doctors invoke the "do no harm" clause to keep someone from accessing experimental treatments or drugs when that person is terminal or in severely degraded quality of life, its ridiculous.
Because when the patient takes that treatment that does harm them or doesn't fix the problem (just like the doctor promised it would) then the doctor gets to spend some lovely time in a court room. But that's not the worst thing. If it was just some extra lawsuits we could deal with that. No, THE worst thing is that by doing what you propose we badly hurt our ability to get people into clinical trials to find out if medicines actually work. The simple fact is that to find out if drugs work we have to do trials. This necessarily means that some people are going to die so that more may live. You cannot find out if the treatments actually and objectively work if you allow everyone to get access to experimental treatments in pursuit of improved quality of life. By advocating for free access to experimental unproven treatments you are unintentionally advocating for eliminating our ability to determine scientifically if treatments actually work.
I think your sense of compassion is admirable but you shouldn't forget about who will be unintentionally hurt by your actions. We all want to help the person we see suffering in front of us but we shouldn't forget the others who will suffer in the future if we act irresponsibly today.
Whims set the price of medication, advertising is what, 1% of that?
Who cares what percent of the price the advertising is? If it is greater than 0% then it is too much. I have no interest in paying for advertising budgets for drug companies.
Its a free country, let them advertise.
Being a free country doesn't mean we should do whatever stupid thing pops into our head. There are lots of reasons why we shouldn't allow such advertising.
1) These advertising costs get passed on to patients (read you and me). While I can only speak for myself I have NO interest in paying for advertising for the medicine I am consuming.
2) Furthermore this sort of advertising creates all sorts of bad incentives for patients to ask about medicines that may not be appropriate for their condition. Most people without medical training demonstrably do not understand what these drugs do nor do they understand the side effects.
3) Trust me that the doctors are already getting pestered by drug company representatives. Patients asking for medicines too serves no useful societal purpose. It's just drug companies co-opting patients to do marketing for them.
If people are too stupid to listen to their doctor, they deserve to die.
No they do not. Just because someone isn't very bright doesn't mean they deserve to die. The entire reason we require prescriptions is because people are easily swayed by fancy marketing and pseudo-science (see homeopathy) for things that don't work or even are harmful.
While I agree with the sentiment, surely that same logic applies to all websites. Any random site could serve up malware at any time.
It could but advertisements have some extra bonus features that make them worth blocking. First, I haven't ever gone to a website looking for advertising. Any advertising that is present is at best a distraction that consumes my bandwidth. They serve no useful purpose to me. Second, most random websites do not attempt to track my activities outside of that site. If Facebook wants to know what I do on Facebook then that's fine. Facebook knowing what I am looking at on eBay is not acceptable. Third, there is the general obnoxiousness of the ads as well as the sense of entitlement by the folks serving them. Pop ups, pop overs, interstitials, huge banner ads, flash, etc. These things basically do nothing but cost me time and money to get rid of. Every once in a while I have to use a computer without ad blocking software and wow is it annoying. If they want to advertise to me, making increasingly obnoxious ads is not how to get my goodwill of make me pay attention to an ad. Fourth, most random websites take a little more care in what they display. They don't generally run random content from companies they aren't familiar with. Ads are a vector because no one is paying any attention to what is displayed.
Once you add on the security problems basically ad companies have dug their own grave as far as I'm concerned.