Re: Herd instincts?

On Nov 23, 2:23 pm, John Fields <jfie...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 16:10:58 -0800 (PST), bill.slo...@xxxxxxxx
wrote:

My nieces and nephews (there are eight of them) should keep my genes
in circulation for a while yet,

---
Not unless there's some hanky-panky you haven't told us about, they
won't!
---

Wrong again. I've got two brothers, and all three of us have got a
(different) random mix of our parents genes, so we have about half our
genes in common. My nieces and nephews have each got half of that, so
they've got a quarter of my genes - eight of them mean that there are
twice as many of my genes out there than my original allocation. This
is worked out again and again in every article on the evolution of
altruistic behaviour, though it turns out to be less important there
than was originally thought - doing good things for other members of
your tribe turns out to generate enough of a survival advantage to
positively selected.

<snip>

Pointing it out isn't America bashing, but perpetually harping on it
as being due to stupid leadership and an abysmally ignorant
population, as you are wont to do, is.

I'm pointing it out to an abysmally ignorant and decidedly vocal
minority on this user-group who do seem to be rather slow to get the
message. This would be more correctly described as idiot-bashing, but
since you choose to line up with the idiots, this view of the
situation isn't one that you be likely to appreciate.

Besides, it's our problem, so what do you care other than to have
something you can bitch about?

I dislike seeing errors of fact propagated into an archived record. If
someone goes to the trouble of pointing out that they are errors, the
gullible have at least been warned.

but any damage I might be
doing is trivial in comparison with the damage caused by the
inadequacies of your extravagantly expensive health care system.

---
Again, why do you care?
---

Shooting the messenger isn't a constructive solution, but it does seem
to be the best that you and Jim can come up with.

---
I'm not shooting the messenger, I'm merely pointing out that you're
an unmitigated *** when it comes to relating to people whom you
consider to be your inferiors because they disagree with you.

Telling people that they are wrong does upset them. If you try to be
diplomatic enough not to offend them, the idea that they are being
told that they are wrong doesn't actually penetrate.

It's much easier to write me off as an irritating person than it is to
confront the source of the irritation.

As far as constructive solutions goes, I don't know about Jim's case
in Arizona, but here in Texas we have the Seton Healthcare Network:

http://www.seton.net/

where no one is turned away because of inability to pay.

But it looks as if they will charge you if you have any capacity to
pay, and the level of care offered to the indigent is unlikely to be
impressive. We had a similar system in Australia in the 1960's, and I
knew a woman who worked on the Melbourne poverty survey at the time.
Unexpected health costs were the most frequent cause of families
falling into poverty.

Matter of fact, last year we contributed $237 million to care for
the poor and for community benefit.

I say 'we' because I volunteer there, so part of that $237 million
is time out of my life that I gave away to help someone less
fortunate.

Somewhat different from your fantasy job hunts or sitting on your
ass typing out rancor for everyone and everything to which you don't
grant your imprimatur while waiting for the government checks to
come rolling in, yes?
---

You may feel good about it, but it is a drop in the bucket compared
with the total costs of health care. In Europe health care is paid for
out of tax or by compulsory health insurance (which comes to the same
thing). The bureacracy involved isn't cheap, but it is lot cheaper
than the baroque bureaucracies than run your health system, which is
one of the reasons you waste 14% of GDP on a health system that
doesn't deliver the level of health care we get in Europe for around
8% of GDP.

<snip>

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
.

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