I think the acknowledgement is implicit in this piece - current structures have allowed this "power capture" and need to be improved. The point the author makes is that blockchain has very obvious avenues for the same power capture and that for this reason, it's not a better option than the difficult work of improving existing and well-explored systems of power/political order.
Spot on! The fruit has a natural protein which temporarily and harmlessly binds to your sweet receptors. Unlike other sweeteners which directly activate the receptor, this one indirectly activates the receptor only in the presence of acids.
This mechanism gives it loads of unique properties. One, the protein has no taste and doesn't have the same chemical/bitter aftertaste of the other sweeteners out there on the market. Furthermore, it serves as a food flavor enhancer just like any other herb or spice. You're not just sweetening the food, you're removing the unpleasant tartness and bitterness of foods that otherwise mask the taste of the food. Discover the hidden natural flavors of your food. Finally, since you're affecting your tongue instead of the food a single serving will last you 30-60 minutes, the entire length of a meal. You wouldn't need to add more like you would otherwise with other sweeteners if you were having a breakfast of coffee, yogurt parfait, and grapefruit.
Don't worry, it is not only natural but also completely safe. Coca Cola published a study on the protein in 2019 saying it has no potential long-term side effects. There is also another study published in 1974 where they gave rats 10,000 times the regular dose a human would take...every day...and found no side effects across several generations.
That’s a bit of a fallacy - you can legitimately point out the shortcomings of something without needing to name an alternative (e.g. criticizing Ponzi schemes). In this case, though, you could actually have an alternative of simply not using blockchain. The world was just fine for a long time without it.
In my experience selling a consumer product, barely a month goes by without a new PR/marketing agency telling me we should “go for the green angle”. Few people seem to understand that, like you said, these common differentiators, in my case “green/natural”, have become extremely commoditized.
The insured pay the price. Hospitals will never turn away a patient with a medical emergency - the inability of certain patients to pay is factored into hospital finances, raising the price for those who do pay.
Those who can't pay don't get their care for free. They'll be hounded by debt collectors the rest of their life, whatever credit they had will be trashed, and some will be pushed into bankruptcy. We are all paying for it.
I don't see why you're getting down-voted. If you've got "bad" insurance that fake ID from college and memorizing 12 random digits is probably more useful when it comes to emergency care. Sad but true.
It has zero to do with problems of people who don't lie. None at all. And mojority don't. It amounts to "situation is ok, because I can point to some fraudster that is not suffering".
What exactly that has to do with someone being haunted for debt? Or is he suggesting you should fraud ER and you are suckers if you don't?
I wish I could upvote you twice to help with the other downvotes. I know of at least 3 cases so far where folks walk into ER and lie about who they are when they leave. All of the cases are because of no health insurance, but they aren't hounded by any debt collectors.
The health care system has arbitrarily chosen the "hospital" as the place where nobody can be turned away.
If your kid has a possible ear infection or broken arm, and you have insurance, you go to an urgent care clinic. If you don't have insurance, you go to a hospital. In all other respects, the care is the same.
If you go to urgent care you are seen in order of arrival. In the ER you are seen based on need. This results in very different care experiences. Also you should expect that urgent care is more familiar with the types of things people should go to urgent care for - while the ER can deal with them they may take longer.
The kid with the simple ear infection will wait longer in the ER. (Note that I added simple: if the ear infection is complex the ER may see the kid sooner, but those are cases where when Urgent care finally gets to the kid they transfer to the nearest ER)
> If you go to urgent care you are seen in order of arrival.
Most "decent" urgent care facilities will triage. That's one of the reason why you're asked why you're there on check-in (and also to ensure you're not complaining of something acutely emergent).
Will a privately operated urgent care clinic take somebody who has no insurance or means of paying?
Waiting time is a matter of how the facility is managed. If an ER is handling a lot of noncritical cases, they can set up a facility for handling those cases, which would look just like an urgent care clinic. In fact, I once had a minor injury and went to the ER, and was transferred to an urgent care clinic in the same building. I had insurance.
The health care system has also chosen the hospital as the only place that's actually open. The nearest urgent care closes at 5 … which is worse than my bank.
> Hospitals will never turn away a patient with a medical emergency
No, but if you can't pay, and you won't drop dead in the next eight hours, they will try their best to toss your ass out onto the street after prescribing you a $900 bottle of aspirin.
US health care expenses per head are on the order of 2-3 times every other country on the planet.
Wen you're that far out of alignment, something is seriously wrong.
The US could scrap Medicare and use the savings to fund European style healthcare for everyone. You still get the option to top up with private health care, which can be pricey - $150 a month for a family, but there's always a base line to fall back to.
You are correct, and there is something the US can do about high drug costs. We pass a law requiring Big Pharma to sell drugs in the US at the planet's lowest negotiated price. This will help shift R&D costs onto Europe, Canada, and Asia, because Big Pharma will of necessity spread that cost around.
> You are correct, and there is something the US can do about high drug costs. We pass a law requiring Big Pharma to sell drugs in the US at the planet's lowest negotiated price
So if a big drug company sells a drug very cheap in some poor third world country, they have to sell it for the same price in the US?
Wouldn't the most likely outcome of that be that they stop selling their drugs in poor countries?
> Wouldn't the most likely outcome of that be that they stop selling their drugs in poor countries?
And the poor countries would just make knock-offs, and sell them to other poor countries. The US as a whole would lose out because much of the US economy is based on the dubious concept of 'intellectual property'
> You are correct, and there is something the US can do about high drug costs. We pass a law requiring Big Pharma to sell drugs in the US at the planet's lowest negotiated price. This will help shift R&D costs onto Europe, Canada, and Asia, because Big Pharma will of necessity spread that cost around.
A way less intrusive way to ensure the same end result is to allow reimporting of prescription drugs.
There was a bill to do this last year, but unfortunately it was killed in the Senate.
I was turned on to “no design” newsletters by Jeff Bezos’ updates on Blue Origin. They read and feel like a personal note from him, even though I know I’m just an entry on a big list.
Since then, I’ve made all important announcements to my company’s customers via this “personal”, no-design style. The reply-to is my direct email address, which I think deepens the personal touch of this style, and prevents me from abusing this format for marketing spam (since I inevitably get a few dozen replies from customers every time I send an email like this).
On the note of this style being more effective just because it’s different: There’s certainly an element of that, but I don’t think a really personal-feeling email can work for frequent marketing emails. First, I think the real reply-to is a critical part of a “personal” email, and second, I think companies will understand that this style works better when reserved for infrequent communication that you really want read. At our company, our standard marketing goes out designed. But when I want to announce a new product or feature, I’ll send it out just like an email from my outbox (plus the mandatory unsubscribe link). My customers read those emails more than any others, and I’ve never had a bad response.
Your observation about the reply-to is an important flag.
I almost always instantly delete any email where I see the From: or Reply-To: has noreply@ or the email starts off with
"Please do not reply to this email it is sent from an account which is not monitored"
Unfortunately one of the big transgressors of this are banks and other major service-provider organisations where we have ongoing contract relationships.
My attitude is, if these people do not understand the fundamental purpose of email then, I don't want to deal with it.
In the snail-mail physical postal world - in most jurisdictions - there is a requirement that businesses identify themselves and provide a return or correspondence address.
Just because it's email doesn't obviate this requirement, and pointing to a web-site Contact-Us page is rarely very helpful since that loses context in so many ways.
Banks can't be taking inquiries over email because it's not a secure way to communicate. They have to take inquiries through their own secure messaging systems.
I have similar anecdata. I have an email list at work for my company’s dealers. When I sent a “service bulletin” formatted as a plaintext email I got much more engagement as judged by the actual replies to that email.
I agree that in certain cases this method is a clear winner.
It's often said [0] that every language is conducive to a unique worldview - in my personal experience, I see the world very differently in Polish than I do in English. Yet even if that worldview perspective may be intangible (i.e. hard to prove), the simple cultural value of each language is tremendous. Losing a language is like burning the Mona Lisa - along with every photo, copy, or file of her ever made.
Your personal experiences are probably swamped by the fact that individuals have different personalities when speaking in different languages, due to the experiences that they've had speaking those languages. For example, it's not uncommon at all for an immigrant to have a very confident and assertive personality in their native language, compared to their personality when speaking the language of the country they live in. I know some people who are like this.
When I speak other languages I tend to be more serious. Perhaps this is because I was very serious when I was studying them? (Perhaps causation goes the other way?)
You're right, Meltwater and Optimizely aren't as bad as it gets (84.51 definitely is). And after spending some time on those websites, you're able to get a pretty good sense for what they do.
My main point is that it shouldn't ever be difficult for a potential customer to quickly get to that understanding, and I do believe these sites could do a far better job at quickly and clearly explaining their companies' function... just like you did.
"Meltwater's flagship product is media monitoring". "Optimizely is a website A/B testing tool". Boom.
I think they want to be able to pivot and add new services without having to retract how they previously labeled themselves.
For instance, Optimizely has a website A/B testing tool. They also support smartphone app A/B testing, and I think some backend/server-side testing. If smart watches or VR take off, they'll probably try to support those as well.
They also recently added automated content generation: I know they can generate product and page recommendations, and there may be other options as well.
They're a relatively young company and probably aren't ready to be typecast as "website A/B testing," in case another offering really takes off.
