I’ve been watching HBO’s The Pitt which really teaches us we all need each other. We do have systems of people that slowly adds new people into their systems, and expels people who might disrupt the system (Dr Langdon and Dr Santos from the Pitt) and especially those who that system processes, or, the people applied to the system (aka patients).
We see the slow mixing of people into the system something like those wonderful images produced by Mandelbrot sets from chaos theory, or like paisleys slowly swirling about a whirlwind’s vortex (think dust devils, tiny or mini funnel clouds, and if you still don’t see what I am thinking, tornados or even cyclones as violent extremes) but this is also how the director of the Pitt wants us to see the show.
I digress.
You get the impression that these systems exist in isolation, but they don’t. People in the system go home after their shift and mix with their family, mix with others on transit systems, go to stores, restaurants and other places for leisure.
Meanwhile the Pitt keeps harking back to the Covid pandemic, which taught us how incredibly close/connected all people on this planet are to each other.
Yet we think it is somehow easy to throw people away when all they might want is a better life, like we don’t need you because we have to pay them something?
There is an overwhelming desire by American businesses not to pay American workers. So much so Americans fought a civil war so some could buy people so they wouldn’t have to pay them for their labor.
And because of this it opens up opportunities for illegal immigrants, which must be biting American businesses now with the republican desire to remove all non-Americans from the US taking jobs that citizens don’t want.
And too often we oblige. Women do the majority of the housework for free.
This also informs Americans approach to restaurants, most other countries have wait staff paid without the need to be tipped. And then Americans who eat at restaurants are made to feel guilty for not tipping. Business owners benefit from that guilt. Similarly we are guilted into donating money to the rehabilitation of soldiers when that should necessarily be the governments responsibility. I honor what service people do for us, but they go to war on behalf of the government mainly for political reasons so our taxes that pay for the war should help the soldiers recover from war.
One of the themes of the Pitt is the boy who made a list. You have to wonder what’d happen to a girl or a black kid if they made such a list. We know if a girl got pregnant in many states, too bad, her life is fucked, no matter how much screaming she might do. Perhaps it is time we brought back conscription? This kid in the Pitt can’t even be civil, and all they want is this kid speak to a professional. No doubt we need to do research on how to get especially at-risk boys to talk to professionals especially now when it is deemed “so cool” to let gun manufacturers make as much money as they like.
The right of corporations to make money is probably how the constitution should be written. But the founding fathers had a revolution based on how much they hated corporations. I wonder how the founding fathers would feel about modern America.
Hospitals and governments cannot and should not be run like a business. Businesses must make money to survive, governments do not and hospitals should not.
We see the slow mixing of people into the system something like those wonderful images produced by Mandelbrot sets from chaos theory, or like paisleys slowly swirling about a whirlwind’s vortex (think dust devils, tiny or mini funnel clouds, and if you still don’t see what I am thinking, tornados or even cyclones as violent extremes) but this is also how the director of the Pitt wants us to see the show.
I digress.
You get the impression that these systems exist in isolation, but they don’t. People in the system go home after their shift and mix with their family, mix with others on transit systems, go to stores, restaurants and other places for leisure.
Meanwhile the Pitt keeps harking back to the Covid pandemic, which taught us how incredibly close/connected all people on this planet are to each other.
Yet we think it is somehow easy to throw people away when all they might want is a better life, like we don’t need you because we have to pay them something?
There is an overwhelming desire by American businesses not to pay American workers. So much so Americans fought a civil war so some could buy people so they wouldn’t have to pay them for their labor.
And because of this it opens up opportunities for illegal immigrants, which must be biting American businesses now with the republican desire to remove all non-Americans from the US taking jobs that citizens don’t want.
And too often we oblige. Women do the majority of the housework for free.
This also informs Americans approach to restaurants, most other countries have wait staff paid without the need to be tipped. And then Americans who eat at restaurants are made to feel guilty for not tipping. Business owners benefit from that guilt. Similarly we are guilted into donating money to the rehabilitation of soldiers when that should necessarily be the governments responsibility. I honor what service people do for us, but they go to war on behalf of the government mainly for political reasons so our taxes that pay for the war should help the soldiers recover from war.
One of the themes of the Pitt is the boy who made a list. You have to wonder what’d happen to a girl or a black kid if they made such a list. We know if a girl got pregnant in many states, too bad, her life is fucked, no matter how much screaming she might do. Perhaps it is time we brought back conscription? This kid in the Pitt can’t even be civil, and all they want is this kid speak to a professional. No doubt we need to do research on how to get especially at-risk boys to talk to professionals especially now when it is deemed “so cool” to let gun manufacturers make as much money as they like.
The right of corporations to make money is probably how the constitution should be written. But the founding fathers had a revolution based on how much they hated corporations. I wonder how the founding fathers would feel about modern America.
Hospitals and governments cannot and should not be run like a business. Businesses must make money to survive, governments do not and hospitals should not.
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