jlc

Ah! That is what I just posted to jimslag (above). I think that what has happened is that the 'mean' has shifted. I expect that the extremes have remained about the same - and one of those extremes is probably where you are.

Thank you.

Jan

I think that the exceptional people are still present. What has happened is that the mean has shifted and the majority of the people are now different.

Jan

Not my kind of mental recreation. I try not to furnish my brain with depressing paradigms. I actually like being happy.

Jan

That is interesting, and not something I have heard of elsewhere. I have always regarded it as a fallacy that people need the 'stick of hell and the carrot of heaven' in order to do right. It certainly is not true of me or of many people I know, but I live out in >3SD from Norm-land and (from conversations I have had) I suspect that other people work differently.

Jan

Just me venting.

I use a laptop with a touchpad. This list is set to default to 'select and delete' when I accidentally contact the touchpad when typing. This would be OK if the Edit Undo worked, but it does not. Sigh. I try to discipline myself to pre-typing in a Word doc and then Pasting to this site...but sometimes the Muse takes me unaware and then it is chancy. (I occasionally respond to that by putting a post-it note over the touchpad.) It is frustrating when it happens.

Jan

Please accost random strangers and teach them this. It has got to get around! (And just think of the expressions on their faces!)

Jan

You're sweet.

The Gulch is one of the few places that someone else would notice and appreciate such tidbits of grammar.

I find a terrible scarcity of people who both can and are willing to just 'make it work'.

Jan

With respect to your point on religion, johnpe, this Hope has proven to be tremendously strong. Look at the resurgence of religion in the Baltic countries and the ex-Soviet union when the communist regimes were expelled/collapsed. I would prefer a secular hope instead of - or at least in addition to - a religious one.

Jan

John Campbell once suggested that the Executives of such companies should have to live downstream of their plants. At some random time, a press conference could be called and the Execs and their families would have to go down to the river and dip up glasses of water - and drink them.

Jan

I am trying in my brain to phrase some sort of a rule (this is for a Perfect World scenario, not for our present reality) that would require entities (people or companies) to be responsible for their 'output'. This means 'for anything that crosses the border of their land', including visual and audible output.

While this hypothetical rule would be aimed at 'no dumping of waste' it would include 'the guy playing music too loudly' and 'the person who paints their house with pornography'. Mind you - playing music loudly and painting whatever you like wherever you like is your right, but if the 'stuff' constitutes 'output' into the environment, then it involves other folks too.

I appreciate your phrase "...impacts other with their activity...".

Jan

Did you give me a point for the Present Subjective use??? Didya? Didya?

I made the same choice, of course: traded 4 years of my life to the USAF in return for training in a profession. Win-win.

Jan

Of course, johnpe, if you had been good at baseball, they would have posted your scores on a marquee! But you should never know your IQ - it might make you arrogant.

Another case of 'some things being more equal than others'. (And she was right in her observation.)

Jan

Precisely. The same number of people are being treated by the ER; all the triage nurse can do is determine their sequence.

Jan, had longer reply but it was wiped!

I think that this issue is about Hope, not wealth. I have had a time in my life when my daily budget was $1.65 - for me and my big laborador-mix dog. (Food, kleenex, soap, meds - that was for 'everything'.) But I could see that, in a few months of work, things would get better - which they did.

I had Hope. Because of that, all the experience did was to bomb-proof me to being afraid of poverty. (Did you know that you can use fresh-cut walnut leaves as an environmental insecticide?)

So the message must include the sense, "You are doomed. There is nothing you can do to improve your lot."

Jan

No, term2, that is not the correct way to accomplish this goal. It may be you who collapses in a diabetic coma just outside the doors of an ER to which you do not belong. The only way to protect you and me is to endorse that all medical facilities act to stabilize critical patients of all types. Then we should openly acknowledge that ERs are being used as Urgent Care facilities and introduce a triage sortation as the solution:

When the patient comes in, a triage nurse quickly sorts the patients into ER level illness vs UC level of illness. There needs to be an immediately adjacent Urgent Care (ie attached to the anteroom of the triage section) – but it does not even need to be run by the same people as run the hospital. Shunt the less ill individuals off to the UC and keep them from filling up the ER.

This takes into account what no other system does: The fact that when you have something wrong you often do not ‘know’ how serious it is. Is that pain just gas? Too many oysters? Salmonella? Bleeding ulcer? Heart attack? Right now, we are forcing the decision to ‘go to the ER in case it is really bad’. This is a correct response to an unknown that could be life-threatening. We should validate that Darwinian perception and make it an advantage instead of a liability.

Jan

I would add, jjj, that removing 'hope' is part of that program. If people think that they can get out on their own they will be much more 'leave me alone!' and 'stop joggling my elbow'. 'Hope' is important, hence it is important that it be removed.

Jan, seeks a point for use of present subjunctive

Even I have some good memories of their work. I put Brahms on Hold and went to YouTube and listened to Fanfare as a tribute to Emerson.

Jan

If a company is engaging in an activity that is causing harm to the environment - say, they pipe water from a river to their chemical plant - then they are responsible for returning that 'river water' to the river in good condition and minus the chemical waste. If I live downstream, then I should not be able to tell that there is a chemical plant just around the bend upstream of me. If they are 'burning stuff' that is 'causing harm' then they are indeed responsible for removing the pollutants until they are below the level of 'harm'.

I do not see that this should be a matter of taxes. I do not think that AGW is valid (I think it is the pipe-dream of a power elite) so there is no cost to coastal dwellers. Since I do not see the 'harm' I do not see the 'fee'; if I did see a 'fee'...it would not be a tax.

Jan

I disagree, CircuitGuy, but find your argument rational. I have not seen any persuasive evidence that what is being taxed is actually harmful. I think that what is being taxed is 'you are part of the petrochemical industry, which we are trying to exterminate for ideological reasons'.

Jan

"Political solutions to scientific problems...invariably make matters worse..."

Yes.

Jan

I agree - and pointed you up. But I remember, when I was a kid, a time when environmentalists were Good. The big difference is that 'back then' the power they had was the power of publicity.

We have created them as a monster.

Jan

I have reread this article a couple of times now, and am impressed by it. It succinctly states many of the elements of the modern world that we have discussed in the Gulch.

Jan

Thank you. I had thought you were referring to bladerunners.

Quite interesting. Thank you.

Jan

With genetic modifications available, perhaps the Special Olympics could eventually be discontinued.

I am intrigued by your statement that the parathletes do better in marathons. I did a quick look to see if I could find info on this, but all I got was hoopla. Can you tell me more?

Jan

I agree with davidmcnab, who suggest that there should be two Olympics (or, I would add - other competitions): one with drugs and one without. The idea that scojohnson makes that athletes should be able to use drugs off-season, but not during competitions, is also interesting. In the end, DrZ has it right: drugs are small-coin-change in comparison to genetic mods. I am in favor of (a) eliminating genetic liabilities, and (b) adding genetic advantages.

Jan