Stuff that couldn't fit in the article: I'm watching "Alaskan Daily", which is about "old school" journalism taking on powerful people. Highly recommend.
A powerful example of how even the dumbest incentives can change behavior.
Also, another Canada picture, this one showing doctors "explaining" how this man's hospital room was really expensive, and had he maybe thought about just killing himself?
The Obama Administration invented a more powerful means of control than taxation. It simply provided a list of industries of which it disapproved and let the financial regulatory industry ensure they were denied banking services. See OPERATION CHOKE POINT for details.
Just letting you know -- stumbling through that post I promised you (you may not remember and that’s ok). I’m trying cross-posting for the first time and it’s one of YOUR posts. Let’s hope it works. 😘
SC - Chomping digits aside, you are making progress. Try conditioning with some pungent crunchy and beef stick treats. Work your way up to nepeta cataria and the more complex nepetalactone mixture - silvervine. Terpenes are your friend. Remember you are your familiar G's STAFF and Bonnie's NEW STAFF. Bast is watching, so rinse & repeat in good health... https://youtu.be/uelA7KRLINA
Suicide is sometimes a perfectly reasonable, dignified and honorable choice. But suicide due to poverty or the inability to access essential services is a really bad thing.
All societies need to be honest. Government will always waste money on bullshit instead of using revenues i.e. taxes on useful and needed services. But there will never be enough money in the world to care for the fragile and ill at the beginning and end of life since we're expanding those boundaries daily. These are problems that can't be solved.
As for the charitable public that libertarians feel should step up and do most of what government now thinks it ought to do--has anyone installed that chairlift for the disabled veteran, or provided safe housing to that guy planning to be killed because he was terrified of homelessness?
"The incentives mean you must please the audience, and that involves building trust, being able to explain your way through your thoughts, backing up statements with fact — all the stuff that journalism was (allegedly) about back in the day."
Well, this too is a problem of course. Lots of readers in Substackland want to have their own beliefs or opinions or deductions validated by authors they've sought out based on specific criteria, and someone is always going to be disappointed or angered by something, eventually. Experiencing that right now with a surprising turn on another Substack and looking to see how long an extremely unfavored viewpoint will be tolerated there.
And we've seen how a pure devotion to the scientific method and provable data sometimes leads to shock and horror in an audience purportedly there because they trust the author but not when he gives them what they need and not what they want.
I would say that one should approach Substack with caution as a source of replacement income rather than as a place to write freely according to one's principles and interests, hoping it brings in a little recompense for one's time. Otherwise one is always going to be worrying about what tune is going to be demanded from those who pay for subscriptions.
One of the things I wish people would learn is that you need to be aware of your surroundings. That is as true in politics as it is in the jungle. There's the ideal and there's what it is. We can't live as if the ideal is possible, much less to be taken for granted, in a world where are leaders are as corrupt and tainted as ours are. And that is how a liberal in thought becomes a libertarian or conservative in practice.
I agree with most of everything you say here, except that I am 100% against medically assisted suicide for anyone, for ANY reason. But otherwise, you laid out the serious issues associated with offering this to patients. We simply cannot do this.
This Euthanasia BS is disgusting. Of course, this is inevitable when Society drifts further and further from any sort of moral compass besides Kiddie Drag Show Hour!
This is a natural mechanism- EGM and eugyppius have laid it out with very similar thought processes. It's unavoidable as a thing that exists, but is perhaps avoidable if a system is built with concern about the creation of perverse incentives beforehand.
It's hard to imagine most of the systems we're talking about having that level of intentionality.
AND,
Where there IS that level of intentionality, I have to wonder- perhaps, to me, the more urgent question of the moment- how many of those perverse incentives are working exactly as designed.
Stuff that couldn't fit in the article: I'm watching "Alaskan Daily", which is about "old school" journalism taking on powerful people. Highly recommend.
https://abc.com/shows/alaska-daily
Also, 24% of you were swayed by the prospect of getting a cat picture in this article:
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/conspiracy-theories-are-spoiler-alerts
A powerful example of how even the dumbest incentives can change behavior.
Also, another Canada picture, this one showing doctors "explaining" how this man's hospital room was really expensive, and had he maybe thought about just killing himself?
https://imgur.com/a/xQPEbFl
The Obama Administration invented a more powerful means of control than taxation. It simply provided a list of industries of which it disapproved and let the financial regulatory industry ensure they were denied banking services. See OPERATION CHOKE POINT for details.
Just letting you know -- stumbling through that post I promised you (you may not remember and that’s ok). I’m trying cross-posting for the first time and it’s one of YOUR posts. Let’s hope it works. 😘
I just hope the people pushing assisted suicide for financial incentives don't fuck it up for the rest of us before I want to take advantage of it.
Just a brief remark on cross-posting (just received the one by Clandestine):
Missed that it was a cross-post as I began reading it and thought "this sure doesn't sound like Simulation Commander!"
Your voice and its rationality are distinctive. Even a careless reader can't miss that.
I understand the value to Substackers of cross-posting but I really dislike it as I'm starting to encounter it.
“ Here on Substack, writers such as myself are beholden to the readers, who are free to unsubscribe at any time if they no longer value the service”
Looking at you, Alex Berenson! 👀
Those rules in Europe are absurd.
10 C should be enough for anyone who is a true comrade of the environment and Ukraine.
SC - Chomping digits aside, you are making progress. Try conditioning with some pungent crunchy and beef stick treats. Work your way up to nepeta cataria and the more complex nepetalactone mixture - silvervine. Terpenes are your friend. Remember you are your familiar G's STAFF and Bonnie's NEW STAFF. Bast is watching, so rinse & repeat in good health... https://youtu.be/uelA7KRLINA
Suicide is sometimes a perfectly reasonable, dignified and honorable choice. But suicide due to poverty or the inability to access essential services is a really bad thing.
All societies need to be honest. Government will always waste money on bullshit instead of using revenues i.e. taxes on useful and needed services. But there will never be enough money in the world to care for the fragile and ill at the beginning and end of life since we're expanding those boundaries daily. These are problems that can't be solved.
As for the charitable public that libertarians feel should step up and do most of what government now thinks it ought to do--has anyone installed that chairlift for the disabled veteran, or provided safe housing to that guy planning to be killed because he was terrified of homelessness?
"The incentives mean you must please the audience, and that involves building trust, being able to explain your way through your thoughts, backing up statements with fact — all the stuff that journalism was (allegedly) about back in the day."
Well, this too is a problem of course. Lots of readers in Substackland want to have their own beliefs or opinions or deductions validated by authors they've sought out based on specific criteria, and someone is always going to be disappointed or angered by something, eventually. Experiencing that right now with a surprising turn on another Substack and looking to see how long an extremely unfavored viewpoint will be tolerated there.
And we've seen how a pure devotion to the scientific method and provable data sometimes leads to shock and horror in an audience purportedly there because they trust the author but not when he gives them what they need and not what they want.
I would say that one should approach Substack with caution as a source of replacement income rather than as a place to write freely according to one's principles and interests, hoping it brings in a little recompense for one's time. Otherwise one is always going to be worrying about what tune is going to be demanded from those who pay for subscriptions.
One of the things I wish people would learn is that you need to be aware of your surroundings. That is as true in politics as it is in the jungle. There's the ideal and there's what it is. We can't live as if the ideal is possible, much less to be taken for granted, in a world where are leaders are as corrupt and tainted as ours are. And that is how a liberal in thought becomes a libertarian or conservative in practice.
I agree with most of everything you say here, except that I am 100% against medically assisted suicide for anyone, for ANY reason. But otherwise, you laid out the serious issues associated with offering this to patients. We simply cannot do this.
I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but I like how the acronym for your woke version of death panel is TRAP. Seems appropriate, no?
"Vaxxed and fixed"...
First they came for the cats...
This Euthanasia BS is disgusting. Of course, this is inevitable when Society drifts further and further from any sort of moral compass besides Kiddie Drag Show Hour!
The part that makes me consider further:
This is a natural mechanism- EGM and eugyppius have laid it out with very similar thought processes. It's unavoidable as a thing that exists, but is perhaps avoidable if a system is built with concern about the creation of perverse incentives beforehand.
It's hard to imagine most of the systems we're talking about having that level of intentionality.
AND,
Where there IS that level of intentionality, I have to wonder- perhaps, to me, the more urgent question of the moment- how many of those perverse incentives are working exactly as designed.