Alrighty Halloween haunt starts today well or tomorrow whenever you're watching this video if you happen to watch in it Watch it right now as it's uploaded. It is still until tomorrow So how we haunt starts Friday September 23rd, and it runs Friday Saturday And I don't think it runs the first Sunday, but I could be incorrect. I don't think it runs the first Sunday, but Wonderland will only have five mazes this year So they'll have the crypt the ruins corn stalkers in spirit manner Which are all returning and then pandemonium which is not actually a new maze even though it's being marketed as a new maze It's actually just an enhancement of a current maze blackout that used to exist in the bottom of the mound So it's just gonna add some lights And vibrant colors in there and it'll essentially be the same thing just slightly upgraded So I'll put that to rest. No new mazes really just an upgrade Outside of that the reason Wonderland is going with less mazes is actually a cedar fair decision A lot of people going and visiting Halloween haunt tend to not be able to do all the mazes in a single night When Wonderland explained the reasoning behind Limiting the mazes it actually kind of makes sense. So Wonderland and cedar fair are actually gonna focus on adding Scare zones over haunted houses. So scare zones are areas that you walk through So people are able to do them versus haunted houses. So over the years, you'll see more scare zones added You'll see enhancement with entertainment things that people can do without having to line up and we got a little sneak peek of Day of the Dead So day of the dead is a festival and parade new this year And I honestly was a little nervous when I saw the kind of like description of it I was a little nervous and I'll explain why the reason I was slightly nervous is the old Wonderland Sometimes didn't excel at entertainment or pulling things off But this new Wonderland has really impressed me and I know a lot of people disagree with me But I'm sorry the new restaurant is a huge success and a huge hit the new themed areas like frontier Canada huge success and we got to see a little teaser of day of the dead festival today Thursday There was an employee sneak peek and we got to see some of their little sneak peeks of that and it looks amazing The costume design is amazing the vibe looks amazing. So I can already tell this is a huge hit So I just want to say anyone that had a Say in day of the dead festival or picking this entertainment honestly. Thank you It is a family event It is listed on the website as a family friendly event and I like the direction that Wonderland's heading with that I like that Wonderland's becoming this place where you can do a multitude of things In a night if I want to go do haunted houses. I can go to screamers. I can go to fear farm I can go to the Scream park in Kitchener as well at Binghamons, you know, there's many places to go do haunted houses now So Wonderland's trying to kind of like separate themselves and become more of a destination for the whole family Yes, they're still gonna have those haunted houses and those scare zones that are, you know, scary and high thrill And they're gonna have the the attractions like the roller coasters open as well But on top of that they're gonna have entertainment. So if you're creating something different, you got the entertainment The handcrafted beverages are also coming back and I didn't know this about this But those blood bags are actually handcrafted in the park by the food and beverage department So that was actually something really unique that I learned this year about those But outside of that day of the dead festival is one of the only newer things coming this season for entertainment But there will be more So in terms of what's new for Halloween haunt Day of the dead festival and pandemonium are the only two new things they did unfortunately get rid of the Sink the jerk And the reason was it was a little too crass from what the park told us So we did learn that unfortunately there were parents in 2022 I know you can't do comedy anymore And I know that me even saying that's gonna piss off some my viewers But I do really hate the direction the world's heading in terms of the fact that sink the jerk can't even take place anymore because it's too Crass that was honestly one of the funniest things that Halloween haunt So it's it's a shame that we're losing that in 2022 But nonetheless that will not be coming or returning anytime soon Vampire disco will have more dancers and be a slightly larger version Love that it's coming back. It was honestly a huge success love everyone that was a part of vampire disco It was such a vibe so happy they're keeping that honestly they could add a whole nother one as well um Honestly, I think that's all in terms of what's new for hawing haunt what to do My recommendation is visit hawing haunt the first two weekends. It is going to get absolutely insane as we head into october So visit now book now visit now go now Your 2023 gold passes will get you in this season So definitely use your 2023 gold pass to get in your benefits will not work. So food plan drink plan Um parking pass. So you have to buy a 2022 parking pass on your 2023 pass for it to work Um, I'm trying to think if there's any other advice I could possibly give you Uh You save your fast lanes for how we haunt if you can't unfortunately they don't work But a little tip or trick if you get your fast lane in the morning. So on a saturday or sunday I can't confirm if this is actually going to be the case this year But in previous years the fast lane color band does not change for how we haunt Thus it will work during how we haunt your morning fast lane band Um, so we'll see if they fix that or change that but as of previous seasons that has not changed And um, that's pretty much it honestly check out all the shows make sure you visit the five haunted houses There are scare zones all the scare zones are returning It does look like wonderland has enhanced costume design and makeup as well Everything is looking absolutely amazing. I'm really excited. It seems like cedar fair Instead of adding a bunch of new things really focused on just enhancing the overall atmosphere Oh a big thing that I missed the bags. So bags are not permitted at how we haunt this season They had to be super small basically the size of like a little Just bigger than a wallet or like a little Fanny pack very small. Wonderland actually recommends not bringing a bag in the park at all So that's that for any of our media friends. You can reach out to the park. You'll be permitted one visit For anyone that does media or is on the media list of the park reach out to the park They will let you one day to bring in a bag like camera gear and all that to film So just wanted to give that tidbit to any of you who are looking to film for how we haunt for your youtube channels or anything Reach out to grace peacock and she can help set that up But outside of that that's pretty much it no diaper bags and nothing will be permitted. They're really strict This is the security concern Because teenagers are absolutely out of control and the not letting bags in the park is going to save us from those teenagers To be honest, I completely disagree with the bag policy I get it working at other parks But wonderland is one of those parks where like literally the average person brings in a bag So I have a feeling this isn't going to work out so well But hopefully everyone knows that you're not allowed to bring in a bag I understand Some of the reasoning so I'm not going to bash the park for it. But I kind of disagree But nonetheless Everyone enjoy haunt. It's going to be absolutely amazing get those night rides. It's going to be a cold weekend guys So bring some warm clothes and yeah Uh, I'm glad I made this video late because I was honestly going to be really upset with them limiting even more Haunted houses, but as I got to talk to the park the decision making Actually does make sense and after seeing the day of the dead festival. I love the direction. They're heading to be honest I love this family friendly Event. I think they could go even more family friendly like go down a dollywood vibe I think that would do wonderland wonders really separate themselves from those other attractions Have those haunted houses still but half like I think even if any of you know pumpkins after dark I think wonderland should have some of that around the park as well Really go all out for hawing haunt and winterfest and really make yourself that Have to go there Kind of destination park, but it's really difficult for wonderland because no matter what they do They could literally have one haunted house. They're going to sell out those last three weeks of haunt It's going to be absolutely crowded and insane no matter what they do. So again Stay safe everyone Um, do not panic. I just want to give some advice if something is to happen Don't stampede if you see a stampede happening get out of the way. Um stampedes can be really dangerous Um Don't please do not partake in a stampede. Don't do for your safety run if there is actual danger But understand a situation get information and react accordingly and safely plan ahead You do not want to get trampled by a stampede sometimes stampedes can be the more dangerous part of it If any of you remember what happened last year that is exactly that so stay safe and May the odds be in all the workers favor Please respect the workers. Okay, serious. Nope. Please respect the workers if you see guests disrespecting workers stand up for those workers They cannot defend themselves Um, and they can't even vocally defend themselves as well Wonderland's really strict on that and it is not fair some of the things that these teenagers do to these workers If you go to haunt you are going there to get scared You're not going there to try and scare the workers yourselves Just have some respect. Um, and just Anyways, have fun. It's hawing haunt. I'm super excited. See you guys at the park. Have a good one. Bye


It's my pleasure to introduce my colleague Dr. Rachel Adams who's a senior research specialist at the HSRC. As our CEO, Professor Soudini has mentioned, there's been a close collaboration with the University of Pretoria and also with the CSIR and Rachel sits on the independent expert panel. I'm trying to read the small writing of the scientific department of science and innovation. Also, on the CSIR is Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research, who work on gender and AI has been cited by the journal Nature, by the New York Times and the Guardian newspapers and also by the United Nations. It's my pleasure to ask you to please join me in welcoming Rachel to the podium. I want to start off by talking about Vladimir Putin. Since 2017 and China has just issued its new generation of artificial intelligence development plan which calls for China to lead the artificial intelligence development of the world. And Vladimir Putin, probably not happy about this. And a few weeks later, he says that whichever nation leads in the development and deployment of artificial intelligence will rule the world. Years later, and following Putin's comments, the UK, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Italy and Japan have all issued AI policies and in every single one of these policies they mention becoming a global leader or THE global leader on artificial intelligence. Last year, the US released the executive order on maintaining American leadership in artificial intelligence. And at the same time, South Africa was establishing its Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a commission that was tasked with the specific objective to position South Africa as one of the leading countries in the evolution and development of the four IR, where one of the key proponents is artificial intelligence. So on the one hand, this kind of attitude is vital to resisting what Ian Hogarth is calling AI nationalism, which he warns could result in a new kind of colonialism where those countries that are not at the forefront of the development of AI will depend on those countries who are. But on the other hand, the drive to be globally competitive may result in a failure to prioritize national objectives of the country in favor of global relevance, or at worst, it may result in the sacrificing of individual rights to corporate power and profitability. Indeed, we are surrounded by enormous talk about the promises and the potentials of AI and the Fourth Industrial Revolution to radically change our societies for the better. But we are not considering enough what we lose, what we stand to lose as we replace social interactions and government services with dehumanized digitalizations. And these conversations about what we stand to lose are conversations that we can be having here and that we should be bringing into discussions around the development of policies in this area. So at the moment, I think it's fair to say that there is a lot of talk in this space. There's a lot of talk and there's a lot of politics. But how much governance is going on? And this is precisely the question that we are looking to answer in this series of topical guides. What is the state of the governance of these technologies in these particular fields, where the policing, where the education, where the health, where the migration or city planning, and what are the ways in which this can be strengthened to better protect against exploitation and discrimination and to promote just and equitable societies? So that was our core purpose. Now every time I speak about AI, I'm asked, what does AI mean? Please define it. And I hate defining it because I think we need to have a dynamic definition that encompasses the histories of all those kinds of technologies that came before it and all the different ways in which it becomes represented in cultural products and discussions. The material is just as important as the imaginary in this space. But if we must define it, the European Commission has spoken about a system that displays intelligent behavior by analyzing its environment and taking actions with some degree of autonomy to achieve specific goals. So AI is part of a broader field of algorithmic and automated decision making, where computing devices collect and analyze data to support or make decisions on behalf of humans. And the main reason for automating decision making, as Professor Sudin taught us, or told us this morning, is that it is sought to minimize human error. It is sought to operate more efficiently and more fast and produce greater results in a quicker space of time. But this drive for efficiency and to eliminate human contingency has resulted in biases that cannot be questioned, precisely because they have been produced by a supposedly neutral and objective machine. In the US, we have seen the profoundly discriminatory results of AI systems used to determine bail applications or to determine the ranking of CVs and resumes in hiring practices. In both situations, the algorithms, like all algorithms, are trained on historical data. And so they can only ever reproduce what is going on in society at the moment. So they can only ever reproduce the societal discriminations that people of color face in the criminal justice system, or that women face in hiring practices. Closer to home, we have seen how in South Africa, Cache Paymaster System was awarded a contract by the South African Social Security Agency by SASA to provide social grants to 17 million beneficiaries across South Africa. And what happened was that its parent company, NetOne, took all this highly personal data, data about people's income levels, their gender, their race, their age, their number of dependents, and onsold, profiled them, and onsold predatory financial products. There was many questions raised at the time about what was happening here, whether consent was offered, whether we would ever be able to retrieve this data from Cache Paymaster Systems and NetOne. And all this time, NetOne was saying that they were offering financial services to an undeserved segment of the population. But more critically, what happened was that those people who had signed on to these financial products, their loan agreements would take the money out of their social grant before they even received it. So there was reports of people going to collect their 350-rand child grant and having most of that taken away from these loan agreement terms and being left with nothing. So how do we ensure that there is accountability when a machine has generated a discriminatory outcome? How do we protect our communities against exploitation and the commercialization of their data that has become so profound here in South Africa? And how do we equip our communities with understanding about their data rights and know how to exercise and how to claim these rights? So at the midst of these very pressing questions about the state of the prevalence of artificial intelligence in South Africa, there has been a lot of talk about the fact that artificial intelligence is operating in this kind of unregulated space. Michael and I have done work in various industries where time and time again we are told AI operates in its own kind of space. There's no regulation here. It's doing what it likes, whether it's a social media company or whether it's a financial services provider. But if this was true, if it was really true that AI is operating in an unregulated space, then this would pose a massive threat to the rule of law and to the capacity of the South African sovereign state to protect the rights of its individuals. So we need to interrogate those questions, and we need to interrogate them very seriously. And this is part of what we've done here. Part of what we're trying to show is this is not an unregulated space. It is a space where the regulation and the policy must develop further and where we must do a lot more to consolidate the policies and laws that we currently have and interpret them in ways that strengthens people's rights. There is a lot of work to be done and this policy, this series of topical guides aims to do that. But we are not entirely without laws and policies. We're going to hear from Varsha about the Protection of Personal Information Act, which will hopefully shortly come into effect. We're going to hear from Fadler about the relevant regional and international human rights frameworks to which South Africa is a party. If a corner was here with us today, which unfortunately he couldn't make it because of an issue with his flight this morning, we would learn more about the work of DSI and the CSIR in promoting inclusive use and development of AI. From Kelly, we're going to hear about the applicable provisions within the NDP, the white paper on policing and the white paper on safety and security that seek to promote the use of ICTs and responsibly so within SAPs. Mamaki will speak to the SA South Africa's white paper on e-education and the imperative to use ICTs and schools and the potential fallout for the right to education in this context. Yamkela is going to talk about the 2017 white paper on international migration and the limitations of the provisions relating to biometrics and the securitisation of migration management. Vadanto is going to speak about the national digital health strategy and how far it supports the centricity of the patient and promoting access to healthcare. And in the introduction to the series, which some of you may now have and it certainly will be available here today, we look at the provisions of the African Union Convention on cybersecurity and personal data protection, which calls for the limited reuse of personal data and for the limited use of automated processing. And given that this convention was drafted in 2011, it was really ahead of its time. But we note that there's various laws and policies that are in the process of being developed. We are at different stages in our kind of legislative drafting in this space. The Copyright Act is currently being amended. The Cyber Crimes and Cyber Security Bill with all its flaws is being considered. The Electronic Communications Amendment Bill is also on the table. But alongside all of this, we have a constitution that sets out what we mean by an inclusive society and what the transformational objectives of South Africa are. And that needs to be at the fore. And I think this is really how South Africa could think about leading in this space is by centering our constitutional values, by centering human rights. This is new. This is new to the space of artificial intelligence. We have ethics in the EU. We have massive competitive commercialization in the US and China. But nowhere are any countries really promoting the human rights-based approach to artificial intelligence. And our constitution has done amazing things, not only in setting out this broad scope of human rights, but also in holding the private sector to account for the realization of rights, when they have committed to do so and when the state is unable to fund them. This was precisely the issue with SASA and it's a really remarkable achievement of our constitutional courts. So as we face these questions about how the law apparently cannot keep up with the technology, we must remember that we do have applicable laws and where we do not, the tech needs to slow down and wait for the deliberative, consultative process of lawmaking to take place, which might include things like social impact assessments on new and proposed technologies. In addition, and as Crane said, we really recognize and support the role of our institutions and our supervisory authorities, the competitions commission, for example, in dealing with the monopoly of social media companies, the independent electoral commission in dealing with the threat to democracy and elections that social media may pose, the South African Human Rights Commission and all the work it has done on online hate speech and taking down their speech from social media platforms, the information regulator in developing causal conducts around the processing of personal data in different sectors. We need to equip our courts and our judges to deal with these complex matters and to set precedents and interpret the law in ways that protect people's rights and develop a kind of more stringent application of some of these laws. And then we need to strengthen the understanding of our communities, not only about the potential benefits of these technologies but also about their potential problems and the past to readjust and remedy that are available. And as we think about all of this, we need to think about what are the values we have here in our society that we need to draw on as first principles in which to develop, from which to develop a national response to artificial intelligence that speaks to the needs of our communities and to their wellbeing and to their rights. And these values could include things like non-extraction and non-exploitation of people's data, non-discrimination in a way that recognizes the particular histories of South Africa. Localization, which is why we are here today so we can remember the local context which these technologies need to respond and speak to. Vulnerability, this was a really interesting one that Nadine Moonsam raised with me last week. We need to recognize the vulnerability of the human species. It is not just this all-perfecting creation that can create machines that will eventually outrun us and we need to recognize the vulnerability of the digital archive, something that seems to be presented as something entirely concrete and formidable. We can think about group rights. In the African context, we have community rights which set us apart from the human rights context in Europe and those in the American region and internationally. And a lot of questions around privacy now have talked about group privacy and how people are discriminated against or some kind of harm has come to them because they are discriminated against on a group level. We also need to think about values like hope and hope in new futures and new possibilities. And as researchers, we must recognize our own role here, not only to describe what is going on but begin to imagine and constitute new realities and new futures that are perhaps more just and more equitable and more inclusive. We need to remember multilingualism. Here in this context, so much of AI is in the English language and we do not want it to override the exciting multilingual dimensions of our societies. We need to think about privacy within an African setting which may go beyond the idea of privacy to dignity, to equality, to a autonomy and all that that encompasses. We need to remember knowledge plurality and that data is not truth and we have different ideas and different ways of knowing. We need to remember about access as something that's really important for our society and this comes back to the understanding and ability to use and to claim our rights. And we need to recognize the labor involved in artificial intelligence and where that labor comes from because it's mostly the global south and we so often see these massive systems that operate in unseen ways but the work that is done is done by those whose work is already precarious and rendered vulnerable and we need to recognize that. So in closing, I want to read a quote from the white paper, the DSI's white paper in 2019 on science, technology and innovation. Where it speaks of the success of South Africa's response to the 4IRR which will include ensuring that people are not left behind as society and the economy become more technologically driven will depend on how well we exploit the pivotal role of information and communication technologies and harness the potential of big data. Yeah, I'm not entirely convinced I think we can interrogate that and we must continue to ask these difficult questions in these kinds of spaces and to insist that these developments do not happen at the cost of the rights of those living in South Africa the cost of our indigenous knowledge systems at the cost of those whose livelihoods are already rendered precarious or at the cost of the sovereignty of the South African state to protect the rights of those that live within its borders. We must work against this kind of technological determinism that characterizes the discourse around artificial intelligence and the 4IRR and that describes these developments as inevitable. Catch up will be left behind. We must instead show that technology is a sociological fact. It is a product of the values and the worldviews of those that design and create it and as such it can be designed and developed in different ways that perhaps can more closely align to the transformational objectives of our own country. Thank you.


Hi guys, it's MJ, the student-actory, and I'm back here with Tiff, who studied actuarial science at Tux University, and in this discussion we're going to talk about what Tiff does day-to-day in the whole realm of actuarial science. So Tiff, please, can you welcome back and please tell us more about your day-to-day job as an actuary? Well, so I think I should actually go back and across a little bit and tell you a bit more about my other jobs before I go to my current role. I worked at a bank for a while as a business analyst and this was not in an actuarial capacity. So it was a year and a half and I highlight this because if you have an actuarial science degree and you choose not to go into the industry, you can always become a business analyst or do another sort of job, any sort of financial, whatever you want to do. So I did that for a year and a half and I was still writing exams and then I decided to go and work at a life insurance start-up and that was quite an interesting place to work. It was the only two act trees were myself and the head of actuarial and so I got a very wide broad view on all the responsibilities and everything that one has to or can do in a life insurance. So there was product development, so that's going down from what sort of benefits should we offer, what does the policy wording look like? It involves so many different teams, the legal team, the ops, can we do that? Legal team saying, well, is that legal to put this in your policy? Is it all those things? What would be an example of saying that's illegal to put in your policy? Like what are you not allowed to put it? So there's a whole lot of requirements of stuff you should put it, like that you have to put it, but so you can't go against anything that is in the long-term insurance act. So can I put this in my product?  If it's tails, your benefit is lost. That'd be something that we're not allowed to put in the product. So you wouldn't be allowed to put that in your product because the fundamentals are it cannot be a gamble. It's not a gamble. So if it's in any way represents a gamble, then it's just... You need the gambling license. Yeah. I'm not sure exactly, but yeah, it also has to be you have to leave the person in the same financial position or whoever the beneficiary is as they were before the event happened. So adding that dimension to it won't really fly. So another interesting thing was model development. There's pricing models, there's valuation models. There's a lot of requirements that you need to submit sort of quarterly valuations and not entirely sure. I was only there for four months. I wasn't there for the whole 12 months. Did you get fired then? I was not fired. I actually got the opportunity to move to Cape Town. So I... What was this life insurance startup doing differently? Why were they starting out? What was their business philosophy? So their business philosophy was to use alternative methods of distribution. They wanted to partner with sort of Mr. Price and sort of retailers and give life insurance through sort of the cards at Mr. Price, for example. And yeah, to try... They didn't want to compete with old mutuals and the summums of the world. They wanted to be the sort of niche market. They also had sort of a free... What would happen is if you bought another product, they'd give you six months free life insurance. And then after that, it would start kicking in your premiums. That's not... The company's not in my way of buying a chance at it. No, it's not. That's not name names. My way does something similar like that where they give you free life insurance for like a month. But you're like, well, whatever. It's quite a weird selling insurance through those channels. I mean, look, the way I see insurance is that it's a big financial decision. It's a responsible decision that people make. And they want to buy it with someone holding their hand per se. They want to go to the broker. They want to sit in the fancy office. They want to spend a day going through the different options, reading the fine print before signing it. I kind of feel like, especially you see a lot of these times you get these SMS's like, oh, buy insurance over the phone or buy it online. I don't know. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but I feel insurance is too... It's too, what could you say, too formal to be just sold at, say, a Mr. Price or something like that? Yes, I completely agree. And I feel like a lot of the target market that they were trying to reach was too financially unsophisticated to be able to completely understand how the product works. So if you give them a 10 page policy document with legal terminology, chances are they're not going to understand exactly how the product works. So another thing would be that it is... I think a lot of people would be unaware that they actually even have the product if you sell it to them in this way. Or they forget that they have this six months and they've already given their bank details. They've already committed, not signed a contract, but they've agreed over the phone. So there's all these, not ethical, it's sort of... How do you sell such a sophisticated product via this distribution channel to this specific target market? So it has its own challenges, I mean. I mean, well, already if you look at, say, the office premium, or you've got the premium that contains all the admin expenses and the brokerage fees and stuff, that makes quite a big proportion of the final premium. You've got the risk premium, which is just the actuarial risk and paying the benefit, and then all these admin expenses. And they're quite high, actuarial salaries, offices, brokerage commission, all this type of stuff. Now, when people try and sell insurance on, I think they call it micro insurance, or insurance on a much smaller level, yes, you're reducing the risk premium, but that office premium very much stays the same. Yes, there's a lot you can try to get rid of using the internet instead of a broker and clear stuff like that. But it still becomes quite an expensive product. And like you said, it's quite a sophisticated product for someone who's just getting to the grips with basic accounting and managing the income and the expenses on a month to month basis. These products are designed to look into the future and forecast different risks that can happen. And a lot of people don't want to think about all the terrible things that can happen, because I think there's even some behavioral finance thing about that. If you think about a problem, you then estimate the chance of that to be higher or something like that. It's some weird psychological thing. But let's return back to you. So after you got fired from this move to Cape Town, after you put the gambling elements in your product, and the lawyers like this is illegal, you've you've moved to Cape Town. Yes. And what did you do? What made you want to come to Cape Town? So at the time, sort of had a family moving down. So I moved on with family. And yeah, I decided what the heck Joe book. I'm young enough, and I'm crazy enough to pick up and move to another city. I also it was actually quite, quite amusing because my last day in the office of the life insurer, I didn't have a job in Cape Town. I was leaving the next day to Cape Town. And that afternoon, I got the offer from my current employer. Yes. So that was that was a good stroke of luck. So it was moving from a life insurance base to a medical space or health insurance base or quite really say health insurance in South Africa because there's a difference between health insurance and medical schemes. But anyway, a medical scheme administrator in Cape Town. And I moved into a traditional actuarial role, which in the medical scheme industry, it focuses around benefit design, pricing of benefits, contribution changes, a whole lot of that thing, that kind of stuff. So for example, you'll have a scheme coming to you and asking you. So we have a lot of people requesting or a lot of people wanting to go for a certain operation, like cataract surgery, for example. And then they'd ask you so how much is it going to cost them and how much is it going to affect their contributions? And then you'd have to go and price it based on the dates that you have. And if you don't have data, you have to look at alternative sources and then basically price that in and then sort of it gets carried through into the contributions of the members pay. Where do you get your data from? I mean, I'm sure you must have a little bit of data on hand that you guys have used before. But if you don't have specific data, like is there like an online eBay where you go and buy data or how does that work? So we are an administrator. That means we are not a medical scheme. We're a medical scheme administrator. And basically, that means that we administer quite a few schemes. And we also provide bacterial services to quite a few schemes. And this has been going on for quite a number of years. So we do have data. And it's quite a rich, rich data environment, because if you think about life insurance, you claim once and then your policy lapses or you're not relaxed, your policy is finished. Yes, it's in. Yes, it ends. With health or with with medical scheme environment, you can have multiple claims over the year. It's all short term as opposed to long term as well. You have multiple claims from multiple benefit categories. You know, some of claims can be prescribed minimum benefits. Others can be just benefits that the scheme itself offers on top of the PMBs. There's a whole lot of complexity today. And the data has all of those those aspects within it. So you'll have all the kind of names for a variety of different things as opposed to life insurance. We have the risk factors and you'll have the premium and you have the expected mortality. That's whereas, yeah, the medical scheme environment is much more data rich. And this is what you've done your your fellowship in has been in health. Yes. And was that was a difficult studying for that fellowship knowing that you worked in that environment? Or did you have to like read a bunch of notes and be like, Oh, I didn't know that I can apply that to my work. How was that procedure? So it was actually quite cool because I moved to a new team a couple of months ago before I wrote fellowship. It's a group of actuaries within the company I work for and we do we don't do traditional actual work. We do more the statistical analysis. So what I'm trying to say is I got a view on both sides of health care. So you get the traditional natural that's very like backbone, like how do we set contribution rates so that we can cover all the future claims sort of thing. And then you've got the more technical. How do we model or modeling of of of doctor profiling and more in depth things like pilots for certain systems going to doctors and and that sort of stuff. So it's more technical, it's more programming. Well, just just talking about this whole medical medical stuff. I mean, the one thing that we're seeing on the news all the time now is Obamacare, you know, especially something that Trump has shown that he doesn't like it that much. I'm not in the health space. And I don't really know Obamacare too well. And I'm just having a shot on the dog. Do you have you looked at Obamacare? Do you know what it's about? And if you have what is your opinion? So I actually haven't. What I can say about Obamacare is that they, from what I have read, they're also struggling with very big increases to their premiums. And that's super relevant in South African environment as well. But apart from that, no, haven't really looked into it. Yeah, there's a lot of politics within health care that are happening in South Africa, without having to jump over the sea. Because I mean, the last one thing about medical schemes is they're not for profit.  You know, so they are these administrative costs, and they always to to profitize it. But this whole philosophy of it, you know, not being for profit. And the fact that you, maybe you can correct me, like you can't turn anybody away, no matter their risk factor, and stuff like that. Do you think that that is sustainable? Or do you think that is fundamental to the whole thing of a medical scheme? So when the Medical Schemes Act came out a couple of years ago, the idea was they want to move into an environment where more people have access to health care. And by having these, you know, open enrollment, which is basically you cannot turn anyone away. You and also community rating is only, you can only charge a certain premium. You can charge a premium based on the option that you choose, whether you're an adult or child, or your family, or your income level, sorry. And so it's all about promoting universal access to health care. Because if you now are able to risk rate, you start excluding people that are too old or too sick. The people who need it the most. The people who need it the most. So and it's also based on the concept that you contribute what you can afford, that you use what you need. So I think that the problem now is that you have many different schemes. Some of them are open. That means that anyone can join them. Closed schemes mean it's sort of an employer group where only people who are employed by an employer group can join. Open schemes, there's a couple of open schemes now in the industry that have become quite competitive. And because of this community rating, you need healthy lives in your risk pool to cross subsidize the older sicker lives. And so this is caused in the medical scheme industry, certain schemes to start cherry picking healthy lives. And then you get all sorts of things like vitality to try and attract the healthier younger people. You get benefit design which favors people who like sort of offers benefits like I can't even think of anything like physiotherapy. So that will attract people who are more active and into sports and all of that. And so then you stuck with what happens is you get the schemes, some schemes are now losing members that are more healthy to the bigger ones that are cherry picking that are offering these benefits. And then the schemes that are losing the healthy members, their risk pool starts to deteriorate. So you're getting contribution increases year on year that are surpassing inflation. And this just keeps going on because the healthier members in those schemes are now realizing, okay, wait, this is not affordable. I can go to the other scheme which has these awesome benefits and it's cheaper. So then you have this whole sort of sort of selective lapsing effect. And this is called the actuarial death spiral where basically your risk pool just deteriorates to the point and your contributions just keep increasing until your scheme is no longer sustainable. And then you have to amalgamate or or liquidate the scheme. So isn't this a problem with the design? Because I mean, I see the understand the philosophy behind the medical scheme.  You know, and I think that it's it's a beautiful philosophy. And I think it's, you know, it's very important when you want to provide healthcare on a macro level, you know, to the population. But as you've just been discussing, there are some fundamental flaws. I mean, it's even got a cool name, the actuarial death spiral. I mean, is there is there not a better way to provide healthcare? Like, I mean, don't we need to come together and design something completely new from the ground up when it comes to to healthcare and how to finance it? Yeah, I think that's something that the world is struggling with at the moment. I mean, you've got Obamacare, so I don't know the exact details, but it's so politically opposed. And then you've got the NHI in in the UK that is just struggling financially. And it's and I think it's it all comes down to you, you won't be able to develop or build a system that works entirely if you don't change the opinion of people because people sort of have this sort of view that they that they are entitled to certain benefits where as it's only those who are truly in need who should be entitled to those benefits. So you've got over servicing from the profession from the healthcare professionals, you've got overutilization by people when they don't actually need to go for these things. So I think everywhere we need to start re-looking and I think the medical scheme industry is doing this now because it's the contribution increases which are happening at the moment are not sustainable in the in the short term or short term sure in the medium to long term. We need to come up with more innovative ways in order to to save costs where it matters without jeopardizing the quality of care and I mean there's various well one of the what that's been happening now in the past decade or even two is that managed care organizations are being formed which is also what my company does as well as sectorial and administration and they also are very popular in the United States. So managed care organizations will try and like manage your costs in an effective way or provide so for example they'll contract with doctors in order so the doctors are on the network and they they charge these rates as opposed to doctors just charging whatever they want to set their rates as or they will look at disease management where if someone has a chronic disease they're going to make sure that this person gets their tests done that whole thing. So it's moving less into a well how do we give access to everyone to a how do we correctly manage these costs so that they don't spiral out of control and there's a lot of it's a very complicated environment and so another thing that's come up is now NHI which is due to be implemented in the next couple of years which will basically in the final stages lead to the medical scheme industry not being what it is now it will just offer supplementary services so that's also a completely different ball game now. You look at I mean let's say if you were the president of a nation or and you've got to manage your resources and you've got limited resources and you get presented with a choice one day there's this 70 year old man who's lived a good life but he now has cancer and he needs a million rand treatment and his life expectancy is going to be another five years okay but it's going to cost a million rand all you have these 10 children who desperately need a million rand across the 10 of them for an education and to get a head start in life and I know that the one is medical and the other ones you know educational but at the end of the day you know the state needs to look at how to to allocate its resources and it's quite a it's a tricky thing to say because you know I mean on one ethical side you'd think rather use that money for the 10 children because they have much more you know years and there's a higher likelihood and it makes more sense but to go to a 70 year old person and say you know sorry mate game over we're not gonna give that money to you even though you have been contributing to the system and you've been paying your taxes and you're part of this medical scheme we're only going to use that money to fund you know some children you know it is quite a yeah it's an interesting thing because there's you know no longer has it just become about you know trivial science and the maths and all that type of stuff you know have have these these ethical violins coming in I mean another thing in the medical space is you have these pharmaceutical companies where they can pursue two business plans business plan a is let's put our research into developing a cure you know a pill you take once and we heal you from your disease it's an AIDS here's a pill removes AIDS or option B is let's make a treatment for AIDS so what we do is instead of you just taking one of these pills and you're finished the disease you take this and it reduces the side effects of AIDS until you take the next pill the next week and now instead of me selling one pill to one person I'm selling a pill every single week to this person and I have a customer for life and I mean from a purely capitalistic point of view it's way more profitable to spend your money designing a treatment rather than a cure so I guess this comes down to the whole thing with with medical skins and I think why they don't want it to be for profit is because yeah there's this whole cherry picking and there is you know all these unethical because listen if if you could create the cure or you could create the treatment and you rather go the treatment route because you want to make more money from it I think that is unethical yes yeah so I can see that the medical schemes have tried to get around this by saying it's not for profit but the fact that you get all these companies that are now administrative consultants and you know they can take profit otherwise aren't or isn't that that regulation getting bypassed isn't that so there are some safeguards in place so if you go and have a look at the Council of Medical Schemes annual report they do go and list every single scheme in South Africa and they go and list how much they break down their financials basically and one of the big things is the managed care the administration all the other expenses there's been a lot of pressure on the schemes lately that that is not increasing so it has been increasing in line with inflation but hasn't been increasing excessively and one of the good benchmarks to have is that your non-healthcare expenditure that is your administration fee your actuarial services your trusty salaries all of that that must not exceed 10 percent of your gross contributions which is your savings and your your risk contributions together so if that's more than 10 percent in the council so which is sort of regulates the industry medical scheme industry they'll sort of be like no what what's happening here you know switch stuff out or whatever um yeah because i mean but the thing is publicly available model information that you can leverage off to be like well is the scheme a scheme i want to be a part of because they charge 15 percent of the gross contribution 15 percent of their gross contributions non-healthcare expenditure the thing is i mean i just i remember there was this there was a city i think it was an american city which introduced a law saying this there's a rent ceiling you cannot charge more for rent you know to try and limit the power of of the land yeah the evil landlord has all this land and people have to rent from him and because you know there's a big demand but a limited supply the prices are just going up and up and up so the city decided we're going to have a rental ceiling you cannot charge more than say a thousand dollars a month to say that's the number but the land lords want money you know just like i think most people in life we are driven by the financial side of things and so what they did is they said to people you know you can rent the room for four thousand dollars okay but if you want the key to you know lock it that's going to cost five thousand dollars a month and what they're saying is no you can borrow you know you can rent it we're meeting that minimum criteria we've just added on a value service at a ridiculous rate that has kind of undermined the whole thing and the thing is people were still prepared to pay five thousand dollars for the lock because like i said the supply was so high and the demand i'm sorry the demand was so high and the supply was so low so i look i'm very skeptical when it comes to you know regulations all these these things to try and limit it i mean with my medical aid scheme i don't think i've once checked you know how much contribution goes to whoever you know i'm very much of okay this amount i pay this is what i get i'm very much of the opinion that you know you've got medical insurance is probably especially in my stage of life it's the most important product that i need are you talking health insurance you're talking medical scheme well i'm just saying my my medical risk yes okay cool so i don't have any dependence so i don't have any life insurance i had to die i don't think people might cry but that's you know that's about it um i mean household insurance it's too expensive i'll take the risk you know someone breaks in and steals all my stuff you know that's a risk that i'll i'll self insure um okay i do have car insurance car insurance you know you kind of kind of have to have that one but like i said as far as like say saving instruments or you know putting money away for this and down to me those are you know you don't really need them at someone my age you know who doesn't have dependence but medical is the one thing that i'm very much aware of because i mean worst case scenario is you get this disease and then you're this massive burden on your family and of course they're gonna try to sell the family jill to pay for you and then you're gonna feel bad and you're probably still gonna die anyway so it i think it's such an important product i'm just yeah i'm i'm really surprised that it's not for profit in the sense that you know you do have these i don't look it's maybe something i need to need to brush up a little bit more on yeah um what one in your opinion is the the future of this because i mean another thing on the facebook page we had someone come and try sell a hospital plan no on the material page they came in they left oh 30 grand a month for hospital plan yeah i mean this thing was terrible in the sense that yeah you got that yeah there was actually a circular that was released recently to um for the draft um it's not called the demarcation act it's called the long-term insurance act or change anyway basically what it what it's saying is that um uh there's a there's a difference between a health insurance product and the medical scheme so the definition of the business of a medical scheme it's it's like three or four criteria and sort of like providing making provision for medical services and sort of pooling of funds and all of that and and and you get a health insurance that comes in and they do risk rating so that's the hospital cash plan now i'm talking about and it's the hospital cash plan it's the um i think those are terrible they are terrible yeah and that's what this person was trying to sell this thing to me yes because what it does is you you get sick you go to hospital and they're like here's 200 grand but i could be going in for like a little cough and there's like 50 grand or i could be going in because i've got an axe through my head and i need surgery and it's 10 000 so so the thing with the health insurance products is they're not allowed to indemnify the policy holder they cannot say we will cover your medical costs because that is the business of a medical scheme so it is now a whole thing um that they it hasn't come into um it hasn't been just dropped regulations at the moment but they're saying a whole bunch of criteria being like well a health insurance person they cannot pay the providers directly they cannot pay the hospital they have to pay you in your pocket and they cannot identify that they use it as a market we give you 500 grand as you can use on school fees on your own lunch or on anything now what happens is that you have this huge financially unsophisticated markets in africa yes these people do not understand the difference between a medical scheme and health insurance so they get a hospital cash plan and they think that they are now covered exactly that's what it's about to go and get treatment in hospital meanwhile the daily amount that are they're offering are nowhere near sufficient to stay in a private hospital and if you're going through a government hospital if your salary is low enough you're not going to be paying but even if it is high enough it's still not cheap to go in and you know go to hospital at all obviously it's not cheap so isn't this the legal fifth health insurance yes well that's what the government and the you know department of health is is concerned about because you're misleading the public you are you're actually taking away the financial the stability of the medical aid industry because what you're also doing is you have all these healthy lives here who cannot really afford the medical aid contribution because it's super cheap they even some insurance health insurance are now offering you GP visits they're offering you dental they're offering you they'll be like well here's a second mount you know you can go to the GPS unlimited times and because of PMB's medical schemes have to offer them there is a minimum cost to providing cover through medical scheme whereas a health insurer that only PMB's they can exclude old sick people they can exclude people based on whatever sort of thing anyway and they can also risk rent so they can charge you higher amounts so they have all this covered so a very healthy young person will find a especially those with families as well they'll find a package where you get GP visits unlimited GP visits like invaluable so they'll take that up they'll leave the medical scheme they'll be paying a tenth of the price at the health insurer and then you have all these people funneling in here and leaving the medical scheme industry the risk pool to deteriorate and then you have all these people here that are under the impression that they are covered when actually they're not so they they aren't covered for emergencies they aren't covered for any of the chronic diseases for cancer or anything like that so you actually have a large portion of the population going uncovered effectively when they think they are being covered doesn't mean that that's what's making up such a big chunk of your contribution is like I said cancer is very expensive so actually it's not taking up that much of a chunk of your contribution because the prevalence is so low well depends on the scheme actually so if you're talking about a discovery I don't think it's going to take up so if we're looking at the at the broad cost of how of the claims costs of the scheme you're going to get about 30 percent is going to be hospital so that's people being admitted and that's accommodation in hospital specialists everything that happens in the hospital and then you get another big chunk which is medicines which is acute medicines and chronic medicines and then you get the rest so cancer the prevalence rate and the incidence rate is quite low actually because I mean you don't there's not you don't I mean there's you know the incidence rates low in a general population in any case so it's a very severe thing there's low frequency so actually if it's covered across a huge number of people it's actually a very because what would we like to express it as is cost per life per month so basically we'll take the total claims divided by the total months that the people are in the scheme divided by the total people so then that comes down to a cost per life per month and it's actually quite small compared to your say the total gpe visits so then what what is the how are hospital plans being able to be so much cheaper than medical schemes what is what's making medical scheme so expensive for your every day buy okay so there's a number of factors for this as well so there's the pmb's which are the the base of every medical that's the prescribed minimal the described minimum benefits every scheme in South Africa has to offer these benefits and so another thing is that providers who offer these pmb the treatment and diagnosis of these of pmb's they have to the schemes have to pay them at whatever cost that they are charging them and this was because of some court case a couple of years ago so you have a scheme being charged 400 500 percent of the tariff rate and these pmb's escalating at a rate far greater than cpi then so then the the hospital plans don't have to offer these so that's just one portion okay on top of that now you have over utilization by members and i i actually had a conversation with someone who did it in applied maths degree the other day and i was trying to explain this to them and i was like um she was like no but i get those benefits they're my benefits i should be able to use them so it's like for example three gpe visits or or a physiotherapy session that you get covered by risk not from savings she'll be she said um no but they're mine i should be able to use them but there's nothing necessarily wrong with her she just has this sense that things of entitlement that but i'm paying for this that i might as well get them i must get i must get even if i'm not sick let me go to the job or even if i'm not sick let me go to the physio because my shoulders a little bit sore or whatever so now you have this weird sort of thing where the members are overclaiming because they feel entitled to benefits so then you're driving up costs because people and especially for elective things so the more complex plans so say not even more complex plans it's a pmb that they have to offer pregnancy related benefits so what happens and it happened to a a scheme now which is in big trouble one of the bigger schemes uh the biggest and so i've got the biggest closed scheme um they didn't have any uh underwriting when people join the scheme yeah so they're not allowed to hey they can but they can anyone can you can so it's like the only underwriting you can do is um waiting periods so you say okay you have this disease you're not allowed to claim for anything to do with this disease for 12 months or you can say a general waiting period of three months like pregnancy then only have a nine month so pregnancy has a waiting period usually another scheme this particular scheme didn't um have waiting periods so what would happen is people would join the scheme while they're pregnant they would cost the scheme a heck of a lot of money and then they'd leave so what you're having is you people are coming in they're contributing for say six months um they're claiming about two years worth of contributions and then they're leaving so that's driving up those costs so that's that's also so it's elective procedures which drive those up then you've got from providers so you you have all these restrictions that are placed on treatment by the schemes the scheme source and that's trying to control costs so it'll be like there's networks go to our like a doctor in the network and you won't have a copay and then they have this this agreement with the doctor so all these things are in place but then that leaves a little bit of sort of information asymmetry and it's a bit of a perverse incentive from the doctor side to try and make more money somehow so the doctors can end up pushing like supplier induced demand and it's also if you're a patient and someone and a doctor who has a medical degree says to you you need this treatment you're not necessarily going to say no no especially if it's you're not paying for it so it's a whole third party payer thing as well so if you're not paying for it a doctor tells you need this you're probably going to go and get it done so it's all these this is just and there's a lot of other factors such as the exchange rate so it comes down to if we're importing medicine and our exchange and our and the deteriorates don't we have derivatives and stuff to haste those on no don't you guys don't the medical administrators uh the medical schemes so actually the medical schemes actually have a strict investment um they're regulated for their investments they cannot invest more than four percent in derivatives i think well that's dumb yeah i know it's kind of dumb well it depends it's a short-term business you've got a lot of short-term claims most of the money that medical schemes hold on cash okay yeah so then like you said like it comes down to this currency risk yeah so it's not it's it is a risk um but it's not the main thing i would say that's driving the contribution increases and then of course you've got the healthier lives leaving and you've got all the sicker lives staying and that just right then you don't have the cross-subsidization from the healthy to the sick and then you have this misterial death this put me off health because not only do i get very squeamish when i hear blood dead no cardio bypass surgery and all that that stuff you know makes me dizzy but looking at all of this it kind of feels like it's a bit of a sinking shock you know and it's something that also got the same impression when it came to to pensions you know people are living longer and they're tiring earlier and and all these type of things so it i guess it's good news for us because i mean we're gonna have a job you know and exactly and you know so these people society will still need us but it's almost as if we've created these problems or our you know the last generation of actuaries created these problems because yeah it it sounds all good in theory but then when you look at people joining in claiming jumping out or you know these hospital insurance things popping up here and all these other things coming up it does y'all it does very much sound like a like a sinking ship so i think we're doing quite well for time oh my gosh we've been talking for 44 minutes okay so let's maybe just end with one very quick question and that is where do you see the future of south africa from a medical point of view in say 10 years time is it going to be good have we in the future do we solve all the problems and everybody's happy or do we stuff up and south africa goes down in flames and we all get sick and we get wiped out by like the black plate or something like that what what is your forecast on south africa's medical uh state in 10 years time so that is a very difficult question to answer because five seconds to answer it no so it's just like this nhi is the deterioration of the medical scheme industry there is um our shortage of doctors especially in the public sector there is the severe financial inequality we're the most unequal society in the world um so how do you how do you take how do you take a private the private sector and apply it to the entire country which is basically what we're dealing with now because the public sector is in jambles it cannot we cannot rely on the public sector to provide healthcare for the entire country it is just not feasible so in 10 years time do we the future actuaries like us figure out all these problems and make it all better or does this ship continue to sink until it's no longer saleable i guess that depends on the political party that's ruling but in your your opinion are we going to is it good or is it bad i'm going to stay optimistic and say it's good okay fantastic and i think you're this may be ended up there because you're just 46 minutes now gosh this has been uh i'm going to say a conclusion yo let's well yeah i i don't know if people are still probably going to be listening to you're gonna have to edit it so you could you could edit this into two parts and just chuck out cut out all the rest so i'm going to say goodbye do you want to say goodbye or yeah i do want to say goodbye or do you want to say thank you or i don't know what do people say let's just go with the classic hey guys thanks for watching hit like subscribe see you next time bye


Item No. SCP-2718 Object Class ██████ Special Containment Procedures SCP-2718 is a Dambaran-class canido hazard. All personnel, regardless of clearance, are forbidden to expose themselves through the description of this article under any circumstances. Do not tamper with this warning without Dambaran clearance. Do not discuss the existence of this article with any person. No disciplinary action will be necessary, provided you close the article now and clear your browser cache. Atypical software measures have been used to mitigate the risk of accidental exposure. It is only by an unfortunate coincidence of extremely low probability that you have stumbled across this entry at all. No disciplinary action will be necessary, provided you close the article now and clear your browser cache. Since creation, only the Special Containment Procedures section of this record has ever been editable. Due to the clearance of the file of the original author and anomalous database limitations in effect, this record can neither be deleted nor effectively redacted. Access restrictions cannot be applied to the data in any reliable way. Of course, access restrictions can still be enforced. It is now too late to close this article. Do not discuss the existence of this article with any person. Notify the help desk that your workstation has a Dambaran contamination.  The following conditions shall constitute a breach. Exposure to any part of the description, however briefly. Failure of the closed article within 18 seconds of exposure without code word clearance.  Notify the breach desk that you and your workstation have Dambaran contamination. Await MTF processing. The breach to which you are responding has already been mostly contained by an automated system, and containment will be complete when you restart this terminal. However, your orders are to attempt to improve the current containment procedure by any mean possible, but then the time allotted to you. You have been temporarily granted administrative network access from this terminal. Use any resources you deem necessary to fulfill your mission, but do not expose yourself to the cognitive hazard in the description. The following technical details will help you in your task. As noted above, this article ignores the delete command. It cannot be extricated from the database without extensive collateral corruption of other critical systems. Instead, the containment strategy is to minimize the probability of a user discovering his entry by chance. To this end, an unhauntable mainframe process, ID 9000013, repeatedly switches the ordinal designation of his article with that of another randomly selected entry. Normally, when two article numbers are exchanged for administrative purposes, the two entries just appear from the index momentarily. A kernel exploit of processor Eradum-23 allows us to delay completion of the subroutine by deeply recursing the article renumbering with an intentionally terrible algorithm. Currently Vagasort, against a known corrupt stacked in extended memory until the threat of board catastrophically, the index swap completes and the process restarts. This artificially inserts a delay on the order of 10 to 17 power clock cycles between visibility, when a link to this article becomes momentarily visible and accessible from the article index before the process repeats. Breach will only occur in the unlikely event that a user with index privileges loads the main list at precisely the correct moment and, despite need to know best practices, follows the link to this entry, ignores the warnings, and reach past the first paragraph. The intervals between visibility are indeterminate but finite. On average, the interval will grow larger by order 0N2 as the number of available articles grows, but shorter as the mainframe's hot swappable processors increases and flops. This clutch has a gravely serious side effect. The SCP article randomly selected for the swap also disappears from the list for the same period of time, until reappearing under a new ID. While O5 has authorized its detrimental effect on the acceptable consequence of containment, you are ordered not to verify it through the chain of command, as no other living person is currently aware that this article, this process, or this authorization exists. If validation is required, an inline O5 authorization of its order follows. You are subject to summary termination by Trinitite class memetic if you proceed past this point.  The one constructed and installed by my predecessor was clearly defective. Instead of the donkey kick I expected from a standard inoculation introduction, I barely registered minor eye strain. Of course, under the circumstances I suppose we're limited aren't we, to a contaminated work station and barely adequate tools. Anyway, if you survive that memetic, hopefully it's because you have code word clearance and not because I didn't get it right either. In that case, you're probably boned pretty bad, and I apologize for not killing you in time. But cut me some slack. When we looked them up 90 minutes ago, the only procedures for this code word read, randomly select one mainframe qualified coder from the Experimental Containment Research Group with level 3 clearance. Supply the designee with a behemoth class amnestic and dispatch them to the affected terminal. They will find instructions there, if they fail to complete their task within 2 hours, or if upon return they can remember the year or name the current US President, terminate. Guess what? That's a pretty small subset of personnel to choose randomly from. Well, Spock smashes scissors, but paper disproves Spock. So now in return for containment duty, I get to blow a sizeable chunk of my life out of my skull. At least I won't have to remember them processing the looky loo who caused this breach.  Here's what I can tell you. From the look of the source code and comments, you're probably the fourth or fifth to respond this thing since inception. I made a couple of minor edits to the documentation above, but mostly spent my time trying to slow the algorithm with the worst patterns I could think of. In the end, I was only able to de-optimize the existing recursion by a factor of two. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the underlying hardware, or how often users follow unfamiliar links from the main list to guess how much difference that makes. I'm sure on first implementation they thought they had 5 maybe 10 years between breaches, but I know for a fact that they've introduced at least one quantum processor to the grid, which will deprecate this approach faster than you can say redacted. Hopefully you got a better idea for a slower ALGO that I or the last three did, maybe upgrade to a quantum bag of sword or the article numbers. On this hardware, that might technically be an XK algorithm and therefore forbidden. I don't know. I've used up most of my time already and I can't risk another recompile on a few minutes remaining before I have to commit these changes and wash down to stick a dynamite with warm, backwashing Mountain Dew. Andrews out. P.S. I guess I got to thinking my brain was hosed either way. So what the hell, and I don't know why but I just went ahead and did it. Couldn't help myself really. Resist the urge. It's clearly a fridge-class cognitive hazard, and already it started to sink in, so this horse pill better work right quick. Description. There you go, ma'am. This interpreter is new technology, but it will allow you to forego the use of a keyboard for article creation. Just speak naturally into the microphone. We can go back and revise any errors after you have finished. I don't think so, young man. There won't be time. This must also be a permanent record. Access restricted to L3s and up. Can you prevent anyone from tampering with this entry later? Um, anyone, ma'am? Anyone and everyone. You understand me? If there is ever but one article left in the database, this had better be it. Well, I'm not senior enough to select the most appropriate technique to accomplish that.  I'm confident in your ability. We cannot delay. Okay, okay, um, there is a mechanism I can take advantage of. It's actually designed to protect against anomalous data corruption, but it would have the effect you're looking for. For certain, ma'am, I can make this section of the article right once and splice it into the database runtime. However, that means no editing whatsoever will be possible. If you misspeak, you'll just have to clarify and keep going. Very well done, though. Fortunately, I'm a world-class dictator. For the degree of security you have in mind, ma'am, I'll need to borrow your credential token. Thank you. One moment, please. There, that's done it. You've been very helpful. That would be all. With safety, I'm ordering you to obtain amnestic treatment as soon as possible, and not to forget this entire morning.  I, uh, do. Good. You will likely be subjected to enhanced interrogation within a day or two. It will be easier for you if you have no memory of this. Oh. Oh boy. As a literal token of my gratitude for your loyalty, why don't you hold on to these credentials? I won't be needing them. If you act quickly, I suspect you can think of a way to put them to good use before they are revoked and you are detained. Y-yes, ma'am. Now go. I foresee that you have a flying career ahead of you. We will not speak again. Thank you ma'am. Goodbye. My name is Merriam Prather. I have been 057 for 77 years. I will remain so for perhaps 7 minutes more. And that is not enough time to devise adequate special container procedures myself. I'll leave that to you. Through the course of my tenure, I have witnessed 19 distinct anomalous methods to restore life. The devices and entities responsible take vastly different forms, but when you look past the science, the magic, the razzle-dazzle, there are fundamentally two broad but simple categories. The first type is replication, whereby a clone, somilochrome, or other copy is made of the subject's mind and body as it existed at some point during life. The second sort is temporal. With this approach, the space-time path of the subject's constituent particles are reversed, and events literally undone until the subject is restored to a functional state. These two categories have a crucial commonality. The restored individual has no memory or experience of death.  We have other sources of information naturally, but in light of recent events, I believe that the SCPs we have interrogated on this topic over the years are guilty of either ignorance or deceit. For you see, we invented an exception. Six months ago, we resurrected Roger Sheldon, formerly O5-11, with a novel procedure. The theoretical groundwork had existed for some time, but for a litany of reasons. The complexity of the process, the technical skill required, the systemic risk, not to mention the enormous cost, only direst need justified the attempt. At 73, Roger was the youngest overseer when he died. He had two habits that were peculiar for an O5, only marginally tolerated by the rest of us at the time and now forbidden. The first was an obstinate refusal to fortify, as we call it, to enhance its longevity with the supplements available to those of our station. The second was a penchant for taking his holidays unannounced in an utter solitude. When a stroke ended him eighteen years ago, he was perched on a rocky promontory above marine and guananesting grounds in Espanola Island. It took fourteen years to find his remains. We would not have gone on looking for so long, but for two reasons. He kept on his purse a certain key, a which I shall not say more, except that it could not be allowed to stay lost, and that he held in his brain a secret word, without which we could not replace him. The alternating Galapagos' rains and bright sun, and perhaps hawks, had reduced him to a moldering ruin of bone fragments and only the stubbornness in you. The recovery crew used brooms and bags to collect as much of him as remained. The artifact was retrieved to our relief, and we were still faced with the daunting task of extracting his chivaleth. With so little original material to work with, none of the time-tested methods of recovery were feasible. It distresses me to say so, but it is unlikely that any record or methodology will survive the impending purge. Suffice to say that having gathered his diaspora, we set out to reconstruct the quantum approximation of him, physically, chemically, electrically, with sufficient accuracy that his heart would resume its beat, his synapses would fire, and his mouth would move it briefly. As we required but one iota information from him, we hoped at best that he would survive long enough to provide it and then simply expire again. However, as is so often the case, we outdid ourselves. All the king's horses and all the king's men could indeed put him back together again. Roger was perfectly reanimated. He emerged from his cocoon, looking a bit younger and healthier to my last memories of him. He sobbed uncontrollably for some time, unresponsive to any stimulus, yet after about half an hour he relaxed. His expression suddenly turned to utter serenity, and he spoke two unintelligible but clearly joyous words. He was swiftly interrogated, but he responded to our questioning with candor, enthusiasm, and unmistakable relief. We kept him under quarantine in a containment unit for thirty days. He offered no objection, and cooperated completely. He behaved as any of us might under the circumstances, and in the end, after some light debate, we unanimously restored him to office. We were the ones who'd remade him, after all, and wouldn't each of us expect the same? He rewarded our hubris by resuming his duties with an inspired vigor, consistently displaying deeper insight of wisdom than ever before. In particular, we welcomed some of the changes to his habits. As soon as the rest of us allowed it, he began regular fortification treatments for the first time. He appointed a sensible entourage of medical staff and bodyguards that were never far from his person. Previously, empathy for his fellow man had never been a strong suit, yet suddenly he displayed renewed interest in the safety of our containment protocols, the healthcare benefits of Foundation employees, and a profound distaste for the sacrifice of D-Class. Under the circumstances, none of this struck us as particularly alarming behavior, but it should have. He had concealed the crux of it from us all, you see. At first, naturally in our initial interrogation, we'd ask if he had any experience or memory of the afterlife. He claimed to recall nothing, exactly as everyone always does, and defeated our polygraphs completely. He approached me first about two months ago. He asked if, in his absence, we obtained any pieces, which I shouldn't have to point out is not our term of art capable of sustaining life indefinitely. While breathtaking longevity is now within our power, it may surprise to learn that immortality is not. In our best, the redetitions have recently posited that it will never be attainable. The resurrections we can accomplish, even his, cannot be repeated more than once or twice. Sapient life is necessarily intertwined with quantum uncertainty. Localize a particle with perfect precision, and it attains infinitely uncertain momentum, lost in an instant. And so, the longer and more tightly a consciousness is bound to the Pacific Vessel, the more likely it will scatter irretrievably on its own.  His disappointment at this theorem was palpable, and I experienced a moment of discomfort in his reaction. Not a week later, O5-2 received word of a severe breach of protocol. Roger, or rather O5-11, had initiated direct contact with an ape in containment. For you L3s, apes skipped or apexed here for reputant entities. I imagine you can work out the euphemism. We kept our initial investigation off the books. He'd been clever in covering his tracks. There was no breach alarm, no record of the encounter in any log, but one of the skipped guards failed a random amnestic test to his dismay, and that was trail enough on which to set our bloodhounds. We couldn't prove it, but we imagine he risked exposure to the skip to offer some kind of deal. This could not stand, as two of his oldest comrades today O5-2 and I confronted him privately, but he caught us off guard, where he confessed everything and begged us for help. I surrepetitiously recorded his pleas as a precaution. It is easiest if I simply replay it for you now. I dare not speak of this at first. You'd never had let me out of containment. The truth is, I was aware of all of it. I suppose there was a sweet oblivion, like deep sleep at first, but in retrospect I think it was no more than a day. Slowly but unmistakably, I reoccupied my corpse with dreamlike consciousness, numb for the first merciful hours, blind, deaf and immobile, but then I seemed to reconnect to every nerve and became aware of every sensation, more so than I ever was in life. I perceived myself trapped within an immovable object, and the intensity of the struggle amplified. Subtle then acute, then racking, I cannot describe it completely, but imagine holding your breath beyond urge, beyond pain, beyond desperation, head throbbing and eyes bulging, a dream of suffocation without end. My skin blistered and split in the sunlight, biting insects descended rapidly. I felt eggs hatch, larvae crawl, gases build and burst within me, individual cells rupturing, interstitial fluid souring and blackening. Somehow my capacity to experience and store these sensations grew, even as I was keenly aware of my cerebrum being scattered and devoured. My perception expanded into the gizzards of birds and the depths of fire ant dens. I was aware of every fingernail and strand of hair that pulled away in the wind, and my sensation clung to them as they settled in the ocean, and dissolved in the moths of petroleum diatoms. I don't understand it. The more bits of me there were, the larger my capacity for the perception of pain, as I decayed into pieces smaller than living nerves could possibly distinguish. The character of the discomfort changed. From burning and aching and breaking, I might relate to you in human terms, the something worse than I cannot fully articulate, a terrible, maddening stretching of every part of myself from every other part. Humans often numb to chronic pains in life, do they not? Yet every year, every month, every second that passed, I swear it only intensified over time. In my previous life, I ruminated on heaven and hell, in the likelihood of my experiencing one, the other or something in between. As terrible as I imagined the torpor of heaven or the torments of hell to be, this was entirely different from either. In hell, at least, there would surely be a tormentor, some memory of my deeds, some sense of justice.  I do not think this is a punishment, I do not think it is caused, I simply suspect it is simply our condition, our nature to go on this way, do you see? In all that time, I was certainly, absolutely, totally alone and before long all memory of life have shriveled to ascender, lost beneath my interminable anguish, alive again I suspect I cannot quite recall the worst of it, as if my living brain is too small for the experience. As overseers, we witness inflict or endure great suffering, yet what awaits us all is worse. The way an earache is worse than a bee sting, the way frostbite is worse than a burn. I was dead for eighteen years and my misery eludes description. Why do we try to fathom the collective agony of legions of ancient dead? Believe this, I will not return to the extraval existence, not a hundred years from now, not ever. Yes, I approach our remand for help, and I am sure he could extend us all if he wished. I offered him great concessions from the Foundation, even perhaps relief. I offered him great concessions from the Foundation, even perhaps relief, but he laughed and refused, yet I… I can think of others willing to trade on a smaller scale. Though the price may be nearly as… no, nothing compares. Anything is better, so long as it is forever. Do you believe me? Will you join me? And together escape this fate? Please! We were dumbfounded and suddenly sympathetic, and an instant later, fearful. I can't remember the last time I felt my heart race so. But we do not operate in a vacuum. A revelation of magnitude must be brought before the Council for consideration. He was low to admit his deception before the assembled Council, but he was clearly desperate for action as well. We prevailed upon him to call an immediate emergency session in teleconference. I knew anything less would constitute treachery. Still, as the three of us hurried to conference room Alpha, I suddenly found myself harboring subtle thoughts of… As so, he gave his testimony again nearly as frank and purply prosaic as before. But the debate that unfolded in the wake of it, I had never witnessed anything like it. There were mostly skeptical voices at first, calm, concerned, and thoughtful. However, O5-8, whose face had grown increasingly pale as she listened to him, was suddenly a passionate advocate for action. We must declare human death the key to SCP she demanded, and contain it at any cost. That absurdity garnered an uproar, of course, but Roger had himself a sure ally now, and this spurred him on, shouting over the others to add even darker details of the intensity of his perennial asphyxiation. Imagery I cannot repeat. Sensations I must not contemplate. I'm feeling lightheaded. O5-2, always a moderate influence, suggested we recess and collect ourselves. But then three suddenly moved that we ordered the immediate systematic termination of dangerous skips to better protect ourselves and others. O5-6 seconded, but before it could be put to a vote, 13 suddenly clutched his chest in proximal panic and was being evaluated by his medical technician when his feet abruptly cut out. As the fracas came to a boil, it was 10, I think, who was next convinced. Oh, it's believed the key, I… I… it doesn't matter. At any rate, 10 started pounding his shoe on a table and hollering that we must dig a channel from the Astrakhan Spring to the Mediterranean Sea to fortify all of mankind. That was enough. Suddenly O5-1 muted his all and stood red-faced and shaking. Regardless of the truth of O5-11's experience, she said, it is plain that we have lost all reason. There is only one possible explanation for this. Therefore, I am declaring emergency protocol 17. Remain where you are.  We made a grave error releasing you from containment, and it WILL be corrected. She pointed at her administrative assistant to act, but before he could lock down the conference room from which O2-11 and I were dialed in, Roger had already bolted out the door. I was after him in an instant and nearly crushed by the bulkheads that slandered the place. I only wanted to stop him, I think, and now I was outside to save for him too, but he was already out of sight.  They couldn't see me, couldn't hear me, they couldn't know that I wanted back in, how badly I wanted to breathe the red gas that was surely already streaming into the room on the other side. One instant a poor judgement and my fate is sealed, and now that I know what's in store, what was left to do? I ran to the help desk. Hahahaha, help enough, huh? For this my final act. I love the foundation of Will Love the Daughter. I do this for the security and protection of mankind, and so I beg you, this gnosis must not be erased forgotten. That is not containment, that is madness. Bring us back, get us out. I'm s-so frightened. What's wrong with me? Clear, clear, clear. Goddamn this job. Bagged that Oscar quickly, Sergeant. We still have one more to go. Sir, I'm getting a report of a Keter breach in the AR-2 compound.  Two rogue Oscars and on top of that, the old man's on the loose.  Contain that chatter, Sergeant. Stand by, sir. Negative on 106 escaping. Sir, I'm getting details. Say again, please. It's the other way around. The other Oscar. He went in, sir. He went in. The hell he did. They have visual confirmation, sir. Procedures dictate we treat him. As KIA specialists, I know. Let's finish here, then. Sir, this Oscar-head recording equipment here is still running. For the love of, shut it down, Sergeant.  Specialists, get an audio hazard team down here on the dup-


I am Dr. Balaji Laxman Shetty, Consentant Medical Gastroenterologist, Manipal Hospital Whitefield. As you know, we are in the middle of the pandemic. Our since the lockdown has opened, our Manipal Hospital Whitefield is fully functional now. OPDIY is opened as usual and inpatient admission has been opened as usual. So you can avail these facilities for your benefits. So from gastroenterology perspective, we are doing all routine endoscopy procedures like apache endoscopy and commonscopy, taking all necessary precautions. And also we are doing advanced endoscopy procedures like ESCP to remove the stones from the common bilayer after taking all the precautions. So in case if you have symptoms like severe pain, abdomen, jaundice, bleeding while passing the stone and bleeding while vomiting. So you can immediately visit us and have your facilities available from us. Thank you.