Wednesday, April 3, 2013

How To Fix America- Group 4

Group 4 discussed cases 55 and 56 today. Case 55 was about religion in conjunction with bioethics, and where we can find a nice compromise between everyone. Case 56 was about pharmaceutical companies and whether or not they were skewing the opinions of bioethicists.
For case 55 we started by noting that it is very difficult to really get an unbiased view on anything, because no matter whose opinion we decide to accept, their personal views will probably get mixed up in it. We threw around a few solutions, but pretty much arrived at the fact that we just need to meet in the middle. Mr. Oliver brought up compromise, and I think that is really the root of the problem (as well as the solution). As a society I do not thing that we are taught that compromise is a good outcome. We would much rather outright win, no matter what the expense. In order for us to work together on any scale, we are going to have to come to terms with the fact that a balance of give and take are what the country needs.
For case 56 we tried to come up with a scenario in which pharmaceuticals did not run the show. Austin brought up that insurance companies also have a lot to do with it. Heather noted that doctors are not innocent either, they have a choice of whether or not to participate. We wound up trying to come up with a system in which everyone had access to healthcare (I think we had a consensus that it should be equal as well). William insisted that communism was the way to go, Austin seemed to think there were better ways. We decided the root of the problem was our education system, and that if we had better educated and well rounded individuals making up our society, we would have attacked the problem at its root and wound up with a well oiled machine.
I had a hard time following the flow of our conversation in retrospect, so please add anything I missed and correct anything I misinterpreted!
-Betsy

3 comments:

  1. Education! Education! Education!!! You did well Betsy. No matter what we were talking about, it always boiled down to attacking the problems via educating our younger generations to see that there is a problem! No Child Left Behind lacks any kind of real education. It is all about stats! Education should be about making sure everyone is pushed to learn and being exposed to diversity!!! The only true way to teach everyone is to stop worrying about stats. No matter what system we have, some children will fall through the cracks while others excel. Teach teachers to teach children, then let them do their job! I believe learning compromise comes with that kind of education!

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  2. hey guys I wanted to let you know that I will not be in class tomorrow! Sorry! Will see you guys Wed!

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  3. You pretty much nailed it! Education is extremely key to our success and is the root of many of our problems. We also suffer as a society from not being proactive. We need to fix that mindset and that will also go a long way in solving our issues. The attitude of "its too hard ill just do it later" must go!

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