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Do You Have A Right To Buy Crap?

Do You Have A Right To Buy Crap?

  • Yes

    Votes: 38 88.4%
  • No

    Votes: 5 11.6%

  • Total voters
    43
First you have to define what you consider to be a health plan that is crappy, then explain why someone is stupid for buying such a plan and then explain how doing so hurts anyone else. All you are demonstrating here is a statist reflex to defend anything the government commands you to do

One that allows the insurance company to get out of paying for whatever services you need and sticking the bill on the rest of us.
 
Perhaps we need to get government involved, to establish some minimum standards for a forum discussion to meet, and to make it illegal to start a discussion based on a crap premise.

Well then DP wouldn't exist. :2razz:
 
By definition half the population will have a below average IQ and it doesn't follow from that that simply because one has a below average IQ one is incapable of sound decision making.

What makes for a bad insurance policy? And is the policy bad or is it that people are buying policies that are ill suited for their needs? Those are I think two completely different things.

Experience has shown that too many people are not capable of choosing the policy that is right for them as demonstrated by the fact that an inability to pay medical bills is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US
 
Technically all those things already exist for example if I lived in Qubec it is technically illegal to possess and sell soy butter now that is stupid but making things such as the incredibly stupid beer made form jet fuel I agree with. I would love to see sagging pants in public laws. Though for the places you can live unlike Americans we have a right to it. We also limit professions such as we do not allow voodoo healers. So far we haven't slid down that slippery slope. Many other countries have already done it by eliminating health insurance. We have things called regulations if you have a right to buy crap why do we need food inspectors?


Of course conflating the issue really addresses to point...
 
By definition half the population will have a below average IQ and it doesn't follow from that that simply because one has a below average IQ one is incapable of sound decision making.

It's probably true that more than half the population do not understand the difference between median and average.
 
It's probably true that more than half the population do not understand the difference between median and average.

Damn. Open mouth insert foot.

I actually do know the difference for whats its worth. And given the population size and the rather small range of IQ scores I'm willing to bet the mean and median are close enough to each other that for all practical purposes half the population is below the mean IQ. Doesn't excuse my misstatement.....
 
Experience has shown that too many people are not capable of choosing the policy that is right for them as demonstrated by the fact that an inability to pay medical bills is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US

I'm guessing in some of those cases (many) it's not that people are incapable as much as having their choices limited by economics.

If getting a good policy means you can't pay for college but getting an okay policy means you can I'm guessing lots of people would roll the dice and take the latter. Especially if they figure in the worst case, if they happily live long enough to be presented with a million dollar bill, they can get the debt discharged via bankruptcy.
 
I'm guessing in some of those cases (many) it's not that people are incapable as much as having their choices limited by economics.

If getting a good policy means you can't pay for college but getting an okay policy means you can I'm guessing lots of people would roll the dice and take the latter. Especially if they figure in the worst case, if they happily live long enough to be presented with a million dollar bill, they can get the debt discharged via bankruptcy.

Since getting a large medical bill, large enough to cause bankruptcy, is something common enough to cause 60% of all bankruptcies, then it would seem that those people are miscalculating the risks.
 
By definition half the population will have a below average IQ and it doesn't follow from that that simply because one has a below average IQ one is incapable of sound decision making.

What makes for a bad insurance policy? And is the policy bad or is it that people are buying policies that are ill suited for their needs? Those are I think two completely different things.

It's probably true that more than half the population do not understand the difference between median and average.

Damn. Open mouth insert foot.

I actually do know the difference for whats its worth. And given the population size and the rather small range of IQ scores I'm willing to bet the mean and median are close enough to each other that for all practical purposes half the population is below the mean IQ. Doesn't excuse my misstatement.....

It may be true that half the population is below average (or mean), but you were incorrect when you said that it is true by definition.

By definition, it is true that half the population is below the median. That's what the median is—the point that divides the top half from the bottom half. Also known as the 50th percentile. It may or may not be very close to the average/mean, but nothing about the definition of any term requires this to be so nor guarantees that it will be.
 
It may be true that half the population is below average (or mean), but you were incorrect when you said that it is true by definition.

By definition, it is true that half the population is below the median. That's what the median is—the point that divides the top half from the bottom half. Also known as the 50th percentile. It may or may not be very close to the average/mean, but nothing about the definition of any term requires this to be so nor guarantees that it will be.

It depends on what you mean by "the definition". If you're referring to the general meaning of the words mean and median, then you're right; It's not "by definition". They don't have to be the same #.

However, if you're referring to the words as they're applied to the IQ test, then you're wrong because the IQ test is designed so that the avg is the mean *and* the median.
 
In the case of IQ scores, the median is the same as the avg. The test is designed that way

It depends on what you mean by "the definition". If you're referring to the general meaning of the words mean and median, then you're right; It's not "by definition". They don't have to be the same #.

However, if you're referring to the words as they're applied to the IQ test, then you're wrong because the IQ test is designed so that the avg is the mean *and* the median.

Not possible.

At best, the test can be designed so that the average will tend to be as close as the designers of the test can get it to the median; but it will never be possible to guarantee how the data will be distributed. All it takes is enopugh excptional outliers on one side, without a corresponding weight of exceptional outliers on the other side, to skew the average away from the median.

I recall hearing claims about the average human life expectancy at some time in the distant past being about thirty or forty years. This was probably true, but it is misleading. On would tend to take this claim to mean that a large part of the population lived until about the age of thirty or forty and then died at around that age. In fact, the average would be skewed heavily downward by a high infant mortality rate. The first year or so of one's life is the most vulnerable, and in poor conditions, many might not survive past those first few years; but if they do make it that long, they then have a good chance of living until their sixties or seventies, at least.
 
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Not possible.

At best, the test can be designed so that the average will tend to be as close as the designers of the test can get it to the median; but it will never be possible to guarantee how the data will be distributed. All it takes is enopugh excptional outliers on one side, without a corresponding weight of exceptional outliers on the other side, to skew the average away from the median.

I recall hearing claims about the average human life expectancy at some time in the distant past being about thirty or forty years. This was probably true, but it is misleading. On would tend to take this claim to mean that a large part of the population lived until about the age of thirty or forty and then died at around that age. In fact, the average would be skewed heavily downward by a high infant mortality rate. The first year or so of one's life is the most vulnerable, and in poor conditions, many might not survive past those first few years; but if they do make it that long, they then have a good chance of living until their sixties or seventies, at least.

You do have a point. It is probably not exactly the same. However, the test is designed to produce results that when put on a graph, the line describes a perfect bell curve. Given the #'s of people involved in taking the test, I believe they come pretty damn close. Any deviation is insignificant.
 
You do have a point. It is probably not exactly the same. However, the test is designed to produce results that when put on a graph, the line describes a perfect bell curve. Given the #'s of people involved in taking the test, I believe they come pretty damn close. Any deviation is insignificant.

That shows a serious misunderstanding of some basic principles of statistic. The bell curve isn't an artificial construct, to which statisticians try to fit their data. It's a natural phenomenon, that most natural data tend to produce, when properly analyzed. If one measures a lot of data, graphs them, and finds that the results do not appear to fit a bell curve, then one needs to take that as a sign that either one is doing something wrong, or else that there is some odd phenomenon that is causing the data to take on an unnatural distribution.


An example of falling loose in my memory, and demanding that I use it here to illustrate the point. Ever read the book Jurassic Park? Seeing the movie doesn't count. The movie stripped too much science out in favor of entertainment.

In the book, there's an example where they are analyzing some data pertaining to the age or size of the dinosaurs on the island, and observing how their measured data fit the bell curve. But then they realize that this represents a problem. The dinosaurs are supposedly being produced by cloning, and are supposed to be sterile—incapable of natural reproduction. Cloned dinosaurs were being produced and released in batches, and so the distribution should show peaks corresponding to the batches. That the distribution was fitting properly to a bell curve indicated that their measures to prevent it notwithstanding, the dinosaurs were, in fact, reproducing naturally, outside the control of their keepers—new dinosaurs were being created in the population all the time,by natural means, and not just when they were cloned and released.
 
That shows a serious misunderstanding of some basic principles of statistic. The bell curve isn't an artificial construct, to which statisticians try to fit their data. It's a natural phenomenon, that most natural data tend to produce, when properly analyzed. If one measures a lot of data, graphs them, and finds that the results do not appear to fit a bell curve, then one needs to take that as a sign that either one is doing something wrong, or else that there is some odd phenomenon that is causing the data to take on an unnatural distribution.

I didn't say that a bell curve is an artificial construct.

And there's nothing wrong with datasets that do not conform to a bell curve. Such non-conformance is not, in any way, a sign that the data or the process is wrong . There's nothing unnatural about it.

Here's an example:

Global_Temps_08.gif


However, the IQ test is designed to produce results that graph out to a bell curve based on the assumption that intelligence is distributed in a bell curve
 
Isn't that what people did when they voted for Obama?
 
I didn't say that a bell curve is an artificial construct.

And there's nothing wrong with datasets that do not conform to a bell curve. Such non-conformance is not, in any way, a sign that the data or the process is wrong . There's nothing unnatural about it.

Here's an example:

Global_Temps_08.gif

The bell curve pertains to the distribution of data. That's not what the above chart shows, so there's no reason to expect that it would show a bell curve.


However, the IQ test is designed to produce results that graph out to a bell curve based on the assumption that intelligence is distributed in a bell curve

That's nonsense. If the data are expected to be normally distributed, then you don't have to “design” anything to make them fit a bell curve. Normally-distributed data will fit a bell curve without any such tinkering.

You seem to be operating from an amazing ignorance of basic statistical principles, built upon a badly-flawed premise that you know anything at all useful about this field. It also seems that you think it is somehow valid and expected that one should adjust the measurement and analysis methods in order to fit the data to an expected result.
 
Do I still have to pay for RED scofflaws who buy crap when they are forced to emergency scare ?
 
It may be true that half the population is below average (or mean), but you were incorrect when you said that it is true by definition.

By definition, it is true that half the population is below the median. That's what the median is—the point that divides the top half from the bottom half. Also known as the 50th percentile. It may or may not be very close to the average/mean, but nothing about the definition of any term requires this to be so nor guarantees that it will be.

Understood. Thanks for the correction.
 
The bell curve pertains to the distribution of data. That's not what the above chart shows, so there's no reason to expect that it would show a bell curve.

Data distributions do not have to conform to a bell curve. I'm not sure where you got that idea.


That's nonsense. If the data are expected to be normally distributed, then you don't have to “design” anything to make them fit a bell curve. Normally-distributed data will fit a bell curve without any such tinkering.

And yet, that's what the "authors" of the IQ tests do.
 
Literal, actual crap? Yes, I should have a God-given right to, dammit!
 
Data distributions do not have to conform to a bell curve. I'm not sure where you got that idea.

No, they don't have to, but in general, they tend to do so, and when they don't, that's usually a good reason to wonder why.

Anyway, I have much better things to do that argue about statistics and data analysis with someone who obviously thinks that he knows much, much more about the subject than he actually does.
 
Do I still have to pay for RED scofflaws who buy crap when they are forced to emergency scare ?
Yes, and for the BLUE ones, too. The only difference now is that it is institutionalized through codification.
 
Do I still have to pay for RED scofflaws who buy crap when they are forced to emergency scare ?

Yep. You also now get to subsidize exchange insurance for all folks that opt to take it whether they use the ER (or any other care) or not ;)
 
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Well, I would think you had better hope the government doesn't one day decide some of your stupid decisions are no longer allowed because they've decided they hurt others.

Like what kind of clothes you wear, or what kind of food you eat? Maybe where you chose to live, or what profession you chose to follow?

Why is it that history shows slippery slopes are so hard for some to see.

And why is it that some see "slippery slopes" where there are none? Not going bankrupt because you get sick is not Govt. interference it is govt. doing its job. Who do you think pays those medical bills when someone declares bankruptcy?
 
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