Ooh, let me post my comment from the last time this was posted here back in 2015:
One day, an anti-dragonist on a speaking tour visited a town. When he arrived, most of the town's inns were already full, and he had to make do with a small room in a small in in a run-down part of the town.
The next morning, he stood outside the inn on his soap box and told people about how the dragon could be defeated. A small crowd gathered around him. When he had finished speaking, a woman asked: "My children are hungry. My husband went off to war against the tigers and never came back. How does killing the dragon help them?"
"Well, they too will one day be fed to the dragon!"
"But they are hungry now. My baby is very weak. She cries all the time. Even if she doesn't die, she's going to grow up stunted."
"I'm sure you can find a way. Anyway, I'm here to talk about the dragon, it's..."
Another interrupted him: "My son was killed by the king's men three weeks ago. They laughed as they cut him down. No one will hear my case."
"Well, I'm sure they had a good reason. Your son was probably a criminal."
Another said: "My family beats me because I don't want to marry the man they chose for me. Right now, I wouldn't mind being eaten."
"Listen. I'm not interested in the problems of you little people. They're not my problems, and anyway, you're probably lying, or exaggerating, or just not trying hard enough. But I'm scared of the dragon, because the dragon's going to eat everyone, including me. So we should concentrate on that, don't you agree?"
For every one person working on addressing aging and death, thousands are looking at other problems. Nobody is advocating that every other problem should be ignored, simply that we could stand to adjust the balance.
(Apart from that, I'd say that the caricature you're depicting is not particularly good at responding to people in a productive or endearing way, which is unrelated to the problem itself.)
>> Nobody is advocating that every other problem should be ignored, simply that we could stand to adjust the balance.
Nick Bostrom's article is advocating exactly that:
Instead of a massive publicly-funded research program to halt aging, we spend almost our entire health budget on health-care and on researching individual diseases.
He seems to be saying that if we halt ageing, we'll stop dying from other disease, or in any case that ageing is more important than any other disease.
The fact that you are more likely to die of every other disease after the age of 30 is a direct consequence of aging. It is more important than any other disease. Also, that quote does not say that every other disease should be ignored, only that we should spend less than 100% of our budget on them.
(3) Administration became its own purpose. One seventh of the economy went to dragon-administration (which is also the fraction of its GDP that the U.S. spends on healthcare). Damage-limitation became such an exclusive focus that it made people neglect the underlying cause. Instead of a massive publicly-funded research program to halt aging, we spend almost our entire health budget on health-care and on researching individual diseases.
He's equating the spending on health care with the "dragon-administration" that he describes as a pointless, misguided task. So he believes we shouldn't be spending that money on that sort of task, i.e. the US should not be spending a seventh of its economy on healthcare, because that's just "damage limitation".
He's further saying that instead of "a massive publicly-funded research program to halt aging" we're spending that money on "researching individual diseases". In other words, he thinks that that money would be best spent on that "massive publicly-funded research program". Else, what's the meaning of "instead"?
Bostrom's belief is that halting ageing will cure all other disease. According to his allegory, ageing is the one big disease that kills everyone eventually. So if we cure it, we save everyone. Therefore, we should be working to cure ageing and abandon all attempts to cure all other diseases. That's the morale of the story: don't bother with tigers and snakes ("individual diseases"), don't bother with dragon-administration (healthcare), just kill the dragon, save the world.
Note that he's saying all that quite straight-faced, completely ignoring infant deaths (5.6 million under-fives died in 2016) and deaths of people in young age, i.e. many millions of deaths that have nothing to do with ageing and that a magic immortality pill will never get the chance to help in the first place, because they will be dead long before it can stop them from ageing. He's not explaining how a cure for senescence will cure or prevent infections, or genetic diseases, either.
His whole point is completely illogical, irrational, and it's obvious that even people who broadly support it have not really realised what the heck that guy's talking about.
His point is if you could keep the vast majority of the population to a biological age of less than 30, you wouldn't need the vast majority of health care.
That statement seems to me to simply state a fact, and suggest taking a different approach. That doesn't mean we should halt all research on anything else.
There certainly exist quite a number of diseases that have nothing to do with aging. On the other hand, there also exist quite a few health problems, including many that represent a substantial fraction of healthcare spending, that do relate to age-related degeneration. Taking that into account would produce a better allocation of resources.
I think the point of the conversation is also to point out that if there is no fear of death, and population keeps growing, it is possible that quality of life of average humanity goes down.
Of course, multiple factors can contribute to that, including induced "laziness" in large sections of society due to infiniteness of life.
Population growth is driven by birth rate, not death rate. Even slaughtering everyone at the age of 100 only delays the overpopulation problem (by less than two decades) if indeed there is an overpopulation problem.
This is an oddly incoherent article. It fails to mention Borges' "On Exactitude in Science" or Baudrillard's "Simulacra and Simulation" despite re-hashing their ideas.
Yes! I was confused by this, too. Everything else I've read about toxoplasma has stated that in humans, it increases risky (or risky-feeling) behaviour like motorcycling or sky diving.
But an infection that makes people more sexually submissive - that reads like the plot of a really silly piece of sci-fi porn.
I have hard time understanding if ihsw is trying to show how far the Polish leadership has fallen, or if he is seriously finding their undemocratic stance somehow acceptable.
Korwin-Mikke is known for his colourful language - which he doesn't reserve for so-called refugees, far from that- and a proclivity for PR scandals. He's hardly representative of Polish mainstream political class though (he himself would be greatly offended at such implication), so kindly please keep Poland as such out of it
Coming from Switzerland, this is not at all surprising. No one expected this initiative to pass. It was really more of an attempt to get a conversation started, and it's succeeded in that.
As a (tentative) supporter of basic income, I'm already quite happy that something like a fifth to a quarter of voters went for it.
Question, how does Switzerland avoid becoming more polarized country with so many referendum questions each year?
Do you think there is a risk passing a referendum resolution that passed just by a small margin?
I have been thinking about this since the result of Austrian presidental elections, and how more polarized the politics in Europe is becoming, while trying to figure out if there is a way how to move politics to a a place where it would strive for finding society-wide consensus and compromise on most issues.
> Question, how does Switzerland avoid becoming more polarized country with so many referendum questions each year?
As a Swiss, I would say a high number of referenda works against polarization. This Sunday, we had to vote on five national questions and additional local ones. This high number of questions makes it very unlikely that you agree on everything even with your family and best friends. Thus, we automatically learn to disagree without getting polarized.
My grand-father always encouraged his children to vote even though he knew they nomrally had different opinions and "neutralized" his vote. To him, voting at all was much more important than what the vote was, as long as you vote for what you honestly believe is right. I fully share this view.
A referendum resolution did pass with a small margin and it was controversial. Said initiative was the "initiative contre l'immigration en masse", or in English "Against mass immigration". It was accepted by 50,3% of Swiss voters and 12 Swiss Cantons outright and 5 cantons counting half towards the vote (out of 26). It is controversial, as the implementation of said vote means bringing back immigration quotas for all EU citizens, meaning Switzerland would need to leave the Schengen area. To the EU this means Switzerland would be rejecting a whole set of bilateral agreements, so the implementation of this particular vote is causing a headache for the Swiss government.
That said, further referendums on the question of immigration, for example automatically expelling convicted foreigners after their sentence is complete were fairly convincingly rejected. From the Swiss I know, most consider the referendum process to be fairly normal and routine. They receive information booklets presenting both sides of the argument, the view from the government and the view from any political parties who are interested. They make their decision and they decide.
It is difficult to explain I think unless you've seen it in action. I am from the UK and we are currently in the middle of the Brexit/Remain campaign. There's not an iota of fact or reason in the current debate and our politicians do things like predict WWIII if we leave and waves of Turkish immigrants if we remain. The whole thing is moronic and embarrassing. There are without a doubt some stupid things said/done here (the black sheep poster by the SVP for example) but the level of political discourse is no way near the level of stupidity in the UK IMO. If you're imagining Trump-esque campaigns every few months, it's basically the polar opposite. Unless you speak the local language and know what you're looking at, you'd hardly notice. At best you will see billboard or two amidst the other adverts and perhaps receive an information leaflet in the post. That's it. Perhaps the Swiss guy or girl above might say it is more obvious perhaps, if you have more Swiss friends than I do or watch a lot of TV, but I don't think, from what I have seen, that it is anywhere near as vitriolic as any other country I know.
Source: I'm British and I live in a French-speaking Canton (in spite of my username).
It can be pretty polarized unfortunately. For example, in 2002, an (in my opinion, pretty extreme) anti-immigration referendum was defeated with a margin of 4208 votes. https://www.admin.ch/ch/d/pore/va/20021124/index.html
Question, how does Switzerland avoid becoming more polarized country with so many referendum questions each year?
In the US, many vilify their political opponents as crazy and/or morally inferior. This has happened around referendums. We also try to get civic organizations to adopt politicized codes of conduct and have politicized social media campaigns to kick people out of civic organizations. I hope Switzerland doesn't have those horrors.
> Question, how does Switzerland avoid becoming more polarized country with so many referendum questions each year?
From my experience even young people are able to have healthy discussions about "difficult" topics and then just proceed with life.
This topic clearly led to some interesting discussions where some had very radical thoughts to, but i saw no friendships breaking so far.
As someone who lived in a while in Austria it is completely different there. I've seen people punched in the face for less aggressive political motives in the public.
Doesn't the fact that the margin on the no vote was so high put a damper on the enthusiasm for supporters? Or do the Swiss routinely vote over and over again on rewordings of the same idea?
It does put a damper on things, but yeah, it's not uncommon for more or less the same thing to come up every decade or two. Evergreen topics include immigration reform, nuclear power, and whether Switzerland needs an army.
Mandatory health insurance is another good example:[1]
In 1890 the constitution was changed by popular vote to give the federal government the authority and duty to establish a health care system, either voluntary or mandatory.
A project for mandatory accident and health insurance passed the parliament in 1899, but a referendum was requested and the proposed law was rejected by popular vote in 1900.
A new law was passed in 1911, keeping the mandatory accident insurance but leaving the states free to make health insurance voluntary or mandatory. This law survived a referendum in 1912.
Attempts at revising the health insurance law failed in the 20's, 40's and 50's.
A popular initiative for mandatory health insurance failed the vote in
1974. A counter-project submitted by the government, with mandatory coverage for large risks only, also failed the vote.
Finally, another popular initiative for mandatory health insurance is deposited in 1986. The government prepares an indirect counter-project, resulting in a law that includes mandatory health insurance. The law is adopted by the parliament in March 1994, but a referendum is requested. Both the initiative and the referendum on the law are submitted to a popular vote in December 1994. The initiative fails by 76.6% "no" while the counter-project passes by 51.8% "yes".
Ahhh. Well, it will be interesting to see how the economy evolves over the next decade and how that might affect a future vote. If tons of Swiss middle class lose their jobs and move down to low class it could be a dramatic reversal.
No because you have to look at were we came from. 10 years ago people either didn't know what it even was or was against the idea. Only small groups of people here and there even thought it as a potential solution.
Now countries like Finland is looking into it.
I am pretty confident we are going to end up there, but like many other major changes in society it takes time and thats fine.
Which is exactly what made me turn against it. I want to know what I vote for, leaving it open like that will in the best case lead to a completely watered down compromise and in the worst case a complete mess. The social security system needs to get simplified at the same time. An initiative committee for UBI needs to sit down and come up with a tenable solution, at least for the basic parameters (both spending and financing).
It's exactly how it should be! We generally, like in this case, vote for a change of the constitution. The constitution should not contain specific monetary values like this that need to be regularly adapted anyway, nor would it make sense for people to vote on specific values. We should vote on general ideas and the government, together with specialists, impels implements them. Otherwise it's some kind of micromanagement by the masses.
Thing is that Switzerland is a super-expensive country. 1500 would not actually be enough to live on. You can get 4000 working at the till at a supermarket.
The idea of basic income is not to replace jobs. The idea is to give you the basics of living and food. Then you can take on additional work of some kind to improve your overall income.
You could live with 1500 if you really wanted to. Its not impossible.
Who is this basic income aimed at in Switzerland? Somehow I can't picture homeless people living on the streets of Bern but like anywhere else I'm sure there are homeless there people too.
O jotun idaho I barely knew thee. What fructose carriest thou in thine womb? Is it not true that the eldenbrecht is your mother and the fruitbat your father? Do you dance alone in the moonshine, leaves leaving dappled patterns on your skin, scintillating aardvarks cavorting nearby, always ready to praise your flanks and rotund tubules?
Let me now speak of soft things such as bread. These things are more easily made than others, being primarily composed of those parts that are with less form than what we have so far observed. It stands to reason that the absence of form in their nature predisposes them towards changeability, yes, truly, they are protean in nature. Bread, so, is the archetype of all things that live. Created, quickened, baked, hardened. Consumed by need. If left alone, it goes stale.
O Ophelia, thine most fruitbatulous tubules excite yet stronger yearnings within my gullet, but shall I be forever warned against the tides of leprosy that even now sweep through this fair hamlet? Isn't all that we see but as bread?
Indeed, were we to do the deed, what creed would we bleed? What need would we feed? Let us then retreat and retread instead our oldest and least useful thoughts: bread. Where does it come from, where does it go, where it stops nobody know because bread is ineffable that is to say if you stick your dick into it, you are going to have a bad time.
One day, an anti-dragonist on a speaking tour visited a town. When he arrived, most of the town's inns were already full, and he had to make do with a small room in a small in in a run-down part of the town. The next morning, he stood outside the inn on his soap box and told people about how the dragon could be defeated. A small crowd gathered around him. When he had finished speaking, a woman asked: "My children are hungry. My husband went off to war against the tigers and never came back. How does killing the dragon help them?"
"Well, they too will one day be fed to the dragon!"
"But they are hungry now. My baby is very weak. She cries all the time. Even if she doesn't die, she's going to grow up stunted."
"I'm sure you can find a way. Anyway, I'm here to talk about the dragon, it's..."
Another interrupted him: "My son was killed by the king's men three weeks ago. They laughed as they cut him down. No one will hear my case."
"Well, I'm sure they had a good reason. Your son was probably a criminal."
Another said: "My family beats me because I don't want to marry the man they chose for me. Right now, I wouldn't mind being eaten."
"Listen. I'm not interested in the problems of you little people. They're not my problems, and anyway, you're probably lying, or exaggerating, or just not trying hard enough. But I'm scared of the dragon, because the dragon's going to eat everyone, including me. So we should concentrate on that, don't you agree?"
And the people rolled their eyes and walked away.