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Heres some stuff regarding drug prices.
1) A lot of the basic research costs associated with drug development are funded through the government through NIH grants and many of the drugs on the market today were created with some help from an NIH grant. The government spent about 30 billion a year in 2004 on basic drug research, almost as much as the 33 billion drug companies spent.
2) Drug companies have to charge exorbitant amounts for their drugs because they need to cover for their failed attempts. Its estimated that only one in ten thousand compounds has a medical purpose. After finding a promising compound it still has a high risk of not getting FDA approval (varies from year to year), so the cost of a drug includes the R&D for all the other drugs that didn't make it to market. They also have to sell for more in the US as other countries have price controls whereas the US has no price controls for drugs.
3) If a new drug makes it through FDA approval a drug company will want to profit from its creation, even if its not as effective at treating a disease as something thats on the market already. To achieve that end, drug companies aggressively market their drugs. Unfortunately, many doctors either do not keep up with or do not have access to literature that compares drug efficacies. That, along with drug companies pretty much bribing doctors to prescribe their drugs results in some doctors prescribing expensive, ineffective drugs.
Instead of having drug companies do the research, we could instead just have the NIH do the majority of the research. The NIH already has a pretty good grant proposal selection system and they do churn out results. This removes the profit motive that public companies have and puts the costs in taxes rather than up front costs. The drugs themselves are generally very cheap to manufacture. Alternatively, the government could buy patents for drugs that are good and then sell the drugs on the cheap.
Research also needs to turn away from a shotgun style where thousands of compounds are tried on an assay to see if any work. A more focused method would be to study how or why a disease occurs and then design a drug around the pathway. Oftentimes diseases dont even need drugs, a simple dietary restriction or lifestyle change can cure some things. Also, better drug delivery methods need to be developed. Lots of drugs would be much more effective if they were targeted to a specific cell type or tissue.
One thing I've always thought we needed was more research on comparing drug efficacies and this data needs to be made more accessible. If both doctors and patients had access to an online database of drug efficacies, they could make more informed decisions on whether or not to prescribe a new drug which still costs a ton or a drug which has had its patent run out. As it is now all you hear is Drugminizole-HCL vs OTCDrugthing and you have no way to choose besides relying on your primary care physician who might not know anything about how they are different.
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On November 11 2009 23:32 ZeaL. wrote:
Heres some stuff regarding drug prices.
1) A lot of the basic research costs associated with drug development are funded through the government through NIH grants and many of the drugs on the market today were created with some help from an NIH grant. The government spent about 30 billion a year in 2004 on basic drug research, almost as much as the 33 billion drug companies spent.
2) Drug companies have to charge exorbitant amounts for their drugs because they need to cover for their failed attempts. Its estimated that only one in ten thousand compounds has a medical purpose. After finding a promising compound it still has a high risk of not getting FDA approval (varies from year to year), so the cost of a drug includes the R&D for all the other drugs that didn't make it to market. They also have to sell for more in the US as other countries have price controls whereas the US has no price controls for drugs.
3) If a new drug makes it through FDA approval a drug company will want to profit from its creation, even if its not as effective at treating a disease as something thats on the market already. To achieve that end, drug companies aggressively market their drugs. Unfortunately, many doctors either do not keep up with or do not have access to literature that compares drug efficacies. That, along with drug companies pretty much bribing doctors to prescribe their drugs results in some doctors prescribing expensive, ineffective drugs.
Instead of having drug companies do the research, we could instead just have the NIH do the majority of the research. The NIH already has a pretty good grant proposal selection system and they do churn out results. This removes the profit motive that public companies have and puts the costs in taxes rather than up front costs. The drugs themselves are generally very cheap to manufacture. Alternatively, the government could buy patents for drugs that are good and then sell the drugs on the cheap.
Research also needs to turn away from a shotgun style where thousands of compounds are tried on an assay to see if any work. A more focused method would be to study how or why a disease occurs and then design a drug around the pathway. Oftentimes diseases dont even need drugs, a simple dietary restriction or lifestyle change can cure some things. Also, better drug delivery methods need to be developed. Lots of drugs would be much more effective if they were targeted to a specific cell type or tissue.
One thing I've always thought we needed was more research on comparing drug efficacies and this data needs to be made more accessible. If both doctors and patients had access to an online database of drug efficacies, they could make more informed decisions on whether or not to prescribe a new drug which still costs a ton or a drug which has had its patent run out. As it is now all you hear is Drugminizole-HCL vs OTCDrugthing and you have no way to choose besides relying on your primary care physician who might not know anything about how they are different.
source?
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Edit, ooh took the bait, so I will repost
On November 11 2009 22:40 Arbiter[frolix] wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2009 21:20 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:
The argument put forth for socialized health-care are, basically, (1) it works [[whatever that means]] and//or (2) it is immoral to let a sick person die if they can be (for a "reasonable price" -- government health-care has to limit treatment because, for example, with a billion dollars the government can keep someone in better health than it can with one million, or one-hundred thousdand etc etc.) treated.
Fortunately for me, I'm only interested in socialized health-care if it it is the strongest option.
Is it "wrong" to let someone die if one dollar would heal them? Not if I have other plans for the dollar!
Why?
There is no such thing as a "right" or "wrong" and, thus, letting poor people die, starve, etc. may be "mean" (whatever that means) but it's not "wrong."
Likewise, murder, incest, rape, etc. etc. are not "wrong" either.
The closest thing to "right" is being the strongest. Let's explore this notion:
What is implicit in the "everyone has a right to healthcare" view is a statement like "you wouldn't like that (dying because of an easily treatable disease//injury) if you were poor would you?"
But that is just to say "it sure would suck to be poor!" I don't know of any who disagrees. When someone tells me that I ask, instead, "But if I were rich, i wouldn't want to give my money to those who are poor, unless it makes me stronger!"
The reply is always, "Yes, but just a little bit of your money can save their life!" So what? What do I care for their life? The only reason to save their life is if it increases my power!
Then the reply is, "Yes, but that way of living will get you crushed! Your view of things will lead to the crumbling of society!" Aha! You've just endorsed my point. You are saying that I should want national health-care, or a pity-based morality, because a "might makes right" view leads to my destruction. But that is just to say that I should care about "morality" because if I don't I will be crushed. But that means that your advice to me is simply: do what doesn't get you crushed! That is, you agree that morality's fundamental directive to me is "Be Strong!"
I'd be the first to concede that in human affairs, being strong means working together. But that doesn't mean that a strong society saves the weak. A strong society might kill the weak. It might ship them away. It might use them for experiments. The point here is simply that "strength" is a scientific concept that has to be researched. It could be that a "strong" society won't experiment on it's own members because that would cause it to eventually collapse. Etc. Etc. That's why knowledge, philosophy (the foundation of knowledge), mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, sociology, history and political science are so important. In the human world, knowledge is power. But knowledge is always embodied.
The upshot is that this way of approaching morality avoids all the hysterical screeching from weaklings whose only strategy for survival is to make the strong think that strength is evil.
Interesting. It has been quite some time since I have seen someone declare so openly and with such clarity that they are quite simply a deeply unpleasant human being.
Ha Ha, Such Philosophical Harshness is refreshing.
I would suggest, Arb, that you pay heed to the edited version of his post and actually look up what Nietzschean philosophy entails (Nietzche is my favorite philosopher because of his non-dogmatism and the sheer insight of his views).
Such a philosophy is basically undercuts "You should".
The point is that normative statements are vacuous, often borne of the psychological make up of the individual who makes such declarations, you are in essence arguing over nothing these past however many pages.
Nietzsche' philosophy is not out and out egoist because he despises pity, it is rather a call to replace "You should" with "I will" (as in "I will it so").
I think 2 quotes sum up his philosophy for me (of course there is no 1 single interpretation of Nietzsche that would be patently missing the point).
"The noble man also helps the unfortunate, but not (or hardly) out of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the super-abundance of power" Beyond Good and Evil.
"The way? This is now my way. Where is your? Thus answered I those that asked me "the way". For the way, it does not exist" Thus Spake Zarathustra.
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On November 11 2009 23:51 Not_A_Notion wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2009 22:40 Arbiter[frolix] wrote:On November 11 2009 21:20 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:
The argument put forth for socialized health-care are, basically, (1) it works [[whatever that means]] and//or (2) it is immoral to let a sick person die if they can be (for a "reasonable price" -- government health-care has to limit treatment because, for example, with a billion dollars the government can keep someone in better health than it can with one million, or one-hundred thousdand etc etc.) treated.
Fortunately for me, I'm only interested in socialized health-care if it it is the strongest option.
Is it "wrong" to let someone die if one dollar would heal them? Not if I have other plans for the dollar!
Why?
There is no such thing as a "right" or "wrong" and, thus, letting poor people die, starve, etc. may be "mean" (whatever that means) but it's not "wrong."
Likewise, murder, incest, rape, etc. etc. are not "wrong" either.
The closest thing to "right" is being the strongest. Let's explore this notion:
What is implicit in the "everyone has a right to healthcare" view is a statement like "you wouldn't like that (dying because of an easily treatable disease//injury) if you were poor would you?"
But that is just to say "it sure would suck to be poor!" I don't know of any who disagrees. When someone tells me that I ask, instead, "But if I were rich, i wouldn't want to give my money to those who are poor, unless it makes me stronger!"
The reply is always, "Yes, but just a little bit of your money can save their life!" So what? What do I care for their life? The only reason to save their life is if it increases my power!
Then the reply is, "Yes, but that way of living will get you crushed! Your view of things will lead to the crumbling of society!" Aha! You've just endorsed my point. You are saying that I should want national health-care, or a pity-based morality, because a "might makes right" view leads to my destruction. But that is just to say that I should care about "morality" because if I don't I will be crushed. But that means that your advice to me is simply: do what doesn't get you crushed! That is, you agree that morality's fundamental directive to me is "Be Strong!"
I'd be the first to concede that in human affairs, being strong means working together. But that doesn't mean that a strong society saves the weak. A strong society might kill the weak. It might ship them away. It might use them for experiments. The point here is simply that "strength" is a scientific concept that has to be researched. It could be that a "strong" society won't experiment on it's own members because that would cause it to eventually collapse. Etc. Etc. That's why knowledge, philosophy (the foundation of knowledge), mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, sociology, history and political science are so important. In the human world, knowledge is power. But knowledge is always embodied.
The upshot is that this way of approaching morality avoids all the hysterical screeching from weaklings whose only strategy for survival is to make the strong think that strength is evil.
Interesting. It has been quite some time since I have seen someone declare so openly and with such clarity that they are quite simply a deeply unpleasant human being. Ha Ha, Such Philosophical Harshness is refreshing. I would suggest, Arb, that you pay heed to the edited version of his post and actually look up what Nietzschean philosophy entails (Nietzche is my favorite philosopher because of his non-dogmatism and the sheer insight of his views). Such a philosophy is basically undercuts "You should". The point is that normative statements are vacuous, often borne of the psychological make up of the individual who makes such declarations, you are in essence arguing over nothing these past however many pages. Nietzsche' philosophy is not out and out egoist because he despises pity, it is rather a call to replace "You should" with "I will" (as in "I will it so"). I think 2 quotes sum up his philosophy for me (of course there is no 1 single interpretation of Nietzsche that would be patently missing the point). "The noble man also helps the unfortunate, but not (or hardly) out of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the super-abundance of power" Beyond Good and Evil. "The way? This is now my way. Where is your? Thus answered I those that asked me "the way". For the way, it does not exist" Thus Spake Zarathustra.
Hello, my brother -- or at least hello to you that would like to be my brother!
But my brother, there IS a correct interpretation of Nietzsche -- to say there ISN'T is no less dogmatic than to say there IS. Both are statements about what there IS. Let us brood, together, over this:
Consider the assertion: "Everything is based on perspective." Alright -- well is that based on perspective or is that true regardless of perspective? Nietzsche's position was not that there is not anything beyond perspective but that everything is seen in perspective -- Nietzsche's fundamental position is that on what there is like Aristotle's -- wishing won't make it so. I hope the difference is clear. Contrary to popular opinion, Nietzsche is not a relativist. He is a realist. His attacks on Plato and Kant and the like are attacks on Kant's SUBJECTIVISM (Kant was a subjective idealist).
And, of course, the essence of Nietzsche is "Saying Yes to Life!"
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On November 11 2009 18:20 motbob wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2009 17:42 Misrah wrote:
My only concern- Will this cause me taxes to go up? Yes.
Do i want to pay more taxes? No.
Do i like this bill? No.
(But misrah, your a heartless ass that doesn't care about the sick and injured)- Going into the health care field, and i don't want to pay for other people. I don't think this will work. Life sucks, Life is unfair, and yes some people get dealt bad cards. There is no way a government run program will ever fix the danger that is living, and i certainly don't want to help and try. so i guess that means i am not socially responsible? I could care less. Government hand outs have never worked, and they never will. It is human nature for there to be winners and losers. Everyone should not be the same. actually, this won't cause your taxes to go up unless you make more than a million bucks per year
I know this is bullshit. You know this is bullshit.
You will be FORCED to get health insurance or be taxed (without getting anything). Businesses will pay a penalty of 8% on the average wage of their employees if they do not offer qualified health insurance (determined by a bureaucrat in washington). The 5.4% surtax (not adjusted for inflation) only effects the highest earners right! WRONG money taxed could have been used for investment. The surtax is also a direct tax on hundreds of thousands of small businesses (joint filers) who file their taxes for greater then 1 million dollars. Which leads to them less likely to expand, because taking a risk leads to a lower reward. The surtax is a tax on job creation.
To Recap, The surtax is not adjusted for inflation and will effect more people every year which makes it a another tax on the middle class.Increasing taxes on business, individuals and capital would slow economic growth and DISCOURAGE HIRING WHEN THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IS 10.2%
This bill is dead in the water when it gets to the senate anyway so whatever.
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On November 11 2009 23:35 Undisputed- wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2009 23:32 ZeaL. wrote:
Heres some stuff regarding drug prices.
1) A lot of the basic research costs associated with drug development are funded through the government through NIH grants and many of the drugs on the market today were created with some help from an NIH grant. The government spent about 30 billion a year in 2004 on basic drug research, almost as much as the 33 billion drug companies spent.
2) Drug companies have to charge exorbitant amounts for their drugs because they need to cover for their failed attempts. Its estimated that only one in ten thousand compounds has a medical purpose. After finding a promising compound it still has a high risk of not getting FDA approval (varies from year to year), so the cost of a drug includes the R&D for all the other drugs that didn't make it to market. They also have to sell for more in the US as other countries have price controls whereas the US has no price controls for drugs.
3) If a new drug makes it through FDA approval a drug company will want to profit from its creation, even if its not as effective at treating a disease as something thats on the market already. To achieve that end, drug companies aggressively market their drugs. Unfortunately, many doctors either do not keep up with or do not have access to literature that compares drug efficacies. That, along with drug companies pretty much bribing doctors to prescribe their drugs results in some doctors prescribing expensive, ineffective drugs.
Instead of having drug companies do the research, we could instead just have the NIH do the majority of the research. The NIH already has a pretty good grant proposal selection system and they do churn out results. This removes the profit motive that public companies have and puts the costs in taxes rather than up front costs. The drugs themselves are generally very cheap to manufacture. Alternatively, the government could buy patents for drugs that are good and then sell the drugs on the cheap.
Research also needs to turn away from a shotgun style where thousands of compounds are tried on an assay to see if any work. A more focused method would be to study how or why a disease occurs and then design a drug around the pathway. Oftentimes diseases dont even need drugs, a simple dietary restriction or lifestyle change can cure some things. Also, better drug delivery methods need to be developed. Lots of drugs would be much more effective if they were targeted to a specific cell type or tissue.
One thing I've always thought we needed was more research on comparing drug efficacies and this data needs to be made more accessible. If both doctors and patients had access to an online database of drug efficacies, they could make more informed decisions on whether or not to prescribe a new drug which still costs a ton or a drug which has had its patent run out. As it is now all you hear is Drugminizole-HCL vs OTCDrugthing and you have no way to choose besides relying on your primary care physician who might not know anything about how they are different. source?
NIH Grants
Pharmaceuticals spending as well as a lot of other info on pharmaceuticals
Article on OTC vs Prescription
DTC advertising by pharmaceuticals
Wiki on pharma marketing
Wiki on drug design
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On November 11 2009 23:59 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2009 23:51 Not_A_Notion wrote:On November 11 2009 22:40 Arbiter[frolix] wrote:On November 11 2009 21:20 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:
The argument put forth for socialized health-care are, basically, (1) it works [[whatever that means]] and//or (2) it is immoral to let a sick person die if they can be (for a "reasonable price" -- government health-care has to limit treatment because, for example, with a billion dollars the government can keep someone in better health than it can with one million, or one-hundred thousdand etc etc.) treated.
Fortunately for me, I'm only interested in socialized health-care if it it is the strongest option.
Is it "wrong" to let someone die if one dollar would heal them? Not if I have other plans for the dollar!
Why?
There is no such thing as a "right" or "wrong" and, thus, letting poor people die, starve, etc. may be "mean" (whatever that means) but it's not "wrong."
Likewise, murder, incest, rape, etc. etc. are not "wrong" either.
The closest thing to "right" is being the strongest. Let's explore this notion:
What is implicit in the "everyone has a right to healthcare" view is a statement like "you wouldn't like that (dying because of an easily treatable disease//injury) if you were poor would you?"
But that is just to say "it sure would suck to be poor!" I don't know of any who disagrees. When someone tells me that I ask, instead, "But if I were rich, i wouldn't want to give my money to those who are poor, unless it makes me stronger!"
The reply is always, "Yes, but just a little bit of your money can save their life!" So what? What do I care for their life? The only reason to save their life is if it increases my power!
Then the reply is, "Yes, but that way of living will get you crushed! Your view of things will lead to the crumbling of society!" Aha! You've just endorsed my point. You are saying that I should want national health-care, or a pity-based morality, because a "might makes right" view leads to my destruction. But that is just to say that I should care about "morality" because if I don't I will be crushed. But that means that your advice to me is simply: do what doesn't get you crushed! That is, you agree that morality's fundamental directive to me is "Be Strong!"
I'd be the first to concede that in human affairs, being strong means working together. But that doesn't mean that a strong society saves the weak. A strong society might kill the weak. It might ship them away. It might use them for experiments. The point here is simply that "strength" is a scientific concept that has to be researched. It could be that a "strong" society won't experiment on it's own members because that would cause it to eventually collapse. Etc. Etc. That's why knowledge, philosophy (the foundation of knowledge), mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, sociology, history and political science are so important. In the human world, knowledge is power. But knowledge is always embodied.
The upshot is that this way of approaching morality avoids all the hysterical screeching from weaklings whose only strategy for survival is to make the strong think that strength is evil.
Interesting. It has been quite some time since I have seen someone declare so openly and with such clarity that they are quite simply a deeply unpleasant human being. Ha Ha, Such Philosophical Harshness is refreshing. I would suggest, Arb, that you pay heed to the edited version of his post and actually look up what Nietzschean philosophy entails (Nietzche is my favorite philosopher because of his non-dogmatism and the sheer insight of his views). Such a philosophy is basically undercuts "You should". The point is that normative statements are vacuous, often borne of the psychological make up of the individual who makes such declarations, you are in essence arguing over nothing these past however many pages. Nietzsche' philosophy is not out and out egoist because he despises pity, it is rather a call to replace "You should" with "I will" (as in "I will it so"). I think 2 quotes sum up his philosophy for me (of course there is no 1 single interpretation of Nietzsche that would be patently missing the point). "The noble man also helps the unfortunate, but not (or hardly) out of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the super-abundance of power" Beyond Good and Evil. "The way? This is now my way. Where is your? Thus answered I those that asked me "the way". For the way, it does not exist" Thus Spake Zarathustra. Hello, my brother -- or at least hello to you that would like to be my brother! But my brother, there IS a correct interpretation of Nietzsche -- to say there ISN'T is no less dogmatic than to say there IS. Both are statements about what there IS. Let us brood, together, over this: Consider the assertion: "Everything is based on perspective." Alright -- well is that based on perspective or is that true regardless of perspective? Nietzsche's position was not that there is not anything beyond perspective but that everything is seen in perspective -- Nietzsche's fundamental position is that on what there is like Aristotle's -- wishing won't make it so. I hope the difference is clear. Contrary to popular opinion, Nietzsche is not a relativist. He is a realist. His attacks on Plato and Kant and the like are attacks on Kant's SUBJECTIVISM (Kant was a subjective idealist). And, of course, the essence of Nietzsche is "Saying Yes to Life!"
Hmmh, well my personal reading (I do not actually study philosophy, just read what I find interesting which is clearly going to be a biased starting base), of Nietzsche has been that he rejected objective truth.
To be honest I don't understand how Kant can be categorised as a subjective idealist, I mean from what I recall of the critique he argued that noumena existed "outside" the person just that the pure intuitions and categories had to be applied to sense data from noumena to produce phenomena.
Without understanding what constitutes what(subjectivist v objectivist), I can't really argue or discuss in a constructive manner, sorry.
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United Kingdom2674 Posts
On November 10 2009 04:56 motbob wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2009 04:54 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
I still don't understand how Dennis Kucinich voted No. He's an idiot. "Oh it's not single payer I'm so pure I'm voting no." If it hadn't passed we would have fucking crucified him. I'm sure, though, that if he were the deciding vote, he'd have voted yes.
Kucinich said on the floor of the House: "we cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem."
That is his view of the bill that passed the House and why would he support that given his general position on healthcare reform?
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On November 12 2009 00:23 Not_A_Notion wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2009 23:59 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:On November 11 2009 23:51 Not_A_Notion wrote:On November 11 2009 22:40 Arbiter[frolix] wrote:On November 11 2009 21:20 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:
The argument put forth for socialized health-care are, basically, (1) it works [[whatever that means]] and//or (2) it is immoral to let a sick person die if they can be (for a "reasonable price" -- government health-care has to limit treatment because, for example, with a billion dollars the government can keep someone in better health than it can with one million, or one-hundred thousdand etc etc.) treated.
Fortunately for me, I'm only interested in socialized health-care if it it is the strongest option.
Is it "wrong" to let someone die if one dollar would heal them? Not if I have other plans for the dollar!
Why?
There is no such thing as a "right" or "wrong" and, thus, letting poor people die, starve, etc. may be "mean" (whatever that means) but it's not "wrong."
Likewise, murder, incest, rape, etc. etc. are not "wrong" either.
The closest thing to "right" is being the strongest. Let's explore this notion:
What is implicit in the "everyone has a right to healthcare" view is a statement like "you wouldn't like that (dying because of an easily treatable disease//injury) if you were poor would you?"
But that is just to say "it sure would suck to be poor!" I don't know of any who disagrees. When someone tells me that I ask, instead, "But if I were rich, i wouldn't want to give my money to those who are poor, unless it makes me stronger!"
The reply is always, "Yes, but just a little bit of your money can save their life!" So what? What do I care for their life? The only reason to save their life is if it increases my power!
Then the reply is, "Yes, but that way of living will get you crushed! Your view of things will lead to the crumbling of society!" Aha! You've just endorsed my point. You are saying that I should want national health-care, or a pity-based morality, because a "might makes right" view leads to my destruction. But that is just to say that I should care about "morality" because if I don't I will be crushed. But that means that your advice to me is simply: do what doesn't get you crushed! That is, you agree that morality's fundamental directive to me is "Be Strong!"
I'd be the first to concede that in human affairs, being strong means working together. But that doesn't mean that a strong society saves the weak. A strong society might kill the weak. It might ship them away. It might use them for experiments. The point here is simply that "strength" is a scientific concept that has to be researched. It could be that a "strong" society won't experiment on it's own members because that would cause it to eventually collapse. Etc. Etc. That's why knowledge, philosophy (the foundation of knowledge), mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, sociology, history and political science are so important. In the human world, knowledge is power. But knowledge is always embodied.
The upshot is that this way of approaching morality avoids all the hysterical screeching from weaklings whose only strategy for survival is to make the strong think that strength is evil.
Interesting. It has been quite some time since I have seen someone declare so openly and with such clarity that they are quite simply a deeply unpleasant human being. Ha Ha, Such Philosophical Harshness is refreshing. I would suggest, Arb, that you pay heed to the edited version of his post and actually look up what Nietzschean philosophy entails (Nietzche is my favorite philosopher because of his non-dogmatism and the sheer insight of his views). Such a philosophy is basically undercuts "You should". The point is that normative statements are vacuous, often borne of the psychological make up of the individual who makes such declarations, you are in essence arguing over nothing these past however many pages. Nietzsche' philosophy is not out and out egoist because he despises pity, it is rather a call to replace "You should" with "I will" (as in "I will it so"). I think 2 quotes sum up his philosophy for me (of course there is no 1 single interpretation of Nietzsche that would be patently missing the point). "The noble man also helps the unfortunate, but not (or hardly) out of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the super-abundance of power" Beyond Good and Evil. "The way? This is now my way. Where is your? Thus answered I those that asked me "the way". For the way, it does not exist" Thus Spake Zarathustra. Hello, my brother -- or at least hello to you that would like to be my brother! But my brother, there IS a correct interpretation of Nietzsche -- to say there ISN'T is no less dogmatic than to say there IS. Both are statements about what there IS. Let us brood, together, over this: Consider the assertion: "Everything is based on perspective." Alright -- well is that based on perspective or is that true regardless of perspective? Nietzsche's position was not that there is not anything beyond perspective but that everything is seen in perspective -- Nietzsche's fundamental position is that on what there is like Aristotle's -- wishing won't make it so. I hope the difference is clear. Contrary to popular opinion, Nietzsche is not a relativist. He is a realist. His attacks on Plato and Kant and the like are attacks on Kant's SUBJECTIVISM (Kant was a subjective idealist). And, of course, the essence of Nietzsche is "Saying Yes to Life!" Hmmh, well my personal reading (I do not actually study philosophy, just read what I find interesting which is clearly going to be a biased starting base), of Nietzsche has been that he rejected objective truth. To be honest I don't understand how Kant can be categorised as a subjective idealist, I mean from what I recall of the critique he argued that noumena existed "outside" the person just that the pure intuitions and categories had to be applied to sense data from noumena to produce phenomena. Without understanding what constitutes what(subjectivist v objectivist), I can't really argue or discuss in a constructive manner, sorry.
Hello again, my brother.
In regard to the Nietzschean view on the health-care debate -- there has been and will be no rebuttal to the strength view. The only possible move is Schopenhauer's -- to argue that non-existence is better than existence. And that view fails for reasons I won't go into now.
My view is that Nietzsche rejected "truth" a-la Plato and Kant (who both rejected "appearances" in favor of some "higher" understanding of reality). So his attacks on truth have to be understood in the context of the authors he was attacking.
As far as Kant is concerned, I hope the following quote clears it up:
""This...is the fundamental contradiction at the heart of Kant's system. How we conceive of reality--that is, the structure and content of our thought about reality -- is itself just a part of reality, not something that could intelligibly be set in opposition to reality as a possible object of our knowledge, in the way that the rest of reality is allegedly not." E. J. Lowe
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2) Drug companies have to charge exorbitant amounts for their drugs because they need to cover for their failed attempts. Its estimated that only one in ten thousand compounds has a medical purpose. After finding a promising compound it still has a high risk of not getting FDA approval (varies from year to year), so the cost of a drug includes the R&D for all the other drugs that didn't make it to market. They also have to sell for more in the US as other countries have price controls whereas the US has no price controls for drugs.
Yeah, that 1 in 10 thousand number is roughly accurate, but you forget to mention that the detection of bioactivity is done via high throughput assays which can check millions of compounds from a chemical library within weeks depending on how roboticized your lab is. This is a huge argument towards the centralization of research because machinery and large capital investments have an exponentially cumulative effect on the speed of research, which highly dissuades entry into the market unless you're an academic who found something marketable and decided to not publish the results for fear of your institution taking their monetary cut.
The closest thing to "right" is being the strongest. Sup Thrasymachus, I believe your position was completely demolished back in ancient Greece.
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On November 12 2009 00:44 L wrote:Show nested quote +2) Drug companies have to charge exorbitant amounts for their drugs because they need to cover for their failed attempts. Its estimated that only one in ten thousand compounds has a medical purpose. After finding a promising compound it still has a high risk of not getting FDA approval (varies from year to year), so the cost of a drug includes the R&D for all the other drugs that didn't make it to market. They also have to sell for more in the US as other countries have price controls whereas the US has no price controls for drugs. Yeah, that 1 in 10 thousand number is roughly accurate, but you forget to mention that the detection of bioactivity is done via high throughput assays which can check millions of compounds from a chemical library within weeks depending on how roboticized your lab is. This is a huge argument towards the centralization of research because machinery and large capital investments have an exponentially cumulative effect on the speed of research, which highly dissuades entry into the market unless you're an academic who found something marketable and decided to not publish the results for fear of your institution taking their monetary cut. Sup Thrasymachus, I believe your position was completely demolished back in ancient Greece.
I'd be very impressed if you could say why Thrasymachus' position was "demolished." But I hope you can understand why you un-substantiated glance to the past has no weight in itself!
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On November 12 2009 00:35 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2009 00:23 Not_A_Notion wrote:On November 11 2009 23:59 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:On November 11 2009 23:51 Not_A_Notion wrote:On November 11 2009 22:40 Arbiter[frolix] wrote:On November 11 2009 21:20 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:
The argument put forth for socialized health-care are, basically, (1) it works [[whatever that means]] and//or (2) it is immoral to let a sick person die if they can be (for a "reasonable price" -- government health-care has to limit treatment because, for example, with a billion dollars the government can keep someone in better health than it can with one million, or one-hundred thousdand etc etc.) treated.
Fortunately for me, I'm only interested in socialized health-care if it it is the strongest option.
Is it "wrong" to let someone die if one dollar would heal them? Not if I have other plans for the dollar!
Why?
There is no such thing as a "right" or "wrong" and, thus, letting poor people die, starve, etc. may be "mean" (whatever that means) but it's not "wrong."
Likewise, murder, incest, rape, etc. etc. are not "wrong" either.
The closest thing to "right" is being the strongest. Let's explore this notion:
What is implicit in the "everyone has a right to healthcare" view is a statement like "you wouldn't like that (dying because of an easily treatable disease//injury) if you were poor would you?"
But that is just to say "it sure would suck to be poor!" I don't know of any who disagrees. When someone tells me that I ask, instead, "But if I were rich, i wouldn't want to give my money to those who are poor, unless it makes me stronger!"
The reply is always, "Yes, but just a little bit of your money can save their life!" So what? What do I care for their life? The only reason to save their life is if it increases my power!
Then the reply is, "Yes, but that way of living will get you crushed! Your view of things will lead to the crumbling of society!" Aha! You've just endorsed my point. You are saying that I should want national health-care, or a pity-based morality, because a "might makes right" view leads to my destruction. But that is just to say that I should care about "morality" because if I don't I will be crushed. But that means that your advice to me is simply: do what doesn't get you crushed! That is, you agree that morality's fundamental directive to me is "Be Strong!"
I'd be the first to concede that in human affairs, being strong means working together. But that doesn't mean that a strong society saves the weak. A strong society might kill the weak. It might ship them away. It might use them for experiments. The point here is simply that "strength" is a scientific concept that has to be researched. It could be that a "strong" society won't experiment on it's own members because that would cause it to eventually collapse. Etc. Etc. That's why knowledge, philosophy (the foundation of knowledge), mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, sociology, history and political science are so important. In the human world, knowledge is power. But knowledge is always embodied.
The upshot is that this way of approaching morality avoids all the hysterical screeching from weaklings whose only strategy for survival is to make the strong think that strength is evil.
Interesting. It has been quite some time since I have seen someone declare so openly and with such clarity that they are quite simply a deeply unpleasant human being. Ha Ha, Such Philosophical Harshness is refreshing. I would suggest, Arb, that you pay heed to the edited version of his post and actually look up what Nietzschean philosophy entails (Nietzche is my favorite philosopher because of his non-dogmatism and the sheer insight of his views). Such a philosophy is basically undercuts "You should". The point is that normative statements are vacuous, often borne of the psychological make up of the individual who makes such declarations, you are in essence arguing over nothing these past however many pages. Nietzsche' philosophy is not out and out egoist because he despises pity, it is rather a call to replace "You should" with "I will" (as in "I will it so"). I think 2 quotes sum up his philosophy for me (of course there is no 1 single interpretation of Nietzsche that would be patently missing the point). "The noble man also helps the unfortunate, but not (or hardly) out of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the super-abundance of power" Beyond Good and Evil. "The way? This is now my way. Where is your? Thus answered I those that asked me "the way". For the way, it does not exist" Thus Spake Zarathustra. Hello, my brother -- or at least hello to you that would like to be my brother! But my brother, there IS a correct interpretation of Nietzsche -- to say there ISN'T is no less dogmatic than to say there IS. Both are statements about what there IS. Let us brood, together, over this: Consider the assertion: "Everything is based on perspective." Alright -- well is that based on perspective or is that true regardless of perspective? Nietzsche's position was not that there is not anything beyond perspective but that everything is seen in perspective -- Nietzsche's fundamental position is that on what there is like Aristotle's -- wishing won't make it so. I hope the difference is clear. Contrary to popular opinion, Nietzsche is not a relativist. He is a realist. His attacks on Plato and Kant and the like are attacks on Kant's SUBJECTIVISM (Kant was a subjective idealist). And, of course, the essence of Nietzsche is "Saying Yes to Life!" Hmmh, well my personal reading (I do not actually study philosophy, just read what I find interesting which is clearly going to be a biased starting base), of Nietzsche has been that he rejected objective truth. To be honest I don't understand how Kant can be categorised as a subjective idealist, I mean from what I recall of the critique he argued that noumena existed "outside" the person just that the pure intuitions and categories had to be applied to sense data from noumena to produce phenomena. Without understanding what constitutes what(subjectivist v objectivist), I can't really argue or discuss in a constructive manner, sorry. Hello again, my brother. In regard to the Nietzschean view on the health-care debate -- there has been and will be no rebuttal to the strength view. The only possible move is Schopenhauer's -- to argue that non-existence is better than existence. And that view fails for reasons I won't go into now. My view is that Nietzsche rejected "truth" a-la Plato and Kant (who both rejected "appearances" in favor of some "higher" understanding of reality). So his attacks on truth have to be understood in the context of the authors he was attacking. As far as Kant is concerned, I hope the following quote clears it up: ""This...is the fundamental contradiction at the heart of Kant's system. How we conceive of reality--that is, the structure and content of our thought about reality -- is itself just a part of reality, not something that could intelligibly be set in opposition to reality as a possible object of our knowledge, in the way that the rest of reality is allegedly not." E. J. Lowe
Ah I understand now, yeah that was always a problem with Kant I've heard, sorry for not putting 2 and 2 together.
However on the concept of "Strength", do you relate this solely to physiological strength or psychological strength?
Should "Strength" really be treated as a scientific concept?
How would yo go about researching such a thing?
I must admit though that while Nietzsche is my favourite philosopher many of the things he says I find unsettling to say the least hence I would not consider myself a "Nietzschean"
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On November 12 2009 00:44 L wrote: Sup Thrasymachus, I believe your position was completely demolished back in ancient Greece.
"demolished" probably wasn't the best choice of words.
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On November 12 2009 00:50 Not_A_Notion wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2009 00:35 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:On November 12 2009 00:23 Not_A_Notion wrote:On November 11 2009 23:59 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:On November 11 2009 23:51 Not_A_Notion wrote:On November 11 2009 22:40 Arbiter[frolix] wrote:On November 11 2009 21:20 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:
The argument put forth for socialized health-care are, basically, (1) it works [[whatever that means]] and//or (2) it is immoral to let a sick person die if they can be (for a "reasonable price" -- government health-care has to limit treatment because, for example, with a billion dollars the government can keep someone in better health than it can with one million, or one-hundred thousdand etc etc.) treated.
Fortunately for me, I'm only interested in socialized health-care if it it is the strongest option.
Is it "wrong" to let someone die if one dollar would heal them? Not if I have other plans for the dollar!
Why?
There is no such thing as a "right" or "wrong" and, thus, letting poor people die, starve, etc. may be "mean" (whatever that means) but it's not "wrong."
Likewise, murder, incest, rape, etc. etc. are not "wrong" either.
The closest thing to "right" is being the strongest. Let's explore this notion:
What is implicit in the "everyone has a right to healthcare" view is a statement like "you wouldn't like that (dying because of an easily treatable disease//injury) if you were poor would you?"
But that is just to say "it sure would suck to be poor!" I don't know of any who disagrees. When someone tells me that I ask, instead, "But if I were rich, i wouldn't want to give my money to those who are poor, unless it makes me stronger!"
The reply is always, "Yes, but just a little bit of your money can save their life!" So what? What do I care for their life? The only reason to save their life is if it increases my power!
Then the reply is, "Yes, but that way of living will get you crushed! Your view of things will lead to the crumbling of society!" Aha! You've just endorsed my point. You are saying that I should want national health-care, or a pity-based morality, because a "might makes right" view leads to my destruction. But that is just to say that I should care about "morality" because if I don't I will be crushed. But that means that your advice to me is simply: do what doesn't get you crushed! That is, you agree that morality's fundamental directive to me is "Be Strong!"
I'd be the first to concede that in human affairs, being strong means working together. But that doesn't mean that a strong society saves the weak. A strong society might kill the weak. It might ship them away. It might use them for experiments. The point here is simply that "strength" is a scientific concept that has to be researched. It could be that a "strong" society won't experiment on it's own members because that would cause it to eventually collapse. Etc. Etc. That's why knowledge, philosophy (the foundation of knowledge), mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, sociology, history and political science are so important. In the human world, knowledge is power. But knowledge is always embodied.
The upshot is that this way of approaching morality avoids all the hysterical screeching from weaklings whose only strategy for survival is to make the strong think that strength is evil.
Interesting. It has been quite some time since I have seen someone declare so openly and with such clarity that they are quite simply a deeply unpleasant human being. Ha Ha, Such Philosophical Harshness is refreshing. I would suggest, Arb, that you pay heed to the edited version of his post and actually look up what Nietzschean philosophy entails (Nietzche is my favorite philosopher because of his non-dogmatism and the sheer insight of his views). Such a philosophy is basically undercuts "You should". The point is that normative statements are vacuous, often borne of the psychological make up of the individual who makes such declarations, you are in essence arguing over nothing these past however many pages. Nietzsche' philosophy is not out and out egoist because he despises pity, it is rather a call to replace "You should" with "I will" (as in "I will it so"). I think 2 quotes sum up his philosophy for me (of course there is no 1 single interpretation of Nietzsche that would be patently missing the point). "The noble man also helps the unfortunate, but not (or hardly) out of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the super-abundance of power" Beyond Good and Evil. "The way? This is now my way. Where is your? Thus answered I those that asked me "the way". For the way, it does not exist" Thus Spake Zarathustra. Hello, my brother -- or at least hello to you that would like to be my brother! But my brother, there IS a correct interpretation of Nietzsche -- to say there ISN'T is no less dogmatic than to say there IS. Both are statements about what there IS. Let us brood, together, over this: Consider the assertion: "Everything is based on perspective." Alright -- well is that based on perspective or is that true regardless of perspective? Nietzsche's position was not that there is not anything beyond perspective but that everything is seen in perspective -- Nietzsche's fundamental position is that on what there is like Aristotle's -- wishing won't make it so. I hope the difference is clear. Contrary to popular opinion, Nietzsche is not a relativist. He is a realist. His attacks on Plato and Kant and the like are attacks on Kant's SUBJECTIVISM (Kant was a subjective idealist). And, of course, the essence of Nietzsche is "Saying Yes to Life!" Hmmh, well my personal reading (I do not actually study philosophy, just read what I find interesting which is clearly going to be a biased starting base), of Nietzsche has been that he rejected objective truth. To be honest I don't understand how Kant can be categorised as a subjective idealist, I mean from what I recall of the critique he argued that noumena existed "outside" the person just that the pure intuitions and categories had to be applied to sense data from noumena to produce phenomena. Without understanding what constitutes what(subjectivist v objectivist), I can't really argue or discuss in a constructive manner, sorry. Hello again, my brother. In regard to the Nietzschean view on the health-care debate -- there has been and will be no rebuttal to the strength view. The only possible move is Schopenhauer's -- to argue that non-existence is better than existence. And that view fails for reasons I won't go into now. My view is that Nietzsche rejected "truth" a-la Plato and Kant (who both rejected "appearances" in favor of some "higher" understanding of reality). So his attacks on truth have to be understood in the context of the authors he was attacking. As far as Kant is concerned, I hope the following quote clears it up: ""This...is the fundamental contradiction at the heart of Kant's system. How we conceive of reality--that is, the structure and content of our thought about reality -- is itself just a part of reality, not something that could intelligibly be set in opposition to reality as a possible object of our knowledge, in the way that the rest of reality is allegedly not." E. J. Lowe Ah I understand now, yeah that was always a problem with Kant I've heard, sorry for not putting 2 and 2 together. However on the concept of "Strength", do you relate this solely to physiological strength or psychological strength? Should "Strength" really be treated as a scientific concept? How would yo go about researching such a thing? I must admit though that while Nietzsche is my favourite philosopher many of the things he says I find unsettling to say the least hence I would not consider myself a "Nietzschean"
You again, brother!
I think strength can only be understood holistically. Presently, human beings with high intelligence that also are protected by institutions possessing superior physical force are in the best position to project strength. In turn, the strongest institutions are those that respect the need for such individuals and also respect the total psychological reality of those individuals -- that they will want time to pursue their own interests, desires, etc. Totalitarian regimes are generally weak and unstable.
I don't think "strong" societies can be understood outside scientific research and the philosophical foundation that scientific research is built on. I can understand why individuals thought Marxism would be the strongest social movement -- but they were just wrong. Social democrats may very well be right that Democratic Socialism // Liberal democracies may be the strongest social form. But, as Paul Kennedy said, nation-state strength is always a relative term (as is individual strength!). For starters on research, I would recommend a military history//political science book by the author mentioned above called "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers." I also found Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History" rather interesting.
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On November 12 2009 00:50 XeliN wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2009 00:44 L wrote:The closest thing to "right" is being the strongest. Sup Thrasymachus, I believe your position was completely demolished back in ancient Greece. "demolished" probably wasn't the best choice of words.
XeliN, I hope you understand why I heartily laughed at your insightful (I hope you meant it in the way I understood it) comment!
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I'd be very impressed if you could say why Thrasymachus' position was "demolished." Taken narrowly, the statement that justice is the advantage of the stronger was defeated quite quickly by means of reference to the Greek notion of an art/practical body of knowledge or Techne. The concept of a complete ruler was subdivided into that of a ruler, who's purpose was to rule, and a subsidiary moneymaker, who's purpose was to make money. Since the art of self interestedness and the art of ruling were agreed to be distinct from one another, ruling as a means of self enrichment is not ruling, but self enrichment.
Its Thrasymachus' later reworking of his position, that perfect injustice is stronger than justice, which was far harder to defeat.
His original statement, however, was completely vivisected.
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On November 12 2009 01:00 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2009 00:50 Not_A_Notion wrote:On November 12 2009 00:35 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:On November 12 2009 00:23 Not_A_Notion wrote:On November 11 2009 23:59 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:On November 11 2009 23:51 Not_A_Notion wrote:On November 11 2009 22:40 Arbiter[frolix] wrote:On November 11 2009 21:20 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:
The argument put forth for socialized health-care are, basically, (1) it works [[whatever that means]] and//or (2) it is immoral to let a sick person die if they can be (for a "reasonable price" -- government health-care has to limit treatment because, for example, with a billion dollars the government can keep someone in better health than it can with one million, or one-hundred thousdand etc etc.) treated.
Fortunately for me, I'm only interested in socialized health-care if it it is the strongest option.
Is it "wrong" to let someone die if one dollar would heal them? Not if I have other plans for the dollar!
Why?
There is no such thing as a "right" or "wrong" and, thus, letting poor people die, starve, etc. may be "mean" (whatever that means) but it's not "wrong."
Likewise, murder, incest, rape, etc. etc. are not "wrong" either.
The closest thing to "right" is being the strongest. Let's explore this notion:
What is implicit in the "everyone has a right to healthcare" view is a statement like "you wouldn't like that (dying because of an easily treatable disease//injury) if you were poor would you?"
But that is just to say "it sure would suck to be poor!" I don't know of any who disagrees. When someone tells me that I ask, instead, "But if I were rich, i wouldn't want to give my money to those who are poor, unless it makes me stronger!"
The reply is always, "Yes, but just a little bit of your money can save their life!" So what? What do I care for their life? The only reason to save their life is if it increases my power!
Then the reply is, "Yes, but that way of living will get you crushed! Your view of things will lead to the crumbling of society!" Aha! You've just endorsed my point. You are saying that I should want national health-care, or a pity-based morality, because a "might makes right" view leads to my destruction. But that is just to say that I should care about "morality" because if I don't I will be crushed. But that means that your advice to me is simply: do what doesn't get you crushed! That is, you agree that morality's fundamental directive to me is "Be Strong!"
I'd be the first to concede that in human affairs, being strong means working together. But that doesn't mean that a strong society saves the weak. A strong society might kill the weak. It might ship them away. It might use them for experiments. The point here is simply that "strength" is a scientific concept that has to be researched. It could be that a "strong" society won't experiment on it's own members because that would cause it to eventually collapse. Etc. Etc. That's why knowledge, philosophy (the foundation of knowledge), mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, sociology, history and political science are so important. In the human world, knowledge is power. But knowledge is always embodied.
The upshot is that this way of approaching morality avoids all the hysterical screeching from weaklings whose only strategy for survival is to make the strong think that strength is evil.
Interesting. It has been quite some time since I have seen someone declare so openly and with such clarity that they are quite simply a deeply unpleasant human being. Ha Ha, Such Philosophical Harshness is refreshing. I would suggest, Arb, that you pay heed to the edited version of his post and actually look up what Nietzschean philosophy entails (Nietzche is my favorite philosopher because of his non-dogmatism and the sheer insight of his views). Such a philosophy is basically undercuts "You should". The point is that normative statements are vacuous, often borne of the psychological make up of the individual who makes such declarations, you are in essence arguing over nothing these past however many pages. Nietzsche' philosophy is not out and out egoist because he despises pity, it is rather a call to replace "You should" with "I will" (as in "I will it so"). I think 2 quotes sum up his philosophy for me (of course there is no 1 single interpretation of Nietzsche that would be patently missing the point). "The noble man also helps the unfortunate, but not (or hardly) out of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the super-abundance of power" Beyond Good and Evil. "The way? This is now my way. Where is your? Thus answered I those that asked me "the way". For the way, it does not exist" Thus Spake Zarathustra. Hello, my brother -- or at least hello to you that would like to be my brother! But my brother, there IS a correct interpretation of Nietzsche -- to say there ISN'T is no less dogmatic than to say there IS. Both are statements about what there IS. Let us brood, together, over this: Consider the assertion: "Everything is based on perspective." Alright -- well is that based on perspective or is that true regardless of perspective? Nietzsche's position was not that there is not anything beyond perspective but that everything is seen in perspective -- Nietzsche's fundamental position is that on what there is like Aristotle's -- wishing won't make it so. I hope the difference is clear. Contrary to popular opinion, Nietzsche is not a relativist. He is a realist. His attacks on Plato and Kant and the like are attacks on Kant's SUBJECTIVISM (Kant was a subjective idealist). And, of course, the essence of Nietzsche is "Saying Yes to Life!" Hmmh, well my personal reading (I do not actually study philosophy, just read what I find interesting which is clearly going to be a biased starting base), of Nietzsche has been that he rejected objective truth. To be honest I don't understand how Kant can be categorised as a subjective idealist, I mean from what I recall of the critique he argued that noumena existed "outside" the person just that the pure intuitions and categories had to be applied to sense data from noumena to produce phenomena. Without understanding what constitutes what(subjectivist v objectivist), I can't really argue or discuss in a constructive manner, sorry. Hello again, my brother. In regard to the Nietzschean view on the health-care debate -- there has been and will be no rebuttal to the strength view. The only possible move is Schopenhauer's -- to argue that non-existence is better than existence. And that view fails for reasons I won't go into now. My view is that Nietzsche rejected "truth" a-la Plato and Kant (who both rejected "appearances" in favor of some "higher" understanding of reality). So his attacks on truth have to be understood in the context of the authors he was attacking. As far as Kant is concerned, I hope the following quote clears it up: ""This...is the fundamental contradiction at the heart of Kant's system. How we conceive of reality--that is, the structure and content of our thought about reality -- is itself just a part of reality, not something that could intelligibly be set in opposition to reality as a possible object of our knowledge, in the way that the rest of reality is allegedly not." E. J. Lowe Ah I understand now, yeah that was always a problem with Kant I've heard, sorry for not putting 2 and 2 together. However on the concept of "Strength", do you relate this solely to physiological strength or psychological strength? Should "Strength" really be treated as a scientific concept? How would yo go about researching such a thing? I must admit though that while Nietzsche is my favourite philosopher many of the things he says I find unsettling to say the least hence I would not consider myself a "Nietzschean" You again, brother! I think strength can only be understood holistically. Presently, human beings with high intelligence that also are protected by institutions possessing superior physical force are in the best position to project strength. In turn, the strongest institutions are those that respect the need for such individuals and also respect the total psychological reality of those individuals -- that they will want time to pursue their own interests, desires, etc. Totalitarian regimes are generally weak and unstable. I don't think "strong" societies can be understood outside scientific research and the philosophical foundation that scientific research is built on. I can understand why individuals thought Marxism would be the strongest social movement -- but they were just wrong. Social democrats may very well be right that Democratic Socialism // Liberal democracies may be the strongest social form. But, as Paul Kennedy said, nation-state strength is always a relative term (as is individual strength!). For starters on research, I would recommend a military history//political science book by the author mentioned above called "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers." I also found Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History" rather interesting.
Thanks, I will certainly take a look at the Kennedy book, and may get round to the other one, just looked at both on wikipedia, Derrida's criticism (or the part quoted anyway) is quite amusing imho.
I get the feeling that this has been a decidedly one sided discussion, but I am under no illusions with regard to my ignorance!
EDIT* Hence my ID
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On November 12 2009 01:13 L wrote:Show nested quote +I'd be very impressed if you could say why Thrasymachus' position was "demolished." Taken narrowly, the statement that justice is the advantage of the stronger was defeated quite quickly by means of reference to the Greek notion of an art/practical body of knowledge or Techne. The concept of a complete ruler was subdivided into that of a ruler, who's purpose was to rule, and a subsidiary moneymaker, who's purpose was to make money. Since the art of self interestedness and the art of ruling were agreed to be distinct from one another, ruling as a means of self enrichment is not ruling, but self enrichment. Its Thrasymachus' later reworking of his position, that perfect injustice is stronger than justice, which was far harder to defeat. His original statement, however, was completely vivisected.
This doesn't touch my position on strength. All it does it reinforce the fact that ruling can be done weakly and strongly.
More formally, the flaw in Socrates' position is that you shouldn't think of ruling and self-interestedness as distinct.
Of course, Plato's Socrates does because for him (them) Justice is an other-worldly form with a distinct, objective reality.
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On November 12 2009 01:14 Not_A_Notion wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2009 01:00 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:On November 12 2009 00:50 Not_A_Notion wrote:On November 12 2009 00:35 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:On November 12 2009 00:23 Not_A_Notion wrote:On November 11 2009 23:59 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:On November 11 2009 23:51 Not_A_Notion wrote:On November 11 2009 22:40 Arbiter[frolix] wrote:On November 11 2009 21:20 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:
The argument put forth for socialized health-care are, basically, (1) it works [[whatever that means]] and//or (2) it is immoral to let a sick person die if they can be (for a "reasonable price" -- government health-care has to limit treatment because, for example, with a billion dollars the government can keep someone in better health than it can with one million, or one-hundred thousdand etc etc.) treated.
Fortunately for me, I'm only interested in socialized health-care if it it is the strongest option.
Is it "wrong" to let someone die if one dollar would heal them? Not if I have other plans for the dollar!
Why?
There is no such thing as a "right" or "wrong" and, thus, letting poor people die, starve, etc. may be "mean" (whatever that means) but it's not "wrong."
Likewise, murder, incest, rape, etc. etc. are not "wrong" either.
The closest thing to "right" is being the strongest. Let's explore this notion:
What is implicit in the "everyone has a right to healthcare" view is a statement like "you wouldn't like that (dying because of an easily treatable disease//injury) if you were poor would you?"
But that is just to say "it sure would suck to be poor!" I don't know of any who disagrees. When someone tells me that I ask, instead, "But if I were rich, i wouldn't want to give my money to those who are poor, unless it makes me stronger!"
The reply is always, "Yes, but just a little bit of your money can save their life!" So what? What do I care for their life? The only reason to save their life is if it increases my power!
Then the reply is, "Yes, but that way of living will get you crushed! Your view of things will lead to the crumbling of society!" Aha! You've just endorsed my point. You are saying that I should want national health-care, or a pity-based morality, because a "might makes right" view leads to my destruction. But that is just to say that I should care about "morality" because if I don't I will be crushed. But that means that your advice to me is simply: do what doesn't get you crushed! That is, you agree that morality's fundamental directive to me is "Be Strong!"
I'd be the first to concede that in human affairs, being strong means working together. But that doesn't mean that a strong society saves the weak. A strong society might kill the weak. It might ship them away. It might use them for experiments. The point here is simply that "strength" is a scientific concept that has to be researched. It could be that a "strong" society won't experiment on it's own members because that would cause it to eventually collapse. Etc. Etc. That's why knowledge, philosophy (the foundation of knowledge), mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, sociology, history and political science are so important. In the human world, knowledge is power. But knowledge is always embodied.
The upshot is that this way of approaching morality avoids all the hysterical screeching from weaklings whose only strategy for survival is to make the strong think that strength is evil.
Interesting. It has been quite some time since I have seen someone declare so openly and with such clarity that they are quite simply a deeply unpleasant human being. Ha Ha, Such Philosophical Harshness is refreshing. I would suggest, Arb, that you pay heed to the edited version of his post and actually look up what Nietzschean philosophy entails (Nietzche is my favorite philosopher because of his non-dogmatism and the sheer insight of his views). Such a philosophy is basically undercuts "You should". The point is that normative statements are vacuous, often borne of the psychological make up of the individual who makes such declarations, you are in essence arguing over nothing these past however many pages. Nietzsche' philosophy is not out and out egoist because he despises pity, it is rather a call to replace "You should" with "I will" (as in "I will it so"). I think 2 quotes sum up his philosophy for me (of course there is no 1 single interpretation of Nietzsche that would be patently missing the point). "The noble man also helps the unfortunate, but not (or hardly) out of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the super-abundance of power" Beyond Good and Evil. "The way? This is now my way. Where is your? Thus answered I those that asked me "the way". For the way, it does not exist" Thus Spake Zarathustra. Hello, my brother -- or at least hello to you that would like to be my brother! But my brother, there IS a correct interpretation of Nietzsche -- to say there ISN'T is no less dogmatic than to say there IS. Both are statements about what there IS. Let us brood, together, over this: Consider the assertion: "Everything is based on perspective." Alright -- well is that based on perspective or is that true regardless of perspective? Nietzsche's position was not that there is not anything beyond perspective but that everything is seen in perspective -- Nietzsche's fundamental position is that on what there is like Aristotle's -- wishing won't make it so. I hope the difference is clear. Contrary to popular opinion, Nietzsche is not a relativist. He is a realist. His attacks on Plato and Kant and the like are attacks on Kant's SUBJECTIVISM (Kant was a subjective idealist). And, of course, the essence of Nietzsche is "Saying Yes to Life!" Hmmh, well my personal reading (I do not actually study philosophy, just read what I find interesting which is clearly going to be a biased starting base), of Nietzsche has been that he rejected objective truth. To be honest I don't understand how Kant can be categorised as a subjective idealist, I mean from what I recall of the critique he argued that noumena existed "outside" the person just that the pure intuitions and categories had to be applied to sense data from noumena to produce phenomena. Without understanding what constitutes what(subjectivist v objectivist), I can't really argue or discuss in a constructive manner, sorry. Hello again, my brother. In regard to the Nietzschean view on the health-care debate -- there has been and will be no rebuttal to the strength view. The only possible move is Schopenhauer's -- to argue that non-existence is better than existence. And that view fails for reasons I won't go into now. My view is that Nietzsche rejected "truth" a-la Plato and Kant (who both rejected "appearances" in favor of some "higher" understanding of reality). So his attacks on truth have to be understood in the context of the authors he was attacking. As far as Kant is concerned, I hope the following quote clears it up: ""This...is the fundamental contradiction at the heart of Kant's system. How we conceive of reality--that is, the structure and content of our thought about reality -- is itself just a part of reality, not something that could intelligibly be set in opposition to reality as a possible object of our knowledge, in the way that the rest of reality is allegedly not." E. J. Lowe Ah I understand now, yeah that was always a problem with Kant I've heard, sorry for not putting 2 and 2 together. However on the concept of "Strength", do you relate this solely to physiological strength or psychological strength? Should "Strength" really be treated as a scientific concept? How would yo go about researching such a thing? I must admit though that while Nietzsche is my favourite philosopher many of the things he says I find unsettling to say the least hence I would not consider myself a "Nietzschean" You again, brother! I think strength can only be understood holistically. Presently, human beings with high intelligence that also are protected by institutions possessing superior physical force are in the best position to project strength. In turn, the strongest institutions are those that respect the need for such individuals and also respect the total psychological reality of those individuals -- that they will want time to pursue their own interests, desires, etc. Totalitarian regimes are generally weak and unstable. I don't think "strong" societies can be understood outside scientific research and the philosophical foundation that scientific research is built on. I can understand why individuals thought Marxism would be the strongest social movement -- but they were just wrong. Social democrats may very well be right that Democratic Socialism // Liberal democracies may be the strongest social form. But, as Paul Kennedy said, nation-state strength is always a relative term (as is individual strength!). For starters on research, I would recommend a military history//political science book by the author mentioned above called "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers." I also found Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History" rather interesting. Thanks, I will certainly take a look at the Kennedy book, and may get round to the other one, just looked at both on wikipedia, Derrida's criticism (or the part quoted anyway) is quite amusing imho. I get the feeling that this has been a decidedly one sided discussion, but I am under no illusions with regard to my ignorance! EDIT* Hence my ID
Derrida is a hilarious guy! But his criticism is a distinctly Schopenhauerian//Christian one. Unless he turns it by saying "and starving people around the world lead to weak institutions!" But, I'm not entirely convinced by Fukuyama's thesis either -- the next century will be an interesting one to say the least! Africa will be a huge player! Weird, huh!?
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More formally, the flaw in Socrates' position is that you shouldn't think of ruling and self-interestedness as distinct.
Of course, Plato's Socrates does because for him (them) Justice is an other-worldly form with a distinct, objective reality. The entire city of words proves otherwise with regards to your first point. It was plenty possible to distinguish between the art of ruling and the art of making money. The art of making money was so prominent as a stand alone piece that the entire first book's setting, as well as the conversation that Socrates has with Cephalos.
More than that, the distinction is so apparent that it was cemented in the greek language itself at the time. The Techne of moneymaking was a common term.
The fact that we've gone through a good 500 years or so of scholastic method analysis of authors that are fiercely individualist shouldn't taint your assumptions as to the indivisibility of an art and the art of moneymaking. Examination of our most regulated professions, with their roles and duties will provide a substantial body of modern examples of the division. Another, perhaps more obvious and direct example would be that of the life of Van Gogh. Clearly a master painter, but a horrendous moneymaker.
One wouldn't argue that one's skill in painting contained their skill at making a living from painting, yet you'd readily confuse the two aspects when it comes to ruling or being strong. That seems more odd than the reverse.
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