Work

The Genetic Protection in Insurance Coverage Act of 2007 basically says that insurance companies can not discriminate based on genetic information.

I find this concept amazing.

For a second think about insurance companies.

one mississippi.

Insurance companies are a simple exercise. They take individual risk, weigh it against the pool of insured or likely insured and make a decision on how much a person is worth. They figure when a person is most likely to die and how much they need to charge that person in order for them to profi over the life of the policy.

If I were to apply for a new insurance policy they would weigh (no pun intended) all of the negative factors and balance against their pool and give me a monthly payment. This is why actuaries exist, think ‘About Schmidt.’

So, insurance companies have a good baseline of study. A 29 year-old white male with my height and weight with my socio-economic-status should live to be about 70 (give or take 50 years based on modern medicine).

What amazes me is that we have decided the point at which insurance companies can stop gathering information and must start making guesses. Basically, Math (actuarial science) is ok, genetics is not.

How can we possibly make some sort of arbitrary decision on how much knowledge is ok? Why not assail the actual algorithms altogether (that sentence took some work, but it is fun). How can we allow for insurance companies to compile one list of happenings and base a payment but not another?

How can we possibly not agree that more information is better?

It’s a tricky-deal. Should we punish those, by having higher premiums, who are weak? Now I am entering Darwinian zone here, but why shouldn’t the most healthy of our species be rewarded for their superior genes? We’ve been playing that game for, well, a long time. Then, there is that whole euthanasia thing.

Now, what if I were to argue that we don’t really make any decisions? My ability to be fat is a direct result of how I was raised within my genetic disposition. Nature and nurture. If it is a choice, then it is ok for insurance companies to gouge me–ask smokers (and actuaries usually live within these lifestyle factors). But what if I can’t control my weight? By that I mean any disposition or symptom that we show may not be a choice, but in fact may programmed. What if that is really true? (This goes for any kind of disorder in which people make ‘choice’. I am simply picking on myself for expediency.)

I don’t know, it really fascinated me tonight. There was a dude on Colbert who was talking about this. 2 things struck me.

1) He decided he didn’t want to know if he was disposed toward Alzheimer’s.
2) He had a gene that would say he would be bald by an 80% certainty. He has a beautiful healthy swatch of hair.

Anyway, I was amazed that this guy wouldn’t want to know, and, in the context of his argument, it seemed amazingly disarming. He too was drawing a line of should-be-known-knowledge.

This is what I am saying. Either you want to know or you don’t.

The march of rationalism has and will continue to run against an ethics that was born in a previous era (thank you David Harvey). Every time we run from that we rob ourselves of understanding. How can ever knowing more be a bad thing? It might mess up how we look at the world, but there is no value in pretending that known knowledge doesn’t exist.

Like I said, half-formed.

Two final thoughts.

1) Look at how many tags this topic invokes.
2) I looked up the decay/decadence idea from my last post. It comes from the Latin root–as M-W online states (but won’t let me copy and paste off their website [this is particulary interesing in light on the post, why not let me copy from a definition--how is this sacred knowledge?]) from Late Latin decadere to fall, sink.

So this is basically the scariest thing i’ve ever seen relating to copyright laws and their abuse.

Happy Monday!

http://www.bestofartists.com/creative-sculpture/2008/7/7/you-could-lose-your-rights.html

I realize that this probably will miss the mark with some of you kids, but none-the-less, here’s a link to my latest creative ideology. Please note: the image at bottom of page is the philosophy, not the image at top.

http://tcritic.com/archives/design-wont-save-the-world-you-pretentious-fuck/

Bored at work? Need a break from tooling around the interwebs? Looking for a little digital battle?

Welcome to the wonderful world of weewar.com. Request and invite. Set up a user name. Do battle and talk trash on complete strangers in an online version of Risk, but you know, cooler. Build forts. Build fighting forces. Takeover bases. All in the name of entertainment. The great part about it is that it’s super strategic and the 16 bit graphics totally downplay any association with wanton violence that happens to be ensuing on screen.

The absolute best thing about it, is that you can set time limits from five minutes to three days per turn, so that even if you’ve got other stuff to do you can still get a few rounds in over the course of an eight hour work day, and your boss will never be the wiser.

Which is nice for those putting in their 40 hours this week.

A word of warning though: This is seriously the most addictive game that i’ve ever played. And coming from someone with as an addictive personality as I’ve got (no comments from the peanut gallery here), that’s saying something.

I give it: ****** on a scale of five.

According to Forbes Magazine, our very own Wichita Kansas seems to be a hotbed of employment opportunity for the coming year ahead.

Fascinating.

Of course, Salt Lake City, Utah is ranked no. 1, so i’m not sure that they’re factoring in mormons and christian conservatives…

http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/11/jobs-economy-growth-lead-careers-cx_mk_0110cities_table.html?boxes=custom

Millstein won!!!! Take a look at this video towards the end.

Here’s a nice little design that i did for the thing that i’m working on. This appears center chest on orange shirt.

I don’t know everyone on this post, so I thought I would just introduce myself. Hello, my name is Liz. I moved from Lawrence 4 years ago and have been on the west coast ever since. Also, I am Trevor’s cousin. Nice to meet you. There, done.

I am, at the moment, and for most moments for the next 6 weeks, studying for my qualifying exams, writing my proposal, and writing a computer model to look at how well marine reserves work when you assume adult animals move (as they often do). So I will pose a question:

What do you know about marine reserves?

I have been working on this for so long that I have no idea anymore what the average intelligent person who isn’t entrenched in this everyday thinks or knows about the subject, and I am very interested to find out.

If you would like to know more I can send my powerpoint to Trevor. He gives a mean presentation of my project. But you’ll have to get him drunk first.