Jaltcoh

I found this site using [url=http://google.com]goo...

2009-11-07T06:18:30.066-05:00

I found this site using [url=http://google.com]google.com[/url] And i want to thank you for your work. You have done really very good site. Great work, great site! Thank you!

Sorry for offtopic

There is also some thought that there are genetic ...

2009-11-06T14:00:45.932-05:00

There is also some thought that there are genetic predictors for premature birth.

By "more premature births," I meant proportionatel...

2009-11-05T20:34:56.740-05:00

By "more premature births," I meant proportionately more. For instance, the article says: "About 1 in 8 U.S. births are premature. Early births are much less common most of Europe; for example, only 1 in 18 babies are premature in Ireland and Finland."

Why does America have so many more births than Eur...

2009-11-05T20:32:31.899-05:00

Why does America have so many more births than Europe?

Perhaps the two questions are related.

Thanks for the link. I'm hesitant to put much stoc...

2009-11-04T17:52:19.535-05:00

Thanks for the link. I'm hesitant to put much stock in an ideologically committed blog (the banner reads, "Free Markets, Free People"). The article it links to also seems to be right-leaning.

But I agree that the link shows that different countries have different standards for how they report infant mortality, which throws off the comparisons.

They quote an economist saying: "'Taking into account such data-reporting differences, the rates of low- birth-weight babies born in America are about the same as other developed countries' in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Likewise, infant mortality rates, adjusted for the distribution of newborns by weight, are about the same." I hope that's true, but I'd want to know what "about the same" means. I also wish the countries themselves would fix the discrepancies so we wouldn't have to rely on random economists who claim to have corrected for those discrepancies.

Here's some discussion.

2009-11-04T17:13:23.154-05:00

Here's some discussion.

I'm just saying the numbers are distorted by the f...

2009-11-04T13:48:27.465-05:00

I'm just saying the numbers are distorted by the fact that we don't hide the marginally savable babies by pronouncing them dead from the start.

Again, I don't know if this practice actually happens, and even if it does, it'd need to happen a lot for it to significantly affect the statistics.

I am sure doctors know that.

I wish we lived in a country where we could just say "Well, doctors know what they're doing" and expect people who need medical treatment to get medical treatment. The problem isn't whether doctors know things about medical care that are so basic that I can point it out in a blog comment. The question is whether people have access to doctors at all.

I'm just saying the numbers are distorted by the f...

2009-11-04T13:37:01.605-05:00

I'm just saying the numbers are distorted by the fact that we don't hide the marginally savable babies by pronouncing them dead from the start.

It's certainly better to try to do things to make the pregnancy healthy and get a healthy baby than to need to save an unhealthy one.

I am sure doctors know that.

I don't know. How often does this happen? Even if...

2009-11-04T13:27:01.662-05:00

I don't know. How often does this happen?

Even if Americans do try to save more babies (which, again, I don't know if they do), I would prefer that we apply that impulse to save babies more broadly. It might not be as dramatic, but universal access to prenatal care is more important than the occasional act of heroism once a baby has already been born prematurely.

Isn't a big part of the disparity caused by whethe...

2009-11-04T13:11:31.212-05:00

Isn't a big part of the disparity caused by whether a birth is reported in the first place? That is, don't Americans try to save babies that would be listed elsewhere as born dead? They are called live births, and then they die.

Thanks for the recommendation!

2009-11-03T22:36:56.266-05:00

Thanks for the recommendation!

Beth: Funny, but willfully missing the point - whi...

2009-11-02T12:22:40.143-05:00

Beth: Funny, but willfully missing the point - which is, I suppose, your point.

You gave no particular reason for discounting my point. I simply applied your reasoning to your statements. It's a matter of taste, and you think yours are the best.

Funny, but willfully missing the point - which is,...

2009-11-02T10:10:42.910-05:00

Funny, but willfully missing the point - which is, I suppose, your point.

Beth: Exactly - changes in how we treat animals wi...

2009-11-01T17:47:59.093-05:00

Beth: Exactly - changes in how we treat animals within that industry are as butterfly wings in the big picture.

Good, then we don't need to make any.

Exactly - changes in how we treat animals within t...

2009-11-01T16:37:32.794-05:00

Exactly - changes in how we treat animals within that industry are as butterfly wings in the big picture. Not nearly the population-changing zombiefying results you envision, Mr. Swift.

Exactly - changes in how we treat animals within t...

2009-11-01T16:37:30.265-05:00

Exactly - changes in how we treat animals within that industry are as butterfly wings in the big picture. Not nearly the population-changing zombiefying results you envision, Mr. Swift.

Beth: Or maybe neither. Not every beat of our litt...

2009-11-01T13:58:10.707-05:00

Beth: Or maybe neither. Not every beat of our little butterfly wings causes chaos elsewhere.

We've gone from an industry with factories to something so small and insignificant that changes in it will be no more influential than the beatings of little (not even big!) butterfly wings.

Or maybe neither. Not every beat of our little but...

2009-10-31T21:58:52.110-04:00

Or maybe neither. Not every beat of our little butterfly wings causes chaos elsewhere.

Beth : Jason, there's a lot of room between treati...

2009-10-31T18:26:54.938-04:00

Beth : Jason, there's a lot of room between treating animals in the meat industry more humanely and driving poor people to cannibalism because of high food prices. I'd say that's a false dilemma.

But I'm envisioning people being driven to cannibalism because of low food prices.

Since populations tend towards the maximum sustainable by the food supply in Malthusian societies, cannibalism after disruptions becomes much more likely.

Decrease meat consumption in the US and the poor here can switch over to now cheaper grains. Those cheaper grains also get shipped overseas where they feed people in Malthusian societies. There, populations rise and they become even more sensitive to food disruptions.

Maybe you get cannibalism, maybe you get genocide. You're going to get misery somehow.

Jason, there's a lot of room between treating anim...

2009-10-31T12:21:22.803-04:00

Jason, there's a lot of room between treating animals in the meat industry more humanely and driving poor people to cannibalism because of high food prices. I'd say that's a false dilemma.

Beth: The practices of factory farming are horribl...

2009-10-31T01:55:51.651-04:00

Beth: The practices of factory farming are horrible... ...That's barbaric.

They serve a purpose. They allow poor people to have access to foods that would otherwise only be available to elite groups. They help drive up the price of corn that would otherwise increase misery in Africa.

In my last job we took thousands of chicks a week (the male ones that would normally go through a meat grinder), injected them with a virus which gave them leukemia, then drained off all their blood a few days later. I didn't consider that barbaric. I don't consider cows standing in manure barbaric.

Humans resorting to cannibalism some day, people raping and mutilating each other to control resources, people treating animals like people, those sorts of things I consider barbaric and inhumane.

So you see, it's just a matter of opinion.

The practices of factory farming are horrible, and...

2009-10-30T23:08:14.368-04:00

The practices of factory farming are horrible, and worth addressing whether one agrees that we should decrease the amount of beef we consume. I don't foresee nothing but small-farm beef on the market, but simple changes in the big farms would be humane. Animals stand in their own wastes mixed with mud for hours on end. That's barbaric.

JAC: Are you basically saying it's OK since a lot ...

2009-10-30T06:33:21.247-04:00

JAC: Are you basically saying it's OK since a lot of people do it? I wish I could feel so contended with society, but I'm afraid things are more complicated than that. We should always be open to the possibility that we're doing the wrong thing.

I can hear the Puritanism in your writing. Reformers never apply this philosophy to their own reforms.

By the way, I don't think my points are particularly radical or inflammatory. It's become commonplace (and not just among vegetarians/vegans) to note the ethical horrors of factory farming, the ecological effects of our overconsumption of meat, etc.

You are basically saying it's OK since a lot of people do it. Remember back in time, one paragraph of your writing ago? Something like that would have been an issue. I could use your entire first paragraph to respond to your second.

Many parts of the world are caught in what is called the Malthusian trap. Any decrease in the cost of certain staples only leads to an increase in the number of people alive there, at a lower living standard. Shift food consumption away from beef and you make their lives worse off.

By purchasing McDonald's's hamburgers I'm making the world a better place, even if I throw them away.

Jason: Are you basically saying it's OK since a lo...

2009-10-29T22:43:55.393-04:00

Jason: Are you basically saying it's OK since a lot of people do it? I wish I could feel so contended with society, but I'm afraid things are more complicated than that. We should always be open to the possibility that we're doing the wrong thing.

By the way, I don't think my points are particularly radical or inflammatory. It's become commonplace (and not just among vegetarians/vegans) to note the ethical horrors of factory farming, the ecological effects of our overconsumption of meat, etc.

JAC: Even if a sensible, ethical system would invo...

2009-10-29T22:19:28.692-04:00

JAC: Even if a sensible, ethical system would involve some cows being raised for beef, it doesn't follow that it's ethical for me, as an American, to add to the obscene amounts of beef currently being consumed by Americans. That sheer quantity is why animals are raised so inhumanely.

For lots of people we already have an ethical system.

Also, beef is America's favorite meat, so the fact that Americans eat lots of it is hardly obscene. Germans eat lots of sausages and the Japanese lots of fish. Maybe I laugh about it, but I don't use terms like "obscene" to describe the practice.