Those of my ancestors I've been able to trace mostly lived to be 80 or 90, and at 59, I haven't been seriously sick so far in my life.
I've gained little or nothing from these expensive medical innovations. Furthermore, during my lifetime I've had to compete with people who have been artifically kept alive at great expense to the taxpayer (me). And further yet, during all the years of my working life, without my having any choice in the matter, money was spent on health insurance "for me" which I didn't need -- a "benefit" which really went to my sickly, annoying co-workers.
Free-riders contaminating the gene-pool are, quite predictably, very happy with our heavily-subsidized modern medical system, but those of us feel quite differently who are forced not only to suffer their presence, but also to bear the financial burden of keeping them alive.
My emoticon didn't take, but perhaps my post was more effective without it.
My mom said something like that a while back. When she was young, she had an ear infection that led to her losing the hearing in one ear. An unfortunate situation, but had it happened even a decade or two earlier, she wouldn't have lived. I always wonder if this kind of rapid progress is unique in history, or did people born in 1780 thank their luck stars they weren't born in 1710.
MattF -- people in 1780 believed the singularity was fast approaching, that history would end by 1800 at the very latest.
Zizka -- yah, better with no smileys.
Meant to add -- (and who's to say they were not right?)
Emerson, Are you just being crabby or facetious? Cause I kind of think that sentiment sucks.
Emerson, Are you just being crabby or facetious?
How many posts by Mr. Emerson have you read?
Supposing, God forbid, that Ogged had gone untimely to his eternal reward, along with, God forbid, Charlie Stross and, God forbid, Matt F's mom, I would be at least four steps higher up on the jobhunting queue -- and you'd have to add Matt F's siblings to that.
I can't afford to give up an advantage I have just for nothing.
"But all of these are wonderful people", you may say. Well, that's a fine sentiment, but let's get real.
Thanksgiving's long since over in Canadia, but I'm thankful for that link to Dave's site. A girlfriend of mine is paraplegic, and she'll be happy to read about him. Very inspiring stuff... without the Armstrong crankiness. Thanks Ogged.
I'm thankful that my friend J. was diagnosed with breast cancer this year. She had an unusual agressive variety that was untreatable until a new drug was approved just a few months ago. Had she been diagnosed a year ago, she wouldn't have made it. She's in full remission now.
"Emerson, Are you just being crabby or facetious? Cause I kind of think that sentiment sucks."
"But beneath all these sopranos, supporting them as it were, as the bass part does, is audible the de profundis which issues from the sacrificed one..."
I actually blame Ornette.
Wait till you see me at Christmas.
http://www.diaphero.org/journal/Extras/extras.htm
Wait till you see me at Christmas.
Stay the fuck away from my chimney!
Ho ho ho, Osner. I have a list, you know.
His address isn't "North Pole" because he likes the weather, you know?
I can't afford to give up an advantage I have just for nothing.
Well, you've gotten to read this blog thanks to ogged's not-deadness. Surely that's a fair trade for the shackles of this suboptimal, quasi-totalitarian, health insurance-loving society of ours.
o ... Try ... a little thankfulness ... o/`
Tom, I've been counting up the utils and doing the math, and it's hard to conclude that this blog is worth 20 years of unneeded health insurance at $50 / month. That's $12,000 worth of utils to come up with somehow or another.
I could certainly get my snark more cheaply from a more robust source, to say nothing of the offshoring possibilities.
You have to consider the shape of your life as a whole, though, not just the raw count of utils.
So the utils fall into some sort of structured form? I never heard of that before. I thought that you just threw them in a big bin, like Scrooge McDuck.
I planned to write something snarky about mawkishness. Then I read Denniston's blog; now I feel ashamed. And thankful for pretty much everything.
You should be thankful that Stross survived to pen this H.P. Lovecraft meets Iran-Contra mash-up.
I think that to be snarky about thankfulness is the highest form of thankfulness.
No, that doesn't make any sense at all, but whatever.
If you want to kill the good feeling, read DeLong's comments thread. "Is it INFINITELY worse?" Oi.
On an entirely frivolous note, I'm grateful for modern brassiere engineering.
On basic health status, I'm with Emerson: all this newfangled technology is just keeping you weaklings alive. On the other hand, I do rather enjoy seeing distances more than a foot away from my face, and it's nice having teeth that fit inside my mouth, rather than spraying randomly in all directions, as they did before a bout of rather aggressive orthodonture as a child. So you all can live, I won't grudge it.
I'm thankful to be alive (because being dead sucks, really, ask me sometime!) in spite of modern technology.
And Stross is complaining because if he'd been born in an earlier era, he'd have been dead. But not moi, so the healthcare is fine but the complaining about how the question of being born in earlier periods annoys him isn't. He's alive to complain, so he could do me the favor of being thankful enough to shut up.
That's a remarkable sentiment for anyone--that kind of vision of what matters is pretty rare,
Every post-crippling-accident story I've read in the sports section of the paper over the last coupla decades has broken along those lines. The sort of person who survives to tell their story to reporter is probably going to be that sort of person.
I suspect that the continuing to not get better thing wears poorly over long periods of time.
ash
['Rose-colored survival mechanism.']
Every post-crippling-accident story I've read in the sports section of the paper over the last coupla decades has broken along those lines.
This is, shall we say, a rather niggardly sentiment. That others have managed it doesn't make it less noble; and who's to say how it will wear over time? The worse-off Christopher Reeve certainly managed to be inspiring for a decade until he died.
I saw James Blake last night on um, 60 minutes or something, proclaiming that exact sentiment. And damn, is he hott.
Every post-crippling-accident story I've read in the sports section of the paper over the last coupla decades has broken along those lines.
I understand what you're saying, ash. Pace ogged, I felt sorry for Reeve, but not inspired by him. Not being a saint myself, they are of limited use as models of inspiration to me. But you should click though to Denniston's blog and read it. The best thing about it is that he sounds like a little bit of a dick; in other words, he sounds like a normal human being who has really shitty days and is much like the people most of us know. It's really pretty amazing if you read through the blog and see him telling people to lay off his friends, or that he was psyched that a cute girl sat next to him.
This is, shall we say, a rather niggardly sentiment.
I assume that in draft the sentence read, "This is, shall we say, a rather blackie sentiment." (Sorry. You make use of orotund language, we feel obligated to make the obvious jokes.)
And I feel obligated to set you up for those jokes. Verily, thus does Unfogged throw the light of joy into the creased aspects of its peoples.
Re 31: But I think that the basic point is sound. The crabby guy doesn't get interviewed by a journalist. They're just not very attractive people. The misanthrope isn't a type that we Americans have mastered all that well, and it's not really acceptable for athletes, although it's okay for some writers.
Me, for example. Never interviewed once. I doubt that getting crippled would help, either.