# Change is inevitable **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 8, 2010, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571 "2010-08-08T02:55:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/1 "2010-08-08T02:55:48Z")
_Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don’t stand in the doorway Don’t block up the hall For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’ It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin’_ Someday, in America, gay people will be able to legally marry, and their marriages will be valid throughout the country just as marriages between straight people are. Someday, in America, the health of The People will be more important than the profits of companies that have a vested interest in not paying for health care. Maybe it will be single-payer UHC (I hope). Or it might be something along German lines. But it’s coming. There will be a day when we are not slaves of our insurance companies. I believe in progress. Without progress there is stagnation. Stagnation is death. When I was little, The Future was a Good Thing. I want to live in The Future. Now for me, gay marriage abstract. I’m not gay, so the right of gays to marry has no effect on me. Except for my un-American belief that we all should be equal under the law. But like everyone, I’ll need medical care; so a modern health care system is something very important to me. These and other things are going to happen whether some people like it or not. Maybe I’ll live to see them. Or maybe it will take a hundred years. It’s going to happen eventually. Personally, I think that it’s best to get an early start on big work. Starting early gets the work done sooner, and saves a lot of money. Since progress will happen, let’s get a move on. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Skinley_Von_Clipper)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/2 "2010-08-08T03:07:38Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > There will be a day when we are not slaves of our insurance companies. > > . I disagree, here in England we have a ‘free’ national health service, but we all have to pay ‘national insurance’. It is deducted from our salaries. There is no way to avoid it. Basically it is a government owned insurance company. It probably costs us more as we are funding the folks who decide not to work. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/3 "2010-08-08T03:10:13Z")
TANSTAAFL. Which is to say, of course costs must be paid. But it’s better to not have your policy cancelled after you’ve received treatment, and are left holding the entire bill. AFAIK, single-payer systems don’t have legions of doctors whose purpose is to find ways of denying coverage. . ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Skinley_Von_Clipper)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/4 "2010-08-08T03:16:32Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > TANSTAAFL. What does this mean? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/5 "2010-08-08T03:18:14Z")
There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Skinley_Von_Clipper)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/6 "2010-08-08T03:20:20Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > TANSTAAFL. AFAIK, single-payer systems don’t have legions of doctors whose purpose is to find ways of denying coverage. > > . We have the DHS (department of health and security) whose job is to try every way they can to deny funding. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Skinley_Von_Clipper)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/7 "2010-08-08T03:22:00Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Thanks, I’m slightly less ignorant than I was 5 minutes ago.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/8 "2010-08-08T03:23:38Z")
If history teaches anything, it’s that one should not make rash predictions about the inevitability of “progress”. Communism, eugenics, prohibition, free love, and bell bottoms were all, at various times, considered to be certainties. We just needed a little progress, the theory went, and those things would be universally accepted. But it didn’t turn out that way. History has a way of making fools out of prophets. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/9 "2010-08-08T03:25:59Z")
Since I said ‘AFAIK’, I’ll concede the point. Only, denials under the American ‘system’ have happened to posters here, and I don’t recall reading such horror stories from Dopers outside of the U.S. In any case, UHC has been debated elsewhere. My point is that we’re going to get a better system in spite of the Right. We’re going to get gay marriage in spite of the Right. I suspect we’ll even allow science back into schools, too. There’s a saying, ‘You can’t stop progress.’ I’m just stating that we’re better off embracing progress instead of fighting it tooth-and-claw until it inevitably comes. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Skinley_Von_Clipper)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/10 "2010-08-08T03:26:44Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > History has a way of making fools out of prophets. Best sentence I’ve read in years. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/11 "2010-08-08T03:32:19Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > If history teaches anything, it’s that one should not make rash predictions about the inevitability of “progress”. Communism, eugenics, prohibition, free love, and bell bottoms were all, at various times, considered to be certainties. What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches? That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced. Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical [sic] and insignificant, if not utterly impossible. A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere. 640 kilobytes ought to be enough for anybody. Everything that can be invented has been invented. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@Baron\_Skinley\_Von\_Clipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Skinley_Von_Clipper)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/12 "2010-08-08T03:41:06Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I’m just stating that we’re better off embracing progress instead of fighting it tooth-and-claw until it inevitably comes. I agree with you 100%. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/13 "2010-08-08T14:58:45Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches? > > That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced. > > Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical [sic] and insignificant, if not utterly impossible. > > A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere. > > 640 kilobytes ought to be enough for anybody. > > Everything that can be invented has been invented. **Johnny** , I think you just bolstered **ITR** ’s point that history has a way of making fools out of prophets. You, too, might be included in that group. I hope not, since I support both of the causes you’re hoping come to pass, but I have, perhaps, less faith in humanity than you. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/14 "2010-08-08T15:52:18Z")
I knew it would be taken that way. But **ITR champion** listed things that are bad or silly (well, except for ‘free love’). The implication was (at least as I took it) that UHC, equal rights, and other things not enumerated are ‘bad things’ and one would be foolish to think they will endure. That is, he virtually made predictions that, being ‘bad things’, they would never come to pass. I posted the quotes I did to show that _his_ predictions are likely to be proven foolish. > [@Asimovian](#): > > I have, perhaps, less faith in humanity than you. Actually, I have little faith in humanity. People will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th Century, and I hope, eventually, into the 21st. . ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/15 "2010-08-08T20:38:57Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > In any case, UHC has been debated elsewhere. My point is that we’re going to get a better system in spite of the Right. We’re going to get gay marriage in spite of the Right. I suspect we’ll even allow science back into schools, too. There’s a saying, ‘You can’t stop progress.’ I’m just stating that we’re better off embracing progress instead of fighting it tooth-and-claw until it inevitably comes. I don’t know what the “correct” system is, but I think we should continue to strive to improve it. It’s naive however not to realize that there are people who are not necessarily better off by change and who will fight to keep things to their benefit. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/16 "2010-08-08T20:43:39Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > [there are people who are not necessarily better off by change and who will fight to keep things to their benefit. Well, I do feel a little bad for the buggy whip makers. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/17 "2010-08-08T22:31:11Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > > [@msmith537](#): > > > > [there are people who are not necessarily better off by change and who will fight to keep things to their benefit. > > Well, I do feel a little bad for the buggy whip makers. 😛 What about American IT worker’s whose jobs have been sent to India? Is outsourcing an inevitable economic change? ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2010, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-is-inevitable/549571/18 "2010-08-09T01:58:41Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > History has a way of making fools out of prophets. But they certainly know how to make profits from fools.