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That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

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Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#251

Post by therobot24 »

ivraatiems wrote: post #243
therobot24 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No hard feelings. The article is important - especially being from one of the mothers affected by the statement, her words carry more weight than others for sure. However, i do also think her bias in the matter let the article drift from the costs of cost-cutting in health care (losing faith in a business), and slide into fearmongering. A harsh word, yes, but she has a platform, she has our attention, and she has exp…

Have you considered that rather than this being a calculated attempt to affect mass opinion on something, this is in fact primarily a mother expressing her distress about what she perceives as an attack on her child? I didn't read it as trying to make any point other than "this is awful and unfair and my daughter is innocent of wrongdoing." I don't know that it's as calculated as it seems like you think it is.

Of course i don't think it's calculated. Does the PTA mom who demands creationist teachings in school calculate exactly how to guilt trip the administration? Of course not. Rather emotion and personal morals influences their decisions.

Same here, the emotional toll and frustration derived from the comments (again, which were completely uncalled for) overly influenced the article. There is no reason for her to not be frustrated and angry, and putting that into her writing is important. It should not, however, be the primary driving force of the article, otherwise it's just plain manipulation.

> I didn't read it as trying to make any point other than "this is awful and unfair and my daughter is innocent of wrongdoing."

My point exactly. To reiterate, she had a platform, she had us listening, and she knows what she's talking about, but she missed the opportunity to spark a real discussion of how to prevent this from happening again. Instead she only focused on relating her frustration to every other parent reading, which in my opinion, can be very manipulating. Using the anger that her daughter was a target, and the fear that even though they're innocent they were punished is manipulative. "Won't somebody please think of the children?!"

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#252

Post by yummyfajitas »

dylandrop wrote: post #194
pg wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did he say? http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/02/8539961/... He shouldn't have mentioned specific cases. If he felt the company had to cut elsewhere to compensate for high medical costs, he should have left it at that level of detail. But I don't see how you get from what he actually said to I'm utterly appalled at Tim Armstrong's attitudes towards the lives of his employee's children. Apparently…

I think saying "I'm utterly appalled" on an online chat board is a lot different from joining a mob to kill someone. Let's not make any Tom Perkins-esque comparisons here [1]. And people should certainly be allowed to react when those in positions of power say appalling things. Whether he thinks that is absolutely unacceptable is doubtful, but he clearly thinks that the $7.1M in healthcare spending is something that…

...but he clearly thinks that the $7.1M in healthcare spending is something that should have to come out of the workers' 401k.

Which is utterly reasonable. AOL has allocated $X for employee compensation. The law mandates health care go up by $7.1M, so something else must be cut by $7.1M.

This is certainly bad for workers who prefer the 401k benefits to whatever Obamacare benefits are costing $7.1M (and it seems like this is many workers). But that's a problem with the ACA - blaming TA for that is silly.

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#253

Post by yummyfajitas »

davidw wrote: post #167
pg wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends what you mean by "about." Do you mean 1. People often attack you for some belief they mistakenly attribute to you. or 2. What you actually say or believe doesn't matter. If people want to make up some belief to attribute to you in order to attack it, that's fine. If you mean 1, I agree. But I would hope that here, at least, we wouldn't sink to that sort of mob behavior.

He announced the company would be giving less money to employees, and blamed it on some babies, when he's earning, by himself, much more than the two incidents cost, and supposedly presided over a successful quarter. Seems, if nothing else, a poor way of handling things. Even if you're a "tight-fisted homo-economomicus shareholder" the end result is bad, because in the end his gaffe and the subsequent publicity meant…

He announced the company would be giving less money to employees, and blamed it on some babies...

He announced the company would be giving the same money to employees but the distribution would change: more healthcare (as mandated by Obamacare), less 401k.

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#255

Post by shiven »

clavalle wrote: post #247
shiven wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is shameful, personally, that he profits so much. Profits from saving human lives. Can a price be really put on a human life? Sure you can cite economics and a number like $7MM or whatever, but would you, personally , decide against paying that amount (assuming you had the money) to save your or your loved one's life, push come to shove? And of course, it is always about resource availability, in this case…

>Can a price be really put on a human life? This is the crux of the problem. You can't really. The interesting thing is that his brother is a physician with very similar training in the UK (they both went to Trinity in Dublin). Does he get $4 million a year? Not by a long shot. Is he hurting for money? No. He has a large house and equally large family, travels all over the world and in general has a wonderful life. G…

All else being equal, would the brother turn down the money if he were given it? Would he turn it down merely and strictly due to the number of zeroes tacked after the first six digits? How would anyone in his position make a decision either way? All questions worth thinking about. And IMHO, intricately woven of human nature and our immediate economies. I fail to see the foundation of a moral dilemma, leave alone outrage, in all this. But then again, I plead that I am merely following my own moral compass!

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#256

Post by jbapple »

lutusp wrote: post #156
jbapple wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like working for a self-insured company is strictly worse for employees than working for a company that offers insurance through an insurance company, risk-wise.

Not "strictly worse", because if one cares about maximizing profits for the company and wages for the employees, the self-insurance route might be better overall. Formal insurance arrangements can be a real drain on resources. On the other hand, some companies choose to self-insure without fully appreciating the risks.

How serious are the risks to the company's other assets? Can a company limit the damage to its other assets if the money it set aside for insurance gets used up?

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#257

Post by jfoks »

malandrew wrote: post #206
sgk284 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the child lives to 80, she only needs to contribute an additional $12,500 worth of value to civilization per year for this to make economic sense. Another way to look at this: the government has various estimates for the value of a human life. It averages about $7MM. The "extraordinary" expense of this child actually only requires a 14% increase in value over the average citizen to make sense. Most importantly tho…

That still doesn't maximize overall benefit. What if the money were instead spent on 10 individuals that needed 1/10 the money to save their lives? The cost benefit analysis to determine what medical issues make most sense should try to maximize the number of person-years-lived across the entire population.

The money spend where '1/10 the money' was needed to save their lives is additional money spent, not 'instead money'.

In this particular case, the 'instead money' was pure profits for a company (and some taxes for the government).

Do you really think that the 'instead money' would have been a better choice?

Money is just money and is completely replaceable. Actually, we have machines to make it: it's printable. Actually, we don't even have to physically print the money to 'print the money'... It's a number in a computer file.

Every dollar is the same as every other dollar.

Each and every life, on the other hand, is unique.

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#258

Post by sgk284 »

gwern wrote: post #250
sgk284 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still makes sense at the margin. Updated wording slightly to clarify.

That's still a terrible argument. > The "extraordinary" expense of this child actually only requires a 14% increase in value over the average citizen to make sense. Ok, fair enough, we'll ignore the question of whether average really makes sense, but there's a bigger problem: there's absolutely no reason to expect this hugely premature baby to have >14% increase of value. Why? This is completely unfounded, completely…

> That's still a terrible argument.

It was one of three points made, the last point being the most significant. Our humanity should take priority over negligible costs.

> there's absolutely no reason to expect this hugely premature baby to have >14% increase of value

Without a standard deviation on the average, there is no way to say whether or not 14% is reasonable. Regardless, I was simply pointing out that it's a small fraction rather than orders of magnitude greater. Even if the child winds up providing 50% of the value of an average person, it can still be a net gain.

Economic reasoning is just one (minor) aspect to this situation though. There is very real value in simply helping a fellow human survive.

> as a premature baby with massive expensive health problems, wouldn't we expect the opposite?

The stats you cite are for extreme cases on the edge of viability and the odds still slightly favor normal or near-normal development.

This particular baby was born with a 66% chance of living and deserves more than a quick dismissal.

> If babies could be born months premature with no negative effects, why aren't they being born that way already so they can start growing up quicker?

That's horrible reasoning. The human body has evolved over millions of years for birth. It is the optimal gestation machine. We're working on approximating this optimal machine with artificial machines and continue to rapidly make progress. In the rare situation where the human body fails for some reason, we attempt to augment it with the best artificial machines we've got. Nobody claims that premature births are better, but a hiccup during pregnancy shouldn't mean the end of a life if we can avoid it.

Humanity progresses when a society looks out for each other. In particular, without bias. That starts at birth.

What you're proposing is barbaric and borderline infantcide.

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#259

Post by sgk284 »

malandrew wrote: post #206
sgk284 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the child lives to 80, she only needs to contribute an additional $12,500 worth of value to civilization per year for this to make economic sense. Another way to look at this: the government has various estimates for the value of a human life. It averages about $7MM. The "extraordinary" expense of this child actually only requires a 14% increase in value over the average citizen to make sense. Most importantly tho…

That still doesn't maximize overall benefit. What if the money were instead spent on 10 individuals that needed 1/10 the money to save their lives? The cost benefit analysis to determine what medical issues make most sense should try to maximize the number of person-years-lived across the entire population.

You're assuming that we're at capacity on spending, but we're not. Instead, we can afford to bring 11 individuals into the world. The absolute gain to society is still greater than simply bringing 10 into the world.

Maximizing number of total person years is not sufficient because a population 100x as large but living 1/5 as long would be superior to a population of the current size but living twice as long.

I'd argue in favor of maximizing population size and average lifespan. Of course this ultimately leads to the requirement that humanity moves off of this little rock of ours.

Re: That “distressed baby" Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter

#260

Post by DanBC »

shasta wrote: post #242
waps wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just correction a misconception here. The human brain "boots" on the 18th day after conception (you can set your watch to it). It is obvious on echo pictures that coherent thoughts are present on the 21st day after conception (e.g. if awake, most kids are aware that they're being pictured and attempt to find and play with the source of the sound, I think that qualifies as coherent thought). It is quite obvious on the…

Thanks, that's very interesting. Whether it's a fish brain or frog larva brain or something more, though, my point is that it's not yet intrinsically worth protecting as human life. Its worth is all potential. Consider: how much would would this life be worth if brain development stopped at this point? For a newborn or earlier, the answer is not much.

I am strongly "pro choice" - i would allow abortion on demand upto 21 weeks and after that with medical need. I think the way we deal with children who have very poor quality of life and very little chance of living beyond a few months after being born is really poor.

None of this is incompatible with saying that the "clump of cells" is precious and worth preserving, and that parents should have support before, during, and after pregnancy to help this child.

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