INTENSITY²
Politics, Mature and taboo => Political Pundits => Topic started by: El on February 13, 2018, 06:41:38 AM
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We sometimes think of political issues in binary terms. Is someone pro-life or pro-choice? But most individuals hold views that are more complicated than a binary can capture.
An alternative is to describe a given position on a spectrum. On abortion, an outright ban sits at one extreme; at the other is the elimination of all restrictions on the procedure. In between are a staggering array of coherently distinguishable positions.
Politicians seeking to win votes express their stances either in terms of a binary or as a spot on a spectrum, depending on where they see the greatest advantage. Though their beliefs don’t change, how they frame them makes a political difference.
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There’s a different set of frames, though, that are as relevant as binaries and spectrums, though they are less familiar and less discussed: equilibriums and limits.
Most political stances can be understood in terms of an equilibrium. For instance, some people might believe that access to abortion in a conservative state is too restricted under the status quo, and favor relaxing the rules regulating abortion clinics. That is, they might favor shifting the equilibrium in a “pro-choice” direction.
But ask those same voters, "Should there be any limits on legal abortion?" and they might declare that the procedure should be banned in the last trimester of pregnancy unless the mother's health is threatened. Insofar as the abortion debate is framed around the equilibrium, they will align with the pro-choice movement; but insofar as it is framed around limits, they will align with the pro-life movement.
On abortion and scores of other political issues, there are people who tend to focus on equilibriums, other people who tend to focus on limits, and still others who vary in their focus. A single question put to the public cannot reveal the majority position of the polity on such issues, because there are at least two different majority coalitions: One forms around the position that a majority holds on the best equilibrium; the other forms around the position a majority holds on the appropriate limit. The winning coalition turns in part on what frame is more prominent at any particular moment.
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Now imagine two individuals who appear to be on opposite sides of a different matter. One aligns herself with what she calls the #MeToo movement; the other declares herself a critic of #MeToo. Yet digging deeper into their views on sexual harassment, it turns out that they are identical. They both believe workplaces ought to adopt policies that more effectively protect women from sexual harassment, and that there should be robust due process protections to guard against false accusations. They even agree on the language of their optimal policies.
What might explain their different postures toward #MeToo?
The first is focused on equilibriums. She believes that the status quo in American workplaces doesn’t adequately protect female workers, and that #MeToo is likely to improve things by shifting the equilibrium, making it marginally more friendly to working women. In contrast, the second is focused on limits. She frets that #MeToo is ending careers without adequate due process and enabling big injustices at the extremes. She worries that, left unchecked by opposition, it will spiral out of control.
Some Americans would feel less polarized and alienated from their fellow citizens if they recognized that some of the people fighting on “the other side” of a polarizing issue actually hold values and beliefs that are strikingly similar to their own.
* * *
Now think of campus politics.
The campus left wants the free-speech debate to be focused on limits. What if an invited speaker is a neo-Nazi or wants to say the N-word or deny the Holocaust? In contrast, the campus right fares better when the debate is focused around the equilibrium. Across partisan and racial divides, large majorities agree that colleges are not doing enough to teach young Americans about the value of free speech and not doing enough to ensure students are exposed to a variety of viewpoints. In surveys, they express antagonism toward threats of violence and racial slurs even while insisting that, on the whole, campuses should be less politically correct.
So why don’t people who want to shift the equilibrium away from political correctness try to broaden their coalition by simultaneously agreeing to ban “hate speech”? In this case, as in others, the “equilibrium majority” is reluctant to make concessions to the “limit majority” because they are concerned about slippery slopes. A refusal to concede limits can be necessary if one means to defend the merits of an absolutist position (like “torture should always be illegal”) or when one believes that an absolutist position allows bad behavior, but that anything short of it guarantees a slide to an inferior outcome, like lots of speech being suppressed.
But there are lots of other issues where equilibrium majorities seem foolish if they decline to grow their numbers at the expense of limit majorities, whether by focusing their efforts narrowly or reassuring persuadable voters by granting some limits.
On drug policy, a libertarian could easily narrow his focus and rally a majority behind a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana; but if that libertarian instead backed a ballot initiative calling for the total elimination of all drug prohibitions, voters would likely reject it, because they are more averse to legal heroin than to illegal marijuana—in such cases, the limit is a stronger motivator than the equilibrium.
Or take immigration policy. Democrats prefer to focus on the equilibrium. That’s because a majority of voters align with Democrats on the question of whether or not so-called “Dreamers” should get to stay in the United States or be deported; whereas a “limit majority” is more comfortable with Republicans who express the view that open borders would be disastrous than with Democrats who are reluctant to declare themselves against any specific hard limit on future immigration.
The GOP wants the country focused on the limits of immigration policy.
Yet on an issue like immigration, most Democratic politicians don’t actually believe that America should have open borders or that limits on immigration would put us on a slippery slope to no immigration at all; and most Republican politicians don’t actually believe that America should deport all illegal immigrants or that something like the Dream Act would put us on a slippery slope to open borders. Rather, Democrats are reluctant to articulate limits on immigration that they regard as sensible, because doing so is taboo in their coalition; and Republicans are reluctant to articulate limits on deportation that they regard as sensible, because doing so is presently taboo in their coalition as well. In both cases, there is a pernicious heuristic at work, where the mere act of conceding limits is conflated with lack of principle or with weakness and disloyalty, even though neither open borders nor deporting all illegal immigrants will ever happen. (A governing coalition that tried to blow past either limit would be destroyed.)
* * *
America’s two-party system frequently forces binary choices on voters, and locating oneself on a left-right political spectrum can be a useful exercise. But I’d like to see more political analysis that recognizes the difference between equilibriums and limits and examines the coalitions that form around them. Seeing those frameworks more clearly would reveal instances when differences between Americans are not as sharp as they might seem, and enable marginal improvements to policy on issues where slippery slopes are unlikely and the main obstacle holding back reform is the fear of a limit that almost no one wants to cross.
What do we think of this?
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A far more sensible approach than is often seen in politics. Insightful. Especially about the WAY questions are put, can load them one way or the other with respect to likely answers received.
One thing I want to see go, is the ability of politicians to, when they either know a bill will fail, because its fundamentally, in a word, fucking shite, or to sneak it in by the back door by tacking it on to another irrelevant law, such as say, slipping in a ban on weed legalization onto a bill designed to fight child abuse, that sort of thing is parasitic, cowardly, and those who do it have no honor. Such practices need to be strongly and effectively suppressed.
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A lot of it is Captain Obvious level stuff although the author seems to be committing a golden mean fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation
For example, the #MeToo movement has already become a witch hunt. No sane person is in favor of allowing sexual predators in the workplace, however we're already at the point of guilt by accusation. Many innocent men have lost their jobs. This movement needs to die.
On the free speech issue, no one can decide on an exact definition of "hate speech". We need to err on the side of free speech.
On immigration, we need to cut off immigration from Mexico. We already have more than enough here and California has already become Northern Mexico. No nation ever survives mass immigration like this, it's historicaly 100% fatal. California will either become an independent nation, or join with Mexico.
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Looks too long to read.
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Many things in the past have been settled in bipartisan fashion and I think there are many reasonable, thinking people on both sides of the fence willing to compromise or with similar views where it can happen again.
The difference I think this time is that we now have a somewhat authoritarian leader.
Stand when I say stand, clap when I say clap, print what I say, I know what this country needs best I won't listen to anything else.
Americans for the most part don't do authority well. This country was founded because people didn't want to be ordered what to do...nothing has changed.
Except now many of the people who were willing to meet on the middle ground have been pushed to the extreme left or right out of anger. Anger that's even for the first time in history being heavily endorsed and fueled by the people in power.
Both sides I think knew that when the tide changes the government is going to basically serve them a shit sandwich, but before we at least had the options of lettuce and tomato to make it more palatable. Now it's like the kid that's sat down to dinner and told..."eat this or else".
I think we're all witnessing the "or else" effect.
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I don't buy this notion that Trump is a dictator.
He certainly tries to be one but it's not in the nature of the office of the President to be able to wield autocratic power.
Trump has been learning the limits of his power as president.
Whenever he tries to overstep those bounds, it comes off to me as being clumsy and incompetent, not scary.
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It's NOT the nature of the office, so I guess many people are wondering WTF is he even going there?
Is he just shit stirring for a response? Attention? Well he's getting it and it's not all that good.
It's only scary to me because I have a kid around draft age and the man seems to have a short fuse and first hand access to a lot of powerful toys. Mostly I just find it annoying and embarrassing.
Seriously...if I hit on the lotto tomorrow and finally decide to see the world I'm telling any foreign locals I meet that I'm from Canada.
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On immigration, we need to cut off immigration from Mexico. We already have more than enough here and California has already become Northern Mexico. No nation ever survives mass immigration like this, it's historicaly 100% fatal. California will either become an independent nation, or join with Mexico.
Could you explain in more detail what you think is going to end up happening as a result of immigration from Mexico, and what the historical precedent you're referencing is (or at least a sampling of it)?
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On immigration, we need to cut off immigration from Mexico. We already have more than enough here and California has already become Northern Mexico. No nation ever survives mass immigration like this, it's historicaly 100% fatal. California will either become an independent nation, or join with Mexico.
Could you explain in more detail what you think is going to end up happening as a result of immigration from Mexico, and what the historical precedent you're referencing is (or at least a sampling of it)?
Well the obvious and most relevant example is the Roman Empire that started giving out its citizenship to the Huns, Visigoths and Vandals. They in turn, sensed weakness in the crumbling empire and invaded less than 100 years later. The Western Roman Empire collaped then. The Eastern (Byzantine) Empire lived on because at least they had a collective sense of identity.
Something similar will happen to the Southwestern US. The self-loathing white liberal cucks will be too guilt ridden to stand up to the Mexican invasion. Then either the Federal government, led by a conservative president will step in and repel the invasion and force them back across the border or the Southwest will be lost to Mexico.
Borders can only exist if you have the political will to defend them.
There's a reason the Bible contains the metaphorical story of the Tower Babel.
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Well the obvious and most relevant example is the Roman Empire that started giving out its citizenship to the Huns, Visigoths and Vandals. They in turn, sensed weakness in the crumbling empire and invaded less than 100 years later. The Western Roman Empire collaped then. The Eastern (Byzantine) Empire lived on because at least they had a collective sense of identity.
Your Roman history is appalling. Rome was NOT sacked by citizens, but rather by client states it failed to meet
its payment obligations to for their military service.
Something similar will happen to the Southwestern US.
You mean NATO will invade, because we stop supporting it? I doubt that.
Borders can only exist if you have the political will to defend them.
Well, that's true. If we allowed foreign military units free reign, we'd be toast in short order.
There's a reason the Bible contains the metaphorical story of the Tower Babel.
You do know THAT story is about hubris, don't you?
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Well the obvious and most relevant example is the Roman Empire that started giving out its citizenship to the Huns, Visigoths and Vandals. They in turn, sensed weakness in the crumbling empire and invaded less than 100 years later. The Western Roman Empire collaped then. The Eastern (Byzantine) Empire lived on because at least they had a collective sense of identity.
Your Roman history is appalling. Rome was NOT sacked by citizens, but rather by client states it failed to meet
its payment obligations to for their military service.
That's spin to say the very least. I can't find that story in a single history book.
There's a reason the Bible contains the metaphorical story of the Tower Babel.
You do know THAT story is about hubris, don't you?
Yes, a story about the hubris of smug, decadent, cosmopolitan elites who think that multiculturalism makes stable societies. It doesn't.
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We sometimes think of political issues in binary terms. Is someone pro-life or pro-choice? But most individuals hold views that are more complicated than a binary can capture.
An alternative is to describe a given position on a spectrum. On abortion, an outright ban sits at one extreme; at the other is the elimination of all restrictions on the procedure. In between are a staggering array of coherently distinguishable positions.
Politicians seeking to win votes express their stances either in terms of a binary or as a spot on a spectrum, depending on where they see the greatest advantage. Though their beliefs don’t change, how they frame them makes a political difference.
* * *
There’s a different set of frames, though, that are as relevant as binaries and spectrums, though they are less familiar and less discussed: equilibriums and limits.
Most political stances can be understood in terms of an equilibrium. For instance, some people might believe that access to abortion in a conservative state is too restricted under the status quo, and favor relaxing the rules regulating abortion clinics. That is, they might favor shifting the equilibrium in a “pro-choice” direction.
But ask those same voters, "Should there be any limits on legal abortion?" and they might declare that the procedure should be banned in the last trimester of pregnancy unless the mother's health is threatened. Insofar as the abortion debate is framed around the equilibrium, they will align with the pro-choice movement; but insofar as it is framed around limits, they will align with the pro-life movement.
On abortion and scores of other political issues, there are people who tend to focus on equilibriums, other people who tend to focus on limits, and still others who vary in their focus. A single question put to the public cannot reveal the majority position of the polity on such issues, because there are at least two different majority coalitions: One forms around the position that a majority holds on the best equilibrium; the other forms around the position a majority holds on the appropriate limit. The winning coalition turns in part on what frame is more prominent at any particular moment.
* * *
Now imagine two individuals who appear to be on opposite sides of a different matter. One aligns herself with what she calls the #MeToo movement; the other declares herself a critic of #MeToo. Yet digging deeper into their views on sexual harassment, it turns out that they are identical. They both believe workplaces ought to adopt policies that more effectively protect women from sexual harassment, and that there should be robust due process protections to guard against false accusations. They even agree on the language of their optimal policies.
What might explain their different postures toward #MeToo?
The first is focused on equilibriums. She believes that the status quo in American workplaces doesn’t adequately protect female workers, and that #MeToo is likely to improve things by shifting the equilibrium, making it marginally more friendly to working women. In contrast, the second is focused on limits. She frets that #MeToo is ending careers without adequate due process and enabling big injustices at the extremes. She worries that, left unchecked by opposition, it will spiral out of control.
Some Americans would feel less polarized and alienated from their fellow citizens if they recognized that some of the people fighting on “the other side” of a polarizing issue actually hold values and beliefs that are strikingly similar to their own.
* * *
Now think of campus politics.
The campus left wants the free-speech debate to be focused on limits. What if an invited speaker is a neo-Nazi or wants to say the N-word or deny the Holocaust? In contrast, the campus right fares better when the debate is focused around the equilibrium. Across partisan and racial divides, large majorities agree that colleges are not doing enough to teach young Americans about the value of free speech and not doing enough to ensure students are exposed to a variety of viewpoints. In surveys, they express antagonism toward threats of violence and racial slurs even while insisting that, on the whole, campuses should be less politically correct.
So why don’t people who want to shift the equilibrium away from political correctness try to broaden their coalition by simultaneously agreeing to ban “hate speech”? In this case, as in others, the “equilibrium majority” is reluctant to make concessions to the “limit majority” because they are concerned about slippery slopes. A refusal to concede limits can be necessary if one means to defend the merits of an absolutist position (like “torture should always be illegal”) or when one believes that an absolutist position allows bad behavior, but that anything short of it guarantees a slide to an inferior outcome, like lots of speech being suppressed.
But there are lots of other issues where equilibrium majorities seem foolish if they decline to grow their numbers at the expense of limit majorities, whether by focusing their efforts narrowly or reassuring persuadable voters by granting some limits.
On drug policy, a libertarian could easily narrow his focus and rally a majority behind a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana; but if that libertarian instead backed a ballot initiative calling for the total elimination of all drug prohibitions, voters would likely reject it, because they are more averse to legal heroin than to illegal marijuana—in such cases, the limit is a stronger motivator than the equilibrium.
Or take immigration policy. Democrats prefer to focus on the equilibrium. That’s because a majority of voters align with Democrats on the question of whether or not so-called “Dreamers” should get to stay in the United States or be deported; whereas a “limit majority” is more comfortable with Republicans who express the view that open borders would be disastrous than with Democrats who are reluctant to declare themselves against any specific hard limit on future immigration.
The GOP wants the country focused on the limits of immigration policy.
Yet on an issue like immigration, most Democratic politicians don’t actually believe that America should have open borders or that limits on immigration would put us on a slippery slope to no immigration at all; and most Republican politicians don’t actually believe that America should deport all illegal immigrants or that something like the Dream Act would put us on a slippery slope to open borders. Rather, Democrats are reluctant to articulate limits on immigration that they regard as sensible, because doing so is taboo in their coalition; and Republicans are reluctant to articulate limits on deportation that they regard as sensible, because doing so is presently taboo in their coalition as well. In both cases, there is a pernicious heuristic at work, where the mere act of conceding limits is conflated with lack of principle or with weakness and disloyalty, even though neither open borders nor deporting all illegal immigrants will ever happen. (A governing coalition that tried to blow past either limit would be destroyed.)
* * *
America’s two-party system frequently forces binary choices on voters, and locating oneself on a left-right political spectrum can be a useful exercise. But I’d like to see more political analysis that recognizes the difference between equilibriums and limits and examines the coalitions that form around them. Seeing those frameworks more clearly would reveal instances when differences between Americans are not as sharp as they might seem, and enable marginal improvements to policy on issues where slippery slopes are unlikely and the main obstacle holding back reform is the fear of a limit that almost no one wants to cross.
What do we think of this?
I think a lot of this stuff is water is wet type of stuff.
Many accuse me of being Conservative or even alt-right or Far Left and the truth is far removed.
Why? Because I do not accept or hold true to Progressive view points.
I believe that abortion is not a form of birth control. I do not think abortion ought to b easy or readily available and have no issue with individual states to have their individual restrictions on it. I think that abortion ought to be available in conjunction with therapy, education and better access to actual birth control. In saying this I recognise that some people require abortions for any number of reasons and in cases of ignorance or lack of education and birth control that having better education and access to birth control will help and in the case of trauma of abortion process and grief and/or instances of rape and incest that having therapy will help here as well.
I think that men and women should have the right to marry any other consenting adult.
I think that offering beta blockers and surgery to minors is a mistake and that a regulated and thorough processes of therapy and education should be offered for anyone who wishes to become another gender. But I do not believe it should be illegal.
I think that gun rights ought to be a matter for individual states and that gun-owners by virtue of having a gun do not make them irresponsible or immoral. I think that regulations ought to be enforced and followed strictly and that mental health issues and criminal history ought to bar someone from owning a gun.
I think that every country should be responsible for who they let in and under what circumstances and that sneaking in or overstaying your visa automatically bars you from any say in your rights in that country from that point. A country should decide who is their citizens.
I agree with the death penalty for egregious crimes where it is beyond a shadow of a doubt as to who was at fault.
I believe in religious freedom but I strongly believe that enforcing your own religious mores on others or demanding an adherence by other to your religious standards is BS.
I believe in freedom of expression and freedom of speech.
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Well the obvious and most relevant example is the Roman Empire that started giving out its citizenship to the Huns, Visigoths and Vandals. They in turn, sensed weakness in the crumbling empire and invaded less than 100 years later. The Western Roman Empire collaped then. The Eastern (Byzantine) Empire lived on because at least they had a collective sense of identity.
Your Roman history is appalling. Rome was NOT sacked by citizens, but rather by client states it failed to meet
its payment obligations to for their military service.
That's spin to say the very least. I can't find that story in a single history book.
Must be because you didn't look. Please point to ONE case where citizens of the empire 'invaded' it.
The visigoth sack of rome (410) was quite simply exactly what I stated. If you missed THAT, I have
no idea what history in the decline you were reading? Some revisionist crap packaged for the 'alternative
news' lovers?
There's a reason the Bible contains the metaphorical story of the Tower Babel.
You do know THAT story is about hubris, don't you?
Yes, a story about the hubris of smug, decadent, cosmopolitan elites who think that multiculturalism makes stable societies. It doesn't.
Uhm...you have a revisionist BIBLE too? Post flood, there was ONE culture. Multiculturalism (if you want to take an analogy here) was the punishment, not the cause.
Usually, your questionable statements stay out of things that can be really backed up. I'd suggest you
remain out of my wheelhouse, at least. Stick with sociology and psychology - you're safer there.
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On immigration, we need to cut off immigration from Mexico. We already have more than enough here and California has already become Northern Mexico. No nation ever survives mass immigration like this, it's historicaly 100% fatal. California will either become an independent nation, or join with Mexico.
Could you explain in more detail what you think is going to end up happening as a result of immigration from Mexico, and what the historical precedent you're referencing is (or at least a sampling of it)?
Nations survive mass immigration.
Australia has been experiencing mass immigration for more than 200 years. Admittedly the first nations peoples didn't survive it all that well, but since then the rest of us have prospered.
Singapore has experienced mass immigration. So has Hong Kong. These are countries that have continuously grown their populations despite extremely low birth rates.
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The major political parties are not all that far apart on major issues (like the economy, like immigration, like trade and the offshoring of jobs). So they dig their heels in and fight like hell over things that don't matter all that much to most of us. Conservative politicians in particular like to stir up xenophobia and fear of foreigners while opening the floodgates to relatively wealthy and well-educated economic immigrants (at least that's what happens here in Australia, and I suspect that it is similar elsewhere).
It's all about convincing us that the small things that make them different from the other party are what really matter.
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On immigration, we need to cut off immigration from Mexico. We already have more than enough here and California has already become Northern Mexico. No nation ever survives mass immigration like this, it's historicaly 100% fatal. California will either become an independent nation, or join with Mexico.
Could you explain in more detail what you think is going to end up happening as a result of immigration from Mexico, and what the historical precedent you're referencing is (or at least a sampling of it)?
Nations survive mass immigration.
Australia has been experiencing mass immigration for more than 200 years. Admittedly the first nations peoples didn't survive it all that well, but since then the rest of us have prospered.
Singapore has experienced mass immigration. So has Hong Kong. These are countries that have continuously grown their populations despite extremely low birth rates.
Mass immigration in Australia? Okay, I will bite. 25.5 million Australians and approx 770 0000 of those identify as Aboriginal.
So therefore nearly 25 million Australians are immigrants over the last 200 years. That is 125 0000 each year. That IS mass immigration numbers EXCEPT for the fact that it doesn't take into account births of citizens. Take that into account and how mass is this mass immigration?
In addition to this, in Australia, we have strict policies in immigration and who we will accept, based on a point system, and we have camps outside of Aussie waters for people we do not know who try to sneak in without being vetted.
So what is your point again?
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If we wanted an analog for the modern Mexican immigration issue in particular, I don't think
Australia's case is any more enlightening than Roman military bequests to client states.
A more apt analogy is the 19th Century American immigrants, but for various reasons, it
doesn't fit too well. The closest is (not surprisingly) the historical immigration of Mexicans
into the US - which had been notable for a largely open border, allowing necessary farm
and low-skilled labor to help meet business needs, punctuated by occasional deportation
waves. In times of Mexican weakness, the numbers remaining would increase.
so far, it hasn't posed any particular threat, except in that it represents a heavy influx of breeder
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If we wanted an analog for the modern Mexican immigration issue in particular, I don't think
Australia's case is any more enlightening than Roman military bequests to client states.
A more apt analogy is the 19th Century American immigrants, but for various reasons, it
doesn't fit too well. The closest is (not surprisingly) the historical immigration of Mexicans
into the US - which had been notable for a largely open border, allowing necessary farm
and low-skilled labor to help meet business needs, punctuated by occasional deportation
waves. In times of Mexican weakness, the numbers remaining would increase.
so far, it hasn't posed any particular threat, except in that it represents a heavy influx of breeder
I would be interested as to how you came to any of those conclusions
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On immigration, we need to cut off immigration from Mexico. We already have more than enough here and California has already become Northern Mexico. No nation ever survives mass immigration like this, it's historicaly 100% fatal. California will either become an independent nation, or join with Mexico.
Could you explain in more detail what you think is going to end up happening as a result of immigration from Mexico, and what the historical precedent you're referencing is (or at least a sampling of it)?
Nations survive mass immigration.
Australia has been experiencing mass immigration for more than 200 years. Admittedly the first nations peoples didn't survive it all that well, but since then the rest of us have prospered.
Singapore has experienced mass immigration. So has Hong Kong. These are countries that have continuously grown their populations despite extremely low birth rates.
Mass immigration in Australia? Okay, I will bite. 25.5 million Australians and approx 770 0000 of those identify as Aboriginal.
So therefore nearly 25 million Australians are immigrants over the last 200 years. That is 125 0000 each year. That IS mass immigration numbers EXCEPT for the fact that it doesn't take into account births of citizens. Take that into account and how mass is this mass immigration?
In addition to this, in Australia, we have strict policies in immigration and who we will accept, based on a point system, and we have camps outside of Aussie waters for people we do not know who try to sneak in without being vetted.
So what is your point again?
More than 28% of the current population of Australia was born overseas. The US currently has the highest number of overseas born residents in its history, but the % is less than half what it is in Australia.
Your statistical analysis is impressive. But current immigration is at record levels, nearly 250,000 which is twice what you calculated.
Australia has the fastest population growth rate of any developed country, despite a fertility rate well below replacement levels.
Does that help? These stats can be found in a few minutes with a google search.
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If we wanted an analog for the modern Mexican immigration issue in particular, I don't think
Australia's case is any more enlightening than Roman military bequests to client states.
A more apt analogy is the 19th Century American immigrants, but for various reasons, it
doesn't fit too well. The closest is (not surprisingly) the historical immigration of Mexicans
into the US - which had been notable for a largely open border, allowing necessary farm
and low-skilled labor to help meet business needs, punctuated by occasional deportation
waves. In times of Mexican weakness, the numbers remaining would increase.
so far, it hasn't posed any particular threat, except in that it represents a heavy influx of breeder
I would be interested as to how you came to any of those conclusions
By looking at the obvious. There hasn't been a terribly significant change in Mexican immigration
patterns over time. Mexico is not going to sack Washington, and they're not going to turn the US
into a penal colony.
The numbers move back and forth, and american attitudes toward wetbacks change. That's about it.
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More developed and wealthier countries need immigration because economic success eventually creates unsustainable populations with higher life expectancies and lower birth rates. Mexico's improved economy has lowered the migrant rate, and Mexicans are no longer the largest group of people immigrating to the US, with Asians being the largest group, mainly from China, India, and the Philippines. Even with a decline in Mexican immigrants, the US is still experiencing rising rates of immigration, because they're purposely implanted. Over the past 17 years, the population control initiatives of the UN's Agenda 21, now agenda 2030, have been systematically funneling immigrants into developed countries with Europe as the main focus, not only to sustain the economic future of wealthy countries, but to also relieve the burden of overpopulation in lesser developed areas of the world. It seems many people accept the never ending war is truly about western civilization gaining control over world resources, but might not consider the people are a resource also essentially forcibly taken in the process.
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The problem is, even the sparsely populated US has way too many people.
Immigration isn't the problem though. It's the fecundity of humanity. Something must be done.
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One thing for sure, is that 'immigration' first tends to wipe out the indigenous cultures. Western (christian) civilization..well, wasn't very civilized. And once there are a few colonists somewhere, they breed, expand and displace the indigenous populations. If, they didn't deliberately wage a campaign of extermination, as in north and south america. The spanish wiped out enough south american cultures and the english did for north america.
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The problem is, even the sparsely populated US has way too many people.
Immigration isn't the problem though. It's the fecundity of humanity. Something must be done.
If people intend to live so long, then they have to breed enough to sustain themselves.
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On immigration, we need to cut off immigration from Mexico. We already have more than enough here and California has already become Northern Mexico. No nation ever survives mass immigration like this, it's historicaly 100% fatal. California will either become an independent nation, or join with Mexico.
Could you explain in more detail what you think is going to end up happening as a result of immigration from Mexico, and what the historical precedent you're referencing is (or at least a sampling of it)?
Nations survive mass immigration.
Australia has been experiencing mass immigration for more than 200 years. Admittedly the first nations peoples didn't survive it all that well, but since then the rest of us have prospered.
Singapore has experienced mass immigration. So has Hong Kong. These are countries that have continuously grown their populations despite extremely low birth rates.
Mass immigration in Australia? Okay, I will bite. 25.5 million Australians and approx 770 0000 of those identify as Aboriginal.
So therefore nearly 25 million Australians are immigrants over the last 200 years. That is 125 0000 each year. That IS mass immigration numbers EXCEPT for the fact that it doesn't take into account births of citizens. Take that into account and how mass is this mass immigration?
In addition to this, in Australia, we have strict policies in immigration and who we will accept, based on a point system, and we have camps outside of Aussie waters for people we do not know who try to sneak in without being vetted.
So what is your point again?
More than 28% of the current population of Australia was born overseas. The US currently has the highest number of overseas born residents in its history, but the % is less than half what it is in Australia.
Your statistical analysis is impressive. But current immigration is at record levels, nearly 250,000 which is twice what you calculated.
Australia has the fastest population growth rate of any developed country, despite a fertility rate well below replacement levels.
Does that help? These stats can be found in a few minutes with a google search.
Sure it helps, but not your argument.
Australia has been experiencing mass immigration for more than 200 years.
Your answer to this is "Well it is big this year 250 000. Ha" Great you have more than 199 to go.
Only you and I both know this is where you falter, don't we?
But by all means, show me the stats that you can get that back your claim in a few minutes search of Google. I will be right here for you.
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If people intend to live so long, then they have to breed enough to sustain themselves.
Not really. Much of the 'work' people engage in isn't particularly necessary except to
maintain the bureaucracies and generate more consumable items to keep the economic
system running. The reality is that we don't really need most of what we produce, and
a fraction of the population could easily sustain some excess.
Plus, old people would need to be made valuable. If not as workers, at least as food.
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Too many would only be valuable as food.
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Just what America needs, more food. :zoinks:
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The point is that jobs mainly exist for people's psychological 'need' to work in places where the birth rates have declined anyhow.
The vast majority of the population could lead a life of leisure, if resources in such wealthy societies were allocated reasonably.
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The point is that jobs mainly exist for people's psychological 'need' to work in places where the birth rates have declined anyhow.
The vast majority of the population could lead a life of leisure, if resources in such wealthy societies were allocated reasonably.
That's twisted logic. Countries with high life expectancy and low birth rate is because they're wealthy, and the reason countries are wealthy is because there are ample jobs and people working. One doesn't happen without the other.
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No. The reason they are wealthy is because they have productive surpluses which have very
little to do, today, with how many paper pushers and burger flippers there are. The same
jobs can largely be eliminated or replaced with automation. Of course, it also has to do
with consumerism - but that's a self-destructive tendency which needs to be replaced.
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It's complete crap to say the vast majority of a country can live a life of leisure. There's no way a society can just sit around, without every public need falling to pieces; healthcare, education, transportation, utilities, the whole infrastructure. It might work in the short term, but a society requires a sizable workforce to function or otherwise will decay.
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The point is that jobs mainly exist for people's psychological 'need' to work in places where the birth rates have declined anyhow.
The vast majority of the population could lead a life of leisure, if resources in such wealthy societies were allocated reasonably.
I'm also content to let others do all the work and support my lifestyle of reasonably allocated leisure. :zoinks:
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It's complete crap to say the vast majority of a country can live a life of leisure. There's no way a society can just sit around, without every public need falling to pieces; healthcare, education, transportation, utilities, the whole infrastructure. It might work in the short term, but a society requires a sizable workforce to function or otherwise will decay.
Most people with jobs work in service, in the more modern countries. The infrastructure is still going to shit, even with fairly high employment percentages, in the US. The vast majority of jobs being done are really not necessary. Those that are don't get
adequately funded. And nearly all of it could be done without large numbers of humans performing the 'work'.
Of course, in a consumerist economy, it's necessary to keep the engine running, even if what it stands on is falling apart.
How to move out of that cycle is the problem. The gentle path - creeping socialism - seems to have proven to be incapable,
imposing its own redundant bureaucracy. Too, there is backlash against anything threatening the value system which
underlies the consumerism. Something which shouldn't be necessary if people actually enjoyed the work they did, instead
of lying about it.
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Depends on the person and the work as to enjoyment. You know what they say, 'if you love your line of work then you'll never work a day in your life'.
Hell, work as a freelance chemist, that suits me down to the ground. And even any holes that end up burnt or corroded into bits of the backyard at times (I put that down to 'shit happens, but it happens more to my back yard than to most for some quirk of fate making me a spazz destined to end up a freelance chemist' :autism:)
And hell life would be a bit more boring if there wasn't the occasional willy pete fireball that ends up first sterilizing a patch of ground and some radiating spoke-patterns in what used to be grass and soil, and then come months later, the grass is regrown but so super-lushly due to the additional phosphate 'applied' after hydrolysis of the phosphorus pentoxide acid-smog released by the fireball and spitting trails of luminescent, dripping pyrophoric 'oh fuck!' that even months later, after the ground looks normal and there is grass growing on the lawn again where it went up and took off and the outlying collateral damage areas one can still tell where ground zero was, and even where the drips fell, when bits of WP went flying whilst molten and dripping a trail along the way, long after there were even bits of glass that still smoked more than weeks later if picked up with pliers and the surface of the inside face rubbed with a twig or a bit of metal to scratch away any muck that somehow managed to preserve a thin surface layer of WP on the glass. (although that reminds me...I still need to buy myself a new alembic-style retort. I might buy a few of them actually, given what happened to the last one. Or shell out for a fused quartz one with a 24/40 ground glass joint at the back, like the old glass one that died a heroic death, albeit one that involved dying screaming in the middle of a greenish-white glowy incandescent bolt of liquid, acid smoke-billowing flame.)
(yes, admittedly at the time, I did, whilst it was actually happening, think 'hoolee--shiii-IT!!' and 'fuck, I only have one alembic :( ' but it WAS spectacular to watch, and it certainly made my heart race with more adrenaline than a cardiovascular system is meant to take :autism:
Like fireworks, only without a fuse that needs to be lit, and full of a mixture of inert gas and several hundred grams of boiling, refluxing orangey-colored white phosphorus. (although the inert gas was rendered pointless when the alembic suffered a catastrophic failure that caused a crack to propagate round from a fault line or other weak-point and the entirety of both the liquid white phosphorus, the P2 vapor plus a few bits of RP still floating in a slick of molten WP that hadn't converted by the point the distillation went south, and for that matter, pretty much every other cardinal direction on a compass bar hitting me, thanks to protective gear and setup barring the way to having it melt in one side of me and out through the other.]
Although I do my best to avoid them, and such occasions are as rare as I can make them be, its possible for even the best prepared to suffer the same end result as the worst, I don't claim to BE the best, not by far, but I'm far from being the worst either. And some of them, depending on what happens, do have the ability to be visually speaking, and/or auditorily spectacular, and one can in a manner of speaking, still admire a good ol' stygian, abyss-beshitten stench, not because its NICE, but just for the sheer impact it has when it kicks you in the nostrils with a pair of cloven hooves hard enough to send you reeling :autism:
More a matter of a stink's talent at being, well, stinking, than actually pleasant to experience. But in its own perverse way, still possible to enjoy a good acrid, and/or fishy or chalcogen-laden reek from hell that manages to make rotting dairy or seafood smell like prize-winning roses. Although I reckon a chemist probably needs a tad of autism in them (and I figure a lot of them likely do, and all the more so for the self-employed or the hobbyist, thats the kind of thing that attracts auties like dimethyl di/trisulfide attracts blowflies [whilst simultaneously repelling everybody else once the concentration exceeds a part per trillion or so in the latter case])
But as far as repetitive, mind-numbingly dull hell-jobs go, I figure an awful lot of it could be automated. You don't need a piece of meat to flip a burger aside from the piece that goes between two slices of cheese and halves of a bread bun. If a robot can laser-cut and spot-weld cars together, and we can work out the trajectory and velocity of an object in outer space accurately enough to land a probe on it (even if that probe did bounce feet out of the intended landing site on contact and suffer some damage, it still transmitted some data back to us) then surely, it cannot be beyond us to build robots that flip burgers and clean toilets and corridors etc.
IMO power generation itself, is probably the main area that human oversight is required, even despite a high level of automation where needed, for safety reasons. Concentrate on that, and have the robots pick the fruit, flip the burgers and clean the shit stains out of the urinals in the dive bars. It'd save a lot of people a lot of work. That could be devoted to both science, art by those so inclined and generally kicking back and doing what we enjoy best. That and of course the artisanal type produce that isn't really amenable to a robot servitor, and hey, people that do that kind of thing are likely, IMO to actually enjoy carrying on such traditions. Its one thing to say, ferment a carbohydrate source and fractionate the methanol off for solvent and fuel uses then fractionate the ethanol from the fusel oils, and determine the concentrations via automated mass spectrometry, but another for somebody to take pride in generations of say, whiskey or ale brewing knowledge handed down a family line, or winemaking, even if I personally can't stand wine or whiskey (although I'll not say no to a good ale/craft beer or unorthodox 'wines' that don't come from grapes, like cherry wine.) But I can't see a robot being ideally suited to developing both a nose (itself easy enough, technologically speaking) AND the wit to use it in such a manner as to produce the ideal beverage that'll get you pissed and taste best doing it. And we'd need to in some ways, limit the participation of AIs in some scientific fields. Because as both common sense and many a sci-fi movie tells us, the last thing we want, and if it were allowed to happen, probably also the last thing we as a species would ever get, other than completely fucked, is a smart AI with any but the most rudimentary ability for self improvement. in any but a completely isolated system with no capacity for the AI to build anything physical for itself or anyone or anything else. Because once that happens, its 'terminator' minus the hero, at least any that don't simply die heroically trying and failing.
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It doesn't depend. When people who say they love their work will feel somehow cheated
by the idea that others don't have to work, then they are revealing that they're doing
it because of the money.
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What about when somebody's primary motivation FOR the work, IS the work.
Or (or both) when someone does something that they love that they decide also to bend towards making money and help fund their doing it? Essentially working to fund their work, turning a loved hobby into something that helps pay for itself.
Thats me, with my chemistry. SOME of what I make goes to helping pay rent when I get work that pays, or buying myself treats outside the scope of new glassware and reagents and electronic lab equipment. I was born loving science more or less-teaching myself to read with mycology and botany/botanical chemistry textbooks at a few years old. My first primary school actually thought, that I COULDN'T read, was retarded or something. In actuality, I remember it clearly. They kept trying to hand me 'books' intended for NT children with pages so thick they were almost wooden, and with huge print, a few words a slab (I wouldn't insult literature by calling one a 'page' :autism:) and most being a picture. When I WANTED to bring along my copy of Phillips et. al. and learn more about fungi to further my huntings and munchings and bagging any 'shrooms I encountered. (had my first trip though in my first secondary spazz school, on psilocybin mushrooms, my having first although non-ingestion experience by means of Fly agaric mushroom, and bringing forth the deep cobalt-glass hued Amavadine as a cationic derivative in solution, and being puzzled about what in the devil's own name could turn a calcium salt (they are colorless unless there is some charge-transfer state going on in there with an atypical anion or as an electride, where the solvated electrons give a blue color to blue-indigoish black-ey) into something that gave a vivid blue in something as simple as an acid-base reaction. That first attempt to isolate the active psychotropic principle in Amanita muscaria at a few years old, it just got me hooked on chemistry. So I figure I was pretty much born for it, and where I can turn the hobby I love into something that, even if not refunding me the full cost of all I've spent on the lab over a lifetime, including having to reconstruct it from scratch after pigs destroyed it, then still helping put some luxuries to the reagent storage space, buy me more lab-toys and at least help lessen costs. Although some work pays better than others and makes me a profit if I get lucky enough to be hired for more profitable work.
So what about cases like that, where someone turns what they'd already do for recreation and study into something that puts some pictures of the Queen's noggin in their wallet?
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It doesn't depend. When people who say they love their work will feel somehow cheated
by the idea that others don't have to work, then they are revealing that they're doing
it because of the money.
Universal Basic Income. Would solve many of these types of issues in a society with a falling demand for human labour.
I don't believe it will happen though.
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It's complete crap to say the vast majority of a country can live a life of leisure. There's no way a society can just sit around, without every public need falling to pieces; healthcare, education, transportation, utilities, the whole infrastructure. It might work in the short term, but a society requires a sizable workforce to function or otherwise will decay.
Most people with jobs work in service, in the more modern countries. The infrastructure is still going to shit, even with fairly high employment percentages, in the US. The vast majority of jobs being done are really not necessary. Those that are don't get
adequately funded. And nearly all of it could be done without large numbers of humans performing the 'work'.
Of course, in a consumerist economy, it's necessary to keep the engine running, even if what it stands on is falling apart.
How to move out of that cycle is the problem. The gentle path - creeping socialism - seems to have proven to be incapable,
imposing its own redundant bureaucracy. Too, there is backlash against anything threatening the value system which
underlies the consumerism. Something which shouldn't be necessary if people actually enjoyed the work they did, instead
of lying about it.
The vast majority simply isn't true; the medical industry employs a tenth of the population alone. Don't understand how you can acknowledge the vast majority of people work to keep the gears of social infrastructure moving, yet say it's unnecessary. The reality is, if people sit and do nothing then nothing will be achieved, and a society which the vast majority cant or don't work is a one that craps in holes and potentially eats old people sandwiches.
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What about when somebody's primary motivation FOR the work, IS the work.
Or (or both) when someone does something that they love that they decide also to bend towards making money and help fund their doing it? Essentially working to fund their work, turning a loved hobby into something that helps pay for itself.
There certainly ARE people who love their work. Such are usually not too worried about whether someone else
is able to achieve some proportion of their standard of living by sitting on their duff...or creating art. The work
is enough pleasure that they'd do it whether they got paid or no.
My own situation is a pretty good example of why we shouldn't just let people get free rides though.
I'm happier doing my work than otherwise, but there's no way I'd've gotten into this if I wasn't
getting paid. It also probably keeps me from using the same knowledge in ways that would actually
be counter-productive to society: idle hands and all. Hmm...then again, I DO work for the forces of evil,
so maybe I'm still doing more harm than good. :D
I'm not sure how prevalent my circumstances are though. Most people actually seem to want to do things.
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It's complete crap to say the vast majority of a country can live a life of leisure. There's no way a society can just sit around, without every public need falling to pieces; healthcare, education, transportation, utilities, the whole infrastructure. It might work in the short term, but a society requires a sizable workforce to function or otherwise will decay.
Most people with jobs work in service, in the more modern countries. The infrastructure is still going to shit, even with fairly high employment percentages, in the US. The vast majority of jobs being done are really not necessary. Those that are don't get
adequately funded. And nearly all of it could be done without large numbers of humans performing the 'work'.
Of course, in a consumerist economy, it's necessary to keep the engine running, even if what it stands on is falling apart.
How to move out of that cycle is the problem. The gentle path - creeping socialism - seems to have proven to be incapable,
imposing its own redundant bureaucracy. Too, there is backlash against anything threatening the value system which
underlies the consumerism. Something which shouldn't be necessary if people actually enjoyed the work they did, instead
of lying about it.
The vast majority simply isn't true; the medical industry employs a tenth of the population alone.
Medicine is a service industry. Much is bureaucratic paper pushing. Diagnostics have been shown to be better
handled by expert systems. Surgery will likely soon be better done with robotics (even if, like diagnostics, insurance
issues keep it from ever happening). Care that was once provided in the home, by family with less disposable time
mind you, is now hired out to low wage butt wipers, many of whom hate their work, and care little for their charges.
Don't understand how you can acknowledge the vast majority of people work to keep the gears of social infrastructure moving, yet say it's unnecessary.
Because the system is designed that way. Jobs which people are unnecessary for due to automation are kept
in inefficient human hands precisely because we demand people must work to be valuable - but, of course, we
give them an income which is lower than the price of the automation. There is something sick about this. The
developing world is different, of course.
The reality is, if people sit and do nothing then nothing will be achieved, and a society which the vast majority cant or don't work is a one that craps in holes and potentially eats old people sandwiches.
We could vastly reduce the number of people working, perhaps at some cost to the wealthiest, and still keep the elderly alive.
And THIS is the great opportunity: if we acted on it, we could (maybe?) get our over expanding population under control. Worse
health care, and old people sandwiches would help too. :D
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Will my reasonably allocated lifestyle of leisure still include hockey tickets? :orly:
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Rodents are food.
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I don't know as you'd have a very large consumer market for old people sandwiches. The sense of taste, excluding fundamental tastes like salt, sweet, sour, umami, bitter and hot/spicy is based on olfaction, and old people smell iffy as fuck.
They've already gone off. They'd have to be the only food put on the market with a sell-by and use-by date in negative numbers :autism:
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Feed 'em to the rodents! Somtin's gotta fatten THEM up.
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Just stop and think about that for a moment.
You'd be eating old fart sloppy seconds. After its gone through a gopher on a stick (well not on a stick at the time, that comes after the fattening obviously; for when you want to roast one on a stick :autism:)
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It's best not to know what goes into making food anyway.
I'm fine, just so long as I get to tear into delicate, tick infested, gopher meat!
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I don't know as you'd have a very large consumer market for old people sandwiches. The sense of taste, excluding fundamental tastes like salt, sweet, sour, umami, bitter and hot/spicy is based on olfaction, and old people smell iffy as fuck.
They've already gone off. They'd have to be the only food put on the market with a sell-by and use-by date in negative numbers :autism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7zVYJDj2Ok
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Its one of the isomers of nonenal, formally speaking, the conjugated unsaturated aldehyde, non-2-ene-1-al that stems from a 9-carbon straight chain hydrocarbon. Although I doubt very much it is produced in-vivo from nonane. Not dissimilar entirely from the likes of fatty acids that make rancid feet or sweat smell, well, rancid. Or that give vomit its distinctively puke-like stink, like propanoic, isovaleric/valeric acids and in the case of barf, butyric acid. I've never worked with pure non-2-ene-1-al, but propionic acid as a side product I've experienced and its so much nastier than acetic acid as from vinegar, GAA etc. And butyric acid, which gives throwup its nasty smell, I once accidentally had some n-butyric anhydride get into the oil in my vacuum pump whilst distilling off unreacted anhydride from something and it STANK the place up something terrible, belching a stinking miasma from the air vents that smelled exactly like vomit. Oh and once had to remove it from something by means of a homespun negative pressure chamber, and during pumping it down it smelled absolutely filthy, and so did the chamber when I was finished. Stank like a city full of already pretty rancid football fans had used the place as somewhere to stagger to in order to empty their stomachs of really cheap and nasty super strength lager.
And it doesn't take much either, one drop of butyric anhydride, although it doesn't hydrolyze completely, immediately, is instantly enough in a large room to make the entire space smell like the inside of somebody's stomach complete with a semidigested last meal. And I'd imagine that if it were the acid rather than the acid anhydride, it'd smell even worse even faster, although I've never handled neat butyric acid (nor, for that matter do I ever want to, since that is pure, distilled, undiluted essence-of-sick.)
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Rodents are food.
Does that mean I get front row season tickets? :zoinks:
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Rodents are food.
Does that mean I get front row season tickets? :zoinks:
You get your own little warm cart. And eventually a soft bed of bread, and some kraut on top.
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It's complete crap to say the vast majority of a country can live a life of leisure. There's no way a society can just sit around, without every public need falling to pieces; healthcare, education, transportation, utilities, the whole infrastructure. It might work in the short term, but a society requires a sizable workforce to function or otherwise will decay.
Most people with jobs work in service, in the more modern countries. The infrastructure is still going to shit, even with fairly high employment percentages, in the US. The vast majority of jobs being done are really not necessary. Those that are don't get
adequately funded. And nearly all of it could be done without large numbers of humans performing the 'work'.
Of course, in a consumerist economy, it's necessary to keep the engine running, even if what it stands on is falling apart.
How to move out of that cycle is the problem. The gentle path - creeping socialism - seems to have proven to be incapable,
imposing its own redundant bureaucracy. Too, there is backlash against anything threatening the value system which
underlies the consumerism. Something which shouldn't be necessary if people actually enjoyed the work they did, instead
of lying about it.
The vast majority simply isn't true; the medical industry employs a tenth of the population alone.
Medicine is a service industry. Much is bureaucratic paper pushing. Diagnostics have been shown to be better
handled by expert systems. Surgery will likely soon be better done with robotics (even if, like diagnostics, insurance
issues keep it from ever happening). Care that was once provided in the home, by family with less disposable time
mind you, is now hired out to low wage butt wipers, many of whom hate their work, and care little for their charges.
Don't understand how you can acknowledge the vast majority of people work to keep the gears of social infrastructure moving, yet say it's unnecessary.
Because the system is designed that way. Jobs which people are unnecessary for due to automation are kept
in inefficient human hands precisely because we demand people must work to be valuable - but, of course, we
give them an income which is lower than the price of the automation. There is something sick about this. The
developing world is different, of course.
The reality is, if people sit and do nothing then nothing will be achieved, and a society which the vast majority cant or don't work is a one that craps in holes and potentially eats old people sandwiches.
We could vastly reduce the number of people working, perhaps at some cost to the wealthiest, and still keep the elderly alive.
And THIS is the great opportunity: if we acted on it, we could (maybe?) get our over expanding population under control. Worse
health care, and old people sandwiches would help too. :D
As someone who works in healthcare and experiences the things we *currently* try to normalize and automate and give over to computers, the robots aren't taking over anytime soon. Even with diagnostics- computers will always be more *reliable,* because they're computers. But (at least with mental health, and this is probably true in medicine in general), people are shitty at expressing what's happening to them and shitty at cause -> effect. Some of the information you most need, you only get by building a relationship with people. Much more can and perhaps should be automated, but not all of it.
As for the paperwork, don't get me started. Attempts at automating that, when done wrong, only make things worse. And implementation is a bitch. And I say that as someone who has literally made a tool for automating paperwork at my company. :P
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relevant: (https://scontent.fbos1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/28336396_912783142217088_3651263895357202107_o.jpg?oh=cbd540724d5cd49407a2f082981160d1&oe=5B1C2579)
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As someone who works in healthcare and experiences the things we *currently* try to normalize and automate and give over to computers, the robots aren't taking over anytime soon. Even with diagnostics- computers will always be more *reliable,* because they're computers. But (at least with mental health, and this is probably true in medicine in general), people are shitty at expressing what's happening to them and shitty at cause -> effect. Some of the information you most need, you only get by building a relationship with people. Much more can and perhaps should be automated, but not all of it.
People can be more comfortable expressing to a computer. And it can certainly be learned. It's not like probing questions are all that
accurate when asked by humans. The big problem for diagnostics, and why a human is always involved, is liability. Get rid of
such artificial constructs which are designed to employ others, and just try to meet the actual needs.
As for the paperwork, don't get me started. Attempts at automating that, when done wrong, only make things worse. And implementation is a bitch. And I say that as someone who has literally made a tool for automating paperwork at my company. :P
Paperwork is the problem. It's not something which needs automation, it needs removal. A doctor can set a bone just
fine without filling out all kinds of paperwork. Someone can take drugs without it. Once the delivery system is freed
of burdens which require human effort, they can be added in a fully automated design later. But, it's ridiculous to try
and cobble together the reporting and record keeping PRIOR to building the actual system.
There are certainly things we'd have to give up. Stuff like insurance, and paying, and preventing folk from obtaining
illicit drugs maybe. At least during the design phase. Further iterations can refine the process to add in any desired
features. Like, if we want money back in the system (why?).
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Also relevant:
Synergy Between Nurses And Automation Could Be Key To Finding Sepsis Early
5:05
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February 22, 201812:40 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
Richard Harris 2010
RICHARD HARRIS
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Rosemary Grant is a registered nurse and helps coordinate sepsis care at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. The center's goal, she says, is to get a patient who might be developing sepsis antibiotics within three hours.
Ian C. Bates for NPR
A quarter of a million Americans die every year from sepsis, which is the body's reaction to overwhelming infection. This cascade of organ failure can be nipped in the bud if health care workers know it's ramping up, but that's often not easy to do.
"Sepsis is a really frustrating disease," says Dr. David Carlbom, a critical care pulmonologist, and medical director of the sepsis program at the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. "There's no blood test for sepsis," he says. "There's nothing you can look at under the microscope and say 'this is sepsis.' "
So a few years ago, Carlbom set out to devise a system that uses more subtle clues from a patient's day-to-day electronic health records to send up warning flags of impending sepsis.
Did An IV Cocktail Of Vitamins And Drugs Save This Lumberjack From Sepsis?
SHOTS - HEALTH NEWS
Did An IV Cocktail Of Vitamins And Drugs Save This Lumberjack From Sepsis?
The automated system looks for patterns in symptoms like high temperature, low temperature, low blood pressure, fast breathing and high white-blood-cell counts. No single symptom signals sepsis, but certain patterns suggest this condition could be emerging.
Rosemary Grant, a registered nurse who coordinates sepsis care at Harborview, explains how it works as we stand at a nursing station in the hospital.
The previous day, a red box appeared on a computer screen next to the name of a patient who had been hospitalized for several weeks following a motorcycle accident. The computer prompted the nurse responsible for that patient to assess whether his constellation of symptoms was an early sign of sepsis.
"If the nurse says yes, then the provider is automatically paged, out of the computer system," Grant says.
The doctor is supposed to respond within half an hour, she says, and the overall goal is to get a patient who might be developing sepsis antibiotics within three hours.
But faster breathing might also be due to a walk down the corridor, and having an elevated number of white blood cells is not a reliable sepsis indicator in someone with cancer. Given the general nature of these symptoms, most of the time the nurse will report that the alert is just a false alarm.
Once one alarm is triggered, nurses aren't notified again for 12 hours, Grant adds — and that helps reduce the number of annoying false alarms the hospital staff must handle.
If the nurse says it's not sepsis, Grant says, "then the computer system just asks 'why do you think the patient has these abnormal vital signs?' "
The nurse may type in that the patient's heart rate was up because he was exercising, or has a high pulse because she's in pain. It's a partnership between the automation and the human being. And while systems like this are increasingly common in hospitals, the synergy between nurses and computers is a hallmark of the Seattle program.
"Just having the nurses really being in tune with their patients is really what makes the system work," Grant says. And it is working, she says. Since the system was installed in 2011 — and updated in 2017 — hospital mortality has fallen.
We head over to the room of the injured 34-year-old motorcyclist to see how he's doing. Matthew Clark says his world changed on Jan. 15, when he had an unfortunate encounter with a car.
"I was just on the way to make some chicken chili for my girlfriend," he says, "and a young distracted driver who wasn't looking kind of plowed into me." Two big bones in his left leg were broken, requiring a series of operations to set right.
But nine days after the accident, Clark got a clue his recovery was taking a turn for the worse when a friend came into his hospital room and he had trouble waving to her.
"I noticed my hands were shaking," he says, "and my blood started to leave my hands and feet. I just looked at her and said 'I need some help.' "
The hospital's internal 911 system responded with a team that, among other things, provided intravenous antibiotics to prevent his apparent infection from raging out of control and becoming septic shock.
"My temperature dropped incredibly," he says. "I'd never been so cold or shook so hard in my life."
And 24 hours later, he says, he was back to his old self.
In this case, the patient's alert actually popped up on the computer screen long after the medical team had stepped in.
Dr. David Carlbom, a critical care pulmonologist at UW Medicine's Harborview Medical Center, says sepsis has long frustrated clinicians. "There's no blood test," he says. "There's nothing you can look at under the microscope and say 'this is sepsis.' "
Ian C. Bates for NPR
"I think his case is a great example of action happening before the computer catches up," Carlbom says. "The vital signs are measured and dealt with at the bedside before they're entered into the computer."
In fact, that need to enter vital signs manually into the electronic medical record is a shortcoming of this system. The computer may be ever vigilant for signs of infection, but it only gets new data to crunch a few times a day.
Are State Rules For Treating Sepsis Really Saving Lives?
SHOTS - HEALTH NEWS
Are State Rules For Treating Sepsis Really Saving Lives?
This isn't simply an issue for the system at Harborview — it's a shortcoming for automated sepsis-detection programs elsewhere. Medical researchers are actively working to close that gap, says Dr. Matthew Churpek at the University of Chicago.
"We're partnering now with a company that has a device that goes under a patient's mattress and can continuously calculate their heart rate and respiratory rate in real time," Churpek says.
His team and others are also working on more accurate computer algorithms, to reduce the number of false alarms that are a problem both in Seattle and in similar systems around the country.
Doctors have struggled to find a good treatment for sepsis. For example, last year Dr. Paul Marik announced that a protocol involving intravenous vitamin C, thiamine and steroids dramatically reduced the number of sepsis deaths in his hospital's intensive care unit in Norfolk, Va. That unproven treatment has just begun to be studied in a series of careful clinical trials.
Carlbom uses that experimental therapy sometimes, but says it would be much better to prevent the condition.
"We use all these therapies in the ICU as a rescue tool when people are very sick dying of septic shock," he says, "but I think early discovery will probably affect mortality more."
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I think thats a great idea Elle.
Although I think it could be improved for anyone that has an IV line, or even using regular finger-prick tests as with diabetes, for those patients who are at severely elevated risks of sepsis. I'm sure it would be possible to design microscale or nanotechnology bases sensors to monitor circulating levels of proinflammatory cytokines, which is the important bit in sepsis, it isn't so much the infection itself that causes it, but its the body's own defenses going into hyperdrive and releasing huge quantities of proinflammatory cytokines that does the damage and causes sepsis and septic shock.