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Measuring GDP is the wrong measure

Measuring GDP is the wrong measure

I wrote recently about how the USA is a third world country by a lot of measures, and that it ranks low in most other comparisons with developed, healthy countries. You can read more about that here: Is the US a third world country? I feel commended now that Andrew Yang’s new Forward Party has said something similar. Here’s what they say on their “American Scorecard” page: You can’t fix something if you’re not measuring the right things. Right now,…

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Incongruous thinking about the EU

Incongruous thinking about the EU

Some people believe, not inaccurately, that the people of the US are guilty of ignoring the rest of the world. As I discussed in an earlier post, if Americans knew how good the Scandinavians have it, they would not be voting the way they vote, or stomping around about the superiority of their country. The same is true of Britons. They vote against their best interests all the time, but the voting system there also reduces the need for compromise…

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Vaccine mandates

Vaccine mandates

The US used a vaccine mandate to survive the war of independence. This from today’s New York Times (the full article, though behind a paywall, is worth a read): The rationale for workplace mandates revolves around those large benefits: Even in a country that prioritizes individual freedom as much as the U.S. does, citizens do not have the right to harm their colleagues or their colleagues’ families, friends and communities. One person’s right to a healthy life is greater than…

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Thoughts about the world

Thoughts about the world

In the distant past (for the internet), I thought through and modified my worldview by blogging. Since I stopped blogging about politics and philosophy my views have changed some more. Now I would like to review some of those views and open them up to challenge by others on the internet. It seems to me that, to paraphrase a famous passage, there are some things all humans should be able to agree upon: All people, regardless of gender, race, education,…

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Social Media and Vaccines

Social Media and Vaccines

There are some concerns about the COVID-19 vaccines. Some of these concerns are legitimate (myocarditis in young men) and some are based on conspiracy theories that are demonstrably nonsense (tracking chips in the vaccine, or its supposed links to Satan). The myocarditis one is particularly interesting and, unfortunately, provides fuel to the blanket anti-vaxxers who are responsible for recent outbreaks of the previously-controlled, measles, and the current continuation of the global pandemic which has cost 1/500 Americans their lives. As…

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ESS, COVID-19

ESS, COVID-19

I am reading The Selfish Gene at the moment. It’s a very good book, and beautifully written, as you would expect from Dawkins. This pair of sentences, though, stood out for their disappointing relevance to anti-vaccination, anti-mask, and otherwise anti-scientific individuals’ behavior. In the next paragraph, “ESS” means “evolutionary stable strategy”. In (too simple a summary), ESS means the strategy that evolution ‘settles upon’ which is most effective at reproducing the genes that regulate that strategy. “It is possible for…

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Is the US a first world country?

Is the US a first world country?

Countries are often compared. Comparisons are made about wealth, about happiness, about healthcare outcomes, and about education outcomes (literacy, for example). Many people rank the United States as a developed country, because it has high rates of wealth and is “industrialized”, but in this article we will look at how the USA ranks in a lot of different areas and let you decide whether it warrants being considered a first world country: Firearm-related death rate US ranks ninth in terms…

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