Pushing back
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 06:36 PM * 31 comments
I gather from the Interwebs that August is going to be a heavy month for health politics. The fight back against any change to the way that America deals with health care and health insurance is starting now, and it’s going to be intense.
They’re going to say it can’t be done, that health insurance and health care are inevitably expensive. They’re going to shriek about rationing, and ignore the fact that the US already rations health care on the basis of ability to pay—one of the most barbaric and obscene metrics conceivable.
And they’re going to say that health care in the rest of the world isn’t really that good. That the American system, for all its flaws, is the best there can be.
via Making Light: Pushing back.
rePost:Nice Post on Robot Morality:Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: The artificial morality of the robot warrior
Personally I think they need to read the I,Robot novels.
The artificial morality of the robot warrior
February 21, 2009
Great strides have been made in recent years in the development of combat robots. The US military has deployed ground robots, aerial robots, marine robots, stationary robots, and (reportedly) space robots. The robots are used for both reconnaissance and fighting, and further rapid advances in their design and capabilities can be expected in the years ahead. One consequence of these advances is that robots will gain more autonomy, which means they will have to act in uncertain situations without direct human instruction. That raises a large and thorny challenge: how do you program a robot to be an ethical warrior?
Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: The artificial morality of the robot warrior.