>From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>To: extropians@extropy.com
>Subject: Re: Public Health Care (was Re: More Green Party)
>Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 15:30:03 +1000
>
>At 07:03 AM 1/07/00 CEST, Waldemar Ingdahl wrote:
>
> >... the wealthiest in society ...can still choose and demand quality,
>since they have the money
> >to pay for the service twice. Once for the coertive service, that they
>don't
> >use, and second for the REAL service.
>
>I'm sure everyone is finding this discussion as numbing as I, although
>perhaps for different reasons. Still, I feel obliged to make a couple of
>points:
>
>The `unreal' or `coercive' service (publicly funded) is clearly of benefit
>to *everyone* since:
>
>the rich, as I noted (at least in Australia, maybe not elsewhere) often use
>their access to large tax-funded hospitals and their specialised machines,
>staff, etc;
But they have the choice, others don't
>doctors tend to be trained in these hospitals, and in Oz at least they get
>their education at public universities;
Because the state often maintains a monopoly on education too
>late industrial civilisation benefits immensely by having almost all its
>citizens reasonably healthy, immunized, ready for work and not falling
>about in the street, which is perhaps best ensured by health services
>readily available to everyone--just as it is sensible to have as many
>people as possible able to read, count, calculate and wipe their arses, not
>just those whose parents are prepared and able to pay for instilling these
>skills on a private basis (even if that is a better way to go for those who
>can and are willing to do so).
>
>Damien Broderick
What a bizarre argument!
You're saying that the only thing that keeps us from falling into barbarism
is the public sector. That no such things as health care or education would
exist, or woek, on a private market. That people are too weak, stupid and
evil to understand their own best, and value such things. One might wonder
how it comes that people seem so smart in order to make these choices when
it comes other goods or services, that are equally important as health care
or education.
Following your assumption, one cannot condone transhumanism. Since obviously
people are not able to make these rather simple choices about their lives
today, they cannot possibly make the immensly more difficult choices about
the questions asked by transhumanism tomorrow.
Ingdahl
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