The Altera Centauri collection has been brought up to date by Darsnan. It comprises every decent scenario he's been able to find anywhere on the web, going back over 20 years.
25 themes/skins/styles are now available to members. Check the select drop-down at the bottom-left of each page.
Call To Power 2 Cradle 3+ mod in progress: https://apolyton.net/forum/other-games/call-to-power-2/ctp2-creation/9437883-making-cradle-3-fully-compatible-with-the-apolyton-edition
But the Canadian government has hundreds of billions of dollars to spend. It's economically feasible, and you can probably always find a case where spending 10x as much money would measurably improve odds of survival. So, in those cases, should the government always do it?
You are not talking about morality, but economics. You may find economics interesting, I do not. What the Canadian Government does or does not do does not change the morality of a concept.
Morality exists outside of government and outside of economics.
"The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "
Asher, if your idea of morality can't answer the question of something like "how much should we spend on medical care", then how useful is it? If you think that question is purely economics and doesn't take moral inputs, then how can you talk about healthcare provision being a moral issue? If it does have moral inputs, then explain how you think they work, and how they interact with the economic components?
You seem to take the position that a country is obligated to provide universal healthcare if it is "feasible". How burdensome do the costs have to be before you consider it infeasible? By "feasible" do you mean "at all possible"?
Asher, if your idea of morality can't answer the question of something like "how much should we spend on medical care", then how useful is it?
This is pretty much sig material.
"The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "
You seem to take the position that a country is obligated to provide universal healthcare if it is "feasible". How burdensome do the costs have to be before you consider it infeasible? By "feasible" do you mean "at all possible"?
Canada shows it is feasible, with competitive tax rates and a higher standard of living than the US.
The specific magic point of feasibility is not something I've studied, want to study, or care about hearing studies. We know it's feasible, and most people understand the moral thing to do is to help the single-mother making minimum wage fight her cancer rather than yelling "YOU SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT MEDICAL INSURANCE" in her face. Moral, feasible --> should be done.
"The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "
You've claimed that the US government has a moral obligation to provide health care, because it is feasible - but no one but you knows what you mean by "feasible". Presumably there's some kind of balancing being done between all of the good produced by the health care and the cost - you claim that's the domain of economics, probably, and I agree, but clearly your moral values have something to do with how much weight we should give that good.
You've claimed that the US government has a moral obligation to provide health care, because it is feasible - but no one but you knows what you mean by "feasible".
I'm fairly certain most people understand the meaning of the word "feasible".
If you don't, then I suggest you google it.
"The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "
Canada shows it is feasible, with competitive tax rates and a higher standard of living than the US.
The specific magic point of feasibility is not something I've studied, want to study, or care about hearing studies. We know it's feasible, and most people understand the moral thing to do is to help the single-mother making minimum wage fight her cancer rather than yelling "YOU SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT MEDICAL INSURANCE" in her face. Moral, feasible --> should be done.
Please stop singing the "better standard of living" song. Take out poor minorities (from both countries if you want absolute consistency) and the standard of living is higher in the USA, which means people like you would have a higher standard of living in the US.
If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers? ){ :|:& };:
Are you just incapable of comprehending that they are actually distinct? Right and wrong is independent of economic feasibility. It is not always possible to do the moral thing due to economic limitations, if that is the stupid point you are trying to make, but that does not make morality an economic concept. Honestly, what the ****.
I'd say also that an economics perspective can add valuable input to moral decisions (e.g., choosing which charity to donate money to based, at least in part, on their overhead expenses and thus how much of your dollar goes towards actually helping the poor).
Last edited by Elok; October 7, 2010, 22:34.
Reason: Too snippy as it was
Please stop singing the "better standard of living" song. Take out poor minorities (from both countries if you want absolute consistency) and the standard of living is higher in the USA, which means people like you would have a higher standard of living in the US.
Canada has poor minorities also. Because we deal with them better is kind of the point.
Go live in Scarborough like I did and tell me how Canada is full of rich white folks.
And I'm certain the standard of living would not be higher in the US even if you took out "poor minorities" in both countries. Your cities are more polluted, your economy is worse, your water is dirtier, your cost of living more expensive, your education more expensive, your public education a lower standard, etc.
"The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "
Oh, Asher, are you claiming that it's obvious when a country should start providing health care, and how many resources it is "feasible" to devote to saving one person? That there's universal agreement on these, and we don't need to develop any logic or reasoning about the issue at all to figure out what the budget for e.g. the NHS is?
Oh, Asher, are you claiming that it's obvious when a country should start providing health care, and how many resources it is "feasible" to devote to saving one person? That there's universal agreement on these, and we don't need to develop any logic or reasoning about the issue at all to figure out what the budget for e.g. the NHS is?
I'm saying it's OBVIOUS that the US could afford public health care, seeing as it's the wealthiest nation in the world and many poorer nations have done it to great success.
As I said before, and as I think you know, there is no magic heuristic for feasibility I can pull out of my ass. Only a complete idiot would keep asking for it.
"The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "
The moment that you admit the government shouldn't always spend as much money as it can to save one life, you admit that there must be some dollar cost where the answer changes from "they should spend this" to "they shouldn't". Even if in practice we can't figure out what this number is with much precision at all, you've admitted the validity of the idea of comparing the value of a life and the value of money. And if you reject that comparison, then you have to conclude that the government should always spend as much money as it possibly can to save any additional lives.
I'm not asking you to actually provide the specific mechanism you'd use to measure feasibility - just asking you to either admit that it exists, and therefore there actually is some number of dollars that the government should prefer to saving a life.
Fiat Money (which is what all modern currencies are since no one is on a "gold standard"*) is an artificial convention invented by man with no intrinsic value in and of itself.
That modern societies have been formulated in such a way that this intrinsically worthless convention can be valued more highly than human life (or the basics most necessary for human life in the case of shelter) says a lot about our system. And yes, the convention of money is fantastically useful and its invention and use has allowed us to create a materially vastly superior system to what would likely exist without it but at the end, we still have the choice of sometimes remembering what money is and isn't and we do have the capability to make decisions that keep this truth in mind.
* and money based on a gold or silver standard is still inherently worthless, as both of these metals are sometimes useful but hardly necessary for human life.
If you don't like reality, change it! me
"Oh no! I am bested!" Drake
"it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong" Voltaire
"Patriotism is a pernecious, psychopathic form of idiocy" George Bernard Shaw
The moment that you admit the government shouldn't always spend as much money as it can to save one life, you admit that there must be some dollar cost where the answer changes from "they should spend this" to "they shouldn't". Even if in practice we can't figure out what this number is with much precision at all, you've admitted the validity of the idea of comparing the value of a life and the value of money. And if you reject that comparison, then you have to conclude that the government should always spend as much money as it possibly can to save any additional lives.
And then you would be agreeing with Kidicious.
If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers? ){ :|:& };:
Tweet
){ :|:& };:
Comment