Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Well, by definition even under MMP the electorate votes of a hell of a lot of people "count for squat" -- because they're either invalid, or cast for unsuccessful candidates. In my own electorate of North Shore - one of the safer National-held seats - 14,453 (or 38.72%) of the electorate vote was 'wasted'. In Otaki, the "wasted" vote was 21,055 - or 54.53%.
Yes but luckily there's this whole other vote, of which 90%-ish all count. Which would be about twice any FPP campaign.
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Except when shame has value sometimes, as you said earlier?
No, Craig said my billion dollar plan was about shame, I said that while I think that can have value, that's not what my plan is about at all.
So yes I was talking about education, someone accused me of going for the shame game, which I said I wasn't doing.
Man, most controversial-for-things-it-isn't billion dollar plan I've ever suggested.
Personally I'd be horrified if health care providers stopped treating smokers just because they'd made a choice, particularly given the information that we have about marketing of cigarettes and controlling the addictive nature by tobacco companies.
Hence my billion dollar plan to try and support people making choices that don't lead to those consequences - that are good for them, and for us. Tick Kyles-Billion-Dollar-Plan on Election Day, for a healthier community.
There's lots of choices that people make which lead to them requiring medical care. Various sports and recreational activities, some of which don't pay their way at all (unlike smoking which I believe mostly does pay for its own health care costs).
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Craig, you should enjoy this. Today's Michael Laws outrage:
For a history graduate, Laws has a pretty short term perspective. Wanganui was a lot browner 150 years ago than it is now.
And he's a git.
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I know lots of academics down here spit all over wikipedia, but would be quite happy to see a student use a traditional encyclopedia.
Personally I think it's somewhat elitist. Yes wikipedia is more likely in many areas to be wrong, but if a student gets a correct fact from wikipedia and references it, what have they done wrong, as compared from getting the same fact from an encyclopedia printed 10 years ago?
They'd be better to target areas where students get it wrong, and then say "this is why you shouldn't use wikipedia".
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I'm talking about 'shaming', not 'education'. There's a line to be drawn. Education good: shaming bad.
OK, well you'll be bagging someone else then for how they spend their billion dollars. Cause I pretty clearly was talking about education.
Disability is correlated hugely with age - 87% of over 85 year olds are disabled in some way. That's not to say they aren't also fit and healthy - the concepts are not mutually exclusive unless you're thinking like an old-fashioned medico. Disability has always been a normal part of ageing, and of life for that matter.
I'm not sure what your argument is. Because people might end up with a disability anyway, they shouldn't be physically healthy in old age? Surely it's better to have one of those problems than both of them?
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Matthew: they could start with one degree (suspects' contacts) and make a second request to pursue others that seem worthwhile.
I presume that the amount of work on both sides in doing this would have been immense - both the police in coming up with a list, and then trademe in giving them the results. Just manually entering say 500 people by a trademe employee, and then printing all their trades (maybe 25,000 pages at 500 x 50) might have taken a month at least?
Whereas '1/2 degrees of separation, print everything out' would have maybe been an hour or two of coding for trademe, and an hour or two of work for the police.
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Have you been hanging out with Albert Hoffman? Watched Cocoon once too many times? Or are you seriously telling me that the average 80 year old needs as many meds and medical procedures as the average 50 year old?
No, I'm saying it's not 'being old' that costs a lot of money, it's being sick or having injuries.
If we improve health throughout life, in many areas, people will be less likely to be sick or injured when they are older because their health will be better. They will have stronger hearts, lungs, bones etc etc.
Oh yes you are... and while I've been pretty candid (to a fault some would say) about my history of mental illness, many others aren't. And I sure as hell know people for whom having a psych nurse pulling up in front of their house in a marked car wouldn't be helpful at all, especially if there was "pushing" (however well-intentioned) going on.
Well, people are under no obligation to engage the service, which is already run to some extent in various DHBs across NZ. And if you go see a GP now they already will 'push' you to do something about any health issues you have - smoking, weight, cholesterol, depression, etc etc. It's otherwise known as their job. And there's no requirement for it to be a marked car. People only end up in these programmes when they sign up to them, standard informed consent applies.
It has value for *you*. It makes *you* feel better. It doesn't help the smokers themselves. You can't hate people for their own good, to quote someone very clever whose name i can't remember.
Well OK if you think so. Take your complaint to the smoking advert brigade though, I'm not the one putting them on.
Personally I know smokers, and ex-smokers, who think the adverts are good, but I didn't say anything about spending *my* billion on that, Craig raised the shame issue. I think *my* billion would be spent on putting health professionals closer to people with health issues with long term impacts.
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All I'm saying is that it had better be a volunteer programme.
Yup. But one I'd want health professionals to push, assuming it was set up well.
The overwhelming issue with excessive weight is the increased risky of early death due to cardiovascular disease. The way it often pans out is you're fine, suddenly you have a heart attack, you die. That is very sad but not at all costly for the health system. If you live a longer, healhier life, on the other hand, things are still bound to catch up with you eventually, and caring for people in their eighties and nineties is really expensive regardless of their medical history.
I'm pretty skeptical of this. There's nothing about being 'old' that makes your medical costs higher than being young. It's not until your body gets sick or breaks down in some way that it gets to be more expensive. That often happens as you get older, but not necessarily. Lots of people in their 80s and 90s have no significant health issues. Lots of the issues that you associate with the elderly - arthritis, weak joints and bones etc - can also be improved through proactive work earlier (and later) in life in relation to exercise, nutrition, lifestyle etc.
And being 'obese' doesn't guarantee an early death, any more than smoking does. It does raise risk factors which don't guarantee death, but the treatment if they don't die is expensive. If you wanted to look at it from purely monetary terms we should at least try and keep everyone alive until about 65, at which point we've got the maximum tax take out of them </mercenary>
You did know that? Oh good. :)
Well Danielle, I'm not necessarily talking about weight, or BMI, which are only one indicator of health issues.
But I am talking about health professionals more actively (and proactively) engaging New Zealanders with serious health issues affecting them. If a doctor tells me I have a weight problem, or a cholesterol problem, or smoking is bad for me, that is a fairly good person to hear it from.
Oh, of course you are Kyle -- and what's wrong with the idea of good old fashioned public 'shame' as a mechanism of social control?
Well I'm not Craig. Like when you visit your GP, working with a community health nurse is a confidential visit.
I'm not at all opposed to using shame as a method in some public health issues. I'm a fairly fanatical anti-smoker, and I see it has some value there. I doubt very much that it's a tool for your GP or nurse however, they have an important relationship with their patient which needs to operate at a higher level than TV advertising.
And what Matthew Poole said about maintaining people in healthy, productive lifestyles so they can work and/or contribute to society, provide good role models etc etc.
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The email that Russell quoted from Trade Me said that:
There is no suggestion that you were in any way related to these events last year, apart from being one of 3000 who traded with someone that was a suspect in this investigation.
So that would indicate that the 3000 is one degree of separation from the suspects. That's an astoundingly high figure, assuming that it's only those that are facing trial that are 'suspects'.
I wonder if they've included not just everyone who bought/sold, but anyone who asked a question on an auction.
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Can. Of. Worms. Wouldn't that just turn into another lovely game of 'Shame the Unworthy Smokers and Fatties'?
I'm not talking about public shaming.
I'm talking about a doctor and a community nurse coming and talking to your family about health issues, inside your home, working with you to set up an action plan to address issues which cause serious long term health problems, and then helping you put that plan in action. Regular contact with the community nurse and referral to specialist support (eg, nutritionist) where helpful.
Obesity, diabetes, smoking are all going to cost us billions down the track. If we can improve lifestyles 20 years earlier, we're going to save money overall, and have a much healthier country.
You could be put into the programme through your GP, who could even be the doctor in charge of it, it wouldn't cost you anything, and the government could call it an investment, which it actually would be.
If you could match it with a housing programme to improve insulation, heating, getting rid of damp etc it'd be even better.