42 Comments

In other words, between countries, health care spending is uncoupled from the amount of health care actually delivered.

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We need a November open thread now.

More on U.S. health care:

People in the U.S. spend more for the exact same procedures than people in other countries.

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I have a question that I would like to share in this open-thread.

I ask the questions with great humility, because I know that there are far greater and more experienced minds participating in this blog.

Claims:1. Real life only happens in the globally shared present moment. 2. It is same second passing all over the world. 3. We can only act and think in the continious present moment.4. Our subjective motives, routines and thoughts are often in the past or future, but not in the now.

Questions: How can the macro-level be understood in consideration of these claims?

If 1. is true, the macro-level has to be included.

How can the macro-level be thought correctly without relying on models which place it "above our heads"?

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I've heard the 'tension' theory many times, which is surprising considering how little of laughter it explains. Standup comedians often use tension, and jokes of a particular kind that involve repetition use some tension. But it's not a resolution of tension; it's just timing, where you expect some answer, and they make you wait for it, and give you a different answer than you expect. Puns don't involve tension, except Ferdinand Feghoot puns. Most humor nowadays come in the form of comics or humorous books, in which the humor seldom involves the release of tension. An xkcd strip is usually only one panel, so it barely even has a temporal dimension.

I wonder if this tension theory is respectable only because of a single joke. When it was invented, one of the two most-famous, most-accessible jokes in the Western world was from a radio show, where a mugger tells Jack Benny, "Your money or your life!", and Jack Benny pauses, and pauses. And the mugger says again, "Your money or your life!" And Jack says, "I'm thinking!" That joke fits the tension theory. But very, very few do.

(The most-famous joke at that time probably being Henny Youngman's "Take my wife. Please!" Which does not resolve tension.)

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Innate, intrinsic and abstract conditions.

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When one talks about economics they are in the surreal. A surrealism is undefinable because of the lack of an intrinsic condition. This condition refers to the ability for movement. Economics is an arbratary relationship and is constantly being attributed to too determine who, what, when, where and why gets rewarded. We are now talking COMPLICATED big time.

I can not tell you what you are talking about when you ask " When I’m talking about an individual’s welfare, who am I talking about?"

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utility? Do you mean acquisition or experience? Experience and the binding of experiences together will build a robust intuition.

Potential is maximized through concurrent flows and it is here where we talk of complexity. Only a rational paradigm has this ability.

If you want to stop population growth then create surrealism. Build layer upon layer of license where people are to busy trying to stay alive that they do not have time to screw.

Could you define social progress please.

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I should note that the Alcor press release has changed substantially since my second comment was posted; if you follow the link, you won't see the same thing I did.

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Yes, that's very interesting. If Alcor can't be trusted to hire technicians above the simian level, or any of the other allegations, while many of the original proponents are still alive & active, and has degenerated in the relatively short period it has existed, then that bodes very ill for the long future ahead.

Of course, the allegations need to be proven, though Alcor's response doesn't fill me with confidence that Johnson is a con: http://www.alcor.org/press/...

(eg. the release's main response to the allegations regarding Williams's head is that Johnson wasn't there when Williams was first processed, yet the article says Johnson witnessed the tech damage the head long *after* Williams was originally processed, during a transfer of some sort while Johnson was there, so the response is simply a non sequitur; and much of it focuses on whether Johnson legally acquired his evidence - which is irrelevant to those who care whether the allegations are true or not)

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Body type/modification signals are considered better markers of genetic quality than clothing/jewelry which better signal resources.

Since women have joined the workforce and largely been emancipated male resource displays are no longer as relevant to distinguish between potential mates as genetic displays.

Question: In more gender-traditional subcultures are clothing displays stronger signals than in less traditional ones?

Far left subcultures tend both to strongly value non-gender-normative language (many recognize a variety of non-traditional genders as well) and tend to highly value do-it-yourself (DIY) material possessions which are signals of skill (genetic) instead of wealth (resources).

Investment bankers, consultants, etc. tend more towards resource displays than genetic displays and are also usually considered more gender-traditional.

Not sure about religious groups and what not.

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wedrifid: Do you have an example of such a joke? According to Johnstone, objects also have status. For example, some common object which is associated with somebody famous has higher status than same object without the association. Of course Nancy is also right. But these two explanations are not mutually exclusive.

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follow up to my link (which is the same at Matt C's).Looks like this story is from a tell-all book by a former Alcor executive detailing all sort of shoddy practices. Isn't Alcor the more expensive of the 2?

Pretty sure this will further affect the public's perception of wannabe future Unfrozen Cavemen Lawyers http://s117.photobucket.com...

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Good poing Nancy. I had been trying to account for (typically nerdy) jokes that didn't actually involve people in them within this model without much luck.

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Make's me wonder about tickling. It does make one laugh, but it is basically abuse. This was more the case as a child, when tickling always made you laugh, so you seemed like you were enjoying, and then everyone joined the enjoyment. Then, at least I, felt that i had the responsibility to not to be angry at the tickler, because everyone was having fun.

And status laughter is usually rather under control. Is the laughter that is uncontrollable and violent the same thing? Like having a fractured rib, and then still finding something so funny, that you laugh even though you don't want to because of the pain.

Sorry about my fractured english. I hope you still understand my point.

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of note:Alcor monkey wrench baseball star bongos:

http://www.nydailynews.com/...

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