I suspect the HIV shot might be an easier sell than some of the others, because deaths from the initial epidemic are still recent enough for many people to remember. - not to mention public health campaigns like this one.

While trade/labor unions are much maligned in the often libertarian-leaning IT community, this is the kind of situation where a bit of organization amongst colleagues - along the lines of what engineers or medical professionals have, would actually be useful.

But given that we have the IT professional community that we have:

• Document that you've told your boss, and probably your boss's boss, and probably the legal department (perhaps informally and verbally initially). If you've told them, it's their problem, not yours
• Start polishing your resume. Whistleblowing usually has negative consequences for the whistleblower - and, furthermore, continuing to work for an organization which has such a lax attitude to software poses a risk to your career if you stay there.

Incidentally, your case neatly demonstrates the near-uselessness of the IEEE-ACM Software Engineering Code of Ethics, which is very long on what the ethical obligations of a software engineer are, but has nothing useful to say about what you should do where others are ordering you to act unethically.

Here's the even funnier thing, this is an empirical question and the clear evidence is that, indeed, pollution from wood stoves *does* hurt other people.

But, hey, science.

Much and all as the 3D graphics prowess of modern smartphones is amazing, trying to do any serious gaming on them is an exercise in frustration. Touchscreens are useful for some things, but their slow response times and lack of real tactile feedback makes it impossible to play fast-action games well on them.

Militaries tend to be expert in fighting wars. They are not expert in civilian nuclear power plants and environmental remediation.

Should we militarize the entire American workforce given that 13 Americans die every day in workplace accidents?

Yes, it would be detectable. But that doesn't mean it would be at levels that pose a significant incremental risk to the wider ocean environment or human health.

In most fields, $50 per hour can buy you a qualified and experienced tutor.

$30,000 would pay for 600 hours of individual tuition from such a tutor.

What do you think would improve a student's learning outcomes more?

It's possible to build very small nuclear reactors for use in space, but you can get away without shielding those (or, at least, only shielding in the directions you need to shield to protect the electronics).

The emitted radiation is far too dangerous for on-Earth use without tons of shielding.

Guess what, everywhere else that has implemented universal health care the local conservatives immediately tried to get rid of it. They succeeded nowhere.

To take some specific examples in the English-speaking world, in Australia, the local conservatives did manage to repeal it the first time around. The second time around, they didn't get back into government for thirteen years until they promised to keep it, and they've never seriously tried repealing it since despite long periods in power. In the UK, even that hero of the right, Margaret Thatcher, left the NHS alone. The overwhelming evidence is that once universal health care systems are introduced, they are enormously popular.

So, yeah, drag this one out into a political fight to the death. It's unlikely, but possible, you'll knock it off. But if your lot continues with this crap for too long once it's in place, you will consign yourself to electoral irrelevance; even the ridiculous malapportionment and gerrymandering that goes on in the US won't be enough to save them.

In the medium term, I won't be terribly sad at that; while sensible health care reform will ensure that millions of your fellow citizens have healthier, longer lives, it doesn't affect me directly. But a couple of your party's other insanities, particularly its delusions on climate science, do. And if you do manage to consign yourself to complete electoral irrelevance for a few terms, the United States will be able to act effectively on climate change.

"find a way to get the patient to care about the cost of their medical services..."? Are you completely deluded? My partner had emergency surgery earlier this year. Was I really supposed to call round the hospitals in my city, weigh the experience and success rates of the surgeons and the fees they were charging, consider the various treatment options, and make a rational decision with the love of my life lying in the ER with gallons of morphine almost but not quite controlling her pain - and, heck, risk that she might suffer even more serious and permanent health implications - with more delay?

Back in the real world, the doc could have told me just about anything about the cost of the operation, and I would have agreed to it.

But, because I live in a country with universal health care, in a situation where the treatment was clearly medically justified, the docs were able to go ahead and do the surgery, and we got a bill for $0.

And your notion of an "end of year shutdown" in hospitals is complete and utter bollocks. Does not happen - if there's even a hint of this kind of thing, the relevant docs go to the media, who get the requisite photos of people who've recently been treated and interviews with the docs, and the government tips in some extra funds.

There is no legal impediment to the NSA collecting, logging, analyzing, and possibly mischaracterizing *everything* I do online, and sharing the results of that analysis with the relevant local cops. The constitutional protections extended to American citizens do not apply to foreigners, from those living in other Western democracies, to those living in countries controlled by various "our-sonnfabitches" that the USA has supported over the years. It's well documented that the CIA has, on a regular basis, interfered in the domestic politics of other countries around the world, including aiding politically convenient despots in enforcing repression. In the old days, the computational tools to surveil everyone in the world simply didn't exist, so the CIA and NSA were naturally limited in who they could bother. Now, such limits apply to a much lesser extent. In terms of the technical capability (and I'm not implying equality of motives) it's heading in the direction of what the Stasi could do - to every single person on the entire planet. And, sorry, I am *not* happy that the United States government has that kind of reach. And nor should you be.

Have you ever flown in a widebody jet? They may as well have no windows. And people fly in military cargo planes without passenger windows all the time.

You do understand that the only people gun control has any effect on are the law abiding citizens and they're the least likely to commit gun crimes, yes?

That's not actually true. While a relatively small number of hardened criminals in Australia use illegal firearms for their crimes, the vast majority of junkies, teenage hotheads, small-time drug dealers, and so on do not. Even more importantly, they mostly don't have concealable handguns that they can carry on a city street.

Consequently, our murder rate is a tiny fraction yours is.