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Hellenic Riot (1626 D(G))
28 Mar 10 UTC
12 hour WTA Game 15 mins
gameID=25091
4 spaces
1 reply
Open
Commander Thomas (395 D)
24 Mar 10 UTC
New Diplomacy Game. The Ancient Mediterranean Map.
i found this under new games "open advanced settings" and I need four more people to join. This Ancient Mediterranean Map needs 5 players one of which will be me. The link is:http://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=24842

If anyone wants to join try and click on the link. Now if it doesnt take you to the game then I will try and arrange it so it does work.
3 replies
Open
ZhangFang (100 D)
28 Mar 10 UTC
Live Gunboat Game start in 3 minites
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=25176
1 reply
Open
SectionThree (122 D)
24 Mar 10 UTC
Where are people who play WebDiplomacy From?
I'm just curious, where are everyone in this community from?
Are there any from outside the US (assumed main population don't be offended)

I'm from Houston, Texas for starters, Just state is fine if you like to remain Anonymous :)
110 replies
Open
aryan (100 D)
28 Mar 10 UTC
100 pot, 36 hrs per turn game
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=25173
0 replies
Open
Morty1138 (202 D)
28 Mar 10 UTC
1 more needed
one more person needed for World! Join quick! You know you want to...
5 point bet, 12 hr turns
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=24392
1 reply
Open
ava2790 (232 D(S))
28 Mar 10 UTC
Live gunboat Game Tonight
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=25167
2 replies
Open
ava2790 (232 D(S))
28 Mar 10 UTC
Live Anon WTA Gunboat
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=25159
10 replies
Open
abgemacht (1076 D(G))
24 Mar 10 UTC
"A Big Fucking Deal!"
So, is health care as big of a deal as Biden thinks?
Thucydides (864 D(B))
24 Mar 10 UTC
yeah dude lol
abgemacht (1076 D(G))
24 Mar 10 UTC
I'm just grateful he put it into terms I can understand.
Yes. It's a big fucking deal. It's also FUCKING TERRIBLE. It was an idea conceived and carried out inside Satan's asshole. The Medina Division had a better decision-making process. Fortunately a shitload of states are going to sue the Federal Gov't. There's still a chance that I might not spend my entire life paying off Barack ODumbfuck's dipshit legacy from Hell.
patizcool (100 D)
24 Mar 10 UTC
God forbid you spend your life paying this off when you have your entire life to pay off an unnecessary war that devoted attention away from people that actually attacked American soil... oh wait, the cost of health care currently is more than what this bill will cost... okay, just concentrate on the unnecessary war then ^-^
mel1980 (0 DX)
24 Mar 10 UTC
Why is the US the only country in the civilised world not to have state health care?
Pls explain???!?!?!?!!!!
@Durden: Your argument, it burns my eyes with rationality.
@ patizcool - I would hope to God that the current cost of healthcare is more than the proposed bill. The bill only covers one tenth of Americans not insured. The current cost of insurance covers the other ninety percent. This bill costs the same as the current national debt, and again covers only ten percent of America. The war in Iraq (by your argument you can't count the cost of troops in Afghanistan or other places we had forces prior to 9/11) has cost significantly less than the healthcare plan is projected to run, and that's if it stays within budget.

@ mel1980 - We don't have health care for two reasons. 1) Americans don;t pay six dollars for a gallon of gas, unlike the Brits with their public healthcare system. 2) America has always had a large base of low-income individuals; a pool frequently replenished by immigrants. These low-income immigrants make up a far larger percentage of the population than they do in European countries. Consequently, America is far less suited to a national healthcare system than other European nations. Also, people don't die from organ failure if their government deems them too old to be worth the effort.
@mel: Durden offers good points, but the most of it is that many Americans are obsessed with doing things differently from other nations in order to hang blindly onto their little notions of superiority. If you were to tell these Americans that his country is the only civilized nation in the world to lack state health care, they might reply, "That's why our country is the greatest in the world!" An illusion, and a most convenient one indeed; a rhetorical fallacy of which I would look up the name, were it not so late in the evening.

As for me, I am just glad that my country is finally on its way to having better health-care than most of the third world. Welcome to the 20th (not a typo) century, America!
@Durden: "Also, people don't die from organ failure if their government deems them too old to be worth the effort."

Ah, the old "death panel" scare!
In all seriousness, Durden, if you can find any evidence at all that this thing you're talking about even happens in countries with state healthcare, then I might accept that as half a legitimate argument.
mel1980 (0 DX)
24 Mar 10 UTC
Lol Bear in The Woods;)

Agree wholeheartedly
Thucydides (864 D(B))
24 Mar 10 UTC
I think the healthcare episode that has played out says more about propaganda than it does about anything else.

Oh, the awesome power of the propaganda machine. It turns even reasonably intelligent people into sniveling toadies. Really quite remarkable.
TheGhostmaker (1545 D)
24 Mar 10 UTC
The repetitiveness of this debate eventually led me to write this:

Government should have no role in healthcare whatsoever, and most of America's problems with healthcare come from government involvement. There are pragmatic arguments for this, namely that you get more choice in the private system; you aren't treated as a supplicant but as a customer in a private system, with the rights that go with that; you generally get better quality of care in the private system; and the private system is far more cost effective.

In the United Kingdom, the government bureaucracy NICE (national institute for clinical excellence) decides centrally which treatments the NHS will and will not fund. Now, given that the private system is so small to be near-monopoly, you have very little choice, unless you are exceedingly wealthy, but to use the NHS. The result of this is that, if you are unfortunate enough to have a disease that won’t be treated, or happen to be too old for it to be deemed worth treating you, you die. Furthermore, if you have a disease, you cannot choose a different treatment to those that are agreed upon by NICE. It is clearly absurd that a centralised government body can better decide what healthcare you should have than you, but at the same time, if any government tries to improve healthcare services, by the nature of government, they will have to do it from the centre.

In a private system, you are paying for what you are getting, and have corresponding rights. If your insurer or your hospital or anyone else fails you, as inevitably happens in any system, you and your family have every right to sue them. This is not the case in the UK, where you would be trying to sue the government. In truth, you just accept what you’re given. The distinction here isn’t just that you get reparations in a private system, but also that you encourage the private companies to provide a higher standard of care, to avoid litigation. Ultimately, no doctor in the NHS really needs to fear for his job if he is somewhat substandard- take a look at the case of Shipman, who murdered his patients for years without being caught. Systems are in place now to stop that kind of thing happening, but you still have surgeons who use general anaesthetics when local ones would be safer, and so on, and again, the patient has no means to avoid the bad doctors.

To support the claim that you get better care, I shall compare the American and the UK systems, however it is important to note that America hasn’t got a private system, but rather a part-private and part-socialised system. The effects of this are most severe, as I shall move onto later on. We cannot compare the life expectancies of two countries, as there are many things, in particular the lifestyle of the citizens, which will have an effect to invalidate the results. What matters is the likelihood, when you get sick, that you are treated, and the amount of preventative care you receive too.

In the US, relative survival rates for cancer, stroke and heart disease are higher than in the UK. These are among the biggest killers in the Western World, responsible for half of the deaths. Concerning the preventative care, where many claim that America falls behind, we see that in America 93% of one year olds are immunised with MCV compared to 86% in the UK, 96% with three doses of diphtheria, tetanus, toxoid and pertussis compared to 92% and 94% with the Hib3 vaccine compared to 92%.

Finally, the cost of private care is lower than the cost of public care, when private care is universalised. To support this claim, I would like to point out that per capita costs of private care in America are more or less the same as per capita costs of the NHS. The NHS costs the UK $3200 per capita. The US private system has very uneven costs, but if we look at all but the top 5% (rich people to whom the money matters very little, and so it is distorting to consider the costs), for the other 55% of Americans who use private care, the average cost is $3300. Given that the costs would go down without any Medicare and Medicaid, without lobbies, and without such overburdening regulation, this shows that private care would be somewhat cheaper than public care.


Of course, the American system at present is not a free market healthcare system, the lobbies exercise a great deal of control over the government, encouraging regulation that keeps new and small companies out. If the government were to scale back its involvement to purely the maintenance of contract law, trade descriptions regulation etc. this would cease to be the case. They should relax licensing legislation that causes prices to rise due to artificial scarcity, abolish import tariffs on drugs to lower costs, lower taxation substantially, as will be possible, to give people more money to buy healthcare. Also, they should permit insurance to be sold across state lines. We can see the benefits of the free market approach in cosmetic surgery, where customer care and costs are consistently improving.

A case in point of the government acting to spoil the free market in favour of doctors can be found towards the start of the 20th century, when, of course, free market healthcare was at its height. At that time, it was common for groups of relatively impoverished Americans to come together in a fraternal society, a voluntary mutual aid association, and employ a doctor on a permanent basis. Because of the permanent nature of the employment, the doctor’s pay was somewhat lower than it would be if he were paid on a treatment-by-treatment basis, costing each member as little as only a day’s pay each year, however many doctors took up this option because it offered more certain employment and because demand for treatment-by-treatment care was lower, with many choosing to go for the group-based model. Now, at the end of every year, the members would discuss the performance of their doctor, and either extend his contract, or not, depending on whether or not they were satisfied. The response of the medical trade was wholly negative: they resented the fact that non-professional ignoramouses, i.e. the customers, would analyse their performance and they disliked the lower pays that they got. Their response? To get laws passed to prohibit this sort of collective forming, to the great detriment of the health of Americans.

Now I could continue to attack the NHS and other socialised systems, pointing out that the Patients’ Association identified 1 million different cases of “Cruel and neglectful” treatment over the past six years, that the victims were largely elderly, and had no recourse. I could add that one NHS trust threatened the Patients’ Association with legal action for publishing this data. I could draw your attention to Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust - where up to 1,200 people died through failings in urgent care. I could add that the UK government withdraws all care if you so much as buy a painkiller privately to supplement your NHS care, keeping you wholly stuck within the system, and that the average waiting periods for hip and knee replacements extend to a year. However, to do so alone would be disingenuous of me when I haven’t myself similar statistics about the alternative, just as pointing out that many get poor treatment in the US is disingenuous, since it doesn’t involve comparison between the two, and that, since man is fallen, you can always find horror stories in any system, just as you can always find good examples of care in any system. It would amout to little more than an appeal to emotion, when what matters is the objective comparison of the two systems, as I have given already. It must surely conclude that the best way to improve healthcare is by the free market, just as the best way to improve everything else was by the free market.
KaptinKool (408 D)
24 Mar 10 UTC
I haven't read the whole thing, but after the first paragraph I'm pretty sure I agree with TGM, but I have to leave, I will read it later.
pastoralan (100 D)
24 Mar 10 UTC
@Tyler Durden: Your name is Tyler Durden.
Wow, good post TGM. I enjoyed reading it.
Alfonze (100 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
The NHS is brilliant, TGM. If you have any complaints about your current healthcare they should revolve around it not being enough like the NHS. The free market isn't something to be cherished, it's a necessary annoyance. Anything that can stamp that out and more fairly redistribute the wealth is brilliant.
Haha. Biden is like a liberal Sarah Palin. Everyone, including his own party, just wants him to shut up and go away.
lulzworth (366 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
@TMW - Right. Because like Sarah Palin, Joe Biden is a relentlessly on-message half-term governor without a basic grasp of the issues and a resume shorter than the front pages she doesn't read. I'll take the intelligent, albeit gaffe-prone Joe any day.
Jamiet99uk (1307 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
Alfonze +1

Is there really a need for FOUR seperate threads (and counting) about the US healthcare issue? People are just repeating themselves.
TheGhostmaker (1545 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
@ Alfonze

Given that my healthcare is the NHS, I doubt that all my problems are that it is not enough like the NHS.

Anyway, anecdotal evidence is not evidence.


Would anyone care to rebut my arguments, or do you prefer to just state your claim like a smug berks?
pastoralan (100 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
TGM, there are many ways to read the evidence from health care. The glaring one in the US is that we pay 1/12 of our GDP without getting better life expectancy or preventative care. Your focus on children's immunizations doesn't mean much, because that's one of the few areas where the government takes an active role. Look at things like the percentage of adults with high cholesterol or diabetes who are getting proper treatment, and you'll see much lower numbers.

I'm not getting the numbers because I think the real flaw in your argument is philosophical. If I understand your argument, you're saying that the problem with the US system is that the government has gotten involved in ways that benefit the medical industry (which means we spend more money than we need to). If we just had a true free market, we'd be more efficient and effective than the NHS.

And you might be right. However, this ideal free market you talk about will never exist. A market can only exist when there's somebody setting rules...and at some point, one of the players will discover that political influence is their best investment. And the result will be that government will benefit the big players. Even a pure democracy will create inefficiencies through media manipulation (which is pretty much what happened here).

So even if your numbers are right, your desired outcome is theoretically impossible. Government will always take a role in the market, because someone in the market will eventually pay the government to take their side. History shows that "someone" is not the consumer.
TheGhostmaker (1545 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
The Numbers I got by looking on WHOSIS, so I'm fairly confident about using them.

My point is that the headline statistics on cost and life expectancy are ineffective as measures.

Cost conceals the fact that the US governments spend more money than private citizens, on far fewer people. It also conceals the fact that the spread of spending is disproportionately weighted to the very rich, for whom the spending matters relatively little. If you have a lot of money, you will demand less of a marginal benefit for an increase in cost, for obvious reasons.

Life Expectancy conceals the fact that Americans and British people live differently. Over 70% of Americans are overweight, compared to under 60% of British people. It also conceals that many Americans get appallingly poor state-sector care. 45% of Americans are not insured privately, many don't have to be because of government programs. The effect of this fact is that the overall statistics will inevitably be dragged down in the US by its particularly poor state care.

Ok, is my proposal of a free market possible.

First of all, a freer market is certainly plausible. Assuming the government steps outside the circular roads of Washington and the lobbies, would it not be possible to relax the licensing laws to remove artificial scarcities in both practices and practitioners? Would it not be possible to allow healthcare to be sold across state lines? Would it not be possible to drop tariffs on drug imports? Could the FDA be replaced by a system where the drug companies provided doctors with the studies they had taken to demonstrate the safety of the drugs, telling of the side effects, and were culpable in court if this evidence was misleading in some way? Would it not be possible to close down, over time, Medicare and Medicaid, whilst immediately removing the legislation that destroyed the fraternal societies that were once so successful? Would it not be desirable to remove the laws which prohibit people from forming healthcare co-operatives? Would it not be possible to, if you want to have government sponsoring the healthcare of the poor, to do it on the basis that the government will cover a portion of the cost, through a voucher scheme?

You can get much further than you think without doing anything totally 'outrageous'. And this would be a far better system than what is present in either the US or the UK. Singapore's healthcare system is a model for a market-based system, even if funds do come from government (which is an assumed premise in our society that it wouldn't be worth discussing *again*)

As for government always taking a role, always expanding, always enveloping more and more. Perhaps. But when Sweden's government introduced its schooling system, the improvement was so marked that it became politically impossible to oppose it. I think the same could happen in healthcare. Nor am I a determinist; these expansions don't have to happen, indeed by the fact that we can go the other way, we know that they don't have to.

But I can see your point. That is why I would want the government to be limited constitutionally from involving itself in the economy. And going against that limit should be a jailable offense. Now, that would achieve something!
pastoralan (100 D)
28 Mar 10 UTC
TGM, since you have the numbers, I would like to see your numbers comparing the health outcomes of people with "appallingly poor state-sector care" with the outcomes of people who have no insurance at all.
@ lulz -- Well, they're both idiots.


25 replies
mapleleaf (0 DX)
26 Mar 10 UTC
Detroit, Ontario, CANADA.
A proposal.
37 replies
Open
5nk (0 DX)
27 Mar 10 UTC
Live WTA Gunboat JOIN
16 replies
Open
jwalters93 (288 D)
21 Mar 10 UTC
Random survey!
Who here reads? (meaning books that are longer than 300 pages)
Of those who read, who reads fantasy? what do you read, and who's your favorite author?
61 replies
Open
mdrltc (1818 D(G))
28 Mar 10 UTC
Gunboat
starts in 5 min, need 2 more
1 reply
Open
curtis (8870 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
new live gunboat game starting soon..
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=25145
11 replies
Open
y77 (241 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
10min LIVE starts in 30min !!
http://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=25146
1 reply
Open
VVinston Smith (0 DX)
27 Mar 10 UTC
Live Game 101 - standard, ppsc, 101 to enter.
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=25141
0 replies
Open
S.E. Peterson (100 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
Live WTA Gunboat in 1 hour
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=25140
0 replies
Open
Shan Canre (100 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
I like to run till it hurts!
it is only true

0 replies
Open
happyjo (330 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
Live Forever Or Die Trying
New game 20 D PPSC Standard rules
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=25138
0 replies
Open
Merirosvo (302 D)
26 Mar 10 UTC
Question:
Are there stats on the win percentage of each country for the three maps? If not, could someone find those out?
13 replies
Open
Lando Calrissian (100 D(S))
27 Mar 10 UTC
live gunboat wta
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=25113
3 replies
Open
gencho (100 D)
26 Mar 10 UTC
Bug on Firefox?
Hi,
I have a problem with WebDiplomacy on Firefox (it does not appear on any other sites). I am using Firefox 3.6.2 on Windows XP.
10 replies
Open
ava2790 (232 D(S))
27 Mar 10 UTC
Live WTA Gunboat
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=25127
0 replies
Open
jman777 (407 D)
25 Mar 10 UTC
Learning a coding language
So, I am going to start learning a coding language, and I'm considering either C++, Python, Java, or basic HTML (those are the only classes my school offers). Which do you guys think is the most versatile and useful language? I'm a complete newbee when it comes to programming, so any suggestions at all would be great.
61 replies
Open
bplus (172 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
First world problems
Post your best "First World Problem" you can think of, i.e., something that you've really let annoy you, but then you realize there are people who are getting their toes blown off by errant land mines planted 40 years ago in Southeast Asia, and you realize your problem is trivial.

Example: I'm so pissed off that as soon as I bought an HD DVD player, the Bluray standard gained traction and now I can't get any new movies on HD DVD.
0 replies
Open
Kingdroid (219 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
Live Novice game
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=25123

5 min ticks, join.
1 reply
Open
KingSpillBlood (155 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
Holding Rules
I've spent a very long time looking up a specific set of rules. :/ I would really appreciate a diplomacy buff to answer my question.
14 replies
Open
jcbryan97 (134 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
quick game WTA global chat
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=25110
0 replies
Open
Sendler (418 D)
27 Mar 10 UTC
live anon game in one hour
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=25101
if anyones interested
0 replies
Open
Pandarsenic (1485 D)
26 Mar 10 UTC
Ancient World - Isauria cannot move to Miletus?
22417 is the game ID. 2 turns in a row I've ordered Isauria to Miletus, assuming I'd merely forgotten the first time and thus being particularly careful the second time. However, the Army in Isauria REFUSES to move to Miletus. I am confused.
4 replies
Open
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