The Philosophy Discussion Forum

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 8:29 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jun 14, 2026 9:49 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sun Jun 14, 2026 7:57 pm Dear oh dear. You really are an irony vacuum.

Well, I'll tell you this much: when people run out of arguments about the issues, they always turn to the ad hominem, it seems. So I know, when they do it, that they're angry and losing the grasp on reason.

It's pretty predictable.

Ha! That's not prediction, it's projection. You are the only contributor to this forum unaware that you are describing yourself.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sun Jun 14, 2026 7:55 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Jun 14, 2026 6:00 pmBut the whole thing about it being awful for society if too much wealth accumulates into too few hands is tenuous and presumptive historicism. I wouldn't base my argument on it if I had any alternative. It holds historical truth but that was when land was the basis of wealth.

As you know, economics is not my strong hand, but it seems to me that wealth has always been a product of what other people will do for you. The most boneheaded way to get people to serve you is force. Next on the whatthefuckery list is making preposterous metaphysical promises. Third is law, which might be predicated on the former, and upheld by the first. Then there are those that provide something that people actually value; you know: Rembrandt, Mozart and the other bloke who did something quite good. Am I hopelessly off course?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 1:30 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Jun 14, 2026 11:41 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jun 14, 2026 11:28 pm
Most of what you wrote were sentences I never said, designed to make my position look unnecessarily narrow or hard in one way or another, so that you could have an emotional outburst and demonstrate yourself "virtuous" in contrast to my supposed excessive and putatively hardline views. I simply reject your paraphrases, and refer you back to what I actually said.

I've been quite clear, if you've been clear in your reading. I'm not against universal healthcare. I'm very much for it...but not in an unrealistic, unsustainable, irrational way, unjust and inevitably hurtful way. I've said that it needs to be fiscally practical...doable...deliverable...that it must not crash the economy and itself...that it must be favourable to keeping doctors and nurses...that it must encourage access to better technology and procedures...that it must not entail absurd, harmful and even fatal wait times...

Is any of that unreasonable? No. It's the very minimum a serious proponent of universal health care would also want to see.

So, since you advocate it, I want to see if you know what "realistic" or "practical" mean, in reference to it, or whether you're just gassing. I want to see your plan for implementing it, along with numbers that actually make sense, to show you can make it can work.

But your numbers don't add up. And your proposed strategies don't work. You can't just "tax the rich." You're going to end up taxing everybody, and crashing the economy, too. And the Nancy Pelosis of the world are simply going to shelter their money or leave the country...and you've offered no plan for stopping them doing it. And you need at least 5 trillion, sustainably, every year. Probably more. But let's say that's it.

Now, how are you going to achieve that?

You have not shown sound evidence to prove your assertion that Medicare for everyone won't work.

I have. The bill is at minimum 5 trillion (US) per year. How are you going to get that money, and get it perpetually, so universal health care can be supplied to the US? And, we might add, what will the bill be when the bill for universal health care for ALL comes in. Show me you can do it, and you have a case. But even at a glance you can see that it is statistically impossible -- unless you have some solution nobody has even thought of until now.

Go ahead.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 1:57 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 1:30 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Jun 14, 2026 11:41 pm

You have not shown sound evidence to prove your assertion that Medicare for everyone won't work.

I have. The bill is at minimum 5 trillion (US) per year. How are you going to get that money, and get it perpetually, so universal health care can be supplied to the US? And, we might add, what will the bill be when the bill for universal health care for ALL comes in. Show me you can do it, and you have a case. But even at a glance you can see that it is statistically impossible -- unless you have some solution nobody has even thought of until now.

Go ahead.

People said social security and the 8-hour workday were "impossible", that they could not be implemented.

phyllo wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:18 pm Countries with universal health care tend to spend 11% - 13% of GDP on it.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:23 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 1:57 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 1:30 pm
I have. The bill is at minimum 5 trillion (US) per year. How are you going to get that money, and get it perpetually, so universal health care can be supplied to the US? And, we might add, what will the bill be when the bill for universal health care for ALL comes in. Show me you can do it, and you have a case. But even at a glance you can see that it is statistically impossible -- unless you have some solution nobody has even thought of until now.

Go ahead.

People said social security and the 8-hour workday were "impossible", that they could not be implemented.

Good. Show how universal health care can be done.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:25 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:23 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 1:57 pm
People said social security and the 8-hour workday were "impossible", that they could not be implemented.

Good. Show how universal health care can be done.

Universal healthcare might be able to be accomplished by implementing something like Medicare for everyone.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:30 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:25 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:23 pm
Good. Show how universal health care can be done.

Universal healthcare might be able to be accomplished by implementing something like Medicare for everyone.

5 trillion/year, minimum, perpetually. Where are you getting it?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:34 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:30 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:25 pm

Universal healthcare might be able to be accomplished by implementing something like Medicare for everyone.

5 trillion/year, minimum, perpetually. Where are you getting it?

From taxes.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:36 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:34 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:30 pm
5 trillion/year, minimum, perpetually. Where are you getting it?

From taxes.

Taxes are not magic. They come with numbers. I've given you the number you need to reach: show that your plan reaches it, and creates a perpetual supply for the future, and you've got genuine universal health care worked out...at least for the present US population, minus migrants.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:39 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:36 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:34 pm

From taxes.

Taxes are not magic. They come with numbers. I've given you the number you need to reach: show that your plan reaches it, and creates a perpetual supply for the future, and you've got genuine universal health care worked out...at least for the present US population, minus migrants.

The US government collects somewhere in the range of 5 trillion dollars in taxes from tax payers annually, according to the results I Googled. Do you agree with that number?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:46 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:39 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:36 pm
Taxes are not magic. They come with numbers. I've given you the number you need to reach: show that your plan reaches it, and creates a perpetual supply for the future, and you've got genuine universal health care worked out...at least for the present US population, minus migrants.

The US government collects somewhere in the range of 5 trillion dollars in taxes from tax payers annually, according to the results I Googled. Do you agree with that number?

I don't know. So your supposition is that 100% of the tax budget would go to universal health care for existing citizens? No roads? No military? No education? No subsidies? No welfare? No infrastructure? No government projects? No funds for migrants? No foreign aid? No poor relief? No inspectors? No art galleries? No grants to charity? No research funding?...

That might work. But you won't have Socialism, for sure. You won't even have a government, then. They'd have no money for anything else.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:57 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:46 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:39 pm

The US government collects somewhere in the range of 5 trillion dollars in taxes from tax payers annually, according to the results I Googled. Do you agree with that number?

I don't know. So your supposition is that 100% of the tax budget would go to universal health care for existing citizens? No roads? No military? No education? No subsidies? No welfare? No infrastructure? No government projects? No funds for migrants? No foreign aid? No poor relief? No inspectors? No art galleries? No grants to charity? No research funding?...

That might work. But you won't have Socialism, for sure. You won't even have a government, then. They'd have no money for anything else.

No, taxes would need to be increased, obviously (perhaps more than doubled if they want to also have the largest military in the world).

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 3:04 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:57 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:46 pm
I don't know. So your supposition is that 100% of the tax budget would go to universal health care for existing citizens? No roads? No military? No education? No subsidies? No welfare? No infrastructure? No government projects? No funds for migrants? No foreign aid? No poor relief? No inspectors? No art galleries? No grants to charity? No research funding?...

That might work. But you won't have Socialism, for sure. You won't even have a government, then. They'd have no money for anything else.

No, taxes would need to be increased, obviously (perhaps more than doubled if they want to also have the largest military in the world).

Who gets that new tax burden? You and I know it won't be Nancy Pelosi, don't we?

Since the rich already pay the vast majority of taxes, and we already have a progressive tax system in place, you'd have to tax the middle class. In other words, the person who's going to have to pony up the dough is...Gary.

Have you done that yet?