Anyone who has piloted a modern âoefly by wireâ aircraft has already experienced this. The computer is always there âoehelping, guiding, nudging and smoothing your inputs.â

Slashdot, are you serious? Two of this guys comments have been moded "insightful." Yet he offers no insight. Having government run healthcare is going to result in numerous incidents like this one. Information is going to be lost that shouldn't. Of course you're kidding yourself if you think that the private insurers aren't losing things they just aren't telling. But that is beside the point what really bothers me is the acceptance by the moderators these two statements as "insightful":

How many examples of incompetency like this do we need before maybe people will reconsider whether having government get into the health care business and all these other "growth areas" for government is really such a good idea? ... What I am not doing is endorsing any alternative proposals or anything like that.

Where is the insight? Right now hundreds of thousands of Americans are without healthcare. Many more have inadequate health care. Instead of this in many countries everyone has healthcare. Now admittedly in those countries everyone is subject to "government errors." BUT THEY ALL GET HEALTHCARE. What would be insightful would be to suggest a way for everyone to get healthcare without these types of problems. Maybe that is why some folks are so keen on electronic records? Better record keeping might reduce errors. Come on causality, let's hear some insight!

My experience is the opposite of the headline of this story. I think most non-IT types are more worried about privacy than they should be. They are terrified of MySpace, paranoid about their SSN's, warn me that file sharing will inevitably lead to me being "hacked," etc. It's true that the internet can be hazardous, less than crossing the street but true. But is also true that of the millions of people on MySpace of the millions of servicemen's SSN's that have been stolen, I am not an attractive target in a very target rich environment. I have long felt that a little bit of common sense in the face of "the internet is DANGEROUS" meme popular on FoxNN would go a long way. My neighbors won't let their kids have a facebook account, my inlaws are afraid of online banking, my parents are afraid of debit cards. I think it's time for the non-IT people to calm down.