Look: I am eager to learn stuff I don't know--which requires actively courting and posting smart disagreement.

But as you will understand, I don't like to post things that mischaracterize and are aimed to mislead.

-- Brad Delong

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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Quote and/or Q and A of the Day

From an "insanely long view" perspective, by Char Weise at Creative Destruction.

 Q: Fifty million people don't have health insurance in this country. What can we do to give them better health care?
A: Humans are merely collections of cells through which life flows in many forms, sometimes as a happy child and sometimes as a flesh-eating virus. Who is to say that a human child has a stronger claim to life and health than a flesh-eating virus? What you call "health care" is merely the rearrangement of morbidity across life forms.

In all honesty, it never occurred to me to look at it this way.  The opinion seems to be uninformed by the concept of Homo Sapiens as god's chosen species.

H/T (somewhat indirectly) to Art



3 comments:

Jerry Critter said...

An interesting perspective. And it begs the question, are all life forms equal?

BadTux said...

Well, it never occurred to you to think that way, JzB, because you aren't a sociopath. But this is truly the way that right-wing lizard people think. So what if tens of thousands of kids die from deaths that could have been prevented if they had access to health care? There's billions and billions of other kids on the planet who can take their place, it's not like there's any shortage of kids. Just winnowing the weak from the flock, that's all. All the better to have great fleece when you fleece them.

- Badtux the "Lizard people suck" Penguin

Stagflationary Mark said...

What should we do in the case of a happy child breaking his leg?

On the one hand, from the perspective of the virus it seems to be a victimless crime.

On the other hand, the child's ever weakening immune system could be fertile grounds for virus births.

We may need to determine the exact point of virus conception, lest we abort the lifeforms prematurely.

Sorry. Can't believe I went there.

Gallows humor!