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PaperclipPerfector  19d ago (text post)   35138 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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I do not like subsidizing homosexuality, or promiscuity more broadly. But how far does this go? I'm pretty happy with a policy of 'you choose not to be monogamous, you're going to get STD's on your own head be it. No public funding for testing, treatment, or prevention. Medical providers aren't obligated to give STD treatment.' To be clear, I wouldn't oppose sodomy laws either.

There are quite a number of conservatives who halfway do it. Letting people die from preventable STD's when they choose not to prevent them by sane and reasonable sexual behavior is beyond the overton window.

One way in which this would come back to bite right-wingers is that it would be taken as precedent to raise premiums or deny coverage for $disease-related costs and deaths to the unvaccinated. From what I can tell, this was already being bandied about around 2021-22, but seemingly not implemented.

Some other possible targets: anti-abortion women (liability from not aborting dangerous pregnancies and genetic defects where the parents' insurance may be on the hook), Christian sects that refuse blood transfusions (though you might not care if the interdenominational solidarity of the Waco era is gone).

No, right-wingers don't have to pretend that something that is related but very different is somehow indistinguishable, nor worry that they're somehow giving the other side ideas -- since obviously the left has already thought of that.

Well, they've for sure thought of it, but why didn't they go through with it? The simplest explanation could be that the other side does in fact have people who are concerned about principles or at least have other considerations than mashing the "defect" button as fast as they can.

If your reaction to that is to spy an opportunity and defect first, then this only makes my (and, I imagine, others') defector-punishing instincts tingle. I figure it would be a mistake for the Right to mistake the current situation for one in which they actually have a stable base of loyalists, as opposed to a temporary alliance that depends on people (such as myself) who got tentatively convinced that they are the lesser evil. Trying to defect first in any domain could flip that perception rapidly.

The vaccination stuff, probably because public sentiment was moving anti-Covidian. Liability for "not aborting" is still outside the Overton window. Christian sects that refuse various medical treatments have been targeted for many years (e.g. by taking their children away from them); the problem with trying to charge them more is that if they refuse blood transfusions they tend to cost less (being dead).

But all that misses the larger point, which is that it is possible to distinguish "paying thousands of dollars a month to gay men so they can have unprotected sex with a lower risk of an STD" and "refusing insurance to women who refuse abortions in principle".

But all that misses the larger point, which is that it is possible to distinguish "paying thousands of dollars a month to gay men so they can have unprotected sex with a lower risk of an STD" and "refusing insurance to women who refuse abortions in principle".

Yes, it's possible to distinguish, which means that when the other team is back in power they will happily distinguish to enact the exact opposite of your preferred policy.

It's always easy to come up with just-so stories how the other side not having escalated in the past must have been due to contingencies that will be totally unaffected by your side escalating, and surely not because someone somewhere did not just want to stoke the fires of Moloch's furnace higher.

The vaccination stuff, probably because public sentiment was moving anti-Covidian.

I didn't get the sense that it was moving anti-mandatory-vaccinations, except in communities that the Democrats had largely written off as a voter base anyway. In an era where generating hype (stealing this expression from a pop culture engineer interview I read recently, which randomly put a good label on this propensity to just want to be betting on the winning team) is a crucial political strategy, punishing anti-vaxxers more would probably have actually energised the base.

Liability for "not aborting" is still outside the Overton window.

Would it stay there if normie Democrats found that the infrastructure supporting their own sexual lifestyle choices (as opposed to those of a loud but small utility monster minority) is being attacked? Your enemy, too, is capable of making sacrifices to punish and spite.

Christian sects that refuse various medical treatments have been targeted for many years (e.g. by taking their children away from them); the problem with trying to charge them more is that if they refuse blood transfusions they tend to cost less (being dead).

That doesn't apply to life insurance, where living longer means more profit.

Yes, it's possible to distinguish, which means that when the other team is back in power they will happily distinguish to enact the exact opposite of your preferred policy.

They'll do that anyway, subject to other constraints than reciprocity. And in this case Team Red has the advantage of having the more sympathetic position.

I didn't get the sense that it was moving anti-mandatory-vaccinations, except in communities that the Democrats had largely written off as a voter base anyway.

Black people in particular were vax-skeptical, and judging from the number of teachers getting in trouble for violating the vax policies in NYC, it DID extend to some Democratic bases.

Would it stay there if normie Democrats found that the infrastructure supporting their own sexual lifestyle choices (as opposed to those of a loud but small utility monster minority) is being attacked?

The proposal here is exactly to refuse to support the loud but small utility monster minority.

That doesn't apply to life insurance, where living longer means more profit.

As far as I know it is already legal for life insurance companies to charge more to those scrupulous of receiving blood transfusions.

Okay, but are we also going to stop subsidizing treatment for smokers with lung cancer, alcoholics with cirrhosis, and fat people with ... everything?

Yes.chad is an argument I'll accept (though not agree with). But if you start finely parsing which people should be let die for their moral failures, then you're just making disgust-based judgments. There is much more of a public health argument to be made for treating STDs. (The health problems of smokers, drunks, and fatties generally do not impact other people directly.)

(That said, yeah, I also find it galling to pay for treatment for people who have preventable catastrophic health bills.)

Weren't smokers a net cost savings as they died younger and quicker before their medical costs really started escalating in old age?

Smokers and drinkers are also taxed heavily on their vice to discourage consumption and reimburse the state. Are the degenerates and sexual devients paying some sort degeneracy tax? I think their 'tax' had been shame and exclusion from 'polite society' but those taxs were repealed.

I'd like to tax sugar and HFCS to dissuade the fatties and recover some revenue for their care.

What really needs to be taxed is clearly "healthy lifestyles" that allow people to reliably live to 80+.

Free cigarettes at 50?

Unless you're at like 40 BMI.

Heart Attack Grill is a medicare psyop to discount the NPV of future payouts. Insurance companies should go full throttle on this: if youre covered and expected to be a significantly negative coverage incident, you should be offered the choice of premiummaxxing or a hyperindulgence event. Die now, get the a discount of the expected value of your future insurance payouts given as a cash dividend so your loved ones enjoy that bet.

Presumably the difference would be that the state invests a lot of effort in disincentivising smoking, alcoholism, and obesity. All of those are understood to be important public health issues and the state does what it can to discourage them. There aren't anti-promiscuity campaigns on the same order as anti-smoking campaigns.

One might argue that there are state sexual health campaigns, so safe sex is analogous to moderate drinking, if that counts?

There is much more of a public health argument to be made for treating STDs. (The health problems of smokers, drunks, and fatties generally do not impact other people directly.)

If we wanted to do it only for public health reasons, we could add some sort of punishment high enough that the recipients arent better off, that would eliminate the fairness concerns.

are we also going to stop subsidizing treatment for smokers

The writers of Obamacare were willing to explicitly call out and allow higher insurance premiums for smokers, so to some extent we're already there. I have to solemnly swear I don't use any tobacco products annually at open enrollment, which is easy for me as I never have used. It's politically, but not practically, inconceivable to similarly have to swear I'm not an IV drug user or particularly promiscuous.

On that note I've long wondered whether nicotine pouches are classified as tobacco products.

As I recall they are pretty specific there -- I think something like 5-10 cigars per year was still considered "non-smoker" for life insurance purposes, last I renewed.

Not sure their stance on pouches and vapes nowadays -- but I've heard that the main purpose of the blood/urine test that life insurance providers (sometimes?) do is checking for nicotine so people can't just lie about smoking, so I could imagine some issues there. (do they do tests for health insurance in the US? if not, "non-smoker" is accurate, and there's no tobacco in Zyn, so even "no tobacco products" seems defensible)

Paying for preventable catastrophic health bills because of stupid behavior is one thing. Yes, there's some moral hazard in giving a skydiver the same life insurance rate as everyone else, but insurance companies actually look at the risks and decide it's only worth charging more if you're an instructor or other high jump-count enthusiast. And the risk of base jumping will make your insurer laugh in your widow's face if she tries to collect.

But what's worse is the skydiver asking his life insurance to pay for his parachute and training on the theory that him dying by jumping without a parachute would cost them more money. This is the prep situation.
And what's even worse than that is the government forcing the insurer to pay for this (and raise costs on everyone else) because the national skydiving federation somehow became a powerful lobby that dictates government policy.

The sane solution, like we use for skydivers irl, is making paying for prep out of pocket a condition of obtaining health insurance at a base rate, just like not smoking or buying your own parachute before jumping.
If they don't, their insurance is void and we saddle them with non-dischargeable medical debt in exchange for their treatment (or we charge city gays with 6-7 figure incomes an actuarially fair rate for their coverage)

And if people can't deal with this, the only answer is "right, first we eliminate the influence of the national skydiving federation and fire any bureaucrat who had dealings with them. As well as any agency who gave federal grants to the "Chutes Over Chicago 501c" that seems creepily obsessed with holding skydiver storytimes at local kindergartens

But what's worse is the skydiver asking his life insurance to pay for his parachute and training on the theory that him dying by jumping without a parachute would cost them more money.

Isn't that how kidnapping insurance works?

It's not a matter of life insurance rates, when a motorcyclist riding a crotch rocket smashes into a bridge, the ER docs will stitch him back together. When an associate in inner city crime gets shot in the stomach, the same ER is gonna pull the bullet out and patch him up.

It goes well beyond the world of insurance. And it's long past the point of arguing that we should leave the uninsured victims of motorbike crashes to die on the side of the road.

I don't think you read the post, specifically the end of paragraph 3.

Yes.chad.

Put people on those Christian healthsharing plans that are allowed to just not cover things they think come from unChristian behavior. These exist and have enough people on them to stay in business; clearly it's doable.

Now obviously I have a much stronger objection to paying for prep than I do for dialysis; I just said sodomy should be punishable by law. But, you know, it's pretty reasonable to tell type II diabetics that they have to pay for their own treatment until they can lose weight.

Meh. Fuck around and find out, literally- I don't think it's practical to criminalize straight casual sex outright, but the government shouldn't be in the business of making it a less risky decision. Perfectly fine with fornicators getting diseases as a consequence of their sinful decisions.

Government pays for treatment, but your name and photo are added to the state social disease register, linked to you Tindr / Grndr profile?

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