“What would it look like to travel across the known universe? To help humanity visualize this, the American Museum of Natural History has produced a modern movie featuring many visual highlights of such a trip.” – Astronomy Picture of the Day for 20 January 2010.
Please note that your problems and mine are insignificant. – Trevor Blake
For centuries Great Britain has served as a safe haven for refugees from political persecution. The reason Britain has been so attractive is its long tradition of political tolerance. This is history Britain ought to be proud of, even if it has been abused by people such as Karl Marx. What made Britain unique was that the British public was tolerant of larger issues such as politics and religion while remaining decidedly intolerant of petty issues. The curtain-twitching disapproval of “alternative lifestyles” remained strong in Britain until the 60s generation rebelled against such moral sternness. While Britain in the 50s was a repressive society in many ways that many could not accept, just because Britain has a proud tradition of tolerance, it does not mean that intolerance does not have its own advantages.
To see what a society looks like when tolerance goes wild, observers only have to look at southern Europe or much of the third world. China shows what a socially tolerant society looks like. While China is not tolerant of political differences, the people are generally tolerant of behaviours that would not be acceptable in Britain. In China, smoking, talking loudly, using mobile phones in theatres or restaurants is perfectly normal behaviour. This is extended to a nearly complete indifference to public spaces and to other people that comes as a surprise to any newly arrived visitor to the People’s Republic. Driving in China is usually a shock even to those used to third world traffic as other drivers simply ignore anything not a direct danger to themselves. As an example of the problems of excessive tolerance just compare the status of larger social issues such as crypto-science. While anyone in Britain who makes dubious claims for medical treatments can expect both the wrath of the authorities and public disapproval, in most of the rest of the world tolerance is extended to those claiming they can cure cancer or HIV with herbs.
In fact in China belief in the benefits of Chinese herbal medicines is extremely common, despite a noticeably lack of evidence to support such views. This extends up and down the social scale with the most educated Chinese often also being the most credulous towards such claims. Qian Xuesen, the American-educated founder of China’s rocket programme, for instance, was also a strong supporter of various Qigong groups, including Falun Gong before it was banned. This tolerant attitude may well have played a part in China’s lack of an industrial revolution. For while British tolerance has not allowed the persecution of heretics in recent times, that has not been extended to their ideas. British scientists have inherited the Christian tradition of intolerance and that has driven technological progress. [...]
As the British have become more tolerant of petty transgressions it is no surprise that such behaviours have increased. Litter is much more common than it was 50 years ago, as is antisocial behaviour in general. However, this increasing tolerance extends from the housing estates to the Houses of Parliament. Behaviour that would have led to resignation half a century ago is now viewed with benign tolerance. Civil servants are not dismissed no matter how badly they manage public projects; politicians no longer resign no matter how badly they have behaved.
None of this is inevitable. Litter is not unavoidable and should not be tolerated. The waste of billions of pounds in badly designed IT projects is not a fact of nature but a blot on society we choose to accept rather than challenge. We can find our inner Inquisitor and we should express disapproval of behaviour that we do not need to tolerate. Britain can be the tidy, clean and safe place it was 50 years ago if only we, as a society, have the will to embrace intolerance for antisocial behaviour.
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There are at least two laws being discussed to change health care and insurance in the United States.
S.1679 Affordable Health Choices Act (Placed on Calendar in Senate) reads in part:
The essential benefits provided for in subparagraph (A) shall include a requirement that there be non-discrimination in health care in a manner that, with respect to an individual who is eligible for medical or surgical care under a qualified health plan offered through a Gateway, prohibits the Administrator of the Gateway, or a qualified health plan offered through the Gateway, from denying such individual benefits for religious or spiritual health care, except that such religious or spiritual health care shall be an expense eligible for deduction as a medical care expense as determined by Internal Revenue Service Rulings interpreting section 213(d) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as of January 1, 2009.
H.R.3200 – America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 reads in part:
Sec. 125. Prohibition of discrimination in health care services based on religious or spiritual content.
Alternative medicine, Christian Science, the healing powers of prayer, Scientology auditing, exorcisms and more will get federal funding if these proposals become law. If any kind of medical care gets federal funding I’d prefer it be evidence-based. When you have to pay taxes and the taxes pay for this kind of nonsense, it isn’t alternative medicine any more.
Followup:
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger, Healthcare provision seeks to embrace prayer treatments [November 3, 2009]
BBC, Universal phone charger approved:
A new mobile phone charger that will work with any handset has been approved by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a United Nations body. Industry body the GSMA says that 51,000 tonnes of redundant chargers are generated each year. Currently most chargers are product or brand specific, so people tend to change them when they upgrade to a new phone. However, the new energy-efficient chargers can be kept for much longer. The GSMA also estimates that they will reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 13.6m tonnes.
I remember hearing about the Universal Serial Bus (USB) in the mid 1990s. There never was a good reason for having so many different kinds of cables to connect electronic equipment, and pending a way to do it wirelessly the USB sounded like a good solution. Not even twenty years after the introduction of the USB, I count more than ten different kinds of USB cables at the Wikipedia entry. It’s not quite universal if it’s not… universal. I’m old enough to remember BETA and VHS tapes in video stores, stores now crowding out the DVDs to fill the shelves with Blue Ray. And so while I greet the news that phone chargers may have a standardized form soon, I have been misled by such claims before and I’ll believe it when I see it.
Outside of the problems raised by so many different forms of chargers are the problems of so many types of alternating current. There’s no engineering reason for home users to have different kinds of power based on their nationality, but that’s how things ended up. Rail gague varies by country so that the enemy’s trains can’t just roll into town. When was the last time that happened? I think alternating current varies by location so that each location’s companies / governments can sell us new equipment. That’s a good capitalist decision, just like my preference in buying less redundant stuff is a good capitalist decision.
Those who know me know that I’ve got a soft spot for R. Buckminster Fuller. Fuller wrote about the savings that could come if we were to link the world’s energy networks. The global energy network could save billions of dollars and prevent a great deal of pollution the moment it is turned on. Leading the charge for this effort is the Global Energy Network Institute. This proposal requires no new technology that I’m aware of, only the cooperation of governments and corporations. Fingers crossed…
I think that the people who approach the social sciences with a ready-made conspiracy theory [...] deny themselves the possibility of ever understanding what the task of the social sciences is, for they assume that we can explain practically everything in society by asking who wanted it, whereas the real task of the social sciences is to explain those things which nobody wants – such as, for example, a war, or a depression. (Lenin’s revolution, and especially Hitler’s revolution and Hitler’s war are, I think, exceptions. These were indeed conspiracies. But they were consequences of the fact that conspiracy theoreticians came to power – who, most significantly, failed to consumate their conspiracies.)
As if the issues surrounding socialized medical care weren’t complex enough… should the United States expand its tax-supported medical care programs to cover all tax payers, here are some of the issues that will have to be addressed:
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Puerto Rico’s Largest Medical Facility Unlawfully Fired Nurse Because He Refused to Disobey His Religion:
Puerto Rico’s largest medical center violated federal law when it refused to accommodate a male nurse’s religious beliefs, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit it filed yesterday. Further, the EEOC said, Hospital Auxilio Mutuo unlawfully suspended and fired the employee because of his religion. According to the EEOC’s suit, EEOC v. Hospital Auxilio Mutuo, Case No. 3:09-cv-1797, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, a male registered nurse told the hospital he could not cut his hair short as an observance of his religion, Santeria. Nevertheless, the man was suspended after he explained his religious beliefs to the hospital and asked for an accommodation. Further, the EEOC said, the hospital retaliated against the nurse by firing him after he complained about the discrimination. The hospital’s policy allows female employees, but not males, to wear their hair any length, the EEOC said.
Barbara Anderson, Hmong shamans help at Valley hospitals:
Staff at most hosptials would be baffled by an instruction like this on a bedside chart: to prepare patient for surgery, provide 15 minutes of soft chanting and tie a red string around the neck. It’s different at Mercy Medical Center in Merced. There, nurses know they must call a shaman. Mercy is the nation’s first hospital with a formal policy for Hmong shamans, allowing the traditional healers, working alongside doctors, to help patients recover. Hospitals across the country are paying attention as they seek to accommodate cultural beliefs of diverse patient populations. In the San Joaquin Valley, the Hmong are one of a few ethnic groups — including some indigenous Mexican cultures — that practice shamanism. For those with traditional beliefs, calling on a spiritual healer is as important to good health as making an appointment with a doctor. They may go without care if they can’t have a shaman nearby, sometimes with devastating consequences.
American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, Understanding Satisfaction with Shamanic Practices among the Hmong in Rural California:
The Hmong are a group of people from Southern China, Laos, Northern Vietnam, and Thailand who have immigrated to the US and who have settled in rural counties in Central California. The literature suggests, the Hmong routinely use the services of shamans as part of their health care services. The purpose of this study was to determine the difference in the levels of satisfaction among Hmong clients who use shamans and their services in Fresno County with regard to factors associated with animal sacrifice, gender of the shaman and the practices inside or outside of the client’s home. Data were collected from 115 study participants in a rural California county. Findings from this study suggest that clients who had shamans conduct the rituals at their own homes and those who used live animals were significantly more satisfied than those had to travel to meet the shaman and those whose shamans’ use dead animals.
If the State must offer medical care, and if the State is forbidden from establishing one religion over another, and if medical care and religion are considered one in hospitals, then the State is forced into the position of paying for religious services – all religious services – if they are claimed to be “medical” or “traditional” or “healing.” Is there anything that religion can’t make more complex and oppressive and harmful? The alternative is for the State to insist only on secular medicine, leaving “alternative” services to the patient in question. That seems reasonable to me. Will that happen? Is that happening now?
“If you want, you can have this future.”
Japan, the world’s second largest economy, is facing a demographic crisis that will shrink the population dramatically. The Japanese aren’t having babies, and the country won’t accept immigrants to help bolster the population. But Japan may have a unique solution – Robots!
If you are someone who thinks or writes about race, immigration, labor, technology, population or culture in the USA this video of how things are done in another country might be of interest.
Once an ambiguous look was interpreted, it biased subsequent perception.
Until now there have been no reports of regular use of more than one type of tool to prey upon army ants. [Some people call them 'bushmeat.']
Chimpanzees Develop ‘Specialized Tool Kits’ To Catch Army Ants
“There may be much cheaper ways [of cutting emissions], for example by preserving tropical rainforests or decarbonising China and India’s rapid coal-based economic growth,” he says. The EU is relying on renewables, which are underdeveloped and reduced demand
Random Targets And Excessive Profits: Climate Change Policies Not Working