🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@qoto.org

@freemo @realcaseyrollins @bot

"History will judge societies and governments — and their institutions — not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and the powerful, but by how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless."

~César Chávez

"Too often, the teaching of the American Revolution fails to mention the contributions of Black and Indigenous soldiers, and at worst, it completely erases them from the historical record. By establishing a memorial in their honor, this legislation will rewrite these brave soldiers into the narrative"

--Congresswoman Watson Coleman
 
#blackhistorymonth #americanrevolution

https://watsoncoleman.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases/rep-watson-coleman-celebrates-black-history-month-passage-of-legislation-to-honor-black-revolutionary-war-heroes

@freemo @Paulos_the_fog @johnabs @rbreich Right, I can see your point now. It seems you are arguing for more fundamentally changing the system so that wealth gap can no longer cause problem.

@freemo @rbreich I'll push back on this one, if only because I don't want to look at my dynamic programming assignment 😂

I agree wealth inequality itself isn't the problem; however, I don't think the market is good at assigning value judgements to things, which leads to a whole bunch of really screwed up stuff, and the subsequent conflation of benefiting from capitalism with worshiping mammon.

For example: the CCP has been torturing religious and ethnic minorities for decades, mass surveilling their people, murdering political dissidents, and *MOST IMPORTANTLY TO INVESTORS* preventing individuals or corporations from withdrawing assets from the country "illegally". Yet, our investors, companies, etc. speculate that China is "the next big thing" and lose their asses while enriching a hostile country. People continue investing in Nestle and Tesla despite the provable child labor in their supply chains, (and of course the rest of the atrocities Nestle got away with). Why? Because making an extra 2% ROI is all that matters.

Meanwhile, private equity firms in the US buy up failing companies for pennies on the dollar, try to squeeze *every* *last* *drop* of capital out of them, and cause lasting damage in the process (see the environmental damage caused by rail issues across the US, alongside the mess of our hospitals, many of which are owned by private equity). Their M.O. is to run things so lean, and to cut so many corners, that the business fails anyway, but at least they didn't let any of that money go to the worke- I mean-down the drain.

The impacts of our modern values in relation to money go on and on, because nearly everyone has a price but not a spine: they'll sell out their employees and the business they built up to get rich, and leave the people they employ in the hands of a board who never sees them, and frankly doesn't care about them at all. For most, it's not about loyalty, purpose, effecting change in the world, and eking out a living (even a good one!) in the process; it's solely about the number of 0s on the check. It's so bad to the point that peoples lives and finances are ruined for "shareholder value", while disregarding the people who actually generated value for the company and the economy.

Finally, the reasons that the poor "cannot create wealth" is that often it is taken from them while the wealthy are given kickbacks in an almost perverse way: banks charge more fees for lower account balances, accessing credit with lower APY is more difficult, etc. Of course much of this boils down to financial literacy, but when a single car accident can bankrupt a family due to exorbitant healthcare coverage, adversarial insurance companies can screw anyone who can't sue them (by not paying out), etc, it's easy to see that there are not enough legal protections for the impoverished when the penalties for victimizing them are a pittance or even nonexistent.

So while I can agree that money *itself* isn't the problem, the modern "idolatry" of it is such a perverting influence that people conflate the two, because frankly it's difficult not to.

As someone living in socialized healthcare, and who has lived with socialized healthcare in about a dozen countries, just a reminder:

**Socialized Healthcare is a broken and backwards system**

inb4: No I am not promoting the american healthcare system. It may fix or address the parts that are broken in socialized healthcare, but it has its own problems... There are solutions (though no one talks about it) that doesnt resemble either of these failed systems.

Problems I have repeatidly faced both here and in other socialized health care countries:

* Abusive wait times leading to unnecessary suffering and in my case surgery that wouldnt have been needed if I had prompter care.

* Lack of access to many prescriptions - (I have had at least a dozen medicines I couldnt get because the cost would be too much of a burden to a socialized system).

* Monopolies making unfair and abusive rules to line their pockets at the expense of patients (A good example of this is melatonin being a prescription in Israel due to a pharmecutical monopoly).

* Lack of privacy / anonymity - Since everything is registered through centralized systems (usually) there is no way for you to hide or keep private your medical records. In the USA I would pay cash for prescriptions I dont want on record, not really an option in socialized systems.

#healthcare

@freemo
Interesting video related to the topic (Ik ur not american):
https://youtu.be/U1TaL7OhveM

@rbreich You have your priorities mixed up... people making more than everyone else, no matter the extent is **not** the issue. It only detracts from the real issue, which is the quality of living of the poorest people below the poverty line.

Wealth is not a pie, a fixed thing with only so much to go around. One person having more does **not** mean someone else has to have less. Wealth is something constantly being created and destroyed, the real question is why arent the poor able to create wealth.

It's not Friday, but it is Black History Month, so why wait? Is that a non sequitur? No soap, radio!

Here are some great people to follow:

@stephen Stephen Anfield
@sonyasteele Sonya Steele
@jamieBGN Jamie Broadnax
@zhivi zhivi
@daryl Daryl G. Wright

Follow them because they're interesting, not just because it's Black History Month and you feel guilty for how white your Home timelines is. Although if that's true, you should follow more than just these five people!

With music and jokes and important posts, you can learn, and laugh, and agree strongly that there needs to be more anime awareness in this world. I mean, I chose my avatar for a reason.

#FollowFriday #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackExcellence

@admitsWrongIfProven Well thats a matter of opinion. I dont think capitalism is as evil as you do and feel systems that are mostly capitalism based, but not absolutist, are ideal. Capitalism, at least as one component in reasonable perportion, is not only not evil but good.

The reason healthcare is special is because healthcare doesnt follow the supply-demand rules where capitalism thrives. A person on their deathbed would give or pay everything they have to live just a bit longer (without suffering). So demand is infinite and thus equilibirum can not be reached in healthcare as it can with other goods and services. So while it is good for health care I would not go so far as to apply it to everything. That said it is often used when it comes to foods and farms and has been quite successful in that regard as well.

Happy Valentinesday #fediverse May there be chocolate and wine for all of us today ❤️

'Last July the first predictive clinical test based on the gut microbiome was approved in Europe. The test, called BiomeOne, was developed by Vienna-based biotech BiomeDx. It analyzes the DNA in gut microbes of patients with cancer and predicts who are most likely to have success with immunotherapy.'

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-023-01677-z?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_content=organic&utm_campaign=CONR_JRNLS_AWA1_GL_SCON_SMEDA_NATUREPORTFOLIO

In case you missed it !

We discuss with assistant Prof Francesca Grisoni @fra_grisoni who leads @molecularML just how AI is improving drug discovery.

LINK➡️
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5sFtXTPb3TCOmkPwLNhGDx?si=5424d86af9c04887

#academia #PhD #phdlife #science #xp @OpenAcademics @AcademicChatter #AI #drugdiscovery

lmao, "we found out your epic posts were overloading the mainframe sir"

Some engineer did a fantastic job of saving probably their entire team's jobs by pulling that whopper of a lie out of their ass

If you've been waiting for full-text #search on #Mastodon, please go to #TootFinder and sign in. The more the merrier.
https://www.tootfinder.ch/

It's opt-in, not opt-out. It respects Mastodon culture and doesn't index accounts that don't sign in.

That means the index might be small if we don't spread the word.

#mastotips#feditips

@Corfiot @matrix @freemo @hasmis
Nice conversation, I have learned a few things about religion.
I believe @freemo was quite precise and informative and that your reaction is excessive.

Anyways, you should always try to get the best out of a discussion, even when you're discussing with an idiot. You should choose a subject of discussion which is interesting to both and conduct the discussion in a way that is appreciated by both.
If you don't like the discussion, you failed to make it interesting. I'm not saying the other person has no responsibility, but all you can control are your actions. It's generally possible to get a good conversation even with a troll.