COVID19 Factors We Should Consider/Current Events

[Barry Charles]

Total sophistry. A destroyed credit score and a lifetime's worth of debt is clearly not equivalent to "nothing". ?

No not sophistry. I asked a direct and answerable question.

[Mark Gleichauf]

\\I just want to quote this without any commentary from me. This is my opposition. This is the group of people that I’m fighting against: grown men who earnestly believe that “kings don’t want to micro-mangage their lives” and “kings respect property rights”. That’s the level of informedness that the trad right boasts in this country.

A monarchy is preferable to a democracy.

You are absolutely wrong that Hayek and Friedman have different reasons for endorsing UBI than I do. They thought it would solve the problem of poverty without interfering in markets. I agree with them. End of story.

In short, Milton Friedman preferred universal basic income to what we have, not because he thought it a great idea, but because it reduced dozens of bureaucracies down to one writing UBI checks.

[Shiva Kaul]

Atilis Gym Bellmawr was stripped of their mercantile license by the state.

In other NJ news, the state rejected ~10% of mail-in votes for protocol violations, and may compel citizens to unlock their phones despite the 5th amendment.

[Brian Harlin]

Once again, a positive test is NOT A CASE!

The medical community knows this..."

^this.

Although I have seen medical “Experts” throw this term around loosely as well. I really wish more people would correct people in the moment when this happens.

[Mark Rippetoe]

This may be the most amazing and yet obvious suggestions I've seen so far: 'Morality pills' may be the US's best shot at ending the coronavirus pandemic, according to one ethicist

My research in bioethics focuses on questions like how to induce those who are noncooperative to get on board with doing what’s best for the public good. To me, it seems the problem of coronavirus defectors could be solved by moral enhancement: like receiving a vaccine to beef up your immune system, people could take a substance to boost their cooperative, pro-social behavior. Could a psychoactive pill be the solution to the pandemic?

Even if these factors were achievable, they still require the very cooperative behavior that’s in short supply. The scale of the pandemic is simply too great for any of this to be possible. It seems that the U.S. is not currently equipped to cooperatively lower the risk confronting us. Many are instead pinning their hopes on the rapid development and distribution of an enhancement to the immune system – a vaccine.

But I believe society may be better off, both in the short term as well as the long, by boosting not the body’s ability to fight off disease but the brain’s ability to cooperate with others. What if researchers developed and delivered a moral enhancer rather than an immunity enhancer?

Another challenge is that the defectors who need moral enhancement are also the least likely to sign up for it. As some have argued, a solution would be to make moral enhancement compulsory or administer it secretly, perhaps via the water supply. These actions require weighing other values. Does the good of covertly dosing the public with a drug that would change people’s behavior outweigh individuals’ autonomy to choose whether to participate? Does the good associated with wearing a mask outweigh an individual’s autonomy to not wear one?

A "bioethicist" cannot understand the scale of this bullshit "pandemic." Once again: This is not about a disease. It is about control.

[DylanClarke]

\\

Britain. 2020. Lower healthcare costs than America per capita. But of course, you already knew that that would be my response. You’re just a 17-year-old virgin who is trying to impress Rip with your jadedness about government involvement in resource allocation. Ask that girl from your French class on a date, little man. It may be therapeutic for you to let a bit of the poison out.

Cool story bro.

I grew up working class in Britain, did pretty well for myself during my mid 20s to mid 30s and have lived in the US for the last 3 and a half years, so I can do a first hand comparison of the US and UK health care systems.

The British system is cheaper because it's not as good as the US one. Wait ages to have someone decide whether it's a good use of resources to give you a treatment, or whether they should just send you home to get sicker and pat themself on the back for being thrifty. Then if you are doing well enough to have private healthcare it ends up being a lot more expensive then in the US, and often only available in major metropolitan areas.

When I was poor I had teeth go bad because the NHS dentist could only claim for so many fillings and knew he'd run out before the end of the month, so wanted to save them for people in worse health than me who couldn't cope as well with dental pain. I knew people who were denied therapy for depression just because they were male and some studies suggested it was a more cost effective treatment for women. I knew someone who was denied heart surgery because he was 55 and he was likely to live 5-10 years without it, so it wasn't a good use of resources.

Then when I had money there were no private general practitioners within 200 miles of where I lived, and the NHS ones wouldn't consider referring me for the right treatment for a shoulder injury because the NHS didn't offer it. I ended up driving an 800 mile round trip to get the procedure done even when I was paying a lot of money for it.

But hey, the NHS was free - well except for the extra taxes that were used to pay for it - so maybe it was worth all the unnecessary pain.

[Eric Schexnayder]

Once again: This is not about a disease. It is about control.

Control is such an ugly word, Coach. Let’s use “Moral Enhancement” instead.

[Mark Rippetoe]

The British system is cheaper because it's not as good as the US one. Wait ages to have someone decide whether it's a good use of resources to give you a treatment, or whether they should just send you home to get sicker and pat themself on the back for being thrifty. Then if you are doing well enough to have private healthcare it ends up being a lot more expensive then in the US, and often only available in major metropolitan areas.

When I was poor I had teeth go bad because the NHS dentist could only claim for so many fillings and knew he'd run out before the end of the month, so wanted to save them for people in worse health than me who couldn't cope as well with dental pain. I knew people who were denied therapy for depression just because they were male and some studies suggested it was a more cost effective treatment for women. I knew someone who was denied heart surgery because he was 55 and he was likely to live 5-10 years without it, so it wasn't a good use of resources.

Then when I had money there were no private general practitioners within 200 miles of where I lived, and the NHS ones wouldn't consider referring me for the right treatment for a shoulder injury because the NHS didn't offer it. I ended up driving an 800 mile round trip to get the procedure done even when I was paying a lot of money for it.n.

And those of us that have been paying attention to this for the past 30 years already know this. It amazes me that socialist vermin keep trotting out the theory in the complete absence of the facts to the contrary. They do this because they are not particularly intelligent, and they assume everyone else is also not particularly intelligent. This clown is a perfect example.

[UberBabs]

This better be satire.

[AndrewLewis]

Yes, Rip, the problem of having to delay care because the impoverished serfs are now waiting in the same line as you is a terrible impediment to state-run healthcare systems. This is why in Britain there is a powerful movement to dispense with their inefficient and reviled healthcare system and replace it with our much-loved private health insurance bureacracy, probably borne of the fact that Britons spend much more on health products and greedy doctor salaries in exchange for worse care outcomes than we get here.

Are you familiar with the existing US government-run health care system that is a subset of the VA? Have you ever talked to anyone who has attempted to receive treatment in this "free" healthcare system?