There are a significant proportion of people for whom the status quo is more than good enough. House, food, basic entertainment, safety, the freedom to babble - most people don't want much. It might not be sustainable for more than another few decades, but for a good proportion of people mortality makes that irrelevant.
If they had had any sort of group awareness and organisational capacity they'd ALL have done it, then ALL turned themselves in. Let every single teen in Florida be registered as a sex offender.
(with no more tangible talent than a thousand others) end up with most of the fame and money. [...] We libertarians and conservatives understand this, progressives see a problem to be fixed.
Are you saying that there is no problem? Or that you don't want to fix it?
The first prototypes appeared around 1986. My ARM2 desktop dates from '88 or '89. The decade itself was full of interesting academic developments because the education system hadn't yet been broken thanks to the tying of higher education with private investment (Acorn was the result of money following brilliance - today brilliance must follow money), the repurposing of polytechnics, the introduction of the one-idiot-size-fits-all national curriculum and the sell-off of exam boards to private publishing houses.
There have been very few interesting inventions in the UK since the '80s, and when they are the authorities / marketroids / everyone are so keen to say "LOOK BRITAIN ISN'T DEAD YET!" that every so often there's a hilarious amount of hubbub surrounding nothing.
Thatcher taught the current 30-somethings that there is no personal gain in actually producing anything (and it's still communist to do anything other than for personal gain): if you want to get rich, become a middleman. So that's where most of the intelligence has gone.
Upscaling, this is the real reason why we have the financial crisis[tm] in much of Europe: we have neither the production nor sufficient means of production any more. Germany was careful to maintain its own, thus retaining a now dominant economy - they've taken over Europe in a far more rational and subtle way than earlier last century. The rest of us, taught by the worst, have been spending the last couple of decades moving numbers around, signifying nothing.
I'm describing how European social democracies already work: free healthcare, right to assembly (the UK is not very good here!), right to roam, national and county libraries, housing and sickness/unemployment allowances.
If you think that any European country is communist then... yes, OK, this is the Internet and "communism" is clearly your "Nazism" and "communist" your "Hitler". In summary, every country which isn't Somalia is Nazi. And I have hinted support for countries other than Somalia therefore I am Hitler.
Tell me, c6gunner, are you currently living in Somalia? A simple "yes" or "I'm a hypocrite" will be sufficient.
You're begging the question. You don't get to restate your premise in order to support your premise.
State the premise which I used in order to support my premise.
You're also speaking as if "health" were some type of possession which a society either has or doesn't have,
No, I'm stating a goal which society should aim for. But there are, of course, some societies which are healthier than others - for example, the US comes strikingly low on various statistics despite its economic position.
Thanks to that poor logic you've also managed to imply that every society which existed prior to the last hundred years must have been non-functioning, irrational, and immoral.
You're just extending the straw man here. But let's see what I said: "The only acceptable position for any functioning, rational, moral society is for its members to be healthy."
This means that the ideal functioning, rational, moral society is comprised entirely of healthy individuals, and that every practical society should accept nothing less. It does this by ensuring that every member has the means to make himself as healthy as allowed by the resources of that society and the medical state of the art. (Contrast the United States' acceptance of much less as good enough, leaving a large proportion of citizens unhealthy merely because they do not have the personal resources to finance their healthcare.)
In some way, of course, my statement is so obvious as to be vacuous. You can't have a completely rational society without completely rational members, and to be rational you have to be healthy - otherwise your capacity to think and to make decisions is limited. But this fact explains why nationalised health is essential to all rational societies.
The West today has the resources and the knowledge to implement comprehensive state healthcare systems, which means implementation is a choice. A society can therefore have its morality judged on the choice it makes. Centuries ago, many societies had neither the knowledge nor the resources to implement comprehensive state healthcare, so there was no choice to do so. The morality of the society could thus not be so judged. (Although certain societies were sufficiently organised and knowledgeable that some progress could be made - see e.g. the holistic approach of Ancient Greece.)
Is a society which is entertained not more healthy than one which is not?
Which sort of entertainment is being denied in such a way as to disadvantage the vulnerable? If you're arguing for the right to gather or to roam or to borrow/study/reproduce cultural works, then yes, these are all things guaranteed to varying degrees by modern Western societies.
How about a society where everyone has clothing? Surely, if we wish to be moral, functioning, and rational, we can't have half-naked
Clothing is only needed to the extent to which it keeps you healthy - the rest is just religious taboo and a rational society does not worry whether people walk around with their cocks hanging out. People who lack the means to buy clothing are, in all civilised nations, either granted clothing or given an allowance which is set to cover essentials such as clothing (and food).
The theme is consistent: protect the vulnerable by doing what is sufficient to maintain their health so they may pursue what is rational and productive.
The decision for an already sufficiently healthy individual (good luck if you're psychotic!) to attempt to pursue health is a choice. But the only acceptable position for any functioning, rational, moral society is for its members to be healthy.. This means everyone in such a society, subject to a burden determined both by the state of the art in medicine and the resources available from that society, must be provided with the means to be healthy.
Meanwhile, a society which functions based on inequalities in health is exploitative, non-productive and immoral.
Recall that the only form of free trade which has come close to demonstrating a moral basis is one in which individuals are acting in a rational, informed, voluntary manner. Ill people cannot do this.
A person who smokes, drinks, and injects himself with heroin obviously places a lower value on health than does a vegan Buddhist tai-chi practitioner.
A drug addict "obviously" is addicted and doesn't have the faculty to make a rational, informed decision. See above. And veganism can be practiced healthily or unhealthily - unlike vegetarianism, it's quite hard to do right. Of course, in a rational society, nutrition advice and - where necessary - individual assistance is made accessible to all people. Because the best way to harm yourself over time is to eat badly, here's a really cheap way to serve that ounce of prevention. My local surgery gave me a great few sessions with a nutritionist when I decided to become vegan, for example:-).
A person who decides to spend $500,000 to get the absolute best doctor in the world obviously care more about his odds of survival than does a guy who will only spent $50.
There is no "absolute best doctor in the world" and the best doctors generally don't drop everything just because some rich diva wants to pay them a lot of money.. And I contend that the guy "who will only spent $50" is a strawman - it's always the guy who can only afford $50.
Life is ALL about choices, and death is a natural consequence of life.
Vacuous soundbites are a natural consequence of arguing on the Internet.
I don't need a government dictating how I live or how I'll die.
That's true - hey, you don't need to live either. Until you've stated your premises, you're just a meaningless bag of chemicals.
But someone'll set up a government anyway, so you either demonstrate some willingness to cooperate for the benefit of society or soon someone'll take away all your choices.
Ditto. You don't like the way I organize my society? Go away. Move to China. The workers paradise will take great care of all your needs.
Eh? My country of residence is very pro-state-healthcare and we have a national health service. Why do I need to go anywhere?
And China's as much as worker's paradise as the US is a capitalist's free market.
Which is your society, exactly? Your posting history suggests that either you're either a hypocrite or you live in Somalia.
A man who is homeless and unable to support himself through disability (other vulnerable categories are also eligible) is provided with housing under a legal duty of care assigned to local authorities in the UK. If he has wealth then he may be required to contribute once stable arrangements have been made.
A man who is homeless but who has health but not wealth is not as vulnerable, so has access to free advice and a limited allowance toward his own housing arrangements. But he is not given housing outright because he can look after himself to some extent.
A man who is homeless but who has health and wealth is eligible for advice but, because of his health and wealth, will not be provided housing or an allowance toward housing. He can choose to live in a house, in a hotel, in a tent, etc.
Sick and disabled people are vulnerable, so the NHS provides healthcare to all sick and disabled people. A sick human is a sick human, and his treatment needs apply regardless of health or wealth.
tl;dr Accommodation arrangements are the subject of choice - everyone wants to live in a different way and many different arrangements remain healthy and productive. Health is not the subject of choice - the only option is to be as healthy as possible and the only question is whether the resources are available to monitor and/or treat you.
If you don't like society, you're welcome to live outside of it and hope that - if you try to impose your will in any way beyond living in the hills as a hermit - your mob isn't overrun by the majority. History suggests that it would be, however.
(1) I admit that I had a fairly privileged upbringing, but I have a few schoolfriends who went into medicine. It really doesn't require "an encyclopedic knowledge of all common illnesses and most of the rare ones" - it requires a good knowledge of all common illnesses and some of the rarer ones, with the latter learnt about for exams/practical testing then mostly forgotten about just as in any other field.
The demanding bit is the hazing which occurs at the start of the practical hospital training. You are made to work very long hours and any mistakes you make may retard your career a little but will hurt the patient a lot. The experience reflects one small, occasional part of the responsibilities of the doctor, but those who perform complex procedures and who advance the state of the art in medicine are those who can sit down and thnk, not those who are capable of running around with little sleep. Nurses often have to work in similar conditions, but in their case it's because they're "just nurses" and it's expected of them.
(2) Yes, as with many healthcare workers. I don't know how high it drives standards, though - all doctors make mistakes which reduce the quality of life of their patients, all experienced surgeons have killed patients, etc. The legal minefield problem is evident, but insurance for practitioners is expensive because so much money is paid out, and if so much money is paid out then either (i) doctors are making mistakes all the time or (ii) patients are able to make successful claims with no basis.
(But the people who really get to decide quality of life on a large scale - civil servants and CEOs - are comparatively unqualified and immune!)
Why is healthcare such a rip-off? In nationalised healthcare systems, the doctors get paid insanely high; in private healthcare systems, the doctors get paid insanely high.
We can see from countries like Cuba that doctors aren't the result of educating a rare genius. But for some reason in the Western world we feel the need to artificially constrain their supply, take them through a hazing ritual to make them cynical about their patients, then treat them like gods.
Let's return medicine to what it started as in Greece: a calling to care for the sick. Let it be a thoroughly secure vocation for permanent healthcare workers, where there is an understanding of difficulties on both sides - not one solved by high price doctors, lawyers, insurance, third party agencies and miscellaneous bureaucracy (public or private).
I don't care about another iPad clone. Any rumours on the next e-ink device? E-ink are doing some moderately interesting things with a colour filter in front of the display, so I guess it's possible they'll adopt that. But no-one's talking about it.
But you're not in the only Blue Book I can still find, so either we're not contemporaneous or there's more than one monastic Scottish Latin teacher angry at the English:-).
Yeah, much of what he said was entirely warranted. His speech on English false modesty stuck with me more than anything. But I cursed myself for not having had the prescience to set up a timed launch of The Skye Boat Song.
Unfortunately, I don't have a degree and decades of experience in all of agriculture, construction, medicine, finance, law and science, so I sometimes need other people to do my thinking for me. I commend you and envy you slightly for having the capacity to do it all yourself.
Many years ago I was one of the few carrying a PDA to every class - a Psion Series 3a.
I had it confiscated once: for using the internal speaker to stand to the British national anthem when my Scottish Latin teacher went on another of his hilarious anti-English tirades. He deserved it. I deserved it.
But as long as I only used it for schoolwork while in the classroom, everyone was happy.
Do kids at your school only use their 'phones for schoolwork while in the classroom?
The fact that Google is the most successful Interweb company on the planet and it achieved that by being a targeted ad broker allows us to conclude that, yes, we are really that stupid.
In a world full of distractions increasingly hard to block out, Google's job is to effectively deliver distractions. If you can't see anything wrong with regulating that, well, welcome to society - people like to make their life less hellish and that sometimes means cooperation.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait, isn't that like ATM machine or PIN number? I thought "scrapbook" was short for "social crap book".
There are a significant proportion of people for whom the status quo is more than good enough. House, food, basic entertainment, safety, the freedom to babble - most people don't want much. It might not be sustainable for more than another few decades, but for a good proportion of people mortality makes that irrelevant.
If they had had any sort of group awareness and organisational capacity they'd ALL have done it, then ALL turned themselves in. Let every single teen in Florida be registered as a sex offender.
Act like a sheep, get treated like a sheep.
(with no more tangible talent than a thousand others) end up with most of the fame and money. [...] We libertarians and conservatives understand this, progressives see a problem to be fixed.
Are you saying that there is no problem? Or that you don't want to fix it?
To the best people, praise and money are distractions at worst, tools at best. Achievement is its own reward.
Praise and money are only useful - and perhaps wasted - on the mediocre.
If 1% making 25% isn't "large amount" then, erm, I guess you were brought up to Reaganomics.
News at 11.
The first prototypes appeared around 1986. My ARM2 desktop dates from '88 or '89. The decade itself was full of interesting academic developments because the education system hadn't yet been broken thanks to the tying of higher education with private investment (Acorn was the result of money following brilliance - today brilliance must follow money), the repurposing of polytechnics, the introduction of the one-idiot-size-fits-all national curriculum and the sell-off of exam boards to private publishing houses.
There have been very few interesting inventions in the UK since the '80s, and when they are the authorities / marketroids / everyone are so keen to say "LOOK BRITAIN ISN'T DEAD YET!" that every so often there's a hilarious amount of hubbub surrounding nothing.
Thatcher taught the current 30-somethings that there is no personal gain in actually producing anything (and it's still communist to do anything other than for personal gain): if you want to get rich, become a middleman. So that's where most of the intelligence has gone.
Upscaling, this is the real reason why we have the financial crisis[tm] in much of Europe: we have neither the production nor sufficient means of production any more. Germany was careful to maintain its own, thus retaining a now dominant economy - they've taken over Europe in a far more rational and subtle way than earlier last century. The rest of us, taught by the worst, have been spending the last couple of decades moving numbers around, signifying nothing.
I am describing the advantages of living in a European social democracy while living in a European social democracy.
You are promoting society-free living but refuse to take the option of living free of society.
We are done here because you have an aeroplane to book. Go chase that dream!
I'm describing how European social democracies already work: free healthcare, right to assembly (the UK is not very good here!), right to roam, national and county libraries, housing and sickness/unemployment allowances.
If you think that any European country is communist then... yes, OK, this is the Internet and "communism" is clearly your "Nazism" and "communist" your "Hitler". In summary, every country which isn't Somalia is Nazi. And I have hinted support for countries other than Somalia therefore I am Hitler.
Tell me, c6gunner, are you currently living in Somalia? A simple "yes" or "I'm a hypocrite" will be sufficient.
...and the AI sufficiently advanced to consider us as rats and do the same thing to us.
You're begging the question. You don't get to restate your premise in order to support your premise.
State the premise which I used in order to support my premise.
You're also speaking as if "health" were some type of possession which a society either has or doesn't have,
No, I'm stating a goal which society should aim for. But there are, of course, some societies which are healthier than others - for example, the US comes strikingly low on various statistics despite its economic position.
Thanks to that poor logic you've also managed to imply that every society which existed prior to the last hundred years must have been non-functioning, irrational, and immoral.
You're just extending the straw man here. But let's see what I said: "The only acceptable position for any functioning, rational, moral society is for its members to be healthy."
This means that the ideal functioning, rational, moral society is comprised entirely of healthy individuals, and that every practical society should accept nothing less. It does this by ensuring that every member has the means to make himself as healthy as allowed by the resources of that society and the medical state of the art. (Contrast the United States' acceptance of much less as good enough, leaving a large proportion of citizens unhealthy merely because they do not have the personal resources to finance their healthcare.)
In some way, of course, my statement is so obvious as to be vacuous. You can't have a completely rational society without completely rational members, and to be rational you have to be healthy - otherwise your capacity to think and to make decisions is limited. But this fact explains why nationalised health is essential to all rational societies.
The West today has the resources and the knowledge to implement comprehensive state healthcare systems, which means implementation is a choice. A society can therefore have its morality judged on the choice it makes. Centuries ago, many societies had neither the knowledge nor the resources to implement comprehensive state healthcare, so there was no choice to do so. The morality of the society could thus not be so judged. (Although certain societies were sufficiently organised and knowledgeable that some progress could be made - see e.g. the holistic approach of Ancient Greece.)
Is a society which is entertained not more healthy than one which is not?
Which sort of entertainment is being denied in such a way as to disadvantage the vulnerable? If you're arguing for the right to gather or to roam or to borrow/study/reproduce cultural works, then yes, these are all things guaranteed to varying degrees by modern Western societies.
How about a society where everyone has clothing? Surely, if we wish to be moral, functioning, and rational, we can't have half-naked
Clothing is only needed to the extent to which it keeps you healthy - the rest is just religious taboo and a rational society does not worry whether people walk around with their cocks hanging out. People who lack the means to buy clothing are, in all civilised nations, either granted clothing or given an allowance which is set to cover essentials such as clothing (and food).
The theme is consistent: protect the vulnerable by doing what is sufficient to maintain their health so they may pursue what is rational and productive.
Nonsense. Health is absolutely a choice.
The decision for an already sufficiently healthy individual (good luck if you're psychotic!) to attempt to pursue health is a choice. But the only acceptable position for any functioning, rational, moral society is for its members to be healthy.. This means everyone in such a society, subject to a burden determined both by the state of the art in medicine and the resources available from that society, must be provided with the means to be healthy.
Meanwhile, a society which functions based on inequalities in health is exploitative, non-productive and immoral.
Recall that the only form of free trade which has come close to demonstrating a moral basis is one in which individuals are acting in a rational, informed, voluntary manner. Ill people cannot do this.
A person who smokes, drinks, and injects himself with heroin obviously places a lower value on health than does a vegan Buddhist tai-chi practitioner.
A drug addict "obviously" is addicted and doesn't have the faculty to make a rational, informed decision. See above. And veganism can be practiced healthily or unhealthily - unlike vegetarianism, it's quite hard to do right. Of course, in a rational society, nutrition advice and - where necessary - individual assistance is made accessible to all people. Because the best way to harm yourself over time is to eat badly, here's a really cheap way to serve that ounce of prevention. My local surgery gave me a great few sessions with a nutritionist when I decided to become vegan, for example :-).
A person who decides to spend $500,000 to get the absolute best doctor in the world obviously care more about his odds of survival than does a guy who will only spent $50.
There is no "absolute best doctor in the world" and the best doctors generally don't drop everything just because some rich diva wants to pay them a lot of money.. And I contend that the guy "who will only spent $50" is a strawman - it's always the guy who can only afford $50.
Life is ALL about choices, and death is a natural consequence of life.
Vacuous soundbites are a natural consequence of arguing on the Internet.
I don't need a government dictating how I live or how I'll die.
That's true - hey, you don't need to live either. Until you've stated your premises, you're just a meaningless bag of chemicals.
But someone'll set up a government anyway, so you either demonstrate some willingness to cooperate for the benefit of society or soon someone'll take away all your choices.
Ditto. You don't like the way I organize my society? Go away. Move to China. The workers paradise will take great care of all your needs.
Eh? My country of residence is very pro-state-healthcare and we have a national health service. Why do I need to go anywhere?
And China's as much as worker's paradise as the US is a capitalist's free market.
Which is your society, exactly? Your posting history suggests that either you're either a hypocrite or you live in Somalia.
A social democracy looks after the vulnerable.
A man who is homeless and unable to support himself through disability (other vulnerable categories are also eligible) is provided with housing under a legal duty of care assigned to local authorities in the UK. If he has wealth then he may be required to contribute once stable arrangements have been made.
A man who is homeless but who has health but not wealth is not as vulnerable, so has access to free advice and a limited allowance toward his own housing arrangements. But he is not given housing outright because he can look after himself to some extent.
A man who is homeless but who has health and wealth is eligible for advice but, because of his health and wealth, will not be provided housing or an allowance toward housing. He can choose to live in a house, in a hotel, in a tent, etc.
Sick and disabled people are vulnerable, so the NHS provides healthcare to all sick and disabled people. A sick human is a sick human, and his treatment needs apply regardless of health or wealth.
tl;dr Accommodation arrangements are the subject of choice - everyone wants to live in a different way and many different arrangements remain healthy and productive. Health is not the subject of choice - the only option is to be as healthy as possible and the only question is whether the resources are available to monitor and/or treat you.
If you don't like society, you're welcome to live outside of it and hope that - if you try to impose your will in any way beyond living in the hills as a hermit - your mob isn't overrun by the majority. History suggests that it would be, however.
(1) I admit that I had a fairly privileged upbringing, but I have a few schoolfriends who went into medicine. It really doesn't require "an encyclopedic knowledge of all common illnesses and most of the rare ones" - it requires a good knowledge of all common illnesses and some of the rarer ones, with the latter learnt about for exams/practical testing then mostly forgotten about just as in any other field.
The demanding bit is the hazing which occurs at the start of the practical hospital training. You are made to work very long hours and any mistakes you make may retard your career a little but will hurt the patient a lot. The experience reflects one small, occasional part of the responsibilities of the doctor, but those who perform complex procedures and who advance the state of the art in medicine are those who can sit down and thnk, not those who are capable of running around with little sleep. Nurses often have to work in similar conditions, but in their case it's because they're "just nurses" and it's expected of them.
(2) Yes, as with many healthcare workers. I don't know how high it drives standards, though - all doctors make mistakes which reduce the quality of life of their patients, all experienced surgeons have killed patients, etc. The legal minefield problem is evident, but insurance for practitioners is expensive because so much money is paid out, and if so much money is paid out then either (i) doctors are making mistakes all the time or (ii) patients are able to make successful claims with no basis.
(But the people who really get to decide quality of life on a large scale - civil servants and CEOs - are comparatively unqualified and immune!)
Why is healthcare such a rip-off? In nationalised healthcare systems, the doctors get paid insanely high; in private healthcare systems, the doctors get paid insanely high.
We can see from countries like Cuba that doctors aren't the result of educating a rare genius. But for some reason in the Western world we feel the need to artificially constrain their supply, take them through a hazing ritual to make them cynical about their patients, then treat them like gods.
Let's return medicine to what it started as in Greece: a calling to care for the sick. Let it be a thoroughly secure vocation for permanent healthcare workers, where there is an understanding of difficulties on both sides - not one solved by high price doctors, lawyers, insurance, third party agencies and miscellaneous bureaucracy (public or private).
I don't care about another iPad clone. Any rumours on the next e-ink device? E-ink are doing some moderately interesting things with a colour filter in front of the display, so I guess it's possible they'll adopt that. But no-one's talking about it.
Brucey, except to his face.
But you're not in the only Blue Book I can still find, so either we're not contemporaneous or there's more than one monastic Scottish Latin teacher angry at the English :-).
I'd expect a bytesexual to use octal. Less's the pity.
Yeah, much of what he said was entirely warranted. His speech on English false modesty stuck with me more than anything. But I cursed myself for not having had the prescience to set up a timed launch of The Skye Boat Song.
He's a monk now... sometimes I wish I were too.
Unfortunately, I don't have a degree and decades of experience in all of agriculture, construction, medicine, finance, law and science, so I sometimes need other people to do my thinking for me. I commend you and envy you slightly for having the capacity to do it all yourself.
Ten is good (Score:2)
by bytesex (112972)
8 in decimal?
Many years ago I was one of the few carrying a PDA to every class - a Psion Series 3a.
I had it confiscated once: for using the internal speaker to stand to the British national anthem when my Scottish Latin teacher went on another of his hilarious anti-English tirades. He deserved it. I deserved it.
But as long as I only used it for schoolwork while in the classroom, everyone was happy.
Do kids at your school only use their 'phones for schoolwork while in the classroom?
The fact that Google is the most successful Interweb company on the planet and it achieved that by being a targeted ad broker allows us to conclude that, yes, we are really that stupid.
In a world full of distractions increasingly hard to block out, Google's job is to effectively deliver distractions. If you can't see anything wrong with regulating that, well, welcome to society - people like to make their life less hellish and that sometimes means cooperation.