The problem could be in the future where vaccinations are being used for less harmful diseases and suddenly it turns out that the filler is worse then the disease. As a possible example, a vaccine against the common cold that turns out, long term, to have a 1% mortality rate. All vaccines need to be tested to make sure that they work as advertised, namely reducing the mortality/crippling rate of a disease rather then people just hand waving and saying that all vaccines including those not yet invented are 100% safe.
And when the pharmaceutical companies do come out with a harmful vaccine? Just because there has been a pretty good record of vaccines being less harmful then the diseases they prevent doesn't mean that is always going to be true and having laws forcing people to take vaccines will motivate the drug companies to make more vaccines and possibly take short cuts with testing, especially if government decides that regulating the testing is bad.
Bet you that Judges still look at precedent, like if the Supreme Court has ruled on something, creating common law, Arizona judges will honour it. Think of the 2nd amendment, really simple, "The people have the right to bear arms" yet all kinds of limitations have been legislated and the courts have agreed with many even though the Constitution is Supreme and generally simple. Besides, we're talking historically, Arizona had to legislate that common law was canceled. They also didn't legislate a replacement such as civil law.
Since when do judges create laws? I think your history has a few issues.
Assuming you live in the USA or a Commonwealth (including most exCommonwealth) country, for close to the last millennium. We're all common law countries, which means that, to quote wiki
Common law (also known as judicial precedent or judge-made law or case law) is the body of law developed by judges, courts, and similar tribunals.
Though over the last few hundred years, much law has been legislated, still the courts interpret those laws, some of which are very vague, often on purpose as the legislature expects the courts to sort things out.
What about the surfactants (sp?) that are mixed into roundup to break the surface tension and allow the glyphosate to penetrate the plants? They're usually a trade secret, not studied and also a potential carcinogen. Roundup is not just glyphosate, which at least breaks down real quick and appears to be quite safe.
But in general for Science Reporting for man made things, are politically charged. Liberal groups have a hard time accepting science which says man made product is safe. (GMO, Vaccines) Conservative groups have a hard time accepting science saying that a product is dangerous. (Global Warming, Tobacco)
The big difference is that GMO, Vaccine are processes or tools while global warming and especially tobacco are things. GMO is like a hammer and saw, can be and usually is used for constructive purposes such as building a house but can be used to kill and dismember a person. Even when used to build a house, it is smart to make sure the house is built to some standards so it doesn't collapse and kill someone. Tobacco is a substance that has all kinds of evidence that it is harmful when consumed by people. The real problem is greed. Some of the population thinks that people will misuse tools in such a way that can be dangerous and some of those people go too far in believing that the tools are never well used. Another part of the population believes that the greedy are honest enough not to push harmful substances or perhaps believes in buyer beware, greed is usually good and some of these people go too far and believe that anyone that succeeds in making money on harmful substances is superior.
While an interesting comment, my take away is this,
fact that all of our votes are mailed to the County Seat to be counted (welcome to Oregon), nobody in our little town has a clue as to who actually voted, and/or for what and whom they voted.
Doesn't matter about demographics and such if you can't witness the life of your vote from empty ballot box, through ballots being put in, to the public count at the end of the day. Dropping your ballot in a mail box (or even hand delivering it) to be counted at the leisure of the possibly corrupt means that you have no way of knowing if your vote was correctly counted along with your neighbours vote.
OK, I was under the impression that he was worth more at the time. Still having your net worth reduced from $150 million to $80 million, still doesn't affect your quality of life too much. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that he made the investment. Too many are sitting on fortunes now instead of investing it in something constructive.
$70 million for Musk is pocket change. Even if Tesla was a total failure, it wouldn't have changed his life. Much like if I invested $70 in something, no sacrifice involved.
On the other hand, there's no reason why more men couldn't be say, dental hygienists, except for the stigma (well and the fact that women tend to keep themselves up more than us guys due to other social factors, and that's something most people kind of prefer when their hygienist is practically nose to nose with them while digging around in their mouth.)
On the flip side, most dentists, who also get nose to nose while digging around in peoples mouths, are male. Seems to be partially the traditional role of women as assistants to men along with societal inertia. Don't know much about the dentistry profession but it is likely much like the medical profession where women had a hell of a time becoming Doctors when they first were trying, with the schools resisting, their peers resisting and even their clientele resisting. "Everyone knows that doctors are men". It is the opposite with nursing, the first male nurses probably had a hell of a time for the same reasons. The medical profession is finally overcoming that inertia, perhaps dentistry is just behind.
When we used to spend too much time staring at the TV (the only one in the house usually), the parents would kick us outside, where all the other kids, whose parents had kicked them outside were. We'd spend hours outside, with perhaps a radio, playing with each other. We did not take the TV outside with us and continue to stare at it. Occasionally when alone, I'd have the radio on for background. Now, there are a couple of problems, kids are discouraged from spending too much time outside, and when outside, or other wise alone, they still stare at the screen.
By voter suppression, I mean where the government actively suppresses certain parts of the population from voting, whereas your example is also something that shouldn't be allowed. A few minutes on Google shows lots of evidence of various forms of voter suppression, from not having a reasonable number of polling stations, through last minute voter roll purges targeting certain groups, through fucked up laws removing the right to vote due to such stupid reasons as having a joint in your possession many years ago (the whole idea of segregation based on the feudal idea of felons is pretty outdated) to bring it back to the original topic, strict voter ID laws. As for gerrymandering, which ever side does it doesn't matter, it's just plain wrong and the whole idea of such an important thing as voting districts being left to politics is just wrong and any party that does it should be voted out.
The Provincial austerity measures I mentioned really happened here in BC (no idea about other Provinces). They happened independently of elections, at that the Provincial elections ID requirements are still quite reasonable and judging by the results of the last Provincial election, the government did the election fairly (ignoring taxpayers money spent on propaganda). Even the Federal Conservatives attempt to disenfranchise the natives backfired, with lots of natives, a group that traditionally doesn't consider the Government of Canada to be legitimate as they signed treaties with the Crown rather then Canada, and therefore didn't usually vote, voting against the government.
As for voter fraud, I haven't really seen any evidence of thousands of convictions. The Heritage Foundation claims 755 convictions in 474 voter fraud cases (multiple convictions per illegal vote?), and whether it is that partisan is unproven, with at least one Republican charged. I do see lots of evidence of legal voter suppression in various States, usually perpetuated by the right when they get the chance to make the rules. Both voter suppression (including gerrymandering) and voter fraud are bad and should be stopped. Yes, reasonable ID laws along with recognizing a right for resident citizens to vote would help.
Seems weird that the Federal elections aren't a Federal matter like here in Canada. Understandable by 19th century standards but times have changed. Also much simpler voting up here. We have a Federal election where I vote for one representative to Parliament and the Members of Parliament decide on the government (or failing that, we have another election). Likewise for the Provincial election, which happens separately and is run by the Province. Municipal elections are more complex, but also happen on a different date. Makes voting more simpler, we actually have different Provincial parties from the Federal parties (some are the same) and, at least here, don't even have parties in most municipalities.
All it takes is some austerity to close most of those DMV's etc, declare the post office to be federal rather then state/provincial and more austerity to make those free ID's cost $75, as happened here. Then make the ID requirements more onerous, eg the last government also upped the ID requirements to have your current address on it. Just like that, all the people without a numbered street address such as most native reservations being disenfranchised as well as all those pesky university students who are currently resident at their university but still have ID with their home address, also being disenfranchised. While I agree that some ID should be presented, it is another way that can be used to disenfranchise certain portions of the population. Many third world countries simply mark the voter with some indelible ink when they vote to stop multiple voting. If it's actually a real problem down there, mark all voters when they vote.
It really depends on how it's done. Here in Canada, we've required proof of who you are for a long time. Used to get a card in the mail that, together with a bill or such was good enough, there was also the option of swearing an affidavit if you didn't have ID or weren't registered. The previous Federal right wing government fucked that up, upping the ID required, stopping Elections Canada from encouraging people to vote, including stopping them from registering people in grocery stores and such and various other tricks to discourage minorities and the poor. In my household, my wife, a minority, has always used her maiden name to vote as that is what her ID is in, as well as various bills that are in her name. Prior to the election, I went on line to double check that we were registered and the government site said yes we were, including in my wife's case, in her maiden name. Went to vote and somehow her registration had been changed to my name and all she had was our marriage license for ID. Luckily the polling station was quiet and the electoral official was interested enough to spend an hour on the phone to Ottawa to finally fix things. Big hassle and waste of time to do something that usually only takes a minute and she almost lost her franchise. Otoh, during the last Provincial election, with the same problem, it took 2 minutes and her signature to fix things. My son, due to lack of ID, never did get to vote. He doesn't drive, doesn't have good enough ID (gotta have your address on it), costs $75 at a motor vehicle branch that is 50 miles away to get the needed ID. Basically the ID requirement can be sanely implemented or implemented in such a way to disenfranchise those poor/minorities that don't vote for the correct party. And America or at least some States, has a real problem as it is with disenfranchising people for reasons as stupid as being a reformed criminal.
- Abolish low and mid-density and non-mixed-use zoning and local approval bureaucracy that allows NIMBYs to prevent the building of new housing stock, so housing can be affordable.
Capitalism says that it is more profitable to build expensive housing then cheap. Where I am, there's more housing development then ever, cheap 3 story apartments getting torn down to build expensive high rises. The local government is considering forcing all new developments to include 25% social housing for those making $80 grand or less. There's a real problem when $80,000 is considered needing social housing in a market with less then $11 minimum wage. The real problem is the wealth gap, made worse by welcoming foreigners with lots of money to drive up real estate prices. Those rich Chinese want a backup home in a western country.
When I was a kid, I was doing some farm labour in a field besides the Abbotsford airport the day before the airshow begun. The Blue Angels were practicing and decided to use us as strafing practice or such. Wow, jet fighters flying perhaps a hundred feet up at 500 odd miles an hour, so close that one that went by upside down, I'd swear I saw the pilots eyeballs, but they were going so fast that they almost seemed foreshortened and you wouldn't hear them until they were gone. Quite an experience and I sure as hell wouldn't want to be an actual target. Another time, living in the interior, not too far up a mountain, a small fleet of Apache attack copters went by, I was looking down at them, just the noise would have been pretty demoralizing if they were hunting me, though there it was possible to imagine responding to them as they were slow and broadcast their presence. Lots of supersonic bangs back then too.
The smart vs stupid argument is a red herring anyways. Lots of really smart people with really bad beliefs, and it doesn't matter what you belief is a bad belief as the smart have as much variety in beliefs as the stupid. Worse, the smart are better at rationalizing why their beliefs are correct.
The beginning of the industrial revolution saw 70 years of massive unemployment and one of the saving graces was the new world to immigrate to. Spending 16 hours spinning yarn at home is better then being forced into prostitution to survive. Of course it was made worse by the rich discovering that they could pass laws to take ownership of the commons and push out those farmers from the land that they'd been using since time immemorial. The second wave of automation did work out better, with more population then jobs, society did respond by removing a bunch of people from the labour force (children and then old people, as well as women to a degree) and dividing the labour up more fairly with shorter work weeks. This wave could go either way. Sure in 50 years or more, employment might once again come up, but there is no way of knowing and currently there seems to be a lot of resistance to spreading the wealth and taking care of those who are no longer productive enough.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem could be in the future where vaccinations are being used for less harmful diseases and suddenly it turns out that the filler is worse then the disease. As a possible example, a vaccine against the common cold that turns out, long term, to have a 1% mortality rate.
All vaccines need to be tested to make sure that they work as advertised, namely reducing the mortality/crippling rate of a disease rather then people just hand waving and saying that all vaccines including those not yet invented are 100% safe.
And when the pharmaceutical companies do come out with a harmful vaccine? Just because there has been a pretty good record of vaccines being less harmful then the diseases they prevent doesn't mean that is always going to be true and having laws forcing people to take vaccines will motivate the drug companies to make more vaccines and possibly take short cuts with testing, especially if government decides that regulating the testing is bad.
Bet you that Judges still look at precedent, like if the Supreme Court has ruled on something, creating common law, Arizona judges will honour it.
Think of the 2nd amendment, really simple, "The people have the right to bear arms" yet all kinds of limitations have been legislated and the courts have agreed with many even though the Constitution is Supreme and generally simple.
Besides, we're talking historically, Arizona had to legislate that common law was canceled. They also didn't legislate a replacement such as civil law.
It's funny in a way, ocean front used to be one of the lowest classes of property, often inhabited by squatters and other low life.
Since when do judges create laws? I think your history has a few issues.
Assuming you live in the USA or a Commonwealth (including most exCommonwealth) country, for close to the last millennium. We're all common law countries, which means that, to quote wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Though over the last few hundred years, much law has been legislated, still the courts interpret those laws, some of which are very vague, often on purpose as the legislature expects the courts to sort things out.
What about the surfactants (sp?) that are mixed into roundup to break the surface tension and allow the glyphosate to penetrate the plants? They're usually a trade secret, not studied and also a potential carcinogen. Roundup is not just glyphosate, which at least breaks down real quick and appears to be quite safe.
But in general for Science Reporting for man made things, are politically charged.
Liberal groups have a hard time accepting science which says man made product is safe. (GMO, Vaccines)
Conservative groups have a hard time accepting science saying that a product is dangerous. (Global Warming, Tobacco)
The big difference is that GMO, Vaccine are processes or tools while global warming and especially tobacco are things. GMO is like a hammer and saw, can be and usually is used for constructive purposes such as building a house but can be used to kill and dismember a person. Even when used to build a house, it is smart to make sure the house is built to some standards so it doesn't collapse and kill someone. Tobacco is a substance that has all kinds of evidence that it is harmful when consumed by people.
The real problem is greed. Some of the population thinks that people will misuse tools in such a way that can be dangerous and some of those people go too far in believing that the tools are never well used. Another part of the population believes that the greedy are honest enough not to push harmful substances or perhaps believes in buyer beware, greed is usually good and some of these people go too far and believe that anyone that succeeds in making money on harmful substances is superior.
While an interesting comment, my take away is this,
fact that all of our votes are mailed to the County Seat to be counted (welcome to Oregon), nobody in our little town has a clue as to who actually voted, and/or for what and whom they voted.
Doesn't matter about demographics and such if you can't witness the life of your vote from empty ballot box, through ballots being put in, to the public count at the end of the day. Dropping your ballot in a mail box (or even hand delivering it) to be counted at the leisure of the possibly corrupt means that you have no way of knowing if your vote was correctly counted along with your neighbours vote.
OK, I was under the impression that he was worth more at the time. Still having your net worth reduced from $150 million to $80 million, still doesn't affect your quality of life too much.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that he made the investment. Too many are sitting on fortunes now instead of investing it in something constructive.
Oh bullshit, you're perfectly free to turn down the benefits from sending those checks in and never send another check.
$70 million for Musk is pocket change. Even if Tesla was a total failure, it wouldn't have changed his life. Much like if I invested $70 in something, no sacrifice involved.
On the other hand, there's no reason why more men couldn't be say, dental hygienists, except for the stigma (well and the fact that women tend to keep themselves up more than us guys due to other social factors, and that's something most people kind of prefer when their hygienist is practically nose to nose with them while digging around in their mouth.)
On the flip side, most dentists, who also get nose to nose while digging around in peoples mouths, are male. Seems to be partially the traditional role of women as assistants to men along with societal inertia. Don't know much about the dentistry profession but it is likely much like the medical profession where women had a hell of a time becoming Doctors when they first were trying, with the schools resisting, their peers resisting and even their clientele resisting. "Everyone knows that doctors are men". It is the opposite with nursing, the first male nurses probably had a hell of a time for the same reasons.
The medical profession is finally overcoming that inertia, perhaps dentistry is just behind.
When we used to spend too much time staring at the TV (the only one in the house usually), the parents would kick us outside, where all the other kids, whose parents had kicked them outside were. We'd spend hours outside, with perhaps a radio, playing with each other. We did not take the TV outside with us and continue to stare at it. Occasionally when alone, I'd have the radio on for background.
Now, there are a couple of problems, kids are discouraged from spending too much time outside, and when outside, or other wise alone, they still stare at the screen.
By voter suppression, I mean where the government actively suppresses certain parts of the population from voting, whereas your example is also something that shouldn't be allowed. A few minutes on Google shows lots of evidence of various forms of voter suppression, from not having a reasonable number of polling stations, through last minute voter roll purges targeting certain groups, through fucked up laws removing the right to vote due to such stupid reasons as having a joint in your possession many years ago (the whole idea of segregation based on the feudal idea of felons is pretty outdated) to bring it back to the original topic, strict voter ID laws. As for gerrymandering, which ever side does it doesn't matter, it's just plain wrong and the whole idea of such an important thing as voting districts being left to politics is just wrong and any party that does it should be voted out.
The Provincial austerity measures I mentioned really happened here in BC (no idea about other Provinces). They happened independently of elections, at that the Provincial elections ID requirements are still quite reasonable and judging by the results of the last Provincial election, the government did the election fairly (ignoring taxpayers money spent on propaganda).
Even the Federal Conservatives attempt to disenfranchise the natives backfired, with lots of natives, a group that traditionally doesn't consider the Government of Canada to be legitimate as they signed treaties with the Crown rather then Canada, and therefore didn't usually vote, voting against the government.
As for voter fraud, I haven't really seen any evidence of thousands of convictions. The Heritage Foundation claims 755 convictions in 474 voter fraud cases (multiple convictions per illegal vote?), and whether it is that partisan is unproven, with at least one Republican charged. I do see lots of evidence of legal voter suppression in various States, usually perpetuated by the right when they get the chance to make the rules. Both voter suppression (including gerrymandering) and voter fraud are bad and should be stopped. Yes, reasonable ID laws along with recognizing a right for resident citizens to vote would help.
Seems weird that the Federal elections aren't a Federal matter like here in Canada. Understandable by 19th century standards but times have changed.
Also much simpler voting up here. We have a Federal election where I vote for one representative to Parliament and the Members of Parliament decide on the government (or failing that, we have another election). Likewise for the Provincial election, which happens separately and is run by the Province. Municipal elections are more complex, but also happen on a different date.
Makes voting more simpler, we actually have different Provincial parties from the Federal parties (some are the same) and, at least here, don't even have parties in most municipalities.
All it takes is some austerity to close most of those DMV's etc, declare the post office to be federal rather then state/provincial and more austerity to make those free ID's cost $75, as happened here.
Then make the ID requirements more onerous, eg the last government also upped the ID requirements to have your current address on it. Just like that, all the people without a numbered street address such as most native reservations being disenfranchised as well as all those pesky university students who are currently resident at their university but still have ID with their home address, also being disenfranchised.
While I agree that some ID should be presented, it is another way that can be used to disenfranchise certain portions of the population.
Many third world countries simply mark the voter with some indelible ink when they vote to stop multiple voting. If it's actually a real problem down there, mark all voters when they vote.
It really depends on how it's done. Here in Canada, we've required proof of who you are for a long time. Used to get a card in the mail that, together with a bill or such was good enough, there was also the option of swearing an affidavit if you didn't have ID or weren't registered.
The previous Federal right wing government fucked that up, upping the ID required, stopping Elections Canada from encouraging people to vote, including stopping them from registering people in grocery stores and such and various other tricks to discourage minorities and the poor.
In my household, my wife, a minority, has always used her maiden name to vote as that is what her ID is in, as well as various bills that are in her name. Prior to the election, I went on line to double check that we were registered and the government site said yes we were, including in my wife's case, in her maiden name. Went to vote and somehow her registration had been changed to my name and all she had was our marriage license for ID. Luckily the polling station was quiet and the electoral official was interested enough to spend an hour on the phone to Ottawa to finally fix things. Big hassle and waste of time to do something that usually only takes a minute and she almost lost her franchise. Otoh, during the last Provincial election, with the same problem, it took 2 minutes and her signature to fix things.
My son, due to lack of ID, never did get to vote. He doesn't drive, doesn't have good enough ID (gotta have your address on it), costs $75 at a motor vehicle branch that is 50 miles away to get the needed ID.
Basically the ID requirement can be sanely implemented or implemented in such a way to disenfranchise those poor/minorities that don't vote for the correct party. And America or at least some States, has a real problem as it is with disenfranchising people for reasons as stupid as being a reformed criminal.
A minus one and a plus one, at least it is balanced.
- Abolish low and mid-density and non-mixed-use zoning and local approval bureaucracy that allows NIMBYs to prevent the building of new housing stock, so housing can be affordable.
Capitalism says that it is more profitable to build expensive housing then cheap. Where I am, there's more housing development then ever, cheap 3 story apartments getting torn down to build expensive high rises. The local government is considering forcing all new developments to include 25% social housing for those making $80 grand or less. There's a real problem when $80,000 is considered needing social housing in a market with less then $11 minimum wage. The real problem is the wealth gap, made worse by welcoming foreigners with lots of money to drive up real estate prices. Those rich Chinese want a backup home in a western country.
They've also been bred (and now GMO'd) for the characteristics of shipping well and looking good in the store, rather then being nutritious.
When I was a kid, I was doing some farm labour in a field besides the Abbotsford airport the day before the airshow begun. The Blue Angels were practicing and decided to use us as strafing practice or such. Wow, jet fighters flying perhaps a hundred feet up at 500 odd miles an hour, so close that one that went by upside down, I'd swear I saw the pilots eyeballs, but they were going so fast that they almost seemed foreshortened and you wouldn't hear them until they were gone. Quite an experience and I sure as hell wouldn't want to be an actual target.
Another time, living in the interior, not too far up a mountain, a small fleet of Apache attack copters went by, I was looking down at them, just the noise would have been pretty demoralizing if they were hunting me, though there it was possible to imagine responding to them as they were slow and broadcast their presence. Lots of supersonic bangs back then too.
There's always,
North Pole
Canada
HOH OHO
If you want an easy to remember real address and don't mind spamming Santa with snail mail.
The smart vs stupid argument is a red herring anyways. Lots of really smart people with really bad beliefs, and it doesn't matter what you belief is a bad belief as the smart have as much variety in beliefs as the stupid. Worse, the smart are better at rationalizing why their beliefs are correct.
The beginning of the industrial revolution saw 70 years of massive unemployment and one of the saving graces was the new world to immigrate to. Spending 16 hours spinning yarn at home is better then being forced into prostitution to survive. Of course it was made worse by the rich discovering that they could pass laws to take ownership of the commons and push out those farmers from the land that they'd been using since time immemorial.
The second wave of automation did work out better, with more population then jobs, society did respond by removing a bunch of people from the labour force (children and then old people, as well as women to a degree) and dividing the labour up more fairly with shorter work weeks.
This wave could go either way. Sure in 50 years or more, employment might once again come up, but there is no way of knowing and currently there seems to be a lot of resistance to spreading the wealth and taking care of those who are no longer productive enough.