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Because older generations tend to be more conservative than younger generations, it looks like people get more conservative with age.

This is, thankfully, untrue.

People get more progressive with age.

It's just that previous generations get a little left behind. The jump between generations is bigger than the progress that happens within people, giving the illusion that older people become more conservative.

Some good news for once. 😊

brilliant.org/lesson/the-overt

brilliant.orgThe Overton Paradox | Brilliant
Jean-Baptiste "JBQ" Quéru

@selzero I remember my mom asking me why I care that other folks get access to health coverage and education. I explained that I don't want to store clerk to sneeze over the produce they are setting up in the supermarket, or that I want the people who'll take care of me when I'm old and sick to actually know what they're doing. She got it.

@jbqueru

I'm an atheist, but karma is real y'all. What good is it to live in a world where I have more and people around me are miserable.

@selzero Yeah, the key is that society is not a zero-sum game.

@selzero @jbqueru Yes, it is real. When you do good, good comes back. Just like good, bad will come back full circle; may not happen right away but it will happen nevertheless.

@housepanther @jbqueru

Because you are putting something into the world you live in. Shitting where you eat as the saying goes.

@selzero @jbqueru Well, it's impossible to completely avoid shitting where you eat but you can make better choices. 😹

@housepanther @selzero That's my philosophy as well.

Politically, I favor policies that help everyone, even if sometimes they help others more than they help me. I similarly despise policies that hurt everyone, even if they hurt others more than they hurt me: I come out ahead even if others are further ahead, I come out behind even if others are further behind.

Religiously, I'm a firm believer that a lot of the good we can do only costs us the will to do it.

@housepanther @selzero @jbqueru

It’s almost like what Jesus taught was the truth! Amazing.

@selzero @jbqueru
blog.buddhagroove.com/the-conc
"In popular discourse, it is often linked to fate or predestination. Karma, however, refers to actions that are undertaken consciously. Stated simply, the Law of Karma decrees that every deed we perform knowingly will eventually produce similar results."

Balance · What is Karma and What Does it Mean in BuddhismKarma in Buddhism means “action”. Stated simply, the Law of Karma decrees that every deed we perform knowingly will eventually produce similar results.

@jbqueru @selzero I went to college (in UK) in 1970. Free tuition, accomodation, 3 free meals a day in the college dining room, travel expenses to/from college. The consensus at the time was the country needed teachers, medics, professionals of all sorts so the state paid for training/education. Then Mrs Thatcher fell for Reaganism and it all went to shit. We always copy the worst aspects of the US. The current govt are trying to copy your health care system.

@pthane @jbqueru @selzero

I went through the same experience but remember that we were a lucky few, chosen by lottery. Social mobility was possible but very tightly rationed.

@pthane @selzero Anything that tries to turn a social cost into a profit is just increasing the cost.

As for the USA, we pretend to be a rich country, but we're actually a poor country with some rich people in it.

@jbqueru @selzero

The US system doesn't even save taxes. It's is so wasteful that every year since 1990 (earliest data I could find) its PUBLIC spending on healthcare was higher than the UK as a proportion of GDP.
Before the ACA, that was public
OECD data below:
data.oecd.org/chart/60Tt

@parkinjim @selzero When my wife and I prepared to make the decision to move from the US back to Europe, we were careful to make the comparison in terms of positive aspects on each side. We allowed ourselves one exception: the health care industry in the US is so bad that we allowed ourselves to list it as a negative that we were happy to leave behind.

@parkinjim @jbqueru @selzero that’s because so much of the money spent doesn’t go into healthcare, but into administration, invoicing, credit control,  shareholder dividends and litigation when things go wrong.

@peterbrown @jbqueru @selzero oh yes

There's a Canadian paper showing that.

Canada's healthcare model used to be like the US and there have been comparisons between the public and private sector in Canada. I'll try to dig these out

@peterbrown @jbqueru @selzero

cmaj.ca/content/179/9/916.full

31% of US healthcare spending in 1999 was on overhead compared to 13.2% for Canada's private insurers and 1.3% for its public system