nope.. i'll quote the relevant text which makes your fallacious reply ironic:
nope, i've worked in the NE too.
I don't hear "dittoheads" spewing...pseudo-intellectual fallacy....
Okay, I'll bite. My statement is ironic because I'm apparently a follower of Rush Limbaugh (this was the onlydefinition of "dittohead" I was able to find using Google)?
As for the "pseudo-intellectual fallacy" part, I'm fairly certain that this just means "any viewpoint that contradicts my own". There's no point in arguing with me on this "static property", as I'm holding as firm to it as you are to yours regarding the boorish & unintelligent nature of everyone outside of the bubble in which you live.
I have two concerns and neither has anything to do with sympathy....The second is personal freedom, where said freedom does not significantly impact others.
As someone who suffers horribly and can't buy insurance at any price, I find it disgusting that conservatives who claim to be about common sense equate the loss of a few bucks extra in taxes or insurance premiums to the massive degradation I suffer in my quality of life.
Apparently my ability to function is worth 50 bucks.. and I thought mob hits were cheap.
"Reductio ad absurdum (Latin for "reduction to the absurd")...is a type of logical argument where one assumes a claim for the sake of argument and derives an absurd or ridiculous outcome, and then concludes that the original claim must have been wrong as it led to an absurd result."
And unless it involves mathematical formulae or an assertion on a given subject which can be derived into the future, it is indeed a fallacious argument.
for instance, If I insisted economic growth could be expressed as 1/the fed's interest rate, you could reduce it to absurdity by claiming that, should the fed reduce the interest rate to zero, the economy would become infinite. Something which is not possible.
am arguing that your original claim (Every city and county between new york and san francisco is filled to the ears with "adults" who never grew up. (that's not to say there aren't a fair share IN those cities, but the ratio is far higher in what is colloquially referred to as "middle america") is absurd, and am following your claim to its most extreme and ridiculous outcome to argue my viewpoint that your original claim is wrong.
Except in this I am speaking about a static property, not something which can be extrapolated. This approach does not work. Nowhere did I say people are becoming more childish, that they are losing their cognitive capacity, etc etc.
Are you now saying that you were joking, or being sarcastic? Am I guilty of feeding the troll?
nope.. i'll quote the relevant text which makes your fallacious reply ironic:
nope, i've worked in the NE too.
I don't hear "dittoheads" spewing...pseudo-intellectual fallacy....
What'd be the point? iPhone applications aren't coded to run at multiple resolutions (something that will be a problem when/if a hybrid MacOS/iPhone tablet PC comes along), and there's not much to be gained by using a smaller battery or lower-power CPU. I don't understand why everyone expects a smaller, cheaper iPhone to be released. Who'd buy it, and why?
replace all instances of "iphone nano" with "iphone" replace all instances of "iphone" with "blackberry" replace macos/iphone tablet pc with VOIP over mobile broadband now you have the same scenario from years ago.
Apple's iphone platform (unlike their professional computer line) serves no use, but they made a market for it anyway as a fashion accessory.
Fashion is not subject to the laws of usability, interface design, or return on income.
Your generalizations are absolutely correct. I speak from personal experience, as I live in Chicago. I guess you could say I live "downtown", if you could call it that, as it's basically a patch of hard-packed dirt that serves as a "town square" of sorts surrounded by the burnt-out & partially-collapsed shells of once-permanent structures intermingled with crude huts and flimsy market stands.
Our dialect here is a mangled, barely-literate system of monosyllabic grunts that is only vaguely recognizable as having once derived from English.
When we're not engaging in menial labor in deplorable slaughterhouses and rock quarries, we venture out of our rudimentary shelters to beat up minorities, wager our food stamps on cockfights, drink copious amounts of homemade liquor, and, when there are no minorities left to beat up, drunkenly brawl with each other.
On Sundays we all attend Latin mass. At least I think it's Latin...it could be English for all I know (we speak a primarily grunt-based dialect, if you'll recall).
In summary, everything between the coasts is just awful. We are a godforsaken group of sloping-browed heathens who will quite literally eat you alive if you attempt to venture near any of our Mad Max-like settlements. I would advise you and all like-minded coastal urbanites to stay in your cities and not attempt to make any contact with us, for your own safety of course.
Oh yay, argument ad absurditum.
Sadly it's a fallacious form of argument.
Given the nature of the post you are replying to, ironically fallacious.
Every city and county between new york and san francisco is filled to the ears with "adults" who never grew up. (that's not to say there aren't a fair share IN those cities, but the ratio is far higher in what is colloquially referred to as "middle america". Cancel Reply Parent
That is the most arbitrary, non-cursing type of troll I have ever read anywhere! Congratulations, as well!
why thank you, and i know it's going to -1 because the truth hurts!
Unfortunately, I know all too many people who don't feel they should pay more because they consume less. "Why should I pay through the nose for Insurance when I haven't used it for anything but checkups in 10 years?"
I'd suggest slipping something into their food known to cause chronic conditions.
If karmic forces are not bringing their disgustingly selfish behavior back to them maybe they need a little help.
If you were a religious person from that area and you go to New England you would probably be equally annoyed living an such a godless immoral area of the world, where its local laws makes it near impossible for you to speak your faith.
he religious zeal of the South vs. a world where one feels embarrassed, or it is politically incorrect to speak about their faith of the North.
bullcrap. this is where the local laws make it near impossible for you to COMPEL OTHERS to observe your faith against their will, and I do mean compel.
seems that you are confusing religious majority for a particular area with the [maturity] and intelligence of the people in the area.
I don't think there's any confusion about it.
I come from a conservative jewish family. Many members are synagogue leaders. We are a religious family. We don't feel trampled by NE laws and we are not embarrassed to express our faith. Neither are the christians. They do, however, understand the boundaries between religion and logic, and between church and state, and in so doing understand how to respect the belief of others.
is all about perspective. Saying We are Better then Them, Is very dangerous type of talk.
I consider "better" (more accurately "maturity") to be a reflection of the willingness to operate by the ideals of human decency and human rights, and barring that at least by the constitution--the capacity to sacrifice your own selfish wishes for the greater good.
Interesting factoid: people with democratic or leftist bumper stickers are 70% more likely to be pulled over, but the cops who do it, who are predominantly right-wing, are far less likely even in the northeast to be taken to account for their abuses.
I think it says a lot about who actually believes in the adult idea of "live and let live".
Just as a person without faith feels oppressed in the south. A person of faith feels equally oppressed in the north.
This is the third repetition of this blatant right-wing echo-chamber lie.
In the south they do discriminate against you on multiple levels for not being "ultra-evangelical" and compel you to observe their faith in public institutions. (Do you think I made the gym coach thing up? How would you like to be held down into a seat and compelled to engage in idolatry?)
In the north they prevent this kind of discrimination, but go no further.
Poor diet and the ensuing health issues are not something that deserves sympathy. If you choose to smoke and get lung cancer, no one should feel sorry for you. If you pig out on Doritos and Big Macs and end up a diabetic because of your poor choices, why the hell should anyone else have to pay for your lifestyle?
Do you think hospital fees are so high because of the rent? you already pay for their lifestyle, except they live in greater pain and you actually pay more because you don't provide preventive care to them.
Wellness programs should be a part of every insurance policy, obviously. Why should we insure ANYONE regardless of health since mcdonalds is obvously the most successful restaurant chain in the US. EVERYONE east there.
By the way, way to go stereotyping. It's almost racist. I suffer in horrible pain and semi-disability and can't buy insurance at any price, and I have never been obese, never smoked, and can count the number of times i've been drunk on my hands. The disease I was diagnosed with has no scientifically determined cause yet, and i've had healthy eating habits from a young age. (ironically, because nutrition uptake is now impaired, I have to eat fast food, which I find disgusting, to get the calories I need)
Additionally, I worked my ass off and have been severely hindered both in school and post-graduate because of this condition. I could be providing a lot of taxable income, but i'm in a catch-22. Group plans are the only way i will ever be insured, but my condition is impairing me to the point i'll probably never angle something which will provide one.
It's really nice of people like you to punish me for the actions of others.
"Better 1000 innocent people go to prison than 1 guilty man go free"
This problem crops up whenever socialized healthcare is discussed in the US, as well as many other socialized programs. Most people are more interested in punishing others for overeating than they are in having an effective and economical solution for themselves.
Except, as both of you have ignored, many conditions are genetic, and completely unrelated to weight or food intake.
Friggas' Ring (GP post) also ignores my main point, which is a rebuttal against the complaint about risk.
Risk can ben assessed extremely accurately and compensated for in rate structures without excluding or discriminating against people. I've done projects using the software involved and the models were accurate to within 2%.
This is not some luxury item or fashion accessory we're talking about. It's not even a house, or electricity, or even food. This is personal health. People who suffer from diseases like this are suffering just as much from people's refusal to demand anti-discrimination regulations for insurers as if these same people walked into their homes and shot them.
I know, i'm one of these sufferers. I have never ever been overweight. My parents instilled good eating habits and to this day I prefer fruit over sweets. Despite this I was diagnosed with crohn's disease and now suffer mild but chronic internal bleeding and pain equivalent to a blow to the groin day in and day out.
My extended family makes good money but nobody will sell me insurance at any price. This is a breach of their economic function. The way insurance companies are supposed to work is people of varying health pay in, those who need it get compensated, and if the equations are done properly the firm profits.
It's much like a bank. Note there are many regulations which considerably limit the criteria banks can use to turn customers away, and while selectivity is allowed in lending that is MONEY, not someone's well being. You don't become disabled or experience agonizing pain when your bank turns down a mortgage app and sends you back to your apartment.
I'd also like to note that insurance companies are doing much more egregious things to kill competition than banks.
You can't switch companies, period, because they require you wait a year before they'll cover any conditions you currently have. Imagine if every bank required you to deposit your paychecks for a full year before you were allowed to withdraw from the account. You wouldn't switch banks any time soon would you?
If it was that simple, you just need to aerosol the "disperse" signal, which the summary implies makes your immune cells immediately attack anything that matches what they were near at the time...fortunately for everybody, it's not nearly so simple. If it was, how could the chemical signal in question possibly exist? If your body ever released it, SOME cells would be closer to each other or other important cells! Almost as though the summary was a dumbed down explanation of how it sort of works? Plus if you want a poison bullet just fill it with cyanide? Or nicotine, which is a much more concentrated poison?
Anyways, how this works is, these cells are exposed to concentrated antigens, specifically targeted and formulated in the lab before injection. Cancer is mostly just like your own body. But cancer cells make their own proteins. The body ignores them sometimes, saying "oh they're coming from me, must be harmless," which is bad. But if you rub your immune systems nose in it and say "Spread the word", as it were, it can be forced into attacking it whatever is making these proteins. I believe there's been limited success with just injecting large amounts of antigen, but your body doesn't always get the hint. What we see here is a combination of getting high concentrations of antigen, with a technique for making sure the body actually sends immune cells to investigate! I'm not sure what happens if you gather up a large concentration of natural bodily proteins, but I think in most cases it won't trigger an autoimmune response. And you certainly have to do that concentration in a lab, not in a bullet;)
Interesting, but you can bet your life the pharma companies are going to fight any efforts to certify such a technique tooth and nail. They make too much money off "treatments" to have an actual cure floating around.
Incorporate this in bullets and you get 100% lethality.
Well in terms of pure combat standards, an injured soldier is actually worse than a dead one, since the dead one can be carried off later, wheras the injured one needs immediate medical attention.
Your body releases cytokines every time you get cut, or shot. Your immune system manages to avoid killing you in those cases, usually.
Why bother with this roundabout way anyhow? If you absolutely want to kill everyone you shoot, it would be much easier and quicker to make a poisoned bullet.
in this scenario you get the best of both worlds.
Wounded soldier then gets carried off to hospital, where they tell him the bullet has given him an auto-immune disorder and he has X months to live.
News gets back to the front lines. Morale drops, and the will to fight dwindles.
Given how the effects would look like an auto-immune disorder, this gives totalitarian elements in "democracies" (do they actually represent ANY of us anymore?) the way to untraceably dispose of political opponents.
It would already be trivially easy to make bullets that contained a lethal toxin, the reason we don't do it isn't because of inability. Yes, you could misuse this research (just like any other advance) but it certainly wouldn't be the bio-weapon of choice due to sheer inefficiency and slowness of effect.
that's the beauty of it. It's a terror weapon.
it will leave you in agony for days, weeks, or months knowing you will die.
Incorporate this in bullets and you get 100% lethality.
"cellular army bullet" enters body, tip takes sample of nearby healthy cells, programs immune system to attack own body, person dies horrible death to both his own immune system and the pathogens which are now left alone by the distracted immune system.
"Shut up, kidspeak is a legitimate dialect, just like ebonics and legalese./satire"
Lucky bastard - my daughter has started using lolspeak in conversation. Oh, the shame...
Isn't that what rolled up newspapers are for?
Whenever I devolved in that way (at least verbally, my spelling can sometimes become atrocious) my parents would correct me. If it continued they would ignore anything spoken in that way.
ADD also tends to drive creativity [...] Get the right ADD medication and some paxil.
And lose my creativity? No thanks.
i was put on ADD medication, and while on it i'm just as creative, but better able to plan and apply that creativity.
I understand the apprehension, and have been a victim of improper medication, but if the meds are not targeting only the tact and distraction issues then you're on the wrong ones.
Another example: mood stabilizers will make a depressive functional, but they don't get rid of the depression or return interest or motivation.
(that's not to say there aren't a fair share IN those cities, but the ratio is far higher in what is colloquially referred to as "middle america".
Yes, Kansas City is well known for the percentage of its residents in therapy and the percentage of low-income employees who are really performers and just doing this to make ends meet.
i'm sorry but maturity is not measured by emotional problems or income, it's measured in how you look at and treat people.
bigotry, intolerance, anti-intellectualism, the propensity for physical violence, the refusal to accept observable reality.
People who are in therapy are generally there because observable reality sucks. (then there are those who simply stop by for scrips because of chemical imbalances which would otherwise cripple them)
Your derision against people who are working menial jobs while trying to advance their careers is rather hypocritical considering the traditional conservative "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality. So which is it? "enjoy your sucky life" or "pull yourself up by your bootstraps"?
Posted anonymously for obvious reasons. I work for a small company that writes claims management and adjudication software for health insurance. Our software actually allows the provider to write their own decision engines using a special language.
On more than one occasion, we've had client companies, or prospective clients, come to us with requests for features and functionality that would be unethical, if not illegal. You are very correct - the idealistic principle of insurance is that it is a shared risk endeavor. That has been broken down by the insurance co's to a one-sided agenda where they know they have you by the balls and can deny for any reason under the sun, including those that specifically go against the grain of insurance (i.e. if you move to a different provider who provides 'substantially materially similar' benefits, at a separate rate, there should be no waiting period - statistics and probability don't work like that).
My wife uses chiro services. Non-insurance rate? $45. With insurance? $135. There is something very wrong with that picture, when you know that you are paying $500+ a month in health insurance, it's predominantly YOU paying that. Why not go to a HSA or FSA? Save that money, pay the cheaper rate - the only reason most people don't is for catastrophic coverage - so you'd think that catastrophic coverage only plans would be reasonably cheap, etc? No. Cheap, yes. After you pay some of the highest deductibles around (I've seen $7,500 personal, $20,000 family commonly).
It's a racket, and though anecdotal, there's something awry when someone whose income is derived from the insurance industry is agitating for universal health care (not that it'd go away entirely, but nonetheless), because as it stands now it is such a fundamentally broken system.
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nope.. i'll quote the relevant text which makes your fallacious reply ironic:
nope, i've worked in the NE too.
I don't hear "dittoheads" spewing ...pseudo-intellectual fallacy....
Okay, I'll bite. My statement is ironic because I'm apparently a follower of Rush Limbaugh (this was the only definition of "dittohead" I was able to find using Google)?
As for the "pseudo-intellectual fallacy" part, I'm fairly certain that this just means "any viewpoint that contradicts my own". There's no point in arguing with me on this "static property", as I'm holding as firm to it as you are to yours regarding the boorish & unintelligent nature of everyone outside of the bubble in which you live.
just keep being intellectually dishonest.
I have two concerns and neither has anything to do with sympathy....The second is personal freedom, where said freedom does not significantly impact others.
As someone who suffers horribly and can't buy insurance at any price, I find it disgusting that conservatives who claim to be about common sense equate the loss of a few bucks extra in taxes or insurance premiums to the massive degradation I suffer in my quality of life.
Apparently my ability to function is worth 50 bucks.. and I thought mob hits were cheap.
or "include summary"
"Reductio ad absurdum (Latin for "reduction to the absurd")...is a type of logical argument where one assumes a claim for the sake of argument and derives an absurd or ridiculous outcome, and then concludes that the original claim must have been wrong as it led to an absurd result."
And unless it involves mathematical formulae or an assertion on a given subject which can be derived into the future, it is indeed a fallacious argument.
for instance, If I insisted economic growth could be expressed as 1/the fed's interest rate, you could reduce it to absurdity by claiming that, should the fed reduce the interest rate to zero, the economy would become infinite. Something which is not possible.
am arguing that your original claim (Every city and county between new york and san francisco is filled to the ears with "adults" who never grew up. (that's not to say there aren't a fair share IN those cities, but the ratio is far higher in what is colloquially referred to as "middle america") is absurd, and am following your claim to its most extreme and ridiculous outcome to argue my viewpoint that your original claim is wrong.
Except in this I am speaking about a static property, not something which can be extrapolated. This approach does not work.
Nowhere did I say people are becoming more childish, that they are losing their cognitive capacity, etc etc.
Are you now saying that you were joking, or being sarcastic? Am I guilty of feeding the troll?
nope.. i'll quote the relevant text which makes your fallacious reply ironic:
nope, i've worked in the NE too.
I don't hear "dittoheads" spewing ...pseudo-intellectual fallacy....
When it became clear I wasn't getting lose I pretended to stay awake but went to sleep.
The idiot never noticed.
What'd be the point? iPhone applications aren't coded to run at multiple resolutions (something that will be a problem when/if a hybrid MacOS/iPhone tablet PC comes along), and there's not much to be gained by using a smaller battery or lower-power CPU. I don't understand why everyone expects a smaller, cheaper iPhone to be released. Who'd buy it, and why?
replace all instances of "iphone nano" with "iphone"
replace all instances of "iphone" with "blackberry"
replace macos/iphone tablet pc with VOIP over mobile broadband
now you have the same scenario from years ago.
Apple's iphone platform (unlike their professional computer line) serves no use, but they made a market for it anyway as a fashion accessory.
Fashion is not subject to the laws of usability, interface design, or return on income.
Your generalizations are absolutely correct. I speak from personal experience, as I live in Chicago. I guess you could say I live "downtown", if you could call it that, as it's basically a patch of hard-packed dirt that serves as a "town square" of sorts surrounded by the burnt-out & partially-collapsed shells of once-permanent structures intermingled with crude huts and flimsy market stands.
Our dialect here is a mangled, barely-literate system of monosyllabic grunts that is only vaguely recognizable as having once derived from English.
When we're not engaging in menial labor in deplorable slaughterhouses and rock quarries, we venture out of our rudimentary shelters to beat up minorities, wager our food stamps on cockfights, drink copious amounts of homemade liquor, and, when there are no minorities left to beat up, drunkenly brawl with each other.
On Sundays we all attend Latin mass. At least I think it's Latin...it could be English for all I know (we speak a primarily grunt-based dialect, if you'll recall).
In summary, everything between the coasts is just awful. We are a godforsaken group of sloping-browed heathens who will quite literally eat you alive if you attempt to venture near any of our Mad Max-like settlements. I would advise you and all like-minded coastal urbanites to stay in your cities and not attempt to make any contact with us, for your own safety of course.
Oh yay, argument ad absurditum.
Sadly it's a fallacious form of argument.
Given the nature of the post you are replying to, ironically fallacious.
Every city and county between new york and san francisco is filled to the ears with "adults" who never grew up. (that's not to say there aren't a fair share IN those cities, but the ratio is far higher in what is colloquially referred to as "middle america".
Cancel Reply Parent
That is the most arbitrary, non-cursing type of troll I have ever read anywhere! Congratulations, as well!
why thank you, and i know it's going to -1 because the truth hurts!
Unfortunately, I know all too many people who don't feel they should pay more because they consume less. "Why should I pay through the nose for Insurance when I haven't used it for anything but checkups in 10 years?"
I'd suggest slipping something into their food known to cause chronic conditions.
If karmic forces are not bringing their disgustingly selfish behavior back to them maybe they need a little help.
If you were a religious person from that area and you go to New England you would probably be equally annoyed living an such a godless immoral area of the world, where its local laws makes it near impossible for you to speak your faith.
he religious zeal of the South vs. a world where one feels embarrassed, or it is politically incorrect to speak about their faith of the North.
bullcrap. this is where the local laws make it near impossible for you to COMPEL OTHERS to observe your faith against their will, and I do mean compel.
seems that you are confusing religious majority for a particular area with the [maturity] and intelligence of the people in the area.
I don't think there's any confusion about it.
I come from a conservative jewish family. Many members are synagogue leaders. We are a religious family. We don't feel trampled by NE laws and we are not embarrassed to express our faith. Neither are the christians. They do, however, understand the boundaries between religion and logic, and between church and state, and in so doing understand how to respect the belief of others.
is all about perspective. Saying We are Better then Them, Is very dangerous type of talk.
I consider "better" (more accurately "maturity") to be a reflection of the willingness to operate by the ideals of human decency and human rights, and barring that at least by the constitution--the capacity to sacrifice your own selfish wishes for the greater good.
Interesting factoid: people with democratic or leftist bumper stickers are 70% more likely to be pulled over, but the cops who do it, who are predominantly right-wing, are far less likely even in the northeast to be taken to account for their abuses.
I think it says a lot about who actually believes in the adult idea of "live and let live".
Just as a person without faith feels oppressed in the south. A person of faith feels equally oppressed in the north.
This is the third repetition of this blatant right-wing echo-chamber lie.
In the south they do discriminate against you on multiple levels for not being "ultra-evangelical" and compel you to observe their faith in public institutions. (Do you think I made the gym coach thing up? How would you like to be held down into a seat and compelled to engage in idolatry?)
In the north they prevent this kind of discrimination, but go no further.
NYC are a bunch of Whiny Babies... Oh we need this service oh we need that... We need more money from Upstate.
who are the whiny leeching babies again?
Poor diet and the ensuing health issues are not something that deserves sympathy. If you choose to smoke and get lung cancer, no one should feel sorry for you. If you pig out on Doritos and Big Macs and end up a diabetic because of your poor choices, why the hell should anyone else have to pay for your lifestyle?
Do you think hospital fees are so high because of the rent? you already pay for their lifestyle, except they live in greater pain and you actually pay more because you don't provide preventive care to them.
Wellness programs should be a part of every insurance policy, obviously. Why should we insure ANYONE regardless of health since mcdonalds is obvously the most successful restaurant chain in the US. EVERYONE east there.
By the way, way to go stereotyping. It's almost racist. I suffer in horrible pain and semi-disability and can't buy insurance at any price, and I have never been obese, never smoked, and can count the number of times i've been drunk on my hands. The disease I was diagnosed with has no scientifically determined cause yet, and i've had healthy eating habits from a young age.
(ironically, because nutrition uptake is now impaired, I have to eat fast food, which I find disgusting, to get the calories I need)
Additionally, I worked my ass off and have been severely hindered both in school and post-graduate because of this condition. I could be providing a lot of taxable income, but i'm in a catch-22. Group plans are the only way i will ever be insured, but my condition is impairing me to the point i'll probably never angle something which will provide one.
It's really nice of people like you to punish me for the actions of others.
"Better 1000 innocent people go to prison than 1 guilty man go free"
Why does this sound a bit wrong.. oh wait.
This problem crops up whenever socialized healthcare is discussed in the US, as well as many other socialized programs. Most people are more interested in punishing others for overeating than they are in having an effective and economical solution for themselves.
Except, as both of you have ignored, many conditions are genetic, and completely unrelated to weight or food intake.
Friggas' Ring (GP post) also ignores my main point, which is a rebuttal against the complaint about risk.
Risk can ben assessed extremely accurately and compensated for in rate structures without excluding or discriminating against people. I've done projects using the software involved and the models were accurate to within 2%.
This is not some luxury item or fashion accessory we're talking about. It's not even a house, or electricity, or even food. This is personal health. People who suffer from diseases like this are suffering just as much from people's refusal to demand anti-discrimination regulations for insurers as if these same people walked into their homes and shot them.
I know, i'm one of these sufferers. I have never ever been overweight. My parents instilled good eating habits and to this day I prefer fruit over sweets. Despite this I was diagnosed with crohn's disease and now suffer mild but chronic internal bleeding and pain equivalent to a blow to the groin day in and day out.
My extended family makes good money but nobody will sell me insurance at any price. This is a breach of their economic function.
The way insurance companies are supposed to work is people of varying health pay in, those who need it get compensated, and if the equations are done properly the firm profits.
It's much like a bank. Note there are many regulations which considerably limit the criteria banks can use to turn customers away, and while selectivity is allowed in lending that is MONEY, not someone's well being. You don't become disabled or experience agonizing pain when your bank turns down a mortgage app and sends you back to your apartment.
I'd also like to note that insurance companies are doing much more egregious things to kill competition than banks.
You can't switch companies, period, because they require you wait a year before they'll cover any conditions you currently have. Imagine if every bank required you to deposit your paychecks for a full year before you were allowed to withdraw from the account. You wouldn't switch banks any time soon would you?
If it was that simple, you just need to aerosol the "disperse" signal, which the summary implies makes your immune cells immediately attack anything that matches what they were near at the time...fortunately for everybody, it's not nearly so simple. If it was, how could the chemical signal in question possibly exist? If your body ever released it, SOME cells would be closer to each other or other important cells! Almost as though the summary was a dumbed down explanation of how it sort of works? Plus if you want a poison bullet just fill it with cyanide? Or nicotine, which is a much more concentrated poison?
Anyways, how this works is, these cells are exposed to concentrated antigens, specifically targeted and formulated in the lab before injection. Cancer is mostly just like your own body. But cancer cells make their own proteins. The body ignores them sometimes, saying "oh they're coming from me, must be harmless," which is bad. But if you rub your immune systems nose in it and say "Spread the word", as it were, it can be forced into attacking it whatever is making these proteins. I believe there's been limited success with just injecting large amounts of antigen, but your body doesn't always get the hint. What we see here is a combination of getting high concentrations of antigen, with a technique for making sure the body actually sends immune cells to investigate! I'm not sure what happens if you gather up a large concentration of natural bodily proteins, but I think in most cases it won't trigger an autoimmune response. And you certainly have to do that concentration in a lab, not in a bullet ;)
Interesting, but you can bet your life the pharma companies are going to fight any efforts to certify such a technique tooth and nail. They make too much money off "treatments" to have an actual cure floating around.
Incorporate this in bullets and you get 100% lethality.
Well in terms of pure combat standards, an injured soldier is actually worse than a dead one, since the dead one can be carried off later, wheras the injured one needs immediate medical attention.
Your body releases cytokines every time you get cut, or shot. Your immune system manages to avoid killing you in those cases, usually.
Why bother with this roundabout way anyhow? If you absolutely want to kill everyone you shoot, it would be much easier and quicker to make a poisoned bullet.
in this scenario you get the best of both worlds.
Wounded soldier then gets carried off to hospital, where they tell him the bullet has given him an auto-immune disorder and he has X months to live.
News gets back to the front lines. Morale drops, and the will to fight dwindles.
Given how the effects would look like an auto-immune disorder, this gives totalitarian elements in "democracies" (do they actually represent ANY of us anymore?) the way to untraceably dispose of political opponents.
nope, i've worked in the NE too.
I don't hear "dittoheads" spewing bigoted nonsense, pseudo-intellectual fallacy, or living in their own dream-world.
When I went to school in the NE, I was not physically compelled by gym coaches to sit through latin mass during the holidays.
When I go out for leisure in the NE, I don't hear irrational babble wherever I go in butchered english.
It would already be trivially easy to make bullets that contained a lethal toxin, the reason we don't do it isn't because of inability. Yes, you could misuse this research (just like any other advance) but it certainly wouldn't be the bio-weapon of choice due to sheer inefficiency and slowness of effect.
that's the beauty of it. It's a terror weapon.
it will leave you in agony for days, weeks, or months knowing you will die.
Incorporate this in bullets and you get 100% lethality.
"cellular army bullet" enters body, tip takes sample of nearby healthy cells, programs immune system to attack own body, person dies horrible death to both his own immune system and the pathogens which are now left alone by the distracted immune system.
"Shut up, kidspeak is a legitimate dialect, just like ebonics and legalese. /satire"
Lucky bastard - my daughter has started using lolspeak in conversation. Oh, the shame...
Isn't that what rolled up newspapers are for?
Whenever I devolved in that way (at least verbally, my spelling can sometimes become atrocious) my parents would correct me. If it continued they would ignore anything spoken in that way.
ADD also tends to drive creativity [...] Get the right ADD medication and some paxil.
And lose my creativity? No thanks.
i was put on ADD medication, and while on it i'm just as creative, but better able to plan and apply that creativity.
I understand the apprehension, and have been a victim of improper medication, but if the meds are not targeting only the tact and distraction issues then you're on the wrong ones.
Another example: mood stabilizers will make a depressive functional, but they don't get rid of the depression or return interest or motivation.
(that's not to say there aren't a fair share IN those cities, but the ratio is far higher in what is colloquially referred to as "middle america".
Yes, Kansas City is well known for the percentage of its residents in therapy and the percentage of low-income employees who are really performers and just doing this to make ends meet.
i'm sorry but maturity is not measured by emotional problems or income, it's measured in how you look at and treat people.
bigotry, intolerance, anti-intellectualism, the propensity for physical violence, the refusal to accept observable reality.
People who are in therapy are generally there because observable reality sucks. (then there are those who simply stop by for scrips because of chemical imbalances which would otherwise cripple them)
Your derision against people who are working menial jobs while trying to advance their careers is rather hypocritical considering the traditional conservative "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality. So which is it? "enjoy your sucky life" or "pull yourself up by your bootstraps"?
Since it's already slahshdotted, here's the cached version.
Page wont load in google cache either. Google cache has been slashdotted.
nhk
ah the joy of field specific acronyms nobody understands.
I live in atlanta pal.
I experience it every day.
I know what i'm talking about, i've traveled all over the south and midwest as my FBI agent father was transferred all over the place.
I go back to the north east where my family lives and it's a different world.
Posted anonymously for obvious reasons. I work for a small company that writes claims management and adjudication software for health insurance. Our software actually allows the provider to write their own decision engines using a special language.
On more than one occasion, we've had client companies, or prospective clients, come to us with requests for features and functionality that would be unethical, if not illegal. You are very correct - the idealistic principle of insurance is that it is a shared risk endeavor. That has been broken down by the insurance co's to a one-sided agenda where they know they have you by the balls and can deny for any reason under the sun, including those that specifically go against the grain of insurance (i.e. if you move to a different provider who provides 'substantially materially similar' benefits, at a separate rate, there should be no waiting period - statistics and probability don't work like that).
My wife uses chiro services. Non-insurance rate? $45. With insurance? $135. There is something very wrong with that picture, when you know that you are paying $500+ a month in health insurance, it's predominantly YOU paying that. Why not go to a HSA or FSA? Save that money, pay the cheaper rate - the only reason most people don't is for catastrophic coverage - so you'd think that catastrophic coverage only plans would be reasonably cheap, etc? No. Cheap, yes. After you pay some of the highest deductibles around (I've seen $7,500 personal, $20,000 family commonly).
It's a racket, and though anecdotal, there's something awry when someone whose income is derived from the insurance industry is agitating for universal health care (not that it'd go away entirely, but nonetheless), because as it stands now it is such a fundamentally broken system.
Quoting for relevance.