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The United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet according to Forbes, richer than the subsequent three nations combined. It’s a tragedy that our own ci

The United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet according to Forbes, richer than the subsequent three nations combined. It’s a tragedy that our own citizens are not the direct be beneficiaries of that wealth. I think a lot about the scene in Star Trek IV when McCoy is in a hospital and says “what is this the dark ages?” Gofundme is like a kafkaesque tragic absurdity that - hopefully - will be looked at as an indictment of the inequitable K shaped economy we’ve built, and hopefully fixed in the future.

simondotau 11mo ago
[flagged]
- ben_w 11mo ago
  > As is often said, capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others. I've only heard it said that "democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time", not capitalism and economics: https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form-of-government/ https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form...
  - simondotau 11mo ago
    The Churchill line is about democracy, but the adapted version is a common variation. It works as a standalone maxim without need of attribution to some famous person.
    - squigz 11mo ago
      It works insofar as quotes that sound wise but have no kind of evidence backing it up often do.
      - simondotau 11mo ago
        [flagged]
        ben_w 11mo ago
        I don't know if you've noticed, but internet discussions collectively can't seem to avoid "no true Scotsman"-ing what counts as capitalism, likewise its alternatives. I've seen some people on HN criticise the "socialist" healthcare of the nordic countries on the basis of what Stalin was like, and others saying that China as is today is each of communist and capitalist depending on the point the poster wants to make.
        squigz 11mo ago
        No, because I'm not going to get into a debate about whether capitalism is good or not on a memorial post. Even if I were so inclined, I'm not the one making grand claims about every economic system in the world. You're the one who has to prove your claim.
        simondotau 11mo ago
        [flagged]
        DonHopkins 11mo ago
        [flagged]
      - latentsea 11mo ago
        Such quotes are the worst form of quotes, except for all the other kinds.
    - philipwhiuk 11mo ago
      > the adapted version is a common variation Got any evidence for that?
      - endgame 11mo ago
        NYT (opinion), 2017: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/opinion/dont-quote-them-on-it.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/opinion/dont-quote-them-o... Forbes, 2019: https://www.forbes.com/sites/yuwahedrickwong/2019/04/19/economics-matters-market-capitalism-is-under-attack-heres-what-we-can-do/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/yuwahedrickwong/2019/04/19/econ... NPR, 2009: https://www.npr.org/2009/10/26/114163098/a-spoonful-of-socialism-makes-capitalism-work https://www.npr.org/2009/10/26/114163098/a-spoonful-of-socia... LSE Economics Society essay question, 2018: https://www.tutor2u.net/economics/blog/lse-economics-society-essay-competition-2018 https://www.tutor2u.net/economics/blog/lse-economics-society... I also clicked through ten pages of Google search results for "capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others", each of which showed the literal quotes in the preview excerpts, at which point I became too bored to continue.
- kragen 11mo ago
  I think the sentiment is not that generosity to those in need is bad, but that something bad must be causing so many to be in such desperate need. It may be relevant that the US has higher health-care costs than every other country in the world except for Switzerland, but not because it's providing better care. Many countries have better outcomes.
- stavros 11mo ago
  > As for whether this represents a "kafkaesque tragic absurdity" we would need intimate knowledge of a lifetime of financial decisions. Maybe she was really bad with money, and frittered it away in casinos. Maybe she was amazing with money, and donated to others more than will ever be donated to her. As someone in a nation with socialised healthcare, no you don't. It's a Kafkaesque tragic absurdity, and this sentiment of "maybe she was bad with money" sounds a bit like "maybe she was holding the live hand grenade wrong". The US is maybe the only developed nation where this happens, insurance exists because massively unlikely, massively expensive events are very hard to budget for. It's not the person's fault if they didn't manage that.
  - jgalt212 11mo ago
    The UK has socialized healthcare, and that's not going so well. Societies excel at stuff they prioritize. Pretty much all societies don't prioritize other people's tragedies.
    - stavros 11mo ago
      It's definitely going better than the US, where you basically need to beg people for treatment money. I'm not sure what "not going so well" means, in that regard, since virtually every other developed country is doing better than the US on this.
      - jgalt212 11mo ago
        90 minutes for an ambulance seems like a systemic failure. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-64254249 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-64254249
        Y-bar 11mo ago
        Yes that example highlights a failure, so we should look into the science to see what is happening: > New study links hospital privatisation to worse patient care > 29 Feb 2024 https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-02-29-new-study-links-hospital-privatisation-worse-patient-care https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-02-29-new-study-links-hospita...
- 7952 11mo ago
  The fact that you need intimate knowledge is evidence of the Kafkaesque nature. It describes a world where virtue doesn't exist except for the case of financial planning (which often equates quite well to luck).
  - simondotau 11mo ago
    > evidence of the Kafkaesque nature Based on my understanding of Kafka, to fit the definition, funerals would be essential goods whose costs should be socially guaranteed. In reality, a funeral is a discretionary event about the deceased and for the living. Crowdfunding for the benefit of the crowd is not an inversion of responsibility, it's simply voluntary collective spending. You could say it's an inversion of societal norms, but that's not Kafkaesque.
    - an-honest-moose 11mo ago
      I suspect "Kafkaesque" is being used to refer to the healthcare system, which is what the GoFundMe was originally for.
      - simondotau 11mo ago
        My apologies, I misread the original article and I was left with the impression that the GoFundMe was only for end-of-life and funeral costs. I must have missed the standfirst, which is where it was described as a "cancer fundraiser".
- superultra 11mo ago
  > It's been done in churches for centuries I mean, how is "healthcare" from 500 years ago the bar here? And isn't single-payer state-funded healthcare the scaled version of a small town passing the plate around anyway? As I think about it, gofundme is even more kafkaesque in that it gatekeeps fundraising to those who have online social networks strong enough to fundraise. We don't hear about those who aren't able to because in the Jia Tolentino definition of "silence," they are not able to express that need online. > Maybe she was really bad with money I guess I fundamentally disagree that a kind of Dave Ramsey level of financial saving is a prequisite for healthcare. Indeed, I'd argue that casinos are a symptom, not a problem, of a system in which the only "viable" way out is gambling - again another tentpole in a complicated kafkaesque system.
  - simondotau 11mo ago
    I agree that single-payer baseline healthcare is the obviously correct answer. The experiment has been run countless times globally, and there's enough evidence to put this beyond debate. Rebecca's circumstance isn't Kafkaesque, it's merely adding to that mountain of evidence. > how is "healthcare" from 500 years ago the bar I agree completely, but it's not Kafkaesque for a person to ask one's own community for voluntarily contributions in their time of need, just because that community happens to be online. > gofundme is even more kafkaesque in that it gatekeeps fundraising to those who have [strong] online social networks There's nothing Kafkaesque about a popular person having more opportunities than an unpopular person. And there's nothing inherently capitalist about it either. This is human nature, nothing more. I would be far more concerned about an economic system that sought to "guarantee equality" in a way that reduces the individual's incentive to be kind to others.
tomaskafka 11mo ago
As a lucky European, I have US labeled as “richest third world country”.
Tade0 11mo ago
> The United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet according to Forbes, richer than the subsequent three nations combined. This framing by Forbes (any many others really) is insidious because it doesn't take into account the population number and how unevenly wealth is spread. For instance, Switzerland is not a huge economy - around the 20th in the world, but its citizens enjoy an extremely high quality of life because both income inequality and incomes overall are significantly better that in the US.
- apothegm 11mo ago
  Population size is usually included in those calculations. It’s typically GDP per capita. But I couldn’t agree more that the inequality and social safety net (or lack thereof) make the numbers deeply disconnected from QoL. Which I believe is the whole point.
  - Tade0 11mo ago
    > It’s typically GDP per capita. If so, then the US is ~7th, or 5th among nations numbering in the millions. Still very high, just not at the top.

simondotau 11mo ago

[flagged]

ben_w 11mo ago
> As is often said, capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others. I've only heard it said that "democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time", not capitalism and economics: https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form-of-government/ https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form...
- simondotau 11mo ago
  The Churchill line is about democracy, but the adapted version is a common variation. It works as a standalone maxim without need of attribution to some famous person.
  - squigz 11mo ago
    It works insofar as quotes that sound wise but have no kind of evidence backing it up often do.
    - simondotau 11mo ago
      [flagged]
      - ben_w 11mo ago
        I don't know if you've noticed, but internet discussions collectively can't seem to avoid "no true Scotsman"-ing what counts as capitalism, likewise its alternatives. I've seen some people on HN criticise the "socialist" healthcare of the nordic countries on the basis of what Stalin was like, and others saying that China as is today is each of communist and capitalist depending on the point the poster wants to make.
      - squigz 11mo ago
        No, because I'm not going to get into a debate about whether capitalism is good or not on a memorial post. Even if I were so inclined, I'm not the one making grand claims about every economic system in the world. You're the one who has to prove your claim.
        simondotau 11mo ago
        [flagged]
        DonHopkins 11mo ago
        [flagged]
    - latentsea 11mo ago
      Such quotes are the worst form of quotes, except for all the other kinds.
  - philipwhiuk 11mo ago
    > the adapted version is a common variation Got any evidence for that?
    - endgame 11mo ago
      NYT (opinion), 2017: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/opinion/dont-quote-them-on-it.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/opinion/dont-quote-them-o... Forbes, 2019: https://www.forbes.com/sites/yuwahedrickwong/2019/04/19/economics-matters-market-capitalism-is-under-attack-heres-what-we-can-do/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/yuwahedrickwong/2019/04/19/econ... NPR, 2009: https://www.npr.org/2009/10/26/114163098/a-spoonful-of-socialism-makes-capitalism-work https://www.npr.org/2009/10/26/114163098/a-spoonful-of-socia... LSE Economics Society essay question, 2018: https://www.tutor2u.net/economics/blog/lse-economics-society-essay-competition-2018 https://www.tutor2u.net/economics/blog/lse-economics-society... I also clicked through ten pages of Google search results for "capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others", each of which showed the literal quotes in the preview excerpts, at which point I became too bored to continue.
kragen 11mo ago
I think the sentiment is not that generosity to those in need is bad, but that something bad must be causing so many to be in such desperate need. It may be relevant that the US has higher health-care costs than every other country in the world except for Switzerland, but not because it's providing better care. Many countries have better outcomes.
stavros 11mo ago
> As for whether this represents a "kafkaesque tragic absurdity" we would need intimate knowledge of a lifetime of financial decisions. Maybe she was really bad with money, and frittered it away in casinos. Maybe she was amazing with money, and donated to others more than will ever be donated to her. As someone in a nation with socialised healthcare, no you don't. It's a Kafkaesque tragic absurdity, and this sentiment of "maybe she was bad with money" sounds a bit like "maybe she was holding the live hand grenade wrong". The US is maybe the only developed nation where this happens, insurance exists because massively unlikely, massively expensive events are very hard to budget for. It's not the person's fault if they didn't manage that.
- jgalt212 11mo ago
  The UK has socialized healthcare, and that's not going so well. Societies excel at stuff they prioritize. Pretty much all societies don't prioritize other people's tragedies.
  - stavros 11mo ago
    It's definitely going better than the US, where you basically need to beg people for treatment money. I'm not sure what "not going so well" means, in that regard, since virtually every other developed country is doing better than the US on this.
    - jgalt212 11mo ago
      90 minutes for an ambulance seems like a systemic failure. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-64254249 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-64254249
      - Y-bar 11mo ago
        Yes that example highlights a failure, so we should look into the science to see what is happening: > New study links hospital privatisation to worse patient care > 29 Feb 2024 https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-02-29-new-study-links-hospital-privatisation-worse-patient-care https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-02-29-new-study-links-hospita...
7952 11mo ago
The fact that you need intimate knowledge is evidence of the Kafkaesque nature. It describes a world where virtue doesn't exist except for the case of financial planning (which often equates quite well to luck).
- simondotau 11mo ago
  > evidence of the Kafkaesque nature Based on my understanding of Kafka, to fit the definition, funerals would be essential goods whose costs should be socially guaranteed. In reality, a funeral is a discretionary event about the deceased and for the living. Crowdfunding for the benefit of the crowd is not an inversion of responsibility, it's simply voluntary collective spending. You could say it's an inversion of societal norms, but that's not Kafkaesque.
  - an-honest-moose 11mo ago
    I suspect "Kafkaesque" is being used to refer to the healthcare system, which is what the GoFundMe was originally for.
    - simondotau 11mo ago
      My apologies, I misread the original article and I was left with the impression that the GoFundMe was only for end-of-life and funeral costs. I must have missed the standfirst, which is where it was described as a "cancer fundraiser".
superultra 11mo ago
> It's been done in churches for centuries I mean, how is "healthcare" from 500 years ago the bar here? And isn't single-payer state-funded healthcare the scaled version of a small town passing the plate around anyway? As I think about it, gofundme is even more kafkaesque in that it gatekeeps fundraising to those who have online social networks strong enough to fundraise. We don't hear about those who aren't able to because in the Jia Tolentino definition of "silence," they are not able to express that need online. > Maybe she was really bad with money I guess I fundamentally disagree that a kind of Dave Ramsey level of financial saving is a prequisite for healthcare. Indeed, I'd argue that casinos are a symptom, not a problem, of a system in which the only "viable" way out is gambling - again another tentpole in a complicated kafkaesque system.
- simondotau 11mo ago
  I agree that single-payer baseline healthcare is the obviously correct answer. The experiment has been run countless times globally, and there's enough evidence to put this beyond debate. Rebecca's circumstance isn't Kafkaesque, it's merely adding to that mountain of evidence. > how is "healthcare" from 500 years ago the bar I agree completely, but it's not Kafkaesque for a person to ask one's own community for voluntarily contributions in their time of need, just because that community happens to be online. > gofundme is even more kafkaesque in that it gatekeeps fundraising to those who have [strong] online social networks There's nothing Kafkaesque about a popular person having more opportunities than an unpopular person. And there's nothing inherently capitalist about it either. This is human nature, nothing more. I would be far more concerned about an economic system that sought to "guarantee equality" in a way that reduces the individual's incentive to be kind to others.

tomaskafka 11mo ago

As a lucky European, I have US labeled as “richest third world country”.

Tade0 11mo ago

> The United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet according to Forbes, richer than the subsequent three nations combined. This framing by Forbes (any many others really) is insidious because it doesn't take into account the population number and how unevenly wealth is spread. For instance, Switzerland is not a huge economy - around the 20th in the world, but its citizens enjoy an extremely high quality of life because both income inequality and incomes overall are significantly better that in the US.

apothegm 11mo ago
Population size is usually included in those calculations. It’s typically GDP per capita. But I couldn’t agree more that the inequality and social safety net (or lack thereof) make the numbers deeply disconnected from QoL. Which I believe is the whole point.
- Tade0 11mo ago
  > It’s typically GDP per capita. If so, then the US is ~7th, or 5th among nations numbering in the millions. Still very high, just not at the top.