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by zsmizzle 968 days ago
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/279/transcript
1 comments

Ha, yeah, that's it. And, the quote in question, from David Segal, apparently:

"Everyone wants to be the king of the hill. That's international. But the number of aspiring kings always dwarfs the number of available hills. So in this country, we build more hills. We're geniuses, in fact, at building more hills."

Which is great until those hills directly or indirectly affect people's health. Healthcare should not be a hill. Prisons should not be a hill. Politics should not be a hill.
Pick your poison - would you rather have too many hills or not enough hills? Turns out limiting hill making is complex, and requires an even bigger hill that calls the shots
I would, in fact, rather, we had a flat landscape.
A flat landscape implies no opportunity for anyone to do anything. If you really want, go live in the wilderness on your own. That is the only true flat landscape
Flat landscape means no one rules over anyone else. I means you can give people authority but you can take away that authority without repercussions.

If you want to live in a world subjected by a king or some fool on a hill, go ahead. I don’t pretend like you’re anything other than a peasant.

I want to add as well, that you will all deride Elon Musk, but in secret you want to be Elon musk, you want to be that same person on top of the hill. So, even though you’re not him, you’re no better than him.
I tend to read Harrison Bergeron as cautionary tale, not inspiration…

https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge...

Europe's doing a pretty good job at limiting hill making, while still having plenty of hills for healthy competition.
They affect health by creating enormous numbers of new fields for research and medicine, which after patent expiry is generified and manufactured cheaply for eternity.
You can have medical research without charging $1000 for an ambulance ride, $10k - $20k for having a child, $100,000 for staying in the hospital a few days. Those are the things I'm talking about.
You can, but these are complex systems, where some areas will have a profit incentive and be efficient, and others just mired in regulation, either directly or in a way that prevents competition arising. I don't think anyone deliberately built that hill. It's made up of lots of awesome hills and lots of hideous quagmires.