Comments by "Harry Stoddard" (@HarryS77) on "" video.

  1. A few points: 1) Yes, it's a tragic situation, but there's not much that could have been done. Charlie had already sustained brain damage, and it's next to impossible that an unproven treatment would have cured him AND miraculously reversed the brain damage. No one can blame the parents for wanting to try everything possible to save their child, but it doesn't seem like there was really anything to be done. The doctors had a duty to act in what they perceived to be the best interest of their patient. 2) The UK does have socialized medicine. The government owns hospitals and employs doctors, nurses, and staff. Contrary to what Paul Ryan and NPR would have you believe, single payer is not socialized medicine; it just means that the government pays the private hospitals' bills. Comparing a potential single payer system in America to a single unfortunate event in the UK's health system (which most Brits like) is a red herring. I wish people would stop doing it.
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  2. It still astonishes me that some people think that people invent and create because of all the money they (will) get paid. Michael Albert has this test he does in some of his talks. He'll pick two people from the audience to roleplay. One of the people is a high school graduate who goes straight to working in the coal mines and earns $60,000 a year. The other person goes through all the necessary medical training to become a world-renowned surgeon—years and years of study and practice. Very difficult. But also very rewarding. The surgeon makes $300,000 a year. The question is, if you're the surgeon, how low do I have to make your salary for you want to take the coal miner's job? $200,000? $100,000? I think everyone would still prefer being a surgeon. The skill, the prestige, the healthy lungs. What about $80,000? $70,000? Now we're at $60,000, the same pay as the coal miner. Maybe for a second you think, to hell will all the hard work, I'll just take the coal miner's job. But would you really? Obviously a job is about more than the pay; that's why we still have grade school teachers. So how low do I have to lower your pay to make you change jobs? And for most, it's around the point at which it becomes impossible to get by financially.  The lesson of this little test is that money is actually a rather poor incentive, and that other things—self-pride, curiosity, the respect of the community, personal fulfillment, doing good for others—are actually much stronger. There's even some sociological research to support this. Money is good at motivating people to do tedious work but poor or even detrimental when it comes to incentivizing creativity.
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