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I don't buy the health care debate being quite so one sided. Certainly there is self interest in the insurance world, but there is equal opposing interest.
Businesses both large and small realize health care in other countries is subsidizing their competition. Thus Detroit was first in line to lobby for health care. Doctors too are lobbying against the absurd malpractice litigation which has become a barrier to practice. There are a few steps that could be made that would get little resistance from the corporate devils you paint. For example, why not require people to pay for a reasonable insurance plan? We are required to do so for car insurance. Our current practice drives folks to use the emergency room for their doctor at a huge and silly additional cost. So: 1) Require universal health care insurance. But 2) Remove preconditions. See the yin/yang? Insurance companies have already said that pair would work for them, as have the AMA/doctors. And yes, 3) Subsidize those who cannot afford the base rate. And 4) limit malpractice litigation. It is claimed that just these 4 steps would reduce the cost of current health care and increase businesses competitiveness significantly. And properly put in place the right market counter forces to the evil corporations. We ourselves need to change. How many of us spend as much on medical care as we do our cars? In my calculations, cars and their care still cost more. Compare auto leasing costs for two cars for the standard family and insurance for same and they're surprisingly close. Add upkeep of the car and they are way ahead. -- Owen On Feb 14, 2010, at 9:04 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: Pamela, ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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Owen,
I agree that your suggestions are perfectly reasonable. Now, just as an academic exercise ( ;-] ), how about if you try presenting your views to a few of Sarah Palin's hundreds of thousands of avid Tea Partiers. Pick a random sample. Be prepared to dodge flecks of flying spittle. And to hear about Death Squads.
--Doug
On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 9:26 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:
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In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2
Yep. I think it's basically an indictment of the entire educational system. Which seems to spew out people who can't think their way past slogans.
On Feb 14, 2010, at 11:04 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: Pamela, ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Hi Owen,
Thanks for the offer, but I'm afraid that my own research is probably quite a bit different than any work that KC presented at Asilomar, or anywhere else actually. KC hired me at the point when she concluded that most if not all major efforts to sustain and enhance the Internet were blocked not by problems of technology, but rather by problems that she characterized as EOT (economics, ownership, and trust). At that time (c. 2004) I was just starting to present some findings suggesting that usage patterns for Internet protocol resources, which constitute the units of measurement for almost all Internet topology and graph theoretic research, are closely correlated with, and can be substantially explained by the legal/regulatory environment and market structure of the national jurisdictions that are associated with the "ultimate beneficial user" (UBU) of those resources (note: UBU is a term of convenience, but the closest match I know of given the fact that IP number resources are not property, and thus not "owned"). It took a couple more years of (mostly unrelated) research before it dawned on me that that perceived correlation between IP number resource usage and the underlying material and institutional conditions was itself an artifact of policies that emerged organically within the Internet technical community (note: policies which are now administered by my clients, the RIRs). The goal of those policies was/is to conserve both the finite protocol number resource pools themselves, and also to preserve a relatively stable global routing environment, i.e., one in which the growth in demand for Internet routing services remained roughly aligned with the "supply" of routing service carrying capacity that can be provisioned given current technology. In other words, the policies were designed to extend the useful lifetime of the current TCP/IP based Internet by postponing the day when additional number resources or routing system carry capacity becomes unavailable -- either because it's all 100% productively deployed, or whatever remains is being hoarded and thus rendered unavailable for use, or because the system has collapsed prematurely due to excessive, inefficient loading. It turns out that that particular combination of causes and manifestations of systemic risks, and strategies for managing them is isomorphic with certain fundamental problems and responses that have been a recurring phenomenon in another, completely unrelated domain -- i.e., the domain of monetary instruments and financial flows. In fact the policy environment that I described, and the ratio of protocol resources to underlying inputs that it is designed to sustain is a mirror image of the most basic "policy rule" used by monetary system decision makers (central bankers et al.), which is usually called the "Quantity Theory of Money." That "aha" moment was followed by many many others, to the point that I now believe that I can make a very strong case that the two systems -- Internet addressing and routing vs. monetary instruments and financial flows -- are in fact completely isomorphic at every level. They are both just variant implementations of the more general class of "liquidity mechanisms," with the particulars of each largely shaped by one critical difference in their deployment/usage domains: unlike the inherently physical, time-bound, and hence "rival" goods and services of the material world, the packetized goods and services of the Internet are inherently nonrival. In the past, the fact that both of these domains are basically "black boxes" to most people has made it difficult to engage a broad audience on this subject and it's (I believe) major implications. Even among leading experts in one or the other field, relative ignorance of the other domain coupled with a reflexive disbelief that their own domain might not be sui generis has often made talks on this subject "difficult." That said, if you still think that this subject would be of interest to an audience at the Complex, I'd be happy to do a talk when time and circumstances permit. But I will also not be offended if you need a lot of time to think it over ;-) Regards, TV On Feb 14, 2010, at 11:01 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: > I had missed the connection with KC Claffy. I followed her work to map the internet while I was at Sun and heard a brilliant presentation she gave, I think at the Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop a while back. > > Very good stuff! Love to hear more about the project(s) especially how you talked anyone into funding it! Very pioneering work. > > The sfcomplex.org could use a talk on that sort of graph discovery and rendering if you have the time for it. > > -- Owen > > > On Feb 14, 2010, at 8:25 AM, Tom Vest wrote: > >> Thanks Stephen. I took no offense -- just wanted to announce my presence on-list, and then to indulge in a little crotchetiness of my own ;-) >> >> That said, but you should be careful what you wish for. >> I've already visited Santa Fe 3-4x now, the first few times to attend Swarm-related conferences at SFI while I was in grad school (c. 1995-1998). >> Given the chance, I tend to find excuses to come! >> >> Full disclosure: I no longer have any contractual relationship with CAIDA. I was a fellow/advisor on economic and policy matter that affect Internet protocol development, deployment, and usage from 2005~2007, and I continue to work with CAIDA Director/PI KC Claffy less formally but fairly regularly ever since. In fact KC and I were together on my last visit to Santa Fe in October 2007. We were invited up to chat with some of the SFI research staff and fellows who were interested in the possible uses of Internet topology and flow time series measurements to explore/exemplify some broader insights about self-organizing systems that they were working on. I currently work as a consultant, mostly to the technical coordination institutions that administer Internet protocol number resources (i.e., the Regional Internet Registries, or RIRs). >> >> I don't think that there was much follow-up between SFI and CAIDA after that meeting, but then at that time my own research of possible relevance was not yet particularly well developed. >> That has changed in the interim, perhaps to the point that it would merit a talk. I'll follow up with a few details off-list. >> >> Regards all, >> >> TV >> http://www.caida.org/home/staff/tvest/ >> http://www.ripe.net/info/ncc/staff/science_grp.html >> >> >> On Feb 13, 2010, at 11:58 PM, Stephen Guerin wrote: >> >>> Hello Tom, >>> >>> Welcome to Friam! Don't mind the occasional squawk from the ParrotFarm - the birds get crotchety if we forget to clean the cages. :-) >>> >>> Yes, you'll find fans of Brian Arthur-speak here. In particular, I think his ideas of "Deep Craft" wrt innovation <http://tinyurl.com/yfud2p3> emerging in some places and not others is interesting. I would argue Northern New Mexico has a level of deep craft in simulation and related topics like optimization and visualization that allows practitioners to exchange ideas quickly with common vocabularies (though one could argue about how deep it goes). >>> >>> BTW, I enjoy the tools and visualizations coming out of Caida! If you're out in Santa Fe, please consider giving a brownbag talk. >>> >>> -Stephen >>> >>> >>> --- -. . ..-. .. ... .... - .-- --- ..-. .. ... .... >>> [hidden email] >>> (m) 505.577.5828 (o) 505.995.0206 >>> redfish.com _ sfcomplex.org _ simtable.com _ ambientpixel.com >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Feb 13, 2010, at 4:15 PM, Tom Vest wrote: >>> >>>> On Feb 13, 2010, at 3:43 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: >>>> >>>>> Sheesh, what a bunch of academic phraseology! >>>>> • functional modularization >>>>> • combinatorial evolution >>>>> • both "top-down" as well as "bottom-up" initiative [...] indispensable >>>>> IM(Not So)HO, America at large has been sufficiently dumbed down by the brutal combination of a mediocre educational system, an academic peer review system that rigidly refuses to think outside the box, pay-for-play politics, fundamentalist christian & christian wannabe religions, McDonalds lardburgers, and short-sighted Wall Street quants that innovation is now solidly a thing of the past, and will probably remain so for a very long time. >>>>> >>>>> --Doug >>>> >>>> Actually, we said approximately the same thing, or rather your list included a small subset of the things I was trying to cover with my academic phraseology. >>>> No question that your phraseology is much more colorful! Not so easy to model however. >>>> >>>> I only chimed in (and subscribed) because I'm trying to model some related problems in my own field. >>>> I saw the terms "modeling" and "applied complexity" on the group page -- but perhaps I misinterpreted the sense in which one or more of those terms is being used... >>>> >>>> In any case, please excuse the intrusion. >>>> >>>> TV >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 12:47 PM, Tom Vest <[hidden email]> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> On Feb 13, 2010, at 8:21 AM, Jochen Fromm wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> In a recent washingtonpost.com article named >>>>>> "Erasing our innovation deficit" ( http://bit.ly/cG6vGW ) >>>>>> Eric Schmidt said >>>>>> >>>>>> "We have been world leaders in [technological] innovation for generations. It has driven our economy, employment growth and our rising prosperity. >>>>>> [..] We can no longer rely on the top-down approach of the 20th century, when big investments in the military and NASA spun off to the wider economy." >>>>>> >>>>>> Do you agree? What kind of approach does the >>>>>> USA need to return to old strength? >>>>>> >>>>>> -J. >>>>> >>>>> I'm surprised that none of the current/former SFIers on the list have mentioned Brian Arthur's recent pitch for "combinatorial evolution" as the engine of innovation. >>>>> As I read it, Brian's argument is that innovation is an epiphenomenon arising from: >>>>> >>>>> -- the functional modularization of many different kinds of technologies*, plus >>>>> -- the standardization of "open" interfaces enabling those functional components or modules to be combined in different ways, plus >>>>> -- an environment that enables and incentivizes widespread experimental combination of different technologies, e.g., by occasionally rewarding those who come up with novel, useful combinations. >>>>> >>>>> *These could be of the "hard" or "soft" variety, e.g., chip design or double-entry bookkeeping. >>>>> >>>>> So, on this account it would seem that both "top-down" as well as "bottom-up" initiative is indispensable. >>>>> Bottom-up activities are the proximate cause and primary engine driving innovation. >>>>> However, the size of that engine (e.g., the share of the total population capable of participating constrictively in the combinatorial search) depends substantially on the existence, scope, and openness/interoperability of those modules and the standardized interfaces between them. Unfortunately, by their very definition "standards" are a top-down phenomenon -- both because they are never adopted with unanimous consent (but must be appx. universally binding with a domain in order to work in that domain), and because they must remain relatively stable over time, which means that for everyone that comes along after the moment of standardization, they may feel like an "unjust," arbitrary imposition. >>>>> >>>>> In 2002, a quartet of prominent Internet standards developers published a paper called "Tussle in Cyberspace" (link below), which made a broadly similar argument about how the Internet has evolved. However, while mechanisms that the Tussle authors describe are broadly similar, the tone seems quite different, to me at least. The earlier paper seemed to be (obliquely) engaging a topical issues that was just emerging around that time -- i.e., the aspirations of some dominant Internet service providers to subtly alter and/or partially vacate some of the standards that make the Internet "open" and thus had fostered the Internet's rapid growth up to that time (note: today the issue is most commonly called "net neutrality"). In that context, the Tussle paper seems to lean ever so slightly past the domain of observation and Darwinian theory construction, in the general direction of advocating the tussle process and the embrace of whatever outcomes it yields, ala "social darwinism." >>>>> >>>>> In any case, I think that any present US deficit in innovation can probably be chalked up, at least in part, to the ongoing progressive deviation from our most recent moment of optimal balance between those "top down" and "bottom up" forces. Some of the biggest recent winners in the innovation game -- i.e., those who benefited most from the latest round of technical standardization -- have started exert their own top-down authority in ways that advance their own private interests, but which collaterally degrade the environment for future/distributed innovation... >>>>> >>>>> (The question resonates for me because of the looming inflection point in Internet protocol standards associated with the depletion of the IPv4 address pool, which happens to be the stuff of my day job) >>>>> >>>>> My own 0.02, +/- >>>>> >>>>> Tom Vest >>>>> >>>>> "Tussle in Cyberspace: Defining Tomorrow’s Internet" >>>>> http://groups.csail.mit.edu/ana/Publications/PubPDFs/Tussle2002.pdf >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ============================================================ >>>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>>>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Doug Roberts >>>>> [hidden email] >>>>> [hidden email] >>>>> 505-455-7333 - Office >>>>> 505-670-8195 - Cell >>>>> ============================================================ >>>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>>>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >>>> >>>> >>>> ============================================================ >>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >> >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
On Feb 14, 2010, at 11:26 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:
Our own family's medical insurance costs dwarf our car costs, but that's because our cars sit in a garage seven months of the year in Santa Fe, and we have excellent (well--not compared to Germany, Jochen) public transportation the seven months we're in New York City. I don't flinch at taxi fares when I know how much my friends are paying for their cars. So it's complicated, but not hopeless.
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In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-4
Doug,
Parroting doug ===>We truly are a nation of idiots. We deserve Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and Pat Robertson <=== end parroting Doug
I don't think one has to be stupid to engage in Dialogues of the Deaf. We do that sort of thing quite well in FRIAM, from time to time, and we are, ex hypothesi, VERY smart.
Somewhere along the way, We lost our faith that there is a Truth Of The Matter. In the fifties, you had to believe that you were right, when you said something. Nowadays, you just have to believe you are plausible. (I blame the post-modernists myself ... but now this message is becoming an example of itself.)
That having been said, are the Tea-Totallers any worse than the people who put McCarthy into office in the 50's?
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
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Re: Health care [was Sources of Innovation]
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In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2
But Owen, we are NOT required to buy car insurance! It is an if-then
thing: If you want to drive, then you need insurance. That doesn't map on well
to health care.
I agree that the health care debate is not just about profit. At least one other thing it is about is whether or not to consider health care a "human right". I for one (and I anticipate being skewered for saying it) don't understand this line of reasoning. I am told that "it is unfair that rich people get better medical care than poor people", and what I hear is "it is unfair that rich people drive better cars than poor people." If we really just wanted to make health care cheaper we would up training for people to self-diagnose and self-treat easy problems, we would reform malpractice litigation, and we'd invest a boat load in grief and end of life counseling so that people were, in general, more accepting of death (their own and other's). If we wanted reform in the industry, the best we should be pushing for is to enforce contracts so that the insurance companies pay out what they are supposed to. Insurance is a business. It is a gambling game, where you try to get people to give you more money than you think you will have to pay out. It is true that some times insurance companies make insane profits, but it doesn't take too many people who cost them a million dollars each to shift things around. The basic model for any insurance situation should be to give a security blanket to people who are not at much risk (i.e., give healthy people insurance against crippling disasters). You know, like the home owner's insurance you don't go running to every time your toilet is stopped up, but you are glad you have if there is a bad fire. And even if you think that people have the right to health care, how can anyone argue that people should be guaranteed the right to be insured?!? Car insurance companies turn down people who are high risk, ditto home owner's insurance, flood insurance, business insurance, etc., etc., how is health care any different? The whole medical situation in this country is crazy, I got in a 15 minute long argument with a doctor who wouldn't tell me how much a procedure cost, only that my insurance wouldn't cover it. The notion that I would consider simply paying for something the insurance didn't cover made no sense to her. Blah, Eric P.S. Aesthetically, I would actually be much less offended by fully socialized medicine - take the business out of it, and have the state run everything - just stop trying to tell perfectly reasonable businesses they can't follow simple and intelligible business models. On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 11:26 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote: I don't buy the health care debate being quite so one sided. Certainly there is self interest in the insurance world, but there is equal opposing interest.Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 9:44 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]>
wrote:
In the fifties, you had to believe that you were right,
when you said something. Nowadays, you just have to believe you are
plausible. I wish it were that simple. Too many politicians say anything they think they can get away with, plausible or not. Look at the death panel fracus. That was miles away from plausibility. Yet many people jumped on that bandwagon because the press didn't call them on it. They could get away with it so they said it. -- Russ Abbott _____________________________________________ Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles Cell phone: 310-621-3805 o Check out my blog at http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 9:44 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
There are times when I do feel the need to turn to my Psittaciformes for some genuinely deep, intelligent, considered discourse. I'm sure that will come as no great surprise to you, Nick.
I'd like to bludgeon home one more bit of fact that IMO supports and justifies my low opinion of the aggregate level if intelligence in this country: fully 47% of our fine US population voted for a presidential ticket that had Sarah Palin down for Vice President.
I'd also like to throw out another troubling observation: Whenever the intellectual elite launch yet another discourse on one troubled aspect of our country or another -- health care, economic reform, the educational system, the political system -- they always go all academic on us. We get deep, thoughty intricate, theoretical symposia which never touch on the core issue.
What is the core issue? The fact that the average IQ in the United states is just a notch above 90. 93, according to this reference, and I've seen others that support it. What I have not seen is what the distribution of IQs for the US is, so I don't know how fat the left hand side tails are, but I suspect the worse.
Now, I suspect that the bulk of the FRIAM readership is, or at least consider themselves to be several points above the US standard. So given that, why have we never seen a discussion oriented around how to lead a nation of dullards into a better social structure?
I would argue, should such a discussion ever get beyond the topic of political correctness, that we have arrived at exactly the optimal solution. From the perspective of the power elite, of course. The rich, powerful corporations like Bechtel, BWXT, the Washington Group, Grumman, Lockheed to name but a few of the military industrial ones. United Health Care, Blue Cross, Cygna, etc. from the health care sector. Likewise, the view as seen by the politicians whom those very same corporate entities have purchased is clearly pretty rosy.
From where these guys sit, it's the perfect way to run a country. The academics can blather all they want about theoretical optimizing solutions to whatever they claim are the pressing societal problems, because meanwhile the bulk of the populace are enchanted with Sarah Palin, the Party of No!, Rush, Pat Robertson, and their ilk, and the status remains Quo. Plus or minus a few nuances, George Orwell got it right.
Then, there's the issue of cultural stupidity, which may or may not be related to IQ. These are the ones that Pamela refers to as unable to think their way past slogans they've been taught. This is a rich field for research, publications, speaking engagements, but one which most academics seem blissfully unaware.
--Doug On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 10:44 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Health care [was Sources of Innovation]
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles
This discussion is a wonderful example of what Doug is talking about. Notice how the more imponderable the situation is the more confident become our opinions. Think about the following conundrum. Let's imagine -- for the purposes of argument -- that health care is a genuine imponderable ... we NEVER will have enough information, with enough precision, to know what we should do about it. Given that assumption, what behavior is proper?
It's like that old distinction between Dionysians and Apollonians. We all know that there are Dionysian Fools ... they are the people found dancing to their ipods on the railroad tracks with the train bearing down on them. But aren't there also Apollonian Fools ... people who engage in carefully planning and thoughtful argument about a situation what is too complex to make a decision about?
Anyway, as a leader among Apollonian Fools and a Knee-Jerk Liberal, in the bargain, allow me the following: I shudder whenever anyone talks of a right to healthcare, because it sounds so much like a Right to Health. The chances that I will die in the next 20 years are almost 1.00. You do NOT want to get into the business of guaranteeing my health.
Rights talk is madness.
nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2
The table on the Wikipedia page says we're at 98, not 93. It's apparently taken from here, which seems to have more entries.
-- Russ Abbott _____________________________________________ Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles Cell phone: 310-621-3805 o Check out my blog at http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 10:42 AM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote: There are times when I do feel the need to turn to my Psittaciformes for some genuinely deep, intelligent, considered discourse. I'm sure that will come as no great surprise to you, Nick. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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Stupid of me to misread the table like that.
;-}
On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 12:11 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:
The table on the Wikipedia page says we're at 98, not 93. It's apparently taken from here, which seems to have more entries. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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OK, smart folks, then what *is* the sensible way to go? I have my platform ready:
Stop the wars, convert them into game-theoretic diplomacy such as pointing out how important Afghanistan is to Europe, India and China, and how important Iraq is to its wealthy arab neighbors and Europe. Stop the Palestine/Israel wars by not supporting either side. Cut off all aid and arms to either. Terrorism: ignore it. If we do well at removing ourselves from the wars and interventions into other country's problems, we're likely to reduce threats. Remove the current overly strict airline security. But do be serious about responding to true attacks like Afghanistan, just remove the threat, and leave. Create the message: Don't mess with us and we'll get out of your life. With the money thus saved, hack away at the deficit while providing a minimal step toward health care: 1) Require universal health care insurance. 2) Remove preconditions. 3) Subsidize those who cannot afford the base rate. 4) limit malpractice litigation. (Deficit reduction seems to have been important in past innovation resurgence, and is just sane. I doubt much of our debt is helping the poor, homeless and unemployed .. it likely is just paying fat cats.) In terms of military, bring back the draft and broaden military duty to include civic programs .. a peace corps approach. Seriously take care of the vets, they are ignored as soon as they return. Make sure the medical plans are available, along with an improved GI bill for education. While we're at it, stop the other war, that on drugs. Legalize drugs, under state control, and tax the hell out of them. Empty the prisons of convicted drug users. Use the tax to pay for the initial health plan. Fiber to the home, immediately. Provide distance-learning public education made up of freely available courseware such as MITs and Britain's Open University. (Steve and I are amazed how good UNM's VOD system, for example, as we take CS500 from Cris Moore.) On the energy front: nuclear. Based on really modern thorium reactor technology, or similar. Don't give up on "green" but deploy in small distributed plants, not huge mountain eating wind farms. UK is already doing this for new industrial plants: they have to be 20% self sustaining. Finally, build the most amazing public transportation system ever dreamed of, similar to Kennedy's moon shot. Basically build a world we can be proud of. And stop whining. -- Owen On Feb 14, 2010, at 12:18 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: Stupid of me to misread the table like that. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Health care [was Sources of Innovation]
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Nick, at the risk of being shot down by esteemed academics, but one
with experience of both universal health care in the UK and the current
system in the US for the past 29 yr....
Thanks Robert On 2/14/10 11:49 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Nice goals, Owen.
A bit short on details about how to implement, and as far as I could tell, did not address methods for stemming/thwarting the economic drivers that make war so attractive to those large military industrial societal components. Nor was their any guidance on how to direct that inward-looking dim majority which comprises the majority of our race towards the version of a higher level of Nirvana which you describe.
But nice goals. --Doug
On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 1:47 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:
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On Feb 14, 2010, at 2:02 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: Nice goals, Owen. Well, I showed you mine, you should show yours, right? -- Owen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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I thought you'd never ask!
Short answer: you can't get there from here. Longer answer: we don't deserve any better than we've got, because it doesn't take a high IQ to have a functioning moral compass. And I'm not talking about that traditional substitute for a moral compass; that crutch frequently used instead of a decent set of well-developed ethics -- religion. Following a set of dictums which requires "Turn Off Your Brain And Believe Me When I Tell You That This Is The One And Only True Way" is no substitute for the real thing. It works fine for terrorists, and other flavors of bigot, and in come cases for people too timid or cowardly, or just too plain confused to think for themselves, but religion is not the answer to solving the problems we've created. Your mileage on religion no doubt varies from mine, but remember: you asked...
The larger perspective requires viewing where we stand within the overall scheme, where the overall scheme, as far as we currently believe, is about 14.7 billion years old and as a continuum is inexplicably (to our own feeble intellect) expanding at an ever-increasing rate. Humans have been around as a definable genome for what, 100,000 years? Or have the latest archeological findings pushed that back? I haven't been keeping current on that. But we've only been recording history for about 5,000 years or so: our position on the intelligence evolution scale is still at the "I'm still not sure if this one wasn't a big mistake" mark.
So here's mine: we'll either evolve a set of ethics and a level of intelligence, and a maturity to finally do the right thing with a certain degree of consistency, or we won't. I'm not holding my breath though; I would't take even money on us getting there. I do wish there were some way that we could check back in a few tens of millions of years so see which way it went, though.
--Doug
On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 2:09 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Health care [was Sources of Innovation]
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles
Nick
re: fear and loathing of academics? Nope, not even thinking sarcastically, just acknowledgment on my part that there are a lot of smart people (in town or on this list) who know more about this subject than I do. re: conceptualization The obligation is to provide care and possibly care with the best outcomes. So to me that doesn't sound any different from what I was trying to say. My arm may be beyond fixing but saving my life from gangrene since it's technically possible and easy to do, becomes an expectation, and should be done without it draining my bank account in the process. Someone shouldn't get rich at my expense because of such a misfortune. Meanwhile... if the system, ruled by 'them as has the gold makes the rules', is a Complex Adaptive System (and I'm not claiming to know much about them) can we give it a 'virus' to break or defeat that rule? Let's say the whole system is based on a few simple rules, à la swarming, what would you say to a swarming system to stop it from swarming or is it just a parameter that needs tweaking? What then, could be the analogous rule to inoculate us against the aforementioned gold rule? BTW I believe fixing this may be the single most important change with the potential to solve the long list of woes recently expounded on by many contributors to this list. The best suggestion gets a latte... oh wait, I already owe Nick a latte so he's ineligible*! So here's my idea... Who is up for funding such a research project to find out? Let's make a website to capture donations from all the little guys needing help, somewhat on the lines that got Obama campaign funding, because you know industry, business and government wont touch it with a 10ft pole. Thanks, Robert PS * just kidding Nick. R On 2/14/10 2:17 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Health care [was Sources of Innovation]
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 02/14/2010 10:49 AM:
> Rights talk is madness. That's the most true sentence I've seen on this mailing list. [grin] Nobody has a right to anything. Some of us are lucky enough to be in the right social classes to take advantage of particular legal systems; but that's the whole extent of it. If there are any rights at all, they are those provided by our biology. E.g. I have the right to be hungry when I don't eat. I have the right to be euphoric when I hunt. I have the right to pain and death in the freezing dawn in my cardboard shanty under the bridge. Everything else is ideology and illusion. Luckily, there are those of us who are crafty enough to exploit the gullibility of those around us so that our rights seem more real than theirs. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Sources of Innovation
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
But, Owen, we're already doing all this! Literally, everything you mention is already in process. The trick is that our perspectives don't allow us to see the whole process. We're in the middle of all these changes and each of us, including our organizations, for-profit or not, are all just tiny cogs in the machine. We tiny cogs get all arrogant and think we can see the Truth; but we can't. And we shouldn't be able to. We're too small, our metabolisms are too high, and our lifespans are too short. Thus spake Owen Densmore circa 02/14/2010 12:47 PM: > OK, smart folks, then what *is* the sensible way to go? I have my > platform ready: > > Stop the wars, convert them into game-theoretic diplomacy such as > pointing out how important Afghanistan is to Europe, India and China, > and how important Iraq is to its wealthy arab neighbors and Europe. > Stop the Palestine/Israel wars by not supporting either side. Cut off > all aid and arms to either. > > Terrorism: ignore it. If we do well at removing ourselves from the wars > and interventions into other country's problems, we're likely to reduce > threats. Remove the current overly strict airline security. But do be > serious about responding to true attacks like Afghanistan, just remove > the threat, and leave. Create the message: Don't mess with us and we'll > get out of your life. > > With the money thus saved, hack away at the deficit while providing a > minimal step toward health care: > 1) Require universal health care insurance. > 2) Remove preconditions. > 3) Subsidize those who cannot afford the base rate. > 4) limit malpractice litigation. > (Deficit reduction seems to have been important in past innovation > resurgence, and is just sane. I doubt much of our debt is helping the > poor, homeless and unemployed .. it likely is just paying fat cats.) > > In terms of military, bring back the draft and broaden military duty to > include civic programs .. a peace corps approach. Seriously take care > of the vets, they are ignored as soon as they return. Make sure the > medical plans are available, along with an improved GI bill for education. > > While we're at it, stop the other war, that on drugs. Legalize drugs, > under state control, and tax the hell out of them. Empty the prisons of > convicted drug users. Use the tax to pay for the initial health plan. > > Fiber to the home, immediately. Provide distance-learning public > education made up of freely available courseware such as MITs and > Britain's Open University. (Steve and I are amazed how good UNM's VOD > system, for example, as we take CS500 from Cris Moore.) > > On the energy front: nuclear. Based on really modern thorium reactor > technology, or similar. Don't give up on "green" but deploy in small > distributed plants, not huge mountain eating wind farms. UK is already > doing this for new industrial plants: they have to be 20% self sustaining. > > Finally, build the most amazing public transportation system ever > dreamed of, similar to Kennedy's moon shot. > > Basically build a world we can be proud of. And stop whining. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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