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Cheesecan wrote: Many people who have bad health have it because they don't exercise, drink too much alcohol, smoke too much, do drugs, etc, if they can pay their own bills, other tax payers should not have to subsidize their costs. Tough love in other words.

Cheesecan wrote:but it's quite reasonable to demand that people not indulge in habits that will diminish their health at an abnormally high rate, and also, to encourage good health in citizens.

What if you have DNA that gives you bad teeth? Why not test everyone and classify thosee sick-sub-humans? And why not counter-wise tax with the healthcarecosts the cigaretts and sweets-industry?
Its always the people who never could abandone a bad habbit themselve who believe they have the right to judge foreigners.

Machete234: It's quite obvious that you don't actually take the time to read my entire posts, and also try to infer some ridiculous things which I haven't written, and even in some cases, spoken against.
Imagine if you give two men in the desert a jug of water each, and one man drinks his immediately, and the other man saves his so he could have it later when he really needs it. Is it then right for the other man to demand his water? What kind of sicknesses would you choose to treat freely, wouldn't you prioritize anything? At the end of the day, resources are always limited, so you cannot give everyone what they need.

Licho: What separates man from animal is reason. Without reason we would have no free will, but we do.

Licho & Teutooni: You will notice that I never mentioned addicts. Addicts are a separate group because they are inherently incapable of exercising control over their habits. But you can be living an unhealthy lifestyle involving all those things I mentioned, without being an addict, and be to blame for your own bad health. Also, even if you are obese, you could still exercise to improve your health. Many obese people would argue that they are obese by nature, so there is no point to try to struggle against it. I believe on the contrary, if your organism has that sort of leaning, you should take the time to exercise. There are people out there who do this, they should be given a carrot.

PicassoCT: You would only disqualify for free dental care if you have bad teeth because of your habits, e.g. you are a smoker, use chewing tobacco, don't brush your teeth or something similar. In many countries, there are higher taxes on cigarettes and alcohol. Don't understand your last point about judging foreigners.

So there is allready a tax on alcohol and cigarettes and exactly the people who use alc+cig have to pay it.
Isnt this more just than to deny somebody with bad teeth a free treatment. (You cant really say what is the cause of the bad teeth)

Cheesecan wrote: Imagine if you give two men in the desert a jug of water each, and one man drinks his immediately, and the other man saves his so he could have it later when he really needs it. Is it then right for the other man to demand his water?

I dont really see that at all, everybody gets treated.
If you have a small thing you will see the doc for 5 min or routine checks etc.
Nobody actually likes going to the doctor, if I have a cold I stay in bed for 2 days.
I wont go to the doc to get some meds that dont do anything.

I didnt need any medical treatment for years but still I wouldnt feel that others steal my money who need treatment.

See it as some kind of insurance, you probably pay all your life and never cause an accident.
If you overdrive somebody one day, good you had that insurance otherwise the accident would financially ruin you.

Cheesecan wrote:
Now if he was a chain-smoking, alcoholic, grotesquely overweight guy who likes to do jackass stunts

Again: this guy probably wont be there to collect his retirement but he paid into the fund.

Sleksa wrote: A friend of mine goes to gym 4x a week, doesnt smoke and drinks normally and yet is sick atleast once or twice a month, and has a lot of health related issues. Paying for all the things he's went through woulda broken atleast 3 families financially in a privatized system

Guys who play football(soccer) fanatically will have the most broken legs a 25 year old can have.

And this excercising BS with supplements and protein might not be the healthiest thing at all.

Licho: What separates man from animal is reason. Without reason we would have no free will, but we do.

Seriously like what? Human behavior is just like animal behavior. Humans are like animals with slightly better communication skills and more advanced tools .. so what?
Animals are perfectly capable of reasoning even if they cannot verbalise. Heck even stupid chicken can count!

And even with "reason" there is little "free will" if your reasoning is based on physical processes in your brain which are defined by environment or if you are unable to command yourself to listen to that reason.
How much free will does your computer have?

Only thing that's "real" is suffering each of us can experience. And that's same for us and most animals.


As for "money" - money are just tool for distributing energy and resources efficiently. Its society organizing tool. You don't "own" anything in this world. You are temporarily given control over fraction of resources humans command, thats all. Without rest of society you would be helpless lost being unable to survive for more than few days. You would be lucky if you invent fire in your lifetime or figure out how to make stone tool.

Cheesecan wrote:Machete234: It's quite obvious that you don't actually take the time to read my entire posts, and also try to infer some ridiculous things which I haven't written, and even in some cases, spoken against.
Imagine if you give two men in the desert a jug of water each, and one man drinks his immediately, and the other man saves his so he could have it later when he really needs it. Is it then right for the other man to demand his water? What kind of sicknesses would you choose to treat freely, wouldn't you prioritize anything? At the end of the day, resources are always limited, so you cannot give everyone what they need.

This is not a case of 2 dying men with the same amount of water, this is about a healthy man sitting on a wagon full of water and a dying man who was fool enough to drink his small canister all in one go. Should the rich, healthy man not share?

Cheesecan wrote:Licho & Teutooni: You will notice that I never mentioned addicts. Addicts are a separate group because they are inherently incapable of exercising control over their habits. But you can be living an unhealthy lifestyle involving all those things I mentioned, without being an addict, and be to blame for your own bad health. Also, even if you are obese, you could still exercise to improve your health. Many obese people would argue that they are obese by nature, so there is no point to try to struggle against it. I believe on the contrary, if your organism has that sort of leaning, you should take the time to exercise. There are people out there who do this, they should be given a carrot.

The kind of people who need healthcare because of a destroyed liver or lung cancer ARE addicts. On top of that, people under the influence of such substances may cause injuries for others, both mental (children of an addict for example) and physical (bar brawl etc). In that light, should the addicts just go untreated?

His theories only work out when you simplify everything to the max, which is foolish because reality is more complex.

Same goes for neo liberal economic theory.

Machete234 wrote:So there is allready a tax on alcohol and cigarettes and exactly the people who use alc+cig have to pay it.
Isnt this more just than to deny somebody with bad teeth a free treatment. (You cant really say what is the cause of the bad teeth)

You could give everyone free dental care. In a perfect world, resources wouldn't be limited. But the cost for helping those with bad teeth probably dramatically increases the expenses of the dental care sector..so unless resources were unlimited, you could probably help more people if you chose to charge extra from those who neglected their toothbrushing.

You made a good points about exercising, but of course there are ways to exercise(like in 1984) which are so boring, that you couldn't really hurt yourself doing it.

Licho: A computer has no free will because it's not self-aware. Most animals are incapable of reasoning because that takes self-awareness imho. Most animals are not actually self-aware. To test self-awareness, you put a creature in front of the mirror. Can the creature understand that it is seeing itself, or does it think that it sees another one of its kind?
Some animal species have passed that test, those are, all the great apes, elephants, orcas, dolphins, and the european magpie(pretty cool since it's a very common bird, crafty little bastards if you ever watched them for long).

With sufficient common sense(those things we all take for granted, e.g. 1+1=2) you could make decisions based on reasoning. Most people think they are abundantly gifted with common sense, give a man 3 wishes and he would probably never wish for more common sense. The most common wishes would probably have something to do with the groin region, wallet region or satisfying a desire.
Now common sense is more or less the same as reasoning, it's then unlikely that everyone is wrong about having it, which would mean that everyone is equally gifted with it, and the main difference is how we choose to use our reasoning.

This implies that we could all make the same kind of good choices, but some choose not to, probably out of hereditary reasons or because of their environment. But the act of choosing one option is in itself only possible if you have free will. In animals without self-awareness, you don't see one animal running in the opposite direction of the rest of the herd when they see food, everyone runs in the same direction. Likewise a non-quantum computer, being a certain machine state and given one input, should and can only produce one output(at least in theory, if no component fails, and the computation executed is proven to be formally correct, that is, no human error). But humans, having free will, could react in any number of ways, if we were machines, we would be flawed in that way. This is not because our instincts are so much more complex than other animals, it's because we have some processes going on in our brain that allow us to reason with ourselves, and others of our kind.

I am with you there that nobody would survive very well on their own, of course everyone is contributing in their way, and must get something back. That is what money is good for. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, we have been cooperating since when we first came on this planet, because cooperation increases our total productivity = output of the human race. More productivity for us then means more chances for procreation(usually the goal of an organism).

But money is actually more than just a tool, it's also maybe the closest thing we have to a measurement of an individual's productivity, or at least how much society deems fit to reward that person for their perceived productivity. If the purpose of cooperation is heightened productivity, and if then money is an expression of productivity, why should any other individual who is less productive, dispose of the money of those more productive? The productive man/woman, being a productive person, would use his/her money to maximize productivity better than the less productive. So then in a society, any event where a more productive member gives up their money for the rest, is an example of altruism. If so, then he would actually be surviving better not quite on his own, but with a subset of the population, containing other productive persons who could also imagine surviving without the rest. So it's not actually true what you say that everyone needs the rest of society to survive.

Teutooni: Of course the rich man should share, but he should also get tax deductions if he chooses to indulge in a healthy lifestyle. He will be less of a burden on society than his copy the rich man who doesn't live a healthy lifestyle.

The last question you had, is very good, I haven't quite decided yet. Probably the addict should/could never be held responsible for anything he/she does, since his/her reasoning would be too impaired from being addicted. The individual's own application/lack of application of reason being the criteria for deciding who gets free health care.

Machete234:
I am actually making the case that you guys are the ones with the simplified theory, because you are assuming that we have the resources to give everyone free health care, but if we did, there would be no need to discuss about it. Nobody would let someone else die unless they had no choice. The system I am in favor of is a system that is moral in 3 ways, 1) it makes the individual responsible for his conscious decisions 2) it helps the greatest amount of people. 3) promotes quality before quantity, so really really sick people(who are not to blame for their sickness) would get the best care possible.

You make lots of wrong assumptions.

Self-awarness - understanding that you differ from others and that others can have different intention, recognizing self in mirror - that's theory of mind. Not all animals have it but it's not prerequisite of what would external observer recognize as reasoning.
Animals without this ability can calculate risk and decide depending on situation just fine. Heck even stupid aligator learns patterns of human behavior like times at which people go next to water etc.

Humans vs animals and "right" choices - there is no such thing as "right" choice - much less universal "right" choice. What works for one person might not work for another. Perhaps if you don't start drinking you will be too depressed and kill yourself, who knows.
Recent studies revealed that human behavior can be studied in much the same way as animal behavior and basically all vertebraes exhibit similar degree of "randomness". Basically human behavior can be predicted in the same way you can predict animal behavior and it's randomness is similar.

Quantum computers are deterministic. They are not stronger than ordinary computer. You can simulate quantum computer on ordinary computer.
You can simulate brain on ordinary computer too unless we don't understand something fundamental in how it works, which is unlikely. That means brains are fully deterministic systems defined by the "inputs" (in case of brains or even computers input is also stored state).

Money = personal effecitivy? Oh that's naive idea :) You really believe that CEO of banks are "extremely effective"? Or people who inherited stuff, stolen stuff, had luck in setting up their company or just were unscrupulous enough to get at top.
How do you know they really contribute something as opposed to just siphon resources due to position of power.

Cheesecan wrote:
Machete234:
I am actually making the case that you guys are the ones with the simplified theory, because you are assuming that we have the resources to give everyone free health care, but if we did, there would be no need to discuss about it. Nobody would let someone else die unless they had no choice. The system I am in favor of is a system that is moral in 3 ways, 1) it makes the individual responsible for his conscious decisions 2) it helps the greatest amount of people. 3) promotes quality before quantity, so really really sick people(who are not to blame for their sickness) would get the best care possible.

The problems i have with you, is your overidealized picture of people. Some of the are not completely thoughtthatthrough guys, there might be people out there who rely on moods&feelings for decisions, roll the dice or simply deligate that decision to another person (who might give a damn). All this is seen in your "Anti-human" perspective as automatically bad and evil behaviour against society itself, isurrgency who got to be fought by denieing surgery in case of emergency. Its the same tone of the british puritanism, who made the lower classes responsible for there own missery, and send those familys, split appart into workhouses (aka labour-camps).
There might be people who are not intelligent, and still dont desserve the horrible destiny your healthcare program will come up with next. (They seem to pass down there unhealthy habbits down the generations like rabbits, so lets sterilize those, for the better of humanity). On the other hand, i knew a guy who shared your ideas.


Im happy that i can walk down a street, and i will never see a homeless person with maggots on there knees like you can have it in the US, and other, oh so idiotic (privatized) wellfared countrys, paying more for less.

INB4 FORB SCREAMIN: WHY AINT THOSE MAGGOTS WORK TO HEALTHSUPPORT THERE HOST. THEY HAVE BROUGHT THAT FATE DOWNUPON THEMSELVES.

So its full social medicare systemsocialized, and all there is, is refinement to battle corruption and to better the service. Andy sort of competition, resulting in real life_loosers is not available due to leading back to the back conditions stated at the beginning.[/endofdiscussion]

I don't really know much about animal reasoning, or quantum computers which I haven't studied at all. So I will take your word for it.
Although I do disagree with you in that I think humans have free will, and that it is immoral to assert otherwise, thereby justifying anything you do as right, blaming what you did on someone or something else. To me, a lack of knowledge is forgivable, but consciously doing something you know to be wrong, is my definition of bad or evil.

CEOs at banks are effective at generating profit for their company, at least they should be, that is why they are CEOs. You don't become a CEO for nothing, although maybe the american public seems to think so because wall street CEOs screwed them out of their money.

Theft and inheritance doesn't really count, it's more about your lifetime taxed income, as a measurement of your contribution to society.

Don't understand why you guys keep referring my system as anti-social or anti-human, I think it's quite humane, as it provides the highest quality care to the largest amount of people. What you propose is to water the quality down to provide health care for everybody. If so then is this to be achieved through a planet-wide health care system? If not then what is stopping foreign nationals from over-utilizing the health care system of your country. After all it is anti-social to turn those guys down! right? so then your own citizens would be left with even worse health care. So far, you only see fit to judge my system based on your initial feeling that it is "wrong", conveying up some fascist pictures or eugenics or whatnot, when really what I proposed is just a way to further rationalize the system already in place--.

Well how old are you Cheesecan? You just appear to have lot's of idealism about how world works or how people get into places they are :)
It's not working well. It's hard to prove, but I guess you will see when you experience it yourself. People in high positions are often pretty incompetent. In fact there were some recent studies that show that by randomly selecting people to higher position, companies work equal or better than current :)
Hell I'm CEO, doesn't that prove enough? :)

Cheesecan wrote: I am actually making the case that you guys are the ones with the simplified theory, because you are assuming that we have the resources to give everyone free health care, but if we did, there would be no need to discuss about it.

There is "free" health care in my country and there is no indication that there are limited ressources.
If I got a hole in my tooth I can get that fixed in days and I dont have to pay that.
So no there is no shortage of treatment.

Cheesecan wrote: CEOs at banks are effective at generating profit for their company, at least they should be, that is why they are CEOs. You don't become a CEO for nothing, although maybe the american public seems to think so because wall street CEOs screwed them out of their money.

What if a CEO was succesful because he took risks and it happened to work out and this is how he generated the profit?
So he moves up in the hirarchy.

One of the unfair things of this world is that those country who give a shit and avoid public funding, do not attract talented people (70 % of your salary is yours in the UK or US, compared to 55 % in germany), so basically we finance the education of people who then leave the country. It creates a downward arment spiral in the public sector, and if you ask me, would be a solid reason for having punitive duty on hi-tec from non-welfare countrys.

Thats a different discussion and health care cant be that much that goes off your salary because UK has it too.
And 55% is for rich people I guess.

PicassoCT wrote:It creates a downward arment spiral in the public sector, and if you ask me, would be a solid reason for having punitive duty on hi-tec from non-welfare countrys.

You would have to put that on everything that is intellectual property.
So microsoft windows from the us would cost extra tax.

But I doubt this would change anything.

Licho wrote:Well how old are you Cheesecan? You just appear to have lot's of idealism about how world works or how people get into places they are :)
It's not working well. It's hard to prove, but I guess you will see when you experience it yourself. People in high positions are often pretty incompetent. In fact there were some recent studies that show that by randomly selecting people to higher position, companies work equal or better than current :)
Hell I'm CEO, doesn't that prove enough? :)

I'm in my early twenties, but if anything I'm actually quite cynical in my world view. I'm not the one arguing that everyone can have free health care here(!).
Licho you seem like an intelligent person so I don't see why you couldn't be a CEO. Hell I was CEO of my own company for a while too. :) CEO is nothing special, and you have lots of incompetent individuals who are CEOs. But you also have lots of bright people..so it kind of evens things out. Maybe the studies you refer to showed some surprising results, but they show only the effects of a small change. Picking one or two randomly is a different thing than picking everyone.

In here they relaxed taxes a lot in the last 8 years, because people were beginning to talk in those terms that working in here didn't pay off. For some people with low incomes, it was better to live on welfare than to have a job.
I pay about 30% income tax and 25% VAT. That's pretty decent, but it starts to get hairy if you try to earn a lot. The government also has it in their head that they can steal my money and place it into my pension fund, which by the looks of it, I will have to work until I am 70 to get to touch.
Compared to the US, we can afford nice privileges like free education while having similar taxes. Of course we don't fight wars or have financial meltdowns. Our government has historically been very fiscally responsible, so our public debt is only a small part of our GDP, and our GDP is growing at a much higher rate than the debt is growing. Meanwhile a country like the US cannot afford to increase their expenditure, since they already have such a huge debt, which is still growing fast.

You have a lot of third world countries with huge debts to the IMF. They badly need better health care and education, but they cannot afford it because of their proportionately large debts. The IMF is also putting pressure on those countries to relax taxes on imports. This floods domestic markets with foreign goods, putting locals out of business.
Right now big countries like China are making sport of going in and helping third world countries to pay off their debts. A lot of them see it as more beneficial to owe another country than the IMF. In return the lenders sink their teeth into that country's domestic market and natural resources. It's all very bad for the population, who get even lower living standard when their jobs are taken away. There are many countries where free health care is just not possible, but where it's badly needed because citizens cannot even afford it themselves.

@cheesecan: why is there a shortage of medical treatment if you choose to get your wisdom tooth ripped out in an ER?
You could have gone to a dentist months before who knows how to do that properly.

What you do is you take your single expirience and say its the systems fault.

Cheesecan wrote:Most animals are not actually self-aware. To test self-awareness, you put a creature in front of the mirror. Can the creature understand that it is seeing itself, or does it think that it sees another one of its kind?
Some animal species have passed that test, those are, all the great apes, elephants, orcas, dolphins, and the european magpie(pretty cool since it's a very common bird, crafty little bastards if you ever watched them for long).

Almost every domesticated animal I've seen can be taught this. My cats all display self awareness.

Cadyr, it was ugly, it was retarded, but it was alive, and claimed to be a full grown discussion- and you killed ITT: