Neither Netflix nor Amazon should even exist, but for the stupidity of Blockbuster and Barnes and Noble. I can see the clueless management of both companies now:
"Oh that intertooob thingy will never catch on!"
Blockbuster tried in the late 90's. They even partnered with a well-financed company that had pioneered online derivatives trading. It was going to stream years before Netflix.
The problem turned out to be in the partner that they had gotten tangled up in. You may remember Enron.
China works pretty hard at preventing inflation. Which it can do... managed economy and all.
The US need only contain China, which they are successfully doing by forcing them to buy their debt by the billions. It's a stroke of genius actually.
Seriously wrong. That debt is given to African countries for 20 year leases on oil. Stuff like that. China's been very good about not keeping too much debt on hand.
And trust me...if there is something useful that cannot be done [better] any other way, I will join. I haven't found anything so far, so enlighten me.
The useful things it can do are all built around network effects. If you asked that question about using Windows as an OS, I would respond that you can run Windows-software. If your friends organize parties on Facebook then you can join or not get invited. And then, if it is easier to invite more friends on Facebook than any other method, you do that for your parties.
The only other use I've found is hearing from people I've lost contact with, and providing a way for get copies of digital pictures that people took of me, sometimes years ago.
That said, I have no bloody clue what people do for hours on Facebook a day. Except play Farmville.
False distinction. How I read your comment depends on your education, because it determines if you are using technical terms in a manner consistent with a layperson or not. Much like how if someone is describing the power button on their CPU, what you would imagine from a hardware engineer (maybe an on-board jumper/microswitch) or a secretary (the power button of a computer) would be different.
What you're describing as the "ultimatum game" is not what an economist would describe as the ultimatum game. Although played with two people, the goal is not to win... the economy is not closed. That is, they literally bring you each into a room (same or seperate), tell you both that one of you will be given $[Amount of money in the study] and allowed to divide it up. The other person then determines if both people get what the first person suggested or both people get nothing. They then go do whatever they feel like for the rest of their lives.
As you can probably guess, the amount of money is rarely super-significant... it's a meal or a movie ticket or something (although there were a couple of studies that tried pretty significant sums and then went to poorer countries so they were even more significant.)
Therefore, in this game, I fail to see where competition factors in as a motivation to reject a proposal.
I think the study is poor because it doesn't distinguish aggression from accurate analysis of the situation/probabilities of various outcomes. Experience makes people better... about 4% better at determining what other people will do over a career. Stop the fucking presses! But I was talking about the differences youth make in the ultimatum game.
You listed two options, and I'm not sure what you're asking or implying. I mean, I'm really trying to understand but am unable to. I feel this is because you're referring to a theoretical model that doesn't exist. The theoretical model to the Ultimatum game goes something like "People will pay money for revenge/to not feel cheated". That's it. Simply that people will spend money for no material benefit and to prevent someone they dislike from having something.
And lastly, as a point of personal privilege: I introduced "economy warping" into the conversation.
All the Diaspora hate coming from this PRE-ALPHA release of their source code seems so strangely out of place.
For a project like Diaspora, I should hope security, not features, was the number one concern. Especially considering you'll only be able to compete with Facebook on privacy/security.
Pre-alpha is a fine time to see the core focus of a project. Yes, there can be bugs in a major system, but architectually it should be sound. I mean, for fuck's sake, I'm not a developer of hardened user-gen web interfaces, and even I know to prevent XSS.
And hell, the majority of the security issues found appear to be rather simple to fix.
The idea that you can trivially patch 200 issues means that there wasn't one place it was all going through and properly secured... which means the next features will add their own issues. I want the architecture to protect me from lazy developers.
Where does "competitiveness" factor in? In the case where there are two people, and the ultimatum game consists of a non-economy warping amount of money, there is no incentive not to accept the deal, other than the psychic value of screwing over someone who wanted to screw you over.
Multiply the numbers by 1000, right now, in your head. Would you really reject 20,000 just because someone else gets 180,000 because they were unequal? (Note, I used you're 20/180 from 200 split.... I'd imagine that you'd accept 1,000 as well, and 100 might be where you're pissed off enough to reject it. Note how my thinking only concerns how pissed you'd be at being offered X, and whether it was worth X to act on that level of pissoffedness.)
200,000 isn't going to change the economy of the US. No prices will go up. Except in the very unusual case of you actively bidding in an auction against the other person there is no direct competition. How does it hurt you to accept the money?
BTW, it's quite rational to reject $0.01 when the other player receives $99.99, since after the game the richer player has more options available to spend money than the poorer player
It's rational if and only if the ultimatum game represents a significant amount of currency. If it represents $20 in America, it has no measurable impact on the economy.
But if he offers less than 50 to the other player, then there will be inequality unless the second player rejects. So it's irrational to offer less than 50, and Nash is at 50/50.
Which is irrelevent. A Nash equilibrium doesn't have to do with equality between two people. It refers to the decision.
The player accepting $0.01 is better off accepting than rejecting, no incentive to change - condition 1 for a Nash equilibrium. The player keeping $99.99 has no reason to offer more (already accepted) and offering less will lead to rejection. No incentive to change - condition 2 for a Nash equilibrium.
Thinking that we should only maximize for X or only maximize for Y is exactly the kind of short term thinking you decry.
I'm talking about within the context of the ultimatum game.
Maximizing for fairness, any offer of less than 50% is rejected (common knowledge). Therefore, everyone offers 50%, and everyone accepts the offer. 0 dollars wasted.
Maximizing for utility, any positive offer is accepted (common knowledge). Therefore, everyone offers 1 quantum of currency. Everyone accepts. 0 dollars wasted.
50/50. 1/2 of people offer 50%, all are accepted. 1/2 of people offer 1 quantum of currency, half of these are rejected. 1/4 of the mutually beneficial transactions fail to occur.
In fact those with high testosterone levels ended up doing things as irrational in any imaginable circumstance as to basically reject an offer of free money, just because they perceived it as being too low. You don't want someone like that making economic decisions.
On the contrary... I really don't want econ majors making economic decisions. The idea the ultimatum game forces people to treat each other fairly... well, that's a world I want to live it.
In the case of the ultimatum game, as long as all of society is consistently utility maximizing or fairness maximizing, it works. It's the mixture where it breaks down.
Thinking with your dick, and being known for thinking with your dick can be a lot better for you than acting in a short-term profit maximizing manner.
They make more than the private sector, apparently bean counting is a lucrative globally lucrative business.
Not once you normalize the data for skillset and experience. Ironically, Republicans are usually careful to do this so gender pay disparity disappears, but not when it supports their theory. The same is true of Democrats in reverse.
We're already deciding what can and cannot be used as a criterion. For example, Brand A cannot send soldiers to trash Brand B's factory.
That's not a criterion a customer can use... that's just using violence to raise B's costs. And applying violence to a consumer is commonly called "robbery." The question is how can you eliminate a criterion from a customer's consideration and still be considered a free market? Not that a free market is the best thing in the world... regulation to deal with racism for instance is desirable.
not arbitrarily deciding what can and cannot be a criterion, I made a very clear rule: making your product better = good, making others' product worse = bad
Well, if I can make my product better by making your product worse, where does that fall. For instance, suppose you have the choice of hot dog A and hot dog B, no difference in quality or price. So 50% of the time you buy A, and 50% you buy B (depending on which is closer to you when you want a hot dog). Now suppose I tell you brand A saves puppies with 1/2 its profits... nothing about brand B. You now get the benefit of hot dogs and saving puppies, so you have a preference for brand A. Clearly, you now have more value for your dollar.
Now, suppose I add that psychic benefit some other way, by saying that brand B devotes 1/2 their profits to killing puppies. You get a psychic benefit out of hurting them. You still are happier in that case, even though you're getting the same physical product. Brand A wins. Customer wins. Brand B loses.
once you realize that sending soldiers against Brand B's factory is identical to sending lawyers against them or using dirty advertising tactics against them.
But they aren't. In the case of advertising, you are changing how much Brand B and Brand A are worth. You are literally raising the total utility of hot dog purchases. This result means that society is now richer.
using a lawyer is a way of redressing wrongs, and thus correcting an injustice through the legal system. This is a net loss on society (better if the wrong never occurred), but still worthwhile to act as a correction method. I have no clue why you're in love with the concept that violence has any place in a discussion over market regulation... violence is tightly regulated under all economic models.
Thus, any kind of offensive tactics (this includes negative advertisement, "don't buy any of our competitor's product and get 10% off", hitting competitors with lawsuits, etc) violate basic free market principles and should be scorned for this reason.
Once you start saying what can and cannot be used as a criterion, how is it still a free market? If I get a visceral pleasure from hurting Brand B by buying Brand A, Brand A is providing me more value.
Would it be better for society if I didn't have that desire to screw Brand B, yes. But Brand A and I are both benefiting, presumably by more than it cost to implant the idea that I hate Brand B in my head. So isn't that what a free market should reward/encourage?
I know of no pro-life argument that considers a single cell human life worth protecting that isn't based purely on potentiality.
And a baby is protected because of its potential.
. Scientifically, the question about skin color actually has been settled. A not-insignificant amount of work went into it, too, to show that race is a social and not a scientific distinction.
How does the science change anything? Just in case you're not sure what I'm referencing, the US Constitution originally valued a black person as 60% the worth of a white one. And I'm not sure how science can really inform us any differently. Even if the cause was culture or upbringing or "being not allowed to read under penalty of death", that value was still assessed.
To behave as though an issue has been settled when the facts are not yet known to that degree is a rhetorical tactic, not a logical one.
But they believe the issue is settled. And since science cannot inform us differently (see below), they're perfectly right to believe that.
Defining life and when it begins, if we consider it a question worth answering, is exclusively a question of science (unless you know of a way to investigate such questions in some other way?).
I fail to see what science can add. It becomes a question of potential. Science really has made bad calls about what is and isn't a person, some current leading medical ethicists want to revive euthinasia or take other steps to "strengthen the genepool". What is the scientific test for sentience? Potential to become sentient?
Science is good for telling us how the world works, and making predictions. It's even pretty good at telling us what happened. But it's utterly silent on morality, theology, philosophy and other worthy endevors. If you think science can help here, that's great, but the burden of proof is on you.
You're arguments about specialists where you quote several examples (nuclear engineering, military strategy, etc.) are all offbase because those are specialists making decisions that concern their specialty. I believe that people who have studied a lot can help a great deal in decision making. But I also believe that they tend to view everything through a single lens, and need to be checked at the big picture level. We trust the nuclear engineer to design the plant (or supervise the design) and understand the cost/benefits of using nuclear power, but not to decide if we build turbines or a plant. We trust the general to order tanks into harm's way in the most effective manner, but we explicitly give control over when that happens to someone outside the military.
So now all we need to figure out to know whether abortion is ok is: is the fetus sentient yet?... a reasonable chance of becoming imbued with "sentience"? (What exactly do you mean by the term "sentient"?)
Thanks for correcting yourself to include the potential. I'd say sentient would imply it had self-awareness.
Note that "reasonable chance" is a matter where disagreement is inevitable and science is mute. Say its 1%, is that "reasonable"?
nless you believe that sentience lives in some other organ, it seems completely reasonable to me to discuss brain development
Except I include potential. So, the fetus can grow a brain, yes? I see you waivering back and forth, so maybe this can help: A human being's brain does fully mature until they are several years old. Why should society keep parents from killing a newborn because it keeps them up at night?
You seemed to have a problem with my statement earlier that sentience requires some level of brain development. You didn't say anything specific about why you thought this was problematic, but I invite you do make an argument here.
But by masturbating, you're essentially decreasing that chance to zero, and not even giving it a chance
Actually, by not having sex. The amount of time a sperm cell is viable makes masturbating/not masturbating an irrelevant question. The only question is "sex with ovulating woman or not". And it has to happen PDQ.
Neither do I. But this discussion was not limited to the First World.
Except you were using the problems in Third World nations to support your theory that life is not precious. Clearly, given the choice, you would rather make the Third World more like the First World than vice versa. So I would like to see some other line of reasoning for why life is not precious.
Could it? You're making another assumption that is probably unwarranted. At least, I'd want to see some numbers on the availability of suitable adoptive parents vs. the number of abandoned children.
For the first year at least... there are approximately a million people who have taken steps towards adoption, but have not yet been able to adopt, and another 8.5 million who are in the preliminary investigation stages. There are around a million abortions a year. Maybe we would have to lower the adoption screening process, but that might be a good thing. After all, we don't have a biological screening process. It'd also help the merging of that melting pot, racially.
That's why I said "if."
You said "if" in a way that clearly implied you were advocating it. If not, than why not offer several options? You said that the two ways of looking at it are "life is precious" and "utilitarianism". You then said "life is precious" is stupid because it doesn't work that way in the Third World. I'm offering a third way for you to perform the cost-benefit analysis you were advocating... that where minimum utility instead of mean utility is used.
The people who will ultimately benefit from stem-cell-derived medical treatments need to figure into this equation. They really do, otherwise the debate is one-sided and serves little purpose.
I tend to agree they need to factor in. But since there is no real demand for aborted fetuses or zygotes to perform stem cell research, I think factoring them in turns it from a shouting match over sensibilities to being completely one sided. But then again, while I oppose abortion, I don't think that every fertilized egg is a life. To those people, it's murder... maybe profitable murder, but murder none-the-less.
The problem is, while "kill hobos and use their organs to save the lives of these doomed scientists who can then create artificial organs which will save umpteen million people" is a good deal, human beings are wired to not want it. There are sealed records from Nazi experiments that may have as yet unrediscovered knowledge in it, and there is a medical consensus that even looking at them would be too close to condoning what was done (there is the added benefit of trying to dissuade future scientists who may have been tempted to join a similarly horrific program in the future.)
If we're to err on the side of protecting human life, the relevant question is: is there a point at which we know to a reasonable certainty that it is still just a collection of cells? Certainly before significant structures of a brain develops we're not there yet.
Or where it is a single-cell, to some people. I have a hard time understanding why you feel so confident that your line (paraphrased as "physical mental infrastructure reaches X% complete") is correct. Well, actually, I understand why you're so confident - people are most confident where there is the least evidence. But I know of a lot of people who draw the line both earlier and later than that.
It seems to me that many on the pro-life side aren't interested in this question.
Correct... nor do you find many people still willing to discuss if a black person is only worth 60% of a white one. Most people on the pro-life side consider the question settled. Not that they aren't willing to argue that they are correct, they just don't think it's really a question any more than you don't think my example is.
Should I take this to mean that you object to the ethics boards that currently make decisions in hospitals about such sticky issues?
I'm fine with triage questions. And to some degree apportioning limited medical questions. But I don't think they should overstep their bounds, and when life begins is nowhere near a medical question.
And the logic motivating this objection is--well, let's just say you're dangerously close to Godwinning your argument here.
I was actually thinking about quite a few programs in the US as well as the obvious. It was a widespread problem, and will be again.
Your wording "when a unique human life begins". A tumor is "unique human life" too...
I think most people understand that a tumor is not a human being, nor will it ever become a distinct human being. Clearly people can lose cells and not lose their identity... and clearly there is no arbitrary number of cells that that can be. I'm sure my leg has more cells than a baby, for instance. Humans are more than the sum of their parts, and when that additional piece gets added is up for debate.
But to be more precise, when I talk about a human being, I mean a sentient entity or able to become a sentient entity. How much space gets occupied by "able to become", I'm not sure.
Of course, I reserve the right to better express my conception later. But it's vague because the concept is nebulous, not because I'm being coy.
Yes, this does sum up my post--you got my point exactly. Except you seem to be arguing my own point back to me, which I can't figure out. I think babies are worth protecting, even stupid ones that can't figure out how to use a can opener.
And if someone argued that babies are too underdeveloped to deserve protection, that their eyes could not focus, their mental development isn't complete, you would answer them how? Or if they said it was too much effort to open the cans of baby food, and let the baby survive or not on its own?
This seems to me to be life worth protecting. (To be clear, this is not a definitive argument, though...someday we have the technology to remove the uterus containing an implanted zygote and bring a baby to term. Letting our technological capability guide us here is clearly wrong, too...technology is a tool and a tools don't dictate their use, we do, based on understanding on when and where to apply them.)
I'm not sure if you're saying in that future time the zygote would deserve protection or not.
If we're to have a consistent stance on this issue, we neither want to go off the precipice of rationalizing murder any more than we want to end up defending the sanctity of a mole.
What is it with everybody going for a multiplayer focus these days?
Multiplayer requires either split-screen or a network connection. Split Screen means console. A network connection can run through their servers. Welcome to DRM2.
Masturbation should be outlawed because the sperm cells would have a chance to become a real baby if they were given the chance.
Actually, I devoted analysis to why that was a poor argument, and why it would be ridiculous to defend it. Please tell me why you shouldn't be aborted.
any practice that wastes sperm or eggs and has no chance of producing a child
And there are no such practices, sorry to burst your bubble.
The problem with that line of reasoning is that, when you get right down to it, life isn't all that precious. For most of the world, it's dirt cheap in fact.
In spite of the opportunity to do so, I don't live in those places. Nor do I desire to do so.
I will say that your example of requiring pregnancies to continue to term regardless of whether the parents want the child is too simplistic as well. It's easy to say, "life is precious, preserve it at all costs" but one should also take into account what the child's life is going to be like, whether in fact a given society can even afford it.
Adoption could handle unwanted children. And most Western societies have a lack of young people.
These are legitimately complex issues, involving a large measure of cost-benefit analysis, as cold-blooded as that can be sometimes. If you truly wish to do the most good for the most people
Ah, but I'm not a utilitarian, and most utilitarian arguments can cut both ways. If you haven't been exposed to it yet, may I suggest reading some Rawls. He suggests considering primarily the minimum utility, not average. That is, if giving Steve Jobs umpteen billion dollars is the best way to make the worst off better off, go for it. But if Bill Gates's utility function is just so outta wack that it would raise the average utility to give him a dollar from a bum, screw him.
If we decide that stem-cell research is too morally repugnant to be allowed, well, we have to accept a couple of things. One: other countries point-blank will not see it the same way, and two: even if they did, there will be a cost in human life if we do not realize any potential treatments.
I tend to agree here. And there are enough other ways to get stem cells (left over from in vitro) that it can be done with "doomed embryos". But that's totally divorced from abortion as an issue.
And someone else might be against the destruction of any form of human life, including human tissue comprising a mole or a tumor.
So what? Why should anyone regard that person's opinion as more or less than relevant than yours or mine?
The idea that human cells die constantly, while the human being continues to exist, is scientific fact... that's why that person's opinion is invalid. But to determine at which point a human being exists is something that science cannot answer. A single cell, properly nourished, can become a distinct human being. Most people don't draw the line there, but some do. And if not there, then implantation, first heartbeat, first brainwave, viability outside the mother (a moving target, of course), birth, 1 year old, able to think abstractly, 18... when does life begin? I don't know and you don't know. And there's no way to demonstrate otherwise. Where science must be silent, philosophy must take over... or theology will.
Hospitals have ethics boards of experts tasked with making these kinds of medical decisions.
And ethics boards of experts approved eugenics programs around the world. And beyond that, what expertise would be relevant? Is there a scientific standard to apply? Because an MD doesn't really qualify you to determine when a unique human life begins.
Abortion is a personal medical procedure, not a political issue, not unlike embryonic stem cell research
Way to beg the question... Currently it is both a medical procedure and a political issue. Your statement implies it should only be a medical issue. The problem is that assumes that the GP's point is invalid... or rather that your view is the only rational one.
The legality of abortion is a perfectly valid political issue, and I would say it should be illegal in the general case.
To be completely consistent, you would have to accept that every egg that is allowed to go unfertilized is equivalent to murder.
I just highlighted this phrase, as it seems to sum up the entire rest of your post. This position is a ridiculous strawman. I might as well say that you have to justify allowing parents to kill dependent children, that until they can survive on their own (age of maturity), they aren't real people. Heck, if you leave a baby alone with canned food and a can opener, the baby will starve. Stupid baby.
One can say that the combination of the two is relevant (fertilized egg) without an unfertilized egg being sacred. One can grow given nourishment alone, the other has an incomplete genetic code and cannot. One can draw the line in a lot of places, but that does not invalidate any attempt to do so. Hell, you haven't even suggested a single place to draw the line.
I knew what an equation was long before I knew anything about algebra.
I moved around a bit. But it was pretty consistent, I believe. In 1st grade you learned what numbers were, 2nd addition/subtraction, 3rd multiplication/division, 4th ?, 5th ?, 6th pre-algebra, and on up.
To my mind "middle school" means explicitly 6th, 7th and 8th grades, that is, grades that should be at the pre-algebra level.
I focused on the parentheses because I believe that we are shafting the children, and I really want someone to demonstrate that we need to improve it. And this study doesn't because of such a retardedly nonstandard usage.
My father taught me one of the most valuable lessons I ever learned while I was in this age range, and it helped me get past most of this easily. Occam's Razor - The simplest answer is likely the correct answer. If you tackle math word problems like this, you can usually puzzle it out and get whatever the teacher is looking for.
Personally, I was taught to simply spell out the assumptions you felt like using in that case. But "simplest" is subjective. For instance, simplest to me means the one that resolves to the easiest to solve. But simplest to a fifth grade teacher may mean what that teacher thinks most students will assume.
You could use a variable just as easily as a blank space, but for school children who have not taken an algebra class yet a blank space would be easier to understand for them.
Before algebra, there's no conception of an equation taught to children. So, the results are unsurprising.
Really dull proof here in that case.
But the study was for middle school students (pedantic note: you implied elementary school children in your post), that is, people at least through pre-algebra. So I don't think "x" would have been so mystifying.
I didn't understand what was trying to be said. Maybe spaces would have helped. But in general middle school children get the shaft. I had my 5th grade cousin ask for help on his math homework, and there were literally a half dozen contradictory answers that would be valid based on the assumptions taken in his word problem. (Does "ways it can be arranged" refer to combinations or permutations, can each option be used more than once, can the null option be used (only valid if each option can be used more than once, as otherwise it was required) or can the null option be used more than once (only valid if the other options cannot) ). Kids are bad at math cause we spoonfeed them crap with 800 assumptions, never explaining what they are. And we wonder why they cannot generalize like we can.
In English - four plus three plus two equals something plus two.
Why did you have to parse it like that. I parsed it as "four plus three plus two something two". Sure, I recognized the equal sign, and the plus sign, but I also recognized the parentheses. The other way of parsing it for me was "four plus three plus two equals quantity zero end-quantity plus two"... a false statement. I'm used to seeing operators written out as the conjunction of other, sometimes unrelated, operators. I'm not familiar with "()" written out to mean "unknown quantity". In that case I'm used to "x".
Why are people throwing out the rules when they come upon an unknown?
If they understood clearly, concretely, what "equals" meant, there wouldn't be the sort of confusion that's been going on
If they understood clearly, concretely, what "equals" meant, there wouldn't be the sort of confusion that's been going on
That symbol was not understandable, unambiguously, as equals. That's the major source of confusion. The equals sign can be used to represent causation "=>", a test returning the truth value of an equality "==", a declarative statement about equality "=", a test of identity "===", and others. What does it represent in "=()+"? How do you know?
I think another poster had a good theory, that nowadays "=" is seen as "solve it" due to its use on calculators.
That's an interesting hypothesis, and I would love to see a test of that. Unfortunately, this study was flawed do to its non-conventional usage of "()" as "unknown quantity".
Slashdot Mirror
Blockbuster tried in the late 90's. They even partnered with a well-financed company that had pioneered online derivatives trading. It was going to stream years before Netflix.
The problem turned out to be in the partner that they had gotten tangled up in. You may remember Enron.
China works pretty hard at preventing inflation. Which it can do... managed economy and all.
Seriously wrong. That debt is given to African countries for 20 year leases on oil. Stuff like that. China's been very good about not keeping too much debt on hand.
The useful things it can do are all built around network effects. If you asked that question about using Windows as an OS, I would respond that you can run Windows-software. If your friends organize parties on Facebook then you can join or not get invited. And then, if it is easier to invite more friends on Facebook than any other method, you do that for your parties.
The only other use I've found is hearing from people I've lost contact with, and providing a way for get copies of digital pictures that people took of me, sometimes years ago.
That said, I have no bloody clue what people do for hours on Facebook a day. Except play Farmville.
False distinction. How I read your comment depends on your education, because it determines if you are using technical terms in a manner consistent with a layperson or not. Much like how if someone is describing the power button on their CPU, what you would imagine from a hardware engineer (maybe an on-board jumper/microswitch) or a secretary (the power button of a computer) would be different.
What you're describing as the "ultimatum game" is not what an economist would describe as the ultimatum game. Although played with two people, the goal is not to win... the economy is not closed. That is, they literally bring you each into a room (same or seperate), tell you both that one of you will be given $[Amount of money in the study] and allowed to divide it up. The other person then determines if both people get what the first person suggested or both people get nothing. They then go do whatever they feel like for the rest of their lives.
As you can probably guess, the amount of money is rarely super-significant... it's a meal or a movie ticket or something (although there were a couple of studies that tried pretty significant sums and then went to poorer countries so they were even more significant.)
Therefore, in this game, I fail to see where competition factors in as a motivation to reject a proposal.
I think the study is poor because it doesn't distinguish aggression from accurate analysis of the situation/probabilities of various outcomes. Experience makes people better... about 4% better at determining what other people will do over a career. Stop the fucking presses! But I was talking about the differences youth make in the ultimatum game.
You listed two options, and I'm not sure what you're asking or implying. I mean, I'm really trying to understand but am unable to. I feel this is because you're referring to a theoretical model that doesn't exist. The theoretical model to the Ultimatum game goes something like "People will pay money for revenge/to not feel cheated". That's it. Simply that people will spend money for no material benefit and to prevent someone they dislike from having something.
And lastly, as a point of personal privilege: I introduced "economy warping" into the conversation.
For a project like Diaspora, I should hope security, not features, was the number one concern. Especially considering you'll only be able to compete with Facebook on privacy/security.
Pre-alpha is a fine time to see the core focus of a project. Yes, there can be bugs in a major system, but architectually it should be sound. I mean, for fuck's sake, I'm not a developer of hardened user-gen web interfaces, and even I know to prevent XSS.
The idea that you can trivially patch 200 issues means that there wasn't one place it was all going through and properly secured... which means the next features will add their own issues. I want the architecture to protect me from lazy developers.
Have you ever taken an Econ course?
Where does "competitiveness" factor in? In the case where there are two people, and the ultimatum game consists of a non-economy warping amount of money, there is no incentive not to accept the deal, other than the psychic value of screwing over someone who wanted to screw you over.
Multiply the numbers by 1000, right now, in your head. Would you really reject 20,000 just because someone else gets 180,000 because they were unequal? (Note, I used you're 20/180 from 200 split.... I'd imagine that you'd accept 1,000 as well, and 100 might be where you're pissed off enough to reject it. Note how my thinking only concerns how pissed you'd be at being offered X, and whether it was worth X to act on that level of pissoffedness.)
200,000 isn't going to change the economy of the US. No prices will go up. Except in the very unusual case of you actively bidding in an auction against the other person there is no direct competition. How does it hurt you to accept the money?
It's rational if and only if the ultimatum game represents a significant amount of currency. If it represents $20 in America, it has no measurable impact on the economy.
Which is irrelevent. A Nash equilibrium doesn't have to do with equality between two people. It refers to the decision.
The player accepting $0.01 is better off accepting than rejecting, no incentive to change - condition 1 for a Nash equilibrium. The player keeping $99.99 has no reason to offer more (already accepted) and offering less will lead to rejection. No incentive to change - condition 2 for a Nash equilibrium.
I'm talking about within the context of the ultimatum game.
Maximizing for fairness, any offer of less than 50% is rejected (common knowledge). Therefore, everyone offers 50%, and everyone accepts the offer. 0 dollars wasted.
Maximizing for utility, any positive offer is accepted (common knowledge). Therefore, everyone offers 1 quantum of currency. Everyone accepts. 0 dollars wasted.
50/50. 1/2 of people offer 50%, all are accepted. 1/2 of people offer 1 quantum of currency, half of these are rejected. 1/4 of the mutually beneficial transactions fail to occur.
On the contrary... I really don't want econ majors making economic decisions. The idea the ultimatum game forces people to treat each other fairly... well, that's a world I want to live it.
In the case of the ultimatum game, as long as all of society is consistently utility maximizing or fairness maximizing, it works. It's the mixture where it breaks down.
Thinking with your dick, and being known for thinking with your dick can be a lot better for you than acting in a short-term profit maximizing manner.
Not once you normalize the data for skillset and experience. Ironically, Republicans are usually careful to do this so gender pay disparity disappears, but not when it supports their theory. The same is true of Democrats in reverse.
That's not a criterion a customer can use... that's just using violence to raise B's costs. And applying violence to a consumer is commonly called "robbery." The question is how can you eliminate a criterion from a customer's consideration and still be considered a free market? Not that a free market is the best thing in the world... regulation to deal with racism for instance is desirable.
Well, if I can make my product better by making your product worse, where does that fall. For instance, suppose you have the choice of hot dog A and hot dog B, no difference in quality or price. So 50% of the time you buy A, and 50% you buy B (depending on which is closer to you when you want a hot dog). Now suppose I tell you brand A saves puppies with 1/2 its profits... nothing about brand B. You now get the benefit of hot dogs and saving puppies, so you have a preference for brand A. Clearly, you now have more value for your dollar.
Now, suppose I add that psychic benefit some other way, by saying that brand B devotes 1/2 their profits to killing puppies. You get a psychic benefit out of hurting them. You still are happier in that case, even though you're getting the same physical product. Brand A wins. Customer wins. Brand B loses.
But they aren't. In the case of advertising, you are changing how much Brand B and Brand A are worth. You are literally raising the total utility of hot dog purchases. This result means that society is now richer.
using a lawyer is a way of redressing wrongs, and thus correcting an injustice through the legal system. This is a net loss on society (better if the wrong never occurred), but still worthwhile to act as a correction method. I have no clue why you're in love with the concept that violence has any place in a discussion over market regulation... violence is tightly regulated under all economic models.
And the Army expects them to. From the article:
The publisher asked the Army Reserve to review the book for information that they wanted to keep secret.
Army Reserve said "looks good."
Publisher prints 10,000 copies.
DIA sees a copy after printing started, before release. Has issues that escalate through the Chain of Command.
Army and publisher negotiate to remove some details from subsequent printings, and buy and destroy the first printing.
Once you start saying what can and cannot be used as a criterion, how is it still a free market? If I get a visceral pleasure from hurting Brand B by buying Brand A, Brand A is providing me more value.
Would it be better for society if I didn't have that desire to screw Brand B, yes. But Brand A and I are both benefiting, presumably by more than it cost to implant the idea that I hate Brand B in my head. So isn't that what a free market should reward/encourage?
And a baby is protected because of its potential.
How does the science change anything? Just in case you're not sure what I'm referencing, the US Constitution originally valued a black person as 60% the worth of a white one. And I'm not sure how science can really inform us any differently. Even if the cause was culture or upbringing or "being not allowed to read under penalty of death", that value was still assessed.
But they believe the issue is settled. And since science cannot inform us differently (see below), they're perfectly right to believe that.
I fail to see what science can add. It becomes a question of potential. Science really has made bad calls about what is and isn't a person, some current leading medical ethicists want to revive euthinasia or take other steps to "strengthen the genepool". What is the scientific test for sentience? Potential to become sentient?
Science is good for telling us how the world works, and making predictions. It's even pretty good at telling us what happened. But it's utterly silent on morality, theology, philosophy and other worthy endevors. If you think science can help here, that's great, but the burden of proof is on you.
You're arguments about specialists where you quote several examples (nuclear engineering, military strategy, etc.) are all offbase because those are specialists making decisions that concern their specialty. I believe that people who have studied a lot can help a great deal in decision making. But I also believe that they tend to view everything through a single lens, and need to be checked at the big picture level. We trust the nuclear engineer to design the plant (or supervise the design) and understand the cost/benefits of using nuclear power, but not to decide if we build turbines or a plant. We trust the general to order tanks into harm's way in the most effective manner, but we explicitly give control over when that happens to someone outside the military.
Thanks for correcting yourself to include the potential. I'd say sentient would imply it had self-awareness.
Note that "reasonable chance" is a matter where disagreement is inevitable and science is mute. Say its 1%, is that "reasonable"?
Except I include potential. So, the fetus can grow a brain, yes? I see you waivering back and forth, so maybe this can help: A human being's brain does fully mature until they are several years old. Why should society keep parents from killing a newborn because it keeps them up at night?
Actually, by not having sex. The amount of time a sperm cell is viable makes masturbating/not masturbating an irrelevant question. The only question is "sex with ovulating woman or not". And it has to happen PDQ.
Except you were using the problems in Third World nations to support your theory that life is not precious. Clearly, given the choice, you would rather make the Third World more like the First World than vice versa. So I would like to see some other line of reasoning for why life is not precious.
For the first year at least... there are approximately a million people who have taken steps towards adoption, but have not yet been able to adopt, and another 8.5 million who are in the preliminary investigation stages. There are around a million abortions a year. Maybe we would have to lower the adoption screening process, but that might be a good thing. After all, we don't have a biological screening process. It'd also help the merging of that melting pot, racially.
You said "if" in a way that clearly implied you were advocating it. If not, than why not offer several options? You said that the two ways of looking at it are "life is precious" and "utilitarianism". You then said "life is precious" is stupid because it doesn't work that way in the Third World. I'm offering a third way for you to perform the cost-benefit analysis you were advocating... that where minimum utility instead of mean utility is used.
I tend to agree they need to factor in. But since there is no real demand for aborted fetuses or zygotes to perform stem cell research, I think factoring them in turns it from a shouting match over sensibilities to being completely one sided. But then again, while I oppose abortion, I don't think that every fertilized egg is a life. To those people, it's murder... maybe profitable murder, but murder none-the-less.
The problem is, while "kill hobos and use their organs to save the lives of these doomed scientists who can then create artificial organs which will save umpteen million people" is a good deal, human beings are wired to not want it. There are sealed records from Nazi experiments that may have as yet unrediscovered knowledge in it, and there is a medical consensus that even looking at them would be too close to condoning what was done (there is the added benefit of trying to dissuade future scientists who may have been tempted to join a similarly horrific program in the future.)
Or where it is a single-cell, to some people. I have a hard time understanding why you feel so confident that your line (paraphrased as "physical mental infrastructure reaches X% complete") is correct. Well, actually, I understand why you're so confident - people are most confident where there is the least evidence. But I know of a lot of people who draw the line both earlier and later than that.
Correct... nor do you find many people still willing to discuss if a black person is only worth 60% of a white one. Most people on the pro-life side consider the question settled. Not that they aren't willing to argue that they are correct, they just don't think it's really a question any more than you don't think my example is.
I'm fine with triage questions. And to some degree apportioning limited medical questions. But I don't think they should overstep their bounds, and when life begins is nowhere near a medical question.
I was actually thinking about quite a few programs in the US as well as the obvious. It was a widespread problem, and will be again.
I think most people understand that a tumor is not a human being, nor will it ever become a distinct human being. Clearly people can lose cells and not lose their identity... and clearly there is no arbitrary number of cells that that can be. I'm sure my leg has more cells than a baby, for instance. Humans are more than the sum of their parts, and when that additional piece gets added is up for debate.
But to be more precise, when I talk about a human being, I mean a sentient entity or able to become a sentient entity. How much space gets occupied by "able to become", I'm not sure.
Of course, I reserve the right to better express my conception later. But it's vague because the concept is nebulous, not because I'm being coy.
And if someone argued that babies are too underdeveloped to deserve protection, that their eyes could not focus, their mental development isn't complete, you would answer them how? Or if they said it was too much effort to open the cans of baby food, and let the baby survive or not on its own?
I'm not sure if you're saying in that future time the zygote would deserve protection or not.
A zygote is not a mole.
Multiplayer requires either split-screen or a network connection. Split Screen means console. A network connection can run through their servers. Welcome to DRM2.
Actually, I devoted analysis to why that was a poor argument, and why it would be ridiculous to defend it. Please tell me why you shouldn't be aborted.
And there are no such practices, sorry to burst your bubble.
In spite of the opportunity to do so, I don't live in those places. Nor do I desire to do so.
Adoption could handle unwanted children. And most Western societies have a lack of young people.
Ah, but I'm not a utilitarian, and most utilitarian arguments can cut both ways. If you haven't been exposed to it yet, may I suggest reading some Rawls. He suggests considering primarily the minimum utility, not average. That is, if giving Steve Jobs umpteen billion dollars is the best way to make the worst off better off, go for it. But if Bill Gates's utility function is just so outta wack that it would raise the average utility to give him a dollar from a bum, screw him.
I tend to agree here. And there are enough other ways to get stem cells (left over from in vitro) that it can be done with "doomed embryos". But that's totally divorced from abortion as an issue.
The idea that human cells die constantly, while the human being continues to exist, is scientific fact... that's why that person's opinion is invalid. But to determine at which point a human being exists is something that science cannot answer. A single cell, properly nourished, can become a distinct human being. Most people don't draw the line there, but some do. And if not there, then implantation, first heartbeat, first brainwave, viability outside the mother (a moving target, of course), birth, 1 year old, able to think abstractly, 18... when does life begin? I don't know and you don't know. And there's no way to demonstrate otherwise. Where science must be silent, philosophy must take over... or theology will.
And ethics boards of experts approved eugenics programs around the world. And beyond that, what expertise would be relevant? Is there a scientific standard to apply? Because an MD doesn't really qualify you to determine when a unique human life begins.
Way to beg the question... Currently it is both a medical procedure and a political issue. Your statement implies it should only be a medical issue. The problem is that assumes that the GP's point is invalid... or rather that your view is the only rational one.
The legality of abortion is a perfectly valid political issue, and I would say it should be illegal in the general case.
I just highlighted this phrase, as it seems to sum up the entire rest of your post. This position is a ridiculous strawman. I might as well say that you have to justify allowing parents to kill dependent children, that until they can survive on their own (age of maturity), they aren't real people. Heck, if you leave a baby alone with canned food and a can opener, the baby will starve. Stupid baby.
One can say that the combination of the two is relevant (fertilized egg) without an unfertilized egg being sacred. One can grow given nourishment alone, the other has an incomplete genetic code and cannot. One can draw the line in a lot of places, but that does not invalidate any attempt to do so. Hell, you haven't even suggested a single place to draw the line.
I moved around a bit. But it was pretty consistent, I believe. In 1st grade you learned what numbers were, 2nd addition/subtraction, 3rd multiplication/division, 4th ?, 5th ?, 6th pre-algebra, and on up.
To my mind "middle school" means explicitly 6th, 7th and 8th grades, that is, grades that should be at the pre-algebra level.
I focused on the parentheses because I believe that we are shafting the children, and I really want someone to demonstrate that we need to improve it. And this study doesn't because of such a retardedly nonstandard usage.
Personally, I was taught to simply spell out the assumptions you felt like using in that case. But "simplest" is subjective. For instance, simplest to me means the one that resolves to the easiest to solve. But simplest to a fifth grade teacher may mean what that teacher thinks most students will assume.
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I agree, it is annoying.. It took me 30 minutes to find (the first time). I think it's been cleaned up since then.
Before algebra, there's no conception of an equation taught to children. So, the results are unsurprising.
Really dull proof here in that case.
But the study was for middle school students (pedantic note: you implied elementary school children in your post), that is, people at least through pre-algebra. So I don't think "x" would have been so mystifying.
I didn't understand what was trying to be said. Maybe spaces would have helped. But in general middle school children get the shaft. I had my 5th grade cousin ask for help on his math homework, and there were literally a half dozen contradictory answers that would be valid based on the assumptions taken in his word problem. (Does "ways it can be arranged" refer to combinations or permutations, can each option be used more than once, can the null option be used (only valid if each option can be used more than once, as otherwise it was required) or can the null option be used more than once (only valid if the other options cannot) ). Kids are bad at math cause we spoonfeed them crap with 800 assumptions, never explaining what they are. And we wonder why they cannot generalize like we can.
Why did you have to parse it like that. I parsed it as "four plus three plus two something two". Sure, I recognized the equal sign, and the plus sign, but I also recognized the parentheses. The other way of parsing it for me was "four plus three plus two equals quantity zero end-quantity plus two"... a false statement. I'm used to seeing operators written out as the conjunction of other, sometimes unrelated, operators. I'm not familiar with "()" written out to mean "unknown quantity". In that case I'm used to "x".
I'm not. There are many unknowns there... mainly what the parentheses mean. I applied my best guess. Or, as someone else once said, communicating badly and then acting smug when you are misunderstood is not cleverness.
If they understood clearly, concretely, what "equals" meant, there wouldn't be the sort of confusion that's been going on
That symbol was not understandable, unambiguously, as equals. That's the major source of confusion. The equals sign can be used to represent causation "=>", a test returning the truth value of an equality "==", a declarative statement about equality "=", a test of identity "===", and others. What does it represent in "=()+"? How do you know?
That's an interesting hypothesis, and I would love to see a test of that. Unfortunately, this study was flawed do to its non-conventional usage of "()" as "unknown quantity".