I feel that "God" (or "god") is a generic term. The definition "ultimate reality" was taken directly from the merriam webster dictionary, so I really don't feel bad about using it to support my ideas.
That's fine, but remember that we won't know what definition your using if you don't tell us. If you had said "God, in the sense of something outside the universe as understood by current science", you would have gotten a lot less flack, and I would have spent my time explaining to both sides what the other person was talking about. Even better, if you had just said "something outside of our universe" or "something we don't understand yet", most likely nobody would have hassled you at all.
As far as there being people that say those things, my previous posts on the subject have been met with derision and mod-down.
People tend to be blunt online, and it's hard to say something like "did you really mean to say X, or did you mean it in a different way?" in a reply, or before modding. Also, first impressions are even more important online than in real life, so you have to make your first entry very clear, even if that means being rather verbose. Plus, slashdot has its own, quirky culture...
If I can re-phrase my views using terms that are acceptable, I can communicate a lot better on the subject.
That's great! "Why don't people acknowledge that there could be a God?" sounds like a Jesus freak out to change people's religion and insult atheists. "Couldn't there be something outside of our universe as we currently understand it?" sounds like you're trying to start a conversation with equals on a philosophical topic. Even if the intent behind both statements was the same, they are going to be treated in very different ways by readers. When you understand why, I think you'll have a much better time here.
My analogy actually works out more like this. "Which is more likely, someone killed him, or nobody?" The someone would then be the "murderer". If the result is "murder" then the entity that caused the result is the "murderer", regardless of their nature or identity.
[sarcasm] And by "John" I meant "John Doe" - I wasn't accusing a person called John, I was just stating that a person had done it. [/sarcasm]
And that's exactly how BS your post appears to be. From my perspective, you made an honest attempt at an argument, but it turned out to have some holes in it. There's no shame in that, but you keep trying to rework your argument, apparently so you can still think that you "weren't wrong".
The most important thing you can do in the future is to look more carefully at how other people are going to interpret your argument. If you mean "ultimate reality of any kind", don't use the word "god" (which is primarily religious), don't capitalize it (that makes it more specific, not less), and don't suggest that there are lots of people that don't believe in it or that are saying that science disproves it (because not many people are going to argue that there isn't some ultimate reality).
It's shifted business from a "we can't, we'll get slapped" stance to a "we're gonna go ahead and do it - prove us wrong, we dare ya!" stance.
Oh my God! It treats people as innocent until proven guilty - the world's gonna end!!!
You do have good points about weak enforcement, but making a whole business practice illigal because it's sometimes abused is a bit excessive. VCRs can be used to violate copyright, but because they have a "substantial, non-infringing use", the SC says that's not sufficient reason to hold VCR manufacturers liable for infringing copyright. For the same reason, just because minimum price requirements can be used anti-competitively, we still can't assume that all of them are being used for that purpose.
The scientific approach would be to accept the evidence for what it shows
Right. Your argument would suggest that the universe had a cause - but that's it. When you slip the word "God" in you're making your argument too specific - the cause could be natural, more than one entity, a mortal being in a higher plane, or a group of MMORPGers with advanced technology. But with "God" comes the idea of intelligence, purpose, and qualities best described as supernatural. To borrow your analogy, it's if someone was murdered, and asking "Which is more likely, John killed him, or nobody?" while ignoring 5000 more likely suspects, and expecting everybody else to ignore them, too.
But somehow taking a scientific approach to a scientific question is offensive
But that's what the first reply to your argument did - it just looked at the choice you preferred (God did it) and applied the same reasoning you used to God rather than the universe. Then because the existance of God seems doubtful, that choice in your argument doesn't seem much better than any of the others. You can't blow off someone just because he used your own argument against you.
The evidence shows that God could exist.
Anyone with an understanding of philosophy, even the most strident atheist, will admit that the existance of a god is possible, even if they put it in the same catagory as the theory that wer're all living in the Matrix, or that this is all a hallucination. You evidence, on the other hand, doesn't make God's existance any more likely than these possibilities.
I am simply advocating that people accept that possibility and stop claiming that the evidence indicates that he does not exist.
In the same light, you should accept the possibility that we didn't evolve on Earth, but we transplanted here by super-advanced aliens that want us to think we evolved here. From a philosopher's perspective, you're right, both of these are possible. From a scientific perspective, there's no evidence to support either of these over any other theory, and both add huge mountains of complexities when simpler theories will suffice. From that perspective, the fact that we've tried many times to find evidence of God and haven't found it is evidence that suggests that He doesn't exist - and if He doesn't exist, that's the best evidence we should find. If you want a better explanation, look up "null hypothesis".
Barcodes on uneven, randomly curving surfaces (such as skin) aren't machine-readable
I've never had a problem with it.
a barcode tattoo is easy to fake. It's less more efficient to have barcode on your driver's license
It's more efficient to use fingerprints - every employee comes pre-tattooed, and it won't change even after they leave.
I, for one, don't want some creep stalking me 24 hours a day, and am glad about every law which makes it harder for the creep to do so.
I was that paranoid once, and things were great until I realized that my licence plate was a big, obvious, unique identifier - which of course had to go. Then I realized that everyone could see my face, all the time...
Plus, companies can only ask - you can always say "No." and look for a job elsewhere.
So you're wondering how strapping down innocent and completely unwilling people (including children) and tattooing them in order to do a better job of working them to death or killing them is different from someone saying that they're willing to give you money for work if you get an implant, but not if you're unwilling?
I don't care how much you're against this - making that kind of comparison really cheapens the horrors of assembly-line murder.
1- wages can't actually universally increase, they can only seem to. If everyone got paid more, proportionally, then we would simply experience inflation until real wages were the same as they previously were.
That's not quite how it works, but it is pretty close to an idea that is correct. If the only thing that changes is the supply of money, then inflation/deflation will even things out, and the result is no real change. However, if efficiency is improved or people work more then everyone really can end up earning more.
In any case, if this type of thing was tried, it would first occur in areas where security was tight, where wages tend to be higher anyway to compensate for the invasion of privacy caused by thorough background checks and the lower supply of labor for low-risk personel. I don't know why this would be much different.
2- the labor market is actually pretty inelastic: people aren't going to stop wanting jobs, even if there are no jobs that they like, because they need money to stay alive. Thus if every employer implemented RFID people would still take those jobs, because they have no other choices, and wages wouldn't increase. Now some employers might try to get an advantage by not requiring RFID in this situation, but it wouldn't be much of an advantage for employees: what they would do is offer lower salaries, compensated by no RFID implant. Thus employees get screwed either way. So this is good for the business, but not for the workers.
If the labor market was entirely inelastic then all jobs would pay minimum wage and working conditions would never be any better than legally required - which isn't what we see happening. And people do quit their jobs time in order to move to new ones fairly frequently, so there is some elasticity - which is why turnover is such a problem in some industries.
Another point is that the labor market as a whole tends to be inelastic, but there are a huge number of people offering different kinds of jobs, so the labor market for a specific type of job tends to be quite flexible. And while you suggest that all companies might require RFID, some won't do so because it isn't worth it, and others won't because it's good publicity to take a stand against unpopular things.
That's 100% true. [Referring to "only wealth affects medical priorities in the US"] The only way a poor person gets medical care is by going to the emergency room
This is clearly false. Even poor people often have access to insurance though their jobs - so it wouldn't be wealth or income, but ability to pay. Second, Medicare and Medicaid alone cover around 50 million Americans (1/6 of the population). Third, there are a large number of charity/teaching hospitals in the US, along with the fact that Americans give more to charity, per capita, than any other country - much of which goes toward the poor.
Your statements would be equivalent to saying that "only age affects medical priorities in Canada". The Canadian government might not pay for some procedures after age 65, but that's not the only way they can get treatment, nor is it the only thing affecting priorities.
According any same measurement we are way worse then any modern first world country. Study after study points this out but zealots like you have your minds shut to scientific evidence.
I've never stated that US health care is that great, I just don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be. In the mean time, these same studies rank Canadian health care as being rather poor compared to many other countries, but you don't seem to want to face that.
And that's the point I was making - when Americans are unhappy with their country's system, they make movies like 'Sicko', come up with universal insurance schemes, or write about how the government can deregulate so that the free market can do its thing. In contrast, when Canadians are confronted with a flaw in their own system, the response is either denial, an angry diatribe about how much worse the US is, or ad hominems. Every one of your posts has only added new evidence to support my argument.
'from an external viewer's point it takes an infinite amount of time to form an event horizon and, from that external perspective, the clock for the objects falling into the black hole appears to slow down to zero,'
so time will slow down in my frame of reference, and so it will seem that I will never reach the... event horizon
Not quite, time slows down for you in my frame of reference, far from the hole. You always see yourself going through time at the same rate.
But, if I'm outside, far from the effects of the black hole's gravitational field, why would I be affected?
You wouldn't be affected, but the effect the hole has on me (while I'm falling in) will change the way you see me.
In Canada MRI scans are prioritized according to who needs them most urgent (health reasons). In the US MRI scans are prioritized on the ability to pay (wealth reasons).
These are both true statements to a certain extent, but so are the following:
In Canada MRI scans are prioritized on the ability to pay (wealth reasons). In the US MRI scans are prioritized according to who needs them most urgent (health reasons).
In a previous post, you stated "In canada you can get an MRI anytime you want from a private provider if you want to pay." which means that wealth does change the way MRIs are prioritized in Canada. And as I pointed out earlier, need does have a large effect on how patients' cases are prioritized in the US. Emergency room care alone means that wealth is not the only criteria.
If you'd rephrase your thesis as "Money is a larger determining factor in quality of health care in the US than Canada", I'd have to agree. But you seem to want to imply that only wealth affects medical priorities in the US, which is quite clearly false. Unfortunately, you seem to have a deep emotional need to believe that US healthcare is horrid, while Canada's is beyond reproach. So, in your reply, instead of a realization that 30th in the world versus 37th isn't that much to brag about, I expect another brief, simplistic rant. Cheers!
Oh and charities also exist in other countries too.
Who said that there weren't? I'm just pointing out that being poor doesn't automatically bar you from getting care in the US - that's not an opinion, that's a fact. Thus your assertion that being poor means that you must do without is false.
Not even close to being enough to meet demand.
Canada has some similar problems. Also, with only 1/4 as many MRIs and 1/3 as many CT scanners per capita, it isn't surprising that Canada's system is known for its long wait times. Long wait times are a result of not having enought to meet demand.
In June 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General) that Quebec's prohibition against private health insurance for medically necessary services was unconstitutional
Not that this law was the government of a Canadian province trying to keep people from having an alternative to the state-run system. The only reasons I can think of for the law are 1) people might find that a 2-tier system works better and 2) they just hate the idea that the other guy might get faster/better care.
No take it as an admission that you are an ignorant, uninformed fool.
That's it! If you don't have a valid argument, just insult! It's fun and it makes it look like you're 'winning'!
Right - if you're going to die you get to go first, absolutely anywhere.
In the US you can't get an MRI if you are poor unless you show up at the emergency room.
This is false - free clinics, Medicare/Medicade, and lots of charities are there to help. Maybe not as much or as you like, but they are there.
In canada you can get an MRI anytime you want from a private provider if you want to pay.
I was under the impression that private insurance was illegal, and that you couldn't be billed for procedures that the government would have payed for. These seem like they might cause problems if you try to do you own healthcare.
You certainly are uninformed and stupid. I don't know about your evilness but I wouldn't put it past you.
I think we're both ignorant of the other country's system, but I'll still maintain that you're just being stubborn when you ignore the flaws in your own system. The US may be ranked 37, but you're still only 30th - and you still don't think you could learn anything from the 29 ranked higher.
And I'll take your insults as an admission that I have made a good point that you can't rebut.
I wasn't trying to make an argument for libertarianism, I was just pointing out that the obvious solution to the problems in the story tend to lead one toward ideas involving less government.
On the other hand, if you wanted to make government part of the solution, you might have the cats attacking from the outside, and suggest that the mouse government create solutions so that more government looks good. Have them suggest making group holes (pooling their digging efforts to make holes too deep for the cats to reach into) or have mice posted at strategic locations with bells, so that other mice can be warned before they're eaten.
I just found it odd that the story seemed so well designed to move one toward an anti-government position, but it was deliberately written to support socialism. Maybe the quality of their promotional material is the reason that they have trouble politically?
The ending shows Tommy Douglas has faith that someday socialism, which recognizes human rights and dignity, will win over capitalism and the mere pursuit of wealth and power.
Ah, yes. If only the mice would elect orange cats, things would be wonderful. They'll make sure that no evil, selfish mouse make a hole that's any deeper than the others, ensuring that all of the mice have an equal chance of being eaten. And even if they did manage to elect cats that had them use cat-proof holes, it's still assumed that the next batch of cats could change it back whenever they wanted.
From my perspective, this story works even better as a defence of libertarian style thinking - it's not that the cats are doing too much, it's that they can force the mice to do a bunch of things that isn't their right. If the mice could choose the size and shape of their own hole, and the cats weren't allowed to make them change it, then they wouldn't have such a problem.
Here is the way it works. In Canada they triage patients by importance. In the US they triage patients by ability to pay.
That's incorrect. In the US they triage by both importance and ability to pay.
Obviously you are completely ignorant about the canadian system.
You don't seem to know anything about ours, either. Maybe we could compromise and say that France is doing better than either country.
If you can't afford it they you don't get the MRI and the guy who can afford it gets it.
If it's going to kill you, you get first priority in both countries - in the US there are quite a few laws about emergency care, as well as programs to help pay.
Yes it would but that would also mean higher taxes.
You may be different, but this is where most Canadians I know (in person, from interviews, or from articles they've written) go ballistic. I (or the interviewer) suggest that letting rich people pay to get faster (elective) treatment would give Canada more money to buy more machines, doctors, hospitals, etc, thus shortening the wait and improving quality for everyone. Then the Canadian gos off on a rant about how letting some rich person get their knee replaced a day earlier than a homeless guy violates human rights. Then they suggest that I'm insane, evil, and that I should preform unnatural sex acts on myself.
I haven't met an American that really likes our current system, the problem is that half of us want full socialized medicine, while the other half want to change the regulations so that we can at least try a free-market approach. Most people from Europe will accept criticism of their own systems, and are willing to think about trying new ideas. But for some reason, no matter how obvious or serious the flaws that are pointed out, the Canadians I've met won't even consider alternatives.
Thankfully we have doctors around to decide whether the test is needed right away or if it can wait.
Wouldn't it be better to just have enough machines so that doctors don't have to make an educated guess about your health?
They weren't urgent... so I waited a few months. Perhaps it's an alien concept to you, but just because you're *you* doesn't mean you get preferential treatment.
As far as I can tell, he's not asking for preferential treatment, he just wants fast treatment.
This is why no matter how the debate between the free-marketers and the socialists in the US goes, Canada sounds frickin' insane. What seems to matter to you guys isn't how well your system helps the poor, but rather how well it keeps people from getting better-than-average care. You'll give people breast enhancement for free, as long as the rich gal can't pay to get hers done a little faster.
My interpretation of the original post was that even if people chose to from a utopia, they would need some kind of force to keep people from slipping, and thus it wouldn't be a utopia:
Imagine that a group of people willingly form a "free-will utopia". Some people will later change their minds, and some kind of force will have to be used to keep them from limiting others' free will (even if it's just banishing them). The use of force to prevent that also constrains the use of free will. So in the end no society can allow people absolute freedom of choice.
So we can trust the government to decide which gender combinations constitute a marriage, to determine which plants I can smoke, or which dirty pictures I can look at
No, we can't.
but it's going too far to expect the government to support an open, competitive marketplace?
The government doesn't seem to know the difference between a free market and a planned economy, and it also never saw a marketplace it didn't want to regulate.
Libertarianism seems to show up at the oddest times.
Not really - whatever flaws it may have, inconsistency isn't one of them. On the other hand look at your own post - you mock government regulation of a vast number of things, and in the same breath call for it to regulate another area. You might as well call for the government to remain neutral on the subject of religion, except when it comes to the religious views that you espouse.
The creation of the world is the victory of persuasion over force. - Plato
I am interested in how a society where people have to pay for higher education, medical care and so on can be considered fairer.
I am interested in how making you pay for my stuff is considered fairer.
We don't choose our parents, so what if you're unlucky, and your parents can't pay for these things?
Then you find another way. Poverty sucks, but it's easier to fix that than many other burdens that people start life with.
Is it fair that you then don't get them, and start life at a disadvantage?
That's not the question. Is it fairer to let someone keep their unfair head start, or to add more hurdles to whoever is in front, and give a boost to those in back, no matter how they got there?
If your parents make poor choices or have bad luck, is it fair for you to have to support them in their old age?
No, but life's not fair. Would it be better for them to lose their parents early? How to you "fix" that unfairness?
Exactly! I've gained something from every religion and philosophy I've learned about, from Jesus to Ayn Rand. All of the stories and perspectives help me to understand what it is to be human and why people are the way they are.
On the other hand, I'm still an atheist because I don't think any of our myths should be taken literally. To look for Noah's Ark is just like looking for the talking animals from Aesop's fables - it's not just crazy, but it also shows that you've missed the real point of what you were reading. And I can't imagine anything sadder that taking something as deeply meaningful as a whole religion and reducing it to a mere sequence of events to be taken as literal facts.
Perfection is *boring*. Just imagine. You know everything, so there's nothing to learn or discover. You have no needs, so there is nothing to strive for. There is no uncertainty (either good or bad) so there is nothing to look forward to.
But perfection would also imply you don't need to have something to strive for, have no urge to learn, don't get a thrill from uncertainty, and never get bored. Perfection might be boring for an outside viewer, but for the person who is perfect, everything if fine the way it is.
if I have a free will, and I choose to rape a woman
Then you weren't perfect to start with. Being perfect would imply that you would never want to do something imperfect, even if you had the ability to do it. In other words, wanting to rape implies imperfection.
He's saying that forcing them to cooperate isn't the same as them choosing to do so, and that one is fine but the other isn't. That's why "choose" was in quotes.
Slashdot Mirror
That's fine, but remember that we won't know what definition your using if you don't tell us. If you had said "God, in the sense of something outside the universe as understood by current science", you would have gotten a lot less flack, and I would have spent my time explaining to both sides what the other person was talking about. Even better, if you had just said "something outside of our universe" or "something we don't understand yet", most likely nobody would have hassled you at all.
As far as there being people that say those things, my previous posts on the subject have been met with derision and mod-down.
People tend to be blunt online, and it's hard to say something like "did you really mean to say X, or did you mean it in a different way?" in a reply, or before modding. Also, first impressions are even more important online than in real life, so you have to make your first entry very clear, even if that means being rather verbose. Plus, slashdot has its own, quirky culture...
If I can re-phrase my views using terms that are acceptable, I can communicate a lot better on the subject.
That's great! "Why don't people acknowledge that there could be a God?" sounds like a Jesus freak out to change people's religion and insult atheists. "Couldn't there be something outside of our universe as we currently understand it?" sounds like you're trying to start a conversation with equals on a philosophical topic. Even if the intent behind both statements was the same, they are going to be treated in very different ways by readers. When you understand why, I think you'll have a much better time here.
Best of luck in future posts.
So free markets aren't so bad, as long as they don't involve money?
[sarcasm] And by "John" I meant "John Doe" - I wasn't accusing a person called John, I was just stating that a person had done it. [/sarcasm]
And that's exactly how BS your post appears to be. From my perspective, you made an honest attempt at an argument, but it turned out to have some holes in it. There's no shame in that, but you keep trying to rework your argument, apparently so you can still think that you "weren't wrong".
The most important thing you can do in the future is to look more carefully at how other people are going to interpret your argument. If you mean "ultimate reality of any kind", don't use the word "god" (which is primarily religious), don't capitalize it (that makes it more specific, not less), and don't suggest that there are lots of people that don't believe in it or that are saying that science disproves it (because not many people are going to argue that there isn't some ultimate reality).
Oh my God! It treats people as innocent until proven guilty - the world's gonna end!!!
You do have good points about weak enforcement, but making a whole business practice illigal because it's sometimes abused is a bit excessive. VCRs can be used to violate copyright, but because they have a "substantial, non-infringing use", the SC says that's not sufficient reason to hold VCR manufacturers liable for infringing copyright. For the same reason, just because minimum price requirements can be used anti-competitively, we still can't assume that all of them are being used for that purpose.
Right. Your argument would suggest that the universe had a cause - but that's it. When you slip the word "God" in you're making your argument too specific - the cause could be natural, more than one entity, a mortal being in a higher plane, or a group of MMORPGers with advanced technology. But with "God" comes the idea of intelligence, purpose, and qualities best described as supernatural. To borrow your analogy, it's if someone was murdered, and asking "Which is more likely, John killed him, or nobody?" while ignoring 5000 more likely suspects, and expecting everybody else to ignore them, too.
But somehow taking a scientific approach to a scientific question is offensive
But that's what the first reply to your argument did - it just looked at the choice you preferred (God did it) and applied the same reasoning you used to God rather than the universe. Then because the existance of God seems doubtful, that choice in your argument doesn't seem much better than any of the others. You can't blow off someone just because he used your own argument against you.
The evidence shows that God could exist.
Anyone with an understanding of philosophy, even the most strident atheist, will admit that the existance of a god is possible, even if they put it in the same catagory as the theory that wer're all living in the Matrix, or that this is all a hallucination. You evidence, on the other hand, doesn't make God's existance any more likely than these possibilities.
I am simply advocating that people accept that possibility and stop claiming that the evidence indicates that he does not exist.
In the same light, you should accept the possibility that we didn't evolve on Earth, but we transplanted here by super-advanced aliens that want us to think we evolved here. From a philosopher's perspective, you're right, both of these are possible. From a scientific perspective, there's no evidence to support either of these over any other theory, and both add huge mountains of complexities when simpler theories will suffice. From that perspective, the fact that we've tried many times to find evidence of God and haven't found it is evidence that suggests that He doesn't exist - and if He doesn't exist, that's the best evidence we should find. If you want a better explanation, look up "null hypothesis".
I've never had a problem with it.
a barcode tattoo is easy to fake. It's less more efficient to have barcode on your driver's license
It's more efficient to use fingerprints - every employee comes pre-tattooed, and it won't change even after they leave.
I, for one, don't want some creep stalking me 24 hours a day, and am glad about every law which makes it harder for the creep to do so.
I was that paranoid once, and things were great until I realized that my licence plate was a big, obvious, unique identifier - which of course had to go. Then I realized that everyone could see my face, all the time...
Plus, companies can only ask - you can always say "No." and look for a job elsewhere.
I don't care how much you're against this - making that kind of comparison really cheapens the horrors of assembly-line murder.
That's not quite how it works, but it is pretty close to an idea that is correct. If the only thing that changes is the supply of money, then inflation/deflation will even things out, and the result is no real change. However, if efficiency is improved or people work more then everyone really can end up earning more.
In any case, if this type of thing was tried, it would first occur in areas where security was tight, where wages tend to be higher anyway to compensate for the invasion of privacy caused by thorough background checks and the lower supply of labor for low-risk personel. I don't know why this would be much different.
2- the labor market is actually pretty inelastic: people aren't going to stop wanting jobs, even if there are no jobs that they like, because they need money to stay alive. Thus if every employer implemented RFID people would still take those jobs, because they have no other choices, and wages wouldn't increase. Now some employers might try to get an advantage by not requiring RFID in this situation, but it wouldn't be much of an advantage for employees: what they would do is offer lower salaries, compensated by no RFID implant. Thus employees get screwed either way. So this is good for the business, but not for the workers.
If the labor market was entirely inelastic then all jobs would pay minimum wage and working conditions would never be any better than legally required - which isn't what we see happening. And people do quit their jobs time in order to move to new ones fairly frequently, so there is some elasticity - which is why turnover is such a problem in some industries.
Another point is that the labor market as a whole tends to be inelastic, but there are a huge number of people offering different kinds of jobs, so the labor market for a specific type of job tends to be quite flexible. And while you suggest that all companies might require RFID, some won't do so because it isn't worth it, and others won't because it's good publicity to take a stand against unpopular things.
This is clearly false. Even poor people often have access to insurance though their jobs - so it wouldn't be wealth or income, but ability to pay. Second, Medicare and Medicaid alone cover around 50 million Americans (1/6 of the population). Third, there are a large number of charity/teaching hospitals in the US, along with the fact that Americans give more to charity, per capita, than any other country - much of which goes toward the poor.
Your statements would be equivalent to saying that "only age affects medical priorities in Canada". The Canadian government might not pay for some procedures after age 65, but that's not the only way they can get treatment, nor is it the only thing affecting priorities.
According any same measurement we are way worse then any modern first world country. Study after study points this out but zealots like you have your minds shut to scientific evidence.
I've never stated that US health care is that great, I just don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be. In the mean time, these same studies rank Canadian health care as being rather poor compared to many other countries, but you don't seem to want to face that.
And that's the point I was making - when Americans are unhappy with their country's system, they make movies like 'Sicko', come up with universal insurance schemes, or write about how the government can deregulate so that the free market can do its thing. In contrast, when Canadians are confronted with a flaw in their own system, the response is either denial, an angry diatribe about how much worse the US is, or ad hominems. Every one of your posts has only added new evidence to support my argument.
'from an external viewer's point it takes an infinite amount of time to form an event horizon and, from that external perspective, the clock for the objects falling into the black hole appears to slow down to zero,'
so time will slow down in my frame of reference, and so it will seem that I will never reach the ... event horizon
Not quite, time slows down for you in my frame of reference, far from the hole. You always see yourself going through time at the same rate.
But, if I'm outside, far from the effects of the black hole's gravitational field, why would I be affected?
You wouldn't be affected, but the effect the hole has on me (while I'm falling in) will change the way you see me.
In the US MRI scans are prioritized on the ability to pay (wealth reasons).
These are both true statements to a certain extent, but so are the following:
In a previous post, you stated "In canada you can get an MRI anytime you want from a private provider if you want to pay." which means that wealth does change the way MRIs are prioritized in Canada. And as I pointed out earlier, need does have a large effect on how patients' cases are prioritized in the US. Emergency room care alone means that wealth is not the only criteria.If you'd rephrase your thesis as "Money is a larger determining factor in quality of health care in the US than Canada", I'd have to agree. But you seem to want to imply that only wealth affects medical priorities in the US, which is quite clearly false. Unfortunately, you seem to have a deep emotional need to believe that US healthcare is horrid, while Canada's is beyond reproach. So, in your reply, instead of a realization that 30th in the world versus 37th isn't that much to brag about, I expect another brief, simplistic rant. Cheers!
Who said that there weren't? I'm just pointing out that being poor doesn't automatically bar you from getting care in the US - that's not an opinion, that's a fact. Thus your assertion that being poor means that you must do without is false.
Not even close to being enough to meet demand.
Canada has some similar problems. Also, with only 1/4 as many MRIs and 1/3 as many CT scanners per capita, it isn't surprising that Canada's system is known for its long wait times. Long wait times are a result of not having enought to meet demand.
You are under the wrong impression.
No, my details are just a bit off:
Not that this law was the government of a Canadian province trying to keep people from having an alternative to the state-run system. The only reasons I can think of for the law are 1) people might find that a 2-tier system works better and 2) they just hate the idea that the other guy might get faster/better care.
No take it as an admission that you are an ignorant, uninformed fool.
That's it! If you don't have a valid argument, just insult! It's fun and it makes it look like you're 'winning'!
Right - if you're going to die you get to go first, absolutely anywhere.
In the US you can't get an MRI if you are poor unless you show up at the emergency room.
This is false - free clinics, Medicare/Medicade, and lots of charities are there to help. Maybe not as much or as you like, but they are there.
In canada you can get an MRI anytime you want from a private provider if you want to pay.
I was under the impression that private insurance was illegal, and that you couldn't be billed for procedures that the government would have payed for. These seem like they might cause problems if you try to do you own healthcare.
You certainly are uninformed and stupid. I don't know about your evilness but I wouldn't put it past you.
I think we're both ignorant of the other country's system, but I'll still maintain that you're just being stubborn when you ignore the flaws in your own system. The US may be ranked 37, but you're still only 30th - and you still don't think you could learn anything from the 29 ranked higher.
And I'll take your insults as an admission that I have made a good point that you can't rebut.
On the other hand, if you wanted to make government part of the solution, you might have the cats attacking from the outside, and suggest that the mouse government create solutions so that more government looks good. Have them suggest making group holes (pooling their digging efforts to make holes too deep for the cats to reach into) or have mice posted at strategic locations with bells, so that other mice can be warned before they're eaten.
I just found it odd that the story seemed so well designed to move one toward an anti-government position, but it was deliberately written to support socialism. Maybe the quality of their promotional material is the reason that they have trouble politically?
Ah, yes. If only the mice would elect orange cats, things would be wonderful. They'll make sure that no evil, selfish mouse make a hole that's any deeper than the others, ensuring that all of the mice have an equal chance of being eaten. And even if they did manage to elect cats that had them use cat-proof holes, it's still assumed that the next batch of cats could change it back whenever they wanted.
From my perspective, this story works even better as a defence of libertarian style thinking - it's not that the cats are doing too much, it's that they can force the mice to do a bunch of things that isn't their right. If the mice could choose the size and shape of their own hole, and the cats weren't allowed to make them change it, then they wouldn't have such a problem.
That's incorrect. In the US they triage by both importance and ability to pay.
Obviously you are completely ignorant about the canadian system.
You don't seem to know anything about ours, either. Maybe we could compromise and say that France is doing better than either country.
If you can't afford it they you don't get the MRI and the guy who can afford it gets it.
If it's going to kill you, you get first priority in both countries - in the US there are quite a few laws about emergency care, as well as programs to help pay.
Yes it would but that would also mean higher taxes.
You may be different, but this is where most Canadians I know (in person, from interviews, or from articles they've written) go ballistic. I (or the interviewer) suggest that letting rich people pay to get faster (elective) treatment would give Canada more money to buy more machines, doctors, hospitals, etc, thus shortening the wait and improving quality for everyone. Then the Canadian gos off on a rant about how letting some rich person get their knee replaced a day earlier than a homeless guy violates human rights. Then they suggest that I'm insane, evil, and that I should preform unnatural sex acts on myself.
I haven't met an American that really likes our current system, the problem is that half of us want full socialized medicine, while the other half want to change the regulations so that we can at least try a free-market approach. Most people from Europe will accept criticism of their own systems, and are willing to think about trying new ideas. But for some reason, no matter how obvious or serious the flaws that are pointed out, the Canadians I've met won't even consider alternatives.
Wouldn't it be better to just have enough machines so that doctors don't have to make an educated guess about your health?
They weren't urgent ... so I waited a few months. Perhaps it's an alien concept to you, but just because you're *you* doesn't mean you get preferential treatment.
As far as I can tell, he's not asking for preferential treatment, he just wants fast treatment.
This is why no matter how the debate between the free-marketers and the socialists in the US goes, Canada sounds frickin' insane. What seems to matter to you guys isn't how well your system helps the poor, but rather how well it keeps people from getting better-than-average care. You'll give people breast enhancement for free, as long as the rich gal can't pay to get hers done a little faster.
Imagine that a group of people willingly form a "free-will utopia". Some people will later change their minds, and some kind of force will have to be used to keep them from limiting others' free will (even if it's just banishing them). The use of force to prevent that also constrains the use of free will. So in the end no society can allow people absolute freedom of choice.
No, we can't.
but it's going too far to expect the government to support an open, competitive marketplace?
The government doesn't seem to know the difference between a free market and a planned economy, and it also never saw a marketplace it didn't want to regulate.
Libertarianism seems to show up at the oddest times.
Not really - whatever flaws it may have, inconsistency isn't one of them. On the other hand look at your own post - you mock government regulation of a vast number of things, and in the same breath call for it to regulate another area. You might as well call for the government to remain neutral on the subject of religion, except when it comes to the religious views that you espouse.
The creation of the world is the victory of persuasion over force. - Plato
I am interested in how making you pay for my stuff is considered fairer.
We don't choose our parents, so what if you're unlucky, and your parents can't pay for these things?
Then you find another way. Poverty sucks, but it's easier to fix that than many other burdens that people start life with.
Is it fair that you then don't get them, and start life at a disadvantage?
That's not the question. Is it fairer to let someone keep their unfair head start, or to add more hurdles to whoever is in front, and give a boost to those in back, no matter how they got there?
If your parents make poor choices or have bad luck, is it fair for you to have to support them in their old age?
No, but life's not fair. Would it be better for them to lose their parents early? How to you "fix" that unfairness?
But wait, he is doing that!
On the other hand, I'm still an atheist because I don't think any of our myths should be taken literally. To look for Noah's Ark is just like looking for the talking animals from Aesop's fables - it's not just crazy, but it also shows that you've missed the real point of what you were reading. And I can't imagine anything sadder that taking something as deeply meaningful as a whole religion and reducing it to a mere sequence of events to be taken as literal facts.
But perfection would also imply you don't need to have something to strive for, have no urge to learn, don't get a thrill from uncertainty, and never get bored. Perfection might be boring for an outside viewer, but for the person who is perfect, everything if fine the way it is.
Then you weren't perfect to start with. Being perfect would imply that you would never want to do something imperfect, even if you had the ability to do it. In other words, wanting to rape implies imperfection.
He's saying that forcing them to cooperate isn't the same as them choosing to do so, and that one is fine but the other isn't. That's why "choose" was in quotes.