Re: American health care best? No...Most expensive? Yes...Ranked 12th

From: Steve Harris sbharris_at_ROMAN9.netcom.com (sbharris_at_ix.netcom.com)
Date: 07/03/04

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    Date: 2 Jul 2004 20:07:54 -0700

    nospam5@heartmdphd.com (Dr. Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD) wrote in message news:<9fcab6f7.0407020409.1a7381dc@posting.google.com>...
    > > And besides, what does American "over indulgance" have to do with
    > > American medicine?
    >
    > It does if one believes that American medicine should be educating the
    > public about the adverse health consequences of over-eating.

    COMMENT:

    Dr. Chung, the American obesity epidemic has nothing to do with
    American medicne's failure to educate the public about the health
    consequences of obesity. Any more than the 20 to 25% of adults who
    still smoke are due to failure to get the word out that smoking is bad
    for you. There will always be deniers, but they aren't "educatable."

    Say, maybe we could so something about the violent crime rate by
    getting folks with white coats and stethoscopes to let our youth know
    that getting shot really hurts, and also is harmful for animals and
    other livings things. What do you think?

    > > Hey, the fast food and movie industries are big businesses, not
    > > necessarily good for the general population. Capitalism gives people
    > > what they want, not what's good for them in terms of some parental
    > > model.
    >
    > Capitalism also convinces people that it has what people want.

    COMMENT

    I think you have capitalism confused with advertising. Advertising is
    just our word for the wares-display often seen in capitalistic
    systems, sure, but advertising is also a part of communism (where it's
    merely called something different like "public information": or
    "propaganda"), and of course it's a part of socialism, etc. And it's a
    part of the dating scene (where it's called make up, fashion, flirting
    or Personals writing). And part of politics (where it's called spin or
    campaigning). And the courtship and fighting behavior and rituals of
    animals (where it's called "display").

    Capitalism has nothing essential to do with advertising per se as part
    of its definition-- that's a leftist piece of nonsense. Capitalism is
    the system where the means of production are owned privately, end of
    story. Any advertising added on is just the information presentation
    and processing which happens, and MUST happen, in ANY complex economic
    or ecological system, including (as we said) Communism and Socialism
    and you name it-ism. And which has NOTHING whatever to do with the
    system per se, except that it's a necessary component to information
    transfer in all of them. All complex cybernetic feedback-driven
    systems need it. Including capitalism, but also including every other
    complex adaptive system on this planet, both man-made and natural.

    Look: when a foreign protein enters your body, you can't deal with it
    immunologically until some very specialized cell like a Langerhans
    cell, busts it up, and then presents it on its surface *selectively*
    and in a special contect, so that other cells in your body can
    evaluate and react to it. This is selective presentation. It is
    selective display. It is advertising. If you think this process is
    "capitalism," you are nuts.

    Steve

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