Eccentric Flower:200909/Everybody Dies
From Eccentric Flower
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Everybody Dies
The more I read the preceding entry - and I have read it several times today, in increasing surprise that no one had any snide comments to make about either of the links in it - the more I think "Man's Fault/Everybody Dies" should be the title of my autobiography. Or at least of this journal.
Anyway. Let's have some links. There were going to be nieces and nephews, but my camera ran out of batteries at an inopportune time, and though I had remembered to wear blue pig earrings I had not remembered to bring my spare battery, so none of that.
First off, if you are a person who is greatly annoyed about IKEA changing their font, you need to step back and take a deep breath and get a life before your spouse kills you in your sleep. Just sayin'. I realize that I am far from the absolute arbiter of the world's affairs (and thank god for that, eh?) and that everything which is wholly beneath contempt to one person is a matter of grave importance to another, but: Some things really are not worth wasting indignation over. Really. Honest.
Besides. IKEA is changing to a display-only font because they know what some of their peers are slow to realize: Print is dead. IKEA is concerned that its website look good, not its print catalogs. They are not concerned that their chosen font looks ugly in print, because they know that within the next five years they will stop wasting money on their doorstop-sized print catalog. Bet on it. This has been an official prophecy. I will buy you a beer if I'm wrong.
Now on to real issues.
Everybody in the United States go read this right now.
No, no, I don't want to hear it. No exceptions. If you're not going to read it right now then bookmark it and go read it soon. What's just happened in Japan is probably something you didn't see a single news article about (unless, like me, you read The Economist) - but as a proving ground for some interesting social observations, it is very important. See, the Japanese aren't like us. Except when they are. They just threw the bums out, evicting a political structure that has had a chokehold on power since World War II, but they threw the bums out for entirely different reasons than we did in the US in 2008 - except for the cases where the reasons were exactly the same.
Seriously. I cannot possibly pull enough important blocks of text from this article. Go read it. Here's one representative example, but it in no way does it justice:
What's interesting is that the urge that has thrown out the prior ruling party is basically a conservative one - but the word "conservative" doesn't mean here what you think. The new party, as far as anyone can tell, is a basically left-wing, pro-labor party. "Conservative" here means that the Japanese, far more than us, have a strong sense of national identity. They all have an idea of What Japan Is - a myth, really - that they are extremely reluctant to see change. But unlike us, when they don't want to see that myth change - when a critical mass of voters decides they've seen that myth erode enough - they put a left-wing power into party. Contrast this with our nation, where the forces who are fundamentally resistant to change, who say, "I want it to stay the old way!", are largely on the right.
The Japanese, like most of us, just want to make sure they are cared for in their old age and infirmity. They want to make sure that they, on a personal individual level, have a future. But here, the funny thing is, the loudest people who feel that way take a rather different form from the ones over there.
Which brings us to our next Economist item, which is also worth reading in full: The reason people are resistant to health care changes is because they're scared of death.
To which I would personally add: 1) Americans are stupid. 2) They don't figure odds well.
Actually, 2) is unfair. The problem is that basic selfish tenet of human nature which throws all statistics out the window. I bet if you asked a poll which had two questions separated out like this:
1. Would you spend a million dollars to prolong your life by a year?
2. Would you spend a million dollars to prolong someone else's life by a year?
you'd get two very different answers. If the people answering were the least bit honest about it.
No one wants to picture themselves on the sticky end of an actuarial decision. They're okay with the idea that hard choices have to be made - for other people. The problem is that this inhibits our general willingness to admit something we all really should have acknowledged as a harsh truth a long time ago: Sometimes the best answer is to let someone die gracefully.
The fact that we're still getting stuck on this point says to me that we are really not very well-evolved creatures yet.
As for the massive, massively flawed healthcare bill which is currently throwing Obama's popularity ratings into the toilet, I think it's better than nothing - marginally - but I also have come to believe that he's going to have to give up on bipartisanship to pass it. I respect Obama's desire for bipartisan politics. In fact, it is probably the trait I admire the most in the man, just as it was frequently the one redeeming quality in Ted Kennedy's makeup. But I'm not sure it works anymore. I think the gap may have become too wide. As Barney Frank said, it's like trying to have a discussion with a kitchen table.
Bullshit. There's plenty wrong with that: In Europe they don't get anything done. In Europe, major agreements routinely bog down over matters as trivial as what font IKEA uses. Europe is like academia: They're so busy squabbling at each other over petty one-upmanship that nothing ever happens.
That's not a model we want to emulate - and yet it is the model we are inexorably heading toward.
In Europe they don't get anything done.
... except, of course, for providing single-payer healthcare for every citizen.
(Which is all I'm going to say on the matter, since as you know, Bob, I am prohibited from participating in the healthcare debate lest I start choking Republicans to death.)
Also, to rebut your IKEA point: regardless of whether the print catalog survives, IKEA will still be using that godforsaken Verdana on all its packaging, and that sure as hell won't be going away anytime soon. Verdana is fine for web pages and anything printed at, say, 18pts. It looks like fucking ass at the large sizes IKEA will be using and is a slap in the face to the many, many design geeks who are IKEA fans. I cannot believe that it costs so much to license Futura in 30-odd countries that IKEA couldn't afford it if they wanted to -- that's what site licenses are for. Someone is cheaping out on the design side and should fucking well be fired for it, because the results are completely antithetical to the IKEA brand.
-- 21:27, 8 September 2009 (BST)
You know what I love about the Economist site? They hide comments behind an extra link instead of just flowing down into them. Comments on political sites are like the stone that killed Grof the giant...
Funny, I'd say that 1) is unfair and 2) is a fair point about all human beings and any of their formal risk-reward calculations, and worth noting.
In addition to the question of proximity that you talk about, there's two incredibly difficult questions of probability and expectation that come up wrt healthcare: 1) how to choose when presented with very small odds of very bad (or unreasonably good) outcomes, and 2) how to choose between known odds and unknown odds.
I cannot emphasize how difficult the first of these is. I have personal anecdotes which this comment box is too small to contain; more, it comes up frequently in conversations with an old friend who's finishing up his residency in internal medicine.
For the second, I refer to the last paragraph you quoted from the second article:
Unfounded hope has a monetary value.
-- 01:10, 9 September 2009 (BST)
Dan: Perhaps I am a space alien. My threshold of personal cost-benefit analysis on life extension is quite low. For example, if I got cancer, my thinking would be:
1. Hmm, is chemotherapy worth the amount of misery it will inflict on my daily life?
(i.e. will it place the cancer into remission and then I can stop the chemo, or is it the sort of thing where I will be fighting a placeholder war against cancer for the rest of my life while unable to hold down food and in constant pain?)
2. Tried the chemo and it's barely keeping a foothold: Time to put my affairs in order.
I do not want to die. I believe death is when the fun ends, and I'm still having too much fun to stop. But I could see there coming a point where life wasn't fun any more - because of pain, because of senility, because of my inability to live a lifestyle that is at all interesting in any way. If my life reduces to predigested mush fed to me while I am unable to leave a bed, that's it, let's talk euthanasia. If the fun stops, then my natural impulse is to turn to discussions of how to achieve a pleasant exit, not of how to go broke attempting a treatment that may buy me another year of misery.
Personally, I will not give a bent penny for unfounded hope. Founded hope, that's a separate discussion.
-- 17:04, 9 September 2009 (BST)
Ah, whoops. I meant "all human beings" as opposed to your singling out of Americans -- but it's true, the calculus of risk and reward varies widely among humans of all stripes, and your version is a perfectly reasonable one among many. Not space-alien-like at all.
-- 17:58, 9 September 2009 (BST)
I have mentioned before my friend who is starting her sixth year of weekly chemo, since her diagnosis of Stage IV (IV!!)colon cancer to the liver. Had there been an infrastructure in place with the power to decide her fate based upon usefulness to society, where do you suppose she would be now? All those treatments have been paid for by insurance. They are very expensive. During the six years, several new drugs and methods of administration have been discovered and/or approved, one of which might ultimately cure her lesions. I know she wouldn't have traded those six years for anything.
So, I guess that qualifies as founded hope, huh? There's no way a "panel of experts" would have approved these treatments. Her chances of survival for five years back then were, statistically, 8%. That she's still alive and well and enjoying life is one huge reason why the notion of rationed care based upon a cost-benefit analysis makes my blood run cold. She's the only one who should be in a position to make that decision.
-- 18:30, 9 September 2009 (BST)
With utmost respect to your friend and her struggle with cancer: are you suggesting that the insurance company left the decision of whether or not it was going to pay for those treatments entirely up to her? I'm sure it employs its own panel of experts to make those decisions behind closed doors, to satisfy its own cost-benefit analysis.
Most importantly, I'm glad that that decision came out in her favor. I hope I haven't said anything that implies anything different.
-- 21:39, 9 September 2009 (BST)
"In Europe they don't get anything done."
And yet you say you despise a strong executive and want the legislature to be the dominant branch of government. Well, you have that in all those European parliamentary democracies that "don't get anything done." Surely you must realize that it's the unitary, separate executive that drives the two-party system that keeps us from turning into Italy or even, for that matter, Israel or Britain.
-- 22:36, 9 September 2009 (BST)
Danima, I doubt that Cheryl had any say-so at all about whether her treatments would be covered, but, as I understand our coverage (mine's the same as hers) as long as the treatment is not experimental and is considered medically necessary by her physicians, they have to cover it, to a maximum catastrophic ceiling of... wait, let me look it up...wow. Apparently, there is no maximum they'll pay. I'm impressed. Anyway, the only treatments they can refuse to cover are experimental or investigational, or deemed not medically necessary, such as cosmetic surgery or routine mole removals, stuff like that. That's what we signed on for, and it hasn't changed substantially over the years, except for increases in rates. They can't just summarily drop her.
I'd be willing to bet that for every case like hers, there are 1000 who don't ever get sick. Insurance is a crapshoot, and it must be lucrative, or there wouldn't be an insurance industry, right? They bet that the Cheryls will be few and far between. I don't think there was ever a decision to be made. That's what I was referring to, I guess. I don't want some disinterested third party panel to decide arbitrarily whether her life is worth saving.
She could have elected to refuse treatment, I suppose, but as long as she wants to keep trying (today's report was nothing short of spectacular, BTW) they have to cover her treatments.
I'm not yet convinced that the money's not there, somewhere, to make coverage like this available to more people. I think there are enough tax rules on the books that need to be enforced, in order to collect the taxes already owed. Have you seen ads for these outfits that promise to settle your back taxes for a fraction of what you owe? What's up with that? Closing loopholes and enforcing collection laws would be a reasonable first step. More closely monitoring the costs of procedures and drugs to minimize gouging would also help. Cracking down on out-of-control litigation so as to reduce the astronomical costs of malpractice insurance would help, too. How can we pay some people for pain and suffering, and then tell others they're not cost-effective enough to live? How about limiting the number of non-emergency visits to the doctor for a runny nose or poison ivy or something to X per year? These are all no-brainers. Before making horrific changes to the system that will make things worse for everybody, less catastrophic improvements ought to be tried, to my way of thinking. Oh, and I don't believe ILLEGAL aliens should be entitled to free health care. Send 'em home and let them get treated there. If the treatment's not available there, tough. Come into this country legally, and welcome, I say. How many of those supposed close to 50M uninsured in this country are illegals? I read somewhere it was as many as 22M. Not a big strain on the system, huh? Oh, yeah, I'm cruel and insensitive, because I don't want to support scofflaws for free...
My goodness. I'm sorry to have run on like this. I appreciate your kind words about my friend.
-- 02:32, 10 September 2009 (BST)
Read the quote, Robert. Since my statement was meant to apply directly to the quoted excerpt, what I was saying was "In Europe they don't get anything done because whichever faction is in a bare majority stubbornly tries to shut out the minority parties, thus preventing the sort of coalition that could actually make things happen." Yes, a strong executive is an antidote to that, but at far too great a cost to my mind because then you end up with unilateral, occasionally dictatorial action. The CORRECT answer - for both us and for the Europeans - is to have coalition/non-partisan government - to compromise, compromise, compromise. To not demonize the other factions. The good news for Europe is that in some of those nations the factions have become so weak that they have, in effect, been forced to hold their nose and form unlikely coalitions to get things done. Makes me wish there were a lot more political parties here - more, smaller, and weaker.
This is a sore spot with me because some of my friends seem so prone to wanting the unilateral options. Most of you, if I have your meter correct, are probably hoping the Democrats just ram through health care legislation whether the Republicans cooperate or not. I agree that Republican obstructionism is particularly odious right now, but that still doesn't mean that I think brute force is a safe or sane tactic.*
In short, I don't want a government that doesn't get anything done, but I also don't want a government where a relatively small group manage to make law all by themselves without being beholden to anyone else. And you can't tell me there isn't a third way, because there is - it's just that its last practitioner in this country died a few days ago.
I was taught that the perfect law is one that no one really entirely likes and no one really entirely hates. I sometimes wonder if some folks (my wife especially) have gotten too uncompromising in holding out for a law they entirely like, not caring who entirely hates it.
If you pass a health care bill without even some attempt to appease the right, then it will cause Obama's recent precipitous drop in personality to get even worse, because the citizenry of the heartland don't like being railroaded. They will vote him out and the people they bring in will promptly dismantle your lovely, shining, unilaterally-crammed-down-their-throats health care plan.
* P.S. If you bring in the "But why should we show them any cooperation? They are evil morons!" or any variation of that, you will be undulging in unseemly demonization of the opposition and proving my point. There are plenty of obstructionist idiot kneejerk Democrats floating around today too. The only difference is they don't have their own television channel.
-- 16:30, 10 September 2009 (BST)
"They will vote him out and the people they bring in will promptly dismantle your lovely, shining, unilaterally-crammed-down-their-throats health care plan."
Oh, you mean like the Republican Congress did to Social Security under Eisenhower? No, once this is in, it's in. Government programs never get eliminated -- ask the Reaganites about how much luck they had dismantling the Department of Eductation. Obama should cram down the most liberal healthcare reform he can get passed. The <overstrike>morons</overstrike> heartland won't like it now, but they'll like it A LOT when it gets implemented and they see both their premiums go down and their services go up.
Bipartisanship is a lovely fantasy, but is simply not possible with people whose sole goal is to see you fail. Let's remember who won the election. George W. Bush and the Republican Congress broke the world. Obama and the Democrats have a chance to fix one part of it. Get on the bandwagon or get out of the way.
-- 17:55, 10 September 2009 (BST)
Bipartisanship is a lovely fantasy, but is simply not possible with people whose sole goal is to see you fail.
Interesting. So what happens when we have two parties composed entirely of people whose sole goal is to see the other side fail?
I would submit that we have about 95% reached this state.
In short, a pox on both their houses. You are still taking as a tenet that the left is [smarter|less evil|more capable] than the right (pick any combination of those you care for), and I dispute all of them.
That having been said, eventually my pragmatic part does win out and I agree with you that we should take whatever [small|flawed|insufficient] improvements we can get.
-- 20:58, 10 September 2009 (BST)
I think you have to draw a distinction between wanting a particular policy or bill to fail, and wanting the presidency to fail. I opposed many of Bush's policies, but I wish he had succeeded in Iraq and Afghanistan. I wish his decisions had not led to the deaths of more Americans than did Osama bin Laden's. I wish he had succeeded in preventing the 9/11 attacks, and I'm glad he succeeded in preventing others (though I question some of his methodology). I wish his economic policies had succeeded in not leading to the financial collapse. I wish those aspects of his presidency had succeeded, even if it meant that McCain would have won last year. And that's the difference between many (perhaps most) liberals and many (perhaps most) conservatives. I want what's best for the country (as I see it) rather than what's best for my party. I truly believe many, many conservatives feel otherwise, and their opposition to Obama's policies is hypocritical and, indeed, unpatriotic.
-- 23:05, 10 September 2009 (BST)
"I want what's best for the country (as I see it) rather than what's best for my party."
Oh, Robert, the operative portion of that statement is "as I see it." I, too, want our country to flourish. What's needed, to my way of thinking, often differs from your point of view. That doesn't (shouldn't!) mean we hate each other. If we ruled the world, we could probably find acceptable compromises, even though we disagree, because, basically, we're both good people.
Both parties have good, honest, knowledgeable people. Unfortunately, those people wouldn't touch public office with an 11-foot pole, and who can blame them. They see what happens to candidates with nerve enough to run.
"...and their opposition to Obama's policies is hypocritical and, indeed, unpatriotic."
As was the unbridled hatred of Dubya and anything he tried to accomplish. Cuts both ways, my friend.
-- 23:59, 10 September 2009 (BST)
Joy:
Bunny, I just have to say that I disagree that making sure illegal aliens get no health care unless they go back to where they came from is a good idea. They are here, they have kids, and I think leaving people who are sick to suffer is inhumane. And also a problem for the public health - want illegal immigrants to contract H1N1 and not get any treatment? other contagious diseases? have their children be out of school (if they are even in school) sick for long periods of time, being punished by their parents' immigration status even more than the likelihood they are poor and living in bad conditions anyway?
It isn't that I think there is somehow a magic pot of money that will pay for everyone in the world to get healthcare here, but denying health care (or schooling) to illegal immigrants seems to me to only make sure the problem gets worse. I doubt that it will serve as a deterrant to them coming into the country, nor do I think that illegal immigration should be punished by making sure it is more likely they will suffer from ill health.
-- 19:50, 11 September 2009 (BST)
Bunny, I didn't hate everything Bush tried to accomplish. The whole point of my post was that there were policies and goals I supported and did so even though peace and prosperity would have made it more likely that my party would not win the White House in 2008.
I also didn't hate him when he came into office. Back then, I merely thought he was a mushmouthed imbecile who got where he was by being the son of a president and grandson of a senator. I only came to hate him -- and I don't use "hate" in seriousness casually -- based on his abuses of power, fraud on the American people, destruction of American credibility and prestige in the world, and crimes against humanity. He's somebody who well and truly deserves to be hated.
Note also that I didn't hate Ford, Reagan or Bush I -- I didn't like 'em much, but I didn't hate them. I did hate Nixon, who was also a criminal.
-- 20:07, 11 September 2009 (BST)
Joy:
Well, I will admit to being more childish than ProfRobert. I have a visceral negative reaction to Bush. Mainly because his folksiness seems affected, and because he can't seem to speak without also sneering. Combine that with the serious issues ProfRobert mentions, and the fact that his positions offend me on a basic level as a feminist and a woman married to another woman, and you get hate.
-- 20:56, 11 September 2009 (BST)
My problem here appears to be that I don't hate anybody. I don't really know what to call what I feel toward terrorists, but hatred is too huge an emotion, too big a word for me. I see it as so negatively effective that it's a total waste of my time, and life's already too short.
I understand dislike. I also get disdain and a complete lack of respect. But hatred? Unless I don't know what the word means, then it's too raw a concept for me to entertain. It could come down to semantics, because I despise what they stand for and how they carry it out. Still not sure that loathing applies to the people, though. I'll have to discuss this with Sean and see if I can sort it out.
As for the illegals, what you say is true, it is not the fault of the children. This problem began whenever it was that somebody decided not to deport illegal aliens. I'd be willing to bet quite a lot that it was a Liberal decision. They stayed, had children, and here we are. I don't know why we even bother to have laws against illegal immigration, if once they're here they can stay. Why not open the borders, let everybody in and give 'em all free health care. Your comments about H1N1 notwithstanding, we're in a weird position when we're threatened with a problem that was brought about by people who broke the law. What would happen to you or me if we got caught sneaking into Mexico or Honduras, or China, even. I'm sorry, but I think the laws are there for a reason, and if you break them you deserve whatever anybody else gets for breaking the law. During the Mariel boatlift we saw the consequences of opening our borders. That's not the answer. I don't know the answer, but it's not to ignore the huge illegal population and provide them with better care than legal residents receive. (After all, illegals pay no taxes.) I feel especially strongly about this because my mom is a first-generation legal immigrant, and now a citizen, who came here through Ellis Island, stood in line the way she was supposed to, and almost got refused because she had a cold. She did things by the book, as everybody should. So I guess it's a hot button.
Finally, I certainly didn't approve of all of Bush's decisions and opinions. Far from it. I guess I don't ascribe as much power to the presidency as some do. In many ways, he's a figurehead, whom, incidentally, I would prefer to have speaking proudly and positively about our country, not apologizing all over the world. He has power, but so does Congress. I never saw Bush's positions as evil, just misguided, and he surely wasn't the first. But that's just me.
-- 23:52, 11 September 2009 (BST)
"I would prefer to have [the president] speaking proudly and positively about our country, not apologizing all over the world."
When you do something wrong, you accept responsibility and say you're sorry. I'm going to teach that to my son, and the way I'm going to do that is when I do something wrong, I'll apologize to him. Apologizing doesn't weaken one in other's eyes; it makes one stronger.
I can't presume to tell you how to define hate or whom, if anyone, you should hate. I tend to start with Hitler and work my way down, but I don't have a bright line. Generally, those who abuse power, lie, intentionally injure people, commit heinous crimes turn up on the list. It's also affected by how present the subject is. For example, if I thought about Pol Pot, I would hate him, but I don't think about Pol Pot that often. All I can do is tell you, as I did, who is and isn't on it, and let you draw your own conclusions.
-- 00:29, 12 September 2009 (BST)
"When you do something wrong, you accept responsibility and say you're sorry."
Ah, there's the rub. I don't happen to think we've done anything wrong. In fact, I think we've done more right than just about any other country in the world. We've got the strongest military and the finest navy on the planet. If we had wanted to, we could have conquered the whole world a long time ago. But we didn't. Instead, we spend time and money and shed blood, sweat and tears, even sacrifice lives, to help other countries. You want to fund health care? Let's quit giving money to countries who hate us, let's quit forgiving war debts and being Mr. Good Guy all over the globe. And then our leader grovels to those very countries and suggests that we're baaad, bad little boys and should stand in the corner. I'm not buying that for a minute.
So, yeah, teach your son that actions have consequences, and he should be man enough to own up to them and apologize and make restitution, if possible. But don't teach him to beg forgiveness from bullies who hate and despise everything he stands for. (Iran, anyone?) We are not wrong, and I find the President's actions overseas embarrassing and insulting. (A female in Iran would probably be beheaded for statements such as mine toward her leader. That in itself makes my case.)
The hate thing must come down to a question of semantics, I guess. I don't hate Pol Pot. That would be a waste of my time. I should get worked up with righteous indignation? What purpose would that serve? Sure, I abhor the stuff he did. And Hitler was beneath contempt. But hatred is a negative emotion. It causes all kinds of blackness that I don't want in my life. I'm content to say that Pol Pot was an evil man. Hitler was the very embodiment of evil. But I'm not gonna get an ulcer over it. I'm sorry he ever lived. If he hadn't, who's to say someone else just like him wouldn't have crawled out from under a rock? I suppose if I "hate" anything, it's that evil exists in the world. Always has, and probably always will. Makes me sad, but you'll never see my face reddened with rage. I'll think of some other way to cope with it.
-- 07:29, 12 September 2009 (BST)
Bunny42:
"Sometimes the best answer is to let someone die gracefully."
Absolutely. IF the person wants to die. There are so many people, now, here, in this country, who would love to have an assisted, painless, graceful death. But, nooo. Instead, they are forced to have their lives painfully extended at horrendous cost, because mercy is only available to animals, not to thinking, feeling humanoids. Scandalous.
Of course I understand the inherent problems with assisted suicide. It'd have to be reeeeeeally redundantly well controlled, so that unscrupulous heirs couldn't manipulate the system to rip off Papa's cash. I don't even care about so-called religious proscriptions. It should be up to the patient, not the Pope. And as for "being of sound mind" I think everyone should have a living will. Everyone. If you want to make any aspect of health care mandatory, make it that. The earlier in life, the better. After all, kids get in car crashes and become vegetables every day. How long must they be kept artificially alive because of someone else's convictions? I'd like to know if there are statistics as to the number of people in persistent vegetative states, who are being kept alive, presumably against their will, and how much that care is costing.
That said, if I were ever to become a zealot, which I currently am not, it might be over the notion of rationing health care by age. The very idea makes me all cold and still inside. A bureaucracy that can't even handle cash for clunkers deciding who lives or dies, based upon perceived usefulness to society? Oh, my. If that EVER happens, please put me on the list to be among the first to pull the plug. I have no wish to live in such a society.
Um, yeah.
Edit: Here's something timely. Glad to see it has potential.
-- 21:23, 8 September 2009 (BST)