The broken window fallacy is an argument for not breaking things. So we probably shouldn't cause a trillion dollars worth of damage to our national infrastructure. I don't think that I would need an allegory of breaking windows to be convinced of that.
The original poster is arguing for improvements to national infrastructure. If a large disaster created the need for significant repair to the infrastructure there may be political will to improve the infrastructure further than a simple replacement. This leaves a possibility that the broken window fallacy would not hold in such a case.
There would be no clear outcome to such an event. You assume that improvements "aren't sufficient improvements over the current infrastructure to justify the cost." But there could simply be a lack of awareness or political obstacles preventing improvements. However, I agree with the two problems that you highlighted. There is a good chance that your assumptions hold.
The broken window fallacy is an argument for not breaking things. It is not an argument for not rebuilding them once broken. Nor is it an argument against replacing things before their useful life has expired.
Instead we just spent a trillion dollars to end up with what we had before (maybe a little better, but not a trillion dollars better).
This is a key assumption that the broken window fallacy requires to be true. It isn't necessarily true. Though it often is.
Also economic regions (smaller than global) are open systems. It is possible that the region with the broken windows can benefit at the expense of the rest of the larger system as a result of the windows breaking.
There is potential for economic gain here. The broken window fallacy assumes negligible improvements over replacements and opportunity costs. This assumption does not necessarily hold in practice, though it certainly could.
The economy is improved compared to not fixing that which is broken. There is no option for it not to break or wear down (it seems like this is the fallacy of those that insist on dismissing rebuilding as a broken window fallacy). If it costs less to reinforce or extend the useful life of infrastructure than to replace after a breakdown the economy is improved. The economy can also improve with any effective infrastructure or capital improvements. However, costs may out weight the benefits.
No it isn't. It is maintenance and infrastructure investment. It is only the broken window fallacy if you intentionally break it only to fix what was intentionally broken.
Good point. But I'd like to raise the issue of a breathalyzer test having two degrees of separation from the hypothesis that the breathalyzer is testing. Using vapor concentrations in expelled air has not been shown to be a reliable measure of Blood Alcohol Concentration. Blood Alcohol Concentration has not been shown to be a reliable measure of deviation from an individual's normal judgment and reaction time. Deviation from an individual's normal judgment and reaction time is not reliable without a baseline.
I don't know how the laws became so specific and low tolerance for BAC measurements.
"The banks stand to make $40 million from their deals with Facebook" Um, how?
You seem to be confused. The Banks, i.e., Investment Banks (Not actually banks at all [though JPMorgan Chase has a bank subsidiary), more like large block brokers and mutual fund combo companies) will make somewhere near $40 Million in fees from Facebook and the IPO buyers for their brokerage and marketing services.
That’s an interesting paradox to think about. Make it legal and it’s no good. Why? Because as long as it’s illegal the people who come in do not qualify for welfare, they don’t qualify for social security, they don’t qualify for the other myriad of benefits that we pour out from our left pocket to our right pocket. So long as they don’t qualify they migrate to jobs.
It is not clear how much incentive welfare would have on the marginal legal immigrant to not search for jobs, so it may be less of a paradox and more of a conjecture. Also, there is a simple solution if the effect of welfare was significant. Make qualification for welfare depend on something other than legal immigration alone.
It is possible that it is purely marketing to increase market share that is driving the push for RFID cards. However, the continued existence gas station card readers are certainly a threat that seems to be limited by the one-time CVV feature of RFID transactions, thus reducing the risks and cost of the transaction possessors and merchants.
In addition to the the reasons given below, I would like to point out that you are assuming an advantage exists for consumers. It is the transaction possessors and merchants that reduce risks and costs from RFID cards. It is sold as a novelty to consumers and card holders.
The only way to fix it is to block CC companies from writing-off fraud losses
This doesn't make sense.
while preventing them from passing them onto the consumer.
This doesn't seem possible.
Right now, they perform a cursory 'investigation' only for the purposes of justifying the write-off, effectively passing the costs back onto consumers(taxpayers).
The "cursory investigation" is just a means to determine the legal indemnity for the cost of the fraud. i.e. does the merchant, customer, issuing bank, transaction possessor network (e.g. VISA) or an insurance company pay for the fraud? The merchant pays most often. Customers are almost never charged. This however says nothing of the global incidence of the cost, which may be influenced but probably not entirely controlled via statutory means.
It is a risk/reward analysis; to me the risk of killing billions of people is much heavier on my scale of importance than any reward from the research.
The risk of research: Billions of people could die if containment fails or if natural strains evolve and spread before an effective vaccine is developed. Reward of research: Eliminate risk of Billions of people dying if natural strains evolve and spread or containment fails.
Risk of NO research: Billions of people could die if natural strains evolve and spread. Reward of NO research: eliminate risk of Billions of people dying from containment failure.
Which is better? There is no action that creates zero risk of Billions of people dying.
So a data file disappears, forever? So what? Nobody's lost real property, have they? Unless you argue about all the work and effort and time spent to create that work - but now we're back to recognizing that electronic data files, despite not being real, nonetheless have "real" origins, and "real" impacts.
The debate is clearly purely semantic, but it's used constantly on Slashdot when the shoe is on the other foot and it's somehow considered an irrefutable stance.
It was explained to you twice above. But you have not addressed those explanations. Also, perhaps the exact point being made is, as you said, you can't have it both ways, i.e. MPAA's members' ideas are property, individual users files expressing ideas are not. People might want equal treatment under the law, even if they don't like the law.
if you uploaded your only copy of a file to this (or any other) cloud site, then more fool you.
If I gave my car keys to someone to park my car, who proceeded to take it for a joy ride, I'm I a fool? Does determining my status as a fool effect the legality of the other persons actions? Are Ponzie scheme victims also fools? If so, does that make perpetrating a Ponzie scheme ethical or legal?
Slashdot Mirror
What makes you think that I'm suggesting that?
The broken window fallacy is an argument for not breaking things. So we probably shouldn't cause a trillion dollars worth of damage to our national infrastructure. I don't think that I would need an allegory of breaking windows to be convinced of that.
The original poster is arguing for improvements to national infrastructure. If a large disaster created the need for significant repair to the infrastructure there may be political will to improve the infrastructure further than a simple replacement. This leaves a possibility that the broken window fallacy would not hold in such a case.
There would be no clear outcome to such an event. You assume that improvements "aren't sufficient improvements over the current infrastructure to justify the cost." But there could simply be a lack of awareness or political obstacles preventing improvements. However, I agree with the two problems that you highlighted. There is a good chance that your assumptions hold.
The broken window fallacy is an argument for not breaking things. It is not an argument for not rebuilding them once broken. Nor is it an argument against replacing things before their useful life has expired.
Instead we just spent a trillion dollars to end up with what we had before (maybe a little better, but not a trillion dollars better).
This is a key assumption that the broken window fallacy requires to be true. It isn't necessarily true. Though it often is.
Also economic regions (smaller than global) are open systems. It is possible that the region with the broken windows can benefit at the expense of the rest of the larger system as a result of the windows breaking.
There is potential for economic gain here. The broken window fallacy assumes negligible improvements over replacements and opportunity costs. This assumption does not necessarily hold in practice, though it certainly could.
The economy is improved compared to not fixing that which is broken. There is no option for it not to break or wear down (it seems like this is the fallacy of those that insist on dismissing rebuilding as a broken window fallacy). If it costs less to reinforce or extend the useful life of infrastructure than to replace after a breakdown the economy is improved. The economy can also improve with any effective infrastructure or capital improvements. However, costs may out weight the benefits.
No it isn't. It is maintenance and infrastructure investment. It is only the broken window fallacy if you intentionally break it only to fix what was intentionally broken.
Thanks for pointing this out. You saved me some typing.
...and David Lightman for declining the suggestion to play chess.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/
The government is wasting money.
or
The government is wasting $x on y because z.
The latter seems like it would be more useful information.
Good point. But I'd like to raise the issue of a breathalyzer test having two degrees of separation from the hypothesis that the breathalyzer is testing. Using vapor concentrations in expelled air has not been shown to be a reliable measure of Blood Alcohol Concentration. Blood Alcohol Concentration has not been shown to be a reliable measure of deviation from an individual's normal judgment and reaction time. Deviation from an individual's normal judgment and reaction time is not reliable without a baseline.
I don't know how the laws became so specific and low tolerance for BAC measurements.
Is 0% BAC natural for those that abstain from drinking?
What article?
I don't believe that the following are real people (otherwise, I'd have to kill myself to make the pain in my head stop) :
pj
dwheeler
ooo
jbfaure
You, Dotan Cohen, may be superhuman. You, Marc Sinclair, and Eike Rathke have made the world a better place.
"The banks stand to make $40 million from their deals with Facebook" Um, how?
You seem to be confused. The Banks, i.e., Investment Banks (Not actually banks at all [though JPMorgan Chase has a bank subsidiary), more like large block brokers and mutual fund combo companies) will make somewhere near $40 Million in fees from Facebook and the IPO buyers for their brokerage and marketing services.
Not sure why you didn't see it, but he worked at TI for 10 years. From his Linkedin profile:
Process Engineer
Texas Instruments
2008 – 2009 (1 year)
Equipment Engineer
Texas Instruments
February 2000 – December 2008 (8 years 11 months)
That’s an interesting paradox to think about. Make it legal and it’s no good. Why? Because as long as it’s illegal the people who come in do not qualify for welfare, they don’t qualify for social security, they don’t qualify for the other myriad of benefits that we pour out from our left pocket to our right pocket. So long as they don’t qualify they migrate to jobs.
It is not clear how much incentive welfare would have on the marginal legal immigrant to not search for jobs, so it may be less of a paradox and more of a conjecture. Also, there is a simple solution if the effect of welfare was significant. Make qualification for welfare depend on something other than legal immigration alone.
It is possible that it is purely marketing to increase market share that is driving the push for RFID cards. However, the continued existence gas station card readers are certainly a threat that seems to be limited by the one-time CVV feature of RFID transactions, thus reducing the risks and cost of the transaction possessors and merchants.
In addition to the the reasons given below, I would like to point out that you are assuming an advantage exists for consumers. It is the transaction possessors and merchants that reduce risks and costs from RFID cards. It is sold as a novelty to consumers and card holders.
The only way to fix it is to block CC companies from writing-off fraud losses
This doesn't make sense.
while preventing them from passing them onto the consumer.
This doesn't seem possible.
Right now, they perform a cursory 'investigation' only for the purposes of justifying the write-off, effectively passing the costs back onto consumers(taxpayers).
The "cursory investigation" is just a means to determine the legal indemnity for the cost of the fraud. i.e. does the merchant, customer, issuing bank, transaction possessor network (e.g. VISA) or an insurance company pay for the fraud? The merchant pays most often. Customers are almost never charged. This however says nothing of the global incidence of the cost, which may be influenced but probably not entirely controlled via statutory means.
It is a risk/reward analysis; to me the risk of killing billions of people is much heavier on my scale of importance than any reward from the research.
The risk of research: Billions of people could die if containment fails or if natural strains evolve and spread before an effective vaccine is developed.
Reward of research: Eliminate risk of Billions of people dying if natural strains evolve and spread or containment fails.
Risk of NO research: Billions of people could die if natural strains evolve and spread.
Reward of NO research: eliminate risk of Billions of people dying from containment failure.
Which is better? There is no action that creates zero risk of Billions of people dying.
So a data file disappears, forever? So what? Nobody's lost real property, have they? Unless you argue about all the work and effort and time spent to create that work - but now we're back to recognizing that electronic data files, despite not being real, nonetheless have "real" origins, and "real" impacts.
The debate is clearly purely semantic, but it's used constantly on Slashdot when the shoe is on the other foot and it's somehow considered an irrefutable stance.
It was explained to you twice above. But you have not addressed those explanations. Also, perhaps the exact point being made is, as you said, you can't have it both ways, i.e. MPAA's members' ideas are property, individual users files expressing ideas are not. People might want equal treatment under the law, even if they don't like the law.
if you uploaded your only copy of a file to this (or any other) cloud site, then more fool you.
If I gave my car keys to someone to park my car, who proceeded to take it for a joy ride, I'm I a fool? Does determining my status as a fool effect the legality of the other persons actions? Are Ponzie scheme victims also fools? If so, does that make perpetrating a Ponzie scheme ethical or legal?
Answer key:
Maybe
No
Maybe
No
Only 3% of the US population self identifies as homosexual. I went with the odds.
Touche
She should have anticipated the obvious reactions to her post. which implies that she chose to post her comment knowing what replies she would receive
I think this says more about you than her.
I realized that is was sexual attraction that was the implicit assumption. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2629106&cid=38750976