Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis part 2 - Ireland

[Drifterwood]

This is not even remotely true.
Tokyo Olympics medal tracker: Gold, silver, bronze counts for Team USA, every country at 2020 Games

What totals do you get for the Anglosphere?

 

[Industrialsize]

What totals do you get for the Anglosphere?

Define Anglosphere.

 

[g0nz0]

On a completely different track, the anglosphere (and I am excluding Ireland so as not to upset Gonzo) is currently winning around 35% of the Olympic medals with around 7% of the world's population. How do people feel about that?

Wouldn't upset me in the slightest to be described part of the "Anglosphere". I'm a big fan of Neal Stephenson. It is just simple fact that Ireland is closer culturally to the countries of the UK than any other place in the world.

Anyway, I think the Anglosphere is closer to about 25% of the medals based on figures I've seen (take as a total, and broken down into gold, silver, bronze)?

It does, however, hold closer to 39% of global wealth (thanks to the contribution of ~30% of the world's wealth from the USA alone) and 25% of global GDP - given this (and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs), it is somewhat remarkable that the anglosphere isn't achieving more of the medals at the moment. Recent trends are showing a definite tilt towards the "Sinosphere".

(It also seems a bit funny to call it the Anglosphere, shouldn't it be more correctly termed the USA-osphere, since the USA is by far the centre of gravity?)

 

[Drifterwood]

Wouldn't upset me in the slightest to be described part of the "Anglosphere". I'm a big fan of Neal Stephenson. It is just simple fact that Ireland is closer culturally to the countries of the UK than any other place in the world.

Anyway, I think the Anglosphere is closer to about 25% of the medals based on figures I've seen (take as a total, and broken down into gold, silver, bronze)?

It does, however, hold closer to 39% of global wealth (thanks to the contribution of ~30% of the world's wealth from the USA alone) and 25% of global GDP - given this (and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs), it is somewhat remarkable that the anglosphere isn't achieving more of the medals at the moment. Recent trends are showing a definite tilt towards the "Sinosphere".

(It also seems a bit funny to call it the Anglosphere, shouldn't it be more correctly termed the USA-osphere, since the USA is by far the centre of gravity?)

Actually I don't think the US is pulling its relative weight this time. They are somewhere around 70% of the AS population and are winning around 40% of the AS medals. Europe, excluding ROC, are also taking around 35% of the medals. This is actually my interest, namely that 15% of the world's population are taking around 70% of the medals. Clearly there is a question of privilege and Olympic success. Personally, I think it diminishes the relevance of the games.

 

[g0nz0]

Actually I don't think the US is pulling its relative weight this time. They are somewhere around 70% of the AS population and are winning around 40% of the AS medals. Europe, excluding ROC, are also taking around 35% of the medals. This is actually my interest, namely that 15% of the world's population are taking around 70% of the medals. Clearly there is a question of privilege and Olympic success. Personally, I think it diminishes the relevance of the games.

Indeed... I think it is certainly all down to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and the corralling of resources by the few.

At the extreme end, when you're worried about food on your table, or rampant Covid-19 with no functioning health system, or authoritarian rulership, the Olympic ideals are probably pretty far down the priority list.

 

[Jason]

On a completely different track, the anglosphere (and I am excluding Ireland so as not to upset Gonzo) is currently winning around 35% of the Olympic medals with around 7% of the world's population. How do people feel about that?

The Anglosphere is predominantly comprised of common law jurisdictions. This is surely the defining factor. It is not ethnic, and it is very hard to argue that a language contributes to an outcome. Rather common law creates societies with a set of values. The push through includes values for sport, and in the case of this statistic to winning 5x the medals expected.

List of national legal systems - Wikipedia

 

[g0nz0]

The Anglosphere is predominantly comprised of common law jurisdictions. This is surely the defining factor. It is not ethnic, and it is very hard to argue that a language contributes to an outcome.

You obviously never heard of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of Linguistic relativity then?

Not hard at all to argue that differebces in language in general contribute to an outcome. It is a well known and understood effect... just perhaps not applicable in this specific case for English and sporting achievement.

Rather common law creates societies with a set of values. The push through includes values for sport, and in the case of this statistic to winning 5x the medals expected.

List of national legal systems - Wikipedia

No, it's much more a case of the societal stores of wealth enabling a greater focus on professionalism and excellence in training and nutrition and competition.

 

[Jason]

Sapir-Whorf is rejected. It’s demonstrably wrong and it’s also dangerous as it leads into supremacist “theories”.

The stores of wealth concept runs up against the determination of China (and previously USSR) to put huge sums into sport. There’s a bigger spend behind each Chinese athlete than just about any other there. Chinese population plus this spend should give them around half of the medals.

 

[Drifterwood]

Sapir-Whorf is rejected. It’s demonstrably wrong and it’s also dangerous as it leads into supremacist “theories”.

The stores of wealth concept runs up against the determination of China (and previously USSR) to put huge sums into sport. There’s a bigger spend behind each Chinese athlete than just about any other there. Chinese population plus this spend should give them around half of the medals.

Well that just highlights the need for support.

Furthermore, the Games have a Eurocentric bias, and without access to world class rowing facilities and training for example, you aren't in the game to begin with. I'm more Cool Runnings than Chariots of Fire.

 

[g0nz0]

Sapir-Whorf is rejected. It’s demonstrably wrong and it’s also dangerous as it leads into supremacist “theories”.

Rejected by whom, other than you? Wikipedia captures the current state of affairs well:

The strong version, or linguistic determinism, says that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories. This version is generally agreed to be false by modern linguists.
The weak version says that linguistic categories and usage only influence thought and decisions. Research on weaker forms has produced positive empirical evidence for a relationship.​

And can you point to some evidence for these supremacist links please, because linguistic determinism has inherently nothing to do with that.

The stores of wealth concept runs up against the determination of China (and previously USSR) to put huge sums into sport. There’s a bigger spend behind each Chinese athlete than just about any other there. Chinese population plus this spend should give them around half of the medals.

Nonsense. 25 years ago China wasn't at the races. Now they're top of the leaderboard. Evidence of their changing fortunes with greater investment is apparent.

The wealth and money is necessary to provide fiscal space to develop a culture of sporting excellence. It doesn't happen overnight, but takes years.

 

[eurotop40]

Jason worrying about supremacists is a "contradictio in terminis."

 

[seventiesdemon]

On a completely different track, the anglosphere (and I am excluding Ireland so as not to upset Gonzo) is currently winning around 35% of the Olympic medals with around 7% of the world's population. How do people feel about that?

Don't watch it. Except for the endurance events.

 

[Jason]

Today people speak of a strong and weak version of Sapir-Whorf. The weak version is really an accidental fit. It’s not the nub of what SW we’re on about.

Colour usage is a good example of the weak SW. Some languages routinely distinguish dark blue and light blue, and for these languages these colours are completely different (unlike English). Some have a single word for green and yellow, and therefore conflate what in English are two colours. This is a genuine phenomenon, but for SW almost a footnote.

The strong version looks at things like the idea that the Inuit have hundreds of words got snow and therefore perceive snow differently. Inuit are according to SW very good at dealing with snow because of their language. It’s become a bit of what people think is knowledge, but it is bunk. It just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Inuit languages stick adjectives onto nouns as one word so lots of detail is possible within what is in effect one word, but this goes for all nouns. The idea that language somehow directs the character of an ethnic group was long believed and reached an academic form in SW but is now discarded. There were people still advocating it in the 1970s, maybe even later, but the idea has now gone. SW can be reversed. An ethnic group (Anglo-Saxon, Jewish) are successful because of their language, therefore their language makes them superior. English and Hebrew are somehow better languages!

The idea that language is a causal link to medals at the Olympics is bunk that should be rejected, I think the posts above have suggested money and common law. These seem worthy of consideration.

 

[Drifterwood]

The idea that language is a causal link to medals at the Olympics is bunk that should be rejected, I think the posts above have suggested money and common law. These seem worthy of consideration.

And something else in the case of China perhaps.

If you look at the medal table, most high performing countries have an equal spread of gold silver and bronze. Not China, China has a disproportionate number of Gold medals to its other awards. How is this explained?

 

[Drifterwood]

Thanks to @halcyondays for his posting of the big think regarding liberal and conservative brains. It has thrown light on another very clever tactic from Demonic to present the Remain vote as one driven by fear. Project fear was the strapline which I'm sure Brits will remember. Effectively Cummings turned the conservative trait of fear of change against the liberal minded EU supporters. Brexiteers were and are in fact the ones who fear the changes to the UK that EU membership was enacting. Remainers on the other hand either welcome changes to the previous and imperfect system and or had seen the benefits of membership, as in the case of the Common Agricultural Policy.

How easily we are manipulated to legitimise the wishes of a few.

 

[g0nz0]

Today people speak of a strong and weak version of Sapir-Whorf. The weak version is really an accidental fit. It’s not the nub of what SW we’re on about.

It is what I was talking about. And there is a genuine case for the weak version, particular as regards rhetoric. Linguistic determinism. Just look at how Theresa May got herself all boxed in because of Brexiteer rhetoric.

Colour usage is a good example of the weak SW. Some languages routinely distinguish dark blue and light blue, and for these languages these colours are completely different (unlike English). Some have a single word for green and yellow, and therefore conflate what in English are two colours. This is a genuine phenomenon, but for SW almost a footnote.

The strong version looks at things like the idea that the Inuit have hundreds of words got snow and therefore perceive snow differently. Inuit are according to SW very good at dealing with snow because of their language. It’s become a bit of what people think is knowledge, but it is bunk. It just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Inuit languages stick adjectives onto nouns as one word so lots of detail is possible within what is in effect one word, but this goes for all nouns. The idea that language somehow directs the character of an ethnic group was long believed and reached an academic form in SW but is now discarded. There were people still advocating it in the 1970s, maybe even later, but the idea has now gone. SW can be reversed. An ethnic group (Anglo-Saxon, Jewish) are successful because of their language, therefore their language makes them superior. English and Hebrew are somehow better languages!

The idea that language is a causal link to medals at the Olympics is bunk that should be rejected, I think the posts above have suggested money and common law. These seem worthy of consideration.

Yes, I'm not suggesting it was a causal link to medals, but you discounted language as having any impact - it does.

As Rhetoric does. As Culture does. And culture takes time and money to build.

This seems like a vastly stronger source of causation than "Common Law", which has as many flaws and failings as it does redeeming qualities.

What is therefore worth looking at is the Financial Times alternative medals table, which "ranks countries not by their total medal haul but by the difference to the tally they are expected to achieve, according to an economic model that takes into account their economic, social and political characteristics." This table quickly dissuades one of any "Anglosphere" exceptionalism when other factors are properly controlled for.

Tokyo Olympics alternative medals table: Which countries are under-performing and over-performing?

 

[Freddie53]

Everyone is denied medical treatment based on age. age is the biggest risk factor for all diseases. if you want to stay alive, just dont get older. (and yes, there is research working on this)

You are missing the point., Smoking is another severe risk factor for illness, but some can smoke massively all their lives and never get smoking related diseases. Its still a very strong risk factor. Although it is true some people argue we should refuse to treat people who continue smoking, or refuse to treat people who over eat and so become obese.

I didnt suggest anything of the sort. All I said is society chooses how much it is willing to spend on health care. Medics by and large allocate that money for best effect. And so they withdraw care when they consider it no longer cost effective.

This isnt new, in 1906 George Bernard Shaw wrote a play called the doctors Dilemma. Its about a doctor who has to choose between treating a patient who can afford to pay, and another who cannot but is arguably much more deserving of the treatment. Set at a time where there was little free or state medicine allocated based upon need and benefit.

Things have changed since then, so the NHs or other national care systems mean this choice is less stark. but it still comes down to a political decision on how much money to allocate to health care.

Covid has thrown the normal calculations of cost/benefit out the window. The vast sums spent on covid have not been justified in comparison to normal limits on health spending. Politically it became necessary to be seen to be acting even though simply ignoring covid and spending more each year on health permanently would have done more good in the long run.

Everyone is denied medical treatment based on age. age is the biggest risk factor for all diseases. if you want to stay alive, just dont get older. (and yes, there is research working on this)

This may also be true in the US. If so it is camouflaged.

What I have seen about US medical care is that treatment is based not on age, but the patient's or the patient's health insurance ability to pay medical bills.

There is a term used in the UK that Dandy did not list. That is "old age." This is how I have witnessed health care for the aged.

One: Health Insurance or being wealthy.

Two: The diagnosis of the patient.

Three: What are the chances of treatment to restore a person to good health.

Old age is one of the criteria of the the third point.

Even so, doctors are reluctant to stop treatment without the approval of the patient and/or the patients' family.

I am not aware of any official policy as to when "old age" should be the deciding factor.

Consider Prince Phillip. He had minor surgery and was in the hospital for two months. At some point in time it was decided that "old age" was the leading factor. The prince spent his last few weeks at Windsor Castle. Someone made the decision not to take the Prince back to the hospital when the prince was close to death. Cause of death: Old Age.,

The Prince was not a routine case. The best that could be done was done. At 99, just weeks before turning 100 he died.

This is how it is done for patients who have insurance here in the US. Nearly all people past age 65 are on Medicare which is socialized medicine.

Medicare pays 80 % of the medical cost. The patient pays the rest.

Most people on Medicare have a secondary policy that will pay the rest of the medical bill.

As a retired teacher, I have "school" insurance that pays 100 % of what Medicare does not pay.

I pay a portion of the druggist bill and I pay monthly premiums for insurance. I have not had to pay anything to a doctor since being on Medicare. Medicare and my school insurance pays it all.

It has been a while since I read this statistic. A significant percentage of Medicare funding goes to keep alive people who are at death's door. Sometimes up to several months patients are on all kinds of life support.

What is morally wrong about this is that while those thousands of dollars are spent on life support for a person who has too many illnesses to get well, no money is spent on many children and poor people for so much as medication for a sore throat.

It appears to me that perhaps the UK goes to far in determining treatment based on age alone, while the US fails to really consider "old age" as a factor in medical treatment strategies.

I want medical treatment as long as by body is able to benefit and I have more than a good chance to recover.

At the same time, I do not want an additional 12 weeks of sheer hell laying there in agony wearing a wet and soiled diaper, being on a feeding tube, having a breathing machine and all other life support.

If there is any indication of the brain still functioning as determined by a brain scan, the medical profession often lets the family decide when it is time to stop the heart/lung machine, etc.

My issue is Americans are willing to spend well over $100,000 of federal tax dollars to keep an old person alive for just a additional few weeks and then refuse some medical treatment for children with parents too poor to pay for the medical costs.

The government pays the medical bill for the very poor. It is the family where both parents work for minimum wage who make too much money to get free medical help, but not enough so their children can get medical treatment.

There is no easy answers. For one we do not have a proven way to know which old people who will recover enough to have two to five years of good health and which old people whose bodies will never recover enough to have meaningful life ahead for just a week or two much less several more years of good health.

The only health problem that I am aware that age is the major issue is prostate cancer. Men in their 90s are not treated for prostate cancer because the chances are so obvious that they will die from other causes before the cancer can grow enough to kill the patient.

This issue of how to treat the men past age 83 and women past age 90 is very delicate with many viewpoints. Health officials as well as government officials often aren't on the same page as how to proceed with male patient A age 87 or female patient 94.

Patients past age 90 have broken their hips, had hip replacement and have recovered from the surgery. There does come a time when 2/3 of people at a certain age will not be able to recover from hip replacement surgery!

Here in the US, the patient, the patient's family, and/or the doctors decide what to do in each situation. Generally Medicare goes along with the doctor's recommendation if the doctor has a good track record in doing surgery.

Medicare for All is the solution to America's medical care! Hopefully Biden can get this done if he can get a super majority in the Senate!

Right now, a person has to be age 65 to get on Medicare or be on permanent S S disability.

 

[Jason]

The UK’s NHS health care is a major issue for the next few years.

The good news for the UK is that we do have a functioning public health system which is free to everyone and delivers good results. The bad news is that we have made NHS a state religion. It is unacceptable to criticise NHS or any aspect of it. It is completely unacceptable to consider any sort of reform.

As @dandelion points out the NHS does make treatment decisions based on the cost-benefit of treatment and on the patient’s age. This is nothing new. Most of the time it is not too contentious. Presumably it is already happening with coronavirus treatment. We also have rationing of treatment by waiting list. Yes you can have your treatment, but in time.

Compared with costs in other nations (particularly) USA the NHS does seem to offer good value for money. Notwithstanding a huge proportion of tax take goes to funding it. The notion figure is £1980 per person per year, so something like £4000 per person in employment. These costs are frequently camouflaged and people do not know they are paying quite this. There are issues around sustainability. We’ve recently had demands for 15% pay rises for NHS staff. Energy bills are up way above inflation. Just about everything the NHS does is getting more expensive very quickly. The case backlog is now huge. It would be very easy to argue that we need to boost NHS funding by 25%, but that would be an additional £1000 a year for everyone in work. Maybe we should do this, but we need a debate about it.

What we do need (in my view) is to stop worshipping the NHS. There are silly issues which are wrong and which should be fixed, but no political will to do this because any changes get such a dire backlash from the press that no politician wants to do anything.

For example: a few years ago I noticed that in an eye hospital (constructed like a maze) the fire exit signs were so poor and so few that it wasn’t much exaggeration to say there were no fire exit signs. I contacted the hospital management. I was told that NHS hospitals are exempt from legislation to mark fire exits. I contacted again saying exempt or not, surely you want to mark them properly? Answer, no.

Or another hospital, with a separate A&E for adults and children. There is a little sign on the approach, but this is frequently obscured by parked ambulances. The result is that parents with sick children frequently turn up in the adult A&E. I spent quite a few hours supporting a patient and saw three such cases. The response to all three was for an administrator to give vague directions on how to get between the two. There were no signs for the walking route, and this was another UK hospital built on the maze principal. It’s just crazy. A few signs would get children to A&E much faster.

Or A&E queues. People do drive to A&E with sick people. This is probably not a good idea (call an ambulance instead) but it happens. Queues in waiting rooms are typically many hours. And yes I’ve seen ill people lying on the floor. For goodness sake put some washable plastic coated long benches in A&E.

Or discharge from A&E. Many patients use a taxi. Taxi pick up point is some little way away. There is no cover on the walkway, so if it is raining hard or snowing sick people deal with the elements. This isn’t a big cost item.

 

[seventiesdemon]

The world is aging. It's not the first time in human history we have found ourselves in a position of having to care for the elderly, or the young. Parents automatically become protectors of their offspring the day they are born. This continues, for humans anyway..well most, until parents die, no matter what age a parent is, they will always be there for their young. This is one of the defining points which make us human beings. Still of the animal world, but unlike most animals, we protect and support our young for life. Till the day we die.

If the majority of human parents acted, or behaved as animals do, there would be no vaccination against polio, measles, tb, many multiples of other diseases, viruses which affect humans. Most diseases and viruses spring from domestication of animals for food thousands of years ago. Most animal viruses are those which affect or kill humans.

Along with our remote, relatively not busy positioning in our Galaxy, our planet covered in water, along with the invention of vaccines to prevent mass die off of humans, we would not have progressed to the stage we have. We would still be living in hovels, looking at the stars and planets, cave painting, and not exploring them.

If at some point human society reaches a stage, which we are approaching apparently, that the old do not care for the young, the young do not care for the old. Devolution begins.

We are all doomed, young, and old. If and when it all comes down to money, which apparently for some it is again, we are doomed. There is a reason why all other life on this planet have not evolved to the same place we have. It comes from not leaving others for dead, young or old. Those who do, find themselves on the endangered list of the human species, and they themselves, left behind, or worse.

 

[seventiesdemon]

Humans are a very cruel species, but if it were no for our compassion, we'd all be long gone. We help those who are vaccinated, inoculated or not to the best of our ability. We pull those from car wrecks who drive like idiots and wrap themselves around trees to try to save them, even those who kill families while doing so.

Maybe we should leave them to bleed to death on the sides of the road? Maybe we should not waste the resources, but then we think, maybe, they made a mistake in their human judgement..... Maybe one day they will do better and help prevent others from making the same error of judgement, because we all know at some point we fuck up, this awakening usually only comes with age. To be passed on to the young. But the young don't listen, till they remember the knowledge passed on to them from the old.

Such is the cycle.

Humans