SophisticatedHillbilly
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User ID: 1964
SophisticatedHillbilly
6mo ago
From my anecdotal experiences (which weirdly enough include specifically receiving an MRI as part of a health sharing system) you pay out-of-pocket and that price ends up being equal or lower to the negotiated insurance prices. You may have to do some negotiating yourself, but it’s usually as simple as calling the office and saying “this is unreasonable, give me the real price” and then they do. The $5000 price is there because they know insurance will haggle, and so they can charge the government systems exorbitant amounts, insurance pays the $1000 price, and if you pay out of pocket it’s more like $500, then health sharing reimburses you. The amounts aren’t accurate but the ratios are.
The $5000 price is part fraud, but realistically mostly just because they have to recoup the cost of all the non-payers who receive care and don’t pay for it. It’s basically just backdoor government-funded healthcare for the poor, scummy (has money just doesn’t pay or pays like $10/month), or undocumented. The only ways to bring the costs down are to not allow those people to receive maximum care, which the public doesn’t have the stomach for, or to address the elderly medical cost issue, which is politically untouchable, or address the supply cartel issues mentioned above.
SophisticatedHillbilly
7mo ago
Any proper system has to explain the machinist vs sheet-metal-worker divide (around a 30-point difference) and I have yet to see one that does.
SophisticatedHillbilly
7mo ago
The issue is that pay increases for government employees just means poaching talent from the private sector. You’ll increase government efficiency at the cost of lower private sector efficiency. There’s only so many competent people. Raising pay doesn’t make more of them.
SophisticatedHillbilly
9mo ago
Every time I eat Little Caesars, I feel like I want to die. The pizza helps me here, because it makes me feel like I am actually going to die.
At first I start to sweat. I lose feeling in my limbs, my stomach aches in a concerningly numb way, and my eyelids become heavier than my crushing guilt. Actual ambrosia would not be worth the feelings it creates.
And yet I still crave the Caesar. Despite smoking many times throughout my life, I have never once failed to resist the cravings to do it more. Nicotine has nothing on that hellish pizza. An entire day’s worth of willpower is burnt if it ends up in my presence.
May Satan take that whole chain (but maybe I’ll have just one slice before he does.)
SophisticatedHillbilly
9mo ago
This creates an odd scenario where you could reasonably argue that a few modern despots are the wealthiest people ever. Near-infinite monetary wealth, combined with modern amenities and technology, combined with ancient style control over other people.
Stalin wins out I think on total amount of control of resources, but he does miss out on some modern goods. Perhaps Putin as wealthiest person ever? I could see arguments for other despots as well.
SophisticatedHillbilly
7mo ago
Objectively, pretty much just white men in the like 25-45 range (definitely blurry at the edges there) who are some combination of wealthyish, charismatic, and healthy (or maybe just agentic? I’ve always felt that was a bigger factor.)
SophisticatedHillbilly
7mo ago
Machine operator is a pretty basic role. If you’ve ever used a 3d printer and had to deal with leveling the bad, clearing stuck plastic, verifying that prints are proceeding correctly etc. it’s basically that but with bigger machines.
SophisticatedHillbilly
11mo ago
Isn’t this what winning is supposed to look like?
No. Winning is supposed to look like getting an increase in resources and abilities, allowing you to tackle even more difficult challenges, ad infinitum.
SophisticatedHillbilly
4mo ago
Is the Allies winning WW2 really evidence of liberal societies with unplanned economies being better when they only won by taking national control of ~their entire economies, in some cases suspended elections, and turned the entire state towards control, propaganda, and bureaucracy?
I’d go so far as to say that “liberal” countries in the pre-WW2 sense just plain don’t exist today. Pre-Wickard v. Filburn the idea that the government even had the authority to decide whether you could grow grain on your own property to feed to your own horses was unthinkable. Such ideas didn’t really survive contact with war.
SophisticatedHillbilly
7mo ago
If it set the stage for Trump, then it sure does make sense for Trumpians to support a continuous long-term version of it.
SophisticatedHillbilly
7mo ago
the US challenge on the budgeting sense is the automatic entitlement spending, not the bureaucracy administering it.
I’m not sure how true this is. Most times people complain about government spending it seems to relate to corruption, cost disease, and regulatory costs: Broadband programs that provide access to ~0 people for billions of dollars, bridges that cost 100X what they should, hospitals needing 10 administrators for every doctor etc. All of these are executive issues. The complaints about the actual literal entitlements ordered by Congress usually come up as complaints of vote buying, and regardless aren’t the core of the problem.
SophisticatedHillbilly
8mo ago
That leads to the obvious question: What is Trump?
SophisticatedHillbilly
8mo ago
Human cloning: not enough people want it badly enough. Same probably goes for surrogacy, with the added fact that anyone who could afford the criminal price could just afford legal workarounds.
In the case of CP I think it results in similar behavior to drug prohibition. Extensive criminal networks, child trafficking and all the associated crimes, etc. the people who want it want it bad, will pay for it, and have no easy substitutes.
Deepfakes are currently too easy and still readily available even when technically illegal. No market when the supply is nearly infinite and demand is relatively low.
None of those things are comparable. A better comparison is bans on drugs, which do result in broken kneecaps and gang shootings, and bans on prostitution, which result in the same.
SophisticatedHillbilly
11mo ago
From what I’m seeing a direct torso hit only had a 62% death rate in the civil war era. If you have a better than 62% odds of hitting their head, you would have been better off aiming for the head. Doubly so if the person is particularly healthy and hardy, given it was usually days or weeks till they actually died, and those with robust immune systems had much better odds.
SophisticatedHillbilly
11mo ago
Could you please expand on what you mean by this? I’ve read a lot of Woodgrains’ stuff and never noticed any ideas in this vein. Interested in what you’re referring to.
SophisticatedHillbilly
8mo ago
You have to look at their predictions in aggregate. If they predict 20 elections with a 95% chance for party A, and A wins 19 of those 20 elections, then yes they were accurate.
Even if that 1 election was a landslide for party B, the prediction method is accurate. People who say otherwise just aren’t accepting that it’s a percentage chance and not a poll.
SophisticatedHillbilly
7mo ago
Making federal employees a higher tier of citizen is a horrible idea that would contribute to the Sovietization of society and is directly contrary to the American ideal. The government being generally low quality is fine (though the floor should be higher than it currently is) it just needs its scope massively reduced. If it had the scope reduced to match capabilities, then you don’t have to increase capability
It has largely worked for the woke. A large portion of the population has gone from fervently supporting color blindness to fervently supporting affirmative action, and so on for every other social issue. It doesn’t convert everyone. It doesn’t have to.
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