Sci-fi Quagmire

Scientists invented a fake disease. AI told people it was real: Nature.com

-Use the password taped to the monitor

How to hack any hospital computer (L337 version for advanced security systems)

But then some mega-genius upstairs realized something: the system was only alerting for critical vital signs, but not for all vital signs that could possibly be bad.  Like, yeah, 200/130 is potentially life-threatening, but 130/90 is above ideal and can have negative effects on health.  Should the doctors be allowed to just ignore something that could negatively affect a patient’s health?  Heavens no!

So now the system generates a pop-up for any vital signs that are even slightly abnormal.  A pressure of 120/80 (once considered textbook normal, now considered slightly high) will create the pop-up.  We have increased our vigilance!

Well, no, what we’ve actually done is train doctors to click through a constant bombardment of pop-ups without looking.  We’ve destroyed their vigilance and made it much easier for them to accidentally skim past life-threatening vital signs.

But you can’t tell that to management, because you’d have to confess that you are a flawed human with limited attention resources.  They’d tell you “well, all the other doctors take every abnormal vital sign seriously, it sounds like you’re being negligent.”  And if you’re smart, you back down before you start telling the big boss all about your habit of ignoring critical safety alerts.

No nurse has the mental bandwidth to remember 15 different passwords to 15 different computers. They have to remember which patients need what, who’s getting what medication when, who’s allergic to penicillin, and a million other things. Of course the passwords are going to be written on a piece of paper by the computers, they need to move fast.

I deal with this a lot, as a truck driver. Trucks are being built with a lot of new, fancy safety features that sound really nice to the corporate people who buy the trucks and the insurance companies that offer discounts for having them on the truck. The problem? All of those devices are designed, and tested, under perfectly ideal conditions and those are the only conditions they work under.

My favorite example is the system my current truck has that automatically steers the truck, if it thinks I’m too close to a line. Within the first month of having that, I nearly killed someone riding a bike because, when I merged, to go around them, the truck saw the line and tried to steer back into the lane.

The reason I slammed my brakes?

A piss-drunk guy ran out in front of me on a one way street downtown lmfao

When people propose having the government provide healthcare, the goal is for the people to hold the government accountable. No one is proposing giving all power to the government and letting them decide who lives and who dies.

Under capitalism, the goal IS to give all power to rich people and let them decide who lives and who dies. We see that happening anytime an insurance corporation denies a claim in order to increase profits. Under capitalism, if your survival isn't profitable for rich people, you die.

like why is the park locked after 5pm so I can't go and sit under a tree after work? to punish rough sleepers for the terrible crime of being homeless and alive

why do I have to buy a drink, beg for a code and fuck around with an awkward keypad for 5 minutes in order to take a piss? because fuck homeless people

why do I need to provide proof of address and photo ID to do everything? because we had to create a really hostile environment for migrants

why can't you sit anywhere? well because god forbid people sleep when they're pushed out of shelter. can't risk that.

Never forget. Never forgive.

“May 13th, 1985 is more than a day of infamy, when a city waged war on its own alleged citizens, but also when the city committed massacre and did so with perfect impunity, when babies were shot and burned alive with their mothers and fathers, and the killers rewarded with honors and pensions, while politicians talked and the media mediated mass murder. On that day, the city, armed and assisted by the US government, dropped a bomb on a house and called it law. The fire department watched buildings ignite like matches in the desert and cut off water. The courts of the land turned a blind eye, daubed mud in their socket, and prosecuted Ramona Africa for having the nerve to survive an urban holocaust, jailing her for the crime of not burning to death. Eleven men, women and children died, and not one killer was even charged with a misdemeanor.

“But on that day, more than MOVE members died. The city died, too. Its politicians died, its media died, its courts died, and its churches and houses of worship died, for they ceased to function, and they served power and money. In a very real sense, the city massacred itself, for one’s faith in such institutions died. They became empty, hollow and dead, but for the shell. May 13th, 1985 is a day that shall live in infamy, but for far more reasons than the obvious. It was the death knell of a system committing suicide. It proved that a man called John Africa spoke powerful truths when he spoke about the nature of the system as corrupt, as flawed, as poisoned. Every day past that date has only proved it even more.”