Here is an update to The Randy Pausch Motivational. Click here to get the latest news about Randy. It seems it has been a mix of good and bad times. I hope as time moves forward he has more good times than bad. Here’s to you Randy – Happy Father’s Day!
Peace
If you don’t know who Randy Pausch is check out his Carnegie Mellon University homepage for more information. As part of my motivation series I put up 2 videos of his “Last Lecture.” One is a ten minute video from the Oprah Winfrey Show, and the second is the full-76 minute speech from the halls of Carnegie Mellon University. Check out my Motivational page for the videos. He is pretty powerful, and a true inspiration. Enjoy.
Peace
Let’s get right to the point – what will this presidential nomination mean for the future of healthcare in the United States? The answer is very much up for debate because nobody really knows. Everyone talks about “universal healthcare,” but what does that really mean? The only real way for healthcare to attain true universality is for the central government of the United States of America to fully and truly socialize healthcare. Imagine that, the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the Earth with socialized healthcare where every man, woman and child would never have to worry about going to the doctor. Imagine, using our insurmountable wealth to support the most advanced medical techniques and technology in the world. Imagine…. Okay, back to reality. According to The New York Times Online edition of February 23rd, 2008 it seems “universal healthcare” means, a battle between affordable healthcare mixed with free choice, and healthcare coverage being the law.
Barack and Hillary speak about covering everyone, but they seem to have different methods. Basically, Obama wants to lower the price tag for insurance, while Hillary wants to demand everyone have health coverage. They both agree that children should be fully covered, no questions asked, which is more than I can say for a certain lame-duck President. Oh, and the Republicans (there are some Republicans out there running for president) are a bit silent on the issue from what I gather (I’ll let that be commentary on how the media are covering Republican based issues). So for now, back to Barack and Hillary.
I’ve check both health plans via the postings each Democrat have placed on their websites, and am impressed with them both. But as The New York Times Online article author, Kevin Sack, highlights, Obama’s plan seems to give a bit more choice in that healthcare isn’t a mandate. Hillary seems to want to make it law for everyone to have healthcare.
Now, while I can’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to have healthcare, I can’t argue with a persons right to choose for themselves what they want. The one thing I say is, if you walk into a hospital and need care you’d better have the money to pay for it. If you want to roll the dice and invest your money in your classic cars fetish instead of stockpiling that cash for a possible hospital visit, then so be it. Just be prepared for the hidden costs of that hobby. In the end though, if this country is truly a nation built on the idea of democracy and the freedom to make your own decisions, then why would you mandate that everyone have healthcare? Give people the option to do what they want. Make it affordable so they can’t resist. If they continue to resist because they don’t want to give up another luxury, then place the burden of care on them.
This is why I support Barack over Hillary. People need and want healthcare, but I don’t think people want that healthcare shoved down their throats. It could cause them to go to the hospital, which they wouldn’t have the coverage for.
So many of the technologies we use today were discovered in a pursuit to help humanity. The car, the airplane, the telephone, the television, the light bulb, the list goes on. Still, we can also say that many discoveries ended up manipulated into things that ultimately re-shaped history on genocidal proportions. The gun, atomic energy, viral manipulation, DNA mapping, the list goes on. Would there have been a Cold War if we didn’t drop two atomic bombs on Japan? Would we be talking about biological and chemical warfare if we hadn’t discovered
NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams ran a story that talked about the latest advancements in stem cell research. Basically, scientists have the ability to make a highly probably fully functional embryo, that could grow into a human. Although the researchers in the piece said they do not want to make a clone of themselves, and want to use the technology to cure “incurable” diseases, I’m always suspect about these kinds of ‘discoveries.’
Remember that scene in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines where the General presses the button to bring Skynet online…I remember him saying something like, “…I opened Pandora’s Box…” Don’t we ever learn from our mistakes? Maybe not. Just visit the Atomic Dome in Hiroshima, Japan and then take a walk through the Atomic Bomb Museum and see the mistakes of us humans. The deployment of that bomb gave justification for the modern day arms race, and set human history on its proverbial ear.
I’m sure when Einstein and his contemporaries discovered atomic energy, and postulated the benefits to human civilization they didn’t imagine it would actually be used to kill other humans, willfully. What is it about humans where feel that we can push everything to the extreme, and feel justified to inflict immeasurable damage to get our way? The more I think about stem cell research and embryonic cloning I can’t help but shiver at the what might happen when taken to the extremes of human imagination.
The battlefield is perfumed by the stench of human carcass. One would think no military force could be this great, but since the governments of the world discovered cloning it became easy to mass produce armies thus fueling battles for decades, even centuries. The cracking skulls beneath your feet are not from your brother or sister, or your neighbor down the street, but carbon copies of them all. No ‘real’ connections. No ‘real’ attachments. Grown for the mega battles. Constructed to feel no pain. Honed to be the perfect fighting machine. To live and die for one reason – war.
This may sound like the script for the movie The Terminator, but every time I watch the news I feel that movie isn’t far from reality. The latest research with stem cells only makes me more apprehensive towards optimistic feelings that humans will actually correct the errors of their past and move past the want for power. I have all the confidence that the technology will be used to cure disease, but I also know it will be manipulated into a weapon for war…Or maybe this is the time I am happily wrong.
