jryan

It's interesting to contemplate the impact of this bill if the Supreme Court finds that the mandatory purchase of health care is unconstitutional. Without that one requirement this new program gets a good deal uglier.

With no mandatory purchase of insurance, and no denial for preexisting conditions, there is absolutely no reason for a healthy person to pay for health care insurance while they are healthy. Likewise, there is no reason for them to keep the insurance after they are cured.

I personally keep my health insurance I have for catastrophic coverage, but for the most part my insurer pays maybe $1000 a year for doctors visits for me and my wife and two children. I pay $12,000 a year for the coverage. It would be cheaper for me to simply pay the doctors the $1000 and pocket $11,000 and simply apply for health care coverage when one of us winds up in the hospital.

Alright, everyone has made their decisions. Interesting that it doesn't appear that anyone here chose "none of them", which is a popular choice in other places where I posed this question.

So time to reload and give another round of choices a look see:

The agent of change has returned and offers your the following three technologies:

1) Androids - This book provides all technology and schematics necessary to build rather lifelike automatons that come complete with the ability to communicate.

2) Genetic stabilizer - Not quite what it sounds like. This technology provides full control of the cell aging mechanism. As such the aging process can be stopped and reversed with treatment.

3) Organic computing - This technology provides near limitless storage capability and a seamless integration of computing power to a human brain.

21%, 36%, 46%, any of those numbers (or fractions) would be very bad for a profession that needs to grow. Being a doctor is no longer worth it financially as extended schooling, increased complexity, and high student loan amounts make the $140,000 payday (average salary of family practitioner) not worth it.

Hell, you can make that after a few years with a simple IT certification.

So what? Don't you believe in the free market? Those doctors who were running too high an overhead and renting offices they can't afford will be forced to be more frugal, and those who focused on care instead of facilities and pretty staffers and had operational costs within their means will thrive.

 

Geesh.

You have a strange definition of the free market. The free market was where the family practitioner was thriving. Obamacare and price fixing is not the free market.

But yeah, they will make up the difference with offices in the boiler room and ugglier staff.

Moot point now as the Democrats dropped the "deem" rule it seems.

Oh, and here's a fun unintended consequence:

29% of doctors may leave healthcare when the bill is passed.

All the talk about cutting costs and getting people insured and they seem to have missed that there are doctors that need to get paid so they can meet the rent on the office and pay their staff...

None of them are interested in bureaucrats bringing the industry down to Medicare pay-out levels. Family practices simply can't function at those levels without layoffs.

In some countries, an unwanted pregnancy can end a woman's life (when others find out about it).

Well then, to quote Rob Roy: " It's not the baby needs killin' "

with this in mind i think, that once in the portal i`d start reading definetely the book number one, developing in the process a rapid and instant communication at distant range ability. Afterwards a would read book number three, about the artificial nourisher fruit, comunicating it by telepathy, to a friend with my newly acquired ability to comunicate at long distances instantly. Finally, i would grab book number two, and without reading it, i would pass through the portal back home......, where inmediately i`d build the fabulous machine, get on top of it, and fly away as furthest as posible, before the "agent of change" realizes of my strategy, and comes back to look for me, to punish me for outsmarting him........:d:d

you win!

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Option 1:

 

An instant-communication link (unreproduceable) with an alien civilization billions of lightyears distant. The agent says they're similar enough to us to communicate (and they want to) and generally less advanced than us.

 

Option 2:

 

A cheap and 100% effective cure for all cancers.

 

Option 3:

 

300 shoebox sized black boxes that can each generate up to 100 gigawatts of electricity, with no inputs and no outputs except for electric current. They can't be reproduced or reverse engineered. They will each last for 1 million years.

#1 offers nothing but curiosity... and knowing the alien is there answers most of that curiosity.

#3 is a big "No" as we are not ready... such power in the wrong hands in immensely dangerous.

So #2. I think we could get some use out of that.

Originally Posted by Sisyphus View Post

 

More specifically, the ability not to have to produce one's own food. If enough food for one person could be grown on one plant with almost no effort, then that would just finally complete the transition. The proportion of farmers could go from 1 or 2 percent to zero percent.

 

 

Nah, we would still have to control this and make sure some people get a bunch, while others have to work for a share of one. Can't stand everyone getting a need for nothing, its just wrong.

I think we also ignore human ability to get bored.

"Awe mom... Superfruit casserole again?!"

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Right, but only if it works a certain way. If it works just like electricity, only traveling instantaneously, then it would make calculations instantaneous. But what they offered was "instantaneous communication," which is a lot less specific.

That's true, and would probably require some human ingenuity to fully realize it's capability.

So: plans to build a 200ft diameter spheres, which are capable of once per minute sending either a 0 or 1 to any other such sphere, at instantaneous speeds. That would count, right? Can you build an instantaneous calculator out of those?

Well, I figured it was implied that "instantaneous transmission of data" meant that your data was transferred instantaneously, and not spoon fed over time. But your deduction still fits perfectly well within the games framework as we all choose one book based on our assumed strengths and limitations of each technology.

But again, that would only be true of food production, which is only a small part of modern economies.

True enough. But as I said before, the rest of our industry is really just novelty once our basic needs are met without effort... or could be. It's just a thought in my own choice process.

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By the way, if we all agree that any set of three has run it course, I think this test run has been successful enough to warrant another visit from an Agent of Change. If anyone wants to start a new three when this has run it's course feel free to throw a new three technologies out. Or I can come up with a new three if you want me to run this (it's usually more fun to be surprised by the options )

Yes, but they're still natural and tragic. So claiming that chimeras aren't tragic because they're "natural" doesn't work. So why aren't chimeras tragic?

Good point! However, at the point at which Chimera fuse I don't know that it is actually knowable that there were two individuals. So I suppose it could be tragic, but in most cases it is discovered much later.

So it would be as tragic as finding out years later that you had had a spontaneous abortion when you never knew you were pregnant.

But do they care because a life had been lost, or because they had been hoping for a child and their hope just died? Imagine if they weren't even trying for kids, and a miscarriage popped up -- would they care as much?

I don't know that their perception of the tragedy is really relevant.

If you kill something with no nervous system, it is incapable of suffering. It's incapable of even wishing that you didn't kill it. Something with a nervous system begins to have emotions and "free" will.

I don't tie suffering to my view of abortion. I am for the protection of all life. Someone who wants to use the suffering argument as a way to find a middle ground between first trimester and term abortions should think twice, though, since the abortionist could just as easily anesthetize the baby before cutting it up and meet the same qualification.

(Not trying to argue about free will here. What I mean is that it makes choices, whether they're determined or not.)

That brings up one of the more interesting conundrums in the abortion debate. If you believe that human will is simply a byproduct of chemical interaction then I would argue that from conception the child meets that criteria as it begins communicating with the mother at that point through hormonal signals to begin preparation for implantation as well as sensing the proper time to begin developing it's placenta.

If, on the other hand, you argue "selfhood" from a religious perspective and a "soul" you have a far more plastic definition of "selfhood", and a more maliable definition (as you assume a large level of unknown.

So in that way I find the biological argument against abortion far more coherent than the religious argument.

But doesn't a supreme court decision that finds it constitutional thereby qualify it for enumerated powers? If congress was to move beyond their enumerated powers, that would make it unconstitutional wouldn't it?

 

Don't get me wrong, I entirely believe it is beyond their enumerated powers, and I certainly disagree with the SC's expanded view of Intra-state Commerce and General Welfare, but the authority view (however misguided in our opinion) has labeled such as valid.

I'm not sure. Can the Supreme Court rule on the bill outside the bounds of the initial lawsuit? They can rule that the "deem" is constitutional without ever ruling on whether the content is constitutional.

Well specify then! It's your scenario. I could say the same about your pick, in which you say "instantaneous communication of data will lead to computers of any size that can operate at speeds that we can not currently comprehend." But who says? What if it comes in the form of 200 foot spheres that can transmit 1 bit per minute between each other?

Computing speed has always been driven by the speed limitation of electrical signal. Computing speed increases because the semi conductor nodes are smaller and closer together, speeding up the transfer from node to node.

Instantaneous communication eliminates that limitation to computing speed.

I don't get it. Why would that happen?

Because centralization of resources and grouping to share effort was the root of community building and civilization. With such a technology you would make everyone independent and in no need of shared labor.

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I disagree. We don't have civilization for food alone.

 

It would be an interesting condition for the #3 scenario if one plant was sufficient for 1 person and took up as much space as 1 person. What do you think, jryan?

We could certainly add that qualification if everyone thinks it would make the choice more interesting. I would be among that group since I believe such a qualification would increase both the positive AND negative effects of such a technology.

Since the plant has "all the dietary needs of humans.. some which we don't even know about yet", can we assume that there will be a general increase in health in the overall population who decides to switch over from traditional foods? Will this increase mean a proportional increase in longevity? Could the needs we don't know about yet slow down the aging process, which is the biggest problem with longer lifespans now?

I would say that a perfect food source would certainly have a medicinal value to it.

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Well I certainly read a lot into the "anywhere" aspect that they could grow in -- eg grow in a cave or on a generation ship. Such a "plant" would solve both our food and our energy needs. It is your scenario, so you can specify you know.

Well so did I. I think part of the fun of the exercise is in the assumptions we each make with the limited information provided. I posed the descriptions in vague terms to simulate the unknown any of us would have when evaluating such "alien" technology. As asked we can not know all of the limits of each choice, and are left guessing on potential alone.

The Agents of Change are bastards that way.

Id have to say #3, the other two are more of a convenience than anything else. The extra land that would then become avaliable once farmland was no longer required would allow for more people. Having a higher population would probably mean having more people studying science and so the other two would only be a matter of time.

 

Although, with ftl, you could then farm another planet somewhere else which could pretty much amount to the same as #3 anyway.

I think some people are projecting too much from the description of #3. I don;t know that that much land would be reclaimed as there is no specification as to the fruiting rate of these mysterious artificial plants.

If they fruited once or twice a year then I would guess there would be no land saved... and even though we can assume that these plants could be placed anywhere there still has to be an anywhere to place them.

I saw a show the other day and high rise hydroponic farms that are being developed to grow fruits and vegetables in city settings... I suppose something like that would be possible...

But in a way that might make land ownership more of a premium than before.

Also, in a different angle, sociologically speaking, I would argue that if one plant could provide the sustenance for 1 person perpetually that such an invention would possibly, or even probably, tear apart the underlying need for society and civilization. The two would then be held together not by interdependency but mere novelty.

I don't know I would want that to happen.

Many forms of death are "natural" but still tragic. A sudden unpreventable heart attack is quite natural, but still tragic. Also, you know, miscarriages, according to your own account...

True enough, but we also make every effort to eradicate those tragic deaths, don't we? Malaria treatment, vaccinations, cancer research... these are all efforts to end the tragic deaths of children, even though they are natural deaths.

All the more tragic if the parent actually seeks to kill their own children, however.

True. But was it tragic because a life had been lost, or because they had been hoping for a child and their hope just died? Imagine if they hadn't been trying for years, but didn't care at all -- then would it be tragic?

Find me a couple that didn't care about a miscarriage.

If you were to find them then the tragedy there would be a couple bearing a child that they didn't care about. It is no less tragic than a child that is neglected.

No, I wouldn't say it's whether it can feel pain that matters. Rather, by the time it can feel pain, I'd assume its nervous system is sufficiently well-developed to grant it some measure of "selfhood."

But on what grounds?

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It is more the other way around. Before I thought that the "hardship" of having a child was a large enough cost to outweigh the "rights" (in inverted commas because I don't believe in rights) of the zygote to life. Having had a kid, I now don't view it as a hardship and think that people who do are just being unreasonable.

 

In other words, I haven't increased the value of the zygote in my mind. I have decreased the value of the parent's time and effort.

My wife can get rather angry when she watches TV shows and movies portray pregnancy as a endless stoop over the toilet bowl.

As a man I can't know, really... but I do know that your story is not really different than any of the women in my life. Many were radical abortion rights advocates until they had a child.

Norma McCorvey (the "Jane Roe" of Roe-v-Wade) went through that same ideological transition when she finally had a child. She regretted what her case created. She is now a pro-life advocate.

Or even better, take option 2, write down the physics in a paper which you can carry on your person, then go back in time and pick option 3 instead. Then you get both option 2 and option 3 (and option 1 if you can be bothered to do it again).

The Agents of Change just warped you instantaneously to who knows where with a piece of technology superior to any of the three they are offering... I don't think they will be so easily duped.

Virginia legislators should familiarize themselves with Article 6 clause two of the US constitution.

As should the House and Senate familiarize itself with the enumerated powers granted them by Article 1 Section 8. Article 2 section 6 is only valid when the laws passed by Congress do not exceed the enumerated powers of Article 1.

On many levels this Health Care bill ignores the constitutional limits on their power while claiming, as you do, full freedom under 2.6. It doesn't work that way.

At the heart of the 38 state lawsuit is the bill's mandate to purchase Health Insurance. This mandate does not fall under any of the enumerated powers of Congress.

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Thanks ParanoiA. Always good to see you pop in here for a helpful post.

 

Just to outline this, what it sounds like is that the following is going to take place:

 

1) Pelosi will put forward the Senate health care bill as writ. A vote will take place, and if 218 members vote yes then the bill passes and there is no reconciliation.

 

2) If the bill fails, Pelosi puts forward something called "the rule", which is an undetermined reconciliation package for the Senate health care plan. If it passes then the President signs it into law and a team from the House will meet with a team from the Senate later to determine what the law actually means. (Hopefully without accidentally spending another trillion dollars.)

 

So does everyone think I've paraphrased that more or less accurately?

I'd like to thank ParanoiA as well since they beat me to the MSNBC article.

Also, I don't think you quite have it right, Pangloss. The reality makes a good deal less sense. Here is how I see it:

1) If Pelosi can round up enough votes for the amendment bill then she will inclusde an auto-execute into the amendment bill to pass the Senate bill and the Amendments... it would then go to the Senate for a simple majority vote.

2) The House rules committee will put the auto-execute up for a vote (a standard "these are the rules we will follow on this vote"), and add a rider to the rules vote that passage of the rules vote will deem the unaltered Senate bill passed. This would allow Pelosi to deliver the Senate bill directly to the President without a direct vote on the Senate bill OR THE AMENDMENT BILL.

So rather than voting of the Senate bill or the Amendment bill the House will have only voted on the rules for a vote that may never happen.,, but somehow that will all that is required to get the bill signed into law.

It is #2 that would lead to a lawsuit about the constitutionality of te bill as it appears to not meet the requirement of bicameralism. If it passes that legal challenge then the states would challenge portions of the bill on the ground sthat they exceed congressional and executive authority.

Part of the problem is that nobody seems to agree on what they are actually planning to do. Here is an explanation of the plan on MSNBC:

"Some stories have implied that there would not be a vote. For example, the Washington Post had this headline today: "House may try to pass Senate health-care bill without voting on it."

This is true in the sense that there would not be a DIRECT vote. But the health-care bill would be voted on INDIRECTLY, tucked into what's known as "the rule." The rule essentially outlines the rules for an upcoming vote -- in this case, it would be the vote on the package of reconciliation fixes.

By passing "the rule," the House also would "deem" the Senate bill passed (with a "hereby" statement. "We hereby deem..."). The House would then vote on the package of reconciliation fixes. But the Senate health-care bill would be considered passed even if they never vote on the reconciliation fixes."

So this seems quite unlike any of the anecdotal "they did it too!" claims that I have seen. In this case the vote on the rule to deem the reconciliation bill an auto-execute of the Senate bill will itself then be used to deem the unamended Senate bill as passed before the bill for which the rule was written is even voted on.

So, in reality, the rule that the house votes on that deems the senate bill passed will be a rule for a debate that then never happens.

Crikey this is a mess. I can't imagine how such an end-around could ever pass through the Supreme Court, which it will have to since 38 States have lawsuits waiting to be filed if the bill passes in this manor.

Also, Virginia is working on State legislation that will ignore the majority of the Health Care Bill even if it clears the Supreme Court the first time.

That's a fine question to consider, but I wouldn't have the answer for you.

It's all part of the deduction process. I would assume that in all of these cases the cost would be worth the investment as it could make everything else cheaper or more accessible.

For instance, if I were to introduce a fourth book that had the formula for a frictionless enamel I would have a hard time not choosing #4 due to it's vast application regardless of cost.

Good discussion so far!

I will throw down the gauntlet and make claim to #1 (for the sake of argument) as instantaneous communication of data will lead to computers of any size that can operate at speeds that we can not currently comprehend.

I do think, however, that the caveat to such a discovery would be similar to that of #3: I don't think mankind is ready for it.

I think #2 would be the most easily incorporated into current social fabric as there is mostly an intellectual rather than a practical demand for it. It has the least downside, but possibly the least upside, too.

One practical application of #2 would be the rapid study of our solar system as well as potential access to extraterrestrial resources.

Options 1 and 2 benefit us just from being offered, by confirming such things are possible, when right now we believe they are not. Neither tech would likely give us immediate benefit, so there's no harm in figuring it out ourselves. Option 3 would provide immediate benefit, so it's probably the one to take.

 

Option 1 might not have much use without option 2. Or maybe not - depending on how it works, it might make computers a lot faster, or something.

Since we are having some agreement, is there any downside to #3?

The following is meant strictly for fun with the hopes of some lively conversation sprouting from it. Here is my make-believe dilemma:

While going about your day at home you open the coat closet to grab your coat. When you do you are met with a glowing portal where you coats once were. Being the curious type you test to ensure that it is safe to pass through and step through the portal.

You are met by a man who introduces himself as an "Agent of Change". He explains that throughout history Agents of Change have brought various people through the portal to give them a choice that may change the course humanity, depending on the decision.

On the table are three books. The Agent explains that you can take only one book back through the portal. Each book contains detailed results of very advanced technology research and development. Each book contains the schematics and instructions for all component discoveries needed for one specific technological leap.

Each, as such, embody a great leap in human discovery.

The Agent then allows you to inspect each book and make your decision. On completing this inspection you find that the technologies you are offered are as follows:

1) "Spooky Force" Communication - This book will allow the rapid development of instantaneous communication at range. Whether they are 10ft or 10 light years apart these communication devices allow instantaneous delivery of data between two points.

2) Faster Than Light Travel - This book contains schematics for a propulsion system that allows for Faster than Light travel.

3) Artificial Nourisher - This technology allows you to create a seemingly biological plant that can grow anywhere with no tending and produces "fruit" that are both delicious and contain all the dietary needs of humans.. some which we don't even know about yet.

So there are your three options. Which book do you choose and why?

Why does it matter how they arrived at their confidence?

Because without a a quantifiable unit to base a quantitative analysis the analysis is meaningless.

If it's 12:01, saying no is a bit extreme, since most of us round to the nearest quarter hour anyway. Saying 'no' since 3pm is less closer to 12pm is less extreme.

You're not arguing the point.

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Well I didn't bring up the "percentage" angle, I just claimed that faith, even faith in God, is quantitative and is capable of increases and decreases. So, hey, Severian and anyone else listening, are there degrees of faith in God like there is in your faith in religion? And how did you arrive at that conclusion?

It is possible to CLAIM an apparent quantitative amount of faith in God, but that really isn't the point. The point is that just because someone claims some variability doesn't mean that the variability actually exists.

For something to be quantitative it must have quantifiable unit of measure.. which in this case doesn't exist.

Thus, in the thought experiment, we preserve selfhood, and it's not tragic.

In a chimera, there's no selfhood involved, and it's not tragic.

I disagree, in the chimera it is natural and therefor not "tragic". It is also largely unknown to the parents, and does not terminate the pregnancy (more on that next).

But this leads to the other problem -- aborting a zygote isn't tragic either. When does a fetus gain selfhood?

Says you. I know several couples that tried for years to get pregnant, and each miscarriage, no matter how early, was tragic.

I'd say that selfhood becomes an issue with a fetus when it has a nervous system capable of sensing pain and so on.

In this thought experiment let's assume for a moment that the zygote is a living human... is it's death not tragic because it feels no pain? Or is your determination of the level of tragedy instead dependent on your assessment of "selfhood" for other reasons?

I've been watching the videos for Starcraft II and I have to say that while it looks pretty it really doesn't look like it will be that great of a game.

For one, SC2 takes the rock/paper/scissors paradigm and makes it the ruler of the battlefield. Units are TOO specialized in the new release.

Second, they went a little (ok a lot) overboard on particle effects. I get a headache watching large forces attack one another. I can't imagine micromanaging such an encounter to make sure each rock focuses on scissor targets and scissors focus on paper, etc.

I can only assume that there is some underlying AI (or just impossibility matrix) that will govern this.. like ground attack units will focus on most appropriate units. This is likely the case, in my mind, as some units (brood lord for example) have a skill that forces opposing units to redirect fire.

Finally, at it's base it is just too much a prettier version of SC with what appears to be frustrating and unfortunate game mechanics thrown in.

No, you have not argued, you have baselessly and repeatedly asserted, that a zygote is a living human being. You have never ever given any evidence for that assertion, only that it would be convenient. And let me say yet again, that a chimera is formed from two different zygotes (or more). Which means that each zygote turns into less than one life. So, a zygote is not guaranteed to turn into at least one living human being, it could be 0, 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 1, 2, 3, 4, ... Just because it will frequently become one, doesn't mean it is one now.

Of course I have! I established that the zygote is a living organism and that it is human. There is no other evidence that is necessary.

As for your often repeated percentages, first it should be pointed out that we are not discussing a natural "zero" we are talking about zygotes that will continue to grow.

As for the "1/4, 1/2... 4" argument, you keep making it and it still makes as little sense as when you first stated it. I assusme you use fractions to present zygotes that contribute to a chimera... but in any case, barring spontaneous abortion or otherwise in-viable pregnancy (ectopic, etc.) you can not deny that abortion in any of those cases end the life of a living organism without first proving that the zygote in question is not a living organism.

You also have no chance of arguing that the organism isn't human as DNA trumps any argument you could possibly muster.

Finally, on your argument of potential splits or merges... does that argument have any logical application outside of your need for it to be true with early human development? I would say no, it doesn't. But feel free to show me an analogous and logical application of your diminished-through-potential argument, though.

Very simply the zygote is an individual living human until it is two, and two zygotes are two individuals until they fuse, then they become one.

An interesting comparison considering the claims in the other thread...

Well, it's on my mind, after all. But you are right, some here do seem to think there is such a thing as "somewhat pregnant".