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Dhcpcd Will Need a New Maintainer

roy.marples.name

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Re: Dhcpcd Will Need a New Maintainer

#121

Post by oneplane »

flatline wrote: post #97
sjtindell wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just in my personal opinion, things like a UBI move us towards that world. It wound allow people flexibility.

It would allow flexibility for those who can manage their money successfully, and aren’t horribly unlucky. Unfortunately that population is relatively sparse - the monthly stipend is going to be funneled into the pockets of unscrupulous lenders as fast as you can say, “easy credit”. If it weren’t the US, with our habit of lifestyle inflation and tremendous consumer and educational debt, I’d be much more optimistic ab…

UBI can exist outside of the US.

Re: Dhcpcd Will Need a New Maintainer

#122

Post by oneplane »

fastball wrote: post #72
AussieWog93 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason it costs millions to treat cancer patients is because of medical patents allowing companies to extract profit margins of several thousand percent (or more). In countries like Australia, where drug companies have to negotiate a fair price with a single government agency, the cost of treatment is an order of magnitude lower.

This is not true. MRI machines are not expensive because of "patents". They are expensive because they are expensive devices that utilize superconducting magnets which need a constant supply of liquid helium. Various drugs are expensive because (regardless of patents) there aren't enough patients to justify mass-production, so the price stays high. Sometimes even with mass production drugs are hard enough to make tha…

How is it not true?

Prices being high or things being expensive (both subjective terms that are hardly useful in this context) aren't a universal truth. Generally, a nation-organised and at least partially managed medial healthcare system costs less and delivers better results than a free-for-all corporations-decide system.

Re: Dhcpcd Will Need a New Maintainer

#123

Post by stjohnswarts »

aeturnum wrote: post #9

This is a sad reminder of the masses of invisible labor (unpaid and paid) that hold up our world. Social scientists have been studying how labor becomes visible (or invisible) for a while without finding obvious solutions to "the situation." How can we build a world where an infinite procession specialists like Roy can get the care they need and also find and train successors in their important work? Not just because…

Yeah I think if I suddenly became a billionaire after being in the industry for a while and maintaining important but underpaid legacy stuff I would handsomely reward some of these icons of the industry that has made me both very happy and very sad at times, but it is my life. OR send it to the charity of their choice :) .

Re: Dhcpcd Will Need a New Maintainer

#124

Post by stjohnswarts »

sjtindell wrote: post #24
aeturnum wrote: post #9

This is a sad reminder of the masses of invisible labor (unpaid and paid) that hold up our world. Social scientists have been studying how labor becomes visible (or invisible) for a while without finding obvious solutions to "the situation." How can we build a world where an infinite procession specialists like Roy can get the care they need and also find and train successors in their important work? Not just because…

Just in my personal opinion, things like a UBI move us towards that world. It wound allow people flexibility.

Currently I think UBI is early, there is still plenty of work for people who are willing to put in the time and sacrifice. HOWEVER, in time it will become very necessary or there will be mass civil unrest as AI and other automation takes over almost all of our jobs. I feel healthcare should be a human right but I can't quite justify UBI to support all of society, I don't think it works currently and isn't practical. I have seen essentially the same going on (heavily subsidized rural areas) and people do become dependent and lazy (maybe unambitious is better word) if they know they will be receiving enough money to cover rent/food/moderate entertainment money. I am not blaming them compeltely, the areas I lived in had very very few opportunities and people want to stay close to their family and "what they know". I was more of an adventurous, nerdy soul so I got out of it as quickly as I could, but it is disingenuous to act like people won't be lazy if given the chance. There has to be something in the middle to incentivize them, especially when they've seen no other way of life. I full expect to be grayed into oblivion but I think my viewpoint holds some truth.

Re: Dhcpcd Will Need a New Maintainer

#125

Post by ianbutler »

einpoklum wrote: post #51
winfred wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I see it, we already have that world, with capitalism functioning as a filter. I worked my ass off to reach financial independence, now I'm dedicating the rest of my life towards helping other people. I've proven to be capable of using the system to a degree where I can do whatever I want, which allows me the freedom to help other people full time. It's not a perfect system, but I doubt UBI will be much bette…

> I worked my ass off to reach financial independence This is a false pursuit, and in a sense a vacuous statement. You are never independent of society around you. You are in constant need of others doing that invisible and visible labor - in production and in services - to maintain your way of life. It's only with Capitalism being the way it is that you need to "work your ass off" to not be financially dependent on…

Not really capitalism's fault. Regulatory capture, weak laws that let that happen, government corruption, lobbying laws and other things are more to blame.

The USA was still a capitalist society when the American dream was alive and well with a thriving middle class. Meanwhile nations with planned economies, abolished land ownership and worker owned means of production were starving and seeing general iniquity.

Now those protections that gave us a thriving middle class and general economic prosperity have been largely gutted and our government generally subverted.

My point is, the ills of a country are likely the cause of governmental failings and destabilization exploited by the ruling class of the system to entrench themselves and expand their interests at the expense of the general public, regardless of what that that system is. It can happen to any system of governance paired with any economic system.

I think we should be cleaning our government up and taking that power back, but that by putting the blame squarely on capitalism you're missing the forest for the trees. The problem is allowing whatever naturally formed ruling class in an economic and or political ecosystem from concentrating too much power, and potentially resources [1], in the first place.

[1] Though I'm skeptical of this but in so much as resources equate to power maybe it's necessary.

Re: Dhcpcd Will Need a New Maintainer

#126

Post by fastball »

oneplane wrote: post #122
fastball wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. MRI machines are not expensive because of "patents". They are expensive because they are expensive devices that utilize superconducting magnets which need a constant supply of liquid helium. Various drugs are expensive because (regardless of patents) there aren't enough patients to justify mass-production, so the price stays high. Sometimes even with mass production drugs are hard enough to make tha…

How is it not true? Prices being high or things being expensive (both subjective terms that are hardly useful in this context) aren't a universal truth. Generally, a nation-organised and at least partially managed medial healthcare system costs less and delivers better results than a free-for-all corporations-decide system.

It's not true because it's not true.

"Cheaper" =/= "cheap".

Re: Dhcpcd Will Need a New Maintainer

#127

Post by rodgerd »

vmception wrote: post #34
shadeslayer_ wrote: post #21

This is so sad because if you read his blog post from January 2021, he sounds so very hopeful and happy at the prospect of the immunotherapy working. It sounds like he discovered a new lease of life. Being thrown from that situation to the new prognosis which is infinitely worse, sounds like a hammer blow.

Cancer requires clinging to glimmers of hope. Yes, he felt that way at the time and yes, he wrote it down, but these improbabilities are all anyone ever has, its not over till it’s over. I read that post too, going from a tiny undetectable bump under the skin that only his partner noticed, to unbearable pain pressing against his spine making him unable to sleep and think clearly. It seems like 4 months were wasted ju…

> It seems like 4 months were wasted just getting appointments.

Unfortunately the UK health system is struggling with the huge COVID overload. It's one of the additional tragedies in countries with high infection rates: the acute care for COVID patients also decreases the care for all other illnesses.

Re: Dhcpcd Will Need a New Maintainer

#128

Post by path411 »

4ec0755f5522 wrote: post #110
sjtindell wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just in my personal opinion, things like a UBI move us towards that world. It wound allow people flexibility.

I wonder if UBI could be marketed politically in this way, e.g. "Finally paying for all the things you've already been using" or "Finally paying for the free labor you've based your life on" etc. type of messaging. I mean, it should be less guilt-y of course (I'm not in marketing) and somehow capture it's _society_ finally paying for the things generated by free/underpaid labor, not individual citizens, and not imply…

Sadly I think the people who are against UBI now, really don't care about anything like that. If someone is so devoid of empathy that they don't want to provide such a basic financial safety net for people in their own country from living in homelessness/poverty, I don't think they really care about paying people who's work they've used unknowingly.

Re: Dhcpcd Will Need a New Maintainer

#129

Post by fastball »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #91
fastball wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The calculus is still not that simple. What if that economic output could've instead been directed towards better education for children, or reducing the use of something which is known to cause cancer in the first place (e.g. coal power plants)? The decision is simple for you, because it's your mom. The decision is not a simple one for a society. We do not yet live in a post-scarcity world. Spending on one thing by…

Australia has free education as well, and optional private education. University is paid but fairly reasonable, and there's a loan system, though it could be better imho.

I'm sure you could find ways to spend more money and increase the quality of that free education, no?

Re: Dhcpcd Will Need a New Maintainer

#130

Post by sokoloff »

jdavis703 wrote: post #61
fastball wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with healthcare is that "basic minimum" is wildly subjective. Healthcare is still very expensive. There are diseases (including cancer) we could easily spend millions per patient on. Pulling out all the stops you could spend 10s of millions. But we really don't have that kind of societal overabundance, not yet. So how much do you spend per patient? Are there certain diseases that you don't spend any publi…

This complexity was one of the major reasons the Affordable Care Act’s public option was eliminated. There was going to be a group of people who made these decisions. But when the public found out they were deemed as “death panels” that would get to chose who would live or die.

Someone has to make these calls in any pooled-resource scheme. Jeff Bezos is free to pay whatever he likes from his own pocket, but any shared pool should be sensibly regulated to prevent ridiculously wasteful spending in the last few months of life.

If we perfected artificial hearts, for example, and they cost some nominal amount (less than a typical car, for example), we still wouldn't implant them in 102 year-olds. I'd argue against that implant for my parents, myself, and in the unlikely event I'm around then, for my kids.

I don't live under NHS, but the calculations they do, while often the subject of finger-wagging, seem entirely sensible to me.

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