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In many ways, Japan is the most advanced country on Earth. Technologically, it exceeds the United States in many areas. Japan, thanks to its highly advanced post-industral economy, has about the same number of people as Russia, but creates four times Russia's GDP with an environmental footprint that is barely half of Russia's. From an urban development perspective, Japan's cities are among the cleanest, most well-served by infrastructure, and most pedestrian-friendly on Earth.
But there is one final element in which Japan leads the world--and it's not necessarily a positive one: demographics. Every nation, as it gets richer and more educated, eventually experiences a falling birthrate. Presumably, raising a child to be economically competitive becomes harder, while people acquire new apsirations and leisure activities beyond popping out babies. Japan is furthest along this curve, with a dismal birthrate of 1.2 children per woman. The result? A shrinking, aging population.
Now, old people aren't necessarily bad, if they're funding their retirements from their own savings, and those savings are put into highly productive investments. Unfortunately, in the vast majority of developed countries (and developing ones, like China), retirement is funded with a mix of savings that become captive to morally hazardous Wall Street traders and Chinese and Japanese land developers, and "pay as you go" social security systems that force the current working generation to pay for the health of the prior working generation.
Put simply, old people are now a burden because we don't have enough money in the financial system to take care of them, and because we don't have enough young people to support their overwhemlingly spendthrift consumptive habits.
By consumptive habits, I don't mean retirees plunking their oxygen bottles on the deck of a Carnival cruise liner or next to the dollar slot machines at the Foxwoods Casino. I'm talking about the two iron laws that come about when you intersect human behavior, medical science, and economics.
- First, the marginal cost to keep a person alive for an additional year is constantly increasing, since their health is constantly deteriorating.
- Second, people are subconsciously hardwired to delay their own death for as long as they can.
What happens? To get someone from 60 years to 70 years in one piece requires maybe 100k USD in healthcare. From to 70 to 80? 200k. From 80 to 90? Anywhere between 400k and 1 million. And subconsciously, that 90 year old is going to want to keep living forever, up until the point where not even the combined economic resources of the world can keep alive. These numbers are hypothetical, but the trend line is not.
![[image loading]](http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/assets_c/2011/04/us%20health%20care%20costs-thumb-600x326-47611.png)
Of course, Japan has done an admirable job of keeping its average healthcare costs low--again, because they're so damn advanced. But even they, the paragons of being efficient at keeping old people alive, are feeling the pain. Why?
Demand for healthcare is infinite, explosive, and self-perpetuating. Successfully meeting healthcare demand for this year's crop of retirees simply means you'll have to keep them alive next year as well, at a higher price, and the year after that, forever.
With that grim idea in mind, some people have taken an interesting approach to solving the problem. And since this problem is most acute in Japan, their politicians are saying what we all might be saying in ten, twenty, or thirty years:
Taro Aso, the finance minister, said on Monday that the elderly should be allowed to "hurry up and die" to relieve pressure on the state to pay for their medical care.
"Heaven forbid if you are forced to live on when you want to die. I would wake up feeling increasingly bad knowing that [treatment] was all being paid for by the government," he said during a meeting of the national council on social security reforms. "The problem won't be solved unless you let them hurry up and die."
....
The 72-year-old, who doubles as deputy prime minister, said he would refuse end-of-life care. "I don't need that kind of care," he said in comments quoted by local media, adding that he had written a note instructing his family to deny him life-prolonging medical treatment.
To compound the insult, he referred to elderly patients who are no longer able to feed themselves as "tube people". The health and welfare ministry, he added, was "well aware that it costs several tens of millions of yen" a month to treat a single patient in the final stages of life.
Now, a number of questions spring to mind after reading those four paragraphs, but the pressing one is: why is a politician talking about this? Why should voters be concerned about this?
Because it goes back to the nature of how these elderly are paying for their healthcare--by a mix of their own ill-invested savings and payroll taxes from the current generation. As the elderly draw down their savings, they add stress onto the financial system and increase the cost of capital, lowering the rate of accretion for labor-saving, capital-intensive investment for workers and decreasing labor productivity--the root of a working person's prosperity. Unless the investments have been exceedingly productive, there simply isn't enough cash left over for continued capital accumulation. Second, and more directly, payroll taxes come straight from the worker's own pocket, meaning that part of those millions of bucks that are being spent to get some random ninety-year-old to his hundredth birthday come from you.
The next logical step is a bit more chilling. Knowing that demand for healthcare is infinite, but that costs are partially socialized (and even if they weren't, they would still harm the economy), shouldn't the average working man have a say in how much healthcare the average retiree gets, and hence how long he or she will live? Follow that logic all the way to the end: since a democratic government is the executor of the popular will, shouldn't it get to decide how long a person lives?
And if they're such a drain on us--the rational, utility-maximizing, economic agents that macroeconomic history has demonstrated we often are--after sixty-five, shouldn't retirees just hurry up and die?
Poll: Should people have the right to life, at any cost?No (407) 52% Yes (381) 48% 788 total votes Your vote: Should people have the right to life, at any cost? (Vote): Yes
(Vote): No
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Why not just visit the 50+ morality threads that have already been posted on TL?
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I would leave it up to the person when they want to go, just because the government promised them healthcare and now can't provide for them doesn't mean they can just go back on their promise. Although that is what the typical socialist-leaning government would do.
Giving the government the power of deciding who lives and who dies leads you down a very dark alley that we have traveled before. Genocide one of the doors on that alley.
Edit: this might be my western bias showing threw. Western Culture has taught us that life is of the ultimate value, we have a veyr individualist culture, and not very collectivist.
Also calling humans "tube people" is offensive
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cause this is the only one not about guns? =D
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well... that certainly a new perspective on one of the larger problems witch plagues larger otherwise healthy socities. And unlike some other sollutions you can't really argue about its effectivness.
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Yeah this is a really difficult question to answer, especially as we can't sustainably populate at this rate but also...can't just mass murder people etc :\
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In our current situation, people should only have the "right" to live in these latter stages of life if they can afford it. Lord knows we can't. Keeping everyone's grandma on chemo is just becoming impossible. I mean, it would be nice if extremely expensive life-prolonging operations and medicines were available to everyone, but as life goes on these procedures become more and more expensive and give less and less time to the patient.
Minor tangent: things like "rights" and "morals" are a luxury. Assuming two forces are equal, the one willing to resort to the most evil of measures will win, as it can do what the other cannot to win. Being incapable of granting ourselves the luxury of a certain right is not something we're used to, but we're probably going to have to learn fast.
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Next step: Japan develops immortality to prevent their entire population from dying off.
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On January 24 2013 13:37 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
People should only have the "right" to live in these latter stages of life if they can afford it. Lord knows we can't. Keeping everyone's grandma on chemo is just becoming impossible. I mean, it would be nice if extremely expensive life-prolonging operations and medicines were available to everyone, but as life goes on these procedures become more and more expensive and give less and less time to the patient.
So life-prolonging healthcare is the right of the rich? Try suggesting that in a democracy, and watch as those old people vote you out of office
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On January 24 2013 13:38 Tenshix wrote:
Next step: Japan develops immortality to prevent their entire population from dying off.
That only works if they develop the cybernetic limbs and brain-enhancing chips to keep their population productive forever, too
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i think there should be a point where there let loose, if it comes to the point where they cant do anything themself there pretty mcuh a corpse at that point
i think each person should be alloted a set amount of money and once that runs dry theres no more that way those who can save up enough can keep living but those completely relying on strangers reap what they sow
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Everyone should be allowed to decide whether or not they want to live or die, and nobody else should be in charge of that.
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I can't believe that more than half belief in the right to life, at any cost. At some point it's just not viable.
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On January 24 2013 13:40 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:
Everyone should be allowed to decide whether or not they want to live or die, and nobody else should be in charge of that.
when you put someone else in charge of keeping you alive that person should get to decide when enough is enough
if someone is 100% reliant on other people to stay alive why should they get the say? why not the people actually keeping the person alive?
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On January 24 2013 13:39 Shady Sands wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 13:38 Tenshix wrote:
Next step: Japan develops immortality to prevent their entire population from dying off. That only works if they develop the cybernetic limbs and brain-enhancing chips to keep their population productive forever, too
It's japan,they can pull it off within the next 50 years or so if they work on it alittle 
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I dont want to live past 80. Actually i don't want to live past the age where i can't do anything. For some people like my grandpa who is 85 and can walk fine as long as he has a cane. Thats fine but the moment i can't get out of the house put me out of my misery.
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Taro Aso has some balls, he just told like half of his voters that they should have the right to hurry up and die. I am waiting for the death panel cries to start.
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United Kingdom16710 Posts
On January 24 2013 13:44 MysteryMeat1 wrote:
I dont want to live past 80. Actually i don't want to live past the age where i can't do anything. For some people like my grandpa who is 85 and can walk fine as long as he has a cane. Thats fine but the moment i can't get out of the house put me out of my misery.
You can be past 80 and still be very functional & healthy. It just depends on how you've lived and how well you took care of yourself.
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On January 24 2013 13:44 MysteryMeat1 wrote:
I dont want to live past 80. Actually i don't want to live past the age where i can't do anything. For some people like my grandpa who is 85 and can walk fine as long as he has a cane. Thats fine but the moment i can't get out of the house put me out of my misery.
for me as long as i can still function on my own (get out of bed get dressed eat e.t.c) even if im living in a home in a wheelchair im fine
but if im perma-hospitilized and cant do anything without a nurse thats the end for me
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Interesting. I believe the minister in question was likely looking at the figures and seeing such a huge expenditure with no income for keeping people alive - it is very costly and would alarm any economist.
In terms of the democratic argument, I completely agree. It's the power of the people, so they should decide. Of course, the person in question has an equal right to decide. So perhaps it should be a country wide vote on an age limit for healthcare to elderly to stop.
If people desire to keep living beyond that, they can do so privately.
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Profiteering in healthcare has more impact than age.
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Why you making these threads hoping for intelligent conversation when it's obvious that won't happen beyond the usual like 10 posters. I bloody gave up months ago.
"At any cost" makes the poll irrelevant and sensationalist since human costs are also included. Exploitation of commons and degradation of the livelihood of others for marginal personal gain is common place, the poll is too extremist, please revise.
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"Hurry up and die" is a very callous thing to say. I understand that there are huge economic implications at stake, and that the elderly do pose huge financial costs upon society. But rather than think of old people as just societal leeches, remember that many of them are parents, grandparents, great-aunts and uncles to their loved ones. Yes, economics is important, but is a society that places greater value of saving a few thousand dollars to end a life earlier over having a child have a few extra years with their grandparent really one we want to live in?
It's a very complicated issue, but it is ultimately a human issue. That being said, the words in OP's poll "at any cost" cause me to hesitate, since it brings in the possibility of extreme cases.
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What Japan needs is a more open immigration policy. Some young fertile migrants from Indonesia, the Philippines, or even China would do wonders for the country.
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On January 24 2013 13:52 Bagration wrote:
"Hurry up and die" is a very callous thing to say. I understand that there are huge economic implications at stake, and that the elderly do pose huge financial costs upon society. But rather than think of old people as just societal leeches, remember that many of them are parents, grandparents, great-aunts and uncles to their loved ones. Yes, economics is important, but is a society that places greater value of saving a few thousand dollars to end a life earlier over having a child have a few extra years with their grandparent really one we want to live in?
It's a very complicated issue, but it is ultimately a human issue. That being said, the words in OP's poll "at any cost" cause me to hesitate, since it brings in the possibility of extreme cases.
were taking more about hundred of thousands of dollars
is it better to have a kid know his grandfather for an extra year or feed a kid who would otherwise starve for an extra year? there are many people who are struggling and suffering because of lack of funds and money taht is keeping the lderly alive could go to many other deserving areas
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On January 24 2013 13:54 alQahira wrote:
What Japan needs is a more open immigration policy. Some young fertile migrants from Indonesia, the Philippines, or even China would do wonders for the country.
Or break every social stigma about sex and make it into something natural. Some countries don't want to get ''polluted'' by ''lesser'' countries.
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+ Show Spoiler [my original post] +Being an american, we place a high priority on life. I'll be honest, no government should have the ability to tell you when you are to die. I'm fairly liberal, but to give the government the powers of a god is to return to the god-king system of the B.C. era. That might be a bit of hyperbole depending on the system, but I don't trust government enough to not screw up. People should live until they die, now if they are on life support and are unable to communicate with no family, then, yes, we do have a conundrum. That said, I feel the need to distrust putting life into our governments hands.
I spoilered my original post. I feel it doesn't fit the thread. I'll be honest, I don't think such a topic can be discussed without people being highly knowledgable about it. I really don't know if such a thing can be discussed outside of cultural norms since each culture has its own set of unique sets of rules regarding high level ethics and philosophy. Ethics in collectivist countries like Japan are not nearly the same as individualist countries like the U.S.
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On January 24 2013 13:39 Shady Sands wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 13:37 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
People should only have the "right" to live in these latter stages of life if they can afford it. Lord knows we can't. Keeping everyone's grandma on chemo is just becoming impossible. I mean, it would be nice if extremely expensive life-prolonging operations and medicines were available to everyone, but as life goes on these procedures become more and more expensive and give less and less time to the patient. So life-prolonging healthcare is the right of the rich? Try suggesting that in a democracy, and watch as those old people vote you out of office
I'm not saying it's the right of the rich. That's not the main point, although it is unfortunately part of the deal. See my edited post for further clarification.
By the way, I've always hated our health care. We drain our people dry to provide some of the ugliest "care" in the first world. I'm not going to be a part of the cycle that bleeds the young people dry in order to selfishly prolong a life that by that point would have become painful and pointless, so don't consider me a hypocrite.
If you know the full picture, taking government money to prolong your life becomes selfish at a certain age. The money that I would be sucking from the younger generation provides me nothing next to what they would earn from it.
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You know, I..I don't even know what the hell is wrong with a person to think that it's okay to say "Yeah no, we can't waste resources on you, time for you to die" Screw the money, how about the morality. Who's got the nads to be the one to say who can live and who can die and at what point is it just "too much of a burden"? Whoever they are I can only hope they never get any real power because history is littered with despots and madmen who thought that he had the right to judge who lives and dies and rather or not someone was useful to society.
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In an ideal world people should be able to live as long as possible; in reality, they should not if it is a burden to society.
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On January 24 2013 13:56 Parnage wrote:
You know, I..I don't even know what the hell is wrong with a person to think that it's okay to say "Yeah no, we can't waste resources on you, time for you to die" Screw the money, how about the morality. Who's got the nads to be the one to say who can live and who can die and at what point is it just "too much of a burden"? Whoever they are I can only hope they never get any real power because history is littered with despots and madmen who thought that he had the right to judge who lives and dies and rather or not someone was useful to society.
should we bleed a family dry and possibly deny that family kids from having a future so some olderly person can jsut ly ina bed on life support for another year?
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On January 24 2013 13:56 Parnage wrote:
You know, I..I don't even know what the hell is wrong with a person to think that it's okay to say "Yeah no, we can't waste resources on you, time for you to die" Screw the money, how about the morality. Who's got the nads to be the one to say who can live and who can die and at what point is it just "too much of a burden"? Whoever they are I can only hope they never get any real power because history is littered with despots and madmen who thought that he had the right to judge who lives and dies and rather or not someone was useful to society.
But you can't simply say "screw the money," because that's an essential factor in this dilemma. Like it or not, you cannot consider this issue without taking into account how prohibitively expensive it is to consistently offer life-support to people who can't take dumps without help from a nurse. It sounds cold (and it probably is), but can we afford to do this?
Cutting off a part to save the whole, in a sense.
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They just need a program where you have to stay physical active to get your cash from the government. This will reduce the strain of elderly people on the country and also make their lives more enjoyable as they age since they will be healthier and more capable of fending for themselves.
TL DR Old people need more physical activity
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On January 24 2013 13:56 Parnage wrote:
You know, I..I don't even know what the hell is wrong with a person to think that it's okay to say "Yeah no, we can't waste resources on you, time for you to die" Screw the money, how about the morality. Who's got the nads to be the one to say who can live and who can die and at what point is it just "too much of a burden"? Whoever they are I can only hope they never get any real power because history is littered with despots and madmen who thought that he had the right to judge who lives and dies and rather or not someone was useful to society.
1. Morality isn't real.
2. It's not about the person in charge deciding, it's about democracy. The will of the people. Should people decide a "cut off point" for the elderly.
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I have read this news in Chinese and it had a bit more quotes:
"Those who want to die are kept alive and the expense are paid by the government, these people should feel ashamed.
I hope they would die quicker, this problem (high medical expense paid by government) is not to be solved without thinking in this way."
He thinks it's the worst area for government to spent money on.
Personally I think it's a lesser issue everywhere since most countries do not end of life care paid by the government, and this problem is especially worse in Japan simply due to it's silver hair generation and the population is decreasing overall.
In Hong Kong, a place getting more similar to the situation Japan is in where we also have a greying population (Excluding the immigrations from China), medical care to these elders was only a small attention because elders get they receive some discount for using public services.
We are more concerned with the number of elders going into those elder care houses, which is what most elders are usually sent off to when the kids are married and working etc. The government had been trying to encourage more to employ a part time elder carer to help their daily life and stay at their home instead.
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On January 24 2013 14:01 Larkin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 13:56 Parnage wrote:
You know, I..I don't even know what the hell is wrong with a person to think that it's okay to say "Yeah no, we can't waste resources on you, time for you to die" Screw the money, how about the morality. Who's got the nads to be the one to say who can live and who can die and at what point is it just "too much of a burden"? Whoever they are I can only hope they never get any real power because history is littered with despots and madmen who thought that he had the right to judge who lives and dies and rather or not someone was useful to society. 1. Morality isn't real. 2. It's not about the person in charge deciding, it's about democracy. The will of the people. Should people decide a "cut off point" for the elderly.
Are you kidding me? Morality isn't real? Are you going to neglect thousands of years of philosophical works on the subject in 3 words? Give me a break dude. It isn't about democracy either (democracy only exists with the morals of people, that is to say people have to have the moral reasoning to demand they have a say in their representation). Democracy doesn't decide if there is a cut off point, backroom politics does that.
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Wheres my TLDR? I am lazy but I love reading the TLDR 
User was warned for this post
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On January 24 2013 13:54 alQahira wrote:
What Japan needs is a more open immigration policy. Some young fertile migrants from Indonesia, the Philippines, or even China would do wonders for the country.
I volunteer to be a young fertile migrant for Japan.
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The biggest problem with today's mainstream economic thought is the belief that a nation's actions are limited by the amount of dollars (yen,rmb etc) it has access to. This hasn't been true since the gold-standard days.
A sovereign nation with a free floating exchange rate (ie: US, Japan, Australia, NOT EU countries or countries with pegged exchange rates) can never run out of its own currencies. The limiting factor for a nation is never the amount of its own currency it can get access to but the productive capacity of the population.
Taro Aso, the finance minister, said on Monday that the elderly should be allowed to "hurry up and die" to relieve pressure on the state to pay for their medical care......The health and welfare ministry, he added, was "well aware that it costs several tens of millions of yen" a month to treat a single patient in the final stages of life.
Statements like the above shows a lack of understanding of what money is. Japan's problem isn't that they don't have the "millions of yen", its that they don't have enough doctors, hospitals, nurses etc to care for their ever growing senior population. The real cost to a nation is how much productive capacity do we dedicate to taking care of our elderly, NOT how much yen this will cost. The good news is that productive capacity can be grown. The bad news is that everyone seems to think that the government is just like a household or an individual and must "save currency" to pay for stuff.
If you ask me, dedicating a large portion of your economy to taking care of your elderly is a lot better compared to how much we currently dedicate to the entirely parasitic financial sector.
Oh and who else thinks Shady should stop making these discussion threads and go back to writing about Chinese/Japanese james bond shit. Or perhaps another chapter from his life story.
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The next logical step is a bit more chilling. Knowing that demand for healthcare is infinite, but that costs are partially socialized (and even if they weren't, they would still harm the economy), shouldn't the average working man have a say in how much healthcare the average retiree gets, and hence how long he or she will live? Follow that logic all the way to the end: since a democratic government is the executor of the popular will, shouldn't it get to decide how long a person lives?
And if they're such a drain on us--the rational, utility-maximizing, economic agents that macroeconomic history has demonstrated we often are--after sixty-five, shouldn't retirees just hurry up and die?
How so, that if the costs on healthcare were not born by a spread of taxpaying citizens, that they would still harm the economy? How about a free society, say America a decade or so ago, that has his own health insurance, paid out of savings for health insurance privately, possessing also a private life insurance policy for his surviving spouse? Presumably, the man or woman is entitled to pay for his own medical care, but you're sitting there condemning him for the act because he is not dying up front and giving part to his family for more economically productive means, and the rest confiscated by the state? I think we're indeed over a large threshold here.
If the state partially funds or completely funds a portion of medical care for the aged, regardless of their ability to afford it, now the years left to live is a state concern, and worthy of time spent on investigating the acceleration of death. Secondly, what does it exactly mean to say that there is not enough money left in the financial system to do it? Must we assume that the money is being well spent now, with a third party in charge of the reimbursement to doctors treating a patient (the government agencies)? I for one say the welfare state as conceived today in America is in dire need of reform specifically for the third party payer system of growing cost and decreased control over results. The Ryan Plan proposed in Congress went a distance in addressing these concerns. The lives of the aged well past the average lifespan will be determined by themselves and their families and their ability to pay the cost of the procedures.
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The poll is too black and white.
I wouldn't want to live in a country that viewed its people as a resource to be kept alive till they couldn't work due to old age and then left them with no healthcare. We need to be better than that.
I also disagree with the inclination that people want to live no matter what the condition. There are many people who want to live if they have a reasonable quality of life in old age but not if the conditions are poor. Not many want to be hooked up to a machine and lay in bed for the last few years of their life. But who are you to say they can't and if you turned off the machine against that persons will, how are you not a murderer? Because you are saving money for the government?
The choice should be on the person.
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On January 24 2013 14:04 docvoc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 14:01 Larkin wrote:On January 24 2013 13:56 Parnage wrote:
You know, I..I don't even know what the hell is wrong with a person to think that it's okay to say "Yeah no, we can't waste resources on you, time for you to die" Screw the money, how about the morality. Who's got the nads to be the one to say who can live and who can die and at what point is it just "too much of a burden"? Whoever they are I can only hope they never get any real power because history is littered with despots and madmen who thought that he had the right to judge who lives and dies and rather or not someone was useful to society. 1. Morality isn't real. 2. It's not about the person in charge deciding, it's about democracy. The will of the people. Should people decide a "cut off point" for the elderly. Are you kidding me? Morality isn't real? Are you going to neglect thousands of years of philosophical works on the subject in 3 words? Give me a break dude. It isn't about democracy either (democracy only exists with the morals of people, that is to say people have to have the moral reasoning to demand they have a say in their representation). Democracy doesn't decide if there is a cut off point, backroom politics does that.
Yes, yes I am. Morality is contained within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex of the brain. When this part of the brain is isolated with electricity the person's morality is completely altered. It is also noted that this cortex is never identical in people. So there is no objective morality, only a subjective one. Morality is something material and constructed.
Brilliant thing about philosophy is that it's constantly being argued against. Trust me, I study it. I bet you won't accept that our actions are predetermined, either.
And that's not what we're talking about. We're saying that, in a democracy, the government should be the extension of the peoples' will. Obviously this doesn't happen in practice. But we're hypothesising that it is in this situation, and as such asking whether the people should decide on this "cut off point".
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On January 24 2013 13:13 Shady Sands wrote:
Fuck aging population, has nobody noticed how disturbing this image is?
Holy shit. I knew it was bad, but not THAT bad. Pay 2-4 times more for healthcare in America than anywhere else and you will receive the same life expectancy as that of the Czech Republic. If you blame western diet/genetics, well then just look at Australia, Italy, Canada.
You may hate socialism but this is the effect when you don't care about it, capitalism gone mad.
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How dependant is Japan's high GDP on the aging generation? Once they do die is Japan going to have a large depression as result, or a growth spurt with the costly generation being dead? The impression I got from your post is that these costly elderly make up a large portion of the population; is that accurate?
Since Japan is doing so well in spite of their rising health care costs for the elderly what are the rammifications of gaining the extra money if they do lower their costs on the elderly's health care-- where will that money be allocated instead; in what area are they doing relatively poorly?
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This is the problem with the government trying to pay for people's medical care.
People should pay for their own medical care. If you are super rich and want to use that wealth to prolong your life as much as possible, so be it, it's your money.
However society can't simply not afford to spend more and more of its resources keeping non-productive (in terms of economic) members of society going pure for the sake of keeping them going.
You want health care? Buy it with your own money IMO.
You could also give everyone a health care stipened, like society can afford to give you $xyz amount a year, if you that keeps you alive and healthy fine. Anything above that is your own responsibility. That would cover the vast majority of everyone.
One 98 year old lady who is completely bed ridden and has dementia shouldn't be receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from tax payers to keep her alive just "cuz"
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On January 24 2013 14:13 sluggaslamoo wrote:Fuck aging population, has nobody noticed how disturbing this image is? Holy shit. I knew it was bad, but not THAT bad. Pay 2-4 times more for healthcare in America than anywhere else and you will receive the same life expectancy as that of the Czech Republic. If you blame western diet/genetics, well then just look at Australia, Italy, Canada. You may hate socialism but this is the effect when you don't care about it, capitalism gone mad.
What do you mean?
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On January 24 2013 14:13 sluggaslamoo wrote:Fuck aging population, has nobody noticed how disturbing this image is? Holy shit. I knew it was bad, but not THAT bad. Pay 2-4 times more for healthcare in America than anywhere else and you will receive the same life expectancy as that of the Czech Republic. If you blame western diet/genetics, well then just look at Australia, Italy, Canada. You may hate socialism but this is the effect when you don't care about it, capitalism gone mad.
Also neglected is the quality of care. Capitalism brings better care and shorter lines
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On January 24 2013 13:50 Telcontar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 13:44 MysteryMeat1 wrote:
I dont want to live past 80. Actually i don't want to live past the age where i can't do anything. For some people like my grandpa who is 85 and can walk fine as long as he has a cane. Thats fine but the moment i can't get out of the house put me out of my misery. You can be past 80 and still be very functional & healthy. It just depends on how you've lived and how well you took care of yourself.
clarified that in the middle of my post >.<
However the problem with that is that you have to set up guidelines and commities to develop a test that literally is life or death. If you fail the test then you will be put down. It seems kind of harsh.
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On January 24 2013 13:52 Bagration wrote:
"Hurry up and die" is a very callous thing to say. I understand that there are huge economic implications at stake, and that the elderly do pose huge financial costs upon society. But rather than think of old people as just societal leeches, remember that many of them are parents, grandparents, great-aunts and uncles to their loved ones. Yes, economics is important, but is a society that places greater value of saving a few thousand dollars to end a life earlier over having a child have a few extra years with their grandparent really one we want to live in?
It's a very complicated issue, but it is ultimately a human issue. That being said, the words in OP's poll "at any cost" cause me to hesitate, since it brings in the possibility of extreme cases.
Let their kids / grandkids / whatever decide and fund their health costs then.
I know my parent's costs when they age older and eventually fail is something I would be saving up for. If you're poor, then tough luck.
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There seems to be some confusion within the OP -- while retirement and healthcare costs are concepts that are linked, they are not the same issue. Japanese elderly are some of the healthiest and most active around, and continue to participate in economic activities, in large part assisted by extended post-retirement contracts with their original company, originating from the traditional (and fading) lifetime employment model. Furthermore, pension reform in 2004 has shifted towards a defined-contribution model, which has significantly reduced the intergenerational fiscal burden.
Healthcare, however, is another issue entirely. While nationalized insurance (and not-for-profit healthcare) have done wonders to keep costs low, the government is absorbing ~70% of the healthcare costs, which may not prove sustainable in the long run. Much of this ties back into the fiscal health of the Japanese government, which, apart from the shrinking fertility rate, is at the mercy of prevailing economic conditions, which have been...less than amazing for the past 2 decades.
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On January 24 2013 14:13 sluggaslamoo wrote:Fuck aging population, has nobody noticed how disturbing this image is? Holy shit. I knew it was bad, but not THAT bad. Pay 2-4 times more for healthcare in America than anywhere else and you will receive the same life expectancy as that of the Czech Republic. If you blame western diet/genetics, well then just look at Australia, Italy, Canada. You may hate socialism but this is the effect when you don't care about it, capitalism gone mad.
Czech Republic is a really nice country... beautiful cities (for the most part) and countryside, friendly intelligent people, relatively low crime and high literacy... like most central European nations. Seems like you're belittling it.
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On January 24 2013 14:25 Larkin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 14:13 sluggaslamoo wrote:On January 24 2013 13:13 Shady Sands wrote: Fuck aging population, has nobody noticed how disturbing this image is? Holy shit. I knew it was bad, but not THAT bad. Pay 2-4 times more for healthcare in America than anywhere else and you will receive the same life expectancy as that of the Czech Republic. If you blame western diet/genetics, well then just look at Australia, Italy, Canada. You may hate socialism but this is the effect when you don't care about it, capitalism gone mad. Czech Republic is a really nice country... beautiful cities (for the most part) and countryside, friendly intelligent people, relatively low crime and high literacy... like most central European nations. Seems like you're belittling it.
he's just basing it off the chart guys....
literally, us is paying a few times more on healthcare than czech but having the same life expectancy.
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I think it should be made easier for people to choose to die a painless, dignified death, with the support of loved ones and doctors. This "keep the patient alive at all costs" is insane. Technology allows us to live well; we should use it to die well also.
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On January 24 2013 14:29 fluidin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 14:25 Larkin wrote:On January 24 2013 14:13 sluggaslamoo wrote:On January 24 2013 13:13 Shady Sands wrote: Fuck aging population, has nobody noticed how disturbing this image is? Holy shit. I knew it was bad, but not THAT bad. Pay 2-4 times more for healthcare in America than anywhere else and you will receive the same life expectancy as that of the Czech Republic. If you blame western diet/genetics, well then just look at Australia, Italy, Canada. You may hate socialism but this is the effect when you don't care about it, capitalism gone mad. Czech Republic is a really nice country... beautiful cities (for the most part) and countryside, friendly intelligent people, relatively low crime and high literacy... like most central European nations. Seems like you're belittling it. he's just basing it off the chart guys.... literally, us is paying a few times more on healthcare than czech but having the same life expectancy.
Well his repeated use of the word "bad" creates the wrong impression.
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If you blame western diet/genetics, well then just look at Australia, Italy, Canada.
Sorry, but you need to find and link some sort of source to make a statement like that. I'm willing to bet that the US population's diet and lifestyles are much worse than those countries.
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soon as im in a diaper and someone else has to wipe my ass...freaking kill me already... unless you make my worst child that always acted like an ass be my official ass wiper.
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On January 24 2013 14:34 MaestroSC wrote:
soon as im in a diaper and someone else has to wipe my ass...freaking kill me already... unless you make my worst child that always acted like an ass be my official ass wiper.
That's your choice, but you can't force it on everyone.
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On January 24 2013 14:34 MaestroSC wrote:
soon as im in a diaper and someone else has to wipe my ass...freaking kill me already... unless you make my worst child that always acted like an ass be my official ass wiper.
Yes make yourself become dependend on the child that never loved you ... very smart
OT: All i can say is Capitalism at it's finest, human lives have become but a production number and it is all about fictive money that is not really there to begin with.
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On January 24 2013 14:31 Mothra wrote:
I think it should be made easier for people to choose to die a painless, dignified death, with the support of loved ones and doctors. This "keep the patient alive at all costs" is insane. Technology allows us to live well; we should use it to die well also.
Indeed. Perhaps rather than deny life-preserving care to folks who will never recover, we could make it more appealing for them to choose not to keep going. That way, we're not forcing anyone who wants to live to die, but maybe we can still keep costs under control.
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United Kingdom3482 Posts
On January 24 2013 13:44 MysteryMeat1 wrote:
I dont want to live past 80. Actually i don't want to live past the age where i can't do anything. For some people like my grandpa who is 85 and can walk fine as long as he has a cane. Thats fine but the moment i can't get out of the house put me out of my misery.
Honestly having severely reduced mobility isn't that terrible, certainly not bad enough to give up on life over.
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On January 24 2013 14:13 sluggaslamoo wrote:Fuck aging population, has nobody noticed how disturbing this image is? Holy shit. I knew it was bad, but not THAT bad. Pay 2-4 times more for healthcare in America than anywhere else and you will receive the same life expectancy as that of the Czech Republic. If you blame western diet/genetics, well then just look at Australia, Italy, Canada. You may hate socialism but this is the effect when you don't care about it, capitalism gone mad.
That's just it though, we pay 2-4 times more while our economy is what again in terms of GDP? It makes sense. Proportionally we're probably paying LESS than some of those other countries, it's just that we have a larger economy overall.
What's more life expectancy is a load of hokum and hogwash. When it's used in a chart like that it's intended to illustrate the poor health care provided in the United States, when really all it represents is that people in the United States tend to die more violently and early.
Even throwing all that out the window, costs are relative and vary by region. Unless we have numbers which are adjusted for a normative cost, this chart doesn't really tell us anything in detail.
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On January 24 2013 13:13 Shady Sands wrote:
And if they're such a drain on us--the rational, utility-maximizing, economic agents that macroeconomic history has demonstrated we often are--after sixty-five, shouldn't retirees just hurry up and die?
Sixty-Five is far too old: far too many years draining resources.
how about 30?
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On January 24 2013 14:55 Kimaker wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 14:13 sluggaslamoo wrote:On January 24 2013 13:13 Shady Sands wrote: Fuck aging population, has nobody noticed how disturbing this image is? Holy shit. I knew it was bad, but not THAT bad. Pay 2-4 times more for healthcare in America than anywhere else and you will receive the same life expectancy as that of the Czech Republic. If you blame western diet/genetics, well then just look at Australia, Italy, Canada. You may hate socialism but this is the effect when you don't care about it, capitalism gone mad. That's just it though, we pay 2-4 times more while our economy is what again in terms of GDP? It makes sense. Proportionally we're probably paying LESS than some of those other countries, it's just that we have a larger economy overall. What's more life expectancy is a load of hokum and hogwash. When it's used in a chart like that it's intended to illustrate the poor health care provided in the United States, when really all it represents is that people in the United States tend to die more violently and early. Even throwing all that out the window, costs are relative and vary by region. Unless we have numbers which are adjusted for a normative cost, this chart doesn't really tell us anything in detail.
The graph is already about the proportions. Read the x-axis; it says 'per capita'.
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The realist answer to this conundrum is that the quality of care that octogenarians receive is subject to market forces, even when provided in part or fully by the government. Empathy towards the elderly and our aging relatives will be balanced against the cost and strain of keeping them alive beyond the point where they can actually enjoy living. Also, while everyone has a subconscious will to live, you cant equate that with their actual actions. Everyone approaches death differently depending on circumstance, personality, morals, etc. Instinct plays a part, but I'm positive many people simply come to a point where they believe it is time for them to die. I know (hope at least) that's what I would do if I was 80 and putting my loved ones in the poor house so I can continue to live a life of bleak, pointless suffering in a hospital bed. So yeah, don't believe we should think of people as simplistic actors who only seek to maximize their lifespan.
While a slowdown in pop growth is troublesome in economic terms, it isn't a terminal problem. Governments, markets and even attitudes are all fluid - as the quote referenced by the op kind of proves. Societies adapt.
Having said that, the government setting a mandatory age where you have to die would be a terrible, heavy handed, totalitarian solution to a relatively minor problem. Better to just have a variety of insurers (including a public option) with different upper limits on health care spending, and let supply and demand settle things.
Interesting thread though. I've considered this problem myself a few times. Its a lot like the Malthusian problem: given any spare resources, poor people will breed until the resources are expended, therefore any attempt to improve the situation of the poor is pointless. The conclusion seems both bleak and unassailable, but then you start questioning the argument's premises. Right now, it almost seems like the desire to keep old people alive is inherently pointless. However, breakthroughs in biotech could render all our present notions on the subject obsolete, just as breakthroughs in contraception and the development of a middle class invalidated Malthusian economics.
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lol, the elderly dying faster would definitely solve some problems. if not the next two alternatives are welcoming immigrants by the droves, or trying to force their citizens to give birth.
not too keen on the first, since it would mean japan loses its magic, and the latter is unlikely if the beta male representation of their race is even decently accurate. if they manage to pull it off, then good, at least they have the land to support it.
singapore, on the other hand, is one big headache. for the native population at least. basically what is happening is that the countries that rode on the wave crest of the baby boomer generation are now the backwash, with much less momentum than before.
yeah, economic slowdown wouldn't be the end, but it would be painful. VERY painful. for japan especially.
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"at any cost" seems a bit loaded. Then again, as I understand it, a good portion american citizens shoulder the cost of their healthcare more directly than citizens of other wealthy nations, which might have something to do with why we die earlier anyway.
+ Show Spoiler +And the pizzahut I ate for dinner. That probably helps too.
So I probably see it differently than a swede would, for instance.
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On January 24 2013 15:08 frogrubdown wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 14:55 Kimaker wrote:On January 24 2013 14:13 sluggaslamoo wrote:On January 24 2013 13:13 Shady Sands wrote: Fuck aging population, has nobody noticed how disturbing this image is? Holy shit. I knew it was bad, but not THAT bad. Pay 2-4 times more for healthcare in America than anywhere else and you will receive the same life expectancy as that of the Czech Republic. If you blame western diet/genetics, well then just look at Australia, Italy, Canada. You may hate socialism but this is the effect when you don't care about it, capitalism gone mad. That's just it though, we pay 2-4 times more while our economy is what again in terms of GDP? It makes sense. Proportionally we're probably paying LESS than some of those other countries, it's just that we have a larger economy overall. What's more life expectancy is a load of hokum and hogwash. When it's used in a chart like that it's intended to illustrate the poor health care provided in the United States, when really all it represents is that people in the United States tend to die more violently and early. Even throwing all that out the window, costs are relative and vary by region. Unless we have numbers which are adjusted for a normative cost, this chart doesn't really tell us anything in detail. The graph is already about the proportions. Read the x-axis; it says 'per capita'.
Fair. I was wrong.
My other points still stand.
EDIT: Wait...no. I was right. That's only how much was spent per person, not how much was spent per person as a proportion of the country's total GDP.
For Example:
US GDP: ~15 Trillion
Health care cost per capita: 8k
Health care cost per capita as a proportion of GDP: 5.3333333333333333333333333333333e-10%
Czech Republic: ~217 Billion
Health care cost per capita: 2k
Health care cost per capita as a proportion of GDP: 9.2165898617511520737327188940092e-9%
So, we're looking at a 300% increase in health care cost per capita between the Czech Republic and the United States. In terms of GDP...that's a 6900% difference.
The US pays less.
Unless that US $ (PPP) means they adjusted for that already, in which case fuck me. xD
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On January 24 2013 15:34 Kimaker wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 15:08 frogrubdown wrote:On January 24 2013 14:55 Kimaker wrote:On January 24 2013 14:13 sluggaslamoo wrote:On January 24 2013 13:13 Shady Sands wrote: Fuck aging population, has nobody noticed how disturbing this image is? Holy shit. I knew it was bad, but not THAT bad. Pay 2-4 times more for healthcare in America than anywhere else and you will receive the same life expectancy as that of the Czech Republic. If you blame western diet/genetics, well then just look at Australia, Italy, Canada. You may hate socialism but this is the effect when you don't care about it, capitalism gone mad. That's just it though, we pay 2-4 times more while our economy is what again in terms of GDP? It makes sense. Proportionally we're probably paying LESS than some of those other countries, it's just that we have a larger economy overall. What's more life expectancy is a load of hokum and hogwash. When it's used in a chart like that it's intended to illustrate the poor health care provided in the United States, when really all it represents is that people in the United States tend to die more violently and early. Even throwing all that out the window, costs are relative and vary by region. Unless we have numbers which are adjusted for a normative cost, this chart doesn't really tell us anything in detail. The graph is already about the proportions. Read the x-axis; it says 'per capita'. Fair. I was wrong. My other points still stand. EDIT: Wait...no. I was right. That's only how much was spent per person, not how much was spent per person as a proportion of the country's total GDP. For Example: US GDP: ~15 Trillion Health care cost per capita: 8k Health care cost per capita as a proportion of GDP: 5.3333333333333333333333333333333e-10% Czech Republic: ~217 Billion Health care cost per capita: 2k Health care cost per capita as a proportion of GDP: 9.2165898617511520737327188940092e-9% So, we're looking at a 300% increase in health care cost per capita between the Czech Republic and the United States. In terms of GDP...that's a 6900% difference. The US pays less. Unless that US $ (PPP) means they adjusted for that already, in which case fuck me. xD
you should be comparing GDP per capita against healthcare spend per capita, not GDP total against healthcare spend per capita.
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Oh cant afford to take care of the average worker by using life support?
How about stopping one of those yearly bonuses for a C.E.O or stockmarket owners (who lets face it, earns money by screwing over the workers...)
tadaaaa you suddenly have enough money.
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On January 24 2013 16:55 NEEDZMOAR wrote:
Oh cant afford to take care of the average worker by using life support?
How about stopping one of those yearly bonuses for a C.E.O or stockmarket owners (who lets face it, earns money by screwing over the workers...)
tadaaaa you suddenly have enough money.
But.... Capitalism.
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On January 24 2013 15:14 Zahir wrote:
The realist answer to this conundrum is that the quality of care that octogenarians receive is subject to market forces, even when provided in part or fully by the government. Empathy towards the elderly and our aging relatives will be balanced against the cost and strain of keeping them alive beyond the point where they can actually enjoy living. Also, while everyone has a subconscious will to live, you cant equate that with their actual actions. Everyone approaches death differently depending on circumstance, personality, morals, etc. Instinct plays a part, but I'm positive many people simply come to a point where they believe it is time for them to die. I know (hope at least) that's what I would do if I was 80 and putting my loved ones in the poor house so I can continue to live a life of bleak, pointless suffering in a hospital bed. So yeah, don't believe we should think of people as simplistic actors who only seek to maximize their lifespan.
While a slowdown in pop growth is troublesome in economic terms, it isn't a terminal problem. Governments, markets and even attitudes are all fluid - as the quote referenced by the op kind of proves. Societies adapt.
Having said that, the government setting a mandatory age where you have to die would be a terrible, heavy handed, totalitarian solution to a relatively minor problem. Better to just have a variety of insurers (including a public option) with different upper limits on health care spending, and let supply and demand settle things.
Interesting thread though. I've considered this problem myself a few times. Its a lot like the Malthusian problem: given any spare resources, poor people will breed until the resources are expended, therefore any attempt to improve the situation of the poor is pointless. The conclusion seems both bleak and unassailable, but then you start questioning the argument's premises. Right now, it almost seems like the desire to keep old people alive is inherently pointless. However, breakthroughs in biotech could render all our present notions on the subject obsolete, just as breakthroughs in contraception and the development of a middle class invalidated Malthusian economics.
Almost no, if any countries have broken the demographic trend once it's been tripped and I have yet to see a country that has addressed the simple problem of old people no longer working taxing the system more than they put in.
It's a simple and intuitive problem that I completely disagree with as a problem that is readily solvable by the free market, or even the government. If it's resolvable, it's because there is some innate reversal in the demographic decline that is rather unexplainable or social engineering by a combination of private and government forces to have more babies.
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On January 24 2013 16:55 NEEDZMOAR wrote:
Oh cant afford to take care of the average worker by using life support?
How about stopping one of those yearly bonuses for a C.E.O or stockmarket owners (who lets face it, earns money by screwing over the workers...)
tadaaaa you suddenly have enough money.
took the words out of my mouth =P
On January 24 2013 14:55 Kimaker wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 14:13 sluggaslamoo wrote:On January 24 2013 13:13 Shady Sands wrote: Fuck aging population, has nobody noticed how disturbing this image is? Holy shit. I knew it was bad, but not THAT bad. Pay 2-4 times more for healthcare in America than anywhere else and you will receive the same life expectancy as that of the Czech Republic. If you blame western diet/genetics, well then just look at Australia, Italy, Canada. You may hate socialism but this is the effect when you don't care about it, capitalism gone mad. That's just it though, we pay 2-4 times more while our economy is what again in terms of GDP? It makes sense. Proportionally we're probably paying LESS than some of those other countries, it's just that we have a larger economy overall. What's more life expectancy is a load of hokum and hogwash. When it's used in a chart like that it's intended to illustrate the poor health care provided in the United States, when really all it represents is that people in the United States tend to die more violently and early.Even throwing all that out the window, costs are relative and vary by region. Unless we have numbers which are adjusted for a normative cost, this chart doesn't really tell us anything in detail.
its could also just aswell represent that not everyone in USA cant afford your healthcare. USA probally has some of the best healthcare in the world IF you can afford it.
Anyways overall i think you can pretty much rationalize anything, i mean we could kill off pretty half of the human race and actually be better off economically...but in the énd it just isnt right.
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On January 24 2013 16:58 Angry_Fetus wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 16:55 NEEDZMOAR wrote:
Oh cant afford to take care of the average worker by using life support?
How about stopping one of those yearly bonuses for a C.E.O or stockmarket owners (who lets face it, earns money by screwing over the workers...)
tadaaaa you suddenly have enough money. But.... Capitalism.
Yeah... I really want to link a song here but unfortunately its a very old swedish singer/songwriter song, bah I'll link it anyways, spoiler tag:
+ Show Spoiler +
+ Show Spoiler +Basically, its about how capitalism, most of the time, screws over the workers, those who cant afford a business of their own thus ending up doing the work for somebody else.
Anyways overall i think you can pretty much rationalize anything, i mean we could kill off pretty half of the human race and actually be better off economically...but in the énd it just isnt right.
Pretty much this.
Its nice to see that other swedes care about their fellow human beings, perhaps the world isnt coming to an end^^.
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Thinking from the aspect of eco-system and future of mankind as species, morality can go to hell. You are using too much of limited resources against the needs of many. Rights do not grant you survival even more so when you are being stupid.
It isnt the morality of humans, it is the morality of ego of one man. If you think from the broad perspective, at all costs is too much greedy and egoistic. Limited lifespan, deal with it.
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I find this incredible. You have managed a small majority of a forum with largely liberal beliefs, including the sacredness of human life and happiness, some of the same people that believe that guns should be banned if they cause even a 1% drop in murder rate, some of the same people that believe that the death penalty is absolutely immoral, of a fairly conservative point, with the ultimate conclusion of, "old people should have to pay for their own healthcare, and if that involves their demise, so be it."
Logically, assuming that you believe in the greatest happiness for the greatest number, old people should not be allowed to extend their lives past a point that their own means can support. I however, would never attempt to convince anyone of this, particularly if they are aware that they too will some day be old.
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The grim nature is that unfortunately a majority of the elderly wants to live long and avert their death. Thinking about having them "hurry up and die" doesn't sit well with me. Unfortunately the reality is that cost will continue to soar. Combined with the fact that we have fewer kids per family and adults are having kids later in their life makes it exponentially harder for the newer generation. This comes back to a smaller work force, an increasing aging population that the newer generation has to support and having to support the next generation may make it a vicious cycle (because affording to have kids at a younger age when you have to support your parents earlier is usually not financially ideal).
Problems are never quite simple to solve, especially once you factor morals in.
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On January 24 2013 16:55 NEEDZMOAR wrote:
Oh cant afford to take care of the average worker by using life support?
How about stopping one of those yearly bonuses for a C.E.O or stockmarket owners (who lets face it, earns money by screwing over the workers...)
tadaaaa you suddenly have enough money.
No, they earn money by keeping the company in a prime position, securing the jobs of those who aren't laid off. They do what's necessary, much of the time, just because of how the market works. And yes, those layoffs are often absolutely necessary for the *long-term* viability of the company.
Don't get me wrong, they probably lack empathy when they do it. Which is why I couldn't do it myself, I feel you'd have to be heartless to do it. And ya, they're also massively overcompensated. But it still has to be done (not the overcompensation necessarily, but the choices they make).
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Overpopulation will be the cause of many evils in the future , both directly man made or as a result of man action. I see this as the biggest problem of our times, not climate change , that's only one of the side effects. Why do we need to higher and higher levels of population ? In the past (and even now) population increase is the biggest generator of conflict on this earth(and so will be in the future).As population increases most resources do not so the competition increases, they say that science will provide a counterbalance but it cant keep up with the rate of population increase.
"Hurry up and die ! " This is one of the signs of things to come.
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On January 24 2013 14:12 Larkin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 14:04 docvoc wrote:On January 24 2013 14:01 Larkin wrote:On January 24 2013 13:56 Parnage wrote:
You know, I..I don't even know what the hell is wrong with a person to think that it's okay to say "Yeah no, we can't waste resources on you, time for you to die" Screw the money, how about the morality. Who's got the nads to be the one to say who can live and who can die and at what point is it just "too much of a burden"? Whoever they are I can only hope they never get any real power because history is littered with despots and madmen who thought that he had the right to judge who lives and dies and rather or not someone was useful to society. 1. Morality isn't real. 2. It's not about the person in charge deciding, it's about democracy. The will of the people. Should people decide a "cut off point" for the elderly. Are you kidding me? Morality isn't real? Are you going to neglect thousands of years of philosophical works on the subject in 3 words? Give me a break dude. It isn't about democracy either (democracy only exists with the morals of people, that is to say people have to have the moral reasoning to demand they have a say in their representation). Democracy doesn't decide if there is a cut off point, backroom politics does that. [ ... ] Brilliant thing about philosophy is that it's constantly being argued against. Trust me, I study it. I bet you won't accept that our actions are predetermined, either. [ ... ]
That's what you get with such a vague / open to interpretation field like philosophy, there's a lot to argue.
So what do you mean by 'our actions are predetermined'? You are saying there is no such thing as free will, right? If I were to suddenly decide today that I am going to emigrate to Australia you'd say that's not a spur of the moment thing but rather, was predetermined my entire life? If so, then I am very skeptical about that statement.
Regarding that 'cut-off point', yes in a (utopian) democracy the government should do what the majority of people want. Though I would be highly surprised if a majority of people would vote in favor of a law like 'no form of health care is provided to those who have passed the age of 85'.
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I've had this idea a long time ago. There definitely should be a point where, if you're not healthy, society doesn't artificially keep you alive at a giant cost.
Whenever I go to a doctor the line is crammed with what are basically cadavers, and the poor kid with the broken femur needs to wait 90 minutes because some 90-year-old is falling apart at the seams.
You've had a good run, make room for the next generation please.
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On January 24 2013 13:24 Jisall wrote:
[...]
Edit: this might be my western bias showing threw. Western Culture has taught us that life is of the ultimate value, we have a veyr individualist culture, and not very collectivist.
Also calling humans "tube people" is offensive
As far as I know, this is wrong. Plenty of western government have some sort of "we do not negotiate with criminals/terrorists" stance, which shows that the value of the life of hostages is not absolute. At least with regards to those criminals/terrorists of which you can be somewhat sure that they won't use the money to buy more weapons and kill more people.
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This is a really interesting topic, considering that in Italy we have the opposite problem... It's really difficult or even impossible to die legally if you want to, even when you are in really extreme conditions.
I think that in italy, the catholic church economic interests in the healthcare system are so big, that it's very difficult for the governaments to make a proper law about the right of dieing. At the moment if I want to get a proper and legal biologic testament I have to go with my doctor to a lawyer every 3 years to sign. If every italians wanted to do that, all the doctors and layers would be busy doing biological testaments all day long.
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robots should pay taxes. it'll solve everything. 
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There is money enough in the world, it's in some people's bank account, so we should be let some people die because some others wants to become rich ? Becoming rich (to me) is just abusing the system and taking a share on the works of others... I don't understand why this is no problem for you guys and why letting some people DIE to save some money is alright ... It makes no sense to me, this is insane...
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there's an old defunct tradition in sweden called "ättestupan", "the lineage/kin fall/feller":
it's either when an old person decides their life is over and jumps off a cliff (tradition dictates that they should take all their valuables and hide them so their wealth doesn't pass on to their heirs), or when the kin decides it's time and offs the old person, by throwing them off a cliff or even using an extremely large sledge, so unwieldy that it takes the entire family to lift it, to crack the old one in bed.
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On January 24 2013 18:10 CYFAWS wrote:
there's an old defunct tradition in sweden called "ättestupan", "the lineage/kin fall/feller":
it's either when an old person decides their life is over and jumps off a cliff (tradition dictates that they should take all their valuables and hide them so their wealth doesn't pass on to their heirs), or when the kin decides it's time and offs the old person, by throwing them off a cliff or even using an extremely large sledge, so unwieldy that it takes the entire family to lift it, to crack the old one in bed.
That can't be legal...
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I love how most of you guys answer NO, it's fucking depressing, let us ask you that question when you'll be 80, 95% Yes, do you want to keep your grandma alive? 90% Yes (yeah 10% got issues). Of course people should have access to health care, even if they are old, they paid taxes all their life ffs? It doesnt mean we should operate at any cost anyone, but good treatment is mandatory in a half decent society. If people really, actually think that health care is what makes our societies living on a huge debt, you guys need to get informed
Edit : And about Japan we cant even compare due to the cultural differences, elders in Japan might actually kill themselves to avoid being a huge charge for their families, it's something that would very rarely happen in the rest of the world, using Japan as an introduction to that debate is imho a really poor idea, especially when you read the quote from Taro Aso
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On January 24 2013 17:32 dani` wrote:
Though I would be highly surprised if a majority of people would vote in favor of a law like 'no form of health care is provided to those who have passed the age of 85'.
That's because you're only presenting the downside, you need to complete the proposal with "and the money saved will be spent on X / Y forms of welfare / infrastructure instead!"
EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy
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I don't know about other countries but in Holland, the pension age is 67 nowadays. Die at 80 is a reasonable age but you could also die at 68. Save up pension all your life and die like that.
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On January 24 2013 18:11 gamerdude12345 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 18:10 CYFAWS wrote:
there's an old defunct tradition in sweden called "ättestupan", "the lineage/kin fall/feller":
it's either when an old person decides their life is over and jumps off a cliff (tradition dictates that they should take all their valuables and hide them so their wealth doesn't pass on to their heirs), or when the kin decides it's time and offs the old person, by throwing them off a cliff or even using an extremely large sledge, so unwieldy that it takes the entire family to lift it, to crack the old one in bed. That can't be legal...
lol, note "defunct", would guess it didn't happen since christianity was introduced
so about 1000 years ago. Maybe 600 in the most remote mountain/woodlands
which also means it might partly be a myth but it's so bizarre that i want to believe people actually did that kind of thing
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On January 24 2013 18:12 mahO wrote:
I love how most of you guys answer NO, it's fucking depressing, let us ask you that question when you'll be 80, 95% Yes, do you want to keep your grandma alive? 90% Yes (yeah 10% got issues). Of course people should have access to health care, even if they are old, they paid taxes all their life ffs? It doesnt mean we should operate at any cost anyone, but good treatment is mandatory in a half decent society. If people really, actually think that health care is what makes our societies living on a huge debt, you guys need to get informed
Nope. My grandma is in that exact situation, she is a walking cadaver who looks like gollum, can't even speak or think right and they are injecting her with some super-serum to keep the appearance she's still alive. That's not my grandma, it's just a shell filled with some chemicals and I wish they would stop.
Also, if you have a shred of true faith in your life (this does not equal religion) you won't be afraid of death in the slightest. Too bad faith is something most young people laugh at nowadays.
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On January 24 2013 13:50 Telcontar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 13:44 MysteryMeat1 wrote:
I dont want to live past 80. Actually i don't want to live past the age where i can't do anything. For some people like my grandpa who is 85 and can walk fine as long as he has a cane. Thats fine but the moment i can't get out of the house put me out of my misery. You can be past 80 and still be very functional & healthy. It just depends on how you've lived and how well you took care of yourself.
Ahahahah, that was fucking hilarious, yeah, get to 80 in Europe, USA, Japan or South Korea coming from a poor background, doing a manual, exhausting job, we'll see if you're healthy at 80, and that is without even considering blind luck, guy who never smoked dies of lung cancer at age 40, my grand father did exhausting jobs all his life (lumberjack for 20 years, and we're talking WW2 times so cant even imagine the task), smoked cigars everyday and he died 4 years ago at age 97, if it wasnt for a fall, he would have made it to 100 years old, life is random, but stats dont lie, manual workers and such have a way shorter life expectancy, so I guess rich people are fine with it yeah.
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One vital point has been very carelessly obscured here. If the old retiree does not have a right to live off of your labour, neither do you have a right to live off of his! It is frankly pretty sickening that you could come so close to an actual moral, rational political point of view on social security, and then turn around at the last second and make it into something totally diabolical: the notion that the rich retirees do not have a right to their own lives even as far as they can afford to pay for it by themselves. Now, instead of saying that each individual must bear the burden of the cost of his own living, even into retirement, which would be far too calouse for you I'm sure, you've insinuated instead that your interests represent the "public good", and the helpless dying minority are somehow morally obligated to cut their lives short so that yours, that of the majority, can be more fruitful. I just don't understand how you can be so self-righteous and so shameless at the same time. There is nothing wrong with thinking of your own interests first, but for God's sake that doesn't mean you should literally expropriate your neighbours' valid earnings to achieve whatever it is you want. There are other ways. Besides, why don't you look 40 years down the road and ask yourself if you want to live as a leech today just so you can set the precedent for your own life being sacrifically cut short tomorrow?
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On January 24 2013 18:19 Kickboxer wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 18:12 mahO wrote:
I love how most of you guys answer NO, it's fucking depressing, let us ask you that question when you'll be 80, 95% Yes, do you want to keep your grandma alive? 90% Yes (yeah 10% got issues). Of course people should have access to health care, even if they are old, they paid taxes all their life ffs? It doesnt mean we should operate at any cost anyone, but good treatment is mandatory in a half decent society. If people really, actually think that health care is what makes our societies living on a huge debt, you guys need to get informed Nope. My grandma is in that exact situation, she is a walking cadaver who looks like gollum, can't even speak or think right and they are injecting her with some super-serum to keep the appearance she's still alive. That's not my grandma, it's just a shell filled with some chemicals and I wish they would stop. Also, if you have a shred of true faith in your life (this does not equal religion) you won't be afraid of death in the slightest. Too bad faith is something most young people laugh at nowadays.
Well, my grand parents were all (one of them is still alive), all able to have an elevated discussion, my grand father, the one who is alive, is more intelligent than you and me combined, I am not exagerating, he's reading about everything all the time, he's healthy, if it wasnt for his hip he would still fix his house alone, going on the roof etc. He is 92 fucking years old, he was a teacher for his entire life, he never spent money abusing anything, he doesnt abuse medication, to a point where we worry for him because he doesnt want to become like other elders who become junkies (my grand mother for example).
So you're telling me that because your grandma exists, we should kill my grandfather, and he should "hurry up and die"? Thats your logic? Taking a single example and apply it to the rest? I repeat, this guy is more intelligent that anyone I've seen and his brain didnt slow down at any point, maybe he's an exception, to be honest I've never seen anything like it, but others exist.
And by the way, my grandma was in good mental shape, but she broke her hip and reacted badly to the anesthesia when they had to "open her up" (operate her? you guys say that in english right?), and became really slow "mentally", she had previously asked for us to let her die peacefully and not worry about her, so I guess my family did even if it's illegal, she died in her son's arms, so I understand the point, trust me, but generalizing elders because of part of them is incredibly stupid, and it's really easy to discuss when you're 20+ and in good health "oh yeah let them die, more money for me", wake the fuck up if you want to find solutions to our societies' expenses you're not looking at the right place...
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On January 24 2013 18:12 mahO wrote:
I love how most of you guys answer NO, it's fucking depressing, let us ask you that question when you'll be 80, 95% Yes, do you want to keep your grandma alive? 90% Yes (yeah 10% got issues). Of course people should have access to health care, even if they are old, they paid taxes all their life ffs? It doesnt mean we should operate at any cost anyone, but good treatment is mandatory in a half decent society. If people really, actually think that health care is what makes our societies living on a huge debt, you guys need to get informed
Edit : And about Japan we cant even compare due to the cultural differences, elders in Japan might actually kill themselves to avoid being a huge charge for their families, it's something that would very rarely happen in the rest of the world, using Japan as an introduction to that debate is imho a really poor idea, especially when you read the quote from Taro Aso
If I turn 80 and I can't do any basic bodily function without the aid of machines and can't perceive the world around me, I would rather die.
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On January 24 2013 18:35 ConGee wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 18:12 mahO wrote:
I love how most of you guys answer NO, it's fucking depressing, let us ask you that question when you'll be 80, 95% Yes, do you want to keep your grandma alive? 90% Yes (yeah 10% got issues). Of course people should have access to health care, even if they are old, they paid taxes all their life ffs? It doesnt mean we should operate at any cost anyone, but good treatment is mandatory in a half decent society. If people really, actually think that health care is what makes our societies living on a huge debt, you guys need to get informed
Edit : And about Japan we cant even compare due to the cultural differences, elders in Japan might actually kill themselves to avoid being a huge charge for their families, it's something that would very rarely happen in the rest of the world, using Japan as an introduction to that debate is imho a really poor idea, especially when you read the quote from Taro Aso If I turn 80 and I can't do any basic bodily function without the aid of machines and can't perceive the world around me, I would rather die.
Save those words for your eightieth birthday.
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Congratulations on writting a piece that is making people vote NO to the right to live.
Shows how manipulable people are. Now, all of you who voted no, I demand your death. Now.
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It's not a "right" when you can't be alive without the aid of chemicals and machines man. All this obsessive clinging to life is just a reflection of the altogether materialistic society we live in.
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I think questions like these is the reason why a state controlled insurance system as in Germany is not bad at all.
Basically you force everybody by law to have an insurance and you control by law what indemnification (is that the right word?) the insurances offer and at what price. The insurance companies themselves then only compete with each other in overall service and some other bonus stuff (free health courses and such).
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On January 24 2013 18:38 Shady Sands wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 18:35 ConGee wrote:On January 24 2013 18:12 mahO wrote:
I love how most of you guys answer NO, it's fucking depressing, let us ask you that question when you'll be 80, 95% Yes, do you want to keep your grandma alive? 90% Yes (yeah 10% got issues). Of course people should have access to health care, even if they are old, they paid taxes all their life ffs? It doesnt mean we should operate at any cost anyone, but good treatment is mandatory in a half decent society. If people really, actually think that health care is what makes our societies living on a huge debt, you guys need to get informed
Edit : And about Japan we cant even compare due to the cultural differences, elders in Japan might actually kill themselves to avoid being a huge charge for their families, it's something that would very rarely happen in the rest of the world, using Japan as an introduction to that debate is imho a really poor idea, especially when you read the quote from Taro Aso If I turn 80 and I can't do any basic bodily function without the aid of machines and can't perceive the world around me, I would rather die. Save those words for your eightieth birthday.
Nope, he should go and write a patient's provision stating exactly that, if he means it.
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On January 24 2013 18:35 ConGee wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 18:12 mahO wrote:
I love how most of you guys answer NO, it's fucking depressing, let us ask you that question when you'll be 80, 95% Yes, do you want to keep your grandma alive? 90% Yes (yeah 10% got issues). Of course people should have access to health care, even if they are old, they paid taxes all their life ffs? It doesnt mean we should operate at any cost anyone, but good treatment is mandatory in a half decent society. If people really, actually think that health care is what makes our societies living on a huge debt, you guys need to get informed
Edit : And about Japan we cant even compare due to the cultural differences, elders in Japan might actually kill themselves to avoid being a huge charge for their families, it's something that would very rarely happen in the rest of the world, using Japan as an introduction to that debate is imho a really poor idea, especially when you read the quote from Taro Aso If I turn 80 and I can't do any basic bodily function without the aid of machines and can't perceive the world around me, I would rather die.
It doesnt work like that, in that situation you will do everything to keep living and not die. Its hardcoded into humans.
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I love how so many people are saying they would rather die than live without their bodily functions; in theory, sure you would, but you're also showing a deep ignorance of how strong the survival instinct is. The vast majority does NOT chose death whatever the circumstances and whatever you think right now, chances are you're a part of that vast majority.
As for the original question and follow-ups; letting people pay for their own life-sustain is perverse. Period. It is also impossible in any non oppressive, fascist society. Right now, there is an evaluation going on in the dark; who lives, who dies. Doctors already decide that. The evaluation is necessary due to the huge costs, not every measure can be afforded or risked in every circumstance. You can't say you would do anything for your grandparents or whatever since it's a matter of resources, "anything" is not available.
The problem is the arbitrary nature of the decision, and that it needs to take place in the dark.. If healthcare could be open about what options they have available they could also do actual economic evaluations, open for scrutiny, accountable for malpractice etc, noone could be denied reasonable treatment (as is the case today), and noone would be allowed unreasonable treatment (as is the case today). It's a very difficult are to be open and crass in but exactly that is needed. The potential and expense of medicine has increased a lot over the years. A hundred years ago, there were no ultra expensive procedures available, doing "everything" for "everyone" was possible (although of course not done, much worse healthcare system), this is not the case anymore and that fact must be accounted for.
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On January 24 2013 18:13 S_SienZ wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 17:32 dani` wrote:
Though I would be highly surprised if a majority of people would vote in favor of a law like 'no form of health care is provided to those who have passed the age of 85'.
That's because you're only presenting the downside, you need to complete the proposal with "and the money saved will be spent on X / Y forms of welfare / infrastructure instead!" EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy
youre basically saying that moneys more important than human lives.
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On January 24 2013 18:46 Kickboxer wrote:
It's not a "right" when you can't be alive without the aid of chemicals and machines man. All this obsessive clinging to life is just a reflection of the altogether materialistic society we live in.
Most people would die before 40years old without chemicals and machines, that cant be right either.
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After I die at a ripe old age we should implement age measures immediately. Gotta save society!
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On January 24 2013 18:57 CYFAWS wrote:
I love how so many people are saying they would rather die than live without their bodily functions; in theory, sure you would, but you're also showing a deep ignorance of how strong the survival instinct is. The vast majority does NOT chose death whatever the circumstances and whatever you think right now, chances are you're a part of that vast majority.
... It doesn't fucking matter how the majority feels. Every one person should be able to decide for himself whether he lives or dies. If the majority wants to die, he should be free to live, and vice versa. And it is the responsibility, of course, of every one person to address the reality he's living in, and enable and carry out his own decisions. It's that simple!
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On January 24 2013 14:01 Larkin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 13:56 Parnage wrote:
You know, I..I don't even know what the hell is wrong with a person to think that it's okay to say "Yeah no, we can't waste resources on you, time for you to die" Screw the money, how about the morality. Who's got the nads to be the one to say who can live and who can die and at what point is it just "too much of a burden"? Whoever they are I can only hope they never get any real power because history is littered with despots and madmen who thought that he had the right to judge who lives and dies and rather or not someone was useful to society. 1. Morality isn't real.
How do you define "real"? I would say that morality is real in the sense of being a real phenomenon.
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I hope a lot of you guys will start to notice why democracy is not all good. People have voted in privileges at the expense of the future generations with no consideration to sustainability. More benefits than any reasonable, possible income. The current paradigm of society and economy, that infinite growth is required does not come from capitalism, but socialism and government policy, voted in democratically.
There is a worldwide war on youth, I have to warn you. The youth unemployment and underemployment is engineered by the older generations. It starts from something as simple as minimum wage laws and labor laws and regulations that in fact don't allow the young inexperienced people to work for what they are worth. Young people are encouraged to get more and more education for no productivity gains, therefore keeping them stuck in adolescence. Today most western countries are breeding 21 year old 18 year olds.
The birthrate drop comes from several directions, I would note that there is a significant difference in wealth between generations, but not aspirations. Kids want to be financially stable like their parents before having children. Easy credit actually makes it harder to buy stuff like real estate since prices inflate in response to the larger and larger amount of money generated through credit. Then there is feminism, that nowadays makes women have very male-like aspirations, of a successful career, therefore they waste their most fertile years.
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Health care costs are not rising because of "the free market" but government policy. Some of you might be apalled by this statement, but if the governments stopped managing the people's health care drug prices would go down significantly. If you would have to buy your own health care yourself and not have government provide any benefits at all, there would be less money in the market and prices would have to go down due to competition. Big pharma today is the most profitable business in the world.
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I totally disagree that people are subconsciously hard wired to cling to life. There are plenty of people who don't feel that way. My parents have both put it in their wills that if their lives dip below a certain quality that I should be given the choice to pull the plug. My grandpa killed himself. A few aunts as well. Not everyone is scared of death. Look at kamikaze pilots. There are plenty of examples of people who willingly entered suicidal situations. Maybe the majority of people are scared of death, but it's by no means universal or hard-wired. Otherwise, people could not commit selfless acts, which they very much can.
Also, I really like 50bani's points. I agree that democracy is a broken system and it's the older generations who are enslaving us. They continually vote in policies that benefit themselves and horribly rape us and our opportunities for the future. The baby boomer generation pretty much wtfpwnt the millenials.
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On January 24 2013 13:39 Shady Sands wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 13:37 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
People should only have the "right" to live in these latter stages of life if they can afford it. Lord knows we can't. Keeping everyone's grandma on chemo is just becoming impossible. I mean, it would be nice if extremely expensive life-prolonging operations and medicines were available to everyone, but as life goes on these procedures become more and more expensive and give less and less time to the patient. So life-prolonging healthcare is the right of the rich? Try suggesting that in a democracy, and watch as those old people vote you out of office
Prohibit poor old people from voting. Problem solved!
In all seriousness though, I see this as a subset of the dependency ratio problem, where as the number of economic dependents increases, the greater the resources used to keep them alive and the greater the pressure on the labor force. Many European countries are going to hit a similar problem with their population pyramids in 20-30 years as well, so I'm willing to bet that it isn't just Japan that is going to consider this.
I'd like to hope that other methods to "solve" this problem take effect first such that this is unnecessary. I mean stuff like:
-Keeping older, potentially retired people in the labor force and productive, somehow
-Advancing the hell out of healthcare enough so that keeping people alive and healthy requires less resources
along with the more basic ideas like improving societal productivity, reallocation of resources from other areas of expenditure, improving education of existing population so that job demand better matches labor supply, etc.
Having them die would definitely be a quick and dirty economic solution and a solution I don't mind. Then again I'm one of those guys that plans to die once I'm disabled enough.
The next 30 or so years will be pretty interesting when the "demographic window of opportunity" closes and gets farther away for some highly developed countries. I don't exactly look forward to it but I expect this, and more extreme measures, to be potentially considered by lawmakers. Either that or we can look forward to the current and future labor force getting slammed with lower living standards.
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The demographic dilemma in Japan is interesting. Unlike Russia, where they literally had one of modern history's greatest economic disasters (during the 1990s) where people literally didn't have money to even support themselves, nevermind having children, Japan has such an incredibly expensive standard of living that it becomes impossible to afford children.
Meanwhile, a lot of the population of Japan is in old age, and as they die, Japan will have a significant population decrease.
IMHO, when I die, I'll die. Could be tomorrow, could be at 70. If there is an afterlife, that'll be cool. I'd like to have a good amount of free time so I can get back into StarCraft XD. If there isn't, well, I lived a good life. But no use in living past my time.
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My dad died in 2010 from cancer and he was 67, his health costs were paid by insurance. He was not 90 years old yet his healthcare costs exceeded 1 million. Mostly because multiple surgeries, extended stays in the hospital - paying surgeons and specialists is very expensive. What would the OP like to see done about this? Have him hurry up and die as well ? I would hate to think I would have had even less time than him, but thankfully 67 is many more years than others will have, with people dying from cancer in their 50s. So to be addressed is the highly inflated cost of medical care. Since "insurance will pay" the cost is hell to bear for society because everyones insurance premiums are so high to cover this inflation. One more example I will give, a simple urine drug test. I was tested last week for drugs and it cost $1,360. The lab billed $91 * 10 units for each drug that they tested for, plus $220 and +185 + 45 for some other things that I cannot understand based on this insurance statement. Strangely, insurance only covered $263 of this, and the laboratory credited $1100 back and just accepted the $263. My point is that prices need to be kept under first and foremost.
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I love how a bunch of people between 15 ad 30 talk about how they are against life preservation at a ceratin point and they surely would rather die then sit in a wheel chair, and how life itself is not viable at some point.
Sure. Maybe, you're right, on a theortical level. I won't even go into that, especially not on an english website, where i cannot make my points in my native language. But I'm 100% positive that most of the guys who clicked the NO button, will have a VERY diffrent perspective on the subject, once they are past 60 years or so, and maybe had a heartaatack or suffering from a chronic disease lke diabetes and parkinson, which will make them dependant on medication. I assure you, when it comes to their own life, or to one of those you love, it becomes a diffrent story. And you shouldn't be so quick to decide for those you don't know and love.
EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy
I mean. Look at this. Some people are literally saying. Human life should end at the point where it's no longer good for the economy to exist. That's ludacris. It would lead to a world where you're bank account determines the right to life. (I know that in some extreme situations that's already the case, but in general it's not. And holy Fuck. It should not be the case)
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On January 24 2013 18:57 NEEDZMOAR wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 18:13 S_SienZ wrote:On January 24 2013 17:32 dani` wrote:
Though I would be highly surprised if a majority of people would vote in favor of a law like 'no form of health care is provided to those who have passed the age of 85'.
That's because you're only presenting the downside, you need to complete the proposal with "and the money saved will be spent on X / Y forms of welfare / infrastructure instead!" EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy youre basically saying that moneys more important than human lives.
No, the argument is that the money is better spent elsewhere improving the lives of other people. Rather than keeping people who have already lived for a very long time alive for a little while longer, at great expense.
Think of money as a resource allocation (because that's what it is). Where should we allocate our resources? Where does it do the most good?
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On January 24 2013 18:57 NEEDZMOAR wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 18:13 S_SienZ wrote:On January 24 2013 17:32 dani` wrote:
Though I would be highly surprised if a majority of people would vote in favor of a law like 'no form of health care is provided to those who have passed the age of 85'.
That's because you're only presenting the downside, you need to complete the proposal with "and the money saved will be spent on X / Y forms of welfare / infrastructure instead!" EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy youre basically saying that moneys more important than human lives.
It is. Human life has a price value, the only controversy is actually assigning what the value is.
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And then in 40 years from now we are either recovering from a WW3 or we are part of the Brave New World. Go read it if you haven't already.
I'd rather die when I am no longer able to take care of myself or others, but the root of the problem is that globally religion has too much power - and they are the ones overpopulating the world with their 'life is sacred' bullshit.
On January 24 2013 19:43 HellRoxYa wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 18:57 NEEDZMOAR wrote:On January 24 2013 18:13 S_SienZ wrote:On January 24 2013 17:32 dani` wrote:
Though I would be highly surprised if a majority of people would vote in favor of a law like 'no form of health care is provided to those who have passed the age of 85'.
That's because you're only presenting the downside, you need to complete the proposal with "and the money saved will be spent on X / Y forms of welfare / infrastructure instead!" EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy youre basically saying that moneys more important than human lives. No, the argument is that the money is better spent elsewhere improving the lives of other people. Rather than keeping people who have already lived for a very long time alive for a little while longer, at great expense. Think of money as a resource allocation (because that's what it is). Where should we allocate our resources? Where does it do the most good?
At the beginning of life, raising and educating the few children that are still born.
By the way, this OP is one of the reasons why I am enjoying my study and taking my time, I know that when I am old (in about 45 years) the system may have changed so drastically that I can no longer enjoy any pension.
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I don't think we should deny elderly people health care in their old age, but I think we should do a much better job of informing people what living on a breathing machine in an ICU actually feels like, or how bad living with alzheimer's is.
Hopefully when I'm 80 I still feel this way, but I don't want to extend my life by 5 years when it will be a living nightmare for me and my family. IMO people should think about end of life care, while they are still of sound mind and body, and make a decision about how they want to die when the time comes.
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On January 24 2013 19:43 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:Show nested quote +EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy I mean. Look at this. Some people are literally saying. Human life should end at the point where it's no longer good for the economy to exist. That's ludacris. It would lead to a world where you're bank account determines the right to life. (I know that in some extreme situations that's already the case, but in general it's not. And holy Fuck. It should not be the case)
But do you agree that old/disabled can be a resource drain?
+ Show Spoiler +
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On January 24 2013 19:57 50bani wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 19:43 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy I mean. Look at this. Some people are literally saying. Human life should end at the point where it's no longer good for the economy to exist. That's ludacris. It would lead to a world where you're bank account determines the right to life. (I know that in some extreme situations that's already the case, but in general it's not. And holy Fuck. It should not be the case) But do you agree that old/disabled can be a resource drain? + Show Spoiler +
Do you agree that old/disabled people were not always old and disabled and many of them have contributed more to society than you or I ever will, so it maybe a bit ungrateful to just let them die, when they can't look out for themselves anymore?
As too the question. Yes. They can be a resource drain. But is that really a valid point? Should we let anybody die who is a resource drain. Cuz by that logic. Fucking stopp supporting anyone who does not contribute enough. People who are unemployed? Fuck em. Sick people? Ahh just let them die, we have a lot of new people in the wings, ready to take the spot. What about whole areas of the world, who basicly couldn't sustain without help from USA/Europe and other industrial nations, I am talking about Africa for example. They fucking drain our resources. Let's just go over their, take the country, let them die, harvest their shit and get rid of these parasites. I sure as hell don't think so.
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On January 24 2013 20:00 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 19:57 50bani wrote:On January 24 2013 19:43 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy I mean. Look at this. Some people are literally saying. Human life should end at the point where it's no longer good for the economy to exist. That's ludacris. It would lead to a world where you're bank account determines the right to life. (I know that in some extreme situations that's already the case, but in general it's not. And holy Fuck. It should not be the case) But do you agree that old/disabled can be a resource drain? + Show Spoiler + Do you agree that old/disabled people were not always old and disabled and many of them have contributed more to society than you or I ever will, so it maybe a bit ungrateful to just let them die, when they can't look out for themselves anymore?
Yes, and are you aware that many of them want to pass away, because they are losing sanity/having constant enourmous pain?
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On January 24 2013 19:43 HellRoxYa wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 18:57 NEEDZMOAR wrote:On January 24 2013 18:13 S_SienZ wrote:On January 24 2013 17:32 dani` wrote:
Though I would be highly surprised if a majority of people would vote in favor of a law like 'no form of health care is provided to those who have passed the age of 85'.
That's because you're only presenting the downside, you need to complete the proposal with "and the money saved will be spent on X / Y forms of welfare / infrastructure instead!" EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy youre basically saying that moneys more important than human lives. No, the argument is that the money is better spent elsewhere improving the lives of other people. Rather than keeping people who have already lived for a very long time alive for a little while longer, at great expense. Think of money as a resource allocation (because that's what it is). Where should we allocate our resources? Where does it do the most good?
If two or more people consent to pool their resources together then they can call it "our resources", but taxes do not fit that definition, and "we" should not be deciding together how they are spent. It is presumptuous as hell that you say "we will decide what to do with our resources" when you mean that you have a say in how someone else will spend the resources that belong to him, and you haven't even asked him if he gives a damn about your opinion. (Of course, in a completely different sense, it isn't presumptuous at all, since you know he will lie down like a dog for you in most cases, and you have the power of the majority to force him in the case that he won't).
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On January 24 2013 20:01 NightOfTheDead wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 20:00 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:On January 24 2013 19:57 50bani wrote:On January 24 2013 19:43 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy I mean. Look at this. Some people are literally saying. Human life should end at the point where it's no longer good for the economy to exist. That's ludacris. It would lead to a world where you're bank account determines the right to life. (I know that in some extreme situations that's already the case, but in general it's not. And holy Fuck. It should not be the case) But do you agree that old/disabled can be a resource drain? + Show Spoiler + Do you agree that old/disabled people were not always old and disabled and many of them have contributed more to society than you or I ever will, so it maybe a bit ungrateful to just let them die, when they can't look out for themselves anymore? Yes, and are you aware that many of them want to pass away, because they are losing sanity/having constant enourmous pain?
Yeah sure. Of course. I'm not saying everything is perfect. People who want to die, because they are in pain, or just don't want to life for diffrent reasons, should be allowed to pass away. And medical instutions should help them with that. I am all for euthanisia. Nobody should be forced to be alive at any cost.
If you guys are only pro-euthanisia and letting people die who don't WANT anymore, sign me up for that. But I don't think that's the argument-
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On January 24 2013 20:01 NightOfTheDead wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 20:00 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:On January 24 2013 19:57 50bani wrote:On January 24 2013 19:43 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy I mean. Look at this. Some people are literally saying. Human life should end at the point where it's no longer good for the economy to exist. That's ludacris. It would lead to a world where you're bank account determines the right to life. (I know that in some extreme situations that's already the case, but in general it's not. And holy Fuck. It should not be the case) But do you agree that old/disabled can be a resource drain? + Show Spoiler + Do you agree that old/disabled people were not always old and disabled and many of them have contributed more to society than you or I ever will, so it maybe a bit ungrateful to just let them die, when they can't look out for themselves anymore? Yes, and are you aware that many of them want to pass away, because they are losing sanity/having constant enourmous pain?
I dont know about your country, but in most developed countries usually doctors arent supposed to extend life at any cost, and palliative medicine in particular is all about relieving the patient of pain in his last weeks / months before death, so your question is rather irrelevant. If a patient doesnt want his life extended artificially all he needs to do is state so / have his will written down
On January 24 2013 14:08 sths wrote:
The biggest problem with today's mainstream economic thought is the belief that a nation's actions are limited by the amount of dollars (yen,rmb etc) it has access to. This hasn't been true since the gold-standard days.
A sovereign nation with a free floating exchange rate (ie: US, Japan, Australia, NOT EU countries or countries with pegged exchange rates) can never run out of its own currencies. The limiting factor for a nation is never the amount of its own currency it can get access to but the productive capacity of the population.
Taro Aso, the finance minister, said on Monday that the elderly should be allowed to "hurry up and die" to relieve pressure on the state to pay for their medical care......The health and welfare ministry, he added, was "well aware that it costs several tens of millions of yen" a month to treat a single patient in the final stages of life.
Statements like the above shows a lack of understanding of what money is. Japan's problem isn't that they don't have the "millions of yen", its that they don't have enough doctors, hospitals, nurses etc to care for their ever growing senior population. The real cost to a nation is how much productive capacity do we dedicate to taking care of our elderly, NOT how much yen this will cost. The good news is that productive capacity can be grown. The bad news is that everyone seems to think that the government is just like a household or an individual and must "save currency" to pay for stuff.
If you ask me, dedicating a large portion of your economy to taking care of your elderly is a lot better compared to how much we currently dedicate to the entirely parasitic financial sector.
Oh and who else thinks Shady should stop making these discussion threads and go back to writing about Chinese/Japanese james bond shit. Or perhaps another chapter from his life story.
thanks for writing one of the few smart posts in this thread,
so many people here have this image of "oh if you let this elderly person die, you could save a young childs life!!" which is just hilariously naive.
Btw. why dont we also stop treating all disabled people in the world? And all people who cant work because of their psychiatric illness. They dont boost the economy, so we might as well just let them be in their misery without wasting money on them, right.
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On January 24 2013 20:00 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 19:57 50bani wrote:On January 24 2013 19:43 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy I mean. Look at this. Some people are literally saying. Human life should end at the point where it's no longer good for the economy to exist. That's ludacris. It would lead to a world where you're bank account determines the right to life. (I know that in some extreme situations that's already the case, but in general it's not. And holy Fuck. It should not be the case) But do you agree that old/disabled can be a resource drain? + Show Spoiler + Do you agree that old/disabled people were not always old and disabled and many of them have contributed more to society than you or I ever will, so it maybe a bit ungrateful to just let them die, when they can't look out for themselves anymore? As too the question. Yes. They can be a resource drain. But is that really a valid point? Should we let anybody die who is a resource drain. Cuz by that logic. Fucking stopp supporting anyone who does not contribute enough. People who are unemployed? Fuck em. Sick people? Ahh just let them die, we have a lot of new people in the wings, ready to take the spot. What about whole areas of the world, who basicly couldn't sustain without help from USA/Europe and other industrial nations, I am talking about Africa for example. They fucking drain our resources. Let's just go over their, take the country, let them die, harvest their shit and get rid of these parasites. I sure as hell don't think so.
Excuse my disrespecting you noble sir,
but you can go support all the elderly and all the africans out of your own pockets. Don't force others into giving to charity. It should be an option and just that.
Everybody has the right to live, but within their means.
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On January 24 2013 19:45 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 18:57 NEEDZMOAR wrote:On January 24 2013 18:13 S_SienZ wrote:On January 24 2013 17:32 dani` wrote:
Though I would be highly surprised if a majority of people would vote in favor of a law like 'no form of health care is provided to those who have passed the age of 85'.
That's because you're only presenting the downside, you need to complete the proposal with "and the money saved will be spent on X / Y forms of welfare / infrastructure instead!" EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy youre basically saying that moneys more important than human lives. It is. Human life has a price value, the only controversy is actually assigning what the value is.
Basically this. Not everyone is equal (they should be born equal). I can accept the fact that in my current point in life there are plenty of people who are worth more than me and plenty that are worth less.
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On January 24 2013 20:11 50bani wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 20:00 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:On January 24 2013 19:57 50bani wrote:On January 24 2013 19:43 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy I mean. Look at this. Some people are literally saying. Human life should end at the point where it's no longer good for the economy to exist. That's ludacris. It would lead to a world where you're bank account determines the right to life. (I know that in some extreme situations that's already the case, but in general it's not. And holy Fuck. It should not be the case) But do you agree that old/disabled can be a resource drain? + Show Spoiler + Do you agree that old/disabled people were not always old and disabled and many of them have contributed more to society than you or I ever will, so it maybe a bit ungrateful to just let them die, when they can't look out for themselves anymore? As too the question. Yes. They can be a resource drain. But is that really a valid point? Should we let anybody die who is a resource drain. Cuz by that logic. Fucking stopp supporting anyone who does not contribute enough. People who are unemployed? Fuck em. Sick people? Ahh just let them die, we have a lot of new people in the wings, ready to take the spot. What about whole areas of the world, who basicly couldn't sustain without help from USA/Europe and other industrial nations, I am talking about Africa for example. They fucking drain our resources. Let's just go over their, take the country, let them die, harvest their shit and get rid of these parasites. I sure as hell don't think so. Excuse my disrespecting you noble sir, but you can go support all the elderly and all the africans out of your own pockets. Don't force others into giving to charity. It should be an option and just that. Everybody has the right to live, but within their means.
No need to be snide. Can't we just argue, without bringing it down on a personal level by being very funny? Oh of course. It's the internet. What am I thinking.
And I can't really argue with you're opinion(you are of course entitled to one), just because it's fundamently broken(that's of course just MY opinion), because it's based on a worldview where no social security exists and the society as a whole should not care for the weak. In my opinion that's just total bullshit and would ultimatly destroy everything that the human race has achieved. Because it's basicly the right of the strongest from there on.
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I currently enjoy Australia's system of superannuation. It punishes the lazy fucks that decides to live on the dole but because it is compulsory and a separate entity from your paycheck it doesn't fail to help the workers that are just struggling to get by. Yet some people complain about it because it deny's them their "right" in how they employ their full income, that attitude says it all.
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Surprising lack of tact. Maybe "hurry up and die" is just a mistranslation or something. I can't believe a seasoned public figure (finance minister no less) would use such provocative vocabulary when talking about, well, anything (it's the kind of thing that can kill a political career).
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On January 24 2013 20:00 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 19:57 50bani wrote:On January 24 2013 19:43 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy I mean. Look at this. Some people are literally saying. Human life should end at the point where it's no longer good for the economy to exist. That's ludacris. It would lead to a world where you're bank account determines the right to life. (I know that in some extreme situations that's already the case, but in general it's not. And holy Fuck. It should not be the case) But do you agree that old/disabled can be a resource drain? + Show Spoiler + Do you agree that old/disabled people were not always old and disabled and many of them have contributed more to society than you or I ever will, so it maybe a bit ungrateful to just let them die, when they can't look out for themselves anymore? As too the question. Yes. They can be a resource drain. But is that really a valid point? Should we let anybody die who is a resource drain. Cuz by that logic. Fucking stopp supporting anyone who does not contribute enough. People who are unemployed? Fuck em. Sick people? Ahh just let them die, we have a lot of new people in the wings, ready to take the spot. What about whole areas of the world, who basicly couldn't sustain without help from USA/Europe and other industrial nations, I am talking about Africa for example. They fucking drain our resources. Let's just go over their, take the country, let them die, harvest their shit and get rid of these parasites. I sure as hell don't think so.
I'm sorry but you're completely unable to process any counterarguments. Not everyone thinks the way you do. It's condescending to tell others they don't understand death and blah blah. Maybe try to wrap your head around the idea that not everyone is scared to die.
And yes, it is a valid point. Wtf? Resource drains should be allowed to exist? Do you realize at a certain point, old people will be stealing food out of the mouths of babies? You seem to act as if it's a difference between greed and charity. It's NOT. Simple truth is there ain't enough to go around. So why the hell would the human race want to keep a few decaying sacks of meat alive long after their usefulness? You realize the human race already allows vast swathes, in fact the majority, of the human population to live in abject poverty? Oh, poor grandma is half-dead, but it'd be a crime against humanity to pull the tube out her mouth! But it's not a crime to watch 5-6 year old Ethiopian children stumbling around the dusty street with bellies distended from starvation, right?
The whole point of the monetary system is that it is a decent approximation of a person's contribution to society. When you're old, use your own money to buy healthcare. If your savings, and the incomes of your children, can't afford the level of care needed to keep you alive, that is the point you should die. The end. There is no ethical or logical justification for why society should be obligated or even willing to maintain a parasite. And that's what you are when you dip into public resources to pay for your own health. It is the height of selfishness.
All your arguments are based on emotional appeals with little to no understanding of what's actually going on.
And why exactly would it be a bad thing for your bank account to be your right to life? I don't understand this diseased mentality of entitlement. Every other living organism on earth dies when they cannot feed themselves. But what? Humans are special and entitled to a decent life as long as someone somewhere down the road decided to carry you in their belly for nine months?
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On January 24 2013 20:23 Sbrubbles wrote:
Surprising lack of tact. Maybe "hurry up and die" is just a mistranslation or something. I can't believe a seasoned public figure (finance minister no less) would use such provocative vocabulary when talking about, well, anything (it's the kind of thing that can kill a political career).
I'm not surprised, since Taro Aso is kind of an asshole. He called the elderly patients in intensive care "tube people"... and from a foreign policy perspective, he has gone on record denying the 500,000 murders and rapes Japan committed over three months in the Nanjing Massacre.
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On January 24 2013 20:08 7mk wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 20:01 NightOfTheDead wrote:On January 24 2013 20:00 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:On January 24 2013 19:57 50bani wrote:On January 24 2013 19:43 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy I mean. Look at this. Some people are literally saying. Human life should end at the point where it's no longer good for the economy to exist. That's ludacris. It would lead to a world where you're bank account determines the right to life. (I know that in some extreme situations that's already the case, but in general it's not. And holy Fuck. It should not be the case) But do you agree that old/disabled can be a resource drain? + Show Spoiler + Do you agree that old/disabled people were not always old and disabled and many of them have contributed more to society than you or I ever will, so it maybe a bit ungrateful to just let them die, when they can't look out for themselves anymore? Yes, and are you aware that many of them want to pass away, because they are losing sanity/having constant enourmous pain? I dont know about your country, but in most developed countries usually doctors arent supposed to extend life at any cost, and palliative medicine in particular is all about relieving the patient of pain in his last weeks / months before death, so your question is rather irrelevant. If a patient doesnt want his life extended artificially all he needs to do is state so / have his will written down Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 14:08 sths wrote:
The biggest problem with today's mainstream economic thought is the belief that a nation's actions are limited by the amount of dollars (yen,rmb etc) it has access to. This hasn't been true since the gold-standard days.
A sovereign nation with a free floating exchange rate (ie: US, Japan, Australia, NOT EU countries or countries with pegged exchange rates) can never run out of its own currencies. The limiting factor for a nation is never the amount of its own currency it can get access to but the productive capacity of the population.
Taro Aso, the finance minister, said on Monday that the elderly should be allowed to "hurry up and die" to relieve pressure on the state to pay for their medical care......The health and welfare ministry, he added, was "well aware that it costs several tens of millions of yen" a month to treat a single patient in the final stages of life.
Statements like the above shows a lack of understanding of what money is. Japan's problem isn't that they don't have the "millions of yen", its that they don't have enough doctors, hospitals, nurses etc to care for their ever growing senior population. The real cost to a nation is how much productive capacity do we dedicate to taking care of our elderly, NOT how much yen this will cost. The good news is that productive capacity can be grown. The bad news is that everyone seems to think that the government is just like a household or an individual and must "save currency" to pay for stuff.
If you ask me, dedicating a large portion of your economy to taking care of your elderly is a lot better compared to how much we currently dedicate to the entirely parasitic financial sector.
Oh and who else thinks Shady should stop making these discussion threads and go back to writing about Chinese/Japanese james bond shit. Or perhaps another chapter from his life story.
thanks for writing one of the few smart posts in this thread, so many people here have this image of "oh if you let this elderly person die, you could save a young childs life!!" which is just hilariously naive. Btw. why dont we also stop treating all disabled people in the world? And all people who cant work because of their psychiatric illness. They dont boost the economy, so we might as well just let them be in their misery without wasting money on them, right.
Utterly wrong. Money and labor productivity are intrinsically connected. Money is the incentive for labor. Without money, you have no production. Wtf would people work for no money? Productive capacity is nothing but an abstract ideal. Reality doesn't work that way. A society rarely, if ever, operates at maximum productive capacity, so no, it still boils down to money because that is the most accurate representation of resources and labor supply.
You can't just force people to become doctors and nurses because they have the ability. You have to grow the sector through normal economic activity and market pressures. I'm pretty sure I could handle a nurse's job, but it would take a ridiculous amount of money to convince me to become one. At the end of the day, labor markets are driven by supply and demand and those both function using money.
And the logic of putting more money into elderly care because the financial sector sucks too is terrible. Two wrongs don't make a right.
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On January 24 2013 14:01 Larkin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 13:56 Parnage wrote:
You know, I..I don't even know what the hell is wrong with a person to think that it's okay to say "Yeah no, we can't waste resources on you, time for you to die" Screw the money, how about the morality. Who's got the nads to be the one to say who can live and who can die and at what point is it just "too much of a burden"? Whoever they are I can only hope they never get any real power because history is littered with despots and madmen who thought that he had the right to judge who lives and dies and rather or not someone was useful to society. 1. Morality isn't real. 2. It's not about the person in charge deciding, it's about democracy. The will of the people. Should people decide a "cut off point" for the elderly.
So what you're saying is that the Holocaust of the 1940'ies was perfectly fine and dandy because 1) morality isn't real and 2) Adolf Hitler was democratically elected by the German people in 1933?
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On January 24 2013 20:41 maartendq wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 14:01 Larkin wrote:On January 24 2013 13:56 Parnage wrote:
You know, I..I don't even know what the hell is wrong with a person to think that it's okay to say "Yeah no, we can't waste resources on you, time for you to die" Screw the money, how about the morality. Who's got the nads to be the one to say who can live and who can die and at what point is it just "too much of a burden"? Whoever they are I can only hope they never get any real power because history is littered with despots and madmen who thought that he had the right to judge who lives and dies and rather or not someone was useful to society. 1. Morality isn't real. 2. It's not about the person in charge deciding, it's about democracy. The will of the people. Should people decide a "cut off point" for the elderly. So what you're saying is that the Holocaust of the 1940'ies was perfectly fine and dandy because 1) morality isn't real and 2) Adolf Hitler was democratically elected by the German people in 1933?
It doesn't make it real. A lot of people found nuking Japan twice and setting Vietnam on fire perfectly fine and dandy, these are probably some of the same people who would be disgusted by the Holocaust. What I believe is "right" or "wrong" was due to my upbringing and the societal environment at the time, not by some magical code. If morality is the construct of society that changes from time to time then yes it is real but it is anything but natural or objective.
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I think that making this an age discussion is wrong/short-sighted. One 80 year old can be a lot more healthy than another 60 year old. An operation on one 80 year old could prolong life by 10 years, while on a 20 year old it could only prolong life by 5 years. I think taking someones value/productivity into the equation is even more wrong and shows a glaring flaw in neo liberalism/kapitalism. People work to live a good/better live. People dont live to provide productivity/generate money.
So, if there truly needs to be a debate about if we can "afford" to take care of our own elderly. I don't think the debate should be based on age, but on quality of life. As in, end-of-life procedures often only extend the life by a couple of months, those months are spent in a hospital instead of with family and the patient is often not happier in these last couple of months and would have been better off dying a bit earlier at home, at peace. End-of-life procedures are not age-bound. It can be the last couple of months of the life of a 20 year old cancer patient as well. These last months happen to be very expensive as well, but I still think it is up to the physician and the patient to decide if the procedure is wanted.
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On January 24 2013 20:49 Domus wrote:
I think that making this an age discussion is wrong/short-sighted. One 80 year old can be a lot more healthy than another 60 year old. An operation on one 80 year old could prolong life by 10 years, while on a 20 year old it could only prolong life by 5 years. I think taking someones value/productivity into the equation is even more wrong and shows a glaring flaw in neo liberalism/kapitalism. People work to live a good/better live. People dont live to provide productivity/generate money.
So, if there truly needs to be a debate about if we can "afford" to take care of our own elderly. I don't think the debate should be based on age, but on quality of life. As in, end-of-life procedures often only extend the life by a couple of months, those months are spent in a hospital instead of with family and the patient is often not happier in these last couple of months and would have been better off dying a bit earlier at home, at peace. End-of-life procedures are not age-bound. It can be the last couple of months of the life of a 20 year old cancer patient as well. These last months happen to be very expensive as well, but I still think it is up to the physician and the patient to decide if the procedure is wanted.
The problem is whether or not society should pay for these operations. We wouldn't give two figs if the person could afford it on their own. You're missing the point of the debate. People work to live a good/better life, but society doesn't exist for that. Society exists to maintain a stable, mutually agreed system in which people can compete to live good/better lives. Note the compete part. It's not guaranteed. Otherwise, we would all just sit on our asses playing SC2 and letting someone else guarantee our comfortable lifestyle. That's why the Constitution says PURSUIT of happiness, not GUARANTEE of happiness.
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Every person starts as a parasite -- but, usually with the understanding that they will become helpful in the future. When you speak of people whose ability to contribute will never again compare to the resources required to preserve them, you speak of people that society has little cause to preserve. Individuals to whom those people hold special value may have cause to preserve them, but not society at large.
One might invoke morality -- people have a right to live, to the extent that we can secure it for them -- but in that case, we're morally obligated to first help people we can save cheaply, so that our limited resources can cover as many people as possible...
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On January 24 2013 20:41 maartendq wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 14:01 Larkin wrote:On January 24 2013 13:56 Parnage wrote:
You know, I..I don't even know what the hell is wrong with a person to think that it's okay to say "Yeah no, we can't waste resources on you, time for you to die" Screw the money, how about the morality. Who's got the nads to be the one to say who can live and who can die and at what point is it just "too much of a burden"? Whoever they are I can only hope they never get any real power because history is littered with despots and madmen who thought that he had the right to judge who lives and dies and rather or not someone was useful to society. 1. Morality isn't real. 2. It's not about the person in charge deciding, it's about democracy. The will of the people. Should people decide a "cut off point" for the elderly. So what you're saying is that the Holocaust of the 1940'ies was perfectly fine and dandy because 1) morality isn't real and 2) Adolf Hitler was democratically elected by the German people in 1933?
Humans are a social species. We or our ancestors, if you will, "decided" that living in groups is the best strategy for survival so they adapted to this type of life. We can list empathy and the sense of morality as adaptations to social life. We needed to evolve them to be able to live in groups that are healty and functional. So I would encorage you to view morality as a functional issue, we just need some kind of rules to keep our society working properly. And now that we are sentient we can explicitly discuss what is best achieving our healthy society goal. Morality is not real, divine or whatever, it is a biological adaptation, and it happens that there might be different approaches to morality/rules of society that give the same outcome qualitatively.(this actually dependent on our notion of good, that can evolve in time, so you can see morality evolving over time as well; see how the ancient Greeks and Romans had a different perspective on life)
I can also list organized religion, the state, nationalism as newer adaptations, or ideas if you will, that allow us to live comfortably in societies larger than Dunbar's number(this is what civilization is btw). The same line can be applied to socialism. It came from a debate on what is the best way to ensure the health of society, civilization. Books can and have been written about this, socialism does not succeed at this goal.
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I think the healthcare professionals and the elderly patients themselves would have the most valuable opinions to offer in this debate, because lines need to be drawn between the "excessive life-prolonging treatments" and reasonable healthcare. My mom has been a nurse for 30+ years and is able to see the patterns.
Depending on what their problems are, some very old people can be treated and are able to live independently for many more years, but if they are treated half-assedly it's a sentence to a slow death in the hospital. Many are doomed to this to begin with due to uncurable degenerative diseases, but not all.
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Didn't know life expectancy was higher in japan and sweden compared to Norway. :o
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On January 24 2013 19:43 HellRoxYa wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 18:57 NEEDZMOAR wrote:On January 24 2013 18:13 S_SienZ wrote:On January 24 2013 17:32 dani` wrote:
Though I would be highly surprised if a majority of people would vote in favor of a law like 'no form of health care is provided to those who have passed the age of 85'.
That's because you're only presenting the downside, you need to complete the proposal with "and the money saved will be spent on X / Y forms of welfare / infrastructure instead!" EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy youre basically saying that moneys more important than human lives. No, the argument is that the money is better spent elsewhere improving the lives of other people. Rather than keeping people who have already lived for a very long time alive for a little while longer, at great expense. Think of money as a resource allocation (because that's what it is). Where should we allocate our resources? Where does it do the most good?
Fair enough, my point was (still is) that money shouldnt matter, IMO its not elderly that is the problem, its capitalism and the way the few taking advantage of the many.
The way some people in this thread speak of humans as a resource, when they are old and used up, we should dump them because the society demands fresh resources thus should not keep up the used up resources.. makes me think of the way the robots in the matrix movies feeds on humans as batteries...
The system should be used, people should not be overused by the system.
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This is interesting because one of my grandmothers was constantly saying how she wanted to die ASAP to save any expenses and emotional hardship to the family. She died at 87, only actually becoming ill in that year, until 86 she had basically had no serious illnesses. When she was 87 they found advanced cancer tumours in 3 areas and she was put on pallative care. So perhaps not all people follow their hard-wiring to survive. It's really because she came from a culture of self-sacrifice and caring about others which stemmed from world war 2. I wonder if she a mentality could be fostered in elderly people in other countries. The sort of, 'sure, you can survive with an impaired quality of life for a few years now, but maybe it would be better to ease the burden on your relatives and society and go quietly when you are still in control' etc.
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On January 24 2013 19:07 zobz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 18:57 CYFAWS wrote:
I love how so many people are saying they would rather die than live without their bodily functions; in theory, sure you would, but you're also showing a deep ignorance of how strong the survival instinct is. The vast majority does NOT chose death whatever the circumstances and whatever you think right now, chances are you're a part of that vast majority.
... It doesn't fucking matter how the majority feels. Every one person should be able to decide for himself whether he lives or dies. If the majority wants to die, he should be free to live, and vice versa. And it is the responsibility, of course, of every one person to address the reality he's living in, and enable and carry out his own decisions. It's that simple!
way to go with the misreading
i'll break it down for you:
If you say now that you will rather die than live like a vegetable in the future, chances are you will change your mind about that when the time comes.
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On January 24 2013 20:55 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 20:49 Domus wrote:
I think that making this an age discussion is wrong/short-sighted. One 80 year old can be a lot more healthy than another 60 year old. An operation on one 80 year old could prolong life by 10 years, while on a 20 year old it could only prolong life by 5 years. I think taking someones value/productivity into the equation is even more wrong and shows a glaring flaw in neo liberalism/kapitalism. People work to live a good/better live. People dont live to provide productivity/generate money.
So, if there truly needs to be a debate about if we can "afford" to take care of our own elderly. I don't think the debate should be based on age, but on quality of life. As in, end-of-life procedures often only extend the life by a couple of months, those months are spent in a hospital instead of with family and the patient is often not happier in these last couple of months and would have been better off dying a bit earlier at home, at peace. End-of-life procedures are not age-bound. It can be the last couple of months of the life of a 20 year old cancer patient as well. These last months happen to be very expensive as well, but I still think it is up to the physician and the patient to decide if the procedure is wanted. The problem is whether or not society should pay for these operations. We wouldn't give two figs if the person could afford it on their own. You're missing the point of the debate. People work to live a good/better life, but society doesn't exist for that. Society exists to maintain a stable, mutually agreed system in which people can compete to live good/better lives. Note the compete part. It's not guaranteed. Otherwise, we would all just sit on our asses playing SC2 and letting someone else guarantee our comfortable lifestyle. That's why the Constitution says PURSUIT of happiness, not GUARANTEE of happiness.
yes, that is kapitalism for you in a nutshell. Kapitalism views society as something to compete in, while a more social(ist) view is that it is society is a system to cooperate in. I prefer the latter, clearly you prefer the former. But they are world views, not absolutes, and you cant call either right or wrong. Although maybe you can call one more pleasant than the other .
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Capitalism is private ownership over the means of production. So you are free to produce whatever goods you want in order to earn a living.
Fun fact: exchanges of goods and services are done such that both parties feel better off, like they value what they get more than what they give. The most competitive is in fact the most cooperant.
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I want to be immortal. Let other people cover the cost of R&D.
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On January 24 2013 16:42 Shady Sands wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 15:34 Kimaker wrote:On January 24 2013 15:08 frogrubdown wrote:On January 24 2013 14:55 Kimaker wrote:On January 24 2013 14:13 sluggaslamoo wrote:On January 24 2013 13:13 Shady Sands wrote: Fuck aging population, has nobody noticed how disturbing this image is? Holy shit. I knew it was bad, but not THAT bad. Pay 2-4 times more for healthcare in America than anywhere else and you will receive the same life expectancy as that of the Czech Republic. If you blame western diet/genetics, well then just look at Australia, Italy, Canada. You may hate socialism but this is the effect when you don't care about it, capitalism gone mad. That's just it though, we pay 2-4 times more while our economy is what again in terms of GDP? It makes sense. Proportionally we're probably paying LESS than some of those other countries, it's just that we have a larger economy overall. What's more life expectancy is a load of hokum and hogwash. When it's used in a chart like that it's intended to illustrate the poor health care provided in the United States, when really all it represents is that people in the United States tend to die more violently and early. Even throwing all that out the window, costs are relative and vary by region. Unless we have numbers which are adjusted for a normative cost, this chart doesn't really tell us anything in detail. The graph is already about the proportions. Read the x-axis; it says 'per capita'. Fair. I was wrong. My other points still stand. EDIT: Wait...no. I was right. That's only how much was spent per person, not how much was spent per person as a proportion of the country's total GDP. For Example: US GDP: ~15 Trillion Health care cost per capita: 8k Health care cost per capita as a proportion of GDP: 5.3333333333333333333333333333333e-10% Czech Republic: ~217 Billion Health care cost per capita: 2k Health care cost per capita as a proportion of GDP: 9.2165898617511520737327188940092e-9% So, we're looking at a 300% increase in health care cost per capita between the Czech Republic and the United States. In terms of GDP...that's a 6900% difference. The US pays less. Unless that US $ (PPP) means they adjusted for that already, in which case fuck me. xD you should be comparing GDP per capita against healthcare spend per capita, not GDP total against healthcare spend per capita.
Irrelevant. Society still ends up paying for it, which is one of the main argument for healthcare reform being more focused on preventative care. The current US system tends to toss people out on their asses when there's a problem only to usher them into the doors at the eleventh hour. These eleventh hour procedures tend to cost more than the preventative care, driving the overall health care costs for the country way up.
Not saying you're wrong, just that going per capita on both points isn't going to address the main issue: The US already functions like a socialized healthcare system, just the single shittiest incarnation that could possibly exist. Free healthcare for everyone, when you're on the table for the time it takes for the procedure to complete (free for a limited time, lol), and nothing before hand.
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There is always a global amount of ressources available worldwide which can be limiting factors. The list is large, for example space, air, water, food, energy, "production capacity", etc.
Our population basic needs will tap in all those ressources. An active adult will have a positive balance, someone (whatever the age) under heavy medical care or a young will have a negative balance.
To have a stable sustainable model, you need your ressources production/consumption do be at least balanced on average for each member of your society. This means you have an absolute limit to the ressources that can be channeled to keeping your elderly alive, an absolute limit to what can be invested in the education of your youth. The sum of average investment on youth education/elderly care must be less than the average ressource provided during active life.
To answer the initial poll: no, we cannot keep someone alive regardless of costs. I think our current medical technology allows us to invest more ressources on successfully keeping a single human being alive than what is provided on average by each worldwide during his active life.
Basic ways to survive an imbalance is population growth (keep your active population growing to match the needs of your elders) or betting on productivity growth (through technology) to match the growing costs of higher technology health care and an older population.
I believe both have their limits.
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On January 24 2013 21:25 Domus wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 20:55 SamsungStar wrote:On January 24 2013 20:49 Domus wrote:
I think that making this an age discussion is wrong/short-sighted. One 80 year old can be a lot more healthy than another 60 year old. An operation on one 80 year old could prolong life by 10 years, while on a 20 year old it could only prolong life by 5 years. I think taking someones value/productivity into the equation is even more wrong and shows a glaring flaw in neo liberalism/kapitalism. People work to live a good/better live. People dont live to provide productivity/generate money.
So, if there truly needs to be a debate about if we can "afford" to take care of our own elderly. I don't think the debate should be based on age, but on quality of life. As in, end-of-life procedures often only extend the life by a couple of months, those months are spent in a hospital instead of with family and the patient is often not happier in these last couple of months and would have been better off dying a bit earlier at home, at peace. End-of-life procedures are not age-bound. It can be the last couple of months of the life of a 20 year old cancer patient as well. These last months happen to be very expensive as well, but I still think it is up to the physician and the patient to decide if the procedure is wanted. The problem is whether or not society should pay for these operations. We wouldn't give two figs if the person could afford it on their own. You're missing the point of the debate. People work to live a good/better life, but society doesn't exist for that. Society exists to maintain a stable, mutually agreed system in which people can compete to live good/better lives. Note the compete part. It's not guaranteed. Otherwise, we would all just sit on our asses playing SC2 and letting someone else guarantee our comfortable lifestyle. That's why the Constitution says PURSUIT of happiness, not GUARANTEE of happiness. yes, that is kapitalism for you in a nutshell. Kapitalism views society as something to compete in, while a more social(ist) view is that it is society is a system to cooperate in. I prefer the latter, clearly you prefer the former. But they are world views, not absolutes, and you cant call either right or wrong. Although maybe you can call one more pleasant than the other .
Actually, one is reality and the other belongs in the dreams of puff the magic dragon.
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On January 24 2013 21:59 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 21:25 Domus wrote:On January 24 2013 20:55 SamsungStar wrote:On January 24 2013 20:49 Domus wrote:
I think that making this an age discussion is wrong/short-sighted. One 80 year old can be a lot more healthy than another 60 year old. An operation on one 80 year old could prolong life by 10 years, while on a 20 year old it could only prolong life by 5 years. I think taking someones value/productivity into the equation is even more wrong and shows a glaring flaw in neo liberalism/kapitalism. People work to live a good/better live. People dont live to provide productivity/generate money.
So, if there truly needs to be a debate about if we can "afford" to take care of our own elderly. I don't think the debate should be based on age, but on quality of life. As in, end-of-life procedures often only extend the life by a couple of months, those months are spent in a hospital instead of with family and the patient is often not happier in these last couple of months and would have been better off dying a bit earlier at home, at peace. End-of-life procedures are not age-bound. It can be the last couple of months of the life of a 20 year old cancer patient as well. These last months happen to be very expensive as well, but I still think it is up to the physician and the patient to decide if the procedure is wanted. The problem is whether or not society should pay for these operations. We wouldn't give two figs if the person could afford it on their own. You're missing the point of the debate. People work to live a good/better life, but society doesn't exist for that. Society exists to maintain a stable, mutually agreed system in which people can compete to live good/better lives. Note the compete part. It's not guaranteed. Otherwise, we would all just sit on our asses playing SC2 and letting someone else guarantee our comfortable lifestyle. That's why the Constitution says PURSUIT of happiness, not GUARANTEE of happiness. yes, that is kapitalism for you in a nutshell. Kapitalism views society as something to compete in, while a more social(ist) view is that it is society is a system to cooperate in. I prefer the latter, clearly you prefer the former. But they are world views, not absolutes, and you cant call either right or wrong. Although maybe you can call one more pleasant than the other . Actually, one is reality and the other belongs in the dreams of puff the magic dragon.
Nothing unreal about a society where cooperation is considered more important than competition. Welcome to scandinavia.
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Economics is supposed to enable us to live better lives. Some questions are hard to answer, like what is more important, paying for an incapacitated 97 year old to barely make it to 98 or funding research to find the cure for male baldness? Maybe we can teach old people and bald people to be happy with their condition for a fraction of that cost. Maybe we are happiest when we are well under our full economic potential.
Who can possibly care about economic calculations if the bottom line doesn't translate into better lives for the people involved? No calculation can make talking about people like they are expiring products acceptable. How can anyone be this out of touch?
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On January 24 2013 21:59 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 21:25 Domus wrote:On January 24 2013 20:55 SamsungStar wrote:On January 24 2013 20:49 Domus wrote:
I think that making this an age discussion is wrong/short-sighted. One 80 year old can be a lot more healthy than another 60 year old. An operation on one 80 year old could prolong life by 10 years, while on a 20 year old it could only prolong life by 5 years. I think taking someones value/productivity into the equation is even more wrong and shows a glaring flaw in neo liberalism/kapitalism. People work to live a good/better live. People dont live to provide productivity/generate money.
So, if there truly needs to be a debate about if we can "afford" to take care of our own elderly. I don't think the debate should be based on age, but on quality of life. As in, end-of-life procedures often only extend the life by a couple of months, those months are spent in a hospital instead of with family and the patient is often not happier in these last couple of months and would have been better off dying a bit earlier at home, at peace. End-of-life procedures are not age-bound. It can be the last couple of months of the life of a 20 year old cancer patient as well. These last months happen to be very expensive as well, but I still think it is up to the physician and the patient to decide if the procedure is wanted. The problem is whether or not society should pay for these operations. We wouldn't give two figs if the person could afford it on their own. You're missing the point of the debate. People work to live a good/better life, but society doesn't exist for that. Society exists to maintain a stable, mutually agreed system in which people can compete to live good/better lives. Note the compete part. It's not guaranteed. Otherwise, we would all just sit on our asses playing SC2 and letting someone else guarantee our comfortable lifestyle. That's why the Constitution says PURSUIT of happiness, not GUARANTEE of happiness. yes, that is kapitalism for you in a nutshell. Kapitalism views society as something to compete in, while a more social(ist) view is that it is society is a system to cooperate in. I prefer the latter, clearly you prefer the former. But they are world views, not absolutes, and you cant call either right or wrong. Although maybe you can call one more pleasant than the other . Actually, one is reality and the other belongs in the dreams of puff the magic dragon.
True, REAL capitalism doesnt exist anywhere, TRUE consumerism/capitalism where the market truly would work the way its supposed to work, would be awesome but unfortunately, its a dream of puff.
Socialism on the other hand, works well, Cuba being a prime example of it, Compare Cuba to other equally poor south american countries who have not been able to trade with the US, and they are doing very well.
Sweden were another great example of what socialism can create, unfortunately, thats long gone and nowadays were witch-hunting the weak while the rich are getting richer.
Norway! A great example of a country where socialism works very well, without any kind of european union etc. why? Because of the fact that everyone is sharing the benefits from their export.
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any human being, should start off by thinking how could we reduce the healthcare costs first and then how can we kill people faster, geez.
there are studies out there, made by PhD's and such, like 'Quality-Driven Efficiency in Healthcare' http://www.utwente.nl/en/archive/2012/12/mathematics_the_key_to_better_and_cheaper_healthcare.doc that shows how costs can be reduced by 20% only by optimizing the logistic part. if you go into patent laws and shit, research expenditures (which dictate the price on meds), i am pretty sure you can get it down to ~50%.
but hey, lets just kill people, it's cheaper and doesn't even have to make us change the way we do things.
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Except I never said anything about capitalism and socialism. Because that entire debate is retarded and makes no sense, seeing as there is no such thing as true capitalism or true socialism.
What I did say is there is a clear line to be drawn between the reality of a world in which resources and labor are scarce, and a dream world in which as long as everybody shares there is enough to go around.
Your broken examples of Cuba, Sweden, and Norway are meaningless, because the situation in those countries are caused by a vast number of factors that go far beyond whether they are socialist or capitalist.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51484 Posts
Great read
I love Japan <3 and this was a great read, i will not be surprised if what the deputy prime minister has said actually takes effect in, people who need "end of life care" choose not to have it and die knowing they helped their country.
If my country was run by people who actually care about it and lead from the front, in this case the deputy prime minister saying he has already told his family he does not want the care, then i would do it too. But that would never happen in UK as all our leaders do not care about what is being left behind just themselves and what is going on "now"
Also the population to GDP is pretty good as I see a 127,817,277 for Japan and 141,930,000 for Russia, a 14,112,723 difference. Yet still out does Russia's GDP by x4!
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People can decide whether they want to die or not. Imagine if one day some guy told you your parents needed to go. Would you say yes to that?
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On January 24 2013 22:56 Dreamer.T wrote:
People can decide whether they want to die or not. Imagine if one day some guy told you your parents needed to go. Would you say yes to that?
But what if that person was paying your parent's hospital bills?
Like I mentioned in the OP, this is an icky and sticky issue. No easy answers here--but this is going to be one of the biggest tests of sociopolitical cohesion in the 21st century. It would be wise to think about it sooner than later.
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There is one point of view that I feel is missing here - and also very much every damn time this topic comes up anywhere. I will try to describe it as best as I can, but I still feel that my expressing skills in English are to weak for that ...
People say things about morality, how can we not let people die, how life should be paramount ... but only when they are confronted with these situations directly, or in discussion. At any instance when these topics are not epxlicitly brought up, they are being largery ignored - because thinking about death is not very convenient, isn't it.
So, if you consider yourself moral and ethical, why do you allow public money to be spend on anything but healthcare. People are obviously dying, so we could be doing more. Why are we building parks and renovating historical buildings from public money, when we could have put these money into healthcare? Do we consider "having nice things" more valuable then human life.
If you realise this, you have to realise, that we have already given up on the absolute morality. That we are already consciously killing ill people off. We are only not doing it by putting a bullet through their head, but by limiting the amount of effort that we put into healthcare and medical research. It looks different, but the difference is largely hipocritical.
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On January 24 2013 22:08 Doctorasul wrote:
Economics is supposed to enable us to live better lives. Some questions are hard to answer, like what is more important, paying for an incapacitated 97 year old to barely make it to 98 or funding research to find the cure for male baldness??
da fuq?
More like enhancing younger people's lives, be it something simple like having enough food to being healthy or help/cure their diseases.
i.e. Paying for a young child to live to adulthood, and hopefully, a contributing member to society.
I have no idea how the numbers will work out since I do not have the knowledge but at least I know the right direction to be moving in. I found your train of thought to be hilariously unexpected hahaha
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On January 24 2013 20:31 SamsungStar wrote:
And yes, it is a valid point. Wtf? Resource drains should be allowed to exist? Do you realize at a certain point, old people will be stealing food out of the mouths of babies? You seem to act as if it's a difference between greed and charity. It's NOT. Simple truth is there ain't enough to go around. So why the hell would the human race want to keep a few decaying sacks of meat alive long after their usefulness? You realize the human race already allows vast swathes, in fact the majority, of the human population to live in abject poverty? Oh, poor grandma is half-dead, but it'd be a crime against humanity to pull the tube out her mouth! But it's not a crime to watch 5-6 year old Ethiopian children stumbling around the dusty street with bellies distended from starvation, right?
The whole point of the monetary system is that it is a decent approximation of a person's contribution to society. When you're old, use your own money to buy healthcare. If your savings, and the incomes of your children, can't afford the level of care needed to keep you alive, that is the point you should die. The end. There is no ethical or logical justification for why society should be obligated or even willing to maintain a parasite. And that's what you are when you dip into public resources to pay for your own health. It is the height of selfishness.
All your arguments are based on emotional appeals with little to no understanding of what's actually going on.
And why exactly would it be a bad thing for your bank account to be your right to life? I don't understand this diseased mentality of entitlement. Every other living organism on earth dies when they cannot feed themselves. But what? Humans are special and entitled to a decent life as long as someone somewhere down the road decided to carry you in their belly for nine months?
Couldnt have said better myself; that is exactly my thoughts.
To add upon that it isnt the question whether or not we WANT, but rather whether or not we CAN (having such luxury rights). Because clearly like everything in eco-system, there isnt perpetum mobile where all problems get solved. You can have all the rights in the world, but in the end that doesnt ensure anything, because it is artificial.. Every artificial/legal/social/moral barrier that exists will be brought down with fire, when the question of survival of mankind will be on the line. And the sooner we do something about it, the better. That completely involves resources and allocation.
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On January 24 2013 22:56 Dreamer.T wrote:
People can decide whether they want to die or not. Imagine if one day some guy told you your parents needed to go. Would you say yes to that?
Doesn't matter what you say, if HE is the guy paying for them to live. Why would he be obligated to continue? If you want your parents to live, plenty okay - pay for it yourself.
It's a delicate matter, don't feel offended - but feel free to tell me that you would pay the hospital bills for my parents.
Of course, charity is something different, if i had the money, and was touched by something, i would pay for someone elses bills - but that's because i want to. Not because i'm forced to.
And, maybe that sound stupid (could even be wrong, even though i doubt it) - there is no advantage in letting elderly people vegetate in hospitals. In fact, you only have drawbacks. It reduces the time we have to find solutions for serious problems like water, food, energy, space. I don't say "kill them", but i would say "don't try everything to keep them alive".
If their time has come, it's time to go. And not time to plug in another device to cheat death for another couple of months, wasting money, time and ressources to, well.. What? In the end you may get a year, plugged into whatever machine. That year you got is (alot of the times) full of pain, or even worse - you don't even realize it because of medical conditions or even coma.
Don't get me wrong - i would be devastated, and i would hate the guy (even wishing him harm, to say the least) who tells me that my parents need to go - but if you're completely objective, it would be the right thing. Even if it's not for you (or me in this case).
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On January 24 2013 21:59 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 21:25 Domus wrote:On January 24 2013 20:55 SamsungStar wrote:On January 24 2013 20:49 Domus wrote:
I think that making this an age discussion is wrong/short-sighted. One 80 year old can be a lot more healthy than another 60 year old. An operation on one 80 year old could prolong life by 10 years, while on a 20 year old it could only prolong life by 5 years. I think taking someones value/productivity into the equation is even more wrong and shows a glaring flaw in neo liberalism/kapitalism. People work to live a good/better live. People dont live to provide productivity/generate money.
So, if there truly needs to be a debate about if we can "afford" to take care of our own elderly. I don't think the debate should be based on age, but on quality of life. As in, end-of-life procedures often only extend the life by a couple of months, those months are spent in a hospital instead of with family and the patient is often not happier in these last couple of months and would have been better off dying a bit earlier at home, at peace. End-of-life procedures are not age-bound. It can be the last couple of months of the life of a 20 year old cancer patient as well. These last months happen to be very expensive as well, but I still think it is up to the physician and the patient to decide if the procedure is wanted. The problem is whether or not society should pay for these operations. We wouldn't give two figs if the person could afford it on their own. You're missing the point of the debate. People work to live a good/better life, but society doesn't exist for that. Society exists to maintain a stable, mutually agreed system in which people can compete to live good/better lives. Note the compete part. It's not guaranteed. Otherwise, we would all just sit on our asses playing SC2 and letting someone else guarantee our comfortable lifestyle. That's why the Constitution says PURSUIT of happiness, not GUARANTEE of happiness. yes, that is kapitalism for you in a nutshell. Kapitalism views society as something to compete in, while a more social(ist) view is that it is society is a system to cooperate in. I prefer the latter, clearly you prefer the former. But they are world views, not absolutes, and you cant call either right or wrong. Although maybe you can call one more pleasant than the other . Actually, one is reality and the other belongs in the dreams of puff the magic dragon.
Actually, both are reality. We compete and cooperate with each other all at once. There are benefits to both you know.
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What`s the next step? Are those that cannot get jobs and therefore live on the expense of the community supposed to hurry up and die, too?
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On January 25 2013 00:44 RavenLoud wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 21:59 SamsungStar wrote:On January 24 2013 21:25 Domus wrote:On January 24 2013 20:55 SamsungStar wrote:On January 24 2013 20:49 Domus wrote:
I think that making this an age discussion is wrong/short-sighted. One 80 year old can be a lot more healthy than another 60 year old. An operation on one 80 year old could prolong life by 10 years, while on a 20 year old it could only prolong life by 5 years. I think taking someones value/productivity into the equation is even more wrong and shows a glaring flaw in neo liberalism/kapitalism. People work to live a good/better live. People dont live to provide productivity/generate money.
So, if there truly needs to be a debate about if we can "afford" to take care of our own elderly. I don't think the debate should be based on age, but on quality of life. As in, end-of-life procedures often only extend the life by a couple of months, those months are spent in a hospital instead of with family and the patient is often not happier in these last couple of months and would have been better off dying a bit earlier at home, at peace. End-of-life procedures are not age-bound. It can be the last couple of months of the life of a 20 year old cancer patient as well. These last months happen to be very expensive as well, but I still think it is up to the physician and the patient to decide if the procedure is wanted. The problem is whether or not society should pay for these operations. We wouldn't give two figs if the person could afford it on their own. You're missing the point of the debate. People work to live a good/better life, but society doesn't exist for that. Society exists to maintain a stable, mutually agreed system in which people can compete to live good/better lives. Note the compete part. It's not guaranteed. Otherwise, we would all just sit on our asses playing SC2 and letting someone else guarantee our comfortable lifestyle. That's why the Constitution says PURSUIT of happiness, not GUARANTEE of happiness. yes, that is kapitalism for you in a nutshell. Kapitalism views society as something to compete in, while a more social(ist) view is that it is society is a system to cooperate in. I prefer the latter, clearly you prefer the former. But they are world views, not absolutes, and you cant call either right or wrong. Although maybe you can call one more pleasant than the other . Actually, one is reality and the other belongs in the dreams of puff the magic dragon. Actually, both are reality. We compete and cooperate with each other all at once. There are benefits to both you know.
And I don't think they're mutually exclusive either. You can believe in capatalism as a way to govern world economics and still believe in helping eachother out and cooperating and all that 'socialist' ideal. In fact, it works like this in most of Western- and Northern Europe (the so called 'socialist states')
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On January 25 2013 00:44 RavenLoud wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 21:59 SamsungStar wrote:On January 24 2013 21:25 Domus wrote:On January 24 2013 20:55 SamsungStar wrote:On January 24 2013 20:49 Domus wrote:
I think that making this an age discussion is wrong/short-sighted. One 80 year old can be a lot more healthy than another 60 year old. An operation on one 80 year old could prolong life by 10 years, while on a 20 year old it could only prolong life by 5 years. I think taking someones value/productivity into the equation is even more wrong and shows a glaring flaw in neo liberalism/kapitalism. People work to live a good/better live. People dont live to provide productivity/generate money.
So, if there truly needs to be a debate about if we can "afford" to take care of our own elderly. I don't think the debate should be based on age, but on quality of life. As in, end-of-life procedures often only extend the life by a couple of months, those months are spent in a hospital instead of with family and the patient is often not happier in these last couple of months and would have been better off dying a bit earlier at home, at peace. End-of-life procedures are not age-bound. It can be the last couple of months of the life of a 20 year old cancer patient as well. These last months happen to be very expensive as well, but I still think it is up to the physician and the patient to decide if the procedure is wanted. The problem is whether or not society should pay for these operations. We wouldn't give two figs if the person could afford it on their own. You're missing the point of the debate. People work to live a good/better life, but society doesn't exist for that. Society exists to maintain a stable, mutually agreed system in which people can compete to live good/better lives. Note the compete part. It's not guaranteed. Otherwise, we would all just sit on our asses playing SC2 and letting someone else guarantee our comfortable lifestyle. That's why the Constitution says PURSUIT of happiness, not GUARANTEE of happiness. yes, that is kapitalism for you in a nutshell. Kapitalism views society as something to compete in, while a more social(ist) view is that it is society is a system to cooperate in. I prefer the latter, clearly you prefer the former. But they are world views, not absolutes, and you cant call either right or wrong. Although maybe you can call one more pleasant than the other . Actually, one is reality and the other belongs in the dreams of puff the magic dragon. Actually, both are reality. We compete and cooperate with each other all at once. There are benefits to both you know.
He wasn't describing competition and cooperation. He was making up some retarded parallel between "kapitalism" and the laws of scarcity, and socialism and unlimited welfare. In essence, he was making a strawman which alluded to a completely irrelevant debate. You should read more carefully. Not everything is a basic 3rd grader debate about Commies vs Free Markets, you know.
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On January 25 2013 00:45 Irrational_Animal wrote:
What`s the next step? Are those that cannot get jobs and therefore live on the expense of the community supposed to hurry up and die, too?
The fundamental difference between them and old people is that the point of assisting them is to get them on their own feet. Old people are assisted only in living longer...because they will no longer give back or really get back on their own feet after a certain point.
Not that I agree with telling old people to hurry up and die or anything but people have this gongho notion of life such that people aren't even allowed to off themselves in a hospital setting. If someone wants to die let them do so in peace.
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No.
I don't wish to live forever myself. Unless i could do so in perfect mental and physical health, thus not needing help in terms of manpower, medicine, money.
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I think it's inevitable that the elderly eventually be looked at in this realistic way. They're not supposed to live this long, so, as stated, hurry up and die. You're costing resources and time, and while it sounds dark, you're not worth anything but your memories and company.
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On January 25 2013 00:45 Irrational_Animal wrote:
What`s the next step? Are those that cannot get jobs and therefore live on the expense of the community supposed to hurry up and die, too?
This.
I cannot believe half the opinions in this thread. My goodness.
They're not supposed to live this long
I mean really? Are you serious? Says who?
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Being dead seems like it kinda sucks tbh
I mean wtf is there to do after you die? It just sounds so boring...
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No matter how efficient your healthcare delivery system, you obviously cannot provide all life-extending care without regard to cost. Efficiency doesn't solve this problem for Japan or any other country, all it does is shift where the hard choices occur from say 80 to 85 or 90. At some point cost-benefit analysis with respect to human life will apply.
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I must admit, although I sounded sceptical I think it'll be great living in world where someone can commit legal murder because they're in power. Sounds like a perfect, wonderful dystopian society. I'm also looking forward to when these people decide who can and can't have children and any unauthorized babies get killed infront of their parents as they didn't have a lisence or permission from said power to have the child.
Let's not forget the fantasmical time when only the rich get to live any form of decent life as poor people may as well die as they contribute nothing to society.
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I'm sorry, but what do you expect with mass consumption of unhealthy food and the unhealthy life style that is apparently also common in the US?
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holy check shady sands with his "seems logical" mumbo-jumbo again. and a majority of TLers failing to grant other people the right to live!
Great thread! 10/10!
[/sarcasm]
1) "Put simply, old people are now a burden because we don't have enough money in the financial system to take care of them, and because we don't have enough young people to support their overwhemlingly spendthrift consumptive habits."
There is enough "money in the financial system" to keep fighting wars, flying to mars and other things of debatable use to society, but not for caring for our old? are you serious?
Not enough young people? Has unemployment gone down suddenly?
2) your graph shows clearly that health-care-expdentiture is not really correlative to life expectancy. ofc, when nothing is spent on healthcare it stays very low, but spending much doesn't always give a high expectancy. murrica, being the best, most advanced country in the world (right? ) spends the most and still got an average life expectancy. the money isn't invested cleverly enough. i'm no expert, but i think it is because of too many different insurences and the bureaucrazy that follows this.
3) " As the elderly draw down their savings, they add stress onto the financial system and increase the cost of capital, lowering the rate of accretion for labor-saving, capital-intensive investment for workers and decreasing labor productivity--the root of a working person's prosperity."
OH NOES! The elderly draw down their savings and add stress to the financial system! They want their savings! How selfish, they wanting the money they saved and give it to the young when they want (or die), and not automatically. Incredible behaviour, they deserve capital punishment!
The decision when to leave this world should stay in the hand of the individual.
Mr Sands, congratulations on having the ultimate knowledge what hurts "the economy" and what is good for it.
Too all those denying everyone the right to live, have fun pulling the plugs from your parents. Don't forget: the sooner you do it the better!
See you all at Logan's Run, gl & hf!
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On January 25 2013 01:07 Qikz wrote:
I must admit, although I sounded sceptical I think it'll be great living in world where someone can commit legal murder because they're in power. Sounds like a perfect, wonderful dystopian society. I'm also looking forward to when these people decide who can and can't have children and any unauthorized babies get killed infront of their parents as they didn't have a lisence or permission from said power to have the child.
Let's not forget the fantasmical time when only the rich get to live any form of decent life as poor people may as well die as they contribute nothing to society.
This is such a crock of shit. How do you even write this with a straight face?
It is NOT murder to choose not to provide a limited and finite amount of care to someone who can't care for themselves. If a dozen people are at the bottom of the ocean and there are only enough oxygen tanks for 3, it is NOT murder to leave the 9 oldest and weakest behind. It is just a hard fact of life. It is necessity.
I don't know why basic kids keep trying to create these false analogies for the actual debate at hand. Do you guys enjoy wasting time spouting nonsense or are you really that bad at reading?
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On January 25 2013 00:50 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 00:44 RavenLoud wrote:On January 24 2013 21:59 SamsungStar wrote:On January 24 2013 21:25 Domus wrote:On January 24 2013 20:55 SamsungStar wrote:On January 24 2013 20:49 Domus wrote:
I think that making this an age discussion is wrong/short-sighted. One 80 year old can be a lot more healthy than another 60 year old. An operation on one 80 year old could prolong life by 10 years, while on a 20 year old it could only prolong life by 5 years. I think taking someones value/productivity into the equation is even more wrong and shows a glaring flaw in neo liberalism/kapitalism. People work to live a good/better live. People dont live to provide productivity/generate money.
So, if there truly needs to be a debate about if we can "afford" to take care of our own elderly. I don't think the debate should be based on age, but on quality of life. As in, end-of-life procedures often only extend the life by a couple of months, those months are spent in a hospital instead of with family and the patient is often not happier in these last couple of months and would have been better off dying a bit earlier at home, at peace. End-of-life procedures are not age-bound. It can be the last couple of months of the life of a 20 year old cancer patient as well. These last months happen to be very expensive as well, but I still think it is up to the physician and the patient to decide if the procedure is wanted. The problem is whether or not society should pay for these operations. We wouldn't give two figs if the person could afford it on their own. You're missing the point of the debate. People work to live a good/better life, but society doesn't exist for that. Society exists to maintain a stable, mutually agreed system in which people can compete to live good/better lives. Note the compete part. It's not guaranteed. Otherwise, we would all just sit on our asses playing SC2 and letting someone else guarantee our comfortable lifestyle. That's why the Constitution says PURSUIT of happiness, not GUARANTEE of happiness. yes, that is kapitalism for you in a nutshell. Kapitalism views society as something to compete in, while a more social(ist) view is that it is society is a system to cooperate in. I prefer the latter, clearly you prefer the former. But they are world views, not absolutes, and you cant call either right or wrong. Although maybe you can call one more pleasant than the other . Actually, one is reality and the other belongs in the dreams of puff the magic dragon. Actually, both are reality. We compete and cooperate with each other all at once. There are benefits to both you know. He wasn't describing competition and cooperation. He was making up some retarded parallel between "kapitalism" and the laws of scarcity, and socialism and unlimited welfare. In essence, he was making a strawman which alluded to a completely irrelevant debate. You should read more carefully. Not everything is a basic 3rd grader debate about Commies vs Free Markets, you know.
Seems to me that you're the one making strawmans.
When did I say anything about commies vs free market?
On the topic, I support the legalization of euthanasia for terminally ill patients. However, I also think that preventive care and the promotion of healthy lifestyles before retirement deserves more focus. It makes little sense to sacrifice your health for money when you're young just to...spend it on your health when you're old.
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It feels to me like the more we move ahead the more we end up in territory we tried to get out of. All the time spent trying to extend life and now it appears that a bunch of people believe that living a long time is too expensive and older people should hurry up and die. No matter what the cost, probably not, but currently it's a non issue almost all the time. If the cost of saving one average person that's in their 80s+ would somehow prevent treatment of multiple younger people then okay at that point the cost is probably too high.
On January 25 2013 01:10 thezanursic wrote:
I'm sorry, but what do you expect with mass consumption of unhealthy food and the unhealthy life style that is apparently also common in the US?
I don't see that being related to the thread, this is about the cost of healthy people that live to a ripe old age, not about the cost of unhealthy people.
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Being dead seems like it kinda sucks tbh
I mean wtf is there to do after you die? It just sounds so boring...
It still is better than lying in a bed, probably in pain and discomfort, waiting to inevitably die some day.
On January 25 2013 00:59 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 00:45 Irrational_Animal wrote:
What`s the next step? Are those that cannot get jobs and therefore live on the expense of the community supposed to hurry up and die, too? This. I cannot believe half the opinions in this thread. My goodness. I mean really? Are you serious? Says who?
Says who? Common sense. As has been said before, nobody is killing anyone. Get off this notion that people here are mass murderers. People die. They die sooner or later, this cannot be prevented, although it can be postponed, and in some cases, for too long.
At some point, health care stops adding quality to your life, just quantity. I read half of this thread just now and I am so tired of the 'morality heroes' coming in here and saying 'You're not god you can't decide who lives!'. The thing is, we can do a certain extend. No, we can't kill people (without being punished for it), but what we can do is stop mindlessly prolonging every single life as long as we possibly can at all costs.
We (society, tax payers, medical staff, etc) are keeping the elderly alive as long as we can. But a limit will be reached some day, wether we decide to do something about it ourselves, or wether we come to the point where we simply can't afford to keep everyone alive anymore.
Due to health care getting better, people get older. In fact, more people get much older. Two keywords right there: the amount of older people increases exponentially as, simply put, there are much more people entering the world than leaving it.
Once again, no one is asking for older people to be killed. But what in my opinion should happen in this near future is the end of mindlessly increasing the duration of people's lifes. The problem is, how do you this in a humane way?
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On January 25 2013 01:13 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 01:07 Qikz wrote:
I must admit, although I sounded sceptical I think it'll be great living in world where someone can commit legal murder because they're in power. Sounds like a perfect, wonderful dystopian society. I'm also looking forward to when these people decide who can and can't have children and any unauthorized babies get killed infront of their parents as they didn't have a lisence or permission from said power to have the child.
Let's not forget the fantasmical time when only the rich get to live any form of decent life as poor people may as well die as they contribute nothing to society. This is such a crock of shit. How do you even write this with a straight face? It is NOT murder to choose not to provide a limited and finite amount of care to someone who can't care for themselves. If a dozen people are at the bottom of the ocean and there are only enough oxygen tanks for 3, it is NOT murder to leave the 9 oldest and weakest behind. It is just a hard fact of life. It is necessity. I don't know why basic kids keep trying to create these false analogies for the actual debate at hand. Do you guys enjoy wasting time spouting nonsense or are you really that bad at reading?
I would class choosing to kill off the entire population over 80 as we supposedly cannot support them is murder. It's choosing deliberately to let someone die. Euthenasia is classed as murder for exactly that reason correct?
Also what's to stop them there. Why not just kill anyone who gets to retirement age as they're now apparently not giving to society at all and the money they put into the system doesn't deserve to go back to them? The reason the entire pension system works in the majority of countries is that you pay into it your life, to secure a healthy future for yourself when you're forced to retire.
Now going back to the not supporting people. Should my mother who is 53 die purely for the fact she is severely disabled and cannot physically work anymore? She's in constant agony the majority of the time and you're basically trying to say that as she's weak and cannot contribute to society, she should die? It sickens me that anyone can think like this. I mean, all she does is cost society money with the cost of her medication, so why should we allow her to live anymore?
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On January 25 2013 01:19 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 01:13 SamsungStar wrote:On January 25 2013 01:07 Qikz wrote:
I must admit, although I sounded sceptical I think it'll be great living in world where someone can commit legal murder because they're in power. Sounds like a perfect, wonderful dystopian society. I'm also looking forward to when these people decide who can and can't have children and any unauthorized babies get killed infront of their parents as they didn't have a lisence or permission from said power to have the child.
Let's not forget the fantasmical time when only the rich get to live any form of decent life as poor people may as well die as they contribute nothing to society. This is such a crock of shit. How do you even write this with a straight face? It is NOT murder to choose not to provide a limited and finite amount of care to someone who can't care for themselves. If a dozen people are at the bottom of the ocean and there are only enough oxygen tanks for 3, it is NOT murder to leave the 9 oldest and weakest behind. It is just a hard fact of life. It is necessity. I don't know why basic kids keep trying to create these false analogies for the actual debate at hand. Do you guys enjoy wasting time spouting nonsense or are you really that bad at reading? I would class choosing to kill off the entire population over 80 as we supposedly cannot support them is murder. It's choosing deliberately to let someone die. Euthenasia is classed as murder for exactly that reason correct? Also what's to stop them there. Why not just kill anyone who gets to retirement age as they're now apparently not giving to society at all and the money they put into the system doesn't deserve to go back to them? The reason the entire pension system works in the majority of countries is that you pay into it your life, to secure a healthy future for yourself when you're forced to retire. Now going back to the not supporting people. Should my mother who is 53 die purely for the fact she is severely disabled and cannot physically work anymore? She's in constant agony the majority of the time and you're basically trying to say that as she's weak and cannot contribute to society, she should die? It sickens me that anyone can think like this. I mean, all she does is cost society money with the cost of her medication, so why should we allow her to live anymore?
This is a huge distortion of the actual points being debated. Why are you doing this? It doesn't make your argument any more effective. In fact, it makes me want to just skip over any future post by you in this thread because what you've just said is so outrageous there's no point to continue any further.
And sadly, if you and your mom completely cannot afford to care for her and she is in agony all the time, then yes, I don't think there's much reason to keep her alive anymore. She has no quality of life, she's a drain on resources, there is no foreseeable change in her condition, what exactly would be the point to keeping her alive? To spare you emotional anguish? You do realize if we use prevention of emotional anguish as a justification for actions our society would be a giant clusterfuck right?
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If the costs of healthcare are rising, that just means that supply and demand will fulfill those needs by creating more jobs for people in the healthcare industry. There are plenty of human activities that aren't really 'productive'. But why not gradually slow down the social contract with people. Let the free healthcare have finite limits and let the old who wish to take care of themselves use some of the money they are saving by not spending.
In other words, the free market will take care of things as long as the government doesn't bankrupt itself trying to redistribute all the wealth of the young towards the old. There should be some limits on how much care the elderly can receive without paying out of pocket. If they want the best care forever eventually they should pay for it. Though I am an American I thoroughly support free healthcare, but at some point there has to come a limit. When providing for the elderly becomes a serious existential threat to the young, the social contract must change.
Our generation needs to begin to understand that now. There will come a time when we are the elderly and we will need to have some money saved up to continue our healthcare, or we must learn to live (or die) without. In my philosophy death is not something to be feared. A life well-lived will mean a death with dignity, well-earned.
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This threat makes me sad. The amount of people that would just kill off old people because they "waste time and money" is staggering. I guess it's a natural consequence of living in a consumerism society that values efficiency over everything else.
To those who do support the "hurry up and die"-motion: would you be able to go to your grand parents' house, put a gun to their heads and kill them? Would you be able to hand your children a gun and tell them "shoot me when I become too much of a financial burden?"
I mean, what the fuck is wrong with society nowadays? Do we really choose money over someone's life now? We already dump our elderly in specialised facilities the moment we can't be arsed to take care of them anymore, but now we're actually considering killing them? What has happened to respecting your elders? Are you people really claiming that your life's worth is proportionate to the amount of money you cost or add to the economy? Because if you do, you may as well kill all handicapped people, people with terminal diseases (they'll die anyway, why not kill them a couple of months or years earlier?) etc etc.
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When I can't move, eat or do anything myself. Kill me...I hate hate HATE the though of being forced to stay alive, it's retarded.
When I want to die, I'll die and fuck you.
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And sadly, if you and your mom completely cannot afford to care for her and she is in agony all the time, then yes, I don't think there's much reason to keep her alive anymore. She has no quality of life, she's a drain on resources, there is no foreseeable change in her condition, what exactly would be the point to keeping her alive? To spare you emotional anguish? You do realize if we use prevention of emotional anguish as a justification for actions our society would be a giant clusterfuck right?
So because she can't work, you're saying that she has no quality of life?
I'm confused, on one hand you seem to think that what I'm saying is wrong, but in the other you seem to be having a great time saying that anyone who doesn't provide for society has no quality of life. My mother may be in pain all the time, but she still has her mind, her emotions and at least some independance. Sure, she's not contributing by working, but she worked for at least a good 15-16 years during her life before she gave up work when she first was diagnosed with her condition after she had me.
She's never going to get better, but with medication and treatment they can try and stop her getting any worse. What I don't understand, is are you saying that somebody who is still concious, breathing and aware of what's happening around them, no matter how much pain they're in, should die, just because they don't contribute to society? There's plenty of people even above 100 who are still active and do things for their families, while also somewhat supporting themselves. Being over 80 doesn't suddenly make them entirely useless to society(which is what some people in this thread are trying to say).
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On January 24 2013 13:41 Scarecrow wrote:
I can't believe that more than half belief in the right to life, at any cost. At some point it's just not viable.
Clearly survival instinct and fear of death/non-existence at work.
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I would class choosing to kill off the entire population over 80 as we supposedly cannot support them is murder. It's choosing deliberately to let someone die. Euthenasia is classed as murder for exactly that reason correct?
This is exactly the point of this thread. Something has to change because the way we're going right now has a dead end, so stop using exactly what we're trying to change (i.e. 'outdated' laws that say euthanasia is murder) as proof.
That's part of what we're discussing here: should euthanasia remain such a problem and a taboo? The world would simply be better if we start by letting go of those who want to go.
Also what's to stop them there. Why not just kill anyone who gets to retirement age as they're now apparently not giving to society at all and the money they put into the system doesn't deserve to go back to them? The reason the entire pension system works in the majority of countries is that you pay into it your life, to secure a healthy future for yourself when you're forced to retire.
Don't get too emotional now, you sound like a 13 year old, twisting words, pulling everything out of context.
Nobody has asked for people to be killed, could you kindly f off saying that, seriously. Get this in your brain: no one is asking for murder, death 'penalties' for old age, or people to be killed.
Now going back to the not supporting people. Should my mother who is 53 die purely for the fact she is severely disabled and cannot physically work anymore? She's in constant agony the majority of the time and you're basically trying to say that as she's weak and cannot contribute to society, she should die? It sickens me that anyone can think like this. I mean, all she does is cost society money with the cost of her medication, so why should we allow her to live anymore?
Again, twisting words. The problem that the OP described is that aging people become exponentially costly to keep alive whilst not contributing anything to the society at the same time. No one has said that 'cannot work' = 'must die'.
Also, your mother is an exception. I'm sure it's safe to say that the majority of 53 year old women still lead a productive life. There is absolutely no reason to make a rule that caters to exceptions, is there? On the other hand, I would expect that the vast majority of 80+ people don't contribute to society any longer. No, this is not the point where you 'prove' me wrong with your sister's boyfriend's grandfather who is 82 and still has a job. I'm talking majority. And as is common in a democracy, the rules tend to the majority. Therefore I can tell you this: we are discussing matters concerning the (very old) eldery who (the majority of them) are no longer contributing to society.
Oh and before you lose your head again: I said discussing. I did NOT say 'let's kill all old people'.
I hope it's clear now and we can have a decent discussion.
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This threat makes me sad. The amount of people that would just kill off old people because they "waste time and money" is staggering. I guess it's a natural consequence of living in a consumerism society that values efficiency over everything else.
To those who do support the "hurry up and die"-motion: would you be able to go to your grand parents' house, put a gun to their heads and kill them? Would you be able to hand your children a gun and tell them "shoot me when I become too much of a financial burden?"
I mean, what the fuck is wrong with society nowadays? Do we really choose money over someone's life now? We already dump our elderly in specialised facilities the moment we can't be arsed to take care of them anymore, but now we're actually considering killing them? What has happened to respecting your elders? Are you people really claiming that your life's worth is proportionate to the amount of money you cost or add to the economy? Because if you do, you may as well kill all handicapped people, people with terminal diseases (they'll die anyway, why not kill them a couple of months or years earlier?) etc etc.
If changing words and pulling things out of context was a subject at university I am 100% positive you would get the highest marks of your class.
On January 25 2013 01:40 Mortal wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 01:37 frietjeman wrote:
Something has to change because the way we're going right now has a dead end...
Oh man that was rich.
I'm glad you liked it .
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On January 25 2013 01:37 frietjeman wrote:
Something has to change because the way we're going right now has a dead end...
Oh man that was rich.
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I'd just like to point out that my replies were not really replying to the OP. It was replying to people in this thread who seem to deem it that people over a certain age no longer contribute so should be left to die.
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On January 25 2013 01:42 Qikz wrote:
I'd just like to point out that my replies were not really replying to the OP. It was replying to people in this thread who seem to deem it that people over a certain age no longer contribute so should be left to die.
Your interpretation is downright idiotic. If old people can afford health care for themselves, great! If they cannot, there is no moral obligation for society to provide for them. It's as simple as that. Nobody is saying shoot all old people.
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On January 25 2013 01:42 Qikz wrote:
this thread is full of posts that no longer contribute so it should be left to die.
fix'd
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On January 25 2013 01:48 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 01:42 Qikz wrote:
I'd just like to point out that my replies were not really replying to the OP. It was replying to people in this thread who seem to deem it that people over a certain age no longer contribute so should be left to die. Your interpretation is downright idiotic. If old people can afford health care for themselves, great! If they cannot, there is no moral obligation for society to provide for them. It's as simple as that. Nobody is saying shoot all old people.
In Norway the poor and weak are prioritized more than the rest of the population - it seems. So much money used on people that are sick. But also people that pretend to be sick. All you need to do is go to a doctor and fake a migrene or back pain. Too good welfare brings more sickness than actually reducing the amount of sick people. This put the "real" sick people in a bad position.(I forgot the expression)
It's like people get happy when they get sick. Rather than getting worried that they can't work - which is how it was in the old days.
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On January 25 2013 00:23 m4inbrain wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 22:56 Dreamer.T wrote:
People can decide whether they want to die or not. Imagine if one day some guy told you your parents needed to go. Would you say yes to that? Doesn't matter what you say, if HE is the guy paying for them to live. Why would he be obligated to continue? If you want your parents to live, plenty okay - pay for it yourself. It's a delicate matter, don't feel offended - but feel free to tell me that you would pay the hospital bills for my parents. Of course, charity is something different, if i had the money, and was touched by something, i would pay for someone elses bills - but that's because i want to. Not because i'm forced to. And, maybe that sound stupid (could even be wrong, even though i doubt it) - there is no advantage in letting elderly people vegetate in hospitals. In fact, you only have drawbacks. It reduces the time we have to find solutions for serious problems like water, food, energy, space. I don't say "kill them", but i would say "don't try everything to keep them alive". If their time has come, it's time to go. And not time to plug in another device to cheat death for another couple of months, wasting money, time and ressources to, well.. What? In the end you may get a year, plugged into whatever machine. That year you got is (alot of the times) full of pain, or even worse - you don't even realize it because of medical conditions or even coma. Don't get me wrong - i would be devastated, and i would hate the guy (even wishing him harm, to say the least) who tells me that my parents need to go - but if you're completely objective, it would be the right thing. Even if it's not for you (or me in this case).
I was coming from a perspective where you'd be paying your own parents bills. Though even then, I guess some would argue that keeping people alive so long is a waste of resources even if you are the one paying for it. I think if the old person has a completely clear mind and is enjoying their lives, they deserve to live. I can understand that those who are clearly in a very severe state, where they are pretty much barely alive and in constant pain would be wasting resources if they were to be kept alive.
Like some have said, it's a tricky topic. Maybe people who have contributed to society more during their lifetime deserve to live longer? And what kind of contribution would qualify them for this position? And that's not to say people don't do this. I know many people whose parents pulled the plug on their own to save their child some money.
There is also an interesting contradiction here. One of the ultimate goals of society is to improve everyone's lives. And you know what, that's happened for many people. So if the improved quality of life results in people living longer, then that's not the old person's fault, especially if he isn't in a state of chronic pain or is incapable of doing anything what so ever.
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There is a very basic point here that everyone can agree on. If we create the hypothetical extreme case scenario, where keeping old people alive would require that we leave *many* others in crippling poverty and malnourished, likely leading to the deaths of many children and other young people for the sake of keeping a few very old people alive for a little longer, then that clearly makes no sense. The deaths of many young people should not be traded for one old person. We don't live in a utopia with unlimited resources, this is basic, common sense, and it doesn't matter what economic system you have.
The question is how bad would you allow things to get for everyone else, just to keep old people alive? Its just like donating your money to organizations assisting the poor in Africa. You could probably live with the basics (shelter, food) and survive well. If human life is so important to you, then in theory you should be willing to part with everything that you enjoy (sell computer, radio, unnecessary clothing, etc.) to donate to the poor, while you live a life of basic means (or just decide to work in Africa altogether), further donating the majority of the money you make at your job to the poor. Most people do not go to these extremes; they are willing to donate, but they don't care *so much* that they would give away almost everything they have.
Similarly with the elderly. They are becoming increasingly expensive to keep alive. So how much would you be willing to give to keep them alive? Take money out of education? Take money out of maintenance of transportation services, utilities? More likely, what tax rates would be acceptable, and how hard should people have to work for them? It bothers me that the government can make this decision for every person, rather than giving people the basic right to choose how much money they want to donate to the elderly or healthcare in general. But then again I guess voting is an okay protection.
I think this is a question of charity, and how much people would reasonably want to give. Just like supporting impoverished children in Africa, its about supporting the elderly so they can live a little longer. Its basically a grey area question, but the one obvious statement everyone can agree on is that there is a limit, like the extreme scenario I mentioned.
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This is the sort of reality no one wants to face and no one wants to have an answer to.
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On January 24 2013 14:06 IMoperator wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 13:54 alQahira wrote:
What Japan needs is a more open immigration policy. Some young fertile migrants from Indonesia, the Philippines, or even China would do wonders for the country. I volunteer to be a young fertile migrant for Japan.
I lol'd when I read that post.
On topic: Japan's immigration policy is extremely strict from what I understand.
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we will all live 100+ years if not more with the coming technological advancement. The singularity is inevitable
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United States42640 Posts
In the UK we have the National Institute of Clinical Excellence who are made up of doctors, economists, statisticians and so forth whose job it is to answer exactly this kind of question so that when NHS doctors turn round to families and say "there is a drug that could help but we won't provide it for you because it wouldn't be cost effective" they have a system to base it on.
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The problem isn't that ppl live longer. 60 year olds today are remarkably healthy compared to 200 years ago. The problem is that we need to adapt to the luxury of a prolonged life by working for a longer time. Why should ppl just sit around at home for 20-30 years awaiting their death? Not long ago, it was the norm that ppl died while working, and a lot of times as a result of working.
I'm not buying what you're saying about their health deteriorating to more and more extreme levels. My paternal grandparents didn't get any health problems until recently, in their late 80's, and if you just go back to their youth, the level of health that they maintained from 65 to 85 would have been considered a miracle. My maternal grandfather is dead, but his death was very sudden, probably stress related, so he didn't cost the society much, and my grandmother is around 75 and shows no signs of age imo. I would predict that she's got maybe 20 more years in good health.
Prolonged life comes with prolonged health. The problem that Japan might be facing soon is not how to take care of an aging population, but rather how to finance their pensions. The solution to this issue is immigration and to move the pension date forwards.
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On January 25 2013 02:23 c0ldfusion wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 14:06 IMoperator wrote:On January 24 2013 13:54 alQahira wrote:
What Japan needs is a more open immigration policy. Some young fertile migrants from Indonesia, the Philippines, or even China would do wonders for the country. I volunteer to be a young fertile migrant for Japan. I lol'd when I read that post. On topic: Japan's immigration policy is extremely strict from what I understand.
Also Japan's youth are really unreceptive to having sex/children from what I hear. Especially the females but partially the males.
Could be all the animated porn >.< and lack of desire for normal porn due to that censorship law a few years back.
The OP was very well written. I'm young so it's easy to say less social service.
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Dysthanasia come to my mind when talking about this topic here
We are always looking a way to live longer and better lifes but not just 1 of those !! Longer and a horrible life is not what I really like to spent my last days on earth...
The world right now is very diferent from what it used to be. Hundreds of years ago people try to live as much as posible but they have to worry about the condition about it because there werent the enough technology to keep that dream alive
However this times is the opposite way we can pretty much live for a long time without carring about if we are really having a normal life (staying next to a machine for the whole day , some people can even move) .
Yeah I also think they need a not so drastic inmigration policy.
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Japan, of course, is known for their high rate of suicide. To burden society or family is considered dishonorable. To die naturally is to die gracefully. The quote in the OP just reflects this attitude. Where does it stem from? It may have something do with the country's racial homogeneity and a sense of communality. Here in the US, we are a country founded by pirates, speculators and religious cults. Nobody feels any common bond, because everyone's from a different background. So everyone is more than happy to abuse the state for their own gain because they don't have any feelings for the folks around them. The idea that one would put the greater good of society ahead of their own personal gratification is the most foreign thing from the mind of an American, and a Westerner in general.
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It's so hard to get old without a cause, I don't want to perish like a fading horse. Youth is like diamonds in the sun and diamonds are forever. So many adventures couldn't happen today, so many songs we forgot to play, so many dreams are swinging out of the blue, we let them come true... I wanna live forever! + Show Spoiler +
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On January 25 2013 02:48 jdsowa wrote:
Japan, of course, is known for their high rate of suicide. To burden society or family is considered dishonorable. To die naturally is to die gracefully. The quote in the OP just reflects this attitude. Where does it stem from? It may have something do with the country's racial homogeneity and a sense of communality. Here in the US, we are a country founded by pirates, speculators and religious cults. Nobody feels any common bond, because everyone's from a different background. So everyone is more than happy to abuse the state for their own gain because they don't have any feelings for the folks around them. The idea that one would put the greater good of society ahead of their own personal gratification is the most foreign thing from the mind of an American, and a Westerner in general.
Even granted cultural differences, the fact that Aso had to walk back his statement indicates it was offensive in the Japanese context.
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"should people have the right to life, at any cost?"
if it's other people's money? hell no.
if it's your own money? live as long as you fucking want.
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Sorry, that gunshot wound is too expensive...
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"should people have the right to life, at any cost?"
if it's other people's money? hell no.
if it's your own money? live as long as you fucking want.
Sure, you're completely right to a certain extend but sadly it isn't that simply. The way you make it sound it's every man for himself. I doubt many people would like that. The question is how long we should be 'wasting' money on individuals, or rather, when is the point reached where it becomes wasting and no longer spending.
Sorry, that gunshot wound is too expensive...
Have you even read a single post in this entire thread?
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To me the issue isn't whether or not someone should have the right to life at any cost(they should), its whether or not they have the right to die. It should be up to the individual to decide if its their time to go. If they are incapacitated there should be someone who can make that decision for them, and if they haven't declared a proxy, it would be assigned to them the same way one would figure out who would inherit their wealth.
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On January 25 2013 03:55 StreetWise wrote:
To me the issue isn't whether or not someone should have the right to life at any cost(they should), its whether or not they have the right to die. It should be up to the individual to decide if its their time to go. If they are incapacitated there should be someone who can make that decision for them, and if they haven't declared a proxy, it would be assigned to them the same way one would figure out who would inherit their wealth.
How can anyone have a right to something that is impossible?
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i voted no. but would vote yes if the patient paid for the cost themselves.
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On January 25 2013 04:48 NovaTheFeared wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 03:55 StreetWise wrote:
To me the issue isn't whether or not someone should have the right to life at any cost(they should), its whether or not they have the right to die. It should be up to the individual to decide if its their time to go. If they are incapacitated there should be someone who can make that decision for them, and if they haven't declared a proxy, it would be assigned to them the same way one would figure out who would inherit their wealth. How can anyone have a right to something that is impossible?
Contrary to popular belief death is actually a real thing, not just something that happens in movies.
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On January 24 2013 20:37 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 20:08 7mk wrote:On January 24 2013 20:01 NightOfTheDead wrote:On January 24 2013 20:00 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:On January 24 2013 19:57 50bani wrote:On January 24 2013 19:43 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy I mean. Look at this. Some people are literally saying. Human life should end at the point where it's no longer good for the economy to exist. That's ludacris. It would lead to a world where you're bank account determines the right to life. (I know that in some extreme situations that's already the case, but in general it's not. And holy Fuck. It should not be the case) But do you agree that old/disabled can be a resource drain? + Show Spoiler + Do you agree that old/disabled people were not always old and disabled and many of them have contributed more to society than you or I ever will, so it maybe a bit ungrateful to just let them die, when they can't look out for themselves anymore? Yes, and are you aware that many of them want to pass away, because they are losing sanity/having constant enourmous pain? I dont know about your country, but in most developed countries usually doctors arent supposed to extend life at any cost, and palliative medicine in particular is all about relieving the patient of pain in his last weeks / months before death, so your question is rather irrelevant. If a patient doesnt want his life extended artificially all he needs to do is state so / have his will written down On January 24 2013 14:08 sths wrote:
The biggest problem with today's mainstream economic thought is the belief that a nation's actions are limited by the amount of dollars (yen,rmb etc) it has access to. This hasn't been true since the gold-standard days.
A sovereign nation with a free floating exchange rate (ie: US, Japan, Australia, NOT EU countries or countries with pegged exchange rates) can never run out of its own currencies. The limiting factor for a nation is never the amount of its own currency it can get access to but the productive capacity of the population.
Taro Aso, the finance minister, said on Monday that the elderly should be allowed to "hurry up and die" to relieve pressure on the state to pay for their medical care......The health and welfare ministry, he added, was "well aware that it costs several tens of millions of yen" a month to treat a single patient in the final stages of life.
Statements like the above shows a lack of understanding of what money is. Japan's problem isn't that they don't have the "millions of yen", its that they don't have enough doctors, hospitals, nurses etc to care for their ever growing senior population. The real cost to a nation is how much productive capacity do we dedicate to taking care of our elderly, NOT how much yen this will cost. The good news is that productive capacity can be grown. The bad news is that everyone seems to think that the government is just like a household or an individual and must "save currency" to pay for stuff.
If you ask me, dedicating a large portion of your economy to taking care of your elderly is a lot better compared to how much we currently dedicate to the entirely parasitic financial sector.
Oh and who else thinks Shady should stop making these discussion threads and go back to writing about Chinese/Japanese james bond shit. Or perhaps another chapter from his life story.
thanks for writing one of the few smart posts in this thread, so many people here have this image of "oh if you let this elderly person die, you could save a young childs life!!" which is just hilariously naive. Btw. why dont we also stop treating all disabled people in the world? And all people who cant work because of their psychiatric illness. They dont boost the economy, so we might as well just let them be in their misery without wasting money on them, right. Utterly wrong. Money and labor productivity are intrinsically connected. Money is the incentive for labor. Without money, you have no production. Wtf would people work for no money? Productive capacity is nothing but an abstract ideal. Reality doesn't work that way. A society rarely, if ever, operates at maximum productive capacity, so no, it still boils down to money because that is the most accurate representation of resources and labor supply. You can't just force people to become doctors and nurses because they have the ability. You have to grow the sector through normal economic activity and market pressures. I'm pretty sure I could handle a nurse's job, but it would take a ridiculous amount of money to convince me to become one. At the end of the day, labor markets are driven by supply and demand and those both function using money. And the logic of putting more money into elderly care because the financial sector sucks too is terrible. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Youre kind of just affirming his point that you dont really understand how money, or the health system works
"Money is the incentive for labor" - nobody said otherwise.
People wont become a doctor if they dont get proper pay, sure, noone said otherwise.
This doesnt mean that if you would put twice as much money you would have twice as many doctors, likewise would not treating elderly people not mean that you would save more childrens lives.
"You can't just force people to become doctors and nurses because they have the ability. You have to grow the sector through normal economic activity and market pressures. I'm pretty sure I could handle a nurse's job, but it would take a ridiculous amount of money to convince me to become one." Valid point, except it has nothing to do with what he is saying
"
And the logic of putting more money into elderly care because the financial sector sucks too is terrible. Two wrongs don't make a right. " He didnt really say that. He just said that this is money better spent.
Besides, what is talked about in this thread is against the ethic standard that doctors have had for thousands of years
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On January 25 2013 03:30 frietjeman wrote:Have you even read a single post in this entire thread?
This thread is about healthcare rationing; if treatment of the gunshot wound were extremely expensive and would be only partial (and leave you in a similar state to a decaying person, unable to survive without constant care), then, yes, it's comparable to end-of-life treatment. But I don't think gunshot wounds generally work that way.
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On January 24 2013 13:38 Tenshix wrote:
Next step: Japan develops immortality to prevent their entire population from dying off.
Sounds funny. But we are actually heading this way.
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On January 25 2013 05:37 Vandrad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 13:38 Tenshix wrote:
Next step: Japan develops immortality to prevent their entire population from dying off. Sounds funny. But we are actually heading this way.
lol yea because immortality is possible
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On January 25 2013 05:38 grush57 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 05:37 Vandrad wrote:On January 24 2013 13:38 Tenshix wrote:
Next step: Japan develops immortality to prevent their entire population from dying off. Sounds funny. But we are actually heading this way. lol yea because immortality is possible
It theoretically is.
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On January 24 2013 17:32 dani` wrote:
So what do you mean by 'our actions are predetermined'? You are saying there is no such thing as free will, right? If I were to suddenly decide today that I am going to emigrate to Australia you'd say that's not a spur of the moment thing but rather, was predetermined my entire life? If so, then I am very skeptical about that statement.
Regarding that 'cut-off point', yes in a (utopian) democracy the government should do what the majority of people want. Though I would be highly surprised if a majority of people would vote in favor of a law like 'no form of health care is provided to those who have passed the age of 85'.
I know I'm a little late replying to this, but whatever. Yes, there is no such thing as free will. Our actions, decisions etc have already been decided by our brain before we are conscious of making a decision. It's called epiphenomenalism, and is backed by neuroscience.
I think utopia and democracy contradict one another, but that's neither here nor there. The question is more should people be able to vote on something like this or not? If they vote against it, then we have no problem do we?
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On January 24 2013 13:42 Forikorder wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 13:40 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote:
Everyone should be allowed to decide whether or not they want to live or die, and nobody else should be in charge of that. when you put someone else in charge of keeping you alive that person should get to decide when enough is enough if someone is 100% reliant on other people to stay alive why should they get the say? why not the people actually keeping the person alive?
The same thing is going to happen to you sometime. some younger person is going to have to pay for your old ass someday. Why dont we solve your problem the same way that you are proposing it?
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Canada2068 Posts
On January 25 2013 05:38 grush57 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 05:37 Vandrad wrote:On January 24 2013 13:38 Tenshix wrote:
Next step: Japan develops immortality to prevent their entire population from dying off. Sounds funny. But we are actually heading this way. lol yea because immortality is possible
Have you seen singularityhub.com? Ray Kurzweil and his followers believe being able to upload a scan of your brain into a computer will be achieved in our lifetime and people will achieve immortality, so theoretically it's possible.
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On January 25 2013 05:31 7mk wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 20:37 SamsungStar wrote:On January 24 2013 20:08 7mk wrote:On January 24 2013 20:01 NightOfTheDead wrote:On January 24 2013 20:00 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:On January 24 2013 19:57 50bani wrote:On January 24 2013 19:43 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy I mean. Look at this. Some people are literally saying. Human life should end at the point where it's no longer good for the economy to exist. That's ludacris. It would lead to a world where you're bank account determines the right to life. (I know that in some extreme situations that's already the case, but in general it's not. And holy Fuck. It should not be the case) But do you agree that old/disabled can be a resource drain? + Show Spoiler + Do you agree that old/disabled people were not always old and disabled and many of them have contributed more to society than you or I ever will, so it maybe a bit ungrateful to just let them die, when they can't look out for themselves anymore? Yes, and are you aware that many of them want to pass away, because they are losing sanity/having constant enourmous pain? I dont know about your country, but in most developed countries usually doctors arent supposed to extend life at any cost, and palliative medicine in particular is all about relieving the patient of pain in his last weeks / months before death, so your question is rather irrelevant. If a patient doesnt want his life extended artificially all he needs to do is state so / have his will written down On January 24 2013 14:08 sths wrote:
The biggest problem with today's mainstream economic thought is the belief that a nation's actions are limited by the amount of dollars (yen,rmb etc) it has access to. This hasn't been true since the gold-standard days.
A sovereign nation with a free floating exchange rate (ie: US, Japan, Australia, NOT EU countries or countries with pegged exchange rates) can never run out of its own currencies. The limiting factor for a nation is never the amount of its own currency it can get access to but the productive capacity of the population.
Taro Aso, the finance minister, said on Monday that the elderly should be allowed to "hurry up and die" to relieve pressure on the state to pay for their medical care......The health and welfare ministry, he added, was "well aware that it costs several tens of millions of yen" a month to treat a single patient in the final stages of life.
Statements like the above shows a lack of understanding of what money is. Japan's problem isn't that they don't have the "millions of yen", its that they don't have enough doctors, hospitals, nurses etc to care for their ever growing senior population. The real cost to a nation is how much productive capacity do we dedicate to taking care of our elderly, NOT how much yen this will cost. The good news is that productive capacity can be grown. The bad news is that everyone seems to think that the government is just like a household or an individual and must "save currency" to pay for stuff.
If you ask me, dedicating a large portion of your economy to taking care of your elderly is a lot better compared to how much we currently dedicate to the entirely parasitic financial sector.
Oh and who else thinks Shady should stop making these discussion threads and go back to writing about Chinese/Japanese james bond shit. Or perhaps another chapter from his life story.
thanks for writing one of the few smart posts in this thread, so many people here have this image of "oh if you let this elderly person die, you could save a young childs life!!" which is just hilariously naive. Btw. why dont we also stop treating all disabled people in the world? And all people who cant work because of their psychiatric illness. They dont boost the economy, so we might as well just let them be in their misery without wasting money on them, right. Utterly wrong. Money and labor productivity are intrinsically connected. Money is the incentive for labor. Without money, you have no production. Wtf would people work for no money? Productive capacity is nothing but an abstract ideal. Reality doesn't work that way. A society rarely, if ever, operates at maximum productive capacity, so no, it still boils down to money because that is the most accurate representation of resources and labor supply. You can't just force people to become doctors and nurses because they have the ability. You have to grow the sector through normal economic activity and market pressures. I'm pretty sure I could handle a nurse's job, but it would take a ridiculous amount of money to convince me to become one. At the end of the day, labor markets are driven by supply and demand and those both function using money. And the logic of putting more money into elderly care because the financial sector sucks too is terrible. Two wrongs don't make a right. Youre kind of just affirming his point that you dont really understand how money, or the health system works "Money is the incentive for labor" - nobody said otherwise. People wont become a doctor if they dont get proper pay, sure, noone said otherwise. This doesnt mean that if you would put twice as much money you would have twice as many doctors, likewise would not treating elderly people not mean that you would save more childrens lives. "You can't just force people to become doctors and nurses because they have the ability. You have to grow the sector through normal economic activity and market pressures. I'm pretty sure I could handle a nurse's job, but it would take a ridiculous amount of money to convince me to become one." Valid point, except it has nothing to do with what he is saying " And the logic of putting more money into elderly care because the financial sector sucks too is terrible. Two wrongs don't make a right. " He didnt really say that. He just said that this is money better spent. Besides, what is talked about in this thread is against the ethic standard that doctors have had for thousands of years
Just what? He tried to divorce the buying power of a nation from its labor market, and then he tried to make a claim that the labor market, and the health industrial complex in particular, could simply be grown by printing more money to do so. All that supposedly mattered was the net "productive capacity" of the nation and how it was allocated. Completely ignoring the fact that nations do not live in vacuums and their labor and financial markets are integrated into a world economy, so that a nation's "productive capacity" is pretty much impossible to quantify seeing as a nation could use their money to buy the productive capacity of other nations (such as outsourcing), and export their own productive capacity to other nations in exchange for hard currency(such as trade surpluses). AKA his entire theory makes absolutely zero sense.
Oh then he decided to end his post with the claim that the financial sector is more parasitic than healthcare and therefore spending additional money (or productive capacity) on health care is justified.
The most ironic thing about his whole post is that it's couched in a patronizing manner as if nobody else understands what fiat currency is.
Which is now followed by your post... that doesn't seem to understand anything that's been said before it.
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On January 25 2013 05:52 CountChocula wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 05:38 grush57 wrote:On January 25 2013 05:37 Vandrad wrote:On January 24 2013 13:38 Tenshix wrote:
Next step: Japan develops immortality to prevent their entire population from dying off. Sounds funny. But we are actually heading this way. lol yea because immortality is possible Have you seen singularityhub.com? Ray Kurzweil and his followers believe being able to upload a scan of your brain into a computer will be achieved in our lifetime and people will achieve immortality, so theoretically it's possible.
It is still not immortality because if someone pull the plug out of the computers or erase the data or the computer goes broken, then they still die.
Immortality is literally impossible. We can at most increase our life expectancy, and that's all.
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Canada2068 Posts
On January 25 2013 06:02 Veldril wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 05:52 CountChocula wrote:On January 25 2013 05:38 grush57 wrote:On January 25 2013 05:37 Vandrad wrote:On January 24 2013 13:38 Tenshix wrote:
Next step: Japan develops immortality to prevent their entire population from dying off. Sounds funny. But we are actually heading this way. lol yea because immortality is possible Have you seen singularityhub.com? Ray Kurzweil and his followers believe being able to upload a scan of your brain into a computer will be achieved in our lifetime and people will achieve immortality, so theoretically it's possible. It is still not immortality because if someone pull the plug out of the computers or erase the data or the computer goes broken, then they still die.
immortality isn't about being invincible and unkillable. it's about being able to "live" forever granted you weren't killed by someone since you can't die from old age like every other human.
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On January 25 2013 06:02 Veldril wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 05:52 CountChocula wrote:On January 25 2013 05:38 grush57 wrote:On January 25 2013 05:37 Vandrad wrote:On January 24 2013 13:38 Tenshix wrote:
Next step: Japan develops immortality to prevent their entire population from dying off. Sounds funny. But we are actually heading this way. lol yea because immortality is possible Have you seen singularityhub.com? Ray Kurzweil and his followers believe being able to upload a scan of your brain into a computer will be achieved in our lifetime and people will achieve immortality, so theoretically it's possible. It is still not immortality because if someone pull the plug out of the computers or erase the data or the computer goes broken, then they still die.
........except you can upload your consciousness, copy it into nearly infinite amounts of clones, and spread all of them out to a vast array of servers and processor units. You can even transmit random beam pulses of information containing all the data of your personality into random directions in the universe so that one instance of your existence is hurtling at light speed through the void of space. You may not be 100% guaranteed immortal, but it would mean you have a vastly greater life expectancy and level of redundancy than a flesh body.
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On January 25 2013 01:27 SirKibbleX wrote:
If the costs of healthcare are rising, that just means that supply and demand will fulfill those needs by creating more jobs for people in the healthcare industry. There are plenty of human activities that aren't really 'productive'. But why not gradually slow down the social contract with people. Let the free healthcare have finite limits and let the old who wish to take care of themselves use some of the money they are saving by not spending.
In other words, the free market will take care of things as long as the government doesn't bankrupt itself trying to redistribute all the wealth of the young towards the old.
Actually when price goes up, two things happen. More people become suppliers of healthcare, and people demand less healthcare.
The problem is that supply of healthcare providers is extremely inelastic in the short run (and not exactly elastipc in the long run) because there are huge barriers to entry (10 years of medical training in some cases). The other problem is that demand is also very inelastic, price needs to go up significantly for them to demand less healthcare.
So when increasing demand pushes up prices, all that really happens is that prices go higher. Overall supply of healthcare is determined by the capacity of the system to produce more providers rather than price.
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On January 25 2013 06:05 ControlMonkey wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 01:27 SirKibbleX wrote:
If the costs of healthcare are rising, that just means that supply and demand will fulfill those needs by creating more jobs for people in the healthcare industry. There are plenty of human activities that aren't really 'productive'. But why not gradually slow down the social contract with people. Let the free healthcare have finite limits and let the old who wish to take care of themselves use some of the money they are saving by not spending.
In other words, the free market will take care of things as long as the government doesn't bankrupt itself trying to redistribute all the wealth of the young towards the old. Actually when price goes up, two things happen. More people become suppliers of healthcare, and people demand less healthcare. The problem is that supply of healthcare providers is extremely inelastic in the short run (and not exactly elastipc in the long run) because there are huge barriers to entry (10 years of medical training in some cases). The other problem is that demand is also very inelastic, price needs to go up significantly for them to demand less healthcare. So when increasing demand pushes up prices, all that really happens is that prices go higher. Overall supply of healthcare is determined by the capacity of the system to produce more providers rather than price.
AKA healthcare doesn't really work well according to the principles of free market efficiency, just like every other necessary good. Except for some retarded reason, the US political discourse keeps trying to pretend like it should be run by the free market, whereas nearly every other necessary good is managed by public utilities.
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On January 25 2013 06:08 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 06:05 ControlMonkey wrote:On January 25 2013 01:27 SirKibbleX wrote:
If the costs of healthcare are rising, that just means that supply and demand will fulfill those needs by creating more jobs for people in the healthcare industry. There are plenty of human activities that aren't really 'productive'. But why not gradually slow down the social contract with people. Let the free healthcare have finite limits and let the old who wish to take care of themselves use some of the money they are saving by not spending.
In other words, the free market will take care of things as long as the government doesn't bankrupt itself trying to redistribute all the wealth of the young towards the old. Actually when price goes up, two things happen. More people become suppliers of healthcare, and people demand less healthcare. The problem is that supply of healthcare providers is extremely inelastic in the short run (and not exactly elastipc in the long run) because there are huge barriers to entry (10 years of medical training in some cases). The other problem is that demand is also very inelastic, price needs to go up significantly for them to demand less healthcare. So when increasing demand pushes up prices, all that really happens is that prices go higher. Overall supply of healthcare is determined by the capacity of the system to produce more providers rather than price. AKA healthcare doesn't really work well according to the principles of free market efficiency, just like every other necessary good. Except for some retarded reason, the US political discourse keeps trying to pretend like it should be run by the free market, whereas nearly every other necessary good is managed by public utilities.
Food is an essential good, and is one of the best examples of a free market system solving the distribution and production problem.
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On January 25 2013 06:08 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 06:05 ControlMonkey wrote:On January 25 2013 01:27 SirKibbleX wrote:
If the costs of healthcare are rising, that just means that supply and demand will fulfill those needs by creating more jobs for people in the healthcare industry. There are plenty of human activities that aren't really 'productive'. But why not gradually slow down the social contract with people. Let the free healthcare have finite limits and let the old who wish to take care of themselves use some of the money they are saving by not spending.
In other words, the free market will take care of things as long as the government doesn't bankrupt itself trying to redistribute all the wealth of the young towards the old. Actually when price goes up, two things happen. More people become suppliers of healthcare, and people demand less healthcare. The problem is that supply of healthcare providers is extremely inelastic in the short run (and not exactly elastipc in the long run) because there are huge barriers to entry (10 years of medical training in some cases). The other problem is that demand is also very inelastic, price needs to go up significantly for them to demand less healthcare. So when increasing demand pushes up prices, all that really happens is that prices go higher. Overall supply of healthcare is determined by the capacity of the system to produce more providers rather than price. AKA healthcare doesn't really work well according to the principles of free market efficiency, just like every other necessary good. Except for some retarded reason, the US political discourse keeps trying to pretend like it should be run by the free market, whereas nearly every other necessary good is managed by public utilities.
To piggy back on samsungstar's point, here's an excellent study published in the archives of internal medicine on why healthcare makes for a poor "market good".
Society in general encourages the public to be savvy consumers, shopping around for the best values. But the health care industry is a unique one, the study’s scientists say, where traditional market principles do not apply. Patients — particularly those in pain and in need of swift treatment — are often in a poor position to gauge the appropriateness of their care, instead relying on the advice of medical professionals.
“Price shopping is improbable, if not impossible, because the services are complex, urgently needed, and no definitive diagnosis has yet been made,’’ the researchers wrote.
Link
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On January 25 2013 06:12 ControlMonkey wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 06:08 SamsungStar wrote:On January 25 2013 06:05 ControlMonkey wrote:On January 25 2013 01:27 SirKibbleX wrote:
If the costs of healthcare are rising, that just means that supply and demand will fulfill those needs by creating more jobs for people in the healthcare industry. There are plenty of human activities that aren't really 'productive'. But why not gradually slow down the social contract with people. Let the free healthcare have finite limits and let the old who wish to take care of themselves use some of the money they are saving by not spending.
In other words, the free market will take care of things as long as the government doesn't bankrupt itself trying to redistribute all the wealth of the young towards the old. Actually when price goes up, two things happen. More people become suppliers of healthcare, and people demand less healthcare. The problem is that supply of healthcare providers is extremely inelastic in the short run (and not exactly elastipc in the long run) because there are huge barriers to entry (10 years of medical training in some cases). The other problem is that demand is also very inelastic, price needs to go up significantly for them to demand less healthcare. So when increasing demand pushes up prices, all that really happens is that prices go higher. Overall supply of healthcare is determined by the capacity of the system to produce more providers rather than price. AKA healthcare doesn't really work well according to the principles of free market efficiency, just like every other necessary good. Except for some retarded reason, the US political discourse keeps trying to pretend like it should be run by the free market, whereas nearly every other necessary good is managed by public utilities. Food is an essential good, and is one of the best examples of a free market system solving the distribution and production problem.
....Agriculture is one of the most regulated, subsidized, and protectionist industries out there. There is absolutely nothing free about it. The reason countries regulate and maintain agriculture is exactly because it is a necessity good. Just because a few megacorps do the actual operating and management does not make it in any way free.
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I think the best system is have a certain amount of money that can be spent on health care per person per year. Say 50k or 100k a year, and be allowed to use the money up to two years in advance, if you have a serious injury etc. The rest of your health care, if you so desire can be funded by you if you can support that. If you can save 10 million by the time youre 60, well you'll be very well off.
The other thing that needs to be done is expand the health care system, to raise the supply, therefore making it cheaper, and lowering wages, because currently the salaries are very high etc, costs of health care can certainly be lowered, and that is crucial for our current society.
If this is done, many problems would be fixed, and only real consequences would be very very sick old people who can't afford it, but hey neither can we, its not like we'd be killing them.
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5003 Posts
the rational, utility-maximizing, economic agents that macroeconomic history has demonstrated we often are
This is so utterly wrong I have no idea where to begin.
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On January 25 2013 06:21 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I think the best system is have a certain amount of money that can be spent on health care per person per year. Say 50k or 100k a year, and be allowed to use the money up to two years in advance, if you have a serious injury etc. The rest of your health care, if you so desire can be funded by you if you can support that. If you can save 10 million by the time youre 60, well you'll be very well off.
The other thing that needs to be done is expand the health care system, to raise the supply, therefore making it cheaper, and lowering wages, because currently the salaries are very high etc, costs of health care can certainly be lowered, and that is crucial for our current society.
If this is done, many problems would be fixed, and only real consequences would be very very sick old people who can't afford it, but hey neither can we, its not like we'd be killing them.
How does this make sense though? I can't speak for Canada, but in the USA the average male adult makes roughly $33,000 a year.
Yet, on top of all the other gov't services and benefits this citizen receives, we're supposed to credit him/her $50 - $100,000 a year in possible health services? Of course, a person should not be using $50K every single year, but say for instance they have a terminal illness and start doing exactly that. $50k a year will eat into their total net contribution to the system extremely fast. Within 5 years, the health care costs being proposed alone would pretty much eat up all the taxes the average person has paid in their entire lifetime of working.
So who is footing the bill for this?
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On January 25 2013 04:57 zev318 wrote:
i voted no. but would vote yes if the patient paid for the cost themselves.
So you value human life by his luck of being born into a wealthy family?
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On January 25 2013 06:15 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 06:12 ControlMonkey wrote:On January 25 2013 06:08 SamsungStar wrote:On January 25 2013 06:05 ControlMonkey wrote:On January 25 2013 01:27 SirKibbleX wrote:
If the costs of healthcare are rising, that just means that supply and demand will fulfill those needs by creating more jobs for people in the healthcare industry. There are plenty of human activities that aren't really 'productive'. But why not gradually slow down the social contract with people. Let the free healthcare have finite limits and let the old who wish to take care of themselves use some of the money they are saving by not spending.
In other words, the free market will take care of things as long as the government doesn't bankrupt itself trying to redistribute all the wealth of the young towards the old. Actually when price goes up, two things happen. More people become suppliers of healthcare, and people demand less healthcare. The problem is that supply of healthcare providers is extremely inelastic in the short run (and not exactly elastipc in the long run) because there are huge barriers to entry (10 years of medical training in some cases). The other problem is that demand is also very inelastic, price needs to go up significantly for them to demand less healthcare. So when increasing demand pushes up prices, all that really happens is that prices go higher. Overall supply of healthcare is determined by the capacity of the system to produce more providers rather than price. AKA healthcare doesn't really work well according to the principles of free market efficiency, just like every other necessary good. Except for some retarded reason, the US political discourse keeps trying to pretend like it should be run by the free market, whereas nearly every other necessary good is managed by public utilities. Food is an essential good, and is one of the best examples of a free market system solving the distribution and production problem. ....Agriculture is one of the most regulated, subsidized, and protectionist industries out there. There is absolutely nothing free about it. The reason countries regulate and maintain agriculture is exactly because it is a necessity good. Just because a few megacorps do the actual operating and management does not make it in any way free.
Governments regulate, subsidise and maintain agriculture because they want to keep jobs in their country, not because people would starve if they didn't. It is not free, but it is certainly more free than many other industries like healthcare, air travel, education, finance, oil, housing, communications and electricity,
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On January 24 2013 13:39 Shady Sands wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 13:37 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
People should only have the "right" to live in these latter stages of life if they can afford it. Lord knows we can't. Keeping everyone's grandma on chemo is just becoming impossible. I mean, it would be nice if extremely expensive life-prolonging operations and medicines were available to everyone, but as life goes on these procedures become more and more expensive and give less and less time to the patient. So life-prolonging healthcare is the right of the rich? Try suggesting that in a democracy, and watch as those old people vote you out of office
life prolonging healthcare is already the right of the rich. In the United States the gap between the top 1% and the bottom 10% male longevity is now up to 10 years.
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I find that question impossible to answer, therefore you've done very well.
I believe that as long as the majority of humanity believes that there's no way round the concept of money, capitalism and unequality of wealth distribution, so long will we be forced to make heavy decisions like if we should make some individual live longer and lower the financial life quality of the general public.
If one day the majority actually realizes that we'd be better of without the concept and supremacy of money, the endless possibilities of life on earth that allows people to do things because they're useful, rahter than because they pay off, that day we will have solved questions like the one you asked.
I dont see the utopy i described happening though, and i don't know any intellectual or politician who has developed a reachable concept of a world without money yet. I'm optimistic that humanity has the intellectual capabilities to change human nature for the greater good of all or that this capability will one day be developed, even if it might require something really bad happening.
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On January 25 2013 06:44 ControlMonkey wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 06:15 SamsungStar wrote:On January 25 2013 06:12 ControlMonkey wrote:On January 25 2013 06:08 SamsungStar wrote:On January 25 2013 06:05 ControlMonkey wrote:On January 25 2013 01:27 SirKibbleX wrote:
If the costs of healthcare are rising, that just means that supply and demand will fulfill those needs by creating more jobs for people in the healthcare industry. There are plenty of human activities that aren't really 'productive'. But why not gradually slow down the social contract with people. Let the free healthcare have finite limits and let the old who wish to take care of themselves use some of the money they are saving by not spending.
In other words, the free market will take care of things as long as the government doesn't bankrupt itself trying to redistribute all the wealth of the young towards the old. Actually when price goes up, two things happen. More people become suppliers of healthcare, and people demand less healthcare. The problem is that supply of healthcare providers is extremely inelastic in the short run (and not exactly elastipc in the long run) because there are huge barriers to entry (10 years of medical training in some cases). The other problem is that demand is also very inelastic, price needs to go up significantly for them to demand less healthcare. So when increasing demand pushes up prices, all that really happens is that prices go higher. Overall supply of healthcare is determined by the capacity of the system to produce more providers rather than price. AKA healthcare doesn't really work well according to the principles of free market efficiency, just like every other necessary good. Except for some retarded reason, the US political discourse keeps trying to pretend like it should be run by the free market, whereas nearly every other necessary good is managed by public utilities. Food is an essential good, and is one of the best examples of a free market system solving the distribution and production problem. ....Agriculture is one of the most regulated, subsidized, and protectionist industries out there. There is absolutely nothing free about it. The reason countries regulate and maintain agriculture is exactly because it is a necessity good. Just because a few megacorps do the actual operating and management does not make it in any way free. Governments regulate, subsidise and maintain agriculture because they want to keep jobs in their country, not because people would starve if they didn't. It is not free, but it is certainly more free than many other industries like healthcare, air travel, education, finance, oil, housing, communications and electricity,
Just no. Protectionist policies and heavy subsidization cannot exist in a free market. Maybe AUS is different, but US agriculture is not remotely free.
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On a related note to the OP, let's pose the relevant question:
Your parents are dying, they have a terminal condition that is partially treatable, but they are incapacitated so it is your choice. Their accumulated savings are not enough and they need to put you in substantial debt to pay for it. Or you can let them die (paying just enough for a painless death) and inherit their wealth. What would you do?
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United States42640 Posts
On January 25 2013 07:10 coverpunch wrote:
On a related note to the OP, let's pose the relevant question:
Your parents are dying, they have a terminal condition that is partially treatable, but they are incapacitated so it is your choice. Their accumulated savings are not enough and they need to put you in substantial debt to pay for it. Or you can let them die (paying just enough for a painless death) and inherit their wealth. What would you do?
Ask them for advice?
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On January 25 2013 06:00 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 05:31 7mk wrote:On January 24 2013 20:37 SamsungStar wrote:On January 24 2013 20:08 7mk wrote:On January 24 2013 20:01 NightOfTheDead wrote:On January 24 2013 20:00 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:On January 24 2013 19:57 50bani wrote:On January 24 2013 19:43 Gimmeurladderpoints wrote:EDIT: also no one is proposing no health care AT ALL to old people, just that the government should not subsidise it. In fact, old people / their families spending out of their own pocket on health care is a good thing for the economy I mean. Look at this. Some people are literally saying. Human life should end at the point where it's no longer good for the economy to exist. That's ludacris. It would lead to a world where you're bank account determines the right to life. (I know that in some extreme situations that's already the case, but in general it's not. And holy Fuck. It should not be the case) But do you agree that old/disabled can be a resource drain? + Show Spoiler + Do you agree that old/disabled people were not always old and disabled and many of them have contributed more to society than you or I ever will, so it maybe a bit ungrateful to just let them die, when they can't look out for themselves anymore? Yes, and are you aware that many of them want to pass away, because they are losing sanity/having constant enourmous pain? I dont know about your country, but in most developed countries usually doctors arent supposed to extend life at any cost, and palliative medicine in particular is all about relieving the patient of pain in his last weeks / months before death, so your question is rather irrelevant. If a patient doesnt want his life extended artificially all he needs to do is state so / have his will written down On January 24 2013 14:08 sths wrote:
The biggest problem with today's mainstream economic thought is the belief that a nation's actions are limited by the amount of dollars (yen,rmb etc) it has access to. This hasn't been true since the gold-standard days.
A sovereign nation with a free floating exchange rate (ie: US, Japan, Australia, NOT EU countries or countries with pegged exchange rates) can never run out of its own currencies. The limiting factor for a nation is never the amount of its own currency it can get access to but the productive capacity of the population.
Taro Aso, the finance minister, said on Monday that the elderly should be allowed to "hurry up and die" to relieve pressure on the state to pay for their medical care......The health and welfare ministry, he added, was "well aware that it costs several tens of millions of yen" a month to treat a single patient in the final stages of life.
Statements like the above shows a lack of understanding of what money is. Japan's problem isn't that they don't have the "millions of yen", its that they don't have enough doctors, hospitals, nurses etc to care for their ever growing senior population. The real cost to a nation is how much productive capacity do we dedicate to taking care of our elderly, NOT how much yen this will cost. The good news is that productive capacity can be grown. The bad news is that everyone seems to think that the government is just like a household or an individual and must "save currency" to pay for stuff.
If you ask me, dedicating a large portion of your economy to taking care of your elderly is a lot better compared to how much we currently dedicate to the entirely parasitic financial sector.
Oh and who else thinks Shady should stop making these discussion threads and go back to writing about Chinese/Japanese james bond shit. Or perhaps another chapter from his life story.
thanks for writing one of the few smart posts in this thread, so many people here have this image of "oh if you let this elderly person die, you could save a young childs life!!" which is just hilariously naive. Btw. why dont we also stop treating all disabled people in the world? And all people who cant work because of their psychiatric illness. They dont boost the economy, so we might as well just let them be in their misery without wasting money on them, right. Utterly wrong. Money and labor productivity are intrinsically connected. Money is the incentive for labor. Without money, you have no production. Wtf would people work for no money? Productive capacity is nothing but an abstract ideal. Reality doesn't work that way. A society rarely, if ever, operates at maximum productive capacity, so no, it still boils down to money because that is the most accurate representation of resources and labor supply. You can't just force people to become doctors and nurses because they have the ability. You have to grow the sector through normal economic activity and market pressures. I'm pretty sure I could handle a nurse's job, but it would take a ridiculous amount of money to convince me to become one. At the end of the day, labor markets are driven by supply and demand and those both function using money. And the logic of putting more money into elderly care because the financial sector sucks too is terrible. Two wrongs don't make a right. Youre kind of just affirming his point that you dont really understand how money, or the health system works "Money is the incentive for labor" - nobody said otherwise. People wont become a doctor if they dont get proper pay, sure, noone said otherwise. This doesnt mean that if you would put twice as much money you would have twice as many doctors, likewise would not treating elderly people not mean that you would save more childrens lives. "You can't just force people to become doctors and nurses because they have the ability. You have to grow the sector through normal economic activity and market pressures. I'm pretty sure I could handle a nurse's job, but it would take a ridiculous amount of money to convince me to become one." Valid point, except it has nothing to do with what he is saying " And the logic of putting more money into elderly care because the financial sector sucks too is terrible. Two wrongs don't make a right. " He didnt really say that. He just said that this is money better spent. Besides, what is talked about in this thread is against the ethic standard that doctors have had for thousands of years Just what? He tried to divorce the buying power of a nation from its labor market, and then he tried to make a claim that the labor market, and the health industrial complex in particular, could simply be grown by printing more money to do so. All that supposedly mattered was the net "productive capacity" of the nation and how it was allocated. Completely ignoring the fact that nations do not live in vacuums and their labor and financial markets are integrated into a world economy, so that a nation's "productive capacity" is pretty much impossible to quantify seeing as a nation could use their money to buy the productive capacity of other nations (such as outsourcing), and export their own productive capacity to other nations in exchange for hard currency(such as trade surpluses). AKA his entire theory makes absolutely zero sense. Oh then he decided to end his post with the claim that the financial sector is more parasitic than healthcare and therefore spending additional money (or productive capacity) on health care is justified. The most ironic thing about his whole post is that it's couched in a patronizing manner as if nobody else understands what fiat currency is. Which is now followed by your post... that doesn't seem to understand anything that's been said before it.
OK you're right, a good part of his post is flawed, my bad. My main point and the part of his that I supported was that it's just not as simple as "save money not treating elders, use that money to save children" - it just really really doesn't work like that.
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On January 25 2013 06:05 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 06:02 Veldril wrote:On January 25 2013 05:52 CountChocula wrote:On January 25 2013 05:38 grush57 wrote:On January 25 2013 05:37 Vandrad wrote:On January 24 2013 13:38 Tenshix wrote:
Next step: Japan develops immortality to prevent their entire population from dying off. Sounds funny. But we are actually heading this way. lol yea because immortality is possible Have you seen singularityhub.com? Ray Kurzweil and his followers believe being able to upload a scan of your brain into a computer will be achieved in our lifetime and people will achieve immortality, so theoretically it's possible. It is still not immortality because if someone pull the plug out of the computers or erase the data or the computer goes broken, then they still die. ........except you can upload your consciousness, copy it into nearly infinite amounts of clones, and spread all of them out to a vast array of servers and processor units. You can even transmit random beam pulses of information containing all the data of your personality into random directions in the universe so that one instance of your existence is hurtling at light speed through the void of space. You may not be 100% guaranteed immortal, but it would mean you have a vastly greater life expectancy and level of redundancy than a flesh body.
That's sort of false by definition isn't it? By making it a copy of you, you're not that person, and therefore you're not going to live forever. Though I guess that brings up the question: If there were an exact replica of you, is that person you?
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On January 25 2013 06:05 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 06:02 Veldril wrote:On January 25 2013 05:52 CountChocula wrote:On January 25 2013 05:38 grush57 wrote:On January 25 2013 05:37 Vandrad wrote:On January 24 2013 13:38 Tenshix wrote:
Next step: Japan develops immortality to prevent their entire population from dying off. Sounds funny. But we are actually heading this way. lol yea because immortality is possible Have you seen singularityhub.com? Ray Kurzweil and his followers believe being able to upload a scan of your brain into a computer will be achieved in our lifetime and people will achieve immortality, so theoretically it's possible. It is still not immortality because if someone pull the plug out of the computers or erase the data or the computer goes broken, then they still die. ........except you can upload your consciousness, copy it into nearly infinite amounts of clones, and spread all of them out to a vast array of servers and processor units. You can even transmit random beam pulses of information containing all the data of your personality into random directions in the universe so that one instance of your existence is hurtling at light speed through the void of space. You may not be 100% guaranteed immortal, but it would mean you have a vastly greater life expectancy and level of redundancy than a flesh body.
That's stretching it. I wouldn't call that immortality.
Although, I guess an author can be immortal through the books they write, but I wouldn't classify that as immortality either. I would call that a "personal legacy" or something to that effect.
My definition of immortality, and I'm guessing many other people's definitions, is prolonging the lifespan of the original vessel to ceaselessness.
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I had to vote no for the right to life at any cost only because "any" could be too big of a number. I disagree with the concept of death panels, but you have to draw the line somewhere. We have a degree of responsibility to take care of others, but that doesn't mean we need to spend whatever it takes to do it.
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The question is so general, and I believe most people <25 years of age are thinking "AIN'T NOBODY GONNA PAY FO THAT" and are thinking about 90 year olds hanging on. Is there a "cost roof" for your treatment when you find out you have HIV at the age of 25? Is there one if a 40 year old mother of two finds out she got cancer? Do we say "Sorry but the medicines/treatment are way to expensive for you to live"?
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On January 25 2013 12:29 solsken wrote:
The question is so general, and I believe most people <25 years of age are thinking "AIN'T NOBODY GONNA PAY FO THAT" and are thinking about 90 year olds hanging on. Is there a "cost roof" for your treatment when you find out you have HIV at the age of 25? Is there one if a 40 year old mother of two finds out she got cancer? Do we say "Sorry but the medicines/treatment are way to expensive for you to live"?
If they are a 9,999,9999,999,999,999$ is that too much money? I understand that is a ridiculous exaggeration, but my point is you kind of have to draw a line somewhere because we only have finite resources for the world.
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Bring smoking back into fashion. That'll solve the problem.
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On January 25 2013 12:34 Ra.Xor.2 wrote:
Bring smoking back into fashion. That'll solve the problem.
Except for all of the new people that need treatment for lung cancer and emphysema...that will be expensive.
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On January 25 2013 12:36 kmillz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 12:34 Ra.Xor.2 wrote:
Bring smoking back into fashion. That'll solve the problem. Except for all of the new people that need treatment for lung cancer and emphysema...that will be expensive.
The funny thing is, if poor health choices can be proven to cost taxpayers money later, the government will have a right to ban people from making poor choices in the first place. e.g. they'd have a right to ban people from eating fatty foods, not exercising, smoking, drinking, etc.
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This is such a dark pessimistic materialistic view of the world.
The problem is not that there is not enough for everyone, the problem is that we put more value on things that on life.
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On January 25 2013 12:33 kmillz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 12:29 solsken wrote:
The question is so general, and I believe most people <25 years of age are thinking "AIN'T NOBODY GONNA PAY FO THAT" and are thinking about 90 year olds hanging on. Is there a "cost roof" for your treatment when you find out you have HIV at the age of 25? Is there one if a 40 year old mother of two finds out she got cancer? Do we say "Sorry but the medicines/treatment are way to expensive for you to live"?
If they are a 9,999,9999,999,999,999$ is that too much money? I understand that is a ridiculous exaggeration, but my point is you kind of have to draw a line somewhere because we only have finite resources for the world.
Is one persons life worth all the currency and resources in the world you mean? Most realistic people would say no, but where do you draw a line? The true question should then be how much is a life worth?
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On January 25 2013 13:01 locke42 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 12:59 solsken wrote:On January 25 2013 12:33 kmillz wrote:On January 25 2013 12:29 solsken wrote:
The question is so general, and I believe most people <25 years of age are thinking "AIN'T NOBODY GONNA PAY FO THAT" and are thinking about 90 year olds hanging on. Is there a "cost roof" for your treatment when you find out you have HIV at the age of 25? Is there one if a 40 year old mother of two finds out she got cancer? Do we say "Sorry but the medicines/treatment are way to expensive for you to live"?
If they are a 9,999,9999,999,999,999$ is that too much money? I understand that is a ridiculous exaggeration, but my point is you kind of have to draw a line somewhere because we only have finite resources for the world. Is one persons life worth all the currency and resources in the world you mean? Most realistic people would say no, but where do you draw a line? The true question should then be how much is a life worth? No, the real question is "if people in Africa who are starving could be saved for $500, do we have a right to keep some octagenarian American alive for another month for $1,000,000." The cost of a life is the cheapest life that can be saved. That's how to view it.
So the cheapest fixes gets priority? People with advanced rare costly diseases are out of luck then?
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On January 25 2013 13:04 solsken wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 13:01 locke42 wrote:On January 25 2013 12:59 solsken wrote:On January 25 2013 12:33 kmillz wrote:On January 25 2013 12:29 solsken wrote:
The question is so general, and I believe most people <25 years of age are thinking "AIN'T NOBODY GONNA PAY FO THAT" and are thinking about 90 year olds hanging on. Is there a "cost roof" for your treatment when you find out you have HIV at the age of 25? Is there one if a 40 year old mother of two finds out she got cancer? Do we say "Sorry but the medicines/treatment are way to expensive for you to live"?
If they are a 9,999,9999,999,999,999$ is that too much money? I understand that is a ridiculous exaggeration, but my point is you kind of have to draw a line somewhere because we only have finite resources for the world. Is one persons life worth all the currency and resources in the world you mean? Most realistic people would say no, but where do you draw a line? The true question should then be how much is a life worth? No, the real question is "if people in Africa who are starving could be saved for $500, do we have a right to keep some octagenarian American alive for another month for $1,000,000." The cost of a life is the cheapest life that can be saved. That's how to view it. So the cheapest fixes gets priority? People with advanced rare costly diseases are out of luck then?
Life is unfair :[ survival of the richest.
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On January 25 2013 09:41 Spiffeh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 06:05 SamsungStar wrote:On January 25 2013 06:02 Veldril wrote:On January 25 2013 05:52 CountChocula wrote:On January 25 2013 05:38 grush57 wrote:On January 25 2013 05:37 Vandrad wrote:On January 24 2013 13:38 Tenshix wrote:
Next step: Japan develops immortality to prevent their entire population from dying off. Sounds funny. But we are actually heading this way. lol yea because immortality is possible Have you seen singularityhub.com? Ray Kurzweil and his followers believe being able to upload a scan of your brain into a computer will be achieved in our lifetime and people will achieve immortality, so theoretically it's possible. It is still not immortality because if someone pull the plug out of the computers or erase the data or the computer goes broken, then they still die. ........except you can upload your consciousness, copy it into nearly infinite amounts of clones, and spread all of them out to a vast array of servers and processor units. You can even transmit random beam pulses of information containing all the data of your personality into random directions in the universe so that one instance of your existence is hurtling at light speed through the void of space. You may not be 100% guaranteed immortal, but it would mean you have a vastly greater life expectancy and level of redundancy than a flesh body. That's stretching it. I wouldn't call that immortality. Although, I guess an author can be immortal through the books they write, but I wouldn't classify that as immortality either. I would call that a "personal legacy" or something to that effect. My definition of immortality, and I'm guessing many other people's definitions, is prolonging the lifespan of the original vessel to ceaselessness.
It's immortality because the information can then be used to reconstruct you. Your information includes the quantum states and locations of every atom/sub-atomic particle in your body, so that literally a perfect replica of you can be created. Why would it matter if the original vessel continues if you can multiple perfect copies of the original complete with all your thoughts/feelings etc.
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We're now spending more taxpayer money per person in the world on healthcare, and we still have a completely broken system that bankrupts people that get sick! Also, people still die in front of emergency rooms every year because they are refused entry!
Thanks Obamacare! Thanks Obama!
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all of us nice young people saying we dont wanna live past a certain age or a certain point might be singing a very different tune when that time actually comes. all species are hardwired to survive
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I think a lot of people are missing the point.
Nobody is advocating actively KILLING old people or anything.
What they are advocating is society not being forced to pay ridiculous costs to keep them alive.
If you're 95 and need $100,000 worth of care to get you to 96, the government saying no is not "killing" you. If you have the money yourself and wanna spend it, then feel free.
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On January 25 2013 13:49 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 09:41 Spiffeh wrote:On January 25 2013 06:05 SamsungStar wrote:On January 25 2013 06:02 Veldril wrote:On January 25 2013 05:52 CountChocula wrote:On January 25 2013 05:38 grush57 wrote:On January 25 2013 05:37 Vandrad wrote:On January 24 2013 13:38 Tenshix wrote:
Next step: Japan develops immortality to prevent their entire population from dying off. Sounds funny. But we are actually heading this way. lol yea because immortality is possible Have you seen singularityhub.com? Ray Kurzweil and his followers believe being able to upload a scan of your brain into a computer will be achieved in our lifetime and people will achieve immortality, so theoretically it's possible. It is still not immortality because if someone pull the plug out of the computers or erase the data or the computer goes broken, then they still die. ........except you can upload your consciousness, copy it into nearly infinite amounts of clones, and spread all of them out to a vast array of servers and processor units. You can even transmit random beam pulses of information containing all the data of your personality into random directions in the universe so that one instance of your existence is hurtling at light speed through the void of space. You may not be 100% guaranteed immortal, but it would mean you have a vastly greater life expectancy and level of redundancy than a flesh body. That's stretching it. I wouldn't call that immortality. Although, I guess an author can be immortal through the books they write, but I wouldn't classify that as immortality either. I would call that a "personal legacy" or something to that effect. My definition of immortality, and I'm guessing many other people's definitions, is prolonging the lifespan of the original vessel to ceaselessness. It's immortality because the information can then be used to reconstruct you. Your information includes the quantum states and locations of every atom/sub-atomic particle in your body, so that literally a perfect replica of you can be created. Why would it matter if the original vessel continues if you can multiple perfect copies of the original complete with all your thoughts/feelings etc.
Because the original you would no longer be conscious. Am I missing something here?
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On January 25 2013 12:44 Shady Sands wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 12:36 kmillz wrote:On January 25 2013 12:34 Ra.Xor.2 wrote:
Bring smoking back into fashion. That'll solve the problem. Except for all of the new people that need treatment for lung cancer and emphysema...that will be expensive. The funny thing is, if poor health choices can be proven to cost taxpayers money later, the government will have a right to ban people from making poor choices in the first place. e.g. they'd have a right to ban people from eating fatty foods, not exercising, smoking, drinking, etc.
Or it could simply do nothing about your health, - just hurry up and die, - when you get into such condition, because it was your choice (if it can be proven what was the cause, which is highly unlikely).
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On January 25 2013 15:45 NightOfTheDead wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 12:44 Shady Sands wrote:On January 25 2013 12:36 kmillz wrote:On January 25 2013 12:34 Ra.Xor.2 wrote:
Bring smoking back into fashion. That'll solve the problem. Except for all of the new people that need treatment for lung cancer and emphysema...that will be expensive. The funny thing is, if poor health choices can be proven to cost taxpayers money later, the government will have a right to ban people from making poor choices in the first place. e.g. they'd have a right to ban people from eating fatty foods, not exercising, smoking, drinking, etc. Or it could simply do nothing about your health, - just hurry up and die, - when you get into such condition, because it was your choice (if it can be proven what was the cause, which is highly unlikely).
Nah, the government wants to keep you alive, working, and paying taxes. All that hinges on you remaining healthy.
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An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, unless soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing for every tatter in its mortal dress.
-William Butler Yeats
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Sure one can choose when to die, but I dont think its right to try to impose your worldview unto others, and to me this qualifies as such.
Things like this is why we need to abandon countryhood and form a gargantual world government, where all the youngsters in africa and etc... can contribute for the elderly everywhere.
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poor countries can't afford that shit
rich countries get 'greedy' because they have the means
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On January 25 2013 16:57 D10 wrote:
Sure one can choose when to die, but I dont think its right to try to impose your worldview unto others, and to me this qualifies as such.
Things like this is why we need to abandon countryhood and form a gargantual world government, where all the youngsters in africa and etc... can contribute for the elderly everywhere.
I think it's not so much of imposing one's worldviews on others. If the topic of discussion was euthanasia then I would fully agree with you. This is more of a choice: the government has X amount of tax money, if it spends more on healthcare for the elderly then it has less for education/roads etc. A point of balance has to be found somewhere, what remains is discussion as to where that point should lie.
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The cost of the older generation is immense as is their will to keep on living. I can tell from first hand. Working in a orthopaedic practice means 90% elderly people. I don't blame them for it [will to keep on living]. Our society offers the possibility to extend your life for increasingly long periods of time and if they want to keep going, they have all right to do so. Remember the demographics pyramid? (I'm sure you learnt about that in school). It's now a fucking demographics bucket that keeps getting wider at the top. What is inherently wrong with how this all works is that the upcoming generations are paying for it (as good as they can). It is like taking a loan from the future with no way to ever pay it back.
Another aspect of the problem is that the concept of family and social care has changed a lot during the last 100 years. It used to be normal for 3 generations of a family to live together where the young would take care of the old etc. A lot of the social functions a family used to fulfill are now spread among governmental organisations.
Here is a blog entry I wrote a few weeks ago about my work. It is very relevant:
On January 01 2013 23:32 JOJOsc2news wrote:Garden Work 82-year old patient presents himself with pain in the right hip area, spreading to his right thigh and to the sacroiliac joint. Patient tells me he injured himself while working in his garden. When I think I'm done with the medical history, the patient leans forward and whispers "I can tell you, but don't tell the doctor. It wasn't really garden work you know. I made love to my wife and sometimes you injure yourself during love making [smirks]"Patient was 82-years old, 45 years married. I will not forget the glow in his eyes when spoke of his wife and the smirk on his face when he told the doctor about his garden work. Needless to say this made my day. When I left the treatment room I thought "Goddammit - when I'm 82, I wanna be like this guy."
This was 3 months ago. Patient has, since then, received medication, physical therapy and intraarticular injections. Patient has no symptoms anymore.
Link to the blog
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The problem with voting that people should have the right to live at any cost, is that at some point this cost will drain directly on the life quality of other people. The mentality that life is sacred and that humans should be allowed to live as long as they want, will eventually end up causing much more suffering to other people.
Sometimes you sadly have to do something cruel with your own hands, in order to avoid something more cruel done because you did not interfere.
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They should be allowed to recieve treatment if they have something left to live for, obviously.
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I died a little bit inside when I read that more than half of teamliquid things that people shouldn't have right to live if it's not financially viable...
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On January 26 2013 00:39 edlover420 wrote:
I died a little bit inside when I read that more than half of teamliquid things that people shouldn't have right to live if it's not financially viable...
The right to live is the most fundamental human right.
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On January 25 2013 15:00 Arcadia92 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 13:49 SamsungStar wrote:On January 25 2013 09:41 Spiffeh wrote:On January 25 2013 06:05 SamsungStar wrote:On January 25 2013 06:02 Veldril wrote:On January 25 2013 05:52 CountChocula wrote:On January 25 2013 05:38 grush57 wrote:On January 25 2013 05:37 Vandrad wrote:On January 24 2013 13:38 Tenshix wrote:
Next step: Japan develops immortality to prevent their entire population from dying off. Sounds funny. But we are actually heading this way. lol yea because immortality is possible Have you seen singularityhub.com? Ray Kurzweil and his followers believe being able to upload a scan of your brain into a computer will be achieved in our lifetime and people will achieve immortality, so theoretically it's possible. It is still not immortality because if someone pull the plug out of the computers or erase the data or the computer goes broken, then they still die. ........except you can upload your consciousness, copy it into nearly infinite amounts of clones, and spread all of them out to a vast array of servers and processor units. You can even transmit random beam pulses of information containing all the data of your personality into random directions in the universe so that one instance of your existence is hurtling at light speed through the void of space. You may not be 100% guaranteed immortal, but it would mean you have a vastly greater life expectancy and level of redundancy than a flesh body. That's stretching it. I wouldn't call that immortality. Although, I guess an author can be immortal through the books they write, but I wouldn't classify that as immortality either. I would call that a "personal legacy" or something to that effect. My definition of immortality, and I'm guessing many other people's definitions, is prolonging the lifespan of the original vessel to ceaselessness. It's immortality because the information can then be used to reconstruct you. Your information includes the quantum states and locations of every atom/sub-atomic particle in your body, so that literally a perfect replica of you can be created. Why would it matter if the original vessel continues if you can multiple perfect copies of the original complete with all your thoughts/feelings etc. Because the original you would no longer be conscious. Am I missing something here?
Biology considers immortality as being unable to die from age, and a species of jellyfish alleready has this ability, its mature form can change to its child form and repeat this process infinitely.
Other creatures like the lobster also show no decline from aging and many scientists believe them to be immortal as well, only dying from other sources like well, being eaten.
Some trees (not animals, but still rather large living things) also seem immortal, some having lived several thousand years.
To put it clearly, immortality is considered not dying from age, not being unable to die.
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On January 24 2013 13:50 Forikorder wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 13:44 MysteryMeat1 wrote:
I dont want to live past 80. Actually i don't want to live past the age where i can't do anything. For some people like my grandpa who is 85 and can walk fine as long as he has a cane. Thats fine but the moment i can't get out of the house put me out of my misery. for me as long as i can still function on my own (get out of bed get dressed eat e.t.c) even if im living in a home in a wheelchair im fine but if im perma-hospitilized and cant do anything without a nurse thats the end for me
Unfortunately once you reach a certain point and are unable to pull the trigger, most places prevent anyone from helping you. So your only way to die is from thirst, hunger or infection. Although the last 48 hours are made better by some good ol heroin, its still a lot of time lying in your own excrement doing fuck all and probably aching a load.
Need to hurry up and give people a choice and accept that there isn't the money to deal with infinite life support.
I know my hospital would be almost empty if everyone above 80 died.
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If families adopted a more communal kind of social structure, where generations and maybe neighbors lived together and took care of each other, there would be much less need for so much elderly care. I plan to take care of my parents and my family when the time comes. If I can't spend the prime of my life taking care of my entire family, I would have no right to ask it of my children.
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This is why more recources needs to go into tissue regeneration and stem cell research.
If we can make them young again, they can work, and all problems will be solved.
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On January 26 2013 02:17 KungKras wrote:
This is why more recources needs to go into tissue regeneration and stem cell research.
If we can make them young again, they can work, and all problems will be solved.
We do have a problem with too many jobs and not enough workers and underpopulation.
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On January 26 2013 02:31 ddrddrddrddr wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 02:17 KungKras wrote:
This is why more recources needs to go into tissue regeneration and stem cell research.
If we can make them young again, they can work, and all problems will be solved. We do have a problem with too many jobs and not enough workers and underpopulation.
Yeah, America def has that problem. We've got jobs coming out the ears and just not enough people to fill them all.
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America, like every other country, has need of highly competent people. If old folks have spent their lives improving at a trade, and can adapt to the newer requirements of that trade, they should be very valuable indeed...
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On January 26 2013 02:31 ddrddrddrddr wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 02:17 KungKras wrote:
This is why more recources needs to go into tissue regeneration and stem cell research.
If we can make them young again, they can work, and all problems will be solved. We do have a problem with too many jobs and not enough workers and underpopulation.
I have heard this a lot and I have yet to see a verifiable source. It seems like BS to me. Companies aren't willing to train/mentor people anymore and wages are going down. If there was an abundance of jobs and too few workers wages would be increasing not decreasing unless you had some serious collusion going on.
Also, since medical costs keep rising where is the money going? Its not like the issue is non-renewable resources being used. There are obviously people making a disproportionately large profit as costs are increasing. I get that its a bit of a supply/demand issue now that we a large portion of our population reaching old age but it still doesnt make sense why everything is increasing, especially things like doctors office visits and urgent care visits.
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Until I lose consciousness, nobody's taking my life. It's not because of a government never prepared for the aging of the population and now has no more money to give to the healthcare system that they should push old persons to go kill themselves for the society. It does reflect the Japan culture though.
And for the association between health spent vs life expectancy, it's a matter of health inequalities and culture in the population rather than having cheaper and better "technology". It's not some really specific heart surgery machine that will change the mean life expectancy of a population, it's eating habits, stress, smoking, etc.
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On January 28 2013 00:53 nihlon wrote:[PenaltyB]On January 26 2013 00:42 JOJOsc2news wrote: Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 00:39 edlover420 wrote:
I died a little bit inside when I read that more than half of teamliquid things that people shouldn't have right to live if it's not financially viable... The right to live is the most fundamental human right. [/B]
How do you justify the death penalty then?[/QUOTE]
It is unjustifiable in my opinion. What makes you think I would justify the death penalty?
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i think the OP really should have a poll asking if we have the right to death, not the right to life. really it comes down to the elderly population's ability to decide for themself if they want to continue living, not the rest of us.
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On January 28 2013 00:58 StayPhrosty wrote:
i think the OP really should have a poll asking if we have the right to death, not the right to life. really it comes down to the elderly population's ability to decide for themself if they want to continue living, not the rest of us.
Euthanasia would be a whole different discussion that warrants an entire thread for itself. For this discussion, the poll is alright even though it is not very useful in the end because it isn't exactly clear what each option entails as you can see by Barrin's comment just a few above yours.
On January 28 2013 00:30 Barrin wrote:Duh. (If they pay for it, voted no.)
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The biggest problem I have with this is that it would start a slippery slope to bigger things. So most people's reasoning here is that it's expensive to keep people alive and they're unproductive, thus they don't really have a right to life anymore. What if we were to change "old people" to "disabled people"? I mean they're also expensive to keep alive and depending on the illness also unproductive. So what's to stop people deciding that these people don't deserve treatment either?
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If people want these life prolonging treatments, they should be paying out of pocket. Medicare should be a flat rate, if you messed up and took shitty care of your body, then society shouldnt be liable.
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On January 28 2013 01:44 Dagan159 wrote:
If people want these life prolonging treatments, they should be paying out of pocket. Medicare should be a flat rate, if you messed up and took shitty care of your body, then society shouldnt be liable.
I hope you never have health issues in your life.
If everyone in our society behaved like you the world would be a really shitty place.
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On January 28 2013 01:44 Dagan159 wrote:
If people want these life prolonging treatments, they should be paying out of pocket. Medicare should be a flat rate, if you messed up and took shitty care of your body, then society shouldnt be liable.
I didn't realize we lived in a fair universe where all diseases only happen to people that did bad things. Or the obese.
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Honestly, why should anyone have a right to live? Especially you Team Liquid posters! Old or young, neither do anything worthwhile in their life.
User was temp banned for this post.
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On January 28 2013 02:15 Nightfall.589 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 01:44 Dagan159 wrote:
If people want these life prolonging treatments, they should be paying out of pocket. Medicare should be a flat rate, if you messed up and took shitty care of your body, then society shouldnt be liable. I didn't realize we lived in a fair universe where all diseases only happen to people that did bad things. Or the obese.
If the obesity is self inflicted (ie not diesese related) then that person is ASKING to have health issues. It is not hard to take care of yourself.
Most sane people put away money in case they get sick or buy insurance.
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On January 28 2013 02:45 Dagan159 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 02:15 Nightfall.589 wrote:On January 28 2013 01:44 Dagan159 wrote:
If people want these life prolonging treatments, they should be paying out of pocket. Medicare should be a flat rate, if you messed up and took shitty care of your body, then society shouldnt be liable. I didn't realize we lived in a fair universe where all diseases only happen to people that did bad things. Or the obese. If the obesity is self inflicted (ie not diesese related) then that person is ASKING to have health issues. It is not hard to take care of yourself. Most sane people put away money in case they get sick or buy insurance.
If you have a chronic condition its not really insurance now is it? Do you know how expensive insurance is for someone who is 70 years old? or who has a history of health problems (cancer, etc) ? lol
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I understand the side of the argument that elderly people can become a burden on society. The thing that scares me is when our society begins to decide what groups of people should live or not. When society determines a persons worth based on consumption and production I think that the value of human life is largely minimized. Already the elderly are extremely marginalized and forgotten, our nursing homes are a testament to that.
This is also the train of thought or reasoning that can lead to atrocities like the holocaust. Hitler not only killed Jews but also eliminated many of the undesirables of his time. Of course this is an extreme but we cannot forget what people are capable when given a lot of power.
My personal opinion is that we as a society should work harder at taking care of our own elders. Just as they took care of us when we were younger and needed there help, when there time of need has come we should step up and return the favor. Another question to ask is why does our government need to take on the responsibility of caring for our elders? Society often sees old people as a useless burden, but 60+ years of life experience might teach us something more valuable than how to be a good producer and consumer.
This is speaking to the state of the elderly in the U.S.
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On January 28 2013 03:13 ChiknAdobo wrote:
I understand the side of the argument that elderly people can become a burden on society. The thing that scares me is when our society begins to decide what groups of people should live or not. When society determines a persons worth based on consumption and production I think that the value of human life is largely minimized. Already the elderly are extremely marginalized and forgotten, our nursing homes are a testament to that.
This is also the train of thought or reasoning that can lead to atrocities like the holocaust. Hitler not only killed Jews but also eliminated many of the undesirables of his time. Of course this is an extreme but we cannot forget what people are capable when given a lot of power.
My personal opinion is that we as a society should work harder at taking care of our own elders. Just as they took care of us when we were younger and needed there help, when there time of need has come we should step up and return the favor. Another question to ask is why does our government need to take on the responsibility of caring for our elders? Society often sees old people as a useless burden, but 60+ years of life experience might teach us something more valuable than how to be a good producer and consumer.
This is speaking to the state of the elderly in the U.S.
The government isnt decideding if people should die, its just not gonna give them free money to live. Allowing government to give this free money is in effect growing the power of government so your hitler analagy is pretty silly.
I would rather an individual save the money for retirement themselves rather than everybody dumping money in a pool for the government to dish out.
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On January 28 2013 03:25 Dagan159 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 03:13 ChiknAdobo wrote:
I understand the side of the argument that elderly people can become a burden on society. The thing that scares me is when our society begins to decide what groups of people should live or not. When society determines a persons worth based on consumption and production I think that the value of human life is largely minimized. Already the elderly are extremely marginalized and forgotten, our nursing homes are a testament to that.
This is also the train of thought or reasoning that can lead to atrocities like the holocaust. Hitler not only killed Jews but also eliminated many of the undesirables of his time. Of course this is an extreme but we cannot forget what people are capable when given a lot of power.
My personal opinion is that we as a society should work harder at taking care of our own elders. Just as they took care of us when we were younger and needed there help, when there time of need has come we should step up and return the favor. Another question to ask is why does our government need to take on the responsibility of caring for our elders? Society often sees old people as a useless burden, but 60+ years of life experience might teach us something more valuable than how to be a good producer and consumer.
This is speaking to the state of the elderly in the U.S. The government isnt decideding if people should die, its just not gonna give them free money to live. Allowing government to give this free money is in effect growing the power of government so your hitler analagy is pretty silly. I would rather an individual save the money for retirement themselves rather than everybody dumping money in a pool for the government to dish out.
This is clearly the same thing lol. And it isnt free money. People paid into this over the course of the lifetimes (depending on their job etc)
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On January 28 2013 03:25 Dagan159 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 03:13 ChiknAdobo wrote:
I understand the side of the argument that elderly people can become a burden on society. The thing that scares me is when our society begins to decide what groups of people should live or not. When society determines a persons worth based on consumption and production I think that the value of human life is largely minimized. Already the elderly are extremely marginalized and forgotten, our nursing homes are a testament to that.
This is also the train of thought or reasoning that can lead to atrocities like the holocaust. Hitler not only killed Jews but also eliminated many of the undesirables of his time. Of course this is an extreme but we cannot forget what people are capable when given a lot of power.
My personal opinion is that we as a society should work harder at taking care of our own elders. Just as they took care of us when we were younger and needed there help, when there time of need has come we should step up and return the favor. Another question to ask is why does our government need to take on the responsibility of caring for our elders? Society often sees old people as a useless burden, but 60+ years of life experience might teach us something more valuable than how to be a good producer and consumer.
This is speaking to the state of the elderly in the U.S. The government isnt decideding if people should die, its just not gonna give them free money to live. Allowing government to give this free money is in effect growing the power of government so your hitler analagy is pretty silly. I would rather an individual save the money for retirement themselves rather than everybody dumping money in a pool for the government to dish out.
Except it isn't free money, and most elderly and middle aged Americans about ready to enter the most costly age in medical terms have been paying into the social safety net all along, meaning you want to effectively rob them of their lifetime contributions because of some vague fear of the government. To be frank, no one cares that you "would rather an individual save the money for retirement themselves", the reality we live in makes such a declaration rather childish and narrow. Sure, personal responsibility is a worthwhile notion, but it isn't altogether that relevant when discussing how we change the social safety net without totally fucking over an entire portion of the population that has been contributing to our society in good faith.
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I always wonder if health care costs include prescription drugs and medicine. If so, I hope they are factoring it in by production costs and not market value considering pharmaceutical companies like to charge ridiculously high amounts for their drugs. If the government wanted to help out with health care and life expectancy they should be investing in medical science and research. That way instead of bleeding costs they are actually fighting to make the system more efficient as a whole while not helping any particular age group more than another.
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On January 28 2013 03:29 Sadist wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 03:25 Dagan159 wrote:On January 28 2013 03:13 ChiknAdobo wrote:
I understand the side of the argument that elderly people can become a burden on society. The thing that scares me is when our society begins to decide what groups of people should live or not. When society determines a persons worth based on consumption and production I think that the value of human life is largely minimized. Already the elderly are extremely marginalized and forgotten, our nursing homes are a testament to that.
This is also the train of thought or reasoning that can lead to atrocities like the holocaust. Hitler not only killed Jews but also eliminated many of the undesirables of his time. Of course this is an extreme but we cannot forget what people are capable when given a lot of power.
My personal opinion is that we as a society should work harder at taking care of our own elders. Just as they took care of us when we were younger and needed there help, when there time of need has come we should step up and return the favor. Another question to ask is why does our government need to take on the responsibility of caring for our elders? Society often sees old people as a useless burden, but 60+ years of life experience might teach us something more valuable than how to be a good producer and consumer.
This is speaking to the state of the elderly in the U.S. The government isnt decideding if people should die, its just not gonna give them free money to live. Allowing government to give this free money is in effect growing the power of government so your hitler analagy is pretty silly. I would rather an individual save the money for retirement themselves rather than everybody dumping money in a pool for the government to dish out. This is clearly the same thing lol. And it isnt free money. People paid into this over the course of the lifetimes (depending on their job etc)
No it is not the same thing. If a person was productive their entire life and has large reserves of money then the government has absolutely no right to say that person should not be able to spend that money to extend their life. Yes people pay into it, but if you follow the issue at all then you know that the program operates under a defeceit. The money coming out isnt covered by the money going in. So some people are getting more out of it then they put in. Hence free money.
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Young people are so entitled.
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Their is no such thing as a right. You are entitled nothing.
You aren't alive because you're special-- you're a live because two people had sex. Your existence is just another meaningless part of the inexorable universe.
Of course people shouldn't have the right to life.
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On January 28 2013 03:48 decado90 wrote:
Their is no such thing as a right. You are entitled nothing.
You aren't alive because you're special-- you're a live because two people had sex. Your existence is just another meaningless part of the inexorable universe.
Of course people shouldn't have the right to life.
Two people having sex can be very special. Just ask the last girl I took to wine night.
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On January 28 2013 03:51 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 03:48 decado90 wrote:
Their is no such thing as a right. You are entitled nothing.
You aren't alive because you're special-- you're a live because two people had sex. Your existence is just another meaningless part of the inexorable universe.
Of course people shouldn't have the right to life. Two people having sex can be very special. Just ask the last girl I took to wine night.
I'll be sure to ask her about the other man she left with that night, farva :O
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On January 28 2013 03:52 MountainDewJunkie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 03:51 farvacola wrote:On January 28 2013 03:48 decado90 wrote:
Their is no such thing as a right. You are entitled nothing.
You aren't alive because you're special-- you're a live because two people had sex. Your existence is just another meaningless part of the inexorable universe.
Of course people shouldn't have the right to life. Two people having sex can be very special. Just ask the last girl I took to wine night. I'll be sure to ask her about the other man she left with that night, farva :O
As long as the night was special and the dude paid his taxes, 'sall good.
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That's modern medicine. Advances that keep people alive that should have died a long time ago, back when they lost what made them people.
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On January 28 2013 03:34 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 03:25 Dagan159 wrote:On January 28 2013 03:13 ChiknAdobo wrote:
I understand the side of the argument that elderly people can become a burden on society. The thing that scares me is when our society begins to decide what groups of people should live or not. When society determines a persons worth based on consumption and production I think that the value of human life is largely minimized. Already the elderly are extremely marginalized and forgotten, our nursing homes are a testament to that.
This is also the train of thought or reasoning that can lead to atrocities like the holocaust. Hitler not only killed Jews but also eliminated many of the undesirables of his time. Of course this is an extreme but we cannot forget what people are capable when given a lot of power.
My personal opinion is that we as a society should work harder at taking care of our own elders. Just as they took care of us when we were younger and needed there help, when there time of need has come we should step up and return the favor. Another question to ask is why does our government need to take on the responsibility of caring for our elders? Society often sees old people as a useless burden, but 60+ years of life experience might teach us something more valuable than how to be a good producer and consumer.
This is speaking to the state of the elderly in the U.S. The government isnt decideding if people should die, its just not gonna give them free money to live. Allowing government to give this free money is in effect growing the power of government so your hitler analagy is pretty silly. I would rather an individual save the money for retirement themselves rather than everybody dumping money in a pool for the government to dish out. To be frank, no one cares that you "would rather an individual save the money for retirement themselves", the reality we live in makes such a declaration rather childish and narrow.
Why. Our current system is people paying as they go into a system, then that system giving them their money back later in life. Minus of course the cost of it going through washington and all the fees that entails. I would rather people just be mandated to have health insurance and leave it at that.
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We can't just let old people die and here is why - the economy would suffer. We are all going to get old - we are all going to die - the question is the when and how we die. Most of hope to live to a ripe old age. And all of us I'm sure want to be relatively healthy when we start getting near the end of our lives. If we suddenly adopted the "screw you if you have no money to take care of yourself if you get old and sick", how do you think that would affect humanity's economic behavior? Most of us living in high GDP countries have a good statistical chance of living past 70. If I'm going to live past 70 (or my parents) I'm not going to be spending money and instead I'll be saving my money to pay for my care or my parent's care. I know I have to die but I want to die with some dignity and not like a gutter-rat in a cold empty street.
This policy of "just let them die" would essentially remove money from the economy causing markets to crash or grow slowly because people would start hoarding money for healthcare/end-of-life care. In the US we are trying to cut the cost of healthcare for many reasons but part of the reason is that the spiraling cost of healthcare is a serious economic threat. The money spent on healthcare means less money for other industries. And even if you took a "I don't care about aging I'm blowing it all now" attitude, it doesn't mean your kids, if you have any, will let you just die or suffer in a hospital. Your kids would try to pay for your care. Your children's money will be spent on healthcare thereby siphoning money from other businesses vital to sustaining our standard of living. And even if you had no one or no money for healthcare, and we let you die, we still have to provide for the proper disposal of your body - it's not like we are going to let your corpse just rot and spread disease - someone will need to pay for the disposal.
And in an information based economy being old isn't bad. As long as your mind is sharp you can still contribute greatly to society - even if you are sucking up some dollars from dialysis treatment, heart bypass surgery, etc. In all honestly we are all expendable because we can all be replaced by someone else therefore there is no need to spend money to prolong any individual life - we should only be spending money on diseases that cause pandemics/mass deaths since that hurts GDP. See what a slippery slope we can get into when we start basing healthcare decisions on someone's productivity?
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^This is some truly atrocious logic.
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You can't just kill those old people, okay? Yes, they deserve to live. You wouldn't want to be euthanized just because you got cancer and the government didn't want to pay for your treatment.
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The sickest part is that some of the youth is complaining about the costs of health for the older, or just the straight up old. How convenient, that those who are in the healthiest span of years in their life, think they can determine in an unbiased manner how to deal with health treatment and costs of age groups that are at much higher risk! I especially dismiss these people when someone utters something related to social Darwinism, which they would advocate for because they aren't the ones who be cut down.
How many of you will change your tune when you age...
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On January 28 2013 04:36 MountainDewJunkie wrote:
The sickest part is that some of the youth is complaining about the costs of health for the older, or just the straight up old. How convenient, that those who are in the healthiest span of years in their life, think they can determine in an unbiased manner how to deal with health treatment and costs of age groups that are at much higher risk! I especially dismiss these people when someone utters something related to social Darwinism, which they would advocate for because they aren't the ones who be cut down.
How many of you will change your tune when you age...
And there's the rub: how do you keep a state-sponsored healthcare system running in the face of rising healthcare costs? How do you run a program of institutionalized altruism?
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On January 28 2013 04:12 Campitor wrote:
We can't just let old people die and here is why - the economy would suffer. We are all going to get old - we are all going to die - the question is the when and how we die. Most of hope to live to a ripe old age. And all of us I'm sure want to be relatively healthy when we start getting near the end of our lives. If we suddenly adopted the "screw you if you have no money to take care of yourself if you get old and sick", how do you think that would affect humanity's economic behavior? Most of us living in high GDP countries have a good statistical chance of living past 70. If I'm going to live past 70 (or my parents) I'm not going to be spending money and instead I'll be saving my money to pay for my care or my parent's care. I know I have to die but I want to die with some dignity and not like a gutter-rat in a cold empty street.
This policy of "just let them die" would essentially remove money from the economy causing markets to crash or grow slowly because people would start hoarding money for healthcare/end-of-life care. In the US we are trying to cut the cost of healthcare for many reasons but part of the reason is that the spiraling cost of healthcare is a serious economic threat. The money spent on healthcare means less money for other industries. And even if you took a "I don't care about aging I'm blowing it all now" attitude, it doesn't mean your kids, if you have any, will let you just die or suffer in a hospital. Your kids would try to pay for your care. Your children's money will be spent on healthcare thereby siphoning money from other businesses vital to sustaining our standard of living. And even if you had no one or no money for healthcare, and we let you die, we still have to provide for the proper disposal of your body - it's not like we are going to let your corpse just rot and spread disease - someone will need to pay for the disposal.
And in an information based economy being old isn't bad. As long as your mind is sharp you can still contribute greatly to society - even if you are sucking up some dollars from dialysis treatment, heart bypass surgery, etc. In all honestly we are all expendable because we can all be replaced by someone else therefore there is no need to spend money to prolong any individual life - we should only be spending money on diseases that cause pandemics/mass deaths since that hurts GDP. See what a slippery slope we can get into when we start basing healthcare decisions on someone's productivity?
Interestingly enough, your first paragraph was actually the reason medicare/social security was first proposed by FDR during the new deal to combat uncertainty in the Great Depression. Yes, if people are guarenteed money if they get sick, they will indeed be more likely to spend more. However, whats the difference in giving your money for the government to hold on to and putting it into an investment account with a guarenteed return?
So yes, if you just completely removed medicare/SS then you would crash the economy. However,entitlements are currently running at a defeceit of I believe around 1 trillion (too lazy to fact check) So while your freeing up people to spend more money, you are doing so at the cost of countrys budget. Our country is currently running on 17 trillion dollars that are imaginary. This cant be healthy. but hey, lets keep kicking the can down the road until the next guy gets elected, im sure he will know what to do.
You should have stopped typing after the first paragraph.
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We're living a similar situation in the west also, mainly because the baby-boom generation has aged and the most populous age group in Quebec (which is a Province in Canada) is 40 to 59 yo. People older than 40 represent 52% of our population, which I think might be comparable to Japan's situation. I'm sure most of them are still working, but it shows that following the current trend, a huge percentage of the population will not be working in the near future, and that a very small amount of the population will be forced to support baby boomer's healthcare and services.
As science itself more, the average life-length will rise, thus increasing the the problematic.
I'm twenty years old, and I'm pretty sure I won't be able to retire at the standard 65 years old. As we get older, the retirement age will become higher, making us work even longer.
I guess this makes us wonder if we really want to live older after all
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On January 28 2013 04:36 MountainDewJunkie wrote:
The sickest part is that some of the youth is complaining about the costs of health for the older, or just the straight up old. How convenient, that those who are in the healthiest span of years in their life, think they can determine in an unbiased manner how to deal with health treatment and costs of age groups that are at much higher risk! I especially dismiss these people when someone utters something related to social Darwinism, which they would advocate for because they aren't the ones who be cut down.
How many of you will change your tune when you age...
When WE age? well Mr. Mountain Dew Junkie, if thats even your real name...
Should young people pay for the guy that ate Mcdonalds 5x a week, never exercised and now needs bypass surgey because he refused to take care of himself? SOME dieseases are truly random, and there should be a safety new in either private insurance or social security. However when a person knowingly and stubbornly puts themself at risk, then yes it is social darwinism and that person deserves to be cut down if they cant afford the price of their actions.
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You can keep a state sponsored, or rather cooperative,healthcare system running in the face of increasing costs, if you just increase the contribution people have to make.
You can off course also decrease the cost, by simply limiting the amount of healthcare per person.
It are not only old people who are not productive, there are also manny young people who are unproductive because of a health problem.
We could for example make healthcare only available to thoose who have at least 1 more productive year to go,and simply refuse it to everyone else.
Like someone getting an accident at work and he will be paralised,helping him is kinda a waste from an economic point of vieuw.
People have to make a choise collectivly about healthcare, and they do so every 4 years by voting.
Off course young people would like to have all old people excluded from healthcare (untill they old themselves) just like all people who dont have cancer would not mind if cancer would get excluded
Its always atractive to exclude the part of it you wont use yourself, since then the cost will be cheaper but that is not realistic.
The totall package is a compromise,everyone gets something.
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On January 28 2013 03:58 feanor1 wrote:
That's modern medicine. Advances that keep people alive that should have died a long time ago, back when they lost what made them people.
You sure sound like an expert on modern medicine
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On January 28 2013 02:45 Dagan159 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 02:15 Nightfall.589 wrote:On January 28 2013 01:44 Dagan159 wrote:
If people want these life prolonging treatments, they should be paying out of pocket. Medicare should be a flat rate, if you messed up and took shitty care of your body, then society shouldnt be liable. I didn't realize we lived in a fair universe where all diseases only happen to people that did bad things. Or the obese. If the obesity is self inflicted (ie not diesese related) then that person is ASKING to have health issues. It is not hard to take care of yourself. Most sane people put away money in case they get sick or buy insurance.
Read it again, it was sarcastic.
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On January 28 2013 03:48 decado90 wrote:
Their is no such thing as a right. You are entitled nothing.
You aren't alive because you're special-- you're a live because two people had sex. Your existence is just another meaningless part of the inexorable universe.
Of course people shouldn't have the right to life.
This troll post brought to you by the right to free speech.
User was warned for this post
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On January 28 2013 08:52 Zahir wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 03:48 decado90 wrote:
Their is no such thing as a right. You are entitled nothing.
You aren't alive because you're special-- you're a live because two people had sex. Your existence is just another meaningless part of the inexorable universe.
Of course people shouldn't have the right to life. This troll post brought to you by the right to free speech.
? That makes no sense dude. What he says is completely correct. Life is not an entitlement, as children in Pakistan and Mali will tell you. His post was brought by the internet, electricity, and a computer. Not the right to free speech. Or are you trying to say people in China can't go on the internet and post in a forum? Because they don't have a "right" to free speech, but I'm pretty sure they can do what he just did.
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On January 28 2013 03:58 feanor1 wrote:
That's modern medicine. Advances that keep people alive that should have died a long time ago, back when they lost what made them people.
and whats that?
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On January 28 2013 09:08 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 08:52 Zahir wrote:On January 28 2013 03:48 decado90 wrote:
Their is no such thing as a right. You are entitled nothing.
You aren't alive because you're special-- you're a live because two people had sex. Your existence is just another meaningless part of the inexorable universe.
Of course people shouldn't have the right to life. This troll post brought to you by the right to free speech. ? That makes no sense dude. What he says is completely correct. Life is not an entitlement, as children in Pakistan and Mali will tell you. His post was brought by the internet, electricity, and a computer. Not the right to free speech. Or are you trying to say people in China can't go on the internet and post in a forum? Because they don't have a "right" to free speech, but I'm pretty sure they can do what he just did.
Ill clarify, his posts medium contradicted its message. "There is no such thing as a right" denies that societal constructs can have meaning. A fairly absurd point as most people alive today live in modern nation states, enjoying the benefits of rights codified in laws - most notably, the right to protection from violence - usually in exchange for some level of responsibility. Without the invention of rights as a meaningful basis for organized thought and action, societies would never have advanced beyond prehistoric levels, let alone produced the computers and electricity that made his post possible - an inconsistency I felt obliged to point out.
I believe what he probably was getting at is that people should earn what they get... But people do, in fact, earn their rights. Sometimes by fighting for them, other times by working for them. A person works to support a society so he can have the right to not have his life taken away from him by some random aggressor ... That is earning a right. Whether that principle should carry over into the right to not die of old age, is doubtful, since the cost of keeping someone alive continually rises, and therefore it's impractical for any government to pretend it can guarantee such a right. However, the point is each case needs to be examined on its own merit. Simply dismissing all rights is a garbage argument; rights are one of the foundations without which civilization can't exist.
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On January 28 2013 09:50 Zahir wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 09:08 SamsungStar wrote:On January 28 2013 08:52 Zahir wrote:On January 28 2013 03:48 decado90 wrote:
Their is no such thing as a right. You are entitled nothing.
You aren't alive because you're special-- you're a live because two people had sex. Your existence is just another meaningless part of the inexorable universe.
Of course people shouldn't have the right to life. This troll post brought to you by the right to free speech. ? That makes no sense dude. What he says is completely correct. Life is not an entitlement, as children in Pakistan and Mali will tell you. His post was brought by the internet, electricity, and a computer. Not the right to free speech. Or are you trying to say people in China can't go on the internet and post in a forum? Because they don't have a "right" to free speech, but I'm pretty sure they can do what he just did. Ill clarify, his posts medium contradicted its message. "There is no such thing as a right" denies that societal constructs can have meaning. A fairly absurd point as most people alive today live in modern nation states, enjoying the benefits of rights codified in laws - most notably, the right to protection from violence - usually in exchange for some level of responsibility. Without the invention of rights as a meaningful basis for organized thought and action, societies would never have advanced beyond prehistoric levels, let alone produced the computers and electricity that made his post possible - an inconsistency I felt obliged to point out. I believe what he probably was getting at is that people should earn what they get... But people do, in fact, earn their rights. Sometimes by fighting for them, other times by working for them. A person works to support a society so he can have the right to not have his life taken away from him by some random aggressor ... That is earning a right. Whether that principle should carry over into the right to not die of old age, is doubtful, since the cost of keeping someone alive continually rises, and therefore it's impractical for any government to pretend it can guarantee such a right. However, the point is each case needs to be examined on its own merit. Simply dismissing all rights is a garbage argument; rights are one of the foundations without which civilization can't exist.
Your point is valid but I think you've also misconstrued his. His point is that people don't have a right to demand others to finance their life. There is a huge difference between being protected from violence and being protected from death itself. When society is forced to pay more than an individual has contributed to keep said indiv. alive, that is in essence saying that it is society's job to protect its citizens from death at all costs, which to me is ludicrous.
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On January 28 2013 09:54 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 09:50 Zahir wrote:On January 28 2013 09:08 SamsungStar wrote:On January 28 2013 08:52 Zahir wrote:On January 28 2013 03:48 decado90 wrote:
Their is no such thing as a right. You are entitled nothing.
You aren't alive because you're special-- you're a live because two people had sex. Your existence is just another meaningless part of the inexorable universe.
Of course people shouldn't have the right to life. This troll post brought to you by the right to free speech. ? That makes no sense dude. What he says is completely correct. Life is not an entitlement, as children in Pakistan and Mali will tell you. His post was brought by the internet, electricity, and a computer. Not the right to free speech. Or are you trying to say people in China can't go on the internet and post in a forum? Because they don't have a "right" to free speech, but I'm pretty sure they can do what he just did. Ill clarify, his posts medium contradicted its message. "There is no such thing as a right" denies that societal constructs can have meaning. A fairly absurd point as most people alive today live in modern nation states, enjoying the benefits of rights codified in laws - most notably, the right to protection from violence - usually in exchange for some level of responsibility. Without the invention of rights as a meaningful basis for organized thought and action, societies would never have advanced beyond prehistoric levels, let alone produced the computers and electricity that made his post possible - an inconsistency I felt obliged to point out. I believe what he probably was getting at is that people should earn what they get... But people do, in fact, earn their rights. Sometimes by fighting for them, other times by working for them. A person works to support a society so he can have the right to not have his life taken away from him by some random aggressor ... That is earning a right. Whether that principle should carry over into the right to not die of old age, is doubtful, since the cost of keeping someone alive continually rises, and therefore it's impractical for any government to pretend it can guarantee such a right. However, the point is each case needs to be examined on its own merit. Simply dismissing all rights is a garbage argument; rights are one of the foundations without which civilization can't exist. There is a huge difference between being protected from violence and being protected from death itself.
'Protected from violence' could reasonably cover protection from pathogen-driven disease. But bodies break down regardless.
When it becomes plausible for a society to protect its citizens from old age, I might endorse a 'right to immortality.' At present, it's not.
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On January 28 2013 09:54 SamsungStar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 09:50 Zahir wrote:On January 28 2013 09:08 SamsungStar wrote:On January 28 2013 08:52 Zahir wrote:On January 28 2013 03:48 decado90 wrote:
Their is no such thing as a right. You are entitled nothing.
You aren't alive because you're special-- you're a live because two people had sex. Your existence is just another meaningless part of the inexorable universe.
Of course people shouldn't have the right to life. This troll post brought to you by the right to free speech. ? That makes no sense dude. What he says is completely correct. Life is not an entitlement, as children in Pakistan and Mali will tell you. His post was brought by the internet, electricity, and a computer. Not the right to free speech. Or are you trying to say people in China can't go on the internet and post in a forum? Because they don't have a "right" to free speech, but I'm pretty sure they can do what he just did. Ill clarify, his posts medium contradicted its message. "There is no such thing as a right" denies that societal constructs can have meaning. A fairly absurd point as most people alive today live in modern nation states, enjoying the benefits of rights codified in laws - most notably, the right to protection from violence - usually in exchange for some level of responsibility. Without the invention of rights as a meaningful basis for organized thought and action, societies would never have advanced beyond prehistoric levels, let alone produced the computers and electricity that made his post possible - an inconsistency I felt obliged to point out. I believe what he probably was getting at is that people should earn what they get... But people do, in fact, earn their rights. Sometimes by fighting for them, other times by working for them. A person works to support a society so he can have the right to not have his life taken away from him by some random aggressor ... That is earning a right. Whether that principle should carry over into the right to not die of old age, is doubtful, since the cost of keeping someone alive continually rises, and therefore it's impractical for any government to pretend it can guarantee such a right. However, the point is each case needs to be examined on its own merit. Simply dismissing all rights is a garbage argument; rights are one of the foundations without which civilization can't exist. Your point is valid but I think you've also misconstrued his. His point is that people don't have a right to demand others to finance their life. There is a huge difference between being protected from violence and being protected from death itself. When society is forced to pay more than an individual has contributed to keep said indiv. alive, that is in essence saying that it is society's job to protect its citizens from death at all costs, which to me is ludicrous.
I agree that was probably what was in his mind as he posted, but the way he tried to argue it (there is no such thing as rights) was just terrible IMO. Denying the existence or value of rights is not where this conversation ought to go.
For what it's worth, I agree, i don't think there should be a right to be kept alive at whatever cost because the cost is potentially infinite. I feel there are too many people skimming this thread and getting indignant without reflecting on the concept of limited resources. No matter how many police we hire, we can't protect everyone from every murderer, and similarly even if we spend unlimited money on health care we can't keep everyone alive indefinitely. Clearly a balance must be struck.
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In my view, the big solution isn't just to cut down on helping people as they get old, but rather make it so that they become net contributors to society. Create jobs for old people--cut down on the amount of time old people spend eating up the resources of society. It's not unfilial or mean or selfish to do so--it's more an act of kindness than anything else.
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On January 28 2013 10:10 Zahir wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 09:54 SamsungStar wrote:On January 28 2013 09:50 Zahir wrote:On January 28 2013 09:08 SamsungStar wrote:On January 28 2013 08:52 Zahir wrote:On January 28 2013 03:48 decado90 wrote:
Their is no such thing as a right. You are entitled nothing.
You aren't alive because you're special-- you're a live because two people had sex. Your existence is just another meaningless part of the inexorable universe.
Of course people shouldn't have the right to life. This troll post brought to you by the right to free speech. ? That makes no sense dude. What he says is completely correct. Life is not an entitlement, as children in Pakistan and Mali will tell you. His post was brought by the internet, electricity, and a computer. Not the right to free speech. Or are you trying to say people in China can't go on the internet and post in a forum? Because they don't have a "right" to free speech, but I'm pretty sure they can do what he just did. Ill clarify, his posts medium contradicted its message. "There is no such thing as a right" denies that societal constructs can have meaning. A fairly absurd point as most people alive today live in modern nation states, enjoying the benefits of rights codified in laws - most notably, the right to protection from violence - usually in exchange for some level of responsibility. Without the invention of rights as a meaningful basis for organized thought and action, societies would never have advanced beyond prehistoric levels, let alone produced the computers and electricity that made his post possible - an inconsistency I felt obliged to point out. I believe what he probably was getting at is that people should earn what they get... But people do, in fact, earn their rights. Sometimes by fighting for them, other times by working for them. A person works to support a society so he can have the right to not have his life taken away from him by some random aggressor ... That is earning a right. Whether that principle should carry over into the right to not die of old age, is doubtful, since the cost of keeping someone alive continually rises, and therefore it's impractical for any government to pretend it can guarantee such a right. However, the point is each case needs to be examined on its own merit. Simply dismissing all rights is a garbage argument; rights are one of the foundations without which civilization can't exist. Your point is valid but I think you've also misconstrued his. His point is that people don't have a right to demand others to finance their life. There is a huge difference between being protected from violence and being protected from death itself. When society is forced to pay more than an individual has contributed to keep said indiv. alive, that is in essence saying that it is society's job to protect its citizens from death at all costs, which to me is ludicrous. I agree that was probably what was in his mind as he posted, but the way he tried to argue it (there is no such thing as rights) was just terrible IMO. Denying the existence or value of rights is not where this conversation ought to go. For what it's worth, I agree, i don't think there should be a right to be kept alive at whatever cost because the cost is potentially infinite. I feel there are too many people skimming this thread and getting indignant without reflecting on the concept of limited resources. No matter how many police we hire, we can't protect everyone from every murderer, and similarly even if we spend unlimited money on health care we can't keep everyone alive indefinitely. Clearly a balance must be struck.
No, I purport the nihility of rights. The government can assert that you have rights, but certainly there is no compelling argument in favor of the existence of "inalienable" rights. You're in possession of nothing when you exit the womb-- be it dress, rights, or coherent thought.
That for which you argue the affirmative is the illusion of rights bestowed upon thee by government or society. But, I'm afraid those rights are candidly there as a comforting thought for the masses. What rights does one have when he's struck dead by a vehicle on his way to work? What rights did the citizens of Japan have when an atomic weapon was detonated in their skies? Ditto with civilians in the Middle East decimated by drone strikes the United States' President ordains.
Humans are imbecilic creatures-- by far most plaintive of all organisms. The species refuses to accept they are another cog in the machine and instead choose one of two innocuous delusions: that some religion or spiritual means establishes their worth or that the upholding of certain values is superior to a life devoid of such values.
But I ask, what right do you have to life? What right did you give the fly you swatted-- his exoskeleton and organs crushed into the counter top-- or the rat, whose neck was broken by a trap set with your hand?
Ah, alas. We come to the heart of the matter, and the most deplorable of all human deductions. That we are somehow superior, somehow special. The universe bends its knee to our will. We are born with rights that the rest of the universe is without.
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On January 28 2013 10:54 decado90 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 10:10 Zahir wrote:On January 28 2013 09:54 SamsungStar wrote:On January 28 2013 09:50 Zahir wrote:On January 28 2013 09:08 SamsungStar wrote:On January 28 2013 08:52 Zahir wrote:On January 28 2013 03:48 decado90 wrote:
Their is no such thing as a right. You are entitled nothing.
You aren't alive because you're special-- you're a live because two people had sex. Your existence is just another meaningless part of the inexorable universe.
Of course people shouldn't have the right to life. This troll post brought to you by the right to free speech. ? That makes no sense dude. What he says is completely correct. Life is not an entitlement, as children in Pakistan and Mali will tell you. His post was brought by the internet, electricity, and a computer. Not the right to free speech. Or are you trying to say people in China can't go on the internet and post in a forum? Because they don't have a "right" to free speech, but I'm pretty sure they can do what he just did. Ill clarify, his posts medium contradicted its message. "There is no such thing as a right" denies that societal constructs can have meaning. A fairly absurd point as most people alive today live in modern nation states, enjoying the benefits of rights codified in laws - most notably, the right to protection from violence - usually in exchange for some level of responsibility. Without the invention of rights as a meaningful basis for organized thought and action, societies would never have advanced beyond prehistoric levels, let alone produced the computers and electricity that made his post possible - an inconsistency I felt obliged to point out. I believe what he probably was getting at is that people should earn what they get... But people do, in fact, earn their rights. Sometimes by fighting for them, other times by working for them. A person works to support a society so he can have the right to not have his life taken away from him by some random aggressor ... That is earning a right. Whether that principle should carry over into the right to not die of old age, is doubtful, since the cost of keeping someone alive continually rises, and therefore it's impractical for any government to pretend it can guarantee such a right. However, the point is each case needs to be examined on its own merit. Simply dismissing all rights is a garbage argument; rights are one of the foundations without which civilization can't exist. Your point is valid but I think you've also misconstrued his. His point is that people don't have a right to demand others to finance their life. There is a huge difference between being protected from violence and being protected from death itself. When society is forced to pay more than an individual has contributed to keep said indiv. alive, that is in essence saying that it is society's job to protect its citizens from death at all costs, which to me is ludicrous. I agree that was probably what was in his mind as he posted, but the way he tried to argue it (there is no such thing as rights) was just terrible IMO. Denying the existence or value of rights is not where this conversation ought to go. For what it's worth, I agree, i don't think there should be a right to be kept alive at whatever cost because the cost is potentially infinite. I feel there are too many people skimming this thread and getting indignant without reflecting on the concept of limited resources. No matter how many police we hire, we can't protect everyone from every murderer, and similarly even if we spend unlimited money on health care we can't keep everyone alive indefinitely. Clearly a balance must be struck. No, I purport the nihility of rights. The government can assert that you have rights, but certainly there is no compelling argument in favor of the existence of "inalienable" rights. You're in possession of nothing when you exit the womb-- be it dress, rights, or coherent thought. That for which you argue the affirmative is the illusion of rights bestowed upon thee by government or society. But, I'm afraid those rights are candidly there as a comforting thought for the masses. What rights does one have when he's struck dead by a vehicle on his way to work? What rights did the citizens of Japan have when an atomic weapon was detonated in their skies? Ditto with civilians in the Middle East decimated by drone strikes the United States' President ordains. Humans are imbecilic creatures-- by far most plaintive of all organisms. The species refuses to accept they are another cog in the machine and instead choose one of two innocuous delusions: that some religion or spiritual means establishes their worth or that the upholding of certain values is superior to a life devoid of such values. But I ask, what right do you have to life? What right did you give the fly you swatted-- his exoskeleton and organs crushed into the counter top-- or the rat, whose neck was broken by a trap set with your hand? Ah, alas. We come to the heart of the matter, and the most deplorable of all human deductions. That we are somehow superior, somehow special. The universe bends its knee to our will. We are born with rights that the rest of the universe is without.
There's no distinction between what I call rights and you call the "illusion of rights". Rights is really just a shorthand for useful human concept that allows societies to function. Not an aspect of objective reality like the speed of light. The point where I lose your argument is the leap from "rights are an illusion" to "we shouldn't have rights". You mention some cases where rights were not respected, such as dropping of nukes and massacring of citizens, but all you've done is strengthen the argument that rights should be respected, since the cases you pointed to are rightfully viewed by many as atrocities.
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On January 28 2013 11:12 Zahir wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 10:54 decado90 wrote:On January 28 2013 10:10 Zahir wrote:On January 28 2013 09:54 SamsungStar wrote:On January 28 2013 09:50 Zahir wrote:On January 28 2013 09:08 SamsungStar wrote:On January 28 2013 08:52 Zahir wrote:On January 28 2013 03:48 decado90 wrote:
Their is no such thing as a right. You are entitled nothing.
You aren't alive because you're special-- you're a live because two people had sex. Your existence is just another meaningless part of the inexorable universe.
Of course people shouldn't have the right to life. This troll post brought to you by the right to free speech. ? That makes no sense dude. What he says is completely correct. Life is not an entitlement, as children in Pakistan and Mali will tell you. His post was brought by the internet, electricity, and a computer. Not the right to free speech. Or are you trying to say people in China can't go on the internet and post in a forum? Because they don't have a "right" to free speech, but I'm pretty sure they can do what he just did. Ill clarify, his posts medium contradicted its message. "There is no such thing as a right" denies that societal constructs can have meaning. A fairly absurd point as most people alive today live in modern nation states, enjoying the benefits of rights codified in laws - most notably, the right to protection from violence - usually in exchange for some level of responsibility. Without the invention of rights as a meaningful basis for organized thought and action, societies would never have advanced beyond prehistoric levels, let alone produced the computers and electricity that made his post possible - an inconsistency I felt obliged to point out. I believe what he probably was getting at is that people should earn what they get... But people do, in fact, earn their rights. Sometimes by fighting for them, other times by working for them. A person works to support a society so he can have the right to not have his life taken away from him by some random aggressor ... That is earning a right. Whether that principle should carry over into the right to not die of old age, is doubtful, since the cost of keeping someone alive continually rises, and therefore it's impractical for any government to pretend it can guarantee such a right. However, the point is each case needs to be examined on its own merit. Simply dismissing all rights is a garbage argument; rights are one of the foundations without which civilization can't exist. Your point is valid but I think you've also misconstrued his. His point is that people don't have a right to demand others to finance their life. There is a huge difference between being protected from violence and being protected from death itself. When society is forced to pay more than an individual has contributed to keep said indiv. alive, that is in essence saying that it is society's job to protect its citizens from death at all costs, which to me is ludicrous. I agree that was probably what was in his mind as he posted, but the way he tried to argue it (there is no such thing as rights) was just terrible IMO. Denying the existence or value of rights is not where this conversation ought to go. For what it's worth, I agree, i don't think there should be a right to be kept alive at whatever cost because the cost is potentially infinite. I feel there are too many people skimming this thread and getting indignant without reflecting on the concept of limited resources. No matter how many police we hire, we can't protect everyone from every murderer, and similarly even if we spend unlimited money on health care we can't keep everyone alive indefinitely. Clearly a balance must be struck. No, I purport the nihility of rights. The government can assert that you have rights, but certainly there is no compelling argument in favor of the existence of "inalienable" rights. You're in possession of nothing when you exit the womb-- be it dress, rights, or coherent thought. That for which you argue the affirmative is the illusion of rights bestowed upon thee by government or society. But, I'm afraid those rights are candidly there as a comforting thought for the masses. What rights does one have when he's struck dead by a vehicle on his way to work? What rights did the citizens of Japan have when an atomic weapon was detonated in their skies? Ditto with civilians in the Middle East decimated by drone strikes the United States' President ordains. Humans are imbecilic creatures-- by far most plaintive of all organisms. The species refuses to accept they are another cog in the machine and instead choose one of two innocuous delusions: that some religion or spiritual means establishes their worth or that the upholding of certain values is superior to a life devoid of such values. But I ask, what right do you have to life? What right did you give the fly you swatted-- his exoskeleton and organs crushed into the counter top-- or the rat, whose neck was broken by a trap set with your hand? Ah, alas. We come to the heart of the matter, and the most deplorable of all human deductions. That we are somehow superior, somehow special. The universe bends its knee to our will. We are born with rights that the rest of the universe is without. There's no distinction between what I call rights and you call the "illusion of rights". Rights is really just a shorthand for useful human concept that allows societies to function. Not an aspect of objective reality like the speed of light. The point where I lose your argument is the leap from "rights are an illusion" to "we shouldn't have rights". You mention some cases where rights were not respected, such as dropping of nukes and massacring of citizens, but all you've done is strengthen the argument that rights should be respected, since the cases you pointed to are rightfully viewed by many as atrocities.
Rather, rights are not an illusion, they are just an abstraction. There's a difference. But saying they're an illusion sounds a lot cooler and more dramatic. Tyler Durden had it wrong. Self destruction is the fool's shallow indulgence. Self improvement is quite literally the only way to live, that is the only way to thrive and be happy to the fullest extent possible. It's obvious which category that kind of nihilism falls into. Don't know what it is with kids these days and rejecting all conception of their own faculty of knowledge as a useful tool for human living; or with them and rejecting human living as a worthy endeavor for that matter, and yet still continuing to live, if even only in some meager, half-assed, self-contradictory way.
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didnt read all the thread but choosing to stop healthcare on people over a certain age is rather disturbing. Every citizen has the same rights regardless of his age.
And for example, if healthcare is stopped after the age of 80 and precisely at that age a man in perfect form gain a tumor he is condemned to die just because he had birthday 5 months ago and he doesnt longer stay in the 'healthcare protection' ? this is disgusting, depressing, with no respect to elder people who are considered like items to trash once used.
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if you've raped a child or murdered and innocent person, you should be killed. thats just how i see it
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I voted no, because there is clearly a point where you are spending so much on one person that hundreds of others suffer.
For those who don't know, there is (in the UK at least) already a whole industry based around these kind of questions. When the NHS is offered a new drug or treatment by private companies, they do a cost benefit analysis - comparing it to existing drugs and treatments, before deciding if they should use it. Deciding how much life is worth is a necessary task, and already done. If you don't do it you can't manage societies limited resources.
With this said, I have a problem with the view which a lot of people in this thread hold - basically that someone's contribution to society is based upon how rich they are. I see little correlation. People who are born into rich families don't contribute more. Arms dealers don't add more to the world than charity workers, even if they get a better salary. Bankers aren't better to have than professors.
People of true worth or genius aren't even always recognised in their lifetime. Was Van Gogh not a good contributor because he died penniless?
I'm not arguing against capitalism, I think it's the best way to generate wealth, and does incredible good. But there's no need to pretend its winners are especially worthy. To come back around to the thread, what about the non-monetary goods people contribute? The stories this dying grandfather tells to his kids? No one pays for them, but they're worth so much.
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I'm not sure if some of you guys actually read the guardian article that was linked. There's two completely different issues here. The one that you guys are debating around the public cost of subsidizing the health care of the elderly is really a function of the societal structure of a particular country. If there were population equilibrium, this really wouldn't even be a controversy. (The US is somewhat of an exception but that's beyond the scope of this post/thread.) We would care for our elderly and once we reach an advanced age, we'd expect the same benefits when our children replace us in the work force. This concept of general welfare is a pretty straightforward extension of the social contract.
The real point of discussion, one that takes much a far larger portion of the article, is about end-of-life care. The elderly obviously form a large portion of the recipients of terminal care but really it could be about anyone. The problem here is that the general public isn't as well educated regarding this type of "care" as those in the medical profession. Let's just say that in a recent survey of doctors (I don't have the link, sorry), most said that they would refuse end-of-life care if faced with a terminal illness. Apparently it's a gruesome affair to futilely keep someone alive. Most doctors would accept only pain medication and would prefer to go peacefully in this scenario.
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This is how supposedly "civilized" people rationalize monstrous acts.
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Sorry for the bump, but this quote from Marginal Revolution really struck me and reminded me of the thread:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/05/from-the-comments-14.html
The banning of catastrophic-only plans infuriates me the most. Those are the only plans that are actually financially sensible for a healthy individual to purchase. Everything else on the market is a perverse by-product of the employer-based insurance system.
Worst case scenario with a catastrophic-only plan is you end up with $10,000 in debt. That’s a debt load many times smaller than what the Federal government thinks students should take out to get a college degree. We’ll let you borrow $100,000 to get a sociology degree but, we think that $10,000 is an unconscionable amount to pay for medical expenses? So unconscionable that we have to FORCE YOU to buy a plan with more extensive coverage?
Of course, we all know the real reason for this. it’s meant to force healthy young people to subsidize healthcare for older sicker people. Just force them to pay more for insurance than they ought to, and force them to buy more extensive coverage than is rational.
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Wasn't this exact thread started a few months back or something? I fondly remember the same title, the same graphs and everything.
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On January 24 2013 13:44 MysteryMeat1 wrote:
I dont want to live past 80. Actually i don't want to live past the age where i can't do anything. For some people like my grandpa who is 85 and can walk fine as long as he has a cane. Thats fine but the moment i can't get out of the house put me out of my misery.
Yeah that's easy to say but I bet you think differently about that once you hit that age.
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On May 24 2013 02:48 TheToaster wrote:
Wasn't this exact thread started a few months back or something? I fondly remember the same title, the same graphs and everything.
Right, I bumped it
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EPT
