31–40 of 204 posts
I see no reason to assume that life expectancy would continue to increase indefinitely at a linear rate. Most interventions that increase life expectancy (e.g. mitigating major causes of non-age-related death) are subject to diminishing returns.
Strange that the article doesn't mention Brexit. Many nurses (and doctors) in the UK used to be from EU countries.
The effect mentioned started before Brexit, so the link has to be with something else - in the article's conclusion it's a related Tory problem, austerity
we need more people like this in the uk, not fewer. but our vile government will never get a clue.
It is well-known that the austerity ushered in by Cameron's new Conservative goverment heavily contributed to excess deaths. After a decade of continued underfunding of public services, leading to a collapsed social and health service, you realise the question really isn't that deep
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not sure how in a totally integrated free market world, a country like UK can compete with US or China. The amount of funding US can put into new areas like green energy and the internal market and capital it offers is something UK can't compete with. This is why UK origin founders are one of the biggest cohort of immigrant unicorn founders in US. Although, I am not sure where a Brit would move to, if they want…
Taiwan, South Korea, and Israel all have much lower populations than the UK and yet remain important global influencers. It isn't all about population. The USA has 1/4 the population of China and yet technologically is a peer competitor. Japan had less than 1/2 the population of the USA in the 1980s and was a technological peer competitor. With wise investment in capital equipment, education, and technology, even sma…
Probably about the same as the electoral interest in a party that promised everyone a perpetual motion machine, which would be about as capable of achieving its promises. (The recent UK electoral record of promises you'd have to be utterly delusional to believe isn't bad actually, just helps to have a lot of backing from the status quo!)
The UK already has more global influence than Taiwan, South Korea and Israel and massively outsize influence for a country making up less than 1% of global population and an even smaller fraction of its land physical resources, it's just this global influence isn't guaranteed to be used wisely, never mind benefit the lifespan of the average citizen.
The target is 90% of patients reached in 15 minutes. Yet the reality is the average wait was 48 hours.
I can't see any way that kind of thing isn't contributing to a shorter life expectancy.
As a Brit I can't help but notice that on every axis, our country appears to be in decline at the moment. Even before Brexit, things hadn't been going well, as this article shows. It's making me seriously consider moving away. I want to have hope that as a country we can turn around this societal regression, but I fear it's a deeper problem than just the current government. The class system and an unhealthy nostalgia…
As another Brit I totally agree. I don’t quite understand the sequence of events that brought us here, but I am convinced that we need to kick the Conservatives out at the next election at the very least.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taiwan, South Korea, and Israel all have much lower populations than the UK and yet remain important global influencers. It isn't all about population. The USA has 1/4 the population of China and yet technologically is a peer competitor. Japan had less than 1/2 the population of the USA in the 1980s and was a technological peer competitor. With wise investment in capital equipment, education, and technology, even sma…
To be honest it is all about population. Industrial/technological first mover advantage has now gone really. You need the concentration of talent that only drawing from a very large pool can achieve. US, EU, China are the 3 poles at the moment - with Africa and South America as potential for the future if they can get their governance sorted out. The UK stopped being a global power after Suez - not for nothing is Bre…
A nation with a 10x higher per capita of truly productive scientists and engineers (with a well functioning R&D system that wasn't just publish-or-perish or other friction that reduces efficiency) would perform roughly as well as a nation with 10x the population. Somewhat but not perfectly analogous to how some countries invest more, or more wisely in their military budget, and have equivalent military power as much larger countries.
So if the UK invested such that it had 10x the per capita scientists and engineers, let's say 10% of the population vs 1%, then it could compete with a nation of 680 million.
If it also invested more wisely in capital equipment, business efficiency, legal efficiency, and so on, it might be able to get further multipliers and compete with the biggest economies in the world.
Strange that the article doesn't mention Brexit. Many nurses (and doctors) in the UK used to be from EU countries.
The effect mentioned started before Brexit, so the link has to be with something else - in the article's conclusion it's a related Tory problem, austerity
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taiwan, South Korea, and Israel all have much lower populations than the UK and yet remain important global influencers. It isn't all about population. The USA has 1/4 the population of China and yet technologically is a peer competitor. Japan had less than 1/2 the population of the USA in the 1980s and was a technological peer competitor. With wise investment in capital equipment, education, and technology, even sma…
To be honest it is all about population. Industrial/technological first mover advantage has now gone really. You need the concentration of talent that only drawing from a very large pool can achieve. US, EU, China are the 3 poles at the moment - with Africa and South America as potential for the future if they can get their governance sorted out. The UK stopped being a global power after Suez - not for nothing is Bre…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taiwan, South Korea, and Israel all have much lower populations than the UK and yet remain important global influencers. It isn't all about population. The USA has 1/4 the population of China and yet technologically is a peer competitor. Japan had less than 1/2 the population of the USA in the 1980s and was a technological peer competitor. With wise investment in capital equipment, education, and technology, even sma…
Israel has an existential threat next door and the region where they have to exist and their past drives them to have real ingenuity in innovation. Taiwan and South Korea are modelled after Japan like obedience to authority and way higher tolerance for tough work conditions than a western European nation. Is it realistic to assume that a Brit would work 12 hours in a job? I am not trying to say UK lacks the talent to…
1st, historically Western European countries absolutely did work 12 hour days, back when that made any kind of economic sense, despite the human misery it creatd.
With modern knowledge work, a forced 12 hour day is probably not going to help anybody achieve more. Although a very very highly educated, very very highly compensated, might choose to work longer hours, but hours aren't what would cause the higher productivity.