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Rebecca Heineman has died

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Re: Rebecca Heineman has died

#71

Post by johnnyanmac »

ido wrote: post #25
Dedime wrote: post #11

Admittedly I didn't dive much into this to get the full context, but it's saddening to me that a legendary game designer had a GoFundMe. I was hoping achieving that level of status in a traditionally well-paid industry would leave one well off, financially.

The games industry is not traditionally well paid, unfortunately.

It's such an erractic industry in terms of compensation. You can found a studio, make some acclaimed darlings, and still end up shuttering and being no better off than your average joe. Then there's being a "software engineer in games" where you're a cog in a wheel fixing bugs in the yearly Sportball game that gets compensated 200k and you live very well despite never truly "impacting" the industry the same way. 200k isn't mindblowing for a software engineer, but it's well beyond "average joe" range at that point.

I'm that cog. Or at least, was. Situations like this make me thing a lot about the state of the industry and where I lie in life.

Re: Rebecca Heineman has died

#72

Post by endgame »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #70
simondotau wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Churchill line is about democracy, but the adapted version is a common variation. It works as a standalone maxim without need of attribution to some famous person.

> the adapted version is a common variation Got any evidence for that?

NYT (opinion), 2017: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/opinion/dont-quote-them-o...

Forbes, 2019: https://www.forbes.com/sites/yuwahedrickwong/2019/04/19/econ...

NPR, 2009: https://www.npr.org/2009/10/26/114163098/a-spoonful-of-socia...

LSE Economics Society essay question, 2018: https://www.tutor2u.net/economics/blog/lse-economics-society...

I also clicked through ten pages of Google search results for "capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others", each of which showed the literal quotes in the preview excerpts, at which point I became too bored to continue.

Re: Rebecca Heineman has died

#74

Post by squigz »

geenat wrote: post #73

[flagged]

What a horribly cold-hearted and tactless thing to say. From what I've read, she got diagnosed a month ago. Is our treatment here in Canada so damn good that we'd have been able to save her? I doubt it.

Re: Rebecca Heineman has died

#75

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

rsynnott wrote: post #61
philipallstar wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can imagine how that system, like most, is actually getting its medical advancements from the US.

This… is a think that people believe, but it’s not as simple as that. Most basic research is universities, all over the place. Many drugs are developed in Europe. A lot of medical machinery is developed and made in Europe (Siemens, Philips and Roche are huge in this space). Like most things, med tech is fairly globalised.

> This… is a think that people believe, but it’s not as simple as that.

This is a thing people believe because pharmaceutical companies keep repeating it. And to be fair, they're not entirely wrong in that getting a drug/treatment from the lab to the pharmacy is incredibly expensive because most drugs don't work and clinical trials are super expensive.

It does seem to me that a better system would be to split out the research/development and manufacturing of pharmaceuticals into the lab development (scientists), the clinical trials (should be government funded) and the manufacturing (this could easily be done via contract).

Re: Rebecca Heineman has died

#77

Post by kragen »

simondotau wrote: post #48
superultra wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet according to Forbes, richer than the subsequent three nations combined. It’s a tragedy that our own citizens are not the direct be beneficiaries of that wealth. I think a lot about the scene in Star Trek IV when McCoy is in a hospital and says “what is this the dark ages?” Gofundme is like a kafkaesque tragic absurdity that - hopefully - will be looked at as an…

[flagged]

I think the sentiment is not that generosity to those in need is bad, but that something bad must be causing so many to be in such desperate need.

It may be relevant that the US has higher health-care costs than every other country in the world except for Switzerland, but not because it's providing better care. Many countries have better outcomes.

Re: Rebecca Heineman has died

#78

Post by kragen »

fastball wrote: post #46
thelibrarian wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the James Van Der Beek of Dawson's Creek fame is having to hold a fundraising auction of his memorabilia to fund his cancer treatment, cancer is expensive in the US.

Cancer is expensive everywhere, the difference is who pays for it.

It's a lot more expensive in the US. Three years of ribociclib is US$100k here in Argentina, which dwarfs the usual costs of things like chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgical resection. (All of which is normally paid for either by a health plan or by the public hospital system.) In the US, if you have to go through all of that, I think the cost is going to be at least an order of magnitude higher.

Re: Rebecca Heineman has died

#79

Post by squigz »

geenat wrote: post #76
squigz wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a horribly cold-hearted and tactless thing to say. From what I've read, she got diagnosed a month ago. Is our treatment here in Canada so damn good that we'd have been able to save her? I doubt it.

[flagged]

How do you know that? You're making assumptions based on nothing.

You know people die of cancer in Canada too, right? You know people die of preventable illnesses in Canada too, right? Stop pretending we're perfect.

Anyway it simply does not matter if you are right - this is not the time or place for it.

Re: Rebecca Heineman has died

#80

Post by geenat »

squigz wrote: post #79
geenat wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

How do you know that? You're making assumptions based on nothing. You know people die of cancer in Canada too, right? You know people die of preventable illnesses in Canada too, right? Stop pretending we're perfect. Anyway it simply does not matter if you are right - this is not the time or place for it.

My mother had it detected well in advance, and is currently being treated, the cancer is in remission now.

I doubt Rebecca ever got that chance. Sure, surprise late stage cancer happens, but it's often caught when you get semi-annual checkups.

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