Hodgepodge of Stuff

 

It's been a bit since I updated this blog.  Looking back at the past few years, my blogging activity seems to pick up in October and fall off as Spring arrives.  It has happened often enough that I can call it a pattern.  I guess that makes sense, as I spend a lot more time doing things outside when it isn't cold, snowy and dark.  As the days grow shorter, I have more time to think rather than do, so I turn to this blog for an outlet for all that thinking.  Many of my thoughts over the summer that are now ping-ponging around in my head are not defined enough or worthy enough to warrant a full blog entry about them, so I present them to you here as some wisdumb bites.

Healthcare

As you know, nothing gets me riled up faster than believing I'm being ripped off.  Therefore, I find it impossible to abide our healthcare system.  The for-profit nature of it is absolutely insane.  The billing, and the huge number of people required to administer it is insane.  The premiums for crappy high-deductible insurance are insane.  That fixing this isn't the number one priority of our American society and government is... you guessed it, insane.

In a few more years after the Wisdumb kids have gone off to college, access to affordable healthcare may force me to seek out another country to live in if the US system continues to regress.  Even if I can afford the premiums and ridiculous deductibles, I can't stand paying for the waste that is inherent in the system and the feeling that I am always getting ripped off.  I recently visited a specialist and they ordered a diagnostic CT scan.  All told, I have spent maybe 15 minutes with the specialist (a PA, not even an MD) and 15 minutes getting the CT scan.  My out-of-pocket expenses are approaching $1500 for this as it is not yet hitting my annual deductible for my insurance that I am already paying hefty premiums for.  A follow up telehealth visit with the PA is slated to cost me another $280 for 15 minutes on a video call.  I'm certain the PA is not getting paid $1120 an hour for her time, so this bill is inexcusable. Insane.  I try not to get overly political on this blog, and this should not be a political issue.  I don't care if a solution comes from the right or the left, we just need a solution.  From my observational wisdumb, a single payer system seems like the best candidate solution.  I don't believe any system is perfect, but that would be a hell of a lot better than what we have now.  I am certain there are smarter people than me out there that can solve this problem.

In the meantime, while I await the healthcare revolution, I've started reading about healthcare coops.  I know very little about them so far but am intrigued by the idea.  It seems kind of like what an HMO should've been, but without the for-profit aspects.  I have a number of friends and family in the medical field.  Perhaps I should start my own.  We can get an X-ray machine and an MRI machine and operate outside the system.  

Air Travel

Traveling by plane runs a close second to healthcare as a reason my blood pressure is higher than it should be.  I'm trying to book a ticket right now and United won't even let you have a carry-on with your basic ticket.  I also have to play games of watching the tickets daily to see what the price trend is and try to lock it in at the lowest price.  Folks, I don't think this is how capitalism is supposed to work.  I am old enough to remember flying in the days when the airlines were government regulated.  And those memories are fond.  Sure, the plane tickets were more expensive (in inflation adjusted terms), but the entire experience was soooo much better.  You didn't feel like you were getting ripped off.  The ticket price was pretty fixed (with the exception of last-minute deals offered to try to fill empty seats) and you bought it and went on your trip with no hassle and no angst.  You could argue that I could get that same experience by buying a refundable ticket, paying for extra legroom, early boarding, a meal, and a checked bag.  The whole trip would be more expensive but probably much more pleasant.  The thing is, I am never going to willingly choose those options to pay more.  If I had no choice, and all that was just baked into the price of the ticket, I would be much happier.  I bet other people would as well, and "air rage" would no longer be a thing.  At what price unfettered capitalism?

Artificial Intelligence

AI is all the rage these days.  The financial newsletters I read devote so much time to it I am bored with reading about it.  My take: AI has huge potential, and we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg of what it will accomplish in the future.  It is going to transform our society much as and even more so than the Internet did before it.  Up until recently, I never really "got" the concept of a universal basic income, but the productivity gains that AI has and will achieve make me think that perhaps some sort of a universal basic income makes sense.  AI is going to be very regressive monetarily and increase the rate of wealth transfer from the many to the few.  This will further destabilize society and lead to either reform or revolution.  I think a reform approach is the better outcome and using the profits AI generates to create a stipend that everyone receives would stabilize society in the wake of all of the jobs that AI will make obsolete.  (Edit:  less than an hour after publishing this, a Financial Times article came up in my feed discussing this very topic.  It proposes a different solution than a universal basic income.  Link to the article)

I think the movie Wall-E may have been unexpectedly prescient in its depiction of the future of humanity.  Not necessarily the living on spaceships part, but the leisure class of people who don't have to work and can lounge around all the time doing whatever they want while robots do all the work.  I found that kind of appealing.  While I was searching around for a Wall-E image to use, I happened across a blog post from blogger Ben Weinberg who also recognized the future depicted in the movie may not be too far removed from reality.  I am less pessimistic, though.  While I hope for the leisure-class outcome technology could create, I am hopeful we (humanity as a whole) won't use that leisure to become couch potatoes.

I'll tell you what I am not worried about.  Skynet.  Sure, when AI becomes our overlords there will be problems of great consequence. I don't believe the AI will ever be as hard to defeat as a Terminator, however.  I'm glad people want to put guardrails on AI, but I'm not very worried it's going to become self-aware and make it its mission to destroy humanity.  Humanity is far more likely to destroy humanity.

Books

I'm trying to get more literary. I want to at least sprinkle some more literary books into my reading list.  I read a book a few years ago where a character was always going on about how great an author Henry James was.  That stuck with me.  I finally got around to trying to read a Henry James book, A Portrait of a Lady, and I have to say I don't get it.  It is exceedingly boring.  Nothing ever seems to happen in it.  I even asked AI to tell me why Henry James was a good writer.  It said something about characters and their development and that was all I picked up before I got bored even reading the AI summary.  I have given up on it at this point and got distracted by some Mark Twain (Life on the Mississippi) that I find much more interesting.  I don't know if I will try to soldier on and finish A Portrait of a Lady to see if I can figure out why Henry James is revered, or just let it go and move on.  I will also note that I am not a fan of Shakespeare either, so Henry, you are in good company.

Quicker Hits

I actually had 3 other topics that I started writing about here, but as the words flowed and kept on flowing, I decided I had better devote entire posts to them.  So be on the lookout in the coming days for posts on billionaires, my beef with Massachusetts, and coffee.