No system is perfect and Canada's is one of the worst. It let a child die without treatment to save money. When a US hospital offered accept and give treatment without charge, Canada would not the the parents and child come here. They were held prisoners while Canada abandoned their dying child..
While pharmaceutical tourism does occur, those people are probably breaking American law. Some people even go to Asia or Mexico for cheaper, supposedly equivalent drugs and narcotics. On the other hand desperate Canadians continually come to the US for better and more accessible care.
In fact, my wife and I needed health care recently and were surprised at the service. Small lines at the walk in clinic, tests within a couple days and easy online access to the results. The biggest problem seems to be people going to emergency for minor ailments not an emergency leading to long wait times. Access to MRI is also a problem but my wife is getting a private sector MRI next week at a fair price.
Yes every country has it's problems but Canada's problem isn't health care it's immigration. The former government let too many immigrants into our country which caused major problems in health care, housing and employment. Thankfully immigration has been slowed or stopped in many areas so things should get better soon.
@Zero999 Go and read some history books.
There have been civilizations all over the world way before the technical revolution came along that lived perfectly happy lives to some extend. Even today you may be able to find some deep in the Amazon that do not need our involvement to get a "better" way of living.
We, the "civilized" westerners have corrupted many of those civilizations with our drive to take over the world and "make everybody happy" and live "better" lives.
And how did Africa end up being poor you should ask, whilst having a lot of the most wanted resources in the world. History!!
The problem is that we all look at things from our own perspective and feel the need to force that upon to others. This is much the case with emotions, and that is what happiness is, an emotion. And since ,in the basis, we are individuals our emotions also vary from person to person, although driven by group behavior it may look like we are all the same.
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No system is perfect and Canada's is one of the worst. It let a child die without treatment to save money. When a US hospital offered accept and give treatment without charge, Canada would not the the parents and child come here. They were held prisoners while Canada abandoned their dying child..
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Yeah keep on wearing your pink googles. Boy are you brain washed by the ways of the west.
With history books I mean just all the information on history in existence and not just that what is colored by westerners or the winners of some conflict.
Sure inter human problems have existed since the upcoming of the species and will never go away unless we as a species find a way to completely reform. I do not see this happening.
Just take a good look around you in the world and tell me if we are really civilized. One can sum up a large list of the contrary for sure, and you don't have to look at other countries than your own for that. No I'm not saying that the UK is not civilized, I'm referring to all "western" countries.
But one persons civilized can differ from someone else's, just like all other views that have passed by in this thread.
So you think a life of perpetual hardship and suffering is better than what we have today?
Perhaps you should go any live somewhere with poor sanitation and don't complain when you get sick.
So you think a life of perpetual hardship and suffering is better than what we have today?No, I'm saying the lifespan is a poor indicator of the level of enjoyment/suffering averaged over that life (the hedonic value)QuotePerhaps you should go any live somewhere with poor sanitation and don't complain when you get sick.Eventually we get sick and die any way, increasingly so towards the end of our lifespan. A more primitive culture might have less ability to combat disease and injury, but they spend more of their lifetime in their prime where the body can repair itself better (with a lot of infant death, which arguably are less capable of suffering). The average hedonic value of a life does not necessarily increase with lifespan ... and we're doing a really shit job in a lot of the world to make it so.
There are people who make similar arguments from an entirely different perspective, look at the people trying to protect uncontacted tribes from any contact regardless of intention. I don't agree with their intrinsic values (nature worship) but we seem to agree that modernity does not necessarily add (hedonic) value.
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Yeah keep on wearing your pink googles. Boy are you brain washed by the ways of the west.
With history books I mean just all the information on history in existence and not just that what is colored by westerners or the winners of some conflict.
Sure inter human problems have existed since the upcoming of the species and will never go away unless we as a species find a way to completely reform. I do not see this happening.
Just take a good look around you in the world and tell me if we are really civilized. One can sum up a large list of the contrary for sure, and you don't have to look at other countries than your own for that. No I'm not saying that the UK is not civilized, I'm referring to all "western" countries.
But one persons civilized can differ from someone else's, just like all other views that have passed by in this thread.
So you think a life of perpetual hardship and suffering is better than what we have today?No, I'm saying the lifespan is a poor indicator of the level of enjoyment/suffering averaged over that life (the hedonic value)QuotePerhaps you should go any live somewhere with poor sanitation and don't complain when you get sick.Eventually we get sick and die any way, increasingly so towards the end of our lifespan. A more primitive culture might have less ability to combat disease and injury, but they spend more of their lifetime in their prime where the body can repair itself better (with a lot of infant death, which arguably are less capable of suffering). The average hedonic value of a life does not necessarily increase with lifespan ... and we're doing a really shit job in a lot of the world to make it so.
There are people who make similar arguments from an entirely different perspective, look at the people trying to protect uncontacted tribes from any contact regardless of intention. I don't agree with their intrinsic values (nature worship) but we seem to agree that modernity does not necessarily add (hedonic) value.
The main reason for that is to protect them against disease and the fact that they might react in a violent manner and how does one restrain an angry tribe, without bloodshed, without knowing anything about their language and customs?
The main reason for that is to protect them against disease and the fact that they might react in a violent manner and how does one restrain an angry tribe, without bloodshed, without knowing anything about their language and customs?That's transient, many want to preserve their lifestyle as a matter of principle, not practicality. They do not see it as inherently inferior.
https://www.junglekeepers.org/uncontacted
"2. Cultural Preservation
Something else is being safeguarded — cultures, languages, and spiritual traditions that represent irreplaceable threads in humanity's shared tapestry. When we respect their wish to remain apart, we help preserve one of humankind's most authentic and unspoiled expressions of culture."
Oh I see. It's an ideological position. I disagree with cultural relativism, but I can see their point. I wish governments in rich countries such as this one, would work towards preserving the culture of their native peoples, rather than erasing it.
"2. Cultural Preservation
Something else is being safeguarded — cultures, languages, and spiritual traditions that represent irreplaceable threads in humanity's shared tapestry. When we respect their wish to remain apart, we help preserve one of humankind's most authentic and unspoiled expressions of culture."
Oh I see. It's an ideological position. I disagree with cultural relativism, but I can see their point. I wish governments in rich countries such as this one, would work towards preserving the culture of their native peoples, rather than erasing it.
Australia just passed the other day draconian hate speech laws that could see you arrested and jailed for saying that, with almost no defence. Not kidding. And if a political party says that, they can be banned.
Oh I see. It's an ideological position. I disagree with cultural relativism, but I can see their point. I wish governments in rich countries such as this one, would work towards preserving the culture of their native peoples, rather than erasing it.
Australia just passed the other day draconian hate speech laws that could see you arrested and jailed for saying that, with almost no defence. Not kidding. And if a political party says that, they can be banned.
Dave, I think I have missed something. Saying "I wish the government would work towards preserving the culture of their native people" is the opposite of hate speech, isn't it?
Dave, I think I have missed something. Saying "I wish the government would work towards preserving the culture of their native people" is the opposite of hate speech, isn't it?
Not so in Australia, that's called being racist. And expressing racist opinions is considered hate speech.
Dave, I think I have missed something. Saying "I wish the government would work towards preserving the culture of their native people" is the opposite of hate speech, isn't it?Not so in Australia, that's called being racist. And expressing racist opinions is considered hate speech.Correct me if I'm wrong, but whatever else you can say about your (Australian) gov't., they're nominally liberal, right?
Meaning they would at least like to think that they're about protecting native and indigenous rights, yes?
So how could they possibly construe what Steve said as racist or "hate speech"? If someone's defending those rights, then it would have to be some kind of Bizarro World where black is white, up is down and that's considered "disinformation" or whatever.
Our government is left leaning, yes. Indigenous (aboriginal) rights, yes, all for that. "White Australian" rights, no, absolutely not.QuoteSo how could they possibly construe what Steve said as racist or "hate speech"? If someone's defending those rights, then it would have to be some kind of Bizarro World where black is white, up is down and that's considered "disinformation" or whatever.
Welcome to the world of wokeism in the western world, where the absolute worst thing you can be is a straight white male. Actually you can be worse than that, you can be one who complains about immigration.
This is not unique to Australia, the UK is worse for example.
I could expand on this, but it's entirely political. So I'll leave it at that. Go look up the implication of Australia's new hate speech laws just passed if you want details. Plenty of commentary out there on it from all and sundry.
Dave, I think I have missed something. Saying "I wish the government would work towards preserving the culture of their native people" is the opposite of hate speech, isn't it?
I'm just trying to understand this.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but whatever else you can say about your (Australian) gov't., they're nominally liberal, right?
I would appreciate references to societies so grand that they were "colored" by Western winners and historians. What definition of "civilized" do you wish to use? Nations of the past were "civilized" and enslaved their neighbors and sold them to traders. Given this is subjective, maybe consider expressing your viewpoints with more objective terms. Even the term "Westerner" is subjective.
And what is wrong with "pink"? I like pink, but prefer orange. Can I have orange goggles? Where is the far west, the middle west?
Why is this person brainwashed, and you're not brainwashed with your rhetoric? None of this makes sense.
Does this make kids happy?
Opinion doesn't come into it.
To be civilised, a society needs to have all virtually eliminated abject poverty, have low infant mortality rate, an educated population and have access to all of the technologies required for participating in today's economy. This is an objective test, rather than subjective.
It appears as though you're taking from an ideological perspective, rather than a rational one.