tomp

Their profit margins are higher than average but not exceptional.

https://www.financecharts.com/compare/UNH,CI,ELV,CVS,MOH/sum...

But even that doesn't mean anything.

I worked for a company that used ML to fight health insurance fraud ("mistakes") in the German market - where doctors/administrators would require payment for extra procedures that they never actually performed. So "denial rate" or even "profit margin" would go up with better AI that discovers more fraud!

Maybe a good metric would be something like "expected lifespan"? But even that can be misleading (e.g. maybe different insurers serve different populations...)

as if any other insurance company can do any better, in a broken system

but the system, those that created it (politicians) and those that exploit it (non-medical hospital staff) get off

First of all, MedicAid and MediCare, are insurers - so basically, if you’re poor (or old), the state pays for your procedures, not for your insurance. That in itself is a massive disruption of the free market (because there’s no competition) and a breeding ground for incompetence and corruption.

In addition, in the US most insurance is paid by the companies, so individuals get much shittier deals. In Switzerland, everyone pays their own.

Finally, in Switzerland the basic services covered by insurance are determined by the state, so there’s no idiotic and, frankly, dangerous concept of “out of network” like in the US.

Every resident is required by law to have health insurance, if you can't afford it, the state will pay it for you.

Insurance companies cannot reject you. There's a limited list of personal characteristics they can use to discriminate on price (I think it's basically just where you live, and your age).

The list of required benefits covered by insurance is also prescribed by the state.

So it's socialized in the sense that "everybody is covered" but the implementation is very "private" i.e. competitive market, which is why I like it, yes.

I’m not arguing against socialisation of medicine per se (though there are obviously worse (UK) and better (Switzerland) models), I’m arguing against using propaganda words for it like “insurance” when it’s anything but.

the young pay for the old

"insurance" means there's some chance you're having an adverse event, and a lot of chance you don't

but with medicine, (almost) all of us will get old, and require tons of it

But £200k vs £400k is real!

That’s the real span for e.g. hedge funds in London. Actually, it was a few years ago. Probably more now!

Are you sure about that? It seems about equal to me [1]...

In any case, Brexit didn't cause closing the borders; immigration into the UK increased massively [2] (i.e. the politicians didn't deliver what the people wanted). Any negative changes to the UK economy were more likely caused by decrease in trade with the EU... [3] Although COVID makes all these statistics suspect.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/national-gdp-constant-usd...

[2] figure 5 here: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/lo...

[3] https://obr.uk/box/the-latest-evidence-on-the-impact-of-brex...

see graph here

https://www.reddit.com/r/ScienceUncensored/comments/1565sti/...

from article

https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/12/18/why-have-danes-t...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-5210935...

During COVID lockdowns, UK farmers complained that they can't get cheap foreigners to pick their strawberries. Obviously "lack of workforce" is just a propaganda expression for "we don't pay enough". Open borders directly reduces wages.

this is obviously a very confusing topic, as evidenced by the other replies that either don't get my post, or the post above :D

Sits where?

In the same position relative to the sun? Relative to the center of the Galaxy? Relative to the local galaxy supercluster?

A particle does not just sit still!

This is really easy to verify.

You drop an iPhone, the gravity "acceleration" really goes to 0 - so far so good.

But at rest (i.e. holding the iPhone in your hand), the acceleration is pointing downwards, not upward as she claims.

if it remains in GEO orbit (same speed vector), it will remain in same "place" relative to other satellites, and won't ever hit them

if it changes speed vector, it's no longer in GEO orbit

Note that ketosis != fasting; ketosis == low carb, which can also be induced without fasting (but only by eating a low (near zero) carb diet). So are you sure you're not conflating 2 dimensions (how much we eat, vs what we eat)?

Funny enough, one of the reasons I respect Peter Attia, is that he's changed his mind several times, after new information came to light (i.e. he had an initial assumption based on weak evidence, then changed his opinion after he found stronger evidence). This is quite rare in general, an even rarer among the "influencers" (a.k.a. professional grifters).

The first time Peter Attia had to change his mind, is when his Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI) collapsed. Long story short, his hypothesis was that carbs (or rather, the insulin response) make people obese, and that low carb diets drastically improve health. NuSi funded proper experiments to test this, i.e. they provided calorie-matched low-carb and non-low-carb diets. They failed to confirm the hypothesis.

https://www.wired.com/story/how-a-dollar40-million-nutrition...

TL;DR: there are 2 monkey studies, with unclear/conflicting results, both had pretty shitty diets, the calorie restrictions were severe, the benefits minimal at best.

The reason mice are used in labs isn’t because they’re a good model of humans, but because they’re easy to bread and have short lifespans.

Studies of caloric restriction in monkeys didn’t cause lifespan extension, casting doubt on its effect in humans.

Peter Attia (best source of longevity science) wrote about this 5 years ago.

https://peterattiamd.com/calorie-restriction-part-iia-monkey...

I'm the same in other areas of life. I don't take steroids, I work out in the gym. I don't take drugs to have trips and achieve enlightenment, I tried to find Zen on my own.

I wouldn't partner with someone who had a cosmetic surgery ("fake beauty"), nor someone who wears makeup.

Up to every individual of course, I'm not even saying I will never take TRT (probably eventually, when I'm older, for health reasons), but I, above everything else, value (and want) authenticity.

There hasn't been a hot war between nuclear powered states, ever.

This is pretty obviously superior compared with the previous "no nukes" era, that had plenty of hot wars...

It could be (and I think it's more likely) that the rest of the stone was lightened, and the part in the shadow, wasn't.

No "residue of a person", just literally "shadow".

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Shadow_Etched_in_Stone

I am, simply because I haven't "updated" my stack in a few years.

But are there any remaining arguments for using Docker instead of Podman (sudo-less docker alternative)?

https://x.com/pika_labs/status/1841143349576941863

Where's Sora?

    const myDiv = div(
      {id: 'container', className: 'my-class'}, 
      h1('Hello World'), 
      p('This is a dynamically generated paragraph.')
    );
    document.body.appendChild(myDiv);

    const div = document.createElement('div');
    let text = 'This is a dynamically generated paragraph';
    
    div.innerHTML = `
      <div id="container" class="my-class">
        <h1>Hello world</h1>
        <p>${text}</p>
      </div>
    `;
    document.body.append(...div.children);

If you just exposed all the functionality as buttons on the website, or even as AI, I'd be able to fix the problems myself!

And I say that while working for a company making call centre AIs... double ironic!