This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
No. Not at all. The formula used by the NHS explicitly has a rural weighting so as to offset the population densities. Not entirely of course but somewhat. You can argue that's because politically telling rural voters "Hey you're too expensive to treat, so just fend for yourselves" is a bit of a non starter, but the effect is the same.
In the US about 35% of hospitals are in rural areas but about 83% of people live in cities. Just to be clear rural healthcare is still often poor because the US is really, really big. But it is still getting more than simple population would suggest. Which is probably correct, you want your farmers et al to have access to healthcare even if there aren't very many of them. They are pretty important, whereas a Starbucks worker or what have you is likely not adding quite as much value at a societal level (sorry baristas).
But that is kind of the point, at high levels you do have to take into account other factors than just the number of lives you can save/treat. You have to consider economic factors, political factors and plenty of others. If 1000 bucks would save 3 baristas or 1 farmer. Well it might be you should save the farmer. If 1000 bucks saves Elon Musk or a farmer, well you should probably save Elon Musk.
In fact I might argue the US still needs to skew it's healthcare even more rurally than currently. I'd probably want to do a lot of research to confirm that but it's certainly possible.
You don't think a your caveats are doing a lot of work here? How big is the weighting, and do they compare to vaccinating the young and healthy vs. the old and the infirm?
That's not a massive disproportion, and it says nothing about actual resource use. I've been to rural hospitals (in Europe) they're not comparable to city hospitals.
You don't think it's possible to patch someone up locally, and send them to a bigger hospital if they need more complex care? Or are you saying this is not being done?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link