Fixing Medicare

Last week I was chatting with a friend and colleague, and over wine we were talking of matters deep and complex. In our weighty discussion was something that has been playing on my mind recently, and it provides the basis for this week's entry.

When you're looking at a complex biological system (such as human beings) trying to discern the cause or correct treatment of a disease, there are many, many factors to consider such as is the disease more prevalent in Caucasian women aged 35-45 who are post menopausal, have not had children, who smoke and drink occasionally, and that consume a low-fat diet and are not overweight? In that constraint alone we've identified 9 variables, and we haven't yet delved into an accurate medical history or lifestyle questionnaire, after which, you could easily be looking at 200-300 variables.

In early education, we're taught to think in 2 dimensions, and then 3, but very rarely do we spend much time thinking in more than 3 dimensions. We're taught to interpret and create 2d graphs that have a correlation between the x axis and the y axis, and from this we generally infer outcomes. In the above case of trying to determine disease characteristics, we're looking for a correlation that spans 300 dimensions, and even then, the 'signal' we're looking for is very small compared to the 'noise'. Whilst mathematicians are capable of multi-variant analysis, I think they'd laugh if you asked them to solve this problem, and yet, this is what the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries are trying to do on a daily basis. Since the problem is essentially unsolvable using scientific / mathematical methods what's left? Well, non scientific methods such as 'trial and error'(*), intuition and just plain serendipity(#).

Rather than becoming overwhelmed with the futily of trying to solve this problem, I've come up with a solution: prison inmates. You see, 200-300 variables is simply too many. We need to study a population that lives a similar and well known lifestyle, and thus dramatically reduce the number of variables in the model. Why prison inmates? Their lifestyle is well known, tightly controlled, as is their diet, and there's lots of them, giving a large sample size of people that have a great deal in common. For example I believe($) that prisoners have a well defined exercise period, and since you generally know where they are, it's easy to monitor their vital signs and characteristics, and they (presumably) always turn up to clinic appointments. Want to see if the absence of broccoli from the diet makes a difference? Easy, exclude broccoli from half of your population and monitor the effect. It's still a difficult problem to solve, but at least I've simplified it greatly.

(*) In reality, mostly 'error' which is why so much money is spent on research and development, yielding very little in terms of outcome.
(#) If you don't believe me, look up the history of the development of Penicillin, it was good luck combined with awful science that led to this breakthrough.
($) Don't quote me on this, I've thankfully never spent time in the clink, although I did get detention a few times at school.

Too Much Choice - Part II

I'm about to embark on a short business trip to Germany. I've been to visit these places before, and so in some senses it's familiar, but as always I'm a little nervous when travelling to non-English speaking countries.

I'll be visiting some academics in Muenchen (Munich), and I think they speak better English than I. Of course I probably have a larger vocabulary, and a better grasp of idioms and slang, but I suspect their grammar and usage far surpasses my own. To be able to speak more than one language fluently is something I find greatly impressive. So, why am I nervous about heading over there? Taxi drivers and Hotel staff, and I'll tell you why.

Whilst most professional Germans speak English as a second language, like most countries, German taxi drivers and hotel workers tend to be immigrants, and as such are thus speaking German as a second language, and English as a distant third. Thus, when travelling in continental Europe taking a taxi, and checking in and out of hotels always causes me some excitement.

Recently, I've been thinking about the financial cost of having so many languages, and as such so many barriers to communication. Who knows what an accurate figure would be, but I can only guess that it's a vast number. So, in my effort to simplify the world, and remove extraneous choices, I suggest that we (everybody in the world) speak a common language. Of course, this would not be a simple, or an easy exercise, but I think you'll agree it will be worth it in the end. Imagine a publisher being able to publish a single version of a book that spans all nationalities and countries; this alone has to be worth it. Nonetheless I expect many people will disagree, and claim that I haven't thought about this scheme in depth. Well, let me disagree, I have! I've even solved the next step which is deciding what the common language would be: Latin.

Let me explain why Latin is the obvious choice:

1) It's the fairest option, as there is no country which uses Latin as its Lingua Franca, and so we'll ALL have to learn it, and ALL need to give up our current mother tongue.

2) It's classed as a dead language. This is clearly a waste. We need to resuscitate it, and bring it back to life. If you're going to have a language, make sure that it's pulling its weight.

3) It's remarkably compact. Often whole sentences in English can be expressed in Latin with remarkably few words. This will have many consequences, for example, e-mails and text messages will be shorter, and cost less. Books will be shorter, and cost less. The reading speed of everybody will immediately increase, helping education metrics no-end! Also, roadsigns can be designed with larger fonts, and will be easier to read at speed, and this will help my chauffeur enormously.

4) It's not Esperanto, which was just plain daft.

Damn, now I'm going to have to re-market my products. Anybody know the Latin for 'Paralun'?

Solving Global Warming

Global warming is something that affects us all, and in the run-up to the Copenhagen summit I felt it my duty to pull on my thinking cap, and solve this problem once and for all.

It didn't take long before my creative juices were flowing, and inspiration wandered across the croquet lawn near the East wing of my current abode(*), in the form of our dog. You see, being responsible dog-owners, we've removed the chaps 'knackers', in an effort to collectively control the canine population. As such, dogs can reproduce as, and when, we see fit.

Human beings are the cause - directly, or indirectly - of global warming, we watch TV, we drive cars, we burn coal, we eat cows. Surely the best way of countering global warming is for there to be less of us. We need to neuter and spay ourselves.(#) It's the responsible thing to do.

I believe in this so firmly that I'd happy to be head of the line, but unfortunately due to losing a hand of poker several years back in quite dramatic circumstances, there's really very little point.


(*) my office provides a very tidy view
(#) I don't literally mean ourselves, I suggest getting a professional to do it