Subject:
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Re: Why is AIDS such a big deal?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 9 May 2000 15:12:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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661 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Ed Jones writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Mike Stanley writes:
>
> > But back to the issue I was addressing - tax money and how the government
> > should be spending it. I know one person who has died from AIDS.
>
> How fortunate for you. I can think of 25 off the top of my head, but in
> actuality, its more like 75 that I personally knew. Of the first friends
> (20+) we made when we moved to NYC in 1982, there are four - FOUR - of us • still
> alive.
And that's unfortunate indeed. But I don't think Mike was trying to get into a
"more of my friends died" contest, merely trying to show that he has some
familiarity with the pain and suffering the disease causes back when you were
saying "no one knows what it's like" or implicating it, anyway.
The fact that in your local sample set there's a high incidence is not in and
of itself an argument for AIDS being number one on the funding priority list.
I'd argue it's currently getting proportionally more funding than it deserves
to get given relative harm to the nation as a whole.
However it IS an argument that perhaps there *is* something in your local
sample set that makes your sample set more vulnerable. And there is, and now we
know *what* it is. Pity we didn't better understand it back in 1982 so your
friends and my uncle didn't die, but it's also a pity we don't have automated
guideways on all our roads so no one dies in car accidents, or any of 1000
other possible ways to reduce death from anything other than old age.
Resources get allocated one way or another. There are only a finite number of
them to go around. I'd prefer that the market do the allocating, because when
it does, it works very well. You'd prefer that the big gun of government do the
allocating, which is misguided but since there are enough of you making the
argument, I have to argue the point of which diseases "deserve" funding instead
of just sitting back letting the market decide and allocate efficiently.
Sorry if explicitly making that argument hurts your feelings, really, I am. But
you forced me to make it, so don't complain about the consequences.
> Using your rational, money spent on diseases of the aged should be
> cut as well. Why spend money to prolong the life of people on
> Social Security?
( c /rational/rationale/ )
Agreed. Why should the GOVERNMENT spend money on this? But what was your
point? *I'm* funding it because it benefits me. Look into the extropian
society for some out of the box thinking on how to best defeat death.
++Lar
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Why is AIDS such a big deal?
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| (...) Not getting into a "more of my friends died" contest. Mike was making the point that AIDS has only touched 1 person in his life and that he felt the diseases that touched the people in his life should receive funding before AIDS is funded. I (...) (25 years ago, 9-May-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Why is AIDS such a big deal?
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| (...) How fortunate for you. I can think of 25 off the top of my head, but in actuality, its more like 75 that I personally knew. Of the first friends (20+) we made when we moved to NYC in 1982, there are four - FOUR - of us still alive. (...) I (...) (25 years ago, 9-May-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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