No, they couldn't. I would take them to court and win.
Unless you go broke first. Or die (if they've polluted your stuff sufficiently). They have way, way more time and funds than you do.
So your argument against the free market is that the government is corrupt - ie, that the courts are non-objective and have made it extremely difficult for the little man to win without handing over his life savings. Yours is a bad argument.
Government has nothing to with this. The court could be as objective as you want it to be - the corporation has more money and more time than you do, and has very good chances at dragging the case out long enough for you to run out of funds or lifetime. And you can bet that that's exactly what they're going to do if they're not sure of winning the case anyway.
"Socialism" means that the state owns the means for production. So, err, no, your conclusion does not follow. There's a difference between a social state and a socialist one.
Sure, it could get worse, but if it does, it is because I made bad choices.
Ah, yes, the old "bad things only happen to people who make bad choices" fallacy. Hate to break it to you, but bad things can happen to no matter what your choices are.
Choice is what it is all about. I am in control of my own health care. I choose my coverage.
That's really nice if you have good choices available. Have you ever chosen between permanent disability, bankruptcy, and suicide?
What choices do these other countries have?
Lots, really. Including opting out under certain conditions.
What recourse is there when something goes wrong?
Same as you're used to - you drag whoever you think is responsible to court and sue the heck out of them.
There is a saying, "You can't fight city hall" and it rings true.
Well, it's not, and it's a pretty defeatist attitude to boot. And where I live, the only thing "city hall" is responsible for is health insurance, not health care. The latter is left to people who are actually qualified for the job (physicians, etc). If they mess things up, sue them.
What do you do when the feds say, "Your fat and lazy and we are not going to spend tax payer money on your bypass".
Pay out of pocket. But that's not going to happen. Making any such proposals would be a political death sentence for whomever makes them, and probably be struck down by various courts if they do, somehow, make to to implementation.
Really? I'm a Republican, and when I say Socialist, I mean Socialist, like China, Cuba, Venezuela, Stalin's Soviet Union... you know, Socialists.
What about Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Germany, Finnland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK or Canada? Would you call them "socialist"?
Listen, my problem with socialized medicine is that I fear it will suck.
Many countries have such system. Some suck. Many don't. Take a good look at them, find out what causes suckiness, and avoid that in a planned implementation.
can opt out of the system, keep my private provider and not pay the higher taxes that will be used to pay for "universal" health care?
Yes.
Or is more like, "you pay up bitch, just like everyone else. If you want private insurance above and beyond what Big Brother provides, you must pay for it yourself" (like Europe has it today).
Don't know who told you that heap of BS, but the European country I live in does allow you to completely opt out of the "public" health insurance system. Maybe you should stop believing all the propaganda and do some research yourself?
Since when has the government EVER, EVER, EVER been more efficient than the private sector?
Road construction, airports, law enforcement, defense, schools,... I could go on, but I don't need to. One example would be enough to counter your argument. Or are you asking about a particular government?
And that, is why I am opposed to government healthcare.
Yes, if I believed in all the BS spewed out by right-wing propagandists, I'd be against it, too.
For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt?
Where's the equivalent of the RIAA for books? I want to report a violation. Can't have any parasites or thieves steal an honest womans hard work like that.
When we need health care, we have no incentive whatsoever to shop for price.
When you really need health care, you're usually not in the condition to shop for a price and/or don't have the opportunity to do so.
If I could get the same type of pricing, I would be thoroughly tempted to go self-insured.
And why can't you? Let me guess: You don't have enough bargaining power, and enough knowledge of medical billing to spot where they're ridiculously overpricing things. Then again, that's quite ok if you let market forces work unhindered - the powerless and uninformed get ripped off if they don't do anything about their status.
Market forces are the ONLY way to reduce cost.
I don't think so. But neither do you, it seems.
For starters, health care expenses (except insurance premiums) should be 100% tax-deductible.
Asking for government subsidies (aka tax breaks) doesn't have anything to do with market forces. It's still a good idea, though.
Next, there should be a universal price policy for health care providers.
A very good idea. Still, it's quite the opposite of letting market forces work.
Insurance should be mandatory, but limited to big-ticket expenses with high deductibles.
The last part of the phrase leaves way too much wiggle room (e.g. one "big ticket" expense might actually be a number of smaller expenses, anyone with a chronic condition is going to get screwed royally, etc). And, once again, it's quite the opposite of letting market forces run free.
Getting prescription prices under control is as easy as opening the door to Canada, India, or wherever.
Again, quite the opposite of letting market forces work.
Any solution that leaves the insurance and pharmaceutical industries unscathed is not a solution at all.
There are so many diseases here like cholera/typhoid/TB.... that the swine flu will have to get in line to infect It will be well over a 100 years before it gets a chance to clear the waiting list.
Which would explain the Fermi Paradox - advanced civilisations exist but those that broadcast their existence are quickly stomped by others.
Err... there's one big gaping hole in that argument: If it was true, then where's that one advanced civilization that's best at stomping out others (and at avoiding getting stomped out in return)?
This is the basis for creating artificial sweeteners. Sucralose contains mostly dextrose, which is a mirror image of glucose. They have the same chemical formula, but since it's of the opposite chirality of all the other structures in your body it's unable to be metabolized.
The body can metabolize dextrose (d-glucose) just fine (in fact, it's the l-glucose that the body cannot metabolize). Sucralose, on the other hand, is a different molecule since it contains chlorine atoms in some of the places where sucrose contains HO groups. Sucralose is also about 600 times sweeter than sucrose.
Why do it? Why invade countries for gold, oil or slaves when you could stay home and live sustainably?
The question is reversed in our case. Why go through all the trouble of exterminating less advanced civilizations, when the planet they're on only contains a tiny fraction of the "resources" in their solar system?
In my hypothetical planet hopping civilisation planets provide the resources to build more ramjets. You'd send down engineers and machines, they'd strip the planet and turn it into another ships. The reason you target planets with technically advanced civilisations is that they by definition have the resources you need.
The rest of their solar systems contains a couple of orders of magnitude more resources. Why ignore them?
It's not like human civilisations have never done this on Earth. In fact pretty much every famous civilisation was to some extend imperialist and didn't just stay home and live sustainably.
It's not about living sustainable. The approach I suggest is far from that, it's about colonizing the whole galaxy (exponential growth is, by definition, not sustainable in the long term).
Certainly the Europeans and Americans have historically been highly predatory and have obliterated scores of more peaceful but 'inferior' civilisations here on Earth. Why is a stretch to think that you couldn't do this on a bigger scale?
Because on Earth, 'inferior' civilizations were densely packed. In the galaxy, you'd have to spend way too much time and effort to track them down. Just start colonizing everything and quarantine every inhabited planet you find (make it a big zoo or something). You'll end up with a couple of orders of magnitude more resources than if you focus on plundering inhabited planets.
Something else occurs to me - you could build lots of Orion type craft to get the loot into orbit since you don't care about the biosphere after you leave.
If you stick with uninhabited planets, you won't even have a biosphere to deal with (so no risk at all of any kind of contamination). In fact, if you stay away from large gravity wells, sending more stuff into space will get even easier.
You then launch a Bussard Ramjet to nuke the planet. The spacsehip builds a Krasnikov Tube as it goes.
Whoa, hold on for a minute. The energy required to distort space enough to form a Krasnikov Tube is _huge_. There's no way to accelerate something to 0.99c _and_ form a Krasnikov tube behind it using just a Bussard ramscoop. In fact, it might be impossible just to accelerate to 0.99c without a supplementary power source.
I think this is far too ruthless for humans to do and in any case the technology involved is highly speculative and some parts of it are probably not possible, but who says we're the nastiest species out there? Maybe there are much nasier civilisations with the requisite technology.
Why should a species with access to technology like this limit itself to colonizing previously-inhabited planets? They don't have to care about less-developed civilizations - they could simply pwn the whole galaxy within a few million years or so.
So you'd need a 740 metric tonne projectile at 0.99c
The problem is that anything above a certain cross-sectional are will probably just disintegrate at 0.99c. At a velocity like that, even the vaccuum of space suddenly becomes quite dense. Heck, you might even run into problems with vacuum energy.
I like the idea. It looks like an execellent tool to add to the toolbox for determining the probability of an extrasolar planet harboring an ecosystem.
Of course, an alien ecosystem could have evolved to use both handednesses, but the information that one handedness is predominant on the planet is a strong hint that there's something unusal going on there. Same goes for the detection of unusually large quantities of unstable substances (oxygen, halogens, etc) in the atmosphere of the planet.
Insulting a police officer will indeed land you a 5000 Euro fine.
I call BS.
The only two cases I've found with fines in that ballpark also included an assault of some sort (spraying tear gas in one, slapping in the other). Also, the fine will depend on your income.
Most people are. If you take a subset of the general population that doesn't have a criterium which excludes idiots, you'll end up with lots of idiots in the subset, too.
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you go broke first. Or die (if they've polluted your stuff sufficiently). They have way, way more time and funds than you do.
So your argument against the free market is that the government is corrupt - ie, that the courts are non-objective and have made it extremely difficult for the little man to win without handing over his life savings. Yours is a bad argument.
Government has nothing to with this. The court could be as objective as you want it to be - the corporation has more money and more time than you do, and has very good chances at dragging the case out long enough for you to run out of funds or lifetime. And you can bet that that's exactly what they're going to do if they're not sure of winning the case anyway.
Socialized medicine is Socialist by definition.
"Socialism" means that the state owns the means for production. So, err, no, your conclusion does not follow. There's a difference between a social state and a socialist one.
Sure, it could get worse, but if it does, it is because I made bad choices.
Ah, yes, the old "bad things only happen to people who make bad choices" fallacy. Hate to break it to you, but bad things can happen to no matter what your choices are.
Choice is what it is all about. I am in control of my own health care. I choose my coverage.
That's really nice if you have good choices available. Have you ever chosen between permanent disability, bankruptcy, and suicide?
What choices do these other countries have?
Lots, really. Including opting out under certain conditions.
What recourse is there when something goes wrong?
Same as you're used to - you drag whoever you think is responsible to court and sue the heck out of them.
There is a saying, "You can't fight city hall" and it rings true.
Well, it's not, and it's a pretty defeatist attitude to boot. And where I live, the only thing "city hall" is responsible for is health insurance, not health care. The latter is left to people who are actually qualified for the job (physicians, etc). If they mess things up, sue them.
What do you do when the feds say, "Your fat and lazy and we are not going to spend tax payer money on your bypass".
Pay out of pocket. But that's not going to happen. Making any such proposals would be a political death sentence for whomever makes them, and probably be struck down by various courts if they do, somehow, make to to implementation.
What about Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Germany, Finnland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK or Canada? Would you call them "socialist"?
Listen, my problem with socialized medicine is that I fear it will suck.
Many countries have such system. Some suck. Many don't. Take a good look at them, find out what causes suckiness, and avoid that in a planned implementation.
can opt out of the system, keep my private provider and not pay the higher taxes that will be used to pay for "universal" health care?
Yes.
Or is more like, "you pay up bitch, just like everyone else. If you want private insurance above and beyond what Big Brother provides, you must pay for it yourself" (like Europe has it today).
Don't know who told you that heap of BS, but the European country I live in does allow you to completely opt out of the "public" health insurance system. Maybe you should stop believing all the propaganda and do some research yourself?
Since when has the government EVER, EVER, EVER been more efficient than the private sector?
Road construction, airports, law enforcement, defense, schools, ... I could go on, but I don't need to. One example would be enough to counter your argument. Or are you asking about a particular government?
And that, is why I am opposed to government healthcare.
Yes, if I believed in all the BS spewed out by right-wing propagandists, I'd be against it, too.
For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt?
Where's the equivalent of the RIAA for books? I want to report a violation. Can't have any parasites or thieves steal an honest womans hard work like that.
When we need health care, we have no incentive whatsoever to shop for price.
When you really need health care, you're usually not in the condition to shop for a price and/or don't have the opportunity to do so.
If I could get the same type of pricing, I would be thoroughly tempted to go self-insured.
And why can't you? Let me guess: You don't have enough bargaining power, and enough knowledge of medical billing to spot where they're ridiculously overpricing things. Then again, that's quite ok if you let market forces work unhindered - the powerless and uninformed get ripped off if they don't do anything about their status.
Market forces are the ONLY way to reduce cost.
I don't think so. But neither do you, it seems.
For starters, health care expenses (except insurance premiums) should be 100% tax-deductible.
Asking for government subsidies (aka tax breaks) doesn't have anything to do with market forces. It's still a good idea, though.
Next, there should be a universal price policy for health care providers.
A very good idea. Still, it's quite the opposite of letting market forces work.
Insurance should be mandatory, but limited to big-ticket expenses with high deductibles.
The last part of the phrase leaves way too much wiggle room (e.g. one "big ticket" expense might actually be a number of smaller expenses, anyone with a chronic condition is going to get screwed royally, etc). And, once again, it's quite the opposite of letting market forces run free.
Getting prescription prices under control is as easy as opening the door to Canada, India, or wherever.
Again, quite the opposite of letting market forces work.
Any solution that leaves the insurance and pharmaceutical industries unscathed is not a solution at all.
See above.
Although, as some commenters have pointed out, everything in the world can be explained in terms of quantum mechanics,
What about general relativity?
There are so many diseases here like cholera/typhoid/TB.... that the swine flu will have to get in line to infect It will be well over a 100 years before it gets a chance to clear the waiting list.
Sorry, diseases switched to parallelism eons ago.
Ah, yes. I didn't think of that. Those guys have to be sneaky bastards.
A generation of very focused accountants? Sounds exactly like what the US needs right now if you ask me...
Yep. Very focused, and definitely not too creative.
Err ... there's one big gaping hole in that argument: If it was true, then where's that one advanced civilization that's best at stomping out others (and at avoiding getting stomped out in return)?
"Cosmetic" neurology at its fines - using a deadly neurotoxin to enhance looks. Almost as good as using belladonna a couple of centuries ago.
By the time a civilization is able to travel interstellar distances, whether a planet is habitable or not should be pretty much irrelevant to them.
This is the basis for creating artificial sweeteners. Sucralose contains mostly dextrose, which is a mirror image of glucose. They have the same chemical formula, but since it's of the opposite chirality of all the other structures in your body it's unable to be metabolized.
The body can metabolize dextrose (d-glucose) just fine (in fact, it's the l-glucose that the body cannot metabolize). Sucralose, on the other hand, is a different molecule since it contains chlorine atoms in some of the places where sucrose contains HO groups. Sucralose is also about 600 times sweeter than sucrose.
Why do it? Why invade countries for gold, oil or slaves when you could stay home and live sustainably?
The question is reversed in our case. Why go through all the trouble of exterminating less advanced civilizations, when the planet they're on only contains a tiny fraction of the "resources" in their solar system?
In my hypothetical planet hopping civilisation planets provide the resources to build more ramjets. You'd send down engineers and machines, they'd strip the planet and turn it into another ships. The reason you target planets with technically advanced civilisations is that they by definition have the resources you need.
The rest of their solar systems contains a couple of orders of magnitude more resources. Why ignore them?
It's not like human civilisations have never done this on Earth. In fact pretty much every famous civilisation was to some extend imperialist and didn't just stay home and live sustainably.
It's not about living sustainable. The approach I suggest is far from that, it's about colonizing the whole galaxy (exponential growth is, by definition, not sustainable in the long term).
Certainly the Europeans and Americans have historically been highly predatory and have obliterated scores of more peaceful but 'inferior' civilisations here on Earth. Why is a stretch to think that you couldn't do this on a bigger scale?
Because on Earth, 'inferior' civilizations were densely packed. In the galaxy, you'd have to spend way too much time and effort to track them down. Just start colonizing everything and quarantine every inhabited planet you find (make it a big zoo or something). You'll end up with a couple of orders of magnitude more resources than if you focus on plundering inhabited planets.
Something else occurs to me - you could build lots of Orion type craft to get the loot into orbit since you don't care about the biosphere after you leave.
If you stick with uninhabited planets, you won't even have a biosphere to deal with (so no risk at all of any kind of contamination). In fact, if you stay away from large gravity wells, sending more stuff into space will get even easier.
You then launch a Bussard Ramjet to nuke the planet. The spacsehip builds a Krasnikov Tube as it goes.
Whoa, hold on for a minute. The energy required to distort space enough to form a Krasnikov Tube is _huge_. There's no way to accelerate something to 0.99c _and_ form a Krasnikov tube behind it using just a Bussard ramscoop. In fact, it might be impossible just to accelerate to 0.99c without a supplementary power source.
I think this is far too ruthless for humans to do and in any case the technology involved is highly speculative and some parts of it are probably not possible, but who says we're the nastiest species out there? Maybe there are much nasier civilisations with the requisite technology.
Why should a species with access to technology like this limit itself to colonizing previously-inhabited planets? They don't have to care about less-developed civilizations - they could simply pwn the whole galaxy within a few million years or so.
The other left, of course.
The problem is that anything above a certain cross-sectional are will probably just disintegrate at 0.99c. At a velocity like that, even the vaccuum of space suddenly becomes quite dense. Heck, you might even run into problems with vacuum energy.
When did that happen
Yesterday.
and why wasn't I informed about it?
Well, if they're 9ly away, then the signal will take another years to get here, of course.
I like the idea. It looks like an execellent tool to add to the toolbox for determining the probability of an extrasolar planet harboring an ecosystem.
Of course, an alien ecosystem could have evolved to use both handednesses, but the information that one handedness is predominant on the planet is a strong hint that there's something unusal going on there. Same goes for the detection of unusually large quantities of unstable substances (oxygen, halogens, etc) in the atmosphere of the planet.
I call BS.
The only two cases I've found with fines in that ballpark also included an assault of some sort (spraying tear gas in one, slapping in the other). Also, the fine will depend on your income.
So instead of not being able to insult just civil servants, you can't insult anybody?
Yeah, it's called "slander". Duh.
I don't know if that makes it better or worse.
Four words: Equality before the law.
Then if the changes made are later found out
If they want to be have a police state we can show them that it can work both ways.
Police are notoriously incapable of enforcing the law on themselves.
My suggestion would be: Make the list completely public. Hey, if the blocking actually works, then no one is able to access the sites anyway, right?
Some are.
Most people are. If you take a subset of the general population that doesn't have a criterium which excludes idiots, you'll end up with lots of idiots in the subset, too.
Can't you just open the windows slightly?