Imagine Isaac Newton (and/or Gottfried Leibniz) saying, "Today we're announcing the availability of new mathematical tools -- contact our marketing specialists now!"
The linked article isn't about mathematics, technology or human knowledge. It's about marketing. It can only exist in a kind of late-stage capitalism where enshittification is either present or imminent.
And I have to say ... Stephen Wolfram's compulsion to name things after himself, then offer them for sale, reminds me of ... someone else. Someone even more shamelessly self-promoting.
Newton didn't call his baby "Newton-tech", he called it Fluxions. Leibniz called his creation Calculus. It didn't occur to either of them to name their work after themselves. That would have been embarrassing and unseemly. But ... those were different times.
Imagine Jonas Salk naming his creation Salk-tech, then offering it for sale, at a time when 50,000 people were stricken with Polio every year. What a missed opportunity! What a sucker! (Salk gave his vaccine away, refusing the very idea of a patent.)
Right now it's hard to tell, but there's more to life than grabbing a brass ring.
I like a lot of Stephen Wolfram's work, but we must also recognize the questionable assumptions he made in many of his commercial projects.
There is a difference between cashing-in and selling-out... but often fame destroys peoples scientific working window by shifting focus to conventional mundane problems better left to an MBA.
I live in a country where guaranteed health care is part of the constitution. It was a controversial idea at one time, but proved lucrative in reducing costs.
Isaac Newton purchased the only known portrait of the man who accused him of plagiarism, and essentially erased the guy from history books. Newton also traded barbs with Robert Hooke of all people when he found time away from his alleged womanizing. Notably, this still happens in academia daily, as unproductive powerful people have lots of time to formalize and leverage grad student work with credible publishing platforms.
The hapless and unscrupulous have always existed, where the successful simply leverage both of their predictable behavior. =3
'I live in a country where guaranteed health care is part of the constitution.'
In the light of ' Almost half of the 6 million people needing treatment from the NHS in England have had no further care at all since joining a hospital waiting list, new data reveals. Previously unseen NHS England figures show that 2.99 million of the 6.23 million patients (48%) awaiting care have not had either their first appointment with a specialist or a diagnostic test since being referred by a GP.'
- Assuming it's successful in its goal, can your country tell Britain how to do it? Please!
Over a human lifetime, the immediate economic decisions do change macroeconomic postures. For example, consider variable costs of dental services for braces, fillings, crowns, root canals, extraction, bone loss, dentures, and supporting pharmaceuticals/radiology. Then consider a one-time standard fixed cost of volume discounted cosmetic titanium implants with a crown. People would look great, have better heart health, and suffer less treatments over time.
Rationally, the more expensive option ends up several times less expensive than a sequence of bodges. Yet no politician in the world could make that happen due to initial costs, regulatory capture, and rent-seeking economic policy. Note, GDP would contract slightly as cost savings compounded, and quality of life improved.
In general, one could run integrated education, emergency care, and disease control diagnostics like assembly lines. Routing patients though 24h virtual sorting for specialist site clinics on fixed service rotation.
Some have already imagined efficient hip and knee replacement services that make sense in other contexts:
the historically underfunded NHS took a massive hit to its funding at the start of the credit crunch, and then again in covid. neither cut was restored, whilst patient numbers have steadily risen (UK needs population growth to fuel property prices to avoid recession - 20% of gdp is construction).
people are dying because hospitals cant afford to operate. getting deals on volume purchases is irrelevant
>people are dying because hospitals cant afford to operate
In general, around 24% of health care costs are spent in the final year of life. It is also legal here for folks to request a painless early exit from palliative and end-of-life care, but depends on individuals faith and philosophical stance.
1. How many local kids do you personally know made it into medical school?
2. Is your national debt and %debt to GDP ratio growing?
3. Is your middle class job market in growth?
If the answer is 0, yes, and no... than the core problems may become more clear. Best of luck =3
Currency requires trade to generate tax revenue, and is like holding a bucket of water with a hole in the bottom.
Folks could nationalize gold reserves >1oz like the US did to exit the depression, publish holding-company investment owners, tax investment properties at 6% of assessed value every year, and pass a right-of-first-sale to citizens regardless of bid amount on residential zoned estates like Singapore.
One may wager any such actions are unlikely from the hapless. =3
Part of the inferred problem is a lack of respect for others, because some simply don't respect themselves. This was part of the PSA workable measures video.
Note, we also still buy inexpensive private insurance coverage mostly for travel, as it is tax deductible unlike the public coverage.
You should get outside for a walk, and meet real people. =3
The linked article isn't about mathematics, technology or human knowledge. It's about marketing. It can only exist in a kind of late-stage capitalism where enshittification is either present or imminent.
And I have to say ... Stephen Wolfram's compulsion to name things after himself, then offer them for sale, reminds me of ... someone else. Someone even more shamelessly self-promoting.
Newton didn't call his baby "Newton-tech", he called it Fluxions. Leibniz called his creation Calculus. It didn't occur to either of them to name their work after themselves. That would have been embarrassing and unseemly. But ... those were different times.
Imagine Jonas Salk naming his creation Salk-tech, then offering it for sale, at a time when 50,000 people were stricken with Polio every year. What a missed opportunity! What a sucker! (Salk gave his vaccine away, refusing the very idea of a patent.)
Right now it's hard to tell, but there's more to life than grabbing a brass ring.