Making the news today....

[Guest Gimlet]

2 minutes ago, Stere said:

So how about 1 child policy for the UK? with zero immigration allowed

 

In a few generations pop will head down to more sustainable levels...

 

Green and pleasant land

A step in the right direction but the collective human consciousness isn't ready to handle that yet. All our entire social and economic models are underpinned by assumptions of unlimited expansion, growth and consumption governed by some vague misapprehension that population will magically plateau and stabilise at some indeterminate point in the future. Even if that were true - and there is no evidence that it is - current levels are already way past the point of sustainability.  

 

In my view the planet cannot support more than 3 billion people without irreversible habitat loss and species depletion. Until human beings everywhere thoroughly grasp that our domination of the planet is an unmitigated disaster and not a success story or some shining achievement the conversation cannot happen. You have to start somewhere but I have little hope. People are becoming increasingly short-sighted and increasingly dim. And that in itself is probably evidence of our evolutionary journey to extinction. But you can but try.     

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

39 minutes ago, Mark J said:

If I make some money off it, then by all means you can have a coffee on expenses. If not, I'll buy you a pint.

And there we have a neat summary of socialist fiscal policy! ?

 

(that was an open door Mark, couldn’t resist!)

[openspaceman]

5 hours ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

Quite simply, because it provides some context to the relentless cries of underfunding in the NHS and begs the question, are ‘we’ getting VfM. 
 

 

I cannot see how you come to that view by mentioning the earnings of 50,000 people.

 

What are you saying:

 

Employees of a state financed organisation should not earn as much as £100k/annum?

No one should earn £100k/annum?

 

The demand for health care will always go up and as the science of healthcare gains more knowledge then treatments and procedures will become available and will cost more.

 

As populations age there will be more demand for care.

 

The funding for the NHS is constrained by what the economy can afford, so is related to earning and income tax plus other demands. It's no good saying we should grow the cake bigger so everyone should have a bigger share and hence personal contributions to healthcare should go up, this was Thatcher's  mistake, the bigger the cake the increase in slice the rich get and the rich do not spend their money for the benefit of the rest.

 

We know there is incompetence in the NHS but I see incompetence in many people I have to deal with in other industries. The NHS seems to be particularly incompetent in IT systems but how can it be changed, it's a behemoth?

 

Talk of rebuilding it from the ground up ignores the billions of man hours that underpin the monster, I think Microsoft faced the same problem when updating windows such that windows 10 probably still has code from windows 95 in it somewhere.

 

What this crisis shows is that we don't value the things we need, when we think we have enough, over the things we want, which is insatiable, and why salesmen, politicians, entrepreneurs etc. earn more than dustmen, nurses, care workers etc.

[Mark J]

[AHPP]

I cannot see how you come to that view by mentioning the earnings of 50,000 people.
 
What are you saying:
 
Employees of a state financed organisation should not earn as much as £100k/annum?
No one should earn £100k/annum?
 
The demand for health care will always go up and as the science of healthcare gains more knowledge then treatments and procedures will become available and will cost more.
 
As populations age there will be more demand for care.
 
The funding for the NHS is constrained by what the economy can afford, so is related to earning and income tax plus other demands. It's no good saying we should grow the cake bigger so everyone should have a bigger share and hence personal contributions to healthcare should go up, this was Thatcher's  mistake, the bigger the cake the increase in slice the rich get and the rich do not spend their money for the benefit of the rest.
 
We know there is incompetence in the NHS but I see incompetence in many people I have to deal with in other industries. The NHS seems to be particularly incompetent in IT systems but how can it be changed, it's a behemoth?
 
Talk of rebuilding it from the ground up ignores the billions of man hours that underpin the monster, I think Microsoft faced the same problem when updating windows such that windows 10 probably still has code from windows 95 in it somewhere.
 
What this crisis shows is that we don't value the things we need, when we think we have enough, over the things we want, which is insatiable, and why salesmen, politicians, entrepreneurs etc. earn more than dustmen, nurses, care workers etc.

QED

[Johnsond]

26 minutes ago, Mark J said:

Just playing by the rules.

Whose rules ? see mark end of day we are all human. 

 

[trigger_andy]

31 minutes ago, Mark J said:

How many do you have?

I knew that was coming.  

 

I have 4 kids now. All paid for my myself I might add. But my Sister is not having any so I took her quota too.

[TIMON]

[emoji23]

[tree-fancier123]

50 minutes ago, Mark J said:

If I was responsible for looking after 70 odd million people, I'd be hiring the very best people.

and you don't think the current government hasn't been through academia with a fine tooth comb looking for people who can at least partially understand these phenomena. Personally I don't think the advisers they have used either in government, or those in universities could have been any better. Remember all over the world scientists have been at odds over how to manage this.

There are 3 main points

1 - lockdowns clearly slow the spread, the more complete the lockdown the better

2- shutting most of the economy for more than a few weeks may well cause more long term suffering than just letting people die and carrying on, with mass burials of those who don't make it. Putting financial strength and natural selection before compassion (hope they don't do this as I'm asthmatic and not looking forward to atypical pneumonia). The thing is the financial impact of the lockdown will suck wealth from the many to save the few who wouldn't survive the disease. We do this because we are compassionate. 

3 - related to point 2, and very much realating to your point about hiring the best experts is the idea of herd immunity, now this is something nearly all experts agree on, but how to go about it is where they differ. I suppose a vaccine is artifical herd immunity, but it doesn't yet exist.

Look at todays graph from the Uk gov Covid 19 dashboard, the government has listened to the best people and tried very hard to discriminate the relevant information. Chris Witty and his colleagues in the medical schools and universities have served us well - it's looking under control

Sure a total lockdown a month earlier, including sea and land ports would have saved lives, but without significant hospital deaths being reported there would have been low acceptance of infringement of civil liberty and shuttering almost the entire economy.

Just look at those charts - that is success, not failure. I say well done to all. No one alive has had to deal with shit like this before, so don't expect the PM to get every last detail right. Surely even an ex drug user would agree Boris is miles better than Trump? I know even my partially distorted reformed druggie brain can see that Boris is pretty good at this crisis. And in the past I've voted Labour, Green and Conservative. It would have been Conservative again before Christmas, but I had a broken ankle and it was a done deal so I put my feet up and abstained.

[Rough Hewn]

Just saying....