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Comment Screening != Treatment != Side effects (Score 1) 253

The general arguement is that 'screening comes with harms as well as benefits' (from TFA), which is false unless you believe that listening to the heart leads to side effects from open-heart surgery because too many false positive heart diseases or indolent heart conditions are overly treated. The problem lies within understanding the results and the possible outcomes from different treatments. For example, if cancer is found that is possibly slow growing or indolent, then go into a "watchful monitoring" treatment of more frequent and different checks. Because we have great screening systems that will be able to detect disease earlier and earlier, we need to understand that there is a point at which a disease is so early it is not worth treating. But it does not mean we should not look.

In othehr words, because bad actions can be taken as a result of getting the correct diagnosis information, then we need to fix our analysis and recommendation for treatments. Lets not stick our heads in the sand and not even look for the disease.

First Person Shooters (Games)

Berlin Wall 'Death Strip' Game Sparks Outrage In Germany 193

gzipped_tar writes "According to Spiegel Online, 'A new computer game where players assume the roles of border guards and shoot people trying to escape from communist East Germany has unleashed a storm of controversy in Germany. The game's creator says he wanted to teach young people about history, but he has been accused of glorifying violence. ... The name of the multi-player FPS game, 1,378 (kilometers), was inspired by the length of the border between East and West Germany. ... [Players] choose between the roles of the border guards or would-be escapees: the escapee only has one goal — to get over the wall, but the border guard has more options, and can shoot or capture the escapee. He can also swap sides and try to clamber over the border defenses himself.' By choosing to play the border guard and kill the escapee, the player would win an in-game medal from the government of East Germany. But then the guard would time-travel forward to the year 2000, where he would have to stand trial. Jens Stober, 23, designed the game as a media art student at the University of Design, Media and Arts in Karlsruhe. He said that his intention was to teach young people about German history."

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