Interesting - that's actually the hardline for me I refuse to cross. I will just refuse to use a service at that point if it 'requires' me to hand over a government ID.
I get pissed off enough when I have to do stupid anti-money laundering facial scan BS.
I feel like the >(cost!!) factor can't really be overstated there. IF you have money then you can get healthcare, if you don't, then you're out of luck. It's a massive gate which needs to be passed, and if you can't pass, then you're locked out with no alternative.
That doesn't sound great to me (read: broken), because it means its not evenly accessible across your society. I wouldn't count that as a good system to be honest.
I have limited experience with the New Zealand and Japanese medical systems, and from a similarly arms-length engagement with them, I think I would prefer them over everything I've read about the US system. You still have the same issues with having to advocate for yourself, but you can at least get access to good healthcare across the board - and if you go private (which as a late 30s / early 40s guy, cost around NZ$60 / month), you can get access to care at private facilities much faster than via public.
It is most definitely imperfect, but it _is_ designed to be accessible to everyone.
In theory, Serbian public healthcare system is available to everyone, but in practice, wait times are extremely long (you might wait 6 months for an MRI for a suspected cancer by a specialist; specialists are booked a year in advance sometimes, though GPs are pretty available).
The way system (and patients) survive is by relying on "connections": someone you know gets you to "jump the line" (it could be a nurse or a doctor or even a janitor at the same hospital you want to get a specialist to see you).
It ends up being similarly "fair" (iow, not), but at the very least, everybody will prioritize kids and young adults (though in children's hospitals, same pattern is present).
Private healthcare is reasonably accessible, but best experts are with public healthecare institutions (uni clinics) or when working externally, booked 3-6 months in advance.
That's just corruption. That's not equitable. In the UK that would be criminal and there's pretty much no way to game the system. That doesn't mean there aren't queues, but nobody gets a preference.
Indeed, however it is big part of the culture and people do not see it as such (when people complain about corruption here, I just ask them if they've done something like this in the past, and they shut up or say how everyone does it — for those of us who feel internal shame even thinking of doing this, we get left behind).
But I did hear good things about UK public health system as being one of the best working public healthcare systems, even if no system is perfect.
Personal gripe - but I absolutely despise the term 'elites'. The emotive implication is always that there is a group of people that are just categorically better than everyone else, but on closer examination you find an equally (if not more so) flawed group of people which exhibit some of the worst traits and characteristics towards their fellow humans.
Beyond their ability to extract money from anyone around them, I fail to see what is 'elite' about the group of people we currently assign the same classification to.
I'm probably just salty that I'm not rich, is all...
The problem is that you are quarreling with the connotation, but the way it’s being used that you object to is a clear direct definition, specifically:
“a group of persons who by virtue of position or education exercise much power or influence”
Interesting - you're correct. And the definitions say nothing about morality or ethics, only 'hard' factors that include intellectual pursuits, wealth and power.
Dunno. Just feels like it reinforces my view unfortunately. But a good call out anyway.
Honestly, the elites are categorically better, on average. Not flawless by any mean but in many ways superior.
The Victorian elites had better education, better diet, better lifestyles, better care, etc... So yes, it makes for smarter and healthier people.
If you mean in term of human qualities like morals, kindness, ethics, etc... This is complicated. Many of the elites also tend to be better in that regard too, with a very big caveat. The reason why they are better is simple: it is easier to be generous when you are not in the need, education can play a part too but it can go both ways.
The thing that make elites worse is mostly the consequence of their actions, the "with great power comes great responsibilities" thing. What is an inconsequential for the poor can have huge implication when the rich do it. If you decide to stop buying bread from one bakery will not impact that bakery too much, they loose and gain customers all the time. If you have a restaurant chain and decide to stop working with a baker, you may have ruined him.
That's when things become more complicated, sometimes the elites really are terrible to the people under them, sometimes, they are as good as humans can reasonably be, noblesse oblige. In history, it is not uncommon, when there is a revolution and power is given back to the people to end up very badly.
I don't know how Victorian elites sit on this scale, certainly not all bad, certainly not all good (especially to the colonies), but where exactly is hard to say.
I am definitely middle class, being raised in a middle class family and most people I know are also middle class. Definitely not elite, and I have nothing to do with Peter Thiel, the only thing I know about him is that he is a controversial billionaire.
But most of the times I met people of a high socioeconomic status, they turned out to be really nice and interesting, more commonly hiding their wealth than flaunting it. Sure enough there is the occasional prick, and they are particularly detestable because of how unfair it feels, so they stand out. But they are a minority, at least in my experience.
Note that by "high socioeconomic status", I mean something like the 1%, not the 0.001%, maybe things are different at that level, but I can hardly approach it. But from those who did, it was mostly positive, from a human to human perspective. But these are just second degree anecdotes.
The thing is, when discussing the elite, most people talk about news reports, business decisions, declarations, etc... When they are discussing lower-middle class, they are talking about personal experience, for understandable reasons. We rarely get "I had dinner with Peter Thiel, we talked about the impressionist style of painting and how he commissioned an artist to decorate the guest bedroom in this style" (completely made up story), that is, the small details that make people feel human.
I've had the opposite experience. I've found more middle class people who have a broader education (art, science, technology, literature, etc), than supposed 'elite' people.
I remember a particularly fun conversation where a very wealthy individual (one of the said 'elites') was in a conversation with a lead scientist from one of the CRIs here, and starts going off on a tangent about the energetic components of ley lines and their personal significance to him. Similar views against vaccinations etc etc.
Because of the definition of elite centering around money, power and 'hard' education (e.g. a PhD in a hard science), I've found those people to generally be more shallow but hyper-focused in fewer areas. They may very well achieve highly in that given area, but tend to be uninteresting and unbalanced in most other areas.
I've similarly observed those people to as emotionally unbalanced as the rest of us, but in some cases more childish and petulant when they feel they've been wronged in some way.
Maybe what we're both describing are the extremes of the curve, I'm not sure.
this is quite the statement. i can think of many, many ways they are not categorically “better” … many ways.
i can think of a number of “peasants” who are categorically “better” than “elites” in many, many areas.
i mean, i think most of us here have personally met at least one or two absolute failsons who are absolute dipshits yet will always fall upwards due to who their families are.
I don't assume that. The supply of men on dating apps is greater than the supply of women, and they tend to be less picky and more open to short-term mate-seeking behavior. This means that the dynamic of these apps is more fundamentally shaped by aggregate preferences of women.
That's because the hate is often from different groups of people. I think it's rare really for people to universally align on any stance, given what we've been seeing for a while now.
Interesting, I'd kinda lost interesting in the last few seasons were Rick was just a straight asshole with no real growth (or even teasing of growth). Just watching characters treat each other poorly isn't a particularly fun pass time.
That said, I'll try a few new episodes and see if it clicks.
I think NPC is the wrong terminology here - everyone should be the main character in their life - to have meaning and agency. But I think the problem arises in how 'main character' is defined and expressed - having the idea that you're supposed to 'do great things' and live this larger-than-life, life.
You don't have to save all the rhinos, defeat every poverty, slay every social cause or overthrow every tyranny. If anything it's arrogance to assume you can, or even should - that your specific brand of saving anything is even correct.
If you look at most people that do well for themselves and have good lives, they live narrow focused lives in domains they care about. They're very much the main characters of their own lives, but also recognize there are other characters running around doing their own things as well.
I think using the term NPC would be more apt if you're referring to someone that's purely on autopilot and not making any effort to ensure that they're leading a life that is meaningful to them.
I think this is a bit of cynical take, but that entire article to me seems to be the author as trying to just say "you didn't want it bad enough". A position I've always hated because it makes every failing a personal one. If that's the learning took away from their wrestling career, it's the wrong one.
But I did like the idea of them not being entirely clear about their own motivations, even to themselves - and that is a dangerous cave to play it.
I get pissed off enough when I have to do stupid anti-money laundering facial scan BS.
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