CDR: Re: why should it be trusted?

[Tim May]

At 3:25 AM -0400 10/23/00, Dave Emery wrote:
>On Sun, Oct 22, 2000 at 10:41:06PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
>>  At 1:10 AM -0400 10/23/00, Dave Emery wrote:
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >	Nobody dies without healthcare under our present system.
>>
>>  Actually, many people do. What planet have you been living on?
>>
>>
>>  Many do not have insurance, and do not receive care for various
>>  ailments until it's too late.  Many do not have insurance and do not
>>  have annual physicals, or mammograms, or prostate exams, or pap
>>  smears, or any of the hundreds of such things.
>>
>>  Some hospitals offers limited free services, some free clinics exist.
>>  But clearly many Americans are not receiving such care. And of course
>>  these "free services" are often a huge distance from _good_
>>  healthcare. So much for "nobody dies without healthcare."
>
>	I said healthcare. Not good healthcare, or even adaquate
>healthcare (though in fact substantially better than almost anyone got
>perhaps 50 years ago or most get in the third world today).   With
>certain minor circumstantial exceptions people need not die without
>benefit of significant health care resources in this society.

You didn't say "need not die," you said they _don't_ die.

As for all people having healthcare, I personally know people who 
_don't_ have healthcare. This refutes your point by example.

>
>
>>  (Were it my hospital, I would not think highly of Men with Guns
>>  telling me I must give $10,000 worth of ER services to someone who
>  > won't pay me back and who has no insurance.)
>  >
>	OK, so you would turn them out to die in the streets.  Or at least
>want to believe that if you didn't it had been a voluntary act of charity
>rather than something forced on you as a social obligation.

Yes, it is my "right" to turn them away. Just as it is my "right" to 
not feed those on the verge of starvation, not house those sleeping 
in the snow and rain, and not pay for lifesaving operations.

Earth to Dave: people die every day because they cannot afford a 
transplant they need (and which medical science has figured out how 
to do). What is at all surprising about this?
>
>	Whether or not you view this as bad depends on your very basic
>views about the social compact and fairness - is it just bad luck and
>tough sushi for the poor unfortunate or should we as a society offer
>at least some safe harbor for those who drew the short straws ?  And
>if we do offer such, how much of our collective wealth should we spend
>on it - .005%, 0.5% 1 %, 5%, 35% ?    And how should we decide this ?
>And what happens in a world in which the mechanisms by which we express
>such sentiments erode as states wither...

What happens? Evolution procedes apace. Those who figure out how to 
work hard, save from their paychecks, and prepare for the future will 
do better than those who don't.

Sounds fair to me.

More than just fair, it's going to happen. It already is. I see a 
widening gap between the Prepared and the Unprepared. And this is a 
Good Thing.

Crypto anarchy will sharply accelerate this trend. And this is an 
Even Better Thing.


--Tim May
-- 
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Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
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