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At 6/3/08 07:18 PM, cellardoor6 wrote: We've been through this before. I showed you how countries (like yours) with higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality and shit like that score higher based on those factors, but those factors can be proved to be affected by things that have absolutely nothing to do with healthcare.

I don't remember you proving that those things were caused by factors that had nothing to do with healthcare. I remember you asserting that they were due to race, but only providing a correlation without even a hint of a mechanism.

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bc; do you do anything other than try to argue with Cellar?

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At 6/4/08 02:30 PM, SolInvictus wrote: bc; do you do anything other than try to argue with Cellar?

It may have something to do with their personal lives.

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At 6/3/08 06:13 PM, bcdemon wrote:

At 6/3/08 04:21 PM, cellardoor6 wrote:

At 6/3/08 09:12 AM, ZOMG3 wrote: 1. Their health service.

The best in the world

Opinionated and based on your own assumptions.
World Health Organization rank: 37

ROFLMAO!!! Cuba did better than America in a NBC programme. That little island has better healthcare than the 'Great' U.S.A.

ZOMG3, don't be ashamed, just move and start over. Nobody will hold your place of birth against you if you're willing to leave it.

I have a life ahead of me. Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand is the places to go. Their people are warm and friendly.

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At 6/4/08 05:00 PM, ZOMG3 wrote: I have a life ahead of me. Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand is the places to go. Their people are warm and friendly.

because warm and friendly people is the only thing that counts when attempting to make a living.

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meh, i don't care besides why not move to Quebec, it's a french province, so you dont have to waste money which you think is going to Saudi's, they have there own money.

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I'm so sick of 14 year olds talking about how much they hate this wonderful country. While the country may have its problems it's a fuckload better than some other countries out there.

This little shithead thinks so low of the country that gives him the very right to say what hes saying, this little fucker thinks that his country is something to be ashamed of.

I'd like to see this ungrateful prick go live in Hatii, where the God damned goverment is so damned corupt that all the food and money donated from other countries is just stolen from the political cronies that control the country.

You fucking think you've got it bad?

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At 6/4/08 05:16 PM, megasXLRfan wrote: meh, i don't care besides why not move to Quebec, it's a french province, so you dont have to waste money which you think is going to Saudi's, they have there own money.

ROFL, they have their own money?Were you taught that in school?
Last I knew, Quebec used Canadian currency just like the rest of Canada does.
Even still, Qeubecers have to give money to those stingy Albertans who are basically the Saudis of Canada.

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At 6/4/08 10:08 AM, bcdemon wrote:

At 6/3/08 07:18 PM, cellardoor6 wrote:

At 6/3/08 06:13 PM, bcdemon wrote:

At 6/3/08 04:21 PM, cellardoor6 wrote:

At 6/3/08 09:12 AM, ZOMG3 wrote: 1. Their health service.

The best in the world

Opinionated and based on your own assumptions.
World Health Organization rank: 37

We've been through this before.

And the WHO still stands as more knowledgeable and credible than your opinion, get over it.

Find where it shows, compares, and factors in the success of medical treatments between countries.

Go.

ROFL, I have legal alien status and social security number from my previous time in Florida, if I want to move to the USA all I have to do is cross the border.

I don't believe you.

At 6/4/08 10:44 AM, Elfer wrote:

At 6/3/08 07:18 PM, cellardoor6 wrote: We've been through this before. I showed you how countries (like yours) with higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality and shit like that score higher based on those factors, but those factors can be proved to be affected by things that have absolutely nothing to do with healthcare.

I don't remember you proving that those things were caused by factors that had nothing to do with healthcare.

I proved that factors of the population affect things that are treated as indicators of healthcare. Therefore you cannot claim that having higher things like lower infant mortality is a direct result of healthcare when the disparity between minorities and the white majority between the two countries is the same, yet one country has way more minorities.

I remember you asserting that they were due to race, but only providing a correlation without even a hint of a mechanism.

Man Elfer, you are so hilarious. You always go to great lengths of bullshit to find some way of refusing to accept reality, yet then you yourself provide some of the most lopsided, inapplicable and academically deficient arguments possible. Such as what you did in the 1st page of this thread.

You said that the US has carbon emissions higher than China's, yet refused to note that you were comparing China in 1994 and the US in 2002. You actually having the sheer lack of integrity to feel like you can scrutinize other people's arguments? Pfft, you make me laugh.

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At 6/4/08 06:52 PM, cellardoor6 wrote: Find where it shows, compares, and factors in the success of medical treatments between countries.

I'll give it a quick look through, I'll get back to you when I find something.

I don't believe you.

Sounds like a personal issue to me.

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At 6/4/08 07:01 PM, bcdemon wrote:

I don't believe you.

Sounds like a personal issue to me.

I believe that you can, but actually it proves nothing, at all. it even proves otherwise.

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At 6/4/08 07:01 PM, bcdemon wrote:

At 6/4/08 06:52 PM, cellardoor6 wrote: Find where it shows, compares, and factors in the success of medical treatments between countries.

I'll give it a quick look through, I'll get back to you when I find something.

Also, have fun trying to find any reference to cancer treatment, or heart disease treatment...

There will be no comparison of survival rates comparisons after treatment. No success of operations, procedures etc... The WHO doesn't do that, it doesn't gauge or compare actual healthcare quality.

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Take a look:

WHO's assessment system was based on five indicators: overall level of population health; health inequalities (or disparities) within the population; overall level of health system responsiveness (a combination of patient satisfaction and how well the system acts); distribution of responsiveness within the population (how well people of varying economic status find that they are served by the health system); and the distribution of the health system's financial burden within the population (who pays the costs)

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The only thing that has ANYTHING to do with actual healthcare quality in and of itself is responsiveness. "Health" of the country does not automatically mean good healthcare, because people have different lifestyles, different mixes of race, different levels of immigrants from countries of varying levels of economic/medical wellbeing.

And the US ranks #1 in responsiveness.

The US has the best quality healthcare in the world. The US score is lowered because of arbitrary factors of "fairness" that are highly intangible.

The WHO does not compare, at all, the quality of healthcare... or the likelihood that people population will be treated successfully. It's about 4/5ths biased towards countries with universal healthcare, who score higher based simply on the fact that everyone is covered. It makes absolutely no comparison about what the survivability of people is from treatments, regardless of whether or not they are covered by healthcare.

If everyone in a country is covered by a crappy healthcare system, they'd score higher simply because everyone's covered. They'd score higher than a country that where the majority of its people are covered with the best healthcare in the world. Even if the lack of perceived "fairness" in distribution means people don't share the same quality, the people at the lower rung of the country without universal healthcare could still have better access to better treatment.

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At 6/4/08 05:15 PM, SolInvictus wrote:

At 6/4/08 05:00 PM, ZOMG3 wrote: I have a life ahead of me. Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand is the places to go. Their people are warm and friendly.

because warm and friendly people is the only thing that counts when attempting to make a living.

Too right mate ;)

I am seriously enjoying this......from my little country here (New Zealand, if you must ask) I can sit here and think "well, at least MY country actually AGREES on whether we have an issue."

ZOMG3 actually has some pretty good points from where I'm sittin'. And don't call me biased because I'm not American, you cant claim NOT to be biased through being American. That makes about as much sense as some of George Bush's more famous cock-ups.

Though of course, I am biased through not particularly liking the US....but oh well, that isn't about the country, just the political situation.And certain laws which are somewhat suicidal. But those aren't really that relevant.

Now.....where in NG may I find a deckchair and some popcorn?.......I need to watch and laugh at the flaming...

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Working hard won't make you rich, i gaurentee you...

However, having a good work ethic [synonymous with working hard] is definately REQUIRED to earn a decent living in the united states. However, what separates the upper from the middle class is intelligent and tactical decision making that supersedes that of the regular individual, that, combined with luck and native intelligence that could only exist in the small percentage that encorporates the 'rich'

if you have all of these you are set, most of us don't have all of them, but we do have a considerable degree of most of them. Some of us do have them but are tricked into thinking we don't, or have trained ourself to

i mean... when i take a test, often times the difference between 98% and 100% is luck or a careless mistake, luck in that i happened to get something right by accident, the difference between the two has nothing to do with the fact that i was any smarter in one situation than another, but that the situation favored me that time; and in economics, the difference between the top 1% and the top 2-5% is a difference weighed by the hundreds of millions in money worth.

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At 6/3/08 09:12 AM, ZOMG3 wrote: The reasons:

1. Their health service. When you are sick the first thing they look for is your wallet. They leave the poor and defenseless to die. Universial healthcare is the way forward!!!

So someone else should pay for your health care? There are a lot of programs that already offer free or very cheap medical insurance, and some people choose not to have it.

2. America has has high emissions of gas and it seems like many Americans dont care about the environment.

Al Gore is full of shit, and LOOK AT CHINA

3. Americans like the most crappy sports and don't spell words right like colour or favourite. Stop being lazy and add the extra letter. It's not hard.

We spell it our way, you spell it your way, and is that really a big deal SPELLING oh come on.

4. Americans are ignorant and don't pay much attention to the outside world. Most of them don't even have passports.

Thats a stereotype, and most don't need passports

5. America - Land of the Free...unless you are in Guantanamo, where you are convicted without evidence and don't give me this crap they are war fighters. Some were picked up from the streets in Africa, held without representation or without appeal for years and then released if they are lucky.

People in Guantanamo ether worked with terrorist, or are terrorist.

6. For claiming they are the first to help in a natural disater, yet denying any fair trade. Fixing the world trade for themselves keeping millions in poverty for their own greed.

We are usually first to help, and there are countless charities for 9/11 victims

7. For fudging the fact that none of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi yet many use that as the reason to bomb Iraq.

Iraq is a strong hold of the terrorist, and Islamic extremist who kill innocent people.

8. Selling $20bn worth of defense to the Saudis where 16 of the 19 hijackers WERE from. Fucking geniuses.

Back then the Taliban was not in power, thus things were different.

9. Capitalism and materialism combined with negligence and apathy are running rampant while honor, dignity, and true spirituality have gone by the wayside.

then go back to the USSR.

10. For expeting a country bombed to pieces to thank them afterwards. "We liberated you. Now you are free, even though your home was bombed and your parents raped and mutilated!"

only the terrorist bomb civilian houses and our men and woman don't do that other shit, they fight hard and risk there lives everyday to protect the rights of pieces of slime like you.

Any suggestions?

Yes, kill yourself.

I have vented my anger. That is all.

I'm moving to France and change my name, from John to Jean and enjoy the benefits of France; universial healthcare, quality education, great people etc.

after a year you'll realize how good you have it here in the USA.

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At 6/4/08 06:52 PM, cellardoor6 wrote:

I don't remember you proving that those things were caused by factors that had nothing to do with healthcare.

I proved that factors of the population affect things that are treated as indicators of healthcare.

No, you showed correlations without providing a mechanism. I bet that I could show a correlation between ownership of jewelery and recovery from diseases. Does this mean that owning jewelery affects a person's ability to recover?

Therefore you cannot claim that having higher things like lower infant mortality is a direct result of healthcare when the disparity between minorities and the white majority between the two countries is the same, yet one country has way more minorities.

Lower infant mortality rate is actually a bad one to pick for your argument, because it's affected heavily by availability of healthcare, and less so by quality.

Also, did we ever find the wealth disparity statistics for Canada?

Man Elfer, you are so hilarious. You always go to great lengths of bullshit to find some way of refusing to accept reality, yet then you yourself provide some of the most lopsided, inapplicable and academically deficient arguments possible.

Academically deficient? Claiming that a correlation with race means that race shares a causal relationship without providing a mechanism, than claiming that it will apply everywhere without supporting statistics is certainly not academically rigorous.

Low income, on the other hand, DOES have a reasonable mechanism by which to explain things like higher infant mortality rates. Since lower income is correlated with race, this creates an apparent causal relationship with race.

However, difficulties arise when you try to transfer this argument to a country with universal healthcare, since accessibility of healthcare will be a much weaker function of income. It's reasonable to suppose that the availability of healthcare (not necessarily the quality) would reduce infant mortality.

That's a much more difficult argument to make for things like incidence of cancer and obesity, though.

You said that the US has carbon emissions higher than China's, yet refused to note that you were comparing China in 1994 and the US in 2002.

Hmm, I missed that. Good catch, I was wrong about that one. I really should have checked things more carefully.

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To hell with the label of "Best Nation". All, ALL the nations of the world have their good things they should be proud of, and bad things they need to strive to fix.

U.S.A is not an exception, son...

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At 6/4/08 11:43 PM, Elfer wrote:

At 6/4/08 06:52 PM, cellardoor6 wrote:

I don't remember you proving that those things were caused by factors that had nothing to do with healthcare.

I proved that factors of the population affect things that are treated as indicators of healthcare.

No, you showed correlations without providing a mechanism.

The mechanism, or cause of the disparity is irrelevant because I proved that the mechanism, whatever it is, exists in both of the countries I compared.

Minorities score lower in certain health indicators, I showed this. I showed that these disparities existed in the countries compared, and existed to a similar degree, but that since the US has more of these minorities it swayed national statistics.

Man Elfer, you are so hilarious. You always go to great lengths of bullshit to find some way of refusing to accept reality, yet then you yourself provide some of the most lopsided, inapplicable and academically deficient arguments possible.

Academically deficient?

Bingo.

You said the US had higher overall emissions than China, and the link you used compared the countries in two separate years, separated by almost a decade.

That's academically deficient. Either you didn't read your own link, fished for a link that said what you wanted it to, or you were unaware that emissions have been growing in China since 1994. It's just so entertaining that you put on this show and throw out all this criteria you expect from others' arguments, yet you provide some of the most laughable arguments imaginable that come no where near to meeting that same criteria.

Good stuff. I enjoy it.

Claiming that a correlation with race means that race shares a causal relationship without providing a mechanism

I proved there's a correlation with race. I never speculated as to what was the root cause, and emphasizing that would be irrelevant. If it's racism or economic problesm associated with it that's causing it, it doesn't matter because in that case the racism exists in the countries compared. If it's genetics that's causing it, it doesn't matter. If it's the wrath of an indignant alien overlord or the curse of Ra, it doesn't matter, because it (the disparity) exists in both the countries that I compared.

The issue here is the logic in saying healthcare is better based on nation-wide statistics of certain indicators like life expectancy and infant mortality, and then claiming that this is a measurable, direct cause of healthcare quality of the respective systems. I proved that it's not, by showing factors that are outside of healthcare quality itself sway the results for a country and DO NOT negatively reflect on its healthcare. I showed that the indicators are in fact arbitrary factors.

Then I balanced it out by showing that in individual instances of actual comparable healthcare quality, the US excelled and the countries that scored higher due to said arbitrary factors performed way worse than the US.

Meaning, frankly, ranking systems that don't address or adjust for outside factors, like the WHO, mean precisely dick when talking about healthcare quality.

Low income, on the other hand, DOES have a reasonable mechanism by which to explain things like higher infant mortality rates.

You fail to realize that if low income IS the cause, then that does not effect my point, because low income exists among the races in both the countries I compared. It doesn't matter if it's their race itself that is the cause, it matters simply that their disparity exists to a similar degree in the countries I compared, and that the proportion of these minorities in each country therefore affects health indicators regardless of what the actual quality of healthcare is.

However, difficulties arise when you try to transfer this argument to a country with universal healthcare, since accessibility of healthcare will be a much weaker function of income. It's reasonable to suppose that the availability of healthcare (not necessarily the quality) would reduce infant mortality.

And yet it doesn't, considering countries with universal healthcare and therefore have, according to you, higher availability still have a huge disparity in health indicators between minorities and the majority whites. Proving that a better national score in those indicators does not automatically mean it's a result of superior healthcare.

That's a much more difficult argument to make for things like incidence of cancer and obesity, though.

What about things like heart disease?

Interesting facts:

What are the major risk factors that can't be changed?

Heredity (including Race) - Children of parents with heart disease are more likely to develop it themselves. African Americans have more severe high blood pressure than Caucasians and a higher risk of heart disease. Heart disease risk is also higher among Mexican Americans, American Indians, native Hawaiians and some Asian Americans. This is partly due to higher rates of obesity and diabetes. Most people with a strong family history of heart disease have one or more other risk factors. Just as you can't control your age, sex and race, you can't control your family history. Therefore, it's even more important to treat and control any other risk factors you have.

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That would mean... a country with less minorities but an equally disparate heart disease incidence, that has a lower national mortality rate from heart disease does not necessarily have better healthcare. It still might in that regard, but not if you can show that the country that scores lower actually has a higher success rate in medical treatments and programs to alleviate heart disease.

You said that the US has carbon emissions higher than China's, yet refused to note that you were comparing China in 1994 and the US in 2002.

Hmm, I missed that. Good catch, I was wrong about that one. I really should have checked things more carefully.

Yeah, and the fact you didn't check it carefully is another instance of you being a hypocrite considering you have popped out of the woodwork on several occasions just so you could pounce whenever you thought I misused a link.

Get it together.

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I am ashamed to be an American because kids like most of the posters here don't realize how lucky they are. America is not the best country in the world. But go to 90% of the rest of the world and look around. You can cry no universal health care, but what we have is much better than that what those poor guys in Nairobi and Darfur have. We might be engaged in an Illegal war but at least we're not at the ass end of it.

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At 6/3/08 09:18 AM, zoolrule wrote: Because you are not an American, and you are jealous, that's why.

fucking Europeans.

Um you just proved his point of arrogance.

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absoldier17 <--= you totally read my mind.

kudos to you pal.

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At 6/3/08 09:12 AM, ZOMG3 wrote: The reasons:

1. Their health service. When you are sick the first thing they look for is your wallet. They leave the poor and defenseless to die. Universial healthcare is the way forward!!!

You do get fantastic treatment, but costs a hell if you dont have insurance, and even if you do, health insurance costs a lot and they will do anything to get out of paying and make you pay more because they lie, and you have to have leaverage when dealing with them. Like if they mess up. their kids will die. No loss, insurance people are fun to kill. not humans. I like nazis better then those health insurance people and i HATE nazis

2. America has has high emissions of gas and it seems like many Americans dont care about the environment.

The whole going green thing is starting to trend out, slowly but surly.

3. Americans like the most crappy sports and don't spell words right like colour or favourite. Stop being lazy and add the extra letter. It's not hard.

Well the word "color" isn't because being lazy, it just became that way over time. If i spelled it colour, it would be spelt wrong because colour is british english, not american english. And crappy is a matter of opinion so # 3 is scrapped.

4. Americans are ignorant and don't pay much attention to the outside world. Most of them don't even have passports.

Yeah, many are ignorant, and we dont have passports because most dont really go outside of the country that much. I mean we have such a huge country that we can spend most vacation time in other parts. And costs a bit to visit other countries. I however want to visit europe and other parts of the world. I dont have a real opinion of other countries because I have not seen them first hand

5. America - Land of the Free...unless you are in Guantanamo, where you are convicted without evidence and don't give me this crap they are war fighters. Some were picked up from the streets in Africa, held without representation or without appeal for years and then released if they are lucky.

Guantanamo is harsh and wrong, and I dont agree with it.

6. For claiming they are the first to help in a natural disater, yet denying any fair trade. Fixing the world trade for themselves keeping millions in poverty for their own greed.

We also didnt help New Orleans ether. America mainly goes out to "help" those that have something good in return and we cause more harm then help

7. For fudging the fact that none of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi yet many use that as the reason to bomb Iraq.

That mainly was bush right there and the stupid congress that believed him. Most americans dont agree with Iraq war.

8. Selling $20bn worth of defense to the Saudis where 16 of the 19 hijackers WERE from. Fucking geniuses.

We sent weapons to afganastan, Iraq, and many other countries there that are against us now. Cant sell weapons without war, so it is actually a genius thing to do if you are the seller of the weapons. And im guessing the arms dealers are in ties with our government.

9. Capitalism and materialism combined with negligence and apathy are running rampant while honor, dignity, and true spirituality have gone by the wayside.

True. Honor is mainly in stories now. Dignity is more now table manners, and spirituality is still around, but a relitive handfull

10. For expeting a country bombed to pieces to thank them afterwards. "We liberated you. Now you are free, even though your home was bombed and your parents raped and mutilated!"

America bombs and rebuilds, and makes them bow down.

Any suggestions?

Well, there is always an empire. The egyptians, the persians, the greeks, the romans, the british, now it is America.
America is now the new world empire.
America has a long term plan and goal.

We slowly take over the middle east, create order through chaos. Eventually we will be incontrol of the islamic countries and tribes. Then we strike Isreal, and take them over.

After that we slowly take over Europe.

By the 24th century, we will have taken most of the world over.

And probebly close to the 30th century, the American empire will fall.

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At 6/5/08 12:50 AM, cellardoor6 wrote: The mechanism, or cause of the disparity is irrelevant because I proved that the mechanism, whatever it is, exists in both of the countries I compared.

That's a pretty sloppy argument. First of all, just because you show a correlation exists in two countries doesn't make it a causal relationship. A correlation without a suggested mechanism is meaningless. It's just saying "this data is what we would expect if this was a causal relationship," which is problematic because it can be said about any correlation anywhere ever. If you can't come up with any reason that it would be a direct causal relationship, then chances are that it isn't, and the cause is some other factor.

If you really want to be "academically proficient," you'll throw away your own arguments when you can't find a reason for them to be true. See: luminferous ether, waveform collapse.

Second, you found the statistics for the US, assumed they were essentially the same in Canada, and called it proof.

Minorities score lower in certain health indicators, I showed this. I showed that these disparities existed in the countries compared, and existed to a similar degree, but that since the US has more of these minorities it swayed national statistics.

You said the US had higher overall emissions than China, and the link you used compared the countries in two separate years, separated by almost a decade.

That's academically deficient. Either you didn't read your own link,

It was that one. I used the first link that came up on google. Turns out it was useless for a comparison. Yeah, it's an embarrassment, but at least I'll admit that I made a mistake.

Claiming that a correlation with race means that race shares a causal relationship without providing a mechanism

I proved there's a correlation with race. I never speculated as to what was the root cause, and emphasizing that would be irrelevant. If it's racism or economic problesm associated with it that's causing it, it doesn't matter because in that case the racism exists in the countries compared. If it's genetics that's causing it, it doesn't matter. If it's the wrath of an indignant alien overlord or the curse of Ra, it doesn't matter, because it (the disparity) exists in both the countries that I compared.

The issue here is the logic in saying healthcare is better based on nation-wide statistics of certain indicators like life expectancy and infant mortality,

It is pretty stupid. It's much more an indicator of health than healthcare. The issue is that it's much harder to find statistics that can compare the absolute quality of a healthcare system while filtering out noise such as genetics.

Then I balanced it out by showing that in individual instances of actual comparable healthcare quality, the US excelled and the countries that scored higher due to said arbitrary factors performed way worse than the US.

You didn't "balance" things though, you simply looked at them through statistics that heavily favour a privatized healthcare system. In a private healthcare system, there will always be more emphasis on treating illness rather than preventing illness. Using statistics that show recovery from existing disease is in no way a direct comparison of quality.

Meaning, frankly, ranking systems that don't address or adjust for outside factors, like the WHO, mean precisely dick when talking about healthcare quality.

True, but you're not "adjusting," you're just throwing out a whole bunch of data that displeases you.

You fail to realize that if low income IS the cause, then that does not effect my point, because low income exists among the races in both the countries I compared.

The statistics for Canada were never found, remember? You're just assuming that that's true based on the statistics for the US.

Also, showing that there's a correlation between race and income still doesn't make race a causal factor in health issues.

And yet it doesn't, considering countries with universal healthcare and therefore have, according to you, higher availability still have a huge disparity in health indicators between minorities and the majority whites. Proving that a better national score in those indicators does not automatically mean it's a result of superior healthcare.

Again, this is an assumption that you extrapolated from the US onto Canada.

That's a much more difficult argument to make for things like incidence of cancer and obesity, though.

What about things like heart disease?

Yes, also not an easy argument to make (although there are quite a few significant indicators of heart disease that CAN be changed, significantly more so than cancer, so I don't see why you've decided to pick another bad example).

I don't think I was trying to claim that Canada's healthcare is better (it isn't).

Yeah, and the fact you didn't check it carefully is another instance of you being a hypocrite considering you have popped out of the woodwork on several occasions just so you could pounce whenever you thought I misused a link.

The difference between me and you is that I readily admit that I'm wrong when I make a glaring error.
Generally I check carefully. This time I didn't, and I ended up making a substantial mistake. However, do I repeatedly try to say that my claim is still valid, then repeatedly refer to what I've done as "proof," and accuse people of nitpicking after the statistics were debunked? No, I admit I was wrong and move on with life.

Everyone makes mistakes. The difference is in how often you make them and how you handle them. I know you'll probably trudge this out every single time you're in an argument with me (which is what you do, even though it's essentially irrelevant), but let's not get into all the times you've misrepresented statistics and then deliberately refused to acknowledge it.

Anyway, I believe this topic was about something else.

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I am disappointed in my countries seemingly lack of caring about the impact on the world, and their supposed short sightedness. I wouldn't say ashamed though, that's a trump word, like if your daughter is doing heroin, that would be ashamed.

I am merely dissatisfied.

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At 6/4/08 08:04 PM, Shroiken wrote:

At 6/4/08 05:15 PM, SolInvictus wrote:

At 6/4/08 05:00 PM, ZOMG3 wrote: I have a life ahead of me. Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand is the places to go. Their people are warm and friendly.

because warm and friendly people is the only thing that counts when attempting to make a living.

Too right mate ;)

what? that was sarcasm. nice neighbours don't provide you with job oppurtunities or pay the bills and put food on the table.

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Only 1 good thing about America is that there right next a communist country and in the cold war it put lots of pressure on them.

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At 6/5/08 07:52 AM, Elfer wrote:

At 6/5/08 12:50 AM, cellardoor6 wrote: The mechanism, or cause of the disparity is irrelevant because I proved that the mechanism, whatever it is, exists in both of the countries I compared.

That's a pretty sloppy argument.

No it's not.

First of all, just because you show a correlation exists in two countries doesn't make it a causal relationship.

Proving that the cause exists in both countries regardless of whatever the cause is proves my argument. Race effects the national statistics in health indicators, showing that they are meaningless in and of themselves and don't mean better quality healthcare.

A correlation without a suggested mechanism is meaningless.

A "suggested" mechanism? Um... like heredity? There, I suggested one.

Wow you're full of crap.

It's just saying "this data is what we would expect if this was a causal relationship," which is problematic because it can be said about any correlation anywhere ever.

If you can prove that the disparity in other things exists to a same degree in the same area in 2 different countries, it doesn't matter whether or not you can prove what exactly is causing the disparity, because I'm not arguing what is causing it, I'm arguing that the disparity does exist.

You're getting pretty desperate here Elfer.

If you really want to be "academically proficient," you'll throw away your own arguments when you can't find a reason for them to be true.

You just keep getting funnier and funnier.

I've already mentioned possible reasons. Genetics, heredity, culture, discrimination, economic misfortune etc...

These could be causes, but it doesn't matter which, or which mixture of these causes the disparity in health scores in indicators, because the disparity exists in both of the countries I compared.

Second, you found the statistics for the US, assumed they were essentially the same in Canada, and called it proof.

Um actually I found statistics for both the UK and the US, and PROVED that the disparity among races exists in both countries, thus proof.

It was that one.

LOL

Hilarious.

It is pretty stupid. It's much more an indicator of health than healthcare.

That's the point here. Health, which is gauged by health indicators, is affected by things that are not directly reflective of the quality of healthcare. Therefore they are essentially arbitrary if brought up when claiming whose system has superior healthcare.

The way you gauge healthcare quality is when comparing the actual success rate of treatments, compared between the two countries for individual problems.

And if you bring up your bullshit about preventative care being better, I'm going to laugh. I've asked you several times to provide proof that preventative care is better in countries with universal healthcare, that is has a measurable effect on the reduction of incidences in certain illnesses. You've never been able to provide any proof, yet you continuously refer to this intangible theory as your way of ignoring that the US has much higher success rates in treating people with treatable diseases.

Then I balanced it out by showing that in individual instances of actual comparable healthcare quality, the US excelled and the countries that scored higher due to said arbitrary factors performed way worse than the US.

You didn't "balance" things though, you simply looked at them through statistics that heavily favour a privatized healthcare system.

Um, I balanced the fact that non-healthcare factors make the US system appear to have lower quality healthcare, by PROVING that the US has... get this... better quality healthcare.

The US has higher survival rates from treatable diseases, better responsiveness etc... the US healthcare is superior where healthcare quality can ACTUALLY be measured... in its ability to treat people successfully.

In a private healthcare system, there will always be more emphasis on treating illness rather than preventing illness. Using statistics that show recovery from existing disease is in no way a direct comparison of quality.

Then provide some comparisons of quality then Elfer. Quit being a coward for once and actually provide evidence of your bullshit claims.

What is preventative care?
Does this extend beyond issues of personal freedom? (a doctor can't make you quit smoking or eat right)
How is it better in universal systems?
How is it preventing the incidence of certain illnesses.

Provide proof.

Go.

Meaning, frankly, ranking systems that don't address or adjust for outside factors, like the WHO, mean precisely dick when talking about healthcare quality.

True, but you're not "adjusting," you're just throwing out a whole bunch of data that displeases you.

And you're pulling nothing but random claims out of your ass with no proof whatsoever, let alone any of the criteria that you constantly demand form other people.

It's quite apparent that this is your strategy. Even if you know I've provided proof, you will continue to scrutinize it, using enormous stretches of logic and irrelevant nonsense to do so, all while you will never, and can never, provide evidence that could meet the same level of scrutiny.

This way, you can conveniently keep attention on the other persons argument, never, ever acknowledge something that you know is true but don't want to be true, all while allowing yourself to avoid doing any work yourself to provide a counter argument.

Also, showing that there's a correlation between race and income still doesn't make race a causal factor in health issues.

LOL, if the cause is difference in income between races, that doesn't matter, because it exists in both the countries I compared.

Yes, also not an easy argument to make (although there are quite a few significant indicators of heart disease that CAN be changed, significantly more so than cancer, so I don't see why you've decided to pick another bad example).

Lol Elfer, you have absolutely zero integrity of any kind. The article shows that several major factors that effect heart disease incidence can not be changed, neither by healthcare nor by the actions of the individuals. Their race and their heredity is a major factor, and a country with more of those races would have a higher incidence of heart disease regardless of their healthcare quality.

The difference between me and you is that I readily admit that I'm wrong when I make a glaring error.

Except, you also pounce on what you think are glaring errors in other people's arguments even though they aren't. THEN, you divert attention away from your glaring error.

Generally I check carefully. This time I didn't, and I ended up making a substantial mistake. However, do I repeatedly try to say that my claim is still valid

This is probably why you almost never use any links. You know that if someone applied the same scrutiny to your links that you apply to theirs, you'd be making this "substantial" mistakes all the time. That's why you've used your strategy of trying to pretend you're as detached from the argument as you can, never providing evidence, while demanding all sorts of evidence from other people.

then repeatedly refer to what I've done as "proof," and accuse people of nitpicking after the statistics were debunked?

What you do is assume your argument is correct, putting the burden of proof on the other person only. Then you being denying any proof you don't want to accept that proves your assumptions are incorrect. You base your arguments on scrutinizing the other person's argument, just so you can avoid dealing with the facts themselves and avoid having to ever put forth a fraction of the effort the other person does.

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At 6/8/08 04:27 PM, cellardoor6 wrote:

First of all, just because you show a correlation exists in two countries doesn't make it a causal relationship.

Proving that the cause exists in both countries regardless of whatever the cause is proves my argument.

That wasn't the argument you were making, and that statement isn't even correct. What about cases in which the same effect is achieved by two different causes?

A correlation without a suggested mechanism is meaningless.

A "suggested" mechanism? Um... like heredity? There, I suggested one.

So your mechanism for all maladies is heredity, even though this mechanism doesn't seem to manifest itself in people who are in higher income brackets when it comes to things like infant mortiality?

I've already mentioned possible reasons. Genetics, heredity, culture, discrimination, economic misfortune etc...

Tips: Genetics and heredity are the same thing. There is no "culture" of infant mortality. "Fortune" does not act along racial lines.

Listen, you have a decent argument to make here, but basing it on race is the most idiotic way you could possibly do this.

The way you gauge healthcare quality is when comparing the actual success rate of treatments, compared between the two countries for individual problems.

This is only in the case of curative care.

Then provide some comparisons of quality then Elfer. Quit being a coward for once and actually provide evidence of your bullshit claims.

Are there any statistics that you would accept as evidence rather than dismissing them as irrelevant or indistinguishable from noise? Like you say, there's other factors that have an effect on things like incidence of disease, so you'd probably explain away any discrepancies as a race issue.

Sometimes, you have to use common sense and do a thought experiment. if you have two populations, and all other things being equal, one has campaigns promoting healthy living, educating people on how to eat right, stay in shape, etc, tax breaks and subsidies for things like gym memberships or health clubs, while the other population has a monetary incentive for doctors to allow their patients to become sick, which population would you expect to have a lower incidence of preventable diseases?

What is preventative care?

Preventative care is healthcare that focuses on reducing the risk of disease or injury before it occurs, rather than treating it after it has already occurred.

Naturally, preventative care only works in tandem with curative care, but a combination is better than curative care alone.

Does this extend beyond issues of personal freedom? (a doctor can't make you quit smoking or eat right)

In cases where screening facilities/professionals are widely available, yes. Canada in particular has a serious lack of MRI machines, but it's actually not that hard to get referred to a specialist for a checkup.

On top of that, better life choices can be encouraged through education, promotion, and subsidies.

How is it better in universal systems?

In private healthcare systems, the business only generates income if people who are already sick come in to be treated. There is absolutely no incentive to provide preventative care, in fact, there is a perverse incentive to allow people to become sick in order to make money.

How is it preventing the incidence of certain illnesses.

Provide proof.

Go.

Tell me what kind of data you would actually consider acceptable "proof." Then, tell me if you think it's actually possible for any such data to exist in a real-world system.

And you're pulling nothing but random claims out of your ass with no proof whatsoever, let alone any of the criteria that you constantly demand form other people.

I demand a high standard of evidence from you because you repeatedly claim to have "proved" something. The word "prove" implies that you have CONCLUSIVE evidence which PRECLUDES other possibilities. To prove a causal link, you must not only provide evidence that suggests your claim is correct, but also evidence that precludes all other reasonable explanations.

When I start saying that I provity proof proof proved the proof about everything in every topic, then you can start demanding stronger evidence.

It's quite apparent that this is your strategy. Even if you know I've provided proof, you will continue to scrutinize it, using enormous stretches of logic and irrelevant nonsense to do so

Saying that correlation does not imply causation is not an enormous stretch of logic. If I used your arguments, I could "prove" that ice cream is responsible for the drastic decrease in the swashbuckling population.

This way, you can conveniently keep attention on the other persons argument, never, ever acknowledge something that you know is true but don't want to be true, all while allowing yourself to avoid doing any work yourself to provide a counter argument.

I think part of your problem is assuming that my position is the polar opposite of yours on every issue. You also tend to assume that I've formed a strong opinion on every issue.

My position is not that Canada's healthcare system is better than that of the US (it isn't). My position is that preventative care, while it doesn't eliminate the need for curative care completely, is a more efficient use of resources.

LOL, if the cause is difference in income between races, that doesn't matter, because it exists in both the countries I compared.

Correct, if you assume that Canada is the UK.

Lol Elfer, you have absolutely zero integrity of any kind. The article shows that several major factors that effect heart disease incidence can not be changed,

And therefore you ignore all of the ones that CAN be changed? I wouldn't call that an argument with integrity. Example: as of 2005, the obesity rate in the US was roughly twice that of Canada. Obesity is a factor which increases risk of heart disease. If you look at the sourced report for the first link, you'll also see that the US has higher rates of diabetes and alcohol consumption, two other risk factors for heart disease.

Yes, there are factors that cannot be changed, but to completely ignore the changeable factors because of it is ridiculous.

This is why I was telling you to pick cancer instead. Perfectly healthy people get cancer all the dang time. Rich people get terminal cases of cancer a lot. There are ways to reduce risk, but it's not nearly so dependent on lifestyle as heart disease is.

This is probably why you almost never use any links.

Link-bombing is generally unproductive and protracts a debate. I use links for non-trivial information.