Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 02:26:08 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: <cjclark@alum.mit.edu> Cc: "Rahul Siddharthan" <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>, "Salvo Bartolotta" <bartequi@neomedia.it>, "P. U. (Uli) Kruppa" <root@pukruppa.de>, <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: Use of the UNIX Trademark Message-ID: <002501c152ff$ec9dfec0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <20011011035939.W387@blossom.cjclark.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
>-----Original Message----- >From: Crist J. Clark [mailto:cristjc@earthlink.net] >Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2001 4:00 AM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >Cc: Rahul Siddharthan; Salvo Bartolotta; P. U. (Uli) Kruppa; >freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: Use of the UNIX Trademark >> Most of the do-gooders and social workers in the Third World have exactly >> your attitude - overpopulation is either a Good Thing or an >Indifferent Thing. >> Very few are actually out there preaching and telling people it's wrong to >> have 10 children even though the disasterous results of that are evident >> all around them. > >It's a classic "Dilema of the Commons" problem. It's just like energy >conservation efforts here in California. It's hard to get one person >to turn their air conditioner down. One person turning it down does >not make a difference. But if everybody does it... It is economically >advantageous for any one family in many of these "third world" regions >to have as many children as possible. Just one family having 10 >children doesn't make a difference. But if everybody does it... > I don't believe in Dilemma of the Commons. If it were true then FreeBSD would have never come out of the lab and there would be no growth and change. As far as turning down A/C in California - well you can get them all to do it by starting one person at a time. And the state bureaucracies and offices are a good place to start - have they switched OFF their A/C units and started wearing shorts and tee shirts to work? I doubt it. It may be economically advantageous to do something but people don't do things because they are economically advantageous, they are a lot more complicated than that. If economics ruled then people would not purchase junk food (because it's cheaper to buy the stuff and cook it yourself) they would not purchase the Latest Fashions in clothing (because the plain-jane clothing that's basic is always cheaper and works just as well) they would not fight to get into the gated communities (because there's no evidence that gating a community prevents home burglaries) they would not do many of the stupid and senseless things that people do that are economically rediculous. Instead, marketing departments in corporations worldwide have proven time and again that it's perfectly possible to sway the majority of people over to buying your product, religious leaders the world over have shown that it's perfectly possible to brainwash the majority of a population, nation-state leaders have shown time and again that it's perfectly possible to get the whole country up in patriotic ferver (as they are doing now in the US) The overpopulation problem is simply that most people are squeamish about sex and children and all that, and don't want to talk about it, and few people are bold enough to actually get out there and talk about it, and those that do are people like Dr. Ruth that people like because they can consider her a fruitcake and safely laugh at her, or they are the Pope who is saying exactly the worst possible thing that they can say. Yet, today in this country it's VERY popular to talk about "limiting growth" in the context of "we aren't going to allow them to build any more houses in our city because the roads are becoming too congested" as if there's anyplace else to go for the millions of additional people we are all creating every year. When are these stupid "no-growth" advocates going to speak honestly and start advocating birth control because too many people are getting pregnant and having babies. That's the real solution to "no-growth" > >> There is far too much evidence that many of these so-called "diseases" are >> actually natural responses to screwed up lifestyles. I know that people >> will tar and feather me for saying this but by gun there's a right way >> to live and a wrong way to live. > >And either way you are going to get sick and die from _something._ >People have always died of something. Funny how people keep living >longer despite "screwed up" lifestyles. Fresh fruit and vegetables are >good for you. High sodium and fat are generally bad. In cold regions >of the world before refrigeration or high speed transportation, no one >had fresh fruit or vegetables all winter. They often lived off of >fatty foods that had been preserved by salting them. I wonder if these >people were not constipated from December until March. Obviously, >these people should have known better and moved to warmer >climates. That would be the "right way" to live. Not that it mattered >much. They all died of something more mundane before they lived long >enough to develop colon cancer. Human's have been living "screwed up" >lifestyles since pre-history. > Most of them exercised a lot more than people do today which greatly minimized problems with eating a lot of fatty foods, and also helped a lot more things too. 100 years ago a lot more people were farmers and you have to be pretty physically fit to farm. If you look at the total lifestyle, the fact that people were exercising a lot more back then was far more important than the food they ate. Because of that they were "living right" Today, since not a lot of people exercise, the importance of eating right is far greater. >> Freedom must have responsibility and >> you don't have the right to stuff your face with McDonalds cheeseburgers >> every day of your life until you keel over with a heart attack at age 55 >> then expect the rest of us to dump all our tax dollars into funding >> research into a new medicine that will dissolve your cholesterol and >> allow you to continue stuffing yourself like a pig with both trotters in >> the trough. > >People shouldn't smoke. People should not overeat. People shouldn't >eat saturated fats. People shouldn't sit around all day. People >shouldn't have multiple sexual partners (and catch diseases). People >shouldn't hang glide (you can fall and get hurt). People shouldn't >drive cars (you could get in an accident). People shouldn't drink too >much alcohol (liver damage, mouth, throat, stomach cancer as well as >increased likelyhood of trauma due behavior). People shouldn't ever >leave their house (any human or animal contact is risky with respect >to disease or one could be attacked). > This is a gross simplification. There's such a thing as reasonable risk and unreasonable risk. Most people drive cars and have to go outside their houses and so doing those things is a reasonable risk - nobody is going to blame you for getting in an accident while your minding your own business commuting to work or running errands to the grocery store. But, driving around in excess of the speed limit late at night in the dark during a rainstorm - well if you get in an accident, I'm sorry but I won't have a lot of sympathy for you unless you have a darn good reason for being out there. If your just screwing around and drunk to boot then, you can bleed to death for all I care and if you do it will make the roads safer for all the rest of us. And, if your hang gliding during the day with solid equipment and good training under your belt, well then while I'd say the risk is a bit higher, it's not that much higher. However if your hang gliding with broken equipment during a tornado and have no helmet on - well then your taking unreasonable risk. I've had plenty of experience with this kind of argument because I used to ride a motorcycle. I've heard all the anti-helmet arguments and they are all full of crap. Motorcycling is no less safe than driving a car if you are helmeted, full leathers, and wearing body armor, and your bike is good and your experienced. I did it for 5 years as my ONLY means of transport and I commuted 20 miles every day on the busiest freeway in the state, 5 days a week, rain or shine. I greatly object to people that use your risk logic because it looks purely at averages. This ranks motorcycling as risky because there's a percentage of bikers out there that insist on riding around in a t-shirt and bandanna, and because they keep pasting the oatmeal that they use for brains all over the road, it screws up the average for the rest of us that ride responsibly. >Pretty much _everything_ people like to do has some inherent >risks. We are mortal and the world is a risky place. Lot's of people >like to do risky things. You don't seem to allow that there's behaviors that are easy to make more risky by idiots. Driving is considered more risky than staying at home, because it's a lot easier for the idiot to get in a car and do things that are extremely risky. But that doesen't make driving inherently more risky, no more than hang gliding if it's done right. >I don't like McDonalds hamburgers, but I must >admit I do occasionally like to have a few drinks and hit the town >with some friends. I do other risky things too because I derive great >enjoyment of them. You enjoy driving drunk? Speeding? hang gliding without a helmet? having unprotected sex with prostitutes? If your not doing stuff like this or equally irresponsible stuff then don't kid yourself - your not taking real risks. Being drunk and being shuttled between bars by non-drinking designated drivers is not taking risks, but I suppose that it impresses you enough so you can pretend that your doing something risky. >Where the balance between the enjoyment a person >gets from a behavior against the risk it entails lies is very personal >thing. I don't know you, maybe you are really into skydiving. Why >should society, via public health costs or increased insurance >premiums, pay for your medical bills when you bust your leg on a bad >landing? You took the risk. I don't think skydiving is an acceptable >risk versus what benefits I would get out of it. Why should I pay? > Because skydiving is mo more risky than driving IF it's properly done. The problem is that it's easier to screw up skydiving than it is to screw up driving, so more people screw it up and thus the actuarial tables show it to be more risky. But, there's professional sky divers that spend 20 years diving and they don't die as a result. >> Only if the emphasis on the medicine is on solving the root of the problem >> not alleviating the symptom. Today the entire emphasis in Western medicine >> is fixing the symptom, once that's done your free to go back to your >> artery-hardening, lung destroying lifestyle if you wish. As long as that's >> the attitude, the system is fundamentally screwed up and making it a >> public industry isn't going to change much. > >This is because study after study has shown that changing people's >behaviors is a very, very hard thing to do. It is a pretty common >assumption that you cannot change a person's behavior. Every marketing person would tell you you are wrong, that they are successful in changing people's behavior all the time. Even here we are getting more people to change their behavior and use FreeBSD and stop using Microsoft all the time. >So, what is the >medical profession to do? They do not live in a vacuum. Do you really >want the medical profession to sequester itself in an ivory tower and >make proclamations about how _you_ must behave and what ailments it >will and will not treat? No, the medical profession is part of our >society and our society wants the medical profession to fix all of our >problems without us having to do anything we don't wanna. It's not >really just something wrong with Western medicine as it is a problem >with what Western society as a whole expects and demands of the >medical community. This may be true but it's also true that medical money and medical research personnel are not infinite. Regardless of what the public thinks, or wants to think, decisions are made all the time as to what research is to be funded and what isn't. The medical community is like any other business. The vast majority of doctors are not researchers, and can only solve problems that the medical research community has figured out. Indeed, most doctors take significant risks when deviating from established treatment regimens, as it opens them up to malpractice lawsuits. In short, most doctors are just as much consumers of new medical advances as patients are. As far as deciding WHO to treat with these established medical procedures, well in this country private enterprise and the insurance industry determine that. The hypothetical question your posing is really "what diseases and sicknesses that currently have no established regimens of successful treatment do we want the medical profession to work on curing?" This is the heart of my argument. I submit that when making decisions as to where to allocate medical researchers and dollars that whether the sickness or disease is self-caused should be a significant factor in the decision. It's not fair to spend billions on AIDS research when AIDS is largely preventable, instead of spending those billions on Alzheimers or Parkinson's research, which isn't preventable. (so far as we know) Not to mention that there's already willing billions in the private sector that people would spend on AIDS. When are we going to see Live-Alzheimers concerts?!? Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?002501c152ff$ec9dfec0$1401a8c0>