60 Minutes Interviews Population Control Expert Thanos

MANHATTAN, NY — This week, 60 Minutes host Scott Pelley held a sit-down interview on the universe's ecological sustainability with a figure who has been both dismissed as a doomsdayer and celebrated as humanity's best hope for longevity on earth: Thanos.

"Little one, it's simple calculus. The universe is finite, its resources finite. If life is left unchecked, life will cease to exist. It needs correcting." Thanos spoke to CBS's Scott Pelley in an interview that many onlookers called "ominous" and "awkward." When Pelley pressed the hulking purple figure on "who would do the correcting," Thanos demurred, opting to rub his knuckles and gaze wistfully into the distance, mumbling about "a grateful universe."

In the video, Pelley attempts to ease the tension with light jokes, but is met with sharp glances, outbursts, and declamations. One specific moment has already gone viral for eliciting cringes: Thanos overturned his chair when leaping to his feet to proclaim "I could simply snap my fingers, and they would all cease to exist – I call that mercy!" Scott Pelley chuckled uncomfortably when Thanos drove his point home with a theatrical "snap," eliciting a growl: "You have my respect, Pelley. When I'm done, half of humanity will still be alive. I hope they remember you."

Thanos had agreed to come on the show to promote his book "Cursed With Knowledge: A Small Price To Pay For Salvation," which has drawn criticism as its predictions failed to materialize. The book is famous for quotes including "The battle to feed all of humanity is over…the world will undergo famines," "hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death," and "The hardest choices require the strongest wills."

Laugh all you want at the Babylon Bee. It’s series in the couple that moved to Texas was brilliant

However:

Sen. Rand Paul airs grievances in ‘Festivus Report’ on federal waste

https://nypost.com/2022/12/23/sen-rand-paul-airs-grievances-in-festivus-report-on-waste/

including $118,000 from the National Science Foundation for a study on whether the Marvel movie villain Thanos could actually snap his fingers while wearing the Infinity Gauntlet.

That’s happening folks. In real life. With our money.

In Oregon the practical expression of this will be the proposals brought forward by the Task Force on Universal Health Care to the new Oregon legislature for government healthcare. The objective would be to substitute government for private healthcare in Oregon. Medical guidance would flow through an unelected panel to a bureaucracy administering treatments allowed within government funding. Doctors and patients would conform to approved scenarios for treatment created to contain costs.

Princeton bioethics professor Peter Singer in the New York Times illustrated the best thinking for managing single payer healthcare. “Rationing health care means getting value for the billions spent by setting limits on which treatments should be paid for from the public purse….There’s no doubt that it’s tough – politically, emotionally, and ethically - to make a decision that means that someone will die sooner than they would have if the decision had gone the other way….The task of health care bureaucrats is then to get the best value for resources they have been allocated….If a teenager can be expected to live another 70 years, saving that life gains 70 years, whereas a person of 85 can be expected to live another 5 years, then saving the 85-year-old will gain only 5 life-years. That suggests saving one teenager is equivalent to saving 14 85-year-olds”.

Besides age, I can think of additional criteria that can constrain costs. For example, we can measure intelligence, define mental illness, and identify physical handicaps and addictions. Overall, the panel and bureaucracy could decide certain people make minimal or no contribution to society. The access to healthcare would be adjusted accordingly. I remember that under the current Oregon Health Plan a woman could not obtain treatment for a cancer but was eligible for euthanasia to deal with any pain.

Isn’t it amazing what can be achieved when the traditional moral compass no longer exists.

The "Costs" of Medical Care

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2009/11/03/the-costs-of-medical-care-n1088569

Why We Must Ration Health Care

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19healthcare-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

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