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Unread 5 Dec 2006, 21:33   #1
All Systems Go
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We already knew it

But these type of numbers paint a rather bleak picture.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/05122006/32...alf-world.html
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Unread 5 Dec 2006, 23:24   #2
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Re: We already knew it

Try separating the wealthy from their money.

They have way more than they ever need but do little to help anyone. Even when a guy like Bill Gates gets generous the fortune he spend is a drop in the bucket for him.

The super wealthy are the ones I would like to see converted to Christ. Just imagine the world with these people giving 10% of their gains to charity. It will never happen though but it's still a nice dream.
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Unread 6 Dec 2006, 00:09   #3
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Re: We already knew it

What do those statistics mean?
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Unread 6 Dec 2006, 00:14   #4
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Travler
The super wealthy are the ones I would like to see converted to Christ. Just imagine the world with these people giving 10% of their gains to charity. It will never happen though but it's still a nice dream.
Rich businessmen have done more to (directly or indirectly) help the poor in the last 100 years than all the missionaries and priests have done since your religion was invented.
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Unread 6 Dec 2006, 00:53   #5
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nodrog
Rich businessmen have done more to (directly or indirectly) help the poor in the last 100 years than all the missionaries and priests have done since your religion was invented.
Are we counting "monastic orders" in with "priests"?
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Unread 6 Dec 2006, 00:55   #6
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Re: We already knew it

Sure, why not.
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Unread 6 Dec 2006, 01:13   #7
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Re: We already knew it

Hitler* tried to balance it out, by taking all the jews and getting rid of their money and stuff.

But noooo apparently you cant persucute rich people.

So we all went back to hating the blacks.











* I am not a Nazi. (it was a joke in case some moron doesn't get it!)
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Unread 6 Dec 2006, 02:17   #8
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nodrog
Sure, why not.
Upon rereading, what you said is utter nonsense simply by including indirect effects. Everything in the Western world is an indirect or direct effect of Christianity, simply because of the large amount of influence it held during the middle ages. I also suspect it's wrong anyway, but it's not really something I think I'll be able to find comparable and meaningful numbers for.
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Unread 6 Dec 2006, 07:09   #9
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nodrog
Rich businessmen have done more to (directly or indirectly) help the poor in the last 100 years than all the missionaries and priests have done since your religion was invented.
Even if we could somehow avoid getting bogged down in the discussion about what constituted "help" (see George Orwell's comments about the Salvation Army in 'A Down and Out in Paris and London' or Waldemar Nielsen's work on philanthropic trusts in 'The Big Foundations'*) I don't see how we could really have a meaingful comparison if you're including indirect results (for the reasons Mark mentions). I had some lemsip the other day from GlaxoSmithkline, was that indirect help from the rich? I went to a Church of England school was that help from the religious....and so on. Are tax receipts help to the poor?

If we're talking about more direct forms of "charity" then I suspect using contemporary dollar values the Christians would be way ahead (multiplying the labour time of all those involved, etc - people like the Salvation Army** have served literally billions of meals) but the whole comparison seems fairly absurd. Are we going to be balancing each charitable act against the harm done by any wealthy person or missionary group?

Travler's original statement is still utterly stupid though - Warren Buffet recently pledged to give away 85% of his fortune ($37.4bn), I don't see how that constitutes a "drop in the bucket" under any meaningful use of the phrase. And hasn't Gates said he's giving almost all his money to his foundation? Obviously the super wealthy could clearly do more in charitable terms but it's not like there's not any wealthy Christians.

Overall my concern isn't paper wealth which these studies are often dominated by; it's that large sections of our planet (and by extension, the resources they are in) are controlled by a disproportionately small (and relatively unaccountable) group of people. This control is maintained (indirectly and directly) through the use of violence despite the fact there's practically zero philosophical, political or historical justification for most of this ownership. Redressing that balance is (to me) the first step in resolving economic injustice, not making sure every rich guy gives away x% of his income to the 'Happy Meals for the Poor' campaign.

* While I doubt it applies with the likes of Buffet or Gates there are slightly less savoury uses of foundations - in the 60's or 70's Congressmen Wright Patman maintained most charitable foundations existed as sophisticated tax dodges for the rich. I'm sure there's still an element of that today. Even where there isn't fraud, some money given to foundations does potentially mean that other (poorer) Americans will either be paying more taxes or receiving lower levels of services than they would have done if capital gains or inheritance taxes were paid on these fortunes.

** Of course, there's some crossover here - that McDonalds guy left the Salvation Army a billion dollars recently or something.

Last edited by Dante Hicks; 6 Dec 2006 at 07:19.
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Unread 6 Dec 2006, 12:28   #10
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
And hasn't Gates said he's giving almost all his money to his foundation?
Not only "giving"; he's apparantly worth about $55bn, and in the years 2000-2004 donated $29bn to charities. He's also stepping down from running Microsoft to be a full time philanthropist, whatever that is.
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Unread 6 Dec 2006, 14:31   #11
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alessio
What do those statistics mean?
Rich people have more $$ than Poor people.

There are more Poor people than Rich people.

What the statistics don't say is that even if, by some miracle, the entire planets wealth was evenly distributed to everyone tomorrow by the end of next week there would be 'Rich' and 'Poor' people appearing in the population again.

I, according to the criteria, am poor.
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Unread 6 Dec 2006, 20:01   #12
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
Sounds like an obscure member of an orchestra.
or someone who examines extramarital affairs.
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Unread 6 Dec 2006, 20:08   #13
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mitc
What the statistics don't say is that even if, by some miracle, the entire planets wealth was evenly distributed to everyone tomorrow by the end of next week there would be 'Rich' and 'Poor' people appearing in the population again.
And if we cured cancer, people would still die. So what?
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Unread 6 Dec 2006, 20:33   #14
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
And if we cured cancer, people would still die. So what?
You're so cruel
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Unread 6 Dec 2006, 21:05   #15
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mitc
Rich people have more $$ than Poor people.

There are more Poor people than Rich people.

What the statistics don't say is that even if, by some miracle, the entire planets wealth was evenly distributed to everyone tomorrow by the end of next week there would be 'Rich' and 'Poor' people appearing in the population again.

I, according to the criteria, am poor.
My god. You've done it. You've ****ing done it!

For years I've been struggling with Zen Buddhism's "empty mindedness". They asked me "What sounds does one hand clapping make" and the old "What sound does a tree falling make when no-one is there to hear it fall" and nothing ever worked; I always ended up thinking--those wretched thoughts swimming throughout my mind, perpetuating the dualistic curse.

But now, the more I look at that post the less I am able to think. Enlightenment! Finally! Enlightenment!
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Unread 6 Dec 2006, 21:10   #16
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
And if we cured cancer, people would still die. So what?
if we had a cure for cancer,

we could charge whatever we wanted for it and take everyone's money.

isn't that the point?
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Unread 7 Dec 2006, 07:00   #17
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by acropolis
if we had a cure for cancer,

we could charge whatever we wanted for it and take everyone's money.

isn't that the point?
All conspiracy to the forefront, Can the wealthy buy cures that do not exist for other people? I thought Irving (Magic) Johnson had AIDS. You don’t hear much about that anymore. Was he cured? Or is he sitting in his deathbed? Maybe he joined Walt Disney in the freezer.

If none of this makes sense consider the source.
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Who the hell gave you posrep you christian fundamentalist?
god is bollox, mkay and you are not discussing it
You're not the voice of Christianity di**head.

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Unread 7 Dec 2006, 08:13   #18
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by acropolis
if we had a cure for cancer, we could charge whatever we wanted for it
You really couldn't. Free market fantasies are all well and good, but if you did have some kind of ultimate cure for cancer* you'd either
a) patent it (in which case it would generic versions would appear and be tolerated to an extent if your price was thought to be too high)

b) keep it some kind of Coca Cola style secret in which case I suspect if the price you charged was too high people would simply steal it.

It's like imagining you had a total monopoly on food. You could start trying to calculate roughly how much you could charge each person, but it's far more likely you'd be shot in the head and it'd be taken from you.

* obviously cancer is a pretty bad example because of it's complexity/variety, and may not ever have a single cure - and even if so it's unlikely this one cure will be reached in one uber leap of understanding - but we're in hypothetical land here)
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Unread 7 Dec 2006, 10:38   #19
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Re: We already knew it

I don't really see the problem with mitc's post. TBH i don't even see the problem the link is trying to present, so what if the few have the money? Apart from anything its taking an overly dollar oriented view of wealth, something i thought was irrelevant to most non-capitalist philosophies.
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Unread 7 Dec 2006, 10:48   #20
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Travler
All conspiracy to the forefront, Can the wealthy buy cures that do not exist for other people? I thought Irving (Magic) Johnson had AIDS. You don’t hear much about that anymore. Was he cured? Or is he sitting in his deathbed? Maybe he joined Walt Disney in the freezer.
Magic Johnson was HIV Positive, he didn't have AIDS, and he's been fairly active recently, although if you followed neither american politics nor, apparantly, basketball you wouldn't hear anything about it.

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Originally Posted by Travler
If none of this makes sense consider the source.
Yes, very good.
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Unread 7 Dec 2006, 10:59   #21
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
I don't really see the problem with mitc's post.
Mainly it's utterly hackneyed and adds nothing to the discussion.
Quote:
TBH i don't even see the problem the link is trying to present, so what if the few have the money?
As I've already said, "money" isn't the issue. Money is just a symbol of sorts or a way of keeping some kind of score. It's the fact that the underlying resources (which to a certain extent people need to survive) that this money (sort of) represents are controlled by a very small number of people with zero legitimacy.
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Unread 7 Dec 2006, 15:28   #22
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
You really couldn't. Free market fantasies are all well and good, but if you did have some kind of ultimate cure for cancer* you'd either

b) keep it some kind of Coca Cola style secret in which case I suspect if the price you charged was too high people would simply steal it.

* obviously cancer is a pretty bad example because of it's complexity/variety, and may not ever have a single cure - and even if so it's unlikely this one cure will be reached in one uber leap of understanding - but we're in hypothetical land here)
obviously no good idea is ever patented.

but assuming that a universal 'cure' could be obtained from some highly complex treatment process (and not anything along the lines of "Vitamin C and pepper!"),

then the only real possibility of competition is an actual employee breaking off from your secure treatment facility and starting up something similar to reproduce everything he can remember and working out how to reproduce the rest. before you manage to bump him off.

all very exciting, but largely irrelevant because he'll probably just charge almost as much as you.

anyway, no one in the first world really dies of AIDS anymore. that's soooo 1991.
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Unread 7 Dec 2006, 15:34   #23
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by acropolis
if we had a cure for cancer,

we could charge whatever we wanted for it and take everyone's money.

isn't that the point?
Why release a cure and get rid of it when you can make a treatment and get a continuous revinue stream
its things like that which make me think capitalism and healthcare are incompatable entities.
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Unread 7 Dec 2006, 15:58   #24
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
Travler's original statement is still utterly stupid though - Warren Buffet recently pledged to give away 85% of his fortune ($37.4bn), I don't see how that constitutes a "drop in the bucket" under any meaningful use of the phrase.
Discussion moved on, but I still want say this;

Sure, it's a bad metaphor, however it is a "drop in the bucket" insofar as his present isn't going to have any negative impact on his quality of life whatsoever. He's not sacrificing anything real, just numbers on a spreadsheet. He still got enough money to do anything* he wants to.

*For values of anything slightly smaller than everything
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Unread 7 Dec 2006, 16:28   #25
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Exclamation Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil^
Why release a cure and get rid of it when you can make a treatment and get a continuous revinue stream
its things like that which make me think capitalism and healthcare are incompatable entities.
They're only incompatible if you don't understand them. To wit, your treatment becomes worthless when one of your competitors releases a cure (or even a better/cheaper treatment).
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Unread 7 Dec 2006, 16:45   #26
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Re: We already knew it

assuming they *do* release a cure rather then a competing treatment yes. Otherwise its just shifting the stream of revinue from one source to another.
Ultimately neither act in the best interests of those afflicted by it, and cure it - only for themselves and their shareholders.
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Unread 7 Dec 2006, 22:39   #27
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by acropolis
then the only real possibility of competition is an actual employee breaking off from your secure treatment facility and starting up something similar to reproduce everything he can remember and working out how to reproduce the rest. before you manage to bump him off.
Erm, no. You're assuming that your "any price" thing would still be vaguely reasonable - but that's the point. If you set the price too high then the major security concern would be a government simply taking it from you (and if it was sufficiently encrypted / hidden just slinging you in prison for the rest of your life). It's OK that AIDS drugs are out of the reach of the most of humanity because, well...they're all the way over there.

If you priced your ultimate cancer cure at a point where a certain, magic proportion of the population of America couldn't afford it then a sure fire vote winner is going to be simply to take it from you (or, as I say - penalising you in some fashion like taking away everything you owned).

Given voting patterns in America, campaign contributions, and lack of history of socialised medical systems that "magic" proportion might be pretty high - maybe even 70 or 80%, but there'd still be a proportion beyond which your position would be politically untennable. In Europe I'm guessing the figure would be as low as 30 or 40%. You could of course cut deals with the military and things like that (servicemen get free jabs or whatnot) but that again would be a restriction on the price you could set.

(Obviously this is assuming that this cure isn't "naturally" scarce - e.g. isn't reliant on a certain amount of an ultra rare chemical element for which only x doses exist in the Universe. If that was the case (and this was understood) then obviously a higher price would accepted)
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Unread 7 Dec 2006, 23:08   #28
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tactitus
To wit, your treatment becomes worthless when one of your competitors releases a cure (or even a better/cheaper treatment).
This ignores the possibility of collusion between competitors though (which admittedly, is staggeringly unlikely here for a whole range of reasons - not least that the scientific "props" for anyone involved in such a venture would probably - for a career scientist - be worth more than any possible financial reward for keeping quiet about it. I'm sure if you're the guy who cures cancer you never have to buy a round. Ever.)

Fortunately even if ego didn't save us, has already been said the way science works means most intermediate steps are publically available. If a cancer cure was found tomorrow then we'd have to presume it would have come out of recent developments in some area of science and even if they didn't tell anyone how they did the last bit then someone would probably figure it out. Because there would at that point be proof that the prize existed (and was obviously within reach) the amount of funding available for research would increase dramatically.

The only way I can see that you would have a situation where an individual would remain the only holder of such a "secret" (without utilising it) would be if they were confident they were decades ahead of competitors somehow - either through some unique gift of genius (unlikely) or some staggering stroke of luck (by definition, unlikely).

There's an episode of ST : Voyager where some 20th Century guy finds technology from the 24th century and then slowly builds a tech empire out of it's parts . Along those sorts of lines you can imagine you wouldn't bother introducing your cure Day #1 - your treatment would only need to be three times as good as current methods to decimate your competitors and then once/if they caught up you could simply go to the x6 mode...and so on.

But if we're left considering time travel as one of the few possibilities of something happening, I think we're safe to assume we're OK.
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Unread 8 Dec 2006, 04:29   #29
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
Erm, no. You're assuming that your "any price" thing would still be vaguely reasonable - but that's the point. If you set the price too high then the major security concern would be a government simply taking it from you (and if it was sufficiently encrypted / hidden just slinging you in prison for the rest of your life). It's OK that AIDS drugs are out of the reach of the most of humanity because, well...they're all the way over there.

If you priced your ultimate cancer cure at a point where a certain, magic proportion of the population of America couldn't afford it then a sure fire vote winner is going to be simply to take it from you (or, as I say - penalising you in some fashion like taking away everything you owned).

Given voting patterns in America, campaign contributions, and lack of history of socialised medical systems that "magic" proportion might be pretty high - maybe even 70 or 80%, but there'd still be a proportion beyond which your position would be politically untennable. In Europe I'm guessing the figure would be as low as 30 or 40%. You could of course cut deals with the military and things like that (servicemen get free jabs or whatnot) but that again would be a restriction on the price you could set.

(Obviously this is assuming that this cure isn't "naturally" scarce - e.g. isn't reliant on a certain amount of an ultra rare chemical element for which only x doses exist in the Universe. If that was the case (and this was understood) then obviously a higher price would accepted)
Fine.

Plan B:
we throw our cure for cancer in the trash bin (okay, maybe we keep it on file in case we come down with something).

instead, we claim to have found a "cure for cancer" deep in the rainforest, and put it down at a low price point for mass marketing.

assumptively, fine medical journals immediately point out that our cure is 20% less effective than placebos, but (A) our target audience doesn't read fine medical journals (B) we point out the inherit absurdity of that report ("Because every dose of UnCancer contains at least 50% placebo anyway, it's obvious that it is at least as effective as placebos, and those articles really just prove those researchers either screwed up or are deliberately lying") then (C) claim that Big Pharm is trying to cover up our cure because of all the money they are raking in by treating instead of curing cancer (D) claim our product as an herbal remedy so we don't have to worry about being regulated by the FDA and finally (E) instead of statistical support in peer-reviewed journals, we'll use anecdotal accounts from our users. because let's face it, cancer goes into remission all the time, so we're bound to get some solid hits. and the people it "doesn't work out well for" are probably not going to be complaining very long.

k??
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Unread 8 Dec 2006, 13:26   #30
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Re: We already knew it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
e.g. isn't reliant on a certain amount of an ultra rare chemical element for which only x doses exist in the Universe.
You can create more of any given element with ease, although doing it at a macroscopic scale is time consuming, to say the least. Economies of scale would kick in, however.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
There's an episode of ST : Voyager where some 20th Century guy finds technology from the 24th century and then slowly builds a tech empire out of it's parts
Future's End. 3x08, 3x09.
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