On Wed, Dec 17, 2014 at 1:07 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 12/16/2014 10:15 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: > > Hi Liz, > > On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 7:51 PM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> What is funny - as well as sad and frightening - is the number of people >> here who apparently don't believe in democracy, even in principle. >> Democracy is the idea that we can elect people to do things for everyone >> else (the NHS, conservation, social security, infrastructure, regulations, >> police, army science etc etc). >> > > All of the things you mention are run by unelected bureaucrats with long > careers, who see politicians come and go. > > I highly recommend the British show "Yes, Prime Minister!" to learn > about this: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmXzGI0XP7M > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeF_o1Ss1NQ > > >> Yet all I can see here is people saying that it doesn't work. I think >> the truth is that it can be hijacked and THEN it doesn't work. The NHS >> (despite everything) was one of the greatest achievements of the 20th >> century, after all. And it was introduced by a government because of its >> beliefs and principles. >> > > The NHS is the sort of thing that should worry an Ecologist, because > it's based on infinite growth. Both the European system (based on infinite > demographic growth) and the Anglo (based on infinite economic growth). I > also feel that it serves mostly to fix a problem created by the government > itself in a previous regulatory wave. The barriers to competition in the > practice of healthcare are so high that it becomes unaffordable without > insurance or subsidy. > > > Health care isn't well regulated by competition because the consumer is > ill equipped to judge the necessity or the quality of service and the most > expensive service tends to a one-time event for the consumer. >
There are all sorts of mechanisms that are already employed by the private sector to deal with this, namely brand reputation and third-party certification services. Private certification brands would depend so much on their own reputation that they would probably be less vulnerable to bribes than government inspectors. > > It's one of the several resource confiscation traps that have been > emerging under crony capitalism. > > > What does that mean? > It means that an essential service felt into the hands of an oligarchy, that made it illegal for anyone to provide the service without playing by their rules. There is zero competition on price, but the drive for maximising profits that the left criticises so much is still present. The rational agents create horizontal and vertical cartels (with the insurance companies) and fix prices. Services that could cost $20 now cost $5000. Then in the US, you tie health insurance to employment and now you have servitude again. > > > I know, I know. You're going to say that lots of deaths have been > prevented by these regulations. This is true. But how many deaths have been > caused by poor or inexistent access to healthcare? > > > In the U.S. it's been estimated as at least 40,000/yr. > > How many have been caused by the glaciar pace of innovation imposed by > such regulations? > > > What innovation has been delayed by regulation? thalidomide? abortion > pills? > MDMA therapy for soldiers that suffer from PTSD, for example. Ketamine for severe depression. DMT for drug addictions. Nutritional research that is not controlled by food lobbies. If governments were genuinely worried about thalidomide scenarios, they would rush to make cannabis legal everywhere. The market is being flooded with "legal highs" and one of them could very well be the next thalidomide. Cannabis is sufficiently tested, so legalising it would be the rational action if public health was the real concern. > > > > By patents? People refuse to recognise that this trade-off exists. > > I dream of flat guaranteed income based on a real currency (not the > current pyramid schemes that we call Dollars or Euros). Possibly a > cryptocurrency with a smart algorithm that hopefully cannot fall under the > control of the bandits. > > > Isn't there already an effective guaranteed "income" in terms of food, > shelter, health care. I doubt people are allowed to starve or freeze or go > without medical treatment. Of course I would agree that there should also > be a guarantee of as much education as a person wishes to absorb. > I couldn't agree more on the last point. This is actually something important we might be able to agree on: an educated population is a more effective tool for progress than any ideology. It is true that the western world made great progress in terms of providing a safety net at the very bottom. The system will probably not let you starve to death or die of exposure. What I'm proposing is different, though. Technological progress should lead to less need for labour. With the leverage of technology, less people have to work to feed and shelter everyone. But with our current economic system, the main mechanism of wealth distribution are jobs. Job creation is one of the main concerns of the politicians. This is insane. Why condemn everyone to a life of pointless servitude? My dream with the minimum income is that, if you don't like your job, you can just stop working without worries. Maybe learn something else. Maybe just be an artist or watch tv all day, who cares? The more ambitious would always step in to provide this service with the leverage of technological innovation. My point is this: the financial and political systems are now the limiting factors when it comes to approaching the Star Trek state of affairs. Technology and science are far ahead, and amazing things could be possible. Imagine what could be achieved under a system where everyone desperately desired job destruction? And now we're back to the original topic of this thread :) Telmo. > > Brent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
