It’s crazy that such measures are necessary at all. Why are today’s fascists still such fans of book bans? Because Hitler thought it was great?

Yes, I realize that this post is less about the trolley problem and its moral dilemma than an allusion to the corresponding meme. And I certainly understand the intended message.

Nevertheless, I think the post is a good example of how the whole discussion about the healthcare industry in the US is currently being conducted: I don’t think it should be about whether vigilante justice is justified in the case of CEOs acting inhumanely. In my opinion, the discussion should rather be about why the healthcare system in the USA is so inhumane and profit-oriented in the first place and not only allows this behavior, but is specifically designed for just that. The question should be how this has come about and how a better (and more efficient) system can be established.

As long as this is not the case, the debate revolves exclusively around the idea that individuals and their greed were responsible for abuses. But this is a systemic problem where there will always be another unscrupulous person to take over as CEO.

Therefore, I think, nothing can change as long as the focus is on individuals and not on the goals and/or the failures of the healthcare system. In other words, as long as US citizens and especially politicians agree that the healthcare system is a business like any other, even vigilante justice directed at individuals will not change anything. Sure, that may help to draw attention to the actual problem. But this problem can only be resolved if the discussion is not about symptoms, but about their causes, namely the healthcare system itself. Or even similarly designed systems for that matter.

Since a healthcare system does not have to be designed in such a way that people inevitably fall by the wayside, this depiction of the trolley problem seems to me to be a pretty US-American thing.

I see it like this: the guy on the lever is also the CEO of a health insurance company and chooses the option of eliminating a competitor, accepting that his even more profit-optimized approach will lead to even more helpless people dying, which would not have been necessary if he had left everything as it was and not eliminated the competitor. The US thing about this is that there is no third option in the first place, where nobody dies because of the healthcare system. This very basic fact is not noticed, addressed or even criticized by anyone. Instead, even those who will die unnecessarily agree with the guy in charge in his decision to sacrifice them on the altar of higher profits because a hated person will die with them - they even agree with his statement that it would be for the greater good, instead of asking why it is even necessary for them to be tied to the tracks and run over.

This seems odd to me, but is probably only logical if you’re used to seeing the healthcare system as a business like any other. I don’t really get it tho.

Unfortunately, only for their own benefit.

I think it’s like this:

Due to their rarity, gold and silver are only available in limited quantities. This makes them suitable as a means of payment, as the limited availability of these materials allows them to have a relatively stable exchange value. They are also durable and easy to work with. So as a means of payment, gold and silver became representative of goods that can be purchased with them.

Coins made of gold or silver, which were used as currencies early on, were not very forgery-proof. However, as the materials themselves are rare, good forgeries were only possible if the material was available. And the rarer the material used, the more forgery-proof the coin became, which is why it made sense to mint coins with a high exchange value from rarer materials (bronze or copper for lower value coins, silver or even gold for coins with higher exchange value).

Early examples of inflation illustrate quite well how value and material are linked: In ancient Rome, for example, silver coins were used as a means of payment. Under Emperor Gallienus, there was massive inflation because he had the silver content of coins reduced to below 5% in order to finance military campaigns and other expenses (he basically created value out of thin air with this move). This ultimately led to a loss of confidence in the currency and thus to a decline in the value of the coins, as they were not inherently forgery-proof (it became quite easy to mint counterfeit coins with such a low silver content).

Still, the value of the material itself has always been variable and depended heavily on its rarity: When the Spanish imported large quantities of silver from their colonies in South America in the 16th century, the value of silver fell because the material became less scarce. This eventually led to massive inflation throughout Europe at the time.

However, the value is not so much determined by the material itself, but by the value that people ascribe to it at a certain time. There are also great historical examples of how speculative bubbles work: In the 17th century, tulip bulbs were at times traded at enormously high prices in the Netherlands because they were difficult to obtain and therefore rare - this made them coveted as a status symbol. However, this bubble finally burst in 1637 when traders could no longer find buyers due to the astronomical tulip bulb prices - demand was covered; the “Tulipmania” had ended. As a result, the merchants began to sell these tulip bulbs in “panic sales” at ever lower prices in order to recoup at least part of their investment. As a result, the price fell to near worthlessness.

Such speculative bubbles still exist today, of course. This is demonstrated very impressively time and again by cryptocurrencies, for example, which are not even material and have no central regulatory authority (such as a central bank) - their value results basically just from what someone is willing to pay at a certain point in time.

So gold and silver were and are valuable not only because of their utility value, but also because of their use as a means of payment, whereby the value - as with today’s currencies - results from a (more or less stable) consensus on the exchange value in goods attributed to a material or currency.

As gold in particular has historically been used as a means of payment for a very long time, most countries still have gold reserves to back their currencies to a certain extent, even if their currencies are generally no longer directly linked to an equivalent value in gold as they used to be. Nevertheless, the US, for example, still holds large amounts of gold at Fort Knox and elsewhere to counteract the fact that paper money, and especially its virtual equivalent in some digital form, is materially worthless.

I guess if we had a sun god instead of Christianity, climate change wouldn’t be a thing.

Any girl who would touch him we would think could lick the arse of a diseased hangman.

Catullus (~84BC - ~54BC) The Carmina of Gaius Valerius Catullus. Leonard C. Smithers. London. Smithers. 1894.

It ain’t easy being grumpy

German guy here: What’s with the cult of personality around exceedingly unattractive and politically unappealing people? I’m asking for my grandfather.

I hope they didn’t pay more than a sack of onions.

It’s probably just a simple HTML tel link that is supposed to open a phone app so that you don’t need to dial. But macOS and iOS opens these links with FaceTime if that is configured as your standard “phone” app. So it’s not the website that opens an app with camera permission, it’s the OS.

This can be quite annoying for web developers because HTML alone cannot prevent FaceTime from being opened instead of a normal phone app, as the OS dictates what happens when a tel link is clicked. This can easily give the impression that the camera is being accessed illegitimately, even if this is not actually intended. That’s probably the case here. I can’t imagine anyone expecting their customers to book a table in a restaurant via video call - that would be stupid on many levels.

I’m always impressed by how little understanding businesses have for basic online stuff, even when it’s very important to their business.

Life as a shorty shouldn’t be so rough.

I think one factor is that Democrats and Republicans actually hardly differ in many fundamental positions. I think the fact that an unscrupulous business man like Trump, who was once a member of the Democratic Party, can switch party affiliation just like that illustrates what I mean: there are no real alternatives, which is why election campaigns in the US need to be emotional rather than rational. That favors baseless fear mongering and empty finger-pointing that misses the real problems. I supect that many US citizens have become so accustomed to these empty election campaigns that they lost the ability to identify the lesser evil in this charade of mutual accusations far away from rational discourse. So in short I think Trump was just the better demagogue which is pretty much all that matters when reason or actual arguments are not part of the “election show”.

If the Conservatives had their way, women would not be allowed to vote at all. Unfortunately, that still seems to be one of their goals. I mean, Trump and his henchmen have already made sure that women are no longer allowed to control their own bodies, which I have to admit I thought was impossible in a Western country. What makes you think they’re going to leave it at taking away women’s right to a secret ballot? These people want to reverse advances in civilization like women’s right to vote all together. That’s what conservative means to them: back to the Middle Ages. In this sense, they are little different from other religious extremists such as the Taliban. Their goals might be a little different but their means are pretty much the same.

Probably not too many, but she seems to have landed a good job with this degree regardless.

Idk, but Disaster Girl has apparently made a good deal including a 10 percent cut on any future sales. Not that I think that this NFT has sold again for even near the original price but she will still get “royalties” from any additional sale for the looks of it. Good for her that she used this bubble in time.

How time flies. Sorry to break it to you, but Disaster Girl is now 24 and apparently working as a Smart Cities & IoT Analyst at S&P Global. Somehow even Side-Eyeing Chloe is 13 by now…

That sounds fun, I imagine it like this:

Dentist in tooth disguise and surrounded by tooth fairies: Please open your mouth.

Patient Jack Sparrow: Arr!

Aha, this must be the “cabal” that these weird MAGA people are always rambling on about.