Thank you. This is straight sci-fi. We can barely get cars to drive safely on public roads without human intervention, and people think that all construction and logistics will be made redundant in about a decade? We’re nowhere even remotely close to that just in terms of hardware, let alone the insanely complex software that would be necessary to completely replace the skilled labor of architects, engineers, construction workers, etc.

And yeah, looking forward to the day when the richest people on earth throw us a bone, give us some cool VR goggles and 3d printed houses that we didn’t have to work for (because robots took our jobs). Yeah, totally stoked about that, I’m sure that if the billionaires could replace workers with robots they’d be super cool about it, make sure we were all well fed and whatnot in this transitioning period…

Of course. It’s really a shame that its set up like this, because you’re right, there are times that your doctor truly needs to know. But it’s a shame that it’s up to the patient’s best judgement about what should be disclosed or not, instead of simply being able to tell your doctor the truth all the time without fearing negative future consequences.

We really need a complete overhaul of the way we view drug use and drug addiction, it seems like the standards that the medical industry follows were written by 1930s mennonites. Nobody should have to worry about their ability to receive necessary medications 10 years down the line because they smoked some weed in college, or drank too much a handful of times. Past moderate drug/alcohol use should not bar a person from various prescription medications.

That’s the scariest article I’ve read in a while. I actually saw my own “score” looking back. I’m prescribed meds for ADHD, and my doctor was telling me about how they have to follow some “new system” to prevent ODs. He showed me the computer screen, and it was in fact exactly like a credit score. Just some numbers and a few pie chart looking things that had my medical history.

Luckily, I guess my score was low, so I was allowed to continue being prescribed the medicine that I’ve been prescribed for years, but still horrible either way. I can’t even imagine what it feels like being a patient with a “high score” for reasons outside of your control.

Every patient is different, and that’s why we leave these decisions to doctors who know each patient’s specific situation. Sometimes potential substance use disorder is by far the lesser of 2 evils.

Say patient 1 has a 100% chance of developing substance abuse disorder. Patient 1 has also just been hit by a train. They’re on the verge of death, they’re peeing the hospital bed crying, asking for god to put them out of their misery because of the unthinkable amount of pain they’re in. There’s a real chance that they’ll die soon.

Patient 2 also has a 100% chance of developing substance use disorder. Patient 2 says that they have mild lower back pain after they get home from their office job. They have no other medical problems, and they live a normal, well adjusted life.

Using your reasoning, both patients should be denied painkillers. Do you think that is a sound medical decision?

Every case is different, and every medical decision carries various risks and trade offs. It’s between a patient and their doctor to decide which trade offs are worth it, which aren’t. You’d be crazy to say that the amount of harm done by a touch of back pain is greater than the amount of harm done by a long term opiate addiction, but what about patient 1, who was hit by a train? They may or may not live to see the next month - don’t you think that the trade off for that patient when looking at a potential opiate addiction would be a little bit different than the patient with slight back pain?

Every single medical decision is like that, to varying degrees. Some decisions are easier than others, and some carry with them much less risk of harm, but nothing is free of side effects or risks. Opiates are no different. Leave the doctors to make the decisions that they’ve been trained to make, looking at individual patients and circumstances.

Lot of people have this issue, most people just know that you can’t actually be honest with your doctor anymore. I have friends who told their doctor that they smoked some pot in highschool, and at 28 they still won’t prescribe them pain meds after various surgeries, won’t prescribe them ADHD meds even with a diagnosis dating back decades and long history of similar prescriptions, etc.

Straight up, do not be honest with your doctor unless you genuinely need help with something. Don’t tell them if you smoked weed a few times, or drank more than 5 alcoholic beverages at a party that one time. It’ll only make your life a nightmare years down the line when you need medicine and can’t get any.

I think there’s a reasonable middle ground here. I’m not a fan either of crediting billionaires with fixing complex issues after they throw a tiny fraction of their net worth at it and get hailed as a hero.. but on the flip side, money does certainly help, and the fact that they’re deciding to spend their money on some issue can’t be completely overlooked. Let’s give credit to all the engineers and hard workers who are making these types of things possible with technological advancements, and we can also make note of the fact that having that much money is fucking obscene to begin with, but I’d still rather the billionaires spend their money on these types of initiatives instead of buying social media vanity projects or manipulating the stock market.

Really? You realize that one of our two major political parties held one of their massive events in Hungary recently, right? The first time CPAC has ever been out of the US, they held it in Hungary and invited Orban. Orban was one of the main speakers at a CPAC conference in Dallas too. They can’t get enough of the guy - they legitimately look to viktor orban for inspiration on what they’d like to do to the US.

So yeah, my point being, when half of the country’s politicians see him as a kindred spirit, I doubt they’ll be up any time soon on the list of CIA coup fuckery.

Don’t Orban and his government decry how evil/terrible the EU is already? What’s stopping them from leaving on their accord?

I can’t remember.. Did orban win by 100% or 102%?