One of the top issues in the chess community today is the use of computers in chess. For the first 1000 years of the game, computers did not exist. Analysis was purely with a board and pieces. Famously, Frank Marshall sat in his house for 5 years in the early 1900s, only to come out and reveal the Marshall Gambit and win the United States Championship. Computers really came into the chess scene in around the 1950s, when the first digital computers were emerging. In the 1990s computers began to actually be a challenge to the top humans. Deep Thought premiered in 1988 with a rating of 2551. However, top humans had ratings of around 2800 and were still able to beat the computer. In 1996 the top supercomputer, Deep Blue faced off against world champion Garry Kasparov. Deep Blue beat kasparov 3.5-2.5, becoming the first computer ever to beat a human world champion.
Kasparov then claimed that a computer could not make some of the moves that Deep Blue made because "he knew how computers thought." He then tried to sue its operators saying one of the humans made the winning move and not the computer itself. Computers such as "Junior" and "Fritz" began to be sold in public and were able to at least draw with world champions. People suddenly were able to have the analysis of a world champion in their house. However there were many reprocussions.
Suddenly people were able to simply memorize computer moves. There were no more instancies of people like Frank Marshall figuring out new lines when computers could analyse 40 moves per second. Many people began to protest that these computers took away the "art" of chess because people could now just memorize moves. After every game, almost every player goes home and plugs the game into their computer to see where they made mistakes. This is considered a major money saver because it takes away some of the need for private coaching. Nonetheless, nowadays computers are a major part of chess that are here to stay. They currently out rate the world champion by over 700 rating points. They now have beaten every world champion since Karparov.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Health Insurance Reform
Today, clearly Health Insurance reform in the United States is needed. From the 47 million uninsured to the 2.4 trillion dollars spent per capita, it is clear that there are many problems with the system. The uninsured can be broken down into 25% "by choice," 20% who qualify for government problems, and 55% who cannot afford health care and do not qualify for government programs. The biggest problems with all of these can amount to cost. Calling the uninsured "by choice," is a misconception. The term refers to those who make 50,000 dollars per year or more and do not have have insurance. However, a 9,000 per person premium is still a significant portion of someone's annual. Therefore, it is likely that cost has an affect on those who are uninsured "by choice." The 20% who do qualify are an interesting question, though cost is likely also a key factor. Those on most government plans still have to pay some premium. Therefore, it is likely that people in this group also are affected by the cost of insurance. The other 55% solely cite costs in a Harvard Medical School Study.
The cost of health insurance has doubled in the past 10 years. It is the leading factor of uninsurance. The United States is the #1 in amount spent on health insuirance in the world per capita. The costs doubled in the past 10 years, while inflation only grew 30%. One of the main reasons for higher costs is profit (14% of what people are charged.
While these are both huge problems, the system is quite hard to fix. A universal plan would be very hard to fund. People could be mandated to join a plan, but that could be horrible to those who cannot afford insurance and are currently uninsured. A universal plan, such as Senator Clinton's proposal where taxes pay for plans would require a massive tax increase in an economic crisis, and it is proven to lead to much longer wait times in other countries with these systems. The plan of having everyone pay premiums to the government and the government take the 14% used for profit and use it to fund the insured, but that is not decreasing the cost and if the trend of people not able to afford insurance continues, the funding would go away as the number of people who need funding increased as people could not afford health insurance.
President Obama's proposal is not without its flaws as well. It talks of great results, but its specifics in acheiving these results are very expensive. Obama proposes a subsidy on a sliding scale, but this would come at a massive price to provide this to so many americans. His plan would require a tax increase of some kind on the rich (about 4% needed), which although they can afford this tax is sort of spreading the wealth. He also mandates businesses to purchase health care which could hurt them financially
Health Insurance is clearly in need of reform, but every plan has its strings attached. It is impossible to have a perfect system and while universal plans fix the uninsured problem, they worsen the cost one. Obama's plan is probably the best one out there in terms of funding, but it definetely has its flaws. This issue will still be a major issue many years from now, but hopefully Obama's plan can at least cut costs of insurance and the number of uninsured.
The cost of health insurance has doubled in the past 10 years. It is the leading factor of uninsurance. The United States is the #1 in amount spent on health insuirance in the world per capita. The costs doubled in the past 10 years, while inflation only grew 30%. One of the main reasons for higher costs is profit (14% of what people are charged.
While these are both huge problems, the system is quite hard to fix. A universal plan would be very hard to fund. People could be mandated to join a plan, but that could be horrible to those who cannot afford insurance and are currently uninsured. A universal plan, such as Senator Clinton's proposal where taxes pay for plans would require a massive tax increase in an economic crisis, and it is proven to lead to much longer wait times in other countries with these systems. The plan of having everyone pay premiums to the government and the government take the 14% used for profit and use it to fund the insured, but that is not decreasing the cost and if the trend of people not able to afford insurance continues, the funding would go away as the number of people who need funding increased as people could not afford health insurance.
President Obama's proposal is not without its flaws as well. It talks of great results, but its specifics in acheiving these results are very expensive. Obama proposes a subsidy on a sliding scale, but this would come at a massive price to provide this to so many americans. His plan would require a tax increase of some kind on the rich (about 4% needed), which although they can afford this tax is sort of spreading the wealth. He also mandates businesses to purchase health care which could hurt them financially
Health Insurance is clearly in need of reform, but every plan has its strings attached. It is impossible to have a perfect system and while universal plans fix the uninsured problem, they worsen the cost one. Obama's plan is probably the best one out there in terms of funding, but it definetely has its flaws. This issue will still be a major issue many years from now, but hopefully Obama's plan can at least cut costs of insurance and the number of uninsured.
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