If the market is sufficiently competitive, yes, I trust corporations more than governments.
Competition naturally degrades over time as companies go out of business and consolidate. And capital interests fight tooth and nail against large monopolies being split back up. Its more or less a miracle that it’s ever happened at all and it would be naive to think it’ll ever happen again.
If the market is sufficiently competitive, yes, I trust corporations more than governments.
I don’t think that’s true. I think you’re making an assumption that the payer has an incentive to reduce costs, but I really don’t think that’s the case. What they do have is a lot of power over pricing, and while that could be used to force producers to reduce costs, it can also be used to shift costs onto taxpayers in exchange for favors from the companies providing the services.
Do you think a more direct “medical patient union” would work? Skipping a government intermediary?
socialized healthcare
I mean, I’d prefer socialized healthcare over single payer. Single payer for me is merely an acceptable middle ground. As would having a proper public option next to private care (though admittedly that would slowly erode from lobbying).
Not a word I like to hear when it comes to government. The more power you give it, the more likely some idiot will come along and abuse it. Look at Trump, the only reason he can absolutely wreck the economy w/ tariffs is because Congress gave him that power and refuses to curtail it.
So you’d rather give power to corporations. Who definitely abuse their power. Rather than a government, which at least is potentially elected.
I think governmental structures are probably outside the scope of this conversation, but I’ll at least state that the reason Trump is bad is not only that he has power. Its the lack of power that his opposition has because they utterly fail to seize it when opportunity presents itself. Again, it is all about leverage.
Sure, but they’re getting a lot less of it than they could if it was a more competitive market.
They pay obscene amounts to get decent results. I think they could get the same (or better!) results with a lot less spending if the system wasn’t rigged to be anti-competitive.
I think that this is pure conjecture. Going “full competitive” would be at best a double edged sword. A lot of money and risk is involved in highly advanced military tech. Realistically you’d see businesses crumble and merge. Naturally converging into a monopoly.
I think that only works in countries w/o a large medical devices/pharmaceutical industry, otherwise you end up with ton of lobbying and whatnot. I don’t think the total cost of healthcare would go down, it would just shift to net tax payers and healthy people. Look at the ACA, it didn’t reduce healthcare spending at all, it just shifted who pays for it, and it seems healthy people ended up spending more (to subsidize less healthy people).
To actually reduce costs, you need to make pricing as transparent as possible, and I don’t think single payer achieves that. It can be a good option in certain countries, but I don’t think it’s universally a good option.
To actually reduce costs, you increase the leverage the buyer has. Transparency in pricing would do that to a tiny degree, what would do so far better is a monopsony/single-payer system where all the buyers effectively are unionized.
Only have access to this account during work, so late reply.
We’re talking about IP protections, not general monopolies
It doesn’t matter, monopolization at any level has the effect I described.
Yeah, that’s not going to be abused
You’d need to elaborate I’m not clear what you mean by this.
scare away companies
There are ways to force this into not being an issue. We don’t have to suck a corporation’s dick to keep their productivity.
It’s also why the US pays an obscene amount for its military. Defense contractors absolutely fleece the government because they are generally not allowed to contract with other governments, so they expect a higher profit from their one contracted buyer.
It sounds like the military is still getting what they paid for and its worked out for them. They pay obscene amounts to get obscene results.
Single payer also applies to healthcare proposals and is generally seen as a fantastic solution to keeping healthcare prices down.
With a monopoly, you may very well be making everyone pay for the increased price gouge that comes with monopolies. Not just the customer of that particular product. It depends on the nature of the product.
If it is a component of a more common device or product, basically everyone ends up paying more (HDMI comes to mind). If its an innovation relating to a basic need and gets integrated with the majority of services, basically everyone ends up paying more. If its something that has external implications on the market or wider world that creates inefficiencies, then people functionally make less money because effect people pay more and thus long term this harms spending on a variety of products. If people can’t afford the price gouge and continue using less effective products (assuming they are even available) they likely long term spend more money to make up for the inefficiencies from that.
Monopolies damage things beyond the product that gets monopolized and merely concentrates wealth.
Regardless a subsidy is not the only alternative. That’s still thinking in terms of carrot, and you are forgetting the stick. You can also legislate mandatory R&D in budgets for large corporations based on revenue/profits just as much as you with the punishment of potentially being fined/taxed more.
But outside of that, there is also government contracts. That is, a single payer, (monopsony) generally can get fantastic results out of competing firms. Its largely a major reason why the American Military has historically benefited from such significant technological advancements for nearly a century now.
As an incentive structure for corporations and “people” purely motivated by avarice, sure.
Most people naturally want to create and contribute as long as their needs and most basic wants are met. A monopoly as an incentive is not necessary.
Without that protection, companies would be less likely to invest in R&D.
There are many ways to motivate corporations to do R&D outside of offering them a monopoly on a silver platter. Incentives are only one half of the equation. Its really all about leverage.
I only ever played GTA2 during the 2D era. I remember loving it then though. Maybe I ought to emulate the classics on my Steam Deck.
Of course I was obsessed with 3 when it came out. And Vice City and San Andreas were master pieces. I never played the PSP/DS games (those might also be good Steam Deck games for the future.)
I did beat 4 and its stand alone expansions. They were all pretty great, I even kind of liked the driving when everyone else was hating on it.
I have had GTA5 sitting in my Steam Library for a very long time with effectively 0 hours played. I’ll get around to eventually. It looks like I’ll enjoy it, though I hear its single player isn’t as good as 4’s.
If I really want to play it in the first place, no. But if its a game that has elements I’m interested in but has some poorly aged mechanics or QoL issues I’ll simply prioritize different games with the thought that maybe one day it’ll get the remake treatment.
That said I semi-recently played through the entirety of official Wolfenstein 3D releases (base game + prequel expansions) for the first time using a sourceport with WASD+Mouse controls and no other enhancements, I’m not a particularly picky player about elderly games.
I just beat Rayman legends (though not to completion) on my Steam Deck. Rayman Origins was better IMO. Next Steam Deck game is Disco Elysium, a friend wants me to play it so we can discuss it. Thus far it seems really well made but I’m extremely early (I just finished the first conversation).
Also been playing Killing Floor 2 with some friends on my desktop here and there. Doing the whole spreadsheet analysis of the game’s weapons and classes. I often can’t enjoy casual coop and pvp games unless I can do in-depth analysis and theory crafting.
Also about to start playing Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (PC) on my desktop in my quest to check off every Ubisoft game I own. I recently beat Advanced Warfighter 1 and 2 on 360 (XB1 emulation) and can say they’re solidly enjoyable semi-linear cover shooters of their era. I even played Ghost Recon 2 & Summit Strike on OG Xbox before that (I like to play through the entire series of games from original release). Look forward to seeing how they evolved the series before they turned it into open world Ubi-slop with Wildlands & Breakpoint.
Also about to start my first playthrough of Last of Us Part II (PS4) in anticipation of the second season of the show. Technically restart, I’ve played the first 5 hours or so already, but lost my save file.
And finally, I hope to try and get back into Skyrim VR. but I’m already pretty overloaded so I’m doubtful I’ll have time to continue my current save this week.
I was a Halo 3 try hard and if anything I was nicer to female voices because I stupidly wanted to woo them. IDK exactly what the logistics of that would have been thinking back.
I’ve not gotten around to trying it yet, I’ve already got like 6-7 games on my plate ATM on various devices. I actually suspect I wont hate it but I hear its pretty meh.
Hopefully Bethesda can turn it around with DLC/updates though. I hear modding is still in its infancy too so maybe we’ll get something in that area down the road too.
Also I figure if I wait hopefully Starfield will get a VR edition (or maybe a mod) and that might be when I really want to jump in.
Is it one of those “play the whole main story and then focus on the side content” situations or “Save the final mission for later because its a proper ending” situations?