Will Marijuana Become Legal Everywhere Eventually?

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Mentoya wrote:

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k1rage wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjMno3z841E

really poor quality but to me it illustrates the major downside of smoking weed especially at a young age

I'm sure I can find one about the downfalls of drinking beer at a young age as well.....
That should be pretty easy for me to find.

well yeah lol

Alcohol is literally a poison

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Crackmonster wrote:

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Boem wrote:

^Our society doesn't treat ailments, it suppresses symptoms and makes illness endure.

No money otherwise.

Peace,

-Boem-

Funny, the way you said it made me think of:

Survival of the fittest - maybe the medical industry is much more a case of natural selection than otherwise. That industry is what survives because it doesn't undermine its own foundation of existence - so it keeps growing because there is opportunity in it simply.

We could also blame the Illuminati of course.

That's actually one of the best reason why healthcare should never be private.

In a private healthcare system, it's in the interest of the doctors to keep the patients ill as long as possible to make more money.

In a public healthcare system, it's in the interest of the government to keep the patients ill as little as possible to save more money and make more. It's also in their best interest to prevent illness in the first place to save more money.


I think anyone would agree that option B is the best one for the consumers.

I honestly think it is much more complicated than that - the amounts of money invested into research is quite extreme i fear if it was the government paying for it it would be far more susceptible to cuts due politics etc. Don't get me wrong, i am not one of those capitalist types.

I think it is also a case of both things existing alongside each other - it is the dream of the researcher to find the cure, but in the absence of the cure there is huge money to be made in dulling the symptoms.

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faerwin wrote:

In a private healthcare system, it's in the interest of the doctors to keep the patients ill as long as possible to make more money.

In a public healthcare system, it's in the interest of the government to keep the patients ill as little as possible to save more money and make more. It's also in their best interest to prevent illness in the first place to save more money.

The force that prevents doctors from benefiting from keeping their patients ill is free market competition. When people get crappy service and they can go somewhere else, they generally do. Competing businesses improve their product to gain more marketshare.

They type of abuse you're talking about only occurs in monopolistic or oligopolistic industries. In those cases, people can't go somewhere different because competitors who would offer better are driven under before they can. What all monopolies and oligopolies have in common is: they either exist at the pleasure of the state and are supported by cronyist laws benefiting them, or they assume the functions of government themselves to bully the weak official government and anyone else who would oppose them, or a mix of both. State-run industries are not competitive economically and therefore will run rampant with corruption unless a thorough, honest and free press, if there is one, reliably reports such corruption to an interested public that can vote out those responsible, if there is one.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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faerwin wrote:

They type of abuse you're talking about only occurs in a monopolistic or oligopolistic industries. In those cases, people can't go somewhere different because competitors who would offer better are driven under before they can get the chance. What all monopolies and oligopolies have in common is: they either exist at the pleasure of the state and are supported by cronyist laws benefiting them, or they assume the functions of government themselves to bully the weak official government and anyone else who would oppose them. State-run industries are not competitive economically and therefore will run rampant with corruption unless a thorough, honest and free press, if there is one, reliably reports such corruption to an interested public that can vote out those responsible, if there is one.

I'm seeing things in a whole new light tonight. hehe..

I never really thought about that before but it is true - a government controlled aspect of the market is actually a monopolistic situation. There is much unhealthy market manipulation that only happens in monopolies and yea oligopolies. I didn't think of that before, but i will keep that in mind for further reflection.

I'm starting to drift further away from huge governmental bodies owning whole markets and more towards healthy regulation and laws to ensure that things are run right by whoever is most able(free market) - still heavily on the socialistic side but that doesn't mean the government has to run things themselves but through taxes and the like can redistribute to where it is most ideal for the betterment of society as a whole - as well as use the money to invest in what matters like infrastructure, healthcare, schools etc.

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Crackmonster wrote:

I never really thought about that before but it is true - a government controlled aspect of the market is actually a monopolistic situation. There is much unhealthy market manipulation that only happens in monopolies and yea oligopolies. I didn't think of that before,

Well that's shocking.

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Molyneux recaps the history of unfree market US healthcare: https://youtu.be/2CozUOhDhV4

Aye it's quite amazing!

Old information passing you by from the right angle and suddenly it strikes you.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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faerwin wrote:

In a private healthcare system, it's in the interest of the doctors to keep the patients ill as long as possible to make more money.

In a public healthcare system, it's in the interest of the government to keep the patients ill as little as possible to save more money and make more. It's also in their best interest to prevent illness in the first place to save more money.

The force that prevents doctors from benefiting from keeping their patients ill is free market competition. When people get crappy service and they can go somewhere else, they generally do. Competing businesses improve their product to gain more marketshare.

They type of abuse you're talking about only occurs in monopolistic or oligopolistic industries. In those cases, people can't go somewhere different because competitors who would offer better are driven under before they can. What all monopolies and oligopolies have in common is: they either exist at the pleasure of the state and are supported by cronyist laws benefiting them, or they assume the functions of government themselves to bully the weak official government and anyone else who would oppose them, or a mix of both. State-run industries are not competitive economically and therefore will run rampant with corruption unless a thorough, honest and free press, if there is one, reliably reports such corruption to an interested public that can vote out those responsible, if there is one.

The free market is an utopic vision that doesn't exist for healthcare. There's multiple reasons for this:

- Entry cost for making a new clinic/hospital (by new I mean new brand, not just new building) are prohibitively high. So it's very rare that doctors will be able to start a new business and will, the vast majority of the time, just join an already existing establishment.

- Health insurances allow establishments to charge whatever they want because it's not the patient that (directly) pay the fees but their insurance (for the majority). The result is that there's no point in shopping for a cheaper hospital, just a better service. This also created extremely unhealthy costs for those that can't afford an insurance or are claimed to be impossible to insure.

- Collusion happens, a lot. In a small town, heck, even in big towns, there's a limited amount of hospitals. It would be extremely surprising if there wasn't price fixing going on between multiple establishments. The reason is that the competition is very small and with health, you are always gonna want the best possible doctors. So the few smaller competitors will not be able to fight easily if at all.

- Doctor colleges. Doctors subscribe to a global union for their right to practice medicine and that union has an order. If a doctor is found to step out of line (ie, charging too low), he can be intimidated, bullied and even have his license revoked.

That's why the state needs to invest in schools, public healthscare(like building hospitals), but those building it(the workers) need to be from private firms to ensure that society gets the most for its money. It's not a coincidence publicly owned "firms" are always inefficient and a money leak far more than it needs to be. If you open your eyes you will find that many of the old publicly owned systems are being run into the ground - they cannot compete because the chain of responsibility is broken and are used to just being thrown money so they become inefficient. Yes i have worked in such places and yes so has my family, and we are all supporters of a strong state, high tax etc, helping those weaker in society.

Hospitals, schools and the like are in the grey area that it is very hard to pierce where the lines are best drawn, chances are a mix of public and private is best there - with the majority owned by the government, but that's only because i haven't seen an idea for a private school/hospital system i thought was adequate - although if one could generate the idea theoretically it should also be the best way for society. Because in this modern society there are so many more things we claim to "need" all around in society than we can afford therefore for everyone to have the highest standard of living we need to close the economic leaks so everyone can get for example more advanced hospital treatments as the cost of technology grows faster than inflation, or spend more money to take care of the elderly. The problem is the link is broken when something is publicly owned, they are just thrown a lot of money which breeds lack of responsibility just like it's bad just throwing money at underdeveloped countries instead of focusing the efforts where it matters, it just does not have the same driving force as when someone is doing their utmost best to make a business profitable. Profitable =\= big bad evil money and make others pay for more more money.

For something like unions for doctors lawyers and such - it can work alongside private doctors and lawyers as well - their licenses can be invoked as well it's the same for that. Additionally, extreme regulation and many laws should surround areas such as private schools/hospitals - such that they deliver a certain high standard, and additionally a lot of money should be spent to subsidize whatever in such a way that the private schools/hospitals are just as affordable as publicly owned ones. The question is the incentive behind it, the economic responsibility by which it is run because our society these days is under huge pressure to afford the things that would be best for us.

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Crackmonster wrote:

Yes i have worked in such places and yes so has my family, and we are all supporters of a strong state, high tax etc, helping those weaker in society.

At least you're beginning to own your bias.

The lynchpin of civilization is its ability to leverage economic specialization. This means that while all human capital need not have broad and often shallow expertise of the smart conversationalist, they should all have a deep and often narrow expertise in one niche that very few others have. Economic specialization likes idiot savants more than it likes the well-rounded. Therefore: there is no ideal class of elites to make decisions, only a virtually infinite variety of different ideal categories of elites to make such decisions.

As such, every task that a society wants done well should be decentralized as possible. This is why free market competition is such a useful economic structure. Decentralization avoids the abuses of monopoly and eschews control by a single class of people.

Now, tasks society wants done poorly, those are things best left to highly centralized structures, such as democratically controlled monopolies. For example, we don't want kidnappers and extortionists to be competing at those tasks in a free market and refining their craft, so we established an entity with a legal monopoly on kidnapping and extortion (aka imprisonment and fines) to bully all it's competitors out of the market, after which we can control those "official" kidnapper/extortionists via demos.