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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   29526 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023

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I just heard what I think is a terrible atrocity (granted on the much milder-end of terrible atrocities) that no one seems to know or care about. Apparently Maryland requires that if you have been diagnosed with sleep apnea:

  1. you report it to the DMV
  2. you have to use a CPAP machine (edit: if that's your doctor's recommended treatment)
  3. your CPAP machine has to send data to the state showing that you're using it regularly for 70% of each night (edit: if CPAP is your doctor's recommended treatment)

Failure to do this will result in your driver's license being revoked.

This really makes my blood boil. I found out about this because my friend in Maryland is one such person affected by this, with her extremely mild case of sleep apnea (that probably 75% of Americans actually have). She didn't bother with or really need the CPAP, but now, the DMV found out, and is threatening to revoke her license, so she has no choice. Hell, I'm a person who's been diagnosed with very mild sleep apnea, but I chose to not use the CPAP machine, because I couldn't stand having an intrusive device strapped onto my face with tubes running on my bed, pushing air down my throat all night every night. Provided I didn't sleep on my back, I was completely fine, and I didn't need to use the device at all. Since then, I've lost weight, and I don't have sleep apnea anymore, or at least not as much, but I don't even know if they ever declare someone as "no longer having sleep apnea", or if I'd actually pass that threshold, or if the DMV would care. My only saving grace is that I don't live in Maryland, but man, this makes me so scared about what might come next, and how long I'll get to keep my driver's license for before this either comes to my state, or some other health-related driving restrictions start cropping up.

This seems like such rampant safetyism to me that it honestly makes me so angry, probably angrier than I should be. I guess this seems like such government overreach, much in the same way as covid restrictions. Except that these restrictions really could last forever, and expand to other states, and never go away, unlike the covid restrictions. Did Maryland honestly have rampant cases of drivers falling asleep because they were so tired from their sleep apnea that they needed to mandate an intrusive, ongoing, never-ending medical treatment to save people from crashing their cars? Does this help anyone at all, or were they just looking to do some security theater?

I really want to do something to fight this before it expands. Is this the sort of thing the ACLU would take up the fight for? Are there any organizations that would actually fund and spearhead a class action lawsuit for this sort of thing?

So by this logic, the government should require all drivers to install sleep monitors and then revoke the license of anyone who sleeps for less than 7 hours a night?

Meanwhile, where I live, we have judges dismissing DUI charges because the person only stumbled and fell down twice on body cam video. Totally not proof of impairment.

Also, general vindication of my choice to never go to the doctor.

This is beyond horrible, this is literally declaring people suffering from a disease subhuman and cutting off their rights.

BTW I'm sure this is coming from the same people that advocate for giving the drug addicts drugs, syringes and paraphernalia, for "harm reduction".

Is this the sort of thing the ACLU would take up the fight for?

Old ACLU? Possible. New ACLU? Only if you manage to woke-code it - e.g. prove that, say, minorities suffer from sleep apnea 5x from whites (may be plausible btw, given obesity numbers etc.) Otherwise - no chance.

This is beyond horrible, this is literally declaring people suffering from a disease subhuman and cutting off their rights.

To be fair, there are cases where the right to drive is correctly revoked due to disease. The obvious case is blindness; if you go blind, your driver's licence will be revoked, because it is not safe to drive a car while blind. I think actual narcolepsy gets the same treatment, because it is not safe to drive a car while asleep.

The relevant part here is that sleep apnea is not an obvious determinant of "ability to drive a car safely" in the way being asleep or blind is.

My suspicion is that the motive for this is something along the lines of "we need to get more sleep apnea sufferers to use CPAP for their own good; this is a lever to get them to do it". To be clear, I think that that's a very dangerous sort of logic that can justify all sorts of tyranny.

Somewhat related, but one thing I've noticed is a big update in people's Safetyism tolerance due to Covid. You'll definitely see that in the wimpier rationalist spaces such as /r/slatestarcodex.

I think the logic goes like this.

  1. Lockdowns are left-coded, therefore they are good
  2. Data showed that lockdowns only had a trivial (if that) improvement in outcomes.
  3. But lockdowns are good. Therefore, even a trivial amount of improved safety is worth more than your freedom.
  4. Using this new calculation, let's find other trivial improvements to your safety that reduce freedom

The Motte: So, what does that mean, we should all be forced to wear helmets when driving?

/r/slatestarcodex : Yes

The only defense against this is sneering contempt. Once you've decided to value human freedom at such a low level, all sorts of tyranny becomes "rational".

As a believer in niceness, community and civilisation, I will require a great deal of evidence and reasoning before I agree to treat part of our own community with "sneering contempt". A large number of citations demonstrating that the effect you decry even exists would be a good start. You might then continue with some explanation of what benefit such contempt would have, and why e.g. making an intellectual case for liberalism would not have better results.

My question is, is there a locally-famous court case about someone being killed in a traffic accident and the driver blaming their poor driving on sleep apnea, which is the foundational myth behind this law?

Was some past governor or State Senate official the brother of a guy that sold CPAP machines?

Where did this come from?

EDIT: Actually, the Maryland DMV page on this topic makes me think it's less that this is the law in Maryland, and more that the DMV's Medical Advisory Board has some latitude to work with individual drivers to come up with individualized solutions, and this is just one case of one individual bureaucrat coming up with a really stupid and invasive solution for one individual victim.

I'm seeing a number of people on Reddit talking about the same thing, that they need to have their CPAP send data to the DMV. I'm also seeing some of them say that they "only" check your data for 180 days to make sure you're compliant with the CPAP regimen, but to be honest, I don't find that much less appalling.

Buckle up! It’s about to get so much worse.

ISA technology relies on a car’s GPS location and matches it to a database of posted speed limits and onboard cameras to come up with the legal speed limit. Passive ISA systems warn a driver when the vehicle exceeds the speed limit through sound, visuals or haptic alerts, leaving the driver responsible for slowing the car. Active systems might make it more difficult to increase the speed of a vehicle, or even fully limit it from going, above a posted speed limit.

Here I’ve highlighted the phrases that should make you piss yourself if you have pro-liberty biases.

“This crash is the latest in a long line of tragedies we’ve investigated where speeding and impairment led to catastrophe, but it doesn’t have to be this way,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy in a statement. “We know the key to saving lives is redundancy, which can protect all of us from human error that occurs on our roads. What we lack is the collective will to act on NTSB safety recommendations.”

Well I suppose that's bad news for people who want to break the law when driving, for the rest of us though it's a good if such drivers are off the roads.

but it doesn’t have to be this way,

This is simply correct. It doesn't.

Well I suppose that's bad news for people who want to break the law when driving, for the rest of us though it's a good if such drivers are off the roads.

The first rule in most "rules of the road" guides is something akin to "break any and all rules if it is necessary to prevent an accident". There are other special cases like "using private vehicle as impromptu ambulance", common in rural areas, which necessitate breaking rules.

In the hands of an experienced and sane driver, the ability to ignore road rules is a benefit to safety. These people do not want to lose that ability.

(Also, it is highly predictable that a system like the "active" systems here would sooner or later be hacked by terrorists or cyberwarriors and used to indiscriminately murder people by forcing thousands of cars to slam the brakes simultaneously. It introduces a single point of failure. I can't drive, but even if I could I would not feel safe driving a car that was this hilariously vulnerable.)

Many, if not most, traffic laws are bad, so your assertion is wrong. We have a few good laws such as "drive on the right", but they are outnumbered by bad ones. Rolling stops at stop signs are objectively good. So is going through a red light if there is no cross traffic. Most speed limits are 10-45 MPH too low.

I would prefer the remedy to "the laws are bad" to be "change the laws to be good" rather than "don't enforce the laws".

That would be better. But enforcing traffic laws like going 75 on the highway doesn't take bad drivers off the streets.

True, honest people have nothing to hide from the government, and no reason to object to any coercive measure, as long as it's framed to affect only the lawbreakers. There is no historical example of the government ever abusing such measures or turning them against law-abiding innocent people. In fact, it is clearly impossible, as the person who the government prosecutes is clearly ipso facto not law-abiding.

Well I suppose that's bad news for people who want to break the law when driving, for the rest of us though it's a good if such drivers are off the roads.

My new car will helpfully display what it thinks the current speed limit is.

Sometimes, that means that while I'm driving down the highway with a posted 65mph speed limit, it will start flashing "25 mph" on the dashboard.

Why should the chair’s name being Jennifer make me piss myself if I have pro-liberty biases?

Personal bias that I don’t have time to substantiate. I took it out.

This is among the things that governments can get away with under the ridiculous excuse that this is a licensing issue and not a criminal one. This is directly downstream from every liberty-infringing restriction designed to punish drinking and driving, and comes from exactly the same place and for exactly the same reason. The same reason why refusing to take a breathalyzer in the field can get your license suspended despite not being found guilty of anything is why they think they can use the same cudgel to beat another group of people.

I had not heard of this rule, but I could hardly have asked for a better example of why you never let the government start sliding down the slippery slope. DUI laws are among some of the worst offenders.

ridiculous excuse

How is this a 'ridiculous' excuse? The road network as it is today only exists thanks to the government, why should it then not be able to regulate who can drive, and how they can do it, on the roads they are largely responsible for? I for one am glad to be free (or freer than I otherwise would be) from a drunkard killing me in his car, all so that a few cranks can delude themselves about how much liberty they have.

Because freedom of travel is a right guaranteed by the Constitution and basic humanity, and that the government has used its monopoly over violence to force private roads out of business doesn't change that.

I think it's close to a ridiculous excuse because the ability to drive has such a major impact on people's lives, and so so much infrastructure for the past century has been based on the assumption that you have a car. It's really hard to live without a car if you're not in New York City or certain other urban areas on that scale. I think it could easily destroy someone's life if they rely on their car for getting to work (and for some jobs for work directly), for groceries, for dropping off and picking up kids, for seeing relatives, for going to doctor appointments, for taking care of friends and family, for getting to hobbies, etc, and suddenly tomorrow they're told that they can no longer do this for any reason other than them posing a legitimately imminent threat in some way.

Interesting euro/American contrast here - fewer Euros would tolerate living in a place where you can only "exist" (ie do normal stuff like go to work, go to school, see friends, buy groceries, etc) with the help on a car, so this dilemma doesn't arise as much over here.

That is, I fully accept that freedom of travel should be a fundamental right, but also agree that driving a car is not - it's something you do on the state's sufferance.

These two principles don't often conflict in Europe, but it's a damn hard dilemma. Probably it's easier to solve with AI driving than by rebuilding most of your cities

These two principles don't often conflict in Europe, but it's a damn hard dilemma. Probably it's easier to solve with AI driving than by rebuilding most of your cities

Easiest way to solve it would be to make America greater than ever before, with population size and density that would make car heavy suburban lifestyle impossible.

edit: link

The road network as it is today only exists thanks to the government, why should it then not be able to regulate who can drive

Probably because this is not one of the limited powers allotted to them, and therefore none of their business.

I for one am glad to be free (or freer than I otherwise would be) from a drunkard killing me in his car

Yeah, and you're free to only buy cars that spy on you and can shut themselves down if they don't like what you're doing.

I don't care about freedom from drunkards, I care about freedom from the most powerful organization in the history of the world. The two are not the same and conflating them is deliberately missing the point.

Probably because this is not one of the limited powers allotted to them, and therefore none of their business.

We are talking about a state government, not the federal government.

The road network exists because the government collected taxes to build it. In the absence of taxes you could have (collectively) gotten roads built on your own without the excuse for government meddling.

By your reasoning if the government shut down all grocery stores and instead taxed us more to buy food, which it then distributed, it would be okay for the government to put arbitrary restrictions on what food people are allowed to eat since after all you're getting the food thanks to them. It's thanks to taxpayers, not thanks to the government.

This seems like the kind of thing where, if your insurer isn't demanding it, it shouldn't be necessary.

Using private companies to enforce tyranny is still tyranny. (For example, when the government was using Twitter to censor speech they weren't legally allowed to censor themselves).

There's a trade-off between safety and freedom and a private insurer and insurer can negotiate what the optimal balance. Both have an incentive to get it right. My point is that, if the insurance companies aren't even asking for this, it's almost certainly a bad idea.

I expect the most immediate affect of this would be a strong disincentive for anyone to seek medical treatment or opinion for sleep apnea, similar to how HIV disclosure laws (are theorized to, at least) disincentive people from getting HIV tests. I wonder if there have been fewer sleep apnea diagnoses in Maryland since this policy was adopted.

You can just buy a cpap machine. They aren't a controlled substance. There are a lot of industry groups the fill the internet with misinformation about this due to financial incentives.

But it sounds like you can't just have any CPAP machine: it has to be one your doctor prescribes, and it has to send your usage data to the government. That rules out generic devices and locks you into the hell that is new regulated internet-connected medical devices, maybe even with a subcription model for quarterly reports that get sent to a physician. Looks like the top result on Amazon (not FDA approved and doesn't connect to the internet) is $899. Multiply that by at least 3 if you are purchasing through a reputable medical device supplier with insurance.

This is so fucking weird. The primary impact of OSA is on the patient's health (hypertension leading to increased complications, increased of respiratory depression when combined with BZDs etc).

It's more like diabetes than epilepsy.

Now it's true that most patients hate the CPAP and try not to use the damn things so I "love" this from that perspective, but the overreach is absurd and if this becomes widely known people will just refuse sleep studies and STOP-BANG is by no means definitive (I love medical acronyms).

I do wonder if this is one of those "hey I heard about this shit online" or "my one relative..." type policies that will get evaporated with any public pressure.

I do wonder if this is one of those "hey I heard about this shit online" or "my one relative..." type policies that will get evaporated with any public pressure.

I certainly hope so. It's possible it just hit home with me because I know someone personally, but maybe this actually is enforced infrequently

With this kind of thing it's very common for the policy to be misunderstood (or incorrect, or stupid) and for the people enforcing it to be idiots who feel they have no autonomy so they relentless (brainlessly) pursue something that isn't actually policy.

Happens in the hospital all the fucking time.

Apparently Maryland requires that if you have been diagnosed with sleep apnea:

  1. you report it to the DMV 2.you have to use a CPAP machine
  2. your CPAP machine has to send data to the state showing that you're using it regularly for 70% of each night

So, since this set off my bullshit detector, I looked at the state's webpage which lists a number of conditions which must be reported, and says that subsequently, the state

>may send you several forms to complete. They also may send you a form for your physician to complete. After you return the forms, the DW&S Division then will make a decision about whether your situation should be referred for an opinion from the Medical Advisory Board (MAB). The MAB is a group of doctors who works with the MVA in analyzing customers’ driving abilities. If the MAB is involved, they (the MAB) may ask you for more information, or to attend a meeting.

So, clearly, neither #2 nor #3 above are "required."

Tell that to my friend, who's going through this right now, and for whom it's required for her mild sleep apnea. Sounds like it's required if the state deems it so for your case. She definitely didn't opt into 2 and 3 of her own accord, she's super pissed about it!

Edit: I did just check in again. Sounds like you are correct that a CPAP may not be required. But for my friend, it was required simply because it was her doctor's recommended treatment. But in my experience which also matches with what I read online, doctors recommend CPAPs for everyone who has sleep apnea. They made it my recommended treatment even though my sleep apnea was at the mildest possible level. And like I said, she didn't opt into having to send her CPAP data, the state took it upon themselves to force her to be treated in a way she does not want, for a condition that has no impact on her driving.

Sounds like it's required if the state deems it so for your case

Yes, that was my point. "For your case," not in every case, as you seemed to claim. And, honestly, would you have written if she had had one of the other conditions listed on that web page, such as narcolepsy, or epilepsy, or a heart condition which can cause fainting? Isn't the issue the degree to which her particular condition increases the risks of causing an accident, which at this point we don't know?

I think it's less the risk itself, and more that we (pretend) we do not allow certain invasions of autonomy. If the narcolepsy or epilepsy rule required, as hypotheticals, that you get a 'smart' pillbox showing your compliance with a prescription program, than I'd be outraged by that as well even knowing that there's a pretty significant risk to both. But at least for epilepsy, the rule is to self-report seizures.

And this norm can go to fairly minimal levels of invasiveness: I have to report use of glasses as part of my Driver's License, and it's illegal for me to drive without them, but if I had to get my car outfitted with a camera and a power interrupt that would turn off the engine should I take my glasses that's absolutely be an illegitimate law. See the recent controversies over the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act anti-"impaired driving" tech.

Once someone's broken the law or otherwise had public problems, the state has more authority to move in: requiring a habitual drunk driver to use a breathalyzer interlock doesn't break this norm even if they weren't that drunk when driving. But this reporting requirement does not do that.

I probably wouldn't have written it for narcolepsy, but that's my point, isn't it? There's no reason why sleep apnea should be considered grounds for license revocation, because it's super common, almost everyone has it sometimes, even if they're not diagnosed, and there's no reason to think that it poses a particular risk to driving. Where is the data that shows this policy is necessary, that untreated sleep apnea is a risk to driving and treated sleep apnea is not? Where are the droves of citizens dying because they were hit by drivers who have sleep apnea? If the state decided to take it upon themselves to declare this is necessary, what else will they declare it for?

There's no reason why sleep apnea should be considered grounds for license revocation

And my point is that you don't know that. A quick search online turns up many studies that show a substantial increase in the risk of car accidents from those suffering from sleep apnea. Moreover, this study notes that "Characteristics that may predict crash in drivers with OSA include BMI, apnea plus hypopnea index, oxygen saturation, and possibly daytime sleepiness."

So, there does seem to be some evidence that people with sleep apnea are more dangerous drivers, especially if they have additional risk factors . And it sounds as if the state probably looks for additional factors before imposing conditions.

Whether that danger is high enough to merit driving restrictions of the kinds that the state has imposed on your friend is a different issue, of course.

This study shows that people who have never been married are at higher risk for car accidents: https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/10/1/33

This study shows that people who are more angry are at higher risk for accidents: https://www.apa.org/monitor/jun05/anger

I don't think most people would be in favor of the government telling you you have to be married to drive. I don't think most people would be okay with the government putting microphones in your home to hear if you shout too much, and revoking your license if you do.

I'm not disputing that. As I said, "Whether that danger is high enough to merit driving restrictions of the kinds that the state has imposed on your friend is a different issue, of course."

So I'm not really clear what you are saying then. From the top of the thread you started off by saying that you thought my initial post was BS and wasn't actually happening in real life and now you're no longer saying that... you're saying that you know that scientific studies can be abused in order to justify policies like this that most people will find to be unreasonable, unwanted, and without value... but you're okay with it happening anyway? I think I missed something, I'm confused. I'm not certain I see the common thread throughout what you were trying to say, except that you're playing devil's advocate for everything.

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What the fuck, that's some real nanny-state bullshit right there. The consequences of sleep apnea can't be graded off just the severity of sleep apnea itself, unless it makes you borderline narcoleptic, I strongly doubt the negative effects on driving warrant such measures. It's not epilepsy or a high risk of MI, where you can unpredictably lose control and crash or kill others, at least not with comparable risk.

I have borderline severe sleep apnea myself based off polysomnography, but it's more of a mild annoyance than something that would make me a menace on the road. If I was a doctor confronted with diagnosing someone with it and making their life so much more annoying, I'd probably just keep mum unless they had serious issues driving.

I did a trial of CPAP myself and found it unbearable, the system was both noisy and uncomfortable with the tight mask on my face, and I'm not even 30, I'm not ready to look like/accept a white elephant like that. I'd rather get surgery or a splint if it ever warrants it. Most likely it'll get better if I lose more weight.

Crazy. Apparently your friend is not the first person, news story from February 2023: https://www.nbcwashington.com/investigations/little-known-maryland-law-requires-people-with-sleep-apnea-to-report-diagnosis-to-driving-authorities/3272929/

The I-Team reviewed driving laws from across the country and found several other states – such as Florida, New Jersey, Maine and Texas – also list sleep apnea as a condition that may be subject to medical review by state motor vehicle authorities.

Virginia law requires its Department of Motor Vehicles to ask drivers applying for or renewing a license if they have a medical condition that could prevent them from driving safely but doesn’t specify sleep apnea as among them.

This is probably because driving is treated as a "privilege" by the state.

This is probably because driving is treated as a "privilege" by the state.

Driving should be treated as a privilege. I'm more opposed to safetyism than the median person, but it still surprises me that we came up with a norm that operating one specific class of heavy machinery is basically a right that's hard to remove, even for individuals that are incompetent or repeatedly demonstrate that they will drive while inebriated. Tens of thousands of otherwise young, healthy people die in vehicular accidents annually and it remains an entirely niche issue to even think about traffic safety.

This doesn't get me to the point of favoring this particular sort of intrusion, but I generally think licensing is far too liberalized.

Your point of view makes sense, but it would make more sense to me if we haven't had 100 years of infrastructure that treats the operation of that heavy machinery as a given. It's really hard to live without driving a car in all but the most densely populated cities!

Your argument is just status quo bias. "auto licensing should be treated as a given because -> our infrastructure is designed around autos because -> we've always treated auto licensing as a given". If auto licensing were not treated as given, then we would be incentivized to adapt our infrastructure appropriately.

Not really. I just don't trust that threatening people with sleep apnea that they're going to take away their licenses would be enough to change that status quo. If someone were to actually make it as easy or easier for like 99.99% of people to live without a car, then I'm in favor of that status quo changing. Until then, I'm in favor of the status quo because it's a better system.

I'd prefer if driving with insurance was treated as a right. And that car insurance companies were allowed to price in all relevant information.

I get the dangers of vehicles, I avoid dangerous drive times, avoid highways if I can take slower roads, and generally follow all rules of the road. I've gone 15 years without a ticket for a driving infraction. And I've never been in an accident worse than a fender bender at the wheel.

The state can be a bit of a sledgehammer with things. Sleep apnea and bad sleep can increase your risk of causing an accident, but the state is applying a one size fits all solution: take away the license.

The price of admission to driving on shared roads should be to compensate others for the risk you pose. If the risk you pose becomes too large then it will be too expensive for you to drive.

I'd prefer if driving with insurance was treated as a right.

It is worth noting that only a small minority of rich, socially responsible Americans drive with adequate liability insurance for the traditional libertarian argument to apply. Most drivers have state-minimum liability coverage, which is something like 25/50 for bodily injury in most states. Even "full coverage" is only 100/300. $100k is not nearly enough to cover a wrongful death or a disabling accident, and probably not enough to cover a broken limb. So the only people who could plausibly claim that their driving safety was between them and their insurer would be the small number of people with 100/300 insurance and a multi-million personal umbrella on top of it. (The UK travel insurance industry treats £2 million umbrella liability coverage as the bare minimum for Brits planning to drive in America).

This raises the question of whether irresponsible Americans impose a larger burden on responsible Americans by commiting crimes or by un/underinsured driving. Looking at the cost-of-injuries tables on https://wisqars.cdc.gov/, the total "cost of injuries" (including medical bills, time off work, quality of life costs, and VSL for fatalities - this is an estimate of what a sane personal injury system would award in damages) is $440 billion for violent crime and $820 billion for car crashes. Given that just under half the car crash number is self-inflicted, and most of the cost is driven by accidents which comfortably exceed policy limits, the answer is that as regards injuries, the two problems are roughly the same size. (I don't know how you would compare the cost of property crime to the property damage caused by car crashes)

Given that such a system would require the state to maintain to the same extent as a strict licensing regime, surely all that is being preserved here is the illusion of liberty? If you have no issue with the state being able to demand you insure yourself before driving, drawing some line between there and the state being able to demand you demonstrate yourself a competent and trustworthy driver seems arbitrary and pointless.

The underclass already elects to just skip insurance, so I'm pretty skeptical of making much headway on this without dramatically changing enforcement mechanisms in a way that looks pretty similar to just taking away licenses from the incompetent. Years ago, I got T-boned by an uninsured motorist that ran a stop sign and they didn't even receive a ticket before driving away. Anarchotyranny gonna anarchotyranny when it comes to vehicular law enforcement.

The underclass already elects to just skip insurance

And frequently, licenses as well

Years ago I read a suggestion that you should be legally required to provide proof of insurance when buying petrol, and the petrol station should refuse your custom if you can't.

The proposal was made before smartphones, I can imagine all kinds of ways it could be implemented nowadays. Like you download an app from your insurance provider and the app displays a QR code which the petrol station scans, and if the scanning fails then the petrol nozzle locks.

To note, lots of people buy gasoline without using it to fuel cars on public roads- lawn mowers, off road vehicles, machinery, etc all run off of gas and the norm is to fuel them with ordinary gasoline even if you’re technically supposed to buy specially mixed gas.

I’ll make a bunch of money reselling petrol to the uninsured at mark-up.

How? Are you currently making a bunch if money selling contraband?

Will you fill up a bunch of 5 gallon cans and sell it out of your garage?

I own a gas station.

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What are the rules around pricing car insurance? I can guess some things are disallowed (e.g. race), but if someone started an insurance company that had a model that took in educational attainment, job, health records, home ownership, social media use, real time driving information, etc to offer lower rates to people who are predictably less risky, would that be allowed?

I get a substantial discount for allowing my insurer to use real-time driving information and(through a back door- that’s what ‘bundling’ is) for being a homeowner.

Years ago insurance providers in Ireland were legally allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex (as women have fewer accidents than men) but not anymore.

Was it really fewer accidents or less severe accidents? From what I last read, women get in more minor fender benders but men dominate the car-totaling jaw-of-life-required accidents.

This seems like a pretty big overreach. I've suffered from mild sleep apnea in the past (when overweight) and used CPAP. I think it's horribly orwellian to send your CPAP data to the government.

From a statement in this article:

"The Maryland MVA declined an interview but said in a statement the MVA can be notified about a diagnosis through self-reporting, or by a physician, concerned citizen or a police officer."

I can't see random 'concerned citizens' reporting them and the police would not know. If people's sleep doctors are reporting their clients for mild apnea, I hope that they get found out for this breach of privacy.

Note to self - never check themotte right before bed just in case latest thing is your worst nightmare.

I would without exaggeration much prefer not to live anymore than to 'live' with my freedom of movement restricted by mandated reporting of my sleep data to the government. My dad had to do peritoneal dialysis overnight once upon a time so this feels close to home even without any experience with the exact topic.

Stalin would order Beria to have the people who came up with this shot, not unlike the guy who invented the brazen bull. If you or anyone else has any ideas about how to stop this - and I do mean the gestalt - I am fortunate enough to have a bit of free money and time.

Soap, ballot, jury, and cartridge; in that order.

This is obscure enough to not be as obviously political as say, mandatory vaccinations, but the logic is the same and I've seen activist movements for niche causes succeed because people on the ground cared to do something instead of sitting on their ass waiting for somebody else to deal with the problem.

If this is near and dear to your heart:

  • start sending letters to representatives
  • collect testimonies of people that have been hurt
  • send those testimonies to the press
  • fund local meetings to discuss the issue
  • invite local pillars of the community to comment on the issue
  • get legal advice about how the victims can sue for their right to privacy
  • organize public protests about the issue
  • name and shame the officials that promulgated this rule

Essentially you need to position yourself such that some local politician can swoop in and take credit for saving you from the tyranny of the administrative state, and given enough time one will come along to claim the prize.

That's pretty bizarre.

Not everyone can even tolerate an APAP, BiPAP, or CPAP. And it can be expensive upfront (machines) and over time (filters, masks, tubing). Sleep apnea can possibly be managed via weight loss, sleeping position (side sleeping), and/or an oral appliance. That law incentivises people not to get diagnosed and treated.

Did Philips or ResMed lobby for that?

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