Philosophy Now Forum

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:49 pmIn utopia you wouldn't need law enforcement, schools or doctors, so why pay for them?

Ah, Immanuel Can's White Knight rides in. Who knows Skepdick? Perhaps the bleedin' obvious will be more persuasive from you than me.

[quote=Skepdick post_id=504027 time=1616597344 user_id=17350]
[quote=tillingborn post_id=504025 time=1616597127 user_id=7001]
Is there nothing in your view that should be publicly funded? Should defence be private? International relations? Law enforcement? Infrastructure? Natural resources? Does society have any rôle in your utopia?
[/quote]
Society isn't the system. Society is the people who build the system to meet their own needs.

In utopia you wouldn't need law enforcement, schools or doctors, so why pay for them?
[/quote]

If you didn't have schools it wouldn't be Utopia for long.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:02 pm

tillingborn wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 2:14 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 10:50 pmBoth the BBC and the NHS are collapsing of economic unsustainability. There's an active public dialogue right now about what's to be done when they're gone...or, in the case of the BBC, whether forcing people to pay a license for a thing they don't want is even moral.

That simply isn't true.

Yeah, it is. *You've got to wonder why the government would have to force people to pay for something, through a license, when, according to you, they want it anyway. Why not just wave the regulation, and let the people pay what they want...pay MORE even, through private donation if they think the BBC is serving them well and is what they want to watch?

But you know better. The "Beebs" would be dead in a year if it had to depend on actually providing what the public wants to buy.

* https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/1 ... oll-finds/

Advocate wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 4:12 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:49 pm

tillingborn wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:45 pm Is there nothing in your view that should be publicly funded? Should defence be private? International relations? Law enforcement? Infrastructure? Natural resources? Does society have any rôle in your utopia?

Society isn't the system. Society is the people who build the system to meet their own needs.

In utopia you wouldn't need law enforcement, schools or doctors, so why pay for them?

*If you didn't have schools it wouldn't be Utopia for long.

* https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that- ... schooling/

tillingborn wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:45 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:10 pmBusiness, when it's making money, always starts out already "private,"

Is there nothing in your view that should be publicly funded? Should defence be private? International relations? Law enforcement? Infrastructure? Natural resources? Does society have any rôle in your utopia?

The only legit purpose for the watchman we call government (but which rightfully ought to be called, and treated as, proxy) is safeguardin' individual life, liberty, and property. To that end, the proper proxy is...

a minimal, local constabulary

a minimal, local court of last resort

a minimal, border-stationed, patrol

the militia (everyone else)

The first three exist, as I say, to safeguard the lives, liberties, and properties of the citizens.

The fourth exists to blunt overreach by the first three, and to undergird the common defense.

Ain't nuthin' in there about health care, education, communications, or all the other properly private affairs currently folded into the sphere of government.

tillingborn wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:37 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:02 pmYeah, it is. You've got to wonder why the government would have to force people to pay for something, through a license, when, according to you, they want it anyway.

No it isn't. The current conservative government would sell the BBC and the NHS to the highest bidders in an instant were it not for the fact that more people want the status quo...

Oh, the NHS, not the BBC?

Sure, people want to keep health care the way it is...it looks "free" to them, even though they're paying a ton of money for it. They don't see the numbers, so they feel like it's "free." But it's also unsustainable. In fact, in locations where it's available, it's often the biggest budget item by several times over the next competitor, and is the single biggest drain on the public purse, requiring even more funds as immigration ramps up and as the population ages, with fewer tax-payers to sustain it. It kills the whole economy in some places.

How unsustainable it is has lately become critical, as wait times for surgeries and procedures is so long sometimes that people suffer unnecessarily, are injured further as their body parts deteriorate, or even die waiting.

So yeah, I get wanting to keep health care...but the problem is how to pay for it. Socialized medicine is unsustainable, unfortunately. And while I agree with people having access to medical care and not being bankrupted for it, I can't see how letting the system deteriorate further in the name of Socialism is a good idea or a win for anybody.

Can you? How would you fund socialized medicine?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:02 pmBut you know better. The "Beebs" would be dead in a year if it had to depend on actually providing what the public wants to buy.

I know because I live in the UK and am part of the conversation. Do you have any data on which base this claim?

You mean the claim that the BBC is controversial? Or the claim that people won't pay for it if they're not forced to?

The first: https://ca.gofundme.com/f/defund-the-bbc

The second is easy to test. Just defund the BBC; and if your theory is correct, the BBC will get as much or more money than it's ever had. That's a win for you. If my theory is correct, it will collapse in short order, bankrupt. But then you'll also know that the only thing keeping it going was not the public desire for it, but the artificial support of the licensing fee.

So either way, you should be happy to defund the BBC...that is, unless you already know my theory is correct, and are actually advocating for keeping something going at the public expense, the thing they don't actually want.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 4:40 pm* https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/1 ... oll-finds/

The Daily Telegraph is to Britain what Fox News is to the US. Everybody knows that you can get the answer you want by phrasing the question to your advantage - Lies, damn lies and statistics. The fact that even the the Telegraph could only muster 75% is all the evidence you need that the figure is much lower in the general population.

tillingborn wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:01 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 4:40 pm* https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/1 ... oll-finds/

The Daily Telegraph is to Britain what Fox News is to the US. Everybody knows that you can get the answer you want by phrasing the question to your advantage - Lies, damn lies and statistics. The fact that even the the Telegraph could only muster 75% is all the evidence you need that the figure is much lower in the general population.

Hey, I'm 'murican...I don't know the Telegraph from a hole in the wall.

I'd fish around for sumthin' more reputable but I'm thinkin' you'll shoot down any piece from any source that bursts your bubble.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:07 pmHey, I'm 'murican...

I apologise. I didn't mean to mock your affliction.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:07 pmI don't know the Telegraph from a hole in the wall.

That's pretty much The Daily Telegraph.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:07 pmI'd fish around for sumthin' more reputable but I'm thinkin' you'll shoot down any piece from any source that bursts your bubble.

Yes, as much as I think you will fart into any source that inflates yours. Are we grown ups? Are we so stupid to think that anyone who disagrees with us is stupid?

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:07 pm

tillingborn wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:01 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 4:40 pm* https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/1 ... oll-finds/

The Daily Telegraph is to Britain what Fox News is to the US. Everybody knows that you can get the answer you want by phrasing the question to your advantage - Lies, damn lies and statistics. The fact that even the the Telegraph could only muster 75% is all the evidence you need that the figure is much lower in the general population.

Hey, I'm 'murican...I don't know the Telegraph from a hole in the wall.

I'd fish around for sumthin' more reputable but I'm thinkin' you'll shoot down any piece from any source that bursts your bubble.

I've noticed that. No set of facts or statistics will dissuade a Socialist from campaigning for Socialism. No source that casts doubt on Socialism is ever, so far as they are concerned, anything but corrupt and inadequate. So it wouldn't matter what you found: they don't care, because their attraction to Socialism has nothing to do with facts, and everything to do with the ideology. And that makes me think their attraction to it is not actually tied to what is, but to what they aspire to make to be the case.

That impression is further bolstered by their total inability to point to one successful case of even one country where conversion to Socialism made a political-economic situation better, as well as the proliferation of cases where Socialism manifestly made things immeasurably worse. What they do, instead, is try to say, "Well, the BBC, the NHS, or something else, has been "working" for a bit, therefore we could make the whole system socialist, and it would all be better."

They always ignore that these Socialist pet-projects depend on a non-Socialist, profit-producing, free-enterprise economy, or they wouldn't even exist at all. There's no welfare, no universal health care, no public schools, no employment insurance, and so forth, without private enterprise making the money that sustains them through taxation. But Socialists never seem to want to look at that: instead, they just assume "tax" money is free money, money that appears from nowhere, and costs nobody anything.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 4:59 pmSure, people want to keep health care the way it is...it looks "free" to them, even though they're paying a ton of money for it.

We pay less than in the US and we get a pension thrown in as a bonus. The electorate of the People's Constitutional Monarchy of The United Kingdom actually knows what is on offer, and we make a free choice. Nobody gets everything they want all the time, and in Britain we know not to trust anyone who says we can. It's called democracy.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:22 pmThere's no welfare, no universal health care, no public schools, no employment insurance, and so forth, without private enterprise making the money that sustains them through taxation.

Indeed. Those are pillars of a mixed economy. Do you oppose all of them?

I apologise. I didn't mean to mock your affliction.

HA!

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:22 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:07 pm

tillingborn wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:01 pm The Daily Telegraph is to Britain what Fox News is to the US. Everybody knows that you can get the answer you want by phrasing the question to your advantage - Lies, damn lies and statistics. The fact that even the the Telegraph could only muster 75% is all the evidence you need that the figure is much lower in the general population.

Hey, I'm 'murican...I don't know the Telegraph from a hole in the wall.

I'd fish around for sumthin' more reputable but I'm thinkin' you'll shoot down any piece from any source that bursts your bubble.

I've noticed that. No set of facts or statistics will dissuade a Socialist from campaigning for Socialism. No source that casts doubt on Socialism is ever, so far as they are concerned, anything but corrupt and inadequate. So it wouldn't matter what you found: they don't care, because their attraction to Socialism has nothing to do with facts, and everything to do with the ideology. And that makes me think their attraction to it is not actually tied to what is, but to what they aspire to make to be the case.

That impression is further bolstered by their total inability to point to one successful case of even one country where conversion to Socialism made a political-economic situation better, as well as the proliferation of cases where Socialism manifestly made things immeasurably worse. What they do, instead, is try to say, "Well, the BBC, the NHS, or something else, has been "working" for a bit, therefore we could make the whole system socialist, and it would all be better."

They always ignore that these Socialist pet-projects depend on a non-Socialist, profit-producing, free-enterprise economy, or they wouldn't even exist at all. There's no welfare, no universal health care, no public schools, no employment insurance, and so forth, without private enterprise making the money that sustains them through taxation. But Socialists never seem to want to look at that: instead, they just assume "tax" money is free money, money that appears from nowhere, and costs nobody anything.

Yep.

tillingborn wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:31 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 4:59 pmSure, people want to keep health care the way it is...it looks "free" to them, even though they're paying a ton of money for it.

We pay less than in the US and we get a pension thrown in as a bonus.

Well, the pension isn't "thrown in": you pay for it. How much you pay, I'll warrant you have no idea at all.

As for your medical system, what are your wait times like? And what is the availability of surgeries and other advanced procedures? And what percentage of the public purse is being lost to the NHS?