You say: "...but they had to go talking about how technical degrees are the same as technical vocational programs."
I said: "A program in electrical engineering will have very similar concepts taught to a vocational series on becoming an electrician, but the two final products (the more-educated individual) are competent in two very different fields."
Note: "same" =/= "two very different fields"
You also said: "I am trying to knock people with liberal arts degrees that spout off about technical things. " and "I could gotten the education I was looking for in more like 3 years if I wasn't forced to take all the underwater basket weaving classes"... which makes you sound dumb. And that's honestly disappointing because aside from your obvious disdain for the areas of education that aim to create a better society, I agree with your sentiments.
I think tech (vocational) colleges should be part of a solution in creating a more utilitarian educational system. We shouldn't force students through high school and then tell them that their only realistic option to career success is to attend a university focusing on academia-- because academia doesn't prepare people for life in a workforce. But, as you say, the prospect of reputable vocational colleges isn't high.
While I don't have hard numbers, Ivy League colleges have massive trust funds from which they pull the money to partially or completely fund (via grants and scholarships) student education. That's why some people find it cheaper to go to a private school-- they can offer more money from their own coffers.
Also, it's not just loans (which must be paid), the government grants (need-based hand-outs) are sucked up by the for-profits even quicker.
No, the problem is not flatly "government guaranteed loans", but the predatory for-profit schools who have mastered the acquisition of government-basked student aid (grants and loans). They will accept anyone and inflate their expectations just so they can enroll them in classes (without care for the quality of the classes or the education actually received) so that they can receive government funds through the student.
Oh, please don't call it "faith" on your part. It stops being faith when you have "reason to trust". Faith and belief are blind. Trust is skeptical and can change.
When you see a paper from Scientist Barnaby from Oxford University and a conflicting paper from the Jesus Now! Journal of Anthropology, your bias against faith-based science may come out and you may, thus, immediately assume that the Oxford paper is more likely to be correct. But that's not faith in Oxford University on your part. You *trust* Oxford because of your knowledge and experience of the academic standards held there are significantly greater than the Jesus Now! That experience, logic, help you to form hypothesis. It's quick, it's decisive, and its prejudicial, but it's not faith.
Just the same, if you research Catholicism and find that they're miracles are most believable, that they're interpretation of dead sea scrolls are most accurate, and as a result, you decide to worship God in the Catholic tradition as a means to prevent fiery damnation and to increase the probability of an eternal state of grace, you're still not being faithful. You're hedging a bet.
Faith is the complete absence of the need of probably- or genuinely-correct information. It is belief without reason or NEED for reason.
* CEOs of for-profit colleges receive up to 26 times the amount of pay that the heads of traditional universities do.
* Many of the schools make up to ninety percent of their revenue from U.S. taxpayers, through the Pell Grants, Stafford Loans, and other federal assistance used by their students. 91.5 percent of Kaplan's revenue comes from the government, along with 88 percent revenue at the University of Phoenix.
* Just 11 percent of higher education students in the country attend for-profit schools, yet they account for 26 percent of federal student loans and 44 percent of student loan defaults.
Liberal Arts programs aren't there to help people make money. In fact, most university degrees weren't (and shouldn't be) designed to create workforce-ready individuals. They exist to create intelligent, educated people who are capable of learning even more after they graduate and putting that knowledge to use in improving life on Earth. (Mileage varies.). The modern Liberal Arts (History, Language, Literature, Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology, Philosophy, etc.) are there to explore humanity for what it was, what it is, and in an effort to prevent past mistakes from repeating themselves.
Ya, that sounds "high fa-lootin'", but that's why universities exist and that's why the curriculum is as it is. It's idealist in that its purpose is to make a better (interpretable) world just by giving people information and teaching them how to analyze and act on it.
Vocational training is completely different. DeVry and ITT Tech (for-profit, vocational colleges) may genuinely offer more reliable, quicker means to getting a well-paying position than a State University liberal arts degree, but they, again, do to different things. DeVry can teach you how to become an electrician's apprentice after which you learn a bunch of skills and make money in the future. Cool. The liberal arts degree can help you understand the world around you. It all depends who you are and what you want from life.
It's also worth noting that there are some very close overlaps between vocational schooling and university training. For example, nursing schools train their students along very similar lines of master's degrees in biology, but just with less expectation of in-depth knowledge and a greater focus on responsibility and accountability. A program in electrical engineering will have very similar concepts taught to a vocational series on becoming an electrician, but the two final products (the more-educated individual) are competent in two very different fields.
There are even certain fields where subjects outright overlap in their academic and vocational training: Teacher training vs. academic studies in Education, Business, Accounting vs. Economics, etc.
The air traffic control system is neither "safe" nor "not safe". It's impossible to be completely safe and the current system is definitely better than a worse system.
What they should say is, "... is not safe enough for X." where X can equal "the amount of money we put into it", "modern standards", or "the pilots and passengers".
The instruments will have information and do analysis in a couple seconds. The information will then have to be verified, sent out to communication distributors (by cell/satellite or internet), received, read, redistributed (word of mouth from those actually plugged in to the system) and then action taken to prevent injury. That's 30-45 seconds easy and only assumes 1 major distribution hop. If it's sent to my university's Text-Message alert system, that's another 3-5 minutes depending on human speed and cell carriers.
And even still, is it best to alert people of the smaller quakes? Would that incite panic as people stampede down staircases to get out of buildings? Yes, you're supposed to duck-and-cover upon alert, but let's be realistic-- People would rather be outside. If they get a heads up, they're heading away from buildings.
Tablets are too expensive. I have the money, now, to buy one, but I'm not doing so because of price is higher than I want to pay.
Why are they too expensive?
There are unavoidable costs like R&D and the cost of the newest/lightest/thinest hardware.
There are avoidable costs, also, like massive marketing campaigns and the cost of the most powerful new/thin/light hardware.
I mention *power* in particular because it seems as though the tablet-interested industry seems to believe that potential tablet buyers want a hand-held desktop PC. But to the best of my understanding, we don't. We really just want a netbook made into a tablet that has sufficient power to burden streaming Flash movies and Google Maps. Those are obviously not the only things a tablet will be used for, but they are the benchmarks.
The ability to watch 1080p movies full screen without lag is not a priority for many. Most people have televisions, desktop computers, projectors, and/or laptops to fill that entertainment need. And an incredible number just don't give a damn about 1080p video! I sure don't!
What a tablet PC needs: --A moddable UI (I want thin wire frames and text... no iGraphics) --A MicroSD slot --2-3 USB slots --8-30GB SSD (user-replaceable) --2x RAM slots with max 4GB RAM (user-replaceable) --3-hour intense-usage battery life, 5 hours just web-surfing without video/HQ Graphics, 10+ hours in e-book mode. (battery must be user-replaceable) --9-12" diagonal screen --A decent touchscreen keyboard program --A processor that plays flash video and displays zooming functions in Google Maps sufficiently, but not one that will break the bank. --Wireless Networking (WiFi) --Foresightful cooling (like optional screw-in external heatsinks) --No contracts --3.5mm Microphone-in, 3.5mm sound-out --External, manual volume control (not software-controlled) --External, manual brightness control (not software-controlled)
Those things are needed... here are the extras that drive up the cost and should be offered away from the base model:
--3/4G Connectivity --Larger stock SSD --More stock RAM --More-powerful processor --Front-facing Camera --Rear-facing Camera
In a perfect world, my tablet would also run Ubuntu with a tablet-specific UI flawlessly, but the world's not perfect.
... so come out with it immediately, fess up, apologize, and make a vocal effort to prevent such an error from being made in the future... AND THEN brag about your success.
Always admit your failures and shortcomings first that way it doesn't look like you're hiding them. This is A+, #1 advice for PR in the digital world.
"The bill would clarify US law by saying it is an act of espionage to publish the protected names of American intelligence sources who collaborate with the US military or intelligence community."
Ya, ok... but if, say, the US Gov't was approached with the opportunity to redact any/all of the names that should be protected but refrained from doing so would they be complicit in the final action? Would they hold some blame?
I really like google, but I don't like the idea of associating SO much with my online google identity. I've still not "linked" my youtube and gmail accounts. I have a Google Checkout account, but only because I trust them more than I other companies like Buy.com and don't want to bother creating a Buy.com account.
The part that strikes conflict in me is having entertainment and education video associated with my google account. That alone is enough to extrapolate any political leanings, sexual preference, likely circle of friends, etc...
Summary of realms I keep separate online: Gaming Video Entertainment Buying Habits Career/Work Tech Communities Humor Communities
I would really prefer to keep all that separate and Google's not making it easy.
This would be REALLY cool if I could trust most or even the small portion of websites I visit regularly to refrain from making obnoxiously long page and sections titles or just finding ways to exploit my browser so that I have to view their content so they can get more ad revenue.
Note that I love and support the free internet by means of advertising revenue. I don't even mind my browser sessions being tracked so long as they're not connected together to create a profile of me. But this seems like yet another way for web design to be used as a tool for hyper-desperate website owners for the purpose of being in your face as much as possible, not just "as much as you want".
Lastly, they're not doing their ideas service by immediately pandering to the Facebook/Twitter crowd-- at least for me and people like me who hate the exhibitionist side of "Web 2.0". Show me how slashdot, newegg, google news, and other more informative sites will be represented and you'd at least have a chance of winning me over.
Re:Wow, that would be redonkulously profitable.
on
AMD Sale to Dell Rumored
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I considered such ratios when building my latest low-power machine... until I figured out that with the focus of "low-power", most of the time, it's just a wattage ceiling that I need, not a strong ratio. Once I realized that, it was just a filtering job of:
hide all processors over 65w hide all processors with one core hide all processors over $125 (I'm a budget builder)
Within that group, find the best relative computing power.
My partner works at the math department at our university. They're currently recruiting 2x faculty for tenure track. If you can get the grants, you can get tenure.
"Academics very often simply have a completely different view of money and status."
In my experience, this is not entirely true. Professors at my university all seek constant advancement (read: raises) and act as though they ascend to another class strata with their advancing salaries. Sure, they enter the process as open-minded PhDs begging for associate professorships, but boy do they gets egos quick!
I think the big difference between their kind and those in private R&D is that professors know that a university lab is going to allow them more freedom and less requirement for tangible products so long as they keep publishing academic papers. The potential for tenure is also a massive draw.
As to the comment on whether or not they could hack it, well, I doubt they could in private industry (at least those I know well). They are just too needy and spoiled.
"Rather than legislating mandatory insurance, we need to focus on addressing the cost of health care directly."
I agree that the problem is the COST of HEALTHCARE, but the theory behind mandatory health care is that once everyone buys in, everyone can act as a single body (union) to demand lower costs.
It's not a perfect theory, but that's what it is nonetheless.
Japan takes it a step further. The government outright sets the costs of medical services and as a practicing doctor, you're not allowed to charge more. That means it's up to the doctors or conglomerates to be as efficient and effective as possible. For that reason, MRIs, while used as an excuse for massive charges in the USA, cost about $100 over there.
Another way to look at it is to consider all the players:
1) Medical research companies (Make stuff to use on patients) 2) Doctors (provide care) 3) Insurance companies (arrange for patients to meet with doctors, distribute large costs) 4) Patients (need care)
Next, rank who is most important in the final transaction and make sure that the balance of benefits received from the transactions are distributed appropriately.
1) Patients (without them, there is no need for the system) 2) Doctors (they are the actual providers of care) 3) Medical research companies (further research = better care) 4) Insurance companies (they're just middle-men)
Once you have your priorities straight, you can mandate allowable prices. And yes, setting price maximums is rational even in a "free market" because humans tend to treat health as an inelastic commodity and thus, to protect access to health care (general welfare, etc.), the government should put price ceilings into effect.
I'm not someone that wants or needs to be connected at all times, so I'm not shelling out top dollar for the newest smartphone, I'm declining one being offered to me at work, and I'm just buying whichever Qwerty-enabled phone my carrier offers at a discount when my contract is up.
I think a phone should have the following: (1) A phone/SMS messager with QWERTY button keyboard (2) A still-shot camera (3) An MP3 Player (4) MicroSD card slot (5) Simple interface (no amazing animations, video games, or attempts to connect to the internet)
Those are the only things I feel like I need with me. I don't need to jump online to find whatever or to use facespace, mybook, or tooter to keep in contact with people. I use instant messages, texts, or just speak to the person. I also don't want to shell out silly amounts of money for a data plan.
Lastly, I think that if a phone were to be made to my specifications, it could keep the size of current dumb phones and be able to fit in a separate battery for the MP3 player so that I could listen to my music until that battery dies and not screw myself over by killing my phone.
It's cultural, is it not? The value of metaphor and acceptance of history as a window to the future really determines just how people will react to stories.
Just ask any philosopher who has studied his evolutionary philosophy or moral relativity.
--Conversation-- TOPIC (1) Should we? (within ethics, morals, etc.) (2) Could we? (within policy, law, etc.) (3) How would we? (within constraints of time, money, and complexity)
--Thought Exercise-- We did. Now predict: (1) Reaction to existence of tool. (2) Reaction to use of tool. (3) Potential effect of tool. (4) Balance of gains and losses for existence and use of tool.
And the moment someone says something hyperbolic like "immeasurable" or "must", that person is thrown out of the discussion. Most people who say "immeasurable" actually mean "it's too hard for me to actually run scenarios in my head and thus it must be impossible."
If you skip the "should" and "could" and just go straight to "how would", you're effectively giving the green light for something. Someone will work up a prototype and the situation will magically arise when the tool would be arguably useful. It would then be used and everyone involved will be damned by public opinion for not thinking it through.
Slashdot Mirror
Because humans are fallible and can't comprehend as many variables as a computer. It's that lack of perfection that makes games great.
I think you misread some of what I wrote.
You say:
"...but they had to go talking about how technical degrees are the same as technical vocational programs."
I said:
"A program in electrical engineering will have very similar concepts taught to a vocational series on becoming an electrician, but the two final products (the more-educated individual) are competent in two very different fields."
Note: "same" =/= "two very different fields"
You also said: ... which makes you sound dumb. And that's honestly disappointing because aside from your obvious disdain for the areas of education that aim to create a better society, I agree with your sentiments.
"I am trying to knock people with liberal arts degrees that spout off about technical things. " and "I could gotten the education I was looking for in more like 3 years if I wasn't forced to take all the underwater basket weaving classes"
I think tech (vocational) colleges should be part of a solution in creating a more utilitarian educational system. We shouldn't force students through high school and then tell them that their only realistic option to career success is to attend a university focusing on academia-- because academia doesn't prepare people for life in a workforce. But, as you say, the prospect of reputable vocational colleges isn't high.
While I don't have hard numbers, Ivy League colleges have massive trust funds from which they pull the money to partially or completely fund (via grants and scholarships) student education. That's why some people find it cheaper to go to a private school-- they can offer more money from their own coffers.
Also, it's not just loans (which must be paid), the government grants (need-based hand-outs) are sucked up by the for-profits even quicker.
No, the problem is not flatly "government guaranteed loans", but the predatory for-profit schools who have mastered the acquisition of government-basked student aid (grants and loans). They will accept anyone and inflate their expectations just so they can enroll them in classes (without care for the quality of the classes or the education actually received) so that they can receive government funds through the student.
Oh, please don't call it "faith" on your part. It stops being faith when you have "reason to trust". Faith and belief are blind. Trust is skeptical and can change.
When you see a paper from Scientist Barnaby from Oxford University and a conflicting paper from the Jesus Now! Journal of Anthropology, your bias against faith-based science may come out and you may, thus, immediately assume that the Oxford paper is more likely to be correct. But that's not faith in Oxford University on your part. You *trust* Oxford because of your knowledge and experience of the academic standards held there are significantly greater than the Jesus Now! That experience, logic, help you to form hypothesis. It's quick, it's decisive, and its prejudicial, but it's not faith.
Just the same, if you research Catholicism and find that they're miracles are most believable, that they're interpretation of dead sea scrolls are most accurate, and as a result, you decide to worship God in the Catholic tradition as a means to prevent fiery damnation and to increase the probability of an eternal state of grace, you're still not being faithful. You're hedging a bet.
Faith is the complete absence of the need of probably- or genuinely-correct information. It is belief without reason or NEED for reason.
http://www.thinkprogress.org/2011/02/04/for-profits-data/
* CEOs of for-profit colleges receive up to 26 times the amount of pay that the heads of traditional universities do.
* Many of the schools make up to ninety percent of their revenue from U.S. taxpayers, through the Pell Grants, Stafford Loans, and other federal assistance used by their students. 91.5 percent of Kaplan's revenue comes from the government, along with 88 percent revenue at the University of Phoenix.
* Just 11 percent of higher education students in the country attend for-profit schools, yet they account for 26 percent of federal student loans and 44 percent of student loan defaults.
Liberal Arts programs aren't there to help people make money. In fact, most university degrees weren't (and shouldn't be) designed to create workforce-ready individuals. They exist to create intelligent, educated people who are capable of learning even more after they graduate and putting that knowledge to use in improving life on Earth. (Mileage varies.). The modern Liberal Arts (History, Language, Literature, Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology, Philosophy, etc.) are there to explore humanity for what it was, what it is, and in an effort to prevent past mistakes from repeating themselves.
Ya, that sounds "high fa-lootin'", but that's why universities exist and that's why the curriculum is as it is. It's idealist in that its purpose is to make a better (interpretable) world just by giving people information and teaching them how to analyze and act on it.
Vocational training is completely different. DeVry and ITT Tech (for-profit, vocational colleges) may genuinely offer more reliable, quicker means to getting a well-paying position than a State University liberal arts degree, but they, again, do to different things. DeVry can teach you how to become an electrician's apprentice after which you learn a bunch of skills and make money in the future. Cool. The liberal arts degree can help you understand the world around you. It all depends who you are and what you want from life.
It's also worth noting that there are some very close overlaps between vocational schooling and university training. For example, nursing schools train their students along very similar lines of master's degrees in biology, but just with less expectation of in-depth knowledge and a greater focus on responsibility and accountability. A program in electrical engineering will have very similar concepts taught to a vocational series on becoming an electrician, but the two final products (the more-educated individual) are competent in two very different fields.
There are even certain fields where subjects outright overlap in their academic and vocational training: Teacher training vs. academic studies in Education, Business, Accounting vs. Economics, etc.
Or to narrow a search on a forum-posted bomb threat.
I have no problem with peoples' identities being sought out in direct relations to a crime or genuine/serious threat.
The air traffic control system is neither "safe" nor "not safe". It's impossible to be completely safe and the current system is definitely better than a worse system.
What they should say is, "... is not safe enough for X." where X can equal "the amount of money we put into it", "modern standards", or "the pilots and passengers".
Adoption of open formats. That and money are the #1 things any open source community can get from Microsoft.
The instruments will have information and do analysis in a couple seconds. The information will then have to be verified, sent out to communication distributors (by cell/satellite or internet), received, read, redistributed (word of mouth from those actually plugged in to the system) and then action taken to prevent injury. That's 30-45 seconds easy and only assumes 1 major distribution hop. If it's sent to my university's Text-Message alert system, that's another 3-5 minutes depending on human speed and cell carriers.
And even still, is it best to alert people of the smaller quakes? Would that incite panic as people stampede down staircases to get out of buildings? Yes, you're supposed to duck-and-cover upon alert, but let's be realistic-- People would rather be outside. If they get a heads up, they're heading away from buildings.
Tablets are too expensive. I have the money, now, to buy one, but I'm not doing so because of price is higher than I want to pay.
Why are they too expensive?
There are unavoidable costs like R&D and the cost of the newest/lightest/thinest hardware.
There are avoidable costs, also, like massive marketing campaigns and the cost of the most powerful new/thin/light hardware.
I mention *power* in particular because it seems as though the tablet-interested industry seems to believe that potential tablet buyers want a hand-held desktop PC. But to the best of my understanding, we don't. We really just want a netbook made into a tablet that has sufficient power to burden streaming Flash movies and Google Maps. Those are obviously not the only things a tablet will be used for, but they are the benchmarks.
The ability to watch 1080p movies full screen without lag is not a priority for many. Most people have televisions, desktop computers, projectors, and/or laptops to fill that entertainment need. And an incredible number just don't give a damn about 1080p video! I sure don't!
What a tablet PC needs:
--A moddable UI (I want thin wire frames and text... no iGraphics)
--A MicroSD slot
--2-3 USB slots
--8-30GB SSD (user-replaceable)
--2x RAM slots with max 4GB RAM (user-replaceable)
--3-hour intense-usage battery life, 5 hours just web-surfing without video/HQ Graphics, 10+ hours in e-book mode. (battery must be user-replaceable)
--9-12" diagonal screen
--A decent touchscreen keyboard program
--A processor that plays flash video and displays zooming functions in Google Maps sufficiently, but not one that will break the bank.
--Wireless Networking (WiFi)
--Foresightful cooling (like optional screw-in external heatsinks)
--No contracts
--3.5mm Microphone-in, 3.5mm sound-out
--External, manual volume control (not software-controlled)
--External, manual brightness control (not software-controlled)
Those things are needed... here are the extras that drive up the cost and should be offered away from the base model:
--3/4G Connectivity
--Larger stock SSD
--More stock RAM
--More-powerful processor
--Front-facing Camera
--Rear-facing Camera
In a perfect world, my tablet would also run Ubuntu with a tablet-specific UI flawlessly, but the world's not perfect.
... so come out with it immediately, fess up, apologize, and make a vocal effort to prevent such an error from being made in the future... AND THEN brag about your success.
Always admit your failures and shortcomings first that way it doesn't look like you're hiding them. This is A+, #1 advice for PR in the digital world.
and it's free!
"The bill would clarify US law by saying it is an act of espionage to publish the protected names of American intelligence sources who collaborate with the US military or intelligence community."
Ya, ok... but if, say, the US Gov't was approached with the opportunity to redact any/all of the names that should be protected but refrained from doing so would they be complicit in the final action? Would they hold some blame?
I really like google, but I don't like the idea of associating SO much with my online google identity. I've still not "linked" my youtube and gmail accounts. I have a Google Checkout account, but only because I trust them more than I other companies like Buy.com and don't want to bother creating a Buy.com account.
The part that strikes conflict in me is having entertainment and education video associated with my google account. That alone is enough to extrapolate any political leanings, sexual preference, likely circle of friends, etc...
Summary of realms I keep separate online:
Gaming
Video Entertainment
Buying Habits
Career/Work
Tech Communities
Humor Communities
I would really prefer to keep all that separate and Google's not making it easy.
This would be REALLY cool if I could trust most or even the small portion of websites I visit regularly to refrain from making obnoxiously long page and sections titles or just finding ways to exploit my browser so that I have to view their content so they can get more ad revenue.
Note that I love and support the free internet by means of advertising revenue. I don't even mind my browser sessions being tracked so long as they're not connected together to create a profile of me. But this seems like yet another way for web design to be used as a tool for hyper-desperate website owners for the purpose of being in your face as much as possible, not just "as much as you want".
Lastly, they're not doing their ideas service by immediately pandering to the Facebook/Twitter crowd-- at least for me and people like me who hate the exhibitionist side of "Web 2.0". Show me how slashdot, newegg, google news, and other more informative sites will be represented and you'd at least have a chance of winning me over.
I considered such ratios when building my latest low-power machine... until I figured out that with the focus of "low-power", most of the time, it's just a wattage ceiling that I need, not a strong ratio. Once I realized that, it was just a filtering job of:
hide all processors over 65w
hide all processors with one core
hide all processors over $125 (I'm a budget builder)
Within that group, find the best relative computing power.
My partner works at the math department at our university. They're currently recruiting 2x faculty for tenure track. If you can get the grants, you can get tenure.
No... the comparison is between research professors and private industry researchers. Bankers have nothing to do with it.
"Academics very often simply have a completely different view of money and status."
In my experience, this is not entirely true. Professors at my university all seek constant advancement (read: raises) and act as though they ascend to another class strata with their advancing salaries. Sure, they enter the process as open-minded PhDs begging for associate professorships, but boy do they gets egos quick!
I think the big difference between their kind and those in private R&D is that professors know that a university lab is going to allow them more freedom and less requirement for tangible products so long as they keep publishing academic papers. The potential for tenure is also a massive draw.
As to the comment on whether or not they could hack it, well, I doubt they could in private industry (at least those I know well). They are just too needy and spoiled.
Subtle attacks of any type organized on a large scale can hurt anything.
"Rather than legislating mandatory insurance, we need to focus on addressing the cost of health care directly."
I agree that the problem is the COST of HEALTHCARE, but the theory behind mandatory health care is that once everyone buys in, everyone can act as a single body (union) to demand lower costs.
It's not a perfect theory, but that's what it is nonetheless.
Japan takes it a step further. The government outright sets the costs of medical services and as a practicing doctor, you're not allowed to charge more. That means it's up to the doctors or conglomerates to be as efficient and effective as possible. For that reason, MRIs, while used as an excuse for massive charges in the USA, cost about $100 over there.
Another way to look at it is to consider all the players:
1) Medical research companies (Make stuff to use on patients)
2) Doctors (provide care)
3) Insurance companies (arrange for patients to meet with doctors, distribute large costs)
4) Patients (need care)
Next, rank who is most important in the final transaction and make sure that the balance of benefits received from the transactions are distributed appropriately.
1) Patients (without them, there is no need for the system)
2) Doctors (they are the actual providers of care)
3) Medical research companies (further research = better care)
4) Insurance companies (they're just middle-men)
Once you have your priorities straight, you can mandate allowable prices. And yes, setting price maximums is rational even in a "free market" because humans tend to treat health as an inelastic commodity and thus, to protect access to health care (general welfare, etc.), the government should put price ceilings into effect.
I'm not someone that wants or needs to be connected at all times, so I'm not shelling out top dollar for the newest smartphone, I'm declining one being offered to me at work, and I'm just buying whichever Qwerty-enabled phone my carrier offers at a discount when my contract is up.
I think a phone should have the following:
(1) A phone/SMS messager with QWERTY button keyboard
(2) A still-shot camera
(3) An MP3 Player
(4) MicroSD card slot
(5) Simple interface (no amazing animations, video games, or attempts to connect to the internet)
Those are the only things I feel like I need with me. I don't need to jump online to find whatever or to use facespace, mybook, or tooter to keep in contact with people. I use instant messages, texts, or just speak to the person. I also don't want to shell out silly amounts of money for a data plan.
Lastly, I think that if a phone were to be made to my specifications, it could keep the size of current dumb phones and be able to fit in a separate battery for the MP3 player so that I could listen to my music until that battery dies and not screw myself over by killing my phone.
It's cultural, is it not? The value of metaphor and acceptance of history as a window to the future really determines just how people will react to stories.
Just ask any philosopher who has studied his evolutionary philosophy or moral relativity.
--Conversation--
TOPIC
(1) Should we? (within ethics, morals, etc.)
(2) Could we? (within policy, law, etc.)
(3) How would we? (within constraints of time, money, and complexity)
--Thought Exercise--
We did. Now predict:
(1) Reaction to existence of tool.
(2) Reaction to use of tool.
(3) Potential effect of tool.
(4) Balance of gains and losses for existence and use of tool.
And the moment someone says something hyperbolic like "immeasurable" or "must", that person is thrown out of the discussion. Most people who say "immeasurable" actually mean "it's too hard for me to actually run scenarios in my head and thus it must be impossible."
If you skip the "should" and "could" and just go straight to "how would", you're effectively giving the green light for something. Someone will work up a prototype and the situation will magically arise when the tool would be arguably useful. It would then be used and everyone involved will be damned by public opinion for not thinking it through.