Health care and the cell phone

[HydrogenBond]

I am going to make an analogy between cells phones and health care in an attempt to show a parallel for the subjective aspect of modern health care necessity. if you went back twenty years ago, there were very few cell phones. They were expensive and only a few people had them. Most people, knew about them, but went along in life without needing them the way they are needed today.

 

Cell phones offer many advantages, over the old way, such as being useful in emergencies and are essential for quickly transferring timely information. But it is also a new way to pass time, which can become a subject pacifier.

 

If one took away a modern child's cell phone, knowing they are safe at home within ear's range for an emergency, and not needing to transfer or receive any timely homework information, the child would still be very upset, since their life is dependent on that cell phone. Parents are not afraid to use this as time out punishment because with the important uses for the cell phone balanced at home, the rest is subjective and not as life dependent as the child thinks. But to the child, all the phone does seems like it is 100% objective necessity. If this had been twenty years ago, the child would have not even noticed the difference, but now the connection to the phone is psychologically different due to group immersion.

 

In modern times, not everyone has a cell phone. There are still those who don't ride the wave of the latest technology. Those who do ride, may not be able to see how they can function without this critical device. They lose out on all its many advantages. But they may not be able to see, they are also not slaves to its subjective necessity, which to them is normal, since they are immersed in this. When everyone does something, it harder to be objective to subjectivity. Nobody drinking in the bar will see a bunch of alcoholics acting silly. They are all social drinkers. Someone on the outside is more detached and will see the distribution differently.

 

If we could create the law of socialized cell phones, to force everyone to own a cell phone, or be fined, it would be a matter of time until even the old timers will feel a new type of compelling necessity beyond emergencies and timely information. They will become immerse in the cell phones. Those with special devices to help them talk the miracle conversation may cringe at the prospect of a lessor model.

 

Modern health care has many advantages for emergencies and the timely diagnosis of potential conditions, but like the cell phone plan, we constantly need to add minutes, not because of more emergencies and more need for more timely information, but to better take into consideration the subjectivity of immersion.

[Buffy]

So? What's your conclusion from that incomplete analogy?

 

Maybe if we eliminated insurance and Medicare, people wouldn't get nose jobs?

 

Maybe if HMO's stopped trying to push mostly useless preventive checkups we could concentrate on emergency care?

 

Fill your mind with the meaningless stimuli of a world preoccupied with meaningless things, and it will not be easy to feel peace in your heart, :Alien:

Buffy

[HydrogenBond]

The point of the analogy is like cell phones, health care has two layers. One layer is very positive and is connected to the practical social upgrade both have to offer. But like cell phones, there is also a social subjective immersion platform. As the group reaches this platform, what had been subjective starts to appear objective. The cell phone as a pass time, can become sort of practical necessity to a young person, since their inherited immersion platform does not give them a place to see this was not always necessary for a child's social survival.

 

From the point of view emergencies and the timely transfer of information, the old cells phones work about as good as the new. So why change phones each year? In the free market, new colors and styles, are enough to get people to switch phones, since that is being objective at the immersion level of cutting edge style. For example, with cancer, old time 1950's radiation still becomes one of the final remedies. But almost everyone would prefer try the newest drug if it shows promise of helping us talk the miracle conversation.

 

The pace of drug creation is increasing, due to a free market effect. Like cell phones supply is driving demand. But always new is expensive, since there is a large investment for any new drug. We all want the latest technology, like the newest cell phone. One potential problem, is built in obsolescence, like the cell phone, with each new drug, good or bad, having a subjective free market self life. Rather than enjoy the cheap old phone, immersion may require the expensive new phone.

 

We all know environmental chemicals can cause health problems. What about the long term impact of a continuous stream of new medications, that the body has to deal with, in an immersion environment, which continues to change like new cell phones? It is not like we place each pill at the exact location of the condition and isolate the effect on all other systems. The whole body sees an ever changing blend of environmental chemicals. If we had a condition and over a lifetime, use 20 different new and improved drugs, each of which continue to improve the condition, what about the impact on all the other body systems that drugs are not designed for? This could potentially cause the immersion subjectivity to become immersion objectivity. It is sort of like adding apps to the cell phones, so we need to change phones for a real practical reason.

[freeztar]

This doesn't make any sense to me. :steering:

 

Perhaps try to explain what you are getting at *without* using analogies and metaphors. Analogies are supposed to be an aid in understanding, but in your case, it has the opposite effect on me.

[Buffy]

It's really hard to tell, but I'll take a wild guess and say that I think you're trying to say that there have really been no improvements that are substantive, and that all new features/treatments are marketing artifacts that serve no useful purpose.

 

:lol:

 

From the point of view emergencies and the timely transfer of information, the old cells phones work about as good as the new.

The transmission technology is significantly better, especially in non-urban regions. Analog signals were useless in rural areas, and only with the advent of digital transmission, have we been able to make cell phones "useful almost everywhere." In the California Sierras it has become common for emergency communications to be done by cell where no communications was possible before.

 

Even in urban areas, the advent of digital signal triangulation--and now increasingly GPS location finding--emergency response can occur even without communication.

 

So why change phones each year? In the free market, new colors and styles, are enough to get people to switch phones, since that is being objective at the immersion level of cutting edge style.

Many phones come with interchangeable shells or cases. I know of no one who's gotten a new phone just to get a new color. Do you?

 

Have you considered the barriers to switching? Have you ever tried to move 1000 contacts from an old phone to a new one? There's a reason I still carry both an iPhone and a Motorola Razr in my purse.

For example, with cancer, old time 1950's radiation still becomes one of the final remedies. But almost everyone would prefer try the newest drug if it shows promise of helping us talk the miracle conversation.

Mainly because radiation has such horrible side-effects. It's akin to using dynamite to catch fish.

 

Are you trying to argue that we should just stick with radiation because "it works" and all these new drugs are just solving silly minor problems like impotence, loss of limbs, or never eating normal food again?

One potential problem, is built in obsolescence, like the cell phone, with each new drug, good or bad, having a subjective free market self life.

Planned obsolescence has been around since Henry Ford went to the junk yard and figured out which parts lasted "too long" so he could make them cheaper. That resulted in a cheaper car. Conservatives think that the fact that Walmart has shipped all those manufacturing jobs offshore is good for the economy because cheaper TVs mean we can send more dollars to China.

 

Do phones have planned obsolescence? You bet, but that's because they are indeed still evolving new features that are not just "color changes" but rather have significant benefits as I described above.

 

Do drugs have planned obsolescence? Hmm. Good question, but can you cite even one example?

 

Or are you claiming that the drug companies are actually secretly releasing chemicals into the environment that cause illness:

We all know environmental chemicals can cause health problems. What about the long term impact of a continuous stream of new medications, that the body has to deal with, in an immersion environment, which continues to change like new cell phones?

That's quite a conspiracy theory! Do you have any evidence of that?

 

If they're doing it, they're not doing a very good job because cases like Love Canal and the Kern watershed have been gigantically missed opportunities! "Oh, you're all dying from the massive amounts of PCB's we leached into your lake? No problem! Here's the pill that cures it!"

 

You're going to have to work a bit harder on making this thread coherent, as it's getting close to being moved into a more, uh, "appropriate" forum....

 

But whether the plan of immersion Is better than simple aspersion Let those immersed And those aspersed Decide by the Authorized Version, And by matching their agues tertian, :steering:

Buffy

[Cephalover]

An example of planned obsolescence (sort of) in drugs: antibiotics. New antibiotics are generally given a clinical lifespan based on how quickly pathogens appear to adapt to them. Although this is by necessity, it's all I could come up with at the moment. I don't know that anything like what H-Bond implies actually happens.

 

Also, @ Buffy, preventative care (not simply in the doctor's office but as a general way of life involve health-conscious behavior and good health monitoring) is very effective at reducing illnesses and the economic burdens caused by them, and generally improving one's quality of life.

 

My view is that, while new medical treatments actually do a lot, they are only a success if you refuse to consider all the millions of dollars put into (for example) better cosmetic surgery techniques that did not go towards disbursing simple, tried and true healthcare technologies (ie. vaccination, prenatal screenings, condoms) to people who don't have access to them. If the technological success of the healthcare system has been a failure, it's only because it has made us blind to the fact that some people exist without the most basic healthcare, and our "basic" healthcare is actually pretty complex and deals with a lot of would-be problems.

 

Imagine a society where vaccines were so widespread and effect that people forgot how horrible polio and smallpox were and stopped vaccinating their kids! Oh, wait.