Leaked Cables, Cuban Healthcare System

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
141

[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:

Whoops!

“Yet Cuban biotechnology is now, among other things, leading the way in the development of a new generation of anti-cancer therapies expected to be available to the European market by 2008.”

“Although it is a small country with only 11 million people, it now boasts 52 scientific research institutes in the capital and more than 12,000 scientists on the whole island.”

“Cuba pulled off its first scientific coup with the discovery of a new vaccine for meningitis B in the late 1980s. The vaccine controlled epidemics at home, and obtained good results abroad especially in Argentina and Brazil.”

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/cuba-ailing-not-its-biomedical-industry

See John? This is the disadvantage of shooting your mouth off and making a bunch of claims when you don’t know what you’re talking about–you’re frequently wrong.

But let me guess: you’ll follow up with a hostile post in which you accuse me of a being a blind zealot.

PS This link was again the very first one that came up after a Google search. That’s to whoever was talking about being able to “find bullshit to support anything you want” on the Internet. If your argument fits facts, you don’t have to look that hard.[/quote]

Where is this revolutionary drug? What has it changed. Want to take a look at America’s drugs for cancer. Is your plans for the future to be a cherry picker because you are a master at it.

142

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]heavythrower wrote:
ok fella, write your thesis on how great Cuba is, then actually go to little Havana in Miami and convince the people who are 50-60 years old who lived in Castro’s Cuba a good part of their life.

my argument is more than valid.

I can lurk dozens of threads on this forum, and watch the conservatives link tons of bullshit to support there point of view, then the libs post an equal amount of links to support exactly the opposite.

in this “information age” one can find bullshit to support just about any argument they want.

age, real life experience, they matter…anyone who wants to argue that please go ahead, but you will look dumb if you do.

the guy got real personal and told me to “get my shit together” before I dared question his mad interwebz debating skillz…what a laugh.

the people who put their lives in my hands every day and the two households who I support with my income think my shit is together pretty good.

If you think somebodies personal experience means nothing, and it does not count when keeping score in the all important internet argument game, well, that shows what a really small and unimportant person you really are.

For example, I think I know quite a bit about the healthcare field, I know lots about treatment and management of many different terminal diseases, but I am not about to preach to somebody who is, say, fighting terminal cancer right now about how they should feel about it. [/quote]

u mad?

Ok lets say I where to wright a thesis on the cuban healthcare system and my hypothesis where that it where excellent. To support my hypothesis I had to back it up with alot of arguments that where relevant to the subject and that where rootet in empiric data. My age, job, salary, number of kids is irelevant to the topic. The only thing relevant is arguments that proov or disproov the hypothesis. Thats was my point. I also broath it up because some of the guys at PWI attachs the person instead of the argument and even if some find that cool, macho or whatever, its not proving them right, it just shows that they are out of any good counterarguments.

btw: good for you that you are a father, you seem proud of that. I am happy for you( no kidding ). And in a discussion about raising kids, your experience in that would count, but I dont see what it has to do with the cuban healthcare.

take care.[/quote]

hahaha! mad? I worked in San Quinton Maximum security prison for a few years, takes more that an over-educated underemployed university student to make me mad…

point I am trying to make is that personal experience and first hand knowledge does have merit.

to back off the ugly tone that is brewing, I will ask you an honest question.

you are from Norway wright? How would you appreciate if I pulled a bunch of data off the internet about the Norwegian health care system, and started trying to make a particular point about Norwegian health care that contraindicated your and your families and friends lifelong personal experiences?

THEN, when you chimed in and tried to tell me how it really is in Norway, I respond by telling you that your information was bullshit, that my all-knowing self and the shit I pull up on the internet trumps all of your first hand knowledge?

Honestly, how would you react to that?

143

[quote]kilpaba wrote:
His point is simply ATTACK THE ARGUMENT and NOT THE PERSON. If the stats are bullshit, it is incumbent on you to show HOW they are bullshit. Simply waving your hands and saying “I don’t think that is true from my experience so it isn’t” is not a good argument. Your world view is by definition extremely limited.

Experience does matter, no one is claiming it doesn’t, but if we are talking about macro-scale things it becomes much less relevant. There is also the fact that people are often just plain out and out wrong in their perceptions and interpretations of things. This is why we have objective data in the first place.

The only example I can think of off hand is that people are often extremely bad at knowing what will make them happy (according to the “Science of Happiness”). They think if they just get more money, for example, that they will then be happier, but once basic needs are met this has been shown to be false. Lottery winners revert back to the same baseline happiness score after the initial euphoric wave dissipates. So why are most people still chasing money? Doesn’t our perception of things dictate what is true? Not always it would appear.

Once again for the record, I am a Libertarian who does in fact think the Cuban Health Care system is not as good as people would make out. I am just saying we need to actually debate if we are going to learn anything. No one said it was supposed to be easy. [/quote]

A fellow Libertarian, nice to meet you.

I think the point I am trying to make is that data and research, especially by egg-heads who only accumulate and read other peoples work can blind one to common sense and practical reality.

On a “macro-scale” as you put it…many of Cuba’s citizens are risking their lives to try to get into this country, NOT the other way around.

I know this is a restatement, but If you really are honest with yourself and place your thought process in the real world and not in data you cherry pick on the internet…that simple common sense fact says it all.

I am not singleng out you per-say, just trying to make a point.

I know that I am not going to change anybodies mind here about anything, it is a well know scientific FACT that NOBODY is ever wrong on the internet, lol.

I am just expressing my opinion about a particular subject that I have a pretty unique insight about.

144

[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:

Hehe, you must not have seen many then, as he is still using the same basic logical fallacies that you conservatives are so fond of.

By the way, John, where’s that currency crisis you’ve been hyperventilating about for all this time?

“The currency crisis begins now.”

-John S.

I am a moderate-fiscally conservative socially liberal LIBERTARIAN.

do not try to label me as some right wing-nut and I will try to refrain from thinking of you as a left wing liberal pussy.

(5/6/2010)
[/quote]

145

[quote]kilpaba wrote:On this count we could not agree more. I think it is shameful that certain businesses and industries are favored in this country and it wreaks of mercantilism and corruption. My method would be to bar the government from subsidizing ANY industry under any circumstances and being totally neutral in the economy and restricted to that capacity.

As I mentioned in another thread we debated on together, most often monopolies/cartels really only persist where they are able to get the government to box out the competition via legal mechanisms. I think many of the factors socialists complain of with big business would disappear were government disallowed to subsidize any business or group.

Perhaps you are more of a libertarian than you think![/quote]

My problem with this is that, in my opinion, the government really needs to subsidize/be involved in some industries, and so totally barring government participation would help in some areas, but not in others. For instance, I think most people would agree that the government needs to be involved to some extent in the health care industry. At least to the extent of establishing and enforcing professional standards, as well as making sure patients are not taken advantage of by insurance companies. In addition, the telecommunications industry, I think, is one in which it really doesn’t make a whole lot of long-term sense to have lots of redundant networks and diverging technological standards. Sort of like roads, utilities, and other natural monopolies.

Also, some important industries are so extremely capital-intensive that it makes totally private operation unfeasible. A good example is our energy policy, or lack thereof. The time is coming, quicker than would be convenient, that we are going to start seeing diminishing oil production. This fact, together with unpredictable events like the uprisings in the middle east, with the capacity to disrupt production/distribution of oil, to say nothing of the environmental issues, make it pretty important, in my mind, that we begin to seriously move away from fossil fuels. Few people would disagree that attention is needed in this area. But right now, even though there are many promising technologies extant, we don’t have enough capacity to supply any significant portion of our energy through these other means. A massive investment is needed to develop, standardize, and build manufacturing capacity for these technologies, to an extent that would be almost impossible for the market to provide alone. What is needed is a large-scale effort, with unity of purpose, focused on developing selected technologies. Sort of like a peaceful version of the Manhattan Project.

So for these reasons, as well as my views on inherent instabilities in capitalism, I think government involvement in the economy is necessary.

I don’t pretend that it would eliminate corruption, but I think it would make it harder for organizations to bribe politicians. To pick a recent example, I think it would have been harder for News Corp. to give $1 million to the Republican Governors’ Association if no single person in the company were authorized to make such a payout.

146

Hehe, no no no. You were predicting a massive flight from the dollar, which of course hasn’t happened.

Except that worldwide, monetary policy has next to nothing to do with rising food prices:

“As ClimateWire and SciAm explains,‘world food prices hit a record high in December thanks to crop failures from a series of extreme weather events around the world’:”

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-01-07/extreme-weather-events-help-drive-food-prices-record-highs

So no, things aren’t really going the way you said they were. If you’re always predicting some sort of calamity, eventually there will be one. It doesn’t mean you had any idea what you are talking about.

I’m not really “up your ass,” I just think it’s funny that I keep owning you, and then you slink off just long enough for people to forget about the public flogging, and then you come back later claiming to have been right. Perhaps you’ve forgotten about the lesson I had to give you regarding the Reagan tax cuts. Not that I am trying to toot my own horn, but when you make ridiculous claims here (you’ve been wrong twice in this thread alone, as I pointed out), and you obviously have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m going to take you down a peg.

It made it longer than yours.

147

Well, it wasn’t the point (read, you’re making a strawman argument [let me know if you need me to explain that to you]), but do we get to divide their totals by their GDP?

Son, the day you pick one of my posts apart is the day I’ll respond to your post without using my other hand to floss. As it stands, you’re a joke–entertaining, with your wildly incorrect predictions, and your inability to understand even the basics of economics, but a joke nonetheless. Until you can figure out how the copy and paste works on your browser so you can post a link to back up the crazy shit you say, your posts will be nothing more than comic relief. Even some of your fellow conservatives are starting to take note of what an embarrassment you are, although they’re nicer about it than I am.

148

Sorry, I don’t have time to respond to every single mistake you make. Besides, some of us picked hard majors, and don’t have the luxury of unlimited time to waste on this forum. Besides, with so little intellect in this forum, it’s not productive anyway.

I was referring to your predictions for the US, which have been laughably wrong. If you want to talk about Europe, we can.

Haha!!

OF course! you have a brilliant strategy: if you never read anything, you can never know you’re wrong! Genius!

149

It’s OK, anger is the first step. Or is it the second? I’m not really sure. What I am sure of is that it’s hilarious watching you get defensive after someone exposes your ignorance.

150

[quote]heavythrower wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]heavythrower wrote:
ok fella, write your thesis on how great Cuba is, then actually go to little Havana in Miami and convince the people who are 50-60 years old who lived in Castro’s Cuba a good part of their life.

my argument is more than valid.

I can lurk dozens of threads on this forum, and watch the conservatives link tons of bullshit to support there point of view, then the libs post an equal amount of links to support exactly the opposite.

in this “information age” one can find bullshit to support just about any argument they want.

age, real life experience, they matter…anyone who wants to argue that please go ahead, but you will look dumb if you do.

the guy got real personal and told me to “get my shit together” before I dared question his mad interwebz debating skillz…what a laugh.

the people who put their lives in my hands every day and the two households who I support with my income think my shit is together pretty good.

If you think somebodies personal experience means nothing, and it does not count when keeping score in the all important internet argument game, well, that shows what a really small and unimportant person you really are.

For example, I think I know quite a bit about the healthcare field, I know lots about treatment and management of many different terminal diseases, but I am not about to preach to somebody who is, say, fighting terminal cancer right now about how they should feel about it. [/quote]

u mad?

Ok lets say I where to wright a thesis on the cuban healthcare system and my hypothesis where that it where excellent. To support my hypothesis I had to back it up with alot of arguments that where relevant to the subject and that where rootet in empiric data. My age, job, salary, number of kids is irelevant to the topic. The only thing relevant is arguments that proov or disproov the hypothesis. Thats was my point. I also broath it up because some of the guys at PWI attachs the person instead of the argument and even if some find that cool, macho or whatever, its not proving them right, it just shows that they are out of any good counterarguments.

btw: good for you that you are a father, you seem proud of that. I am happy for you( no kidding ). And in a discussion about raising kids, your experience in that would count, but I dont see what it has to do with the cuban healthcare.

take care.[/quote]

hahaha! mad? I worked in San Quinton Maximum security prison for a few years, takes more that an over-educated underemployed university student to make me mad…

point I am trying to make is that personal experience and first hand knowledge does have merit.

to back off the ugly tone that is brewing, I will ask you an honest question.

you are from Norway wright? How would you appreciate if I pulled a bunch of data off the internet about the Norwegian health care system, and started trying to make a particular point about Norwegian health care that contraindicated your and your families and friends lifelong personal experiences?

THEN, when you chimed in and tried to tell me how it really is in Norway, I respond by telling you that your information was bullshit, that my all-knowing self and the shit I pull up on the internet trumps all of your first hand knowledge?

Honestly, how would you react to that?

[/quote]

I would probably at first get mad, but I would probably cool down before I respond. After I had cooled down I would probably check if your sources where any good, If they where good and showed a true picture of the norwegian healthcare system I would probably get mad at myself for not knowing enough about my own countrys system and would probably not respond at all, just ignoring that I where owned in that debate haha. On the other hand, if the sources where not good, I would try to find a better source that proved me right and post it and keep on debating it.

151

You see, heavythrower, some people understand that how it is possible for one’s personal experience to be unrepresentative of a certain subject.

152

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]Dustin wrote:

[quote]jre67t wrote:
Lol so dont be ashamed Ryan P. Carter. Admit the error of your ways, though you present things in a orderly fashion, like most fascist nations would.
Take this in: your entire post is wrong. Rethink things, admitting your false ways is only a miracle waiting to happen my friend.
I just find it so hard to believe there are people like you. Who are real commies living in the states. [/quote]

Not to take one particular side, but you haven’t really refuted anything Ryan has said. He’s making an effort to back up his side of the argument. The rest of you, by and large, are just spouting opinion without any facts to back up your assertions.

And just to make clear, I’m politically opposite of Ryan, so I’m in no way arguing that his point is right (or wrong).[/quote]

In my limited experience that is how these debates usually are. Ryan provides facts for his arguments(whether or not they are correct but at least you can see where he is getting his POV from) and most everyone else provide their opinions as if they were facts.
I know there is book-smart and street-smart, but just saying that your opinion is correct without backing it up with some facts(or something else, ie, you’re a geneticist so you know about genes) doesn’t help resolve or educate anyone.[/quote]

I’ll take a 1000 Cuban’s anecdotes of life in the motherland over 1 man’s statistical proof of Utopia.

Yes, Statistics are great, but anecdotes are valuable, too. Rationing of staples doesn’t sound like paradise to me.

153

[quote]florelius wrote:
the age argument is bullshit and irrelevant to the discussion. Anyone who uses age, proffesion, bodyweight etc
are using it because they lack relevant arguments, I propose that anyone that get a counterargument
of that sort ignores the person who uses it. btw that type of argumentation is juvenile.

as an example.

If I used that type of arguments in a thesis at the university I would at best get a low grade or at wourst flunk. If anyone wants to argue that please go ahead, but you will look dumb if you do.

[/quote]

Your use of juvenile is ironic.

154

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]Dustin wrote:

[quote]jre67t wrote:
Lol so dont be ashamed Ryan P. Carter. Admit the error of your ways, though you present things in a orderly fashion, like most fascist nations would.
Take this in: your entire post is wrong. Rethink things, admitting your false ways is only a miracle waiting to happen my friend.
I just find it so hard to believe there are people like you. Who are real commies living in the states. [/quote]

Not to take one particular side, but you haven’t really refuted anything Ryan has said. He’s making an effort to back up his side of the argument. The rest of you, by and large, are just spouting opinion without any facts to back up your assertions.

And just to make clear, I’m politically opposite of Ryan, so I’m in no way arguing that his point is right (or wrong).[/quote]

In my limited experience that is how these debates usually are. Ryan provides facts for his arguments(whether or not they are correct but at least you can see where he is getting his POV from) and most everyone else provide their opinions as if they were facts.
I know there is book-smart and street-smart, but just saying that your opinion is correct without backing it up with some facts(or something else, ie, you’re a geneticist so you know about genes) doesn’t help resolve or educate anyone.[/quote]

I’ll take a 1000 Cuban’s anecdotes of life in the motherland over 1 man’s statistical proof of Utopia.

Yes, Statistics are great, but anecdotes are valuable, too. Rationing of staples doesn’t sound like paradise to me.[/quote]

THIS is what I was trying to get through to Ryan.

Ryan, I think you rely too much on stats, on not enough on real world experiences. Can both be skewed? Yes. Can both be biased? Of course. But with real world experience, YOU are able to gauge the caliber of person you are dealing with. With a study, it is almost always funded by a special interest group who will most likely NOT call it straight.

Ryan, you need some street smarts my man.

155

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]heavythrower wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]heavythrower wrote:
ok fella, write your thesis on how great Cuba is, then actually go to little Havana in Miami and convince the people who are 50-60 years old who lived in Castro’s Cuba a good part of their life.

my argument is more than valid.

I can lurk dozens of threads on this forum, and watch the conservatives link tons of bullshit to support there point of view, then the libs post an equal amount of links to support exactly the opposite.

in this “information age” one can find bullshit to support just about any argument they want.

age, real life experience, they matter…anyone who wants to argue that please go ahead, but you will look dumb if you do.

the guy got real personal and told me to “get my shit together” before I dared question his mad interwebz debating skillz…what a laugh.

the people who put their lives in my hands every day and the two households who I support with my income think my shit is together pretty good.

If you think somebodies personal experience means nothing, and it does not count when keeping score in the all important internet argument game, well, that shows what a really small and unimportant person you really are.

For example, I think I know quite a bit about the healthcare field, I know lots about treatment and management of many different terminal diseases, but I am not about to preach to somebody who is, say, fighting terminal cancer right now about how they should feel about it. [/quote]

u mad?

Ok lets say I where to wright a thesis on the cuban healthcare system and my hypothesis where that it where excellent. To support my hypothesis I had to back it up with alot of arguments that where relevant to the subject and that where rootet in empiric data. My age, job, salary, number of kids is irelevant to the topic. The only thing relevant is arguments that proov or disproov the hypothesis. Thats was my point. I also broath it up because some of the guys at PWI attachs the person instead of the argument and even if some find that cool, macho or whatever, its not proving them right, it just shows that they are out of any good counterarguments.

btw: good for you that you are a father, you seem proud of that. I am happy for you( no kidding ). And in a discussion about raising kids, your experience in that would count, but I dont see what it has to do with the cuban healthcare.

take care.[/quote]

hahaha! mad? I worked in San Quinton Maximum security prison for a few years, takes more that an over-educated underemployed university student to make me mad…

point I am trying to make is that personal experience and first hand knowledge does have merit.

to back off the ugly tone that is brewing, I will ask you an honest question.

you are from Norway wright? How would you appreciate if I pulled a bunch of data off the internet about the Norwegian health care system, and started trying to make a particular point about Norwegian health care that contraindicated your and your families and friends lifelong personal experiences?

THEN, when you chimed in and tried to tell me how it really is in Norway, I respond by telling you that your information was bullshit, that my all-knowing self and the shit I pull up on the internet trumps all of your first hand knowledge?

Honestly, how would you react to that?

[/quote]

I would probably at first get mad, but I would probably cool down before I respond. After I had cooled down I would probably check if your sources where any good, If they where good and showed a true picture of the norwegian healthcare system I would probably get mad at myself for not knowing enough about my own countrys system and would probably not respond at all, just ignoring that I where owned in that debate haha. On the other hand, if the sources where not good, I would try to find a better source that proved me right and post it and keep on debating it.

[/quote]

fair enough, point taken.

but i will reiterate that statistical data can be spun and skewed in a variety of ways to get whatever point you want across.

also, it is easy enough to cherry pick different studies and stats that support your argument. a few minutes of browsing the various threads in this forum is proof enough of that.

here is a good example

we have a relatively new infection control supervisor at one of the hospitals i work at. she is a complete idiot in my estimation.

she has very little experience actually working in the trenches, and has been a “desk-jockey” the vast majority of her career, and quite frankly, she seems just a bit dim, I doubt her IQ is very impressive at all.

because of her lack of experience and basic common sense, she relies almost exclusively on published literature and studies(most lifted directly from the CDC) to make policy.

she enacts and enforces the most impractical, cumbersome, worthless and inefficient infection control policies I have ever had to deal with in 20 years.

when challenged, she simply gets defensive and refers to the studies.

one day she got OWNED by one of the physicians i work with who actually participated and did much of the actual research during his fellowship on one of the studies she was basing one of her policies on, and he tore her to pieces telling her how she was interpreting the data wrong, and that the conclusions they came to though statistically significant, did not warrant the cost and time investment this particular policy demanded.

am i making any sense at all?

156

[quote]MaximusB wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]Dustin wrote:

[quote]jre67t wrote:
Lol so dont be ashamed Ryan P. Carter. Admit the error of your ways, though you present things in a orderly fashion, like most fascist nations would.
Take this in: your entire post is wrong. Rethink things, admitting your false ways is only a miracle waiting to happen my friend.
I just find it so hard to believe there are people like you. Who are real commies living in the states. [/quote]

Not to take one particular side, but you haven’t really refuted anything Ryan has said. He’s making an effort to back up his side of the argument. The rest of you, by and large, are just spouting opinion without any facts to back up your assertions.

And just to make clear, I’m politically opposite of Ryan, so I’m in no way arguing that his point is right (or wrong).[/quote]

In my limited experience that is how these debates usually are. Ryan provides facts for his arguments(whether or not they are correct but at least you can see where he is getting his POV from) and most everyone else provide their opinions as if they were facts.
I know there is book-smart and street-smart, but just saying that your opinion is correct without backing it up with some facts(or something else, ie, you’re a geneticist so you know about genes) doesn’t help resolve or educate anyone.[/quote]

I’ll take a 1000 Cuban’s anecdotes of life in the motherland over 1 man’s statistical proof of Utopia.

Yes, Statistics are great, but anecdotes are valuable, too. Rationing of staples doesn’t sound like paradise to me.[/quote]

THIS is what I was trying to get through to Ryan.

Ryan, I think you rely too much on stats, on not enough on real world experiences. Can both be skewed? Yes. Can both be biased? Of course. But with real world experience, YOU are able to gauge the caliber of person you are dealing with. With a study, it is almost always funded by a special interest group who will most likely NOT call it straight.

Ryan, you need some street smarts my man.[/quote]

QFT

157

[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
You see, heavythrower, some people understand that how it is possible for one’s personal experience to be unrepresentative of a certain subject.[/quote]

yeesh…I am done with you kid. haha…

stats and data can be unrepresentative too.

whatevs…like I said, NOBODY is ever wrong on the interwebz.

there was a guy on another thread trying to brow beat me into trying to tell me about the northern california housing marked was.

I was trying to make a point that while actually in that market and trying to get a house, I felt prices were far too high to make reasonable home ownership a reality. My salary got mentioned, and he proceeded to quote stats from wherever that stated that my salary was in the top 10% or something like that for my geographical area, and I should not be having the problems I was having getting into the housing market.

well, I was living this, and despite my me being “rich”(what a fucking joke) I felt that the percent of net monthly income that a decent house mortgage was still very oppressive. he kept telling me I did not know wtf I was talking about.

thats right, a guy in Kentucky who admittedly never has been out of his own state was telling me about the housing market in my home area.

wow…

isn’t the internet great?

159

[quote]heavythrower wrote:

[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
You see, heavythrower, some people understand that how it is possible for one’s personal experience to be unrepresentative of a certain subject.[/quote]

yeesh…I am done with you kid. haha…

stats and data can be unrepresentative too.

whatevs…like I said, NOBODY is ever wrong on the interwebz.

there was a guy on another thread trying to brow beat me into trying to tell me about the northern california housing marked was.

I was trying to make a point that while actually in that market and trying to get a house, I felt prices were far too high to make reasonable home ownership a reality. My salary got mentioned, and he proceeded to quote stats from wherever that stated that my salary was in the top 10% or something like that for my geographical area, and I should not be having the problems I was having getting into the housing market.

well, I was living this, and despite my me being “rich”(what a fucking joke) I felt that the percent of net monthly income that a decent house mortgage was still very oppressive. he kept telling me I did not know wtf I was talking about.

thats right, a guy in Kentucky who admittedly never has been out of his own state was telling me about the housing market in my home area.

wow…

isn’t the internet great?[/quote]

lol

160

[quote]heavythrower wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]heavythrower wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]heavythrower wrote:
ok fella, write your thesis on how great Cuba is, then actually go to little Havana in Miami and convince the people who are 50-60 years old who lived in Castro’s Cuba a good part of their life.

my argument is more than valid.

I can lurk dozens of threads on this forum, and watch the conservatives link tons of bullshit to support there point of view, then the libs post an equal amount of links to support exactly the opposite.

in this “information age” one can find bullshit to support just about any argument they want.

age, real life experience, they matter…anyone who wants to argue that please go ahead, but you will look dumb if you do.

the guy got real personal and told me to “get my shit together” before I dared question his mad interwebz debating skillz…what a laugh.

the people who put their lives in my hands every day and the two households who I support with my income think my shit is together pretty good.

If you think somebodies personal experience means nothing, and it does not count when keeping score in the all important internet argument game, well, that shows what a really small and unimportant person you really are.

For example, I think I know quite a bit about the healthcare field, I know lots about treatment and management of many different terminal diseases, but I am not about to preach to somebody who is, say, fighting terminal cancer right now about how they should feel about it. [/quote]

u mad?

Ok lets say I where to wright a thesis on the cuban healthcare system and my hypothesis where that it where excellent. To support my hypothesis I had to back it up with alot of arguments that where relevant to the subject and that where rootet in empiric data. My age, job, salary, number of kids is irelevant to the topic. The only thing relevant is arguments that proov or disproov the hypothesis. Thats was my point. I also broath it up because some of the guys at PWI attachs the person instead of the argument and even if some find that cool, macho or whatever, its not proving them right, it just shows that they are out of any good counterarguments.

btw: good for you that you are a father, you seem proud of that. I am happy for you( no kidding ). And in a discussion about raising kids, your experience in that would count, but I dont see what it has to do with the cuban healthcare.

take care.[/quote]

hahaha! mad? I worked in San Quinton Maximum security prison for a few years, takes more that an over-educated underemployed university student to make me mad…

point I am trying to make is that personal experience and first hand knowledge does have merit.

to back off the ugly tone that is brewing, I will ask you an honest question.

you are from Norway wright? How would you appreciate if I pulled a bunch of data off the internet about the Norwegian health care system, and started trying to make a particular point about Norwegian health care that contraindicated your and your families and friends lifelong personal experiences?

THEN, when you chimed in and tried to tell me how it really is in Norway, I respond by telling you that your information was bullshit, that my all-knowing self and the shit I pull up on the internet trumps all of your first hand knowledge?

Honestly, how would you react to that?

[/quote]

I would probably at first get mad, but I would probably cool down before I respond. After I had cooled down I would probably check if your sources where any good, If they where good and showed a true picture of the norwegian healthcare system I would probably get mad at myself for not knowing enough about my own countrys system and would probably not respond at all, just ignoring that I where owned in that debate haha. On the other hand, if the sources where not good, I would try to find a better source that proved me right and post it and keep on debating it.

[/quote]

fair enough, point taken.

but i will reiterate that statistical data can be spun and skewed in a variety of ways to get whatever point you want across.

also, it is easy enough to cherry pick different studies and stats that support your argument. a few minutes of browsing the various threads in this forum is proof enough of that.

here is a good example

we have a relatively new infection control supervisor at one of the hospitals i work at. she is a complete idiot in my estimation.

she has very little experience actually working in the trenches, and has been a “desk-jockey” the vast majority of her career, and quite frankly, she seems just a bit dim, I doubt her IQ is very impressive at all.

because of her lack of experience and basic common sense, she relies almost exclusively on published literature and studies(most lifted directly from the CDC) to make policy.

she enacts and enforces the most impractical, cumbersome, worthless and inefficient infection control policies I have ever had to deal with in 20 years.

when challenged, she simply gets defensive and refers to the studies.

one day she got OWNED by one of the physicians i work with who actually participated and did much of the actual research during his fellowship on one of the studies she was basing one of her policies on, and he tore her to pieces telling her how she was interpreting the data wrong, and that the conclusions they came to though statistically significant, did not warrant the cost and time investment this particular policy demanded.

am i making any sense at all? [/quote]

Yes you are making sense, but you also changed the context from judging a healtcaresystem to the importance of experience when it comes to doing a task.

When it comes to doing a task or creating a policy in a workplace, personal experience in that is alfa omega.

And I agree that a source can be bad and that the ability to interpret a source is key.

when it comes to the subject “healtcare in cuba”, personal experience counts less. It counts as one experience of millions of experiences. To get a good picture of have good or bad the cuban healtcare is. We first need to establish som criterias to judge from. A example of criterias: 1. range of services, 2. quality of the services, 3. the % of the population that are able to use this services, 5. compare it to other countrys healtcare systems, etc…
Then we could collect data that could help us judge the system after the criterias we sat up.
ps. this is just an example, but it clearly shows that one persons experience with this system are not enough to judge it.

hope that made my point clearer.