I don't think that is completely true. Science is like anything else, the conclusions you draw from the data and how much confidence you place in those conclusions are subjective. Science just allows you to be right about 20% of the time rather than 1% of the time.
I'm not sure I understand. You mean if the method was revised then it would take another "climate cycle" to verify the new way due to the change, or that each run of 4 weeks calculates less than 30 years of climate and the models would have to be retuned or whatever?
Isn't there an iphone app that tells you the name of a song by putting your phone up to the radio? Just run every video through something like that then send the hits to a human in india or wherever, then pay the judge to listen to short sound clips.
To be clear I am not in favor of any of this, but this guys argument is seriously flawed, he may have something wrong with him.
Using the fact that the average pay for a judge in Silicon Valley is apparently $177,454, and that based on the volume of uploads and number of hours in a working day, a mere 199,584 judges would be required as screeners, this gives us the final figure for the cost of checking properly those 72 hours per minute:
Also, just to mention it somewhere in this thread... I actually read the paper. I spent 3 hours trying to figure out what they did to generate those graphs and still I am not sure. For example, I can't figure out what this phrase means:
âoeHierarchical individualistâ and âoeEgalitarian communitarianâ reflect values set, respectively, at +1 SD and -1 SD on both the Hierarchy and Individualism cultural-worldview scale predictors.
I have no idea why I got modded flamebait... Couldn't you use an unevenly spaced grid with each pixel containing an equal equal number of sensors (whatever is practical)?
"They" are? Isn't that using a flimsy rhetorical device? Both public support and opposition to AGW-informed policies is based on flimsy rhetorical devices, not understanding of the science.
I don't disagree with you, however the public support of it is about ideology as well. Most AGW advocates (or whatever title) "believe in" global warming, that alone should tell you there is a problem.
Well the first stage during which arguments with scientific merit "dry up" is how science is supposed to work... If the people who discovered AGW had done the necessary experiments (check the sensors, assess alternative possibilities, etc) and kept the big mouths in their field controlled before it became a policy tool then we wouldn't have the issue we have today.
I agree. I overstated my case. If you want something and it is worth it to you to buy it then you should if you have the money. I was talking about using monetary policy to artificially inflate people's desire to buy things.
I'm just going to focus on some key points where I feel we disagree.
1) You are still thinking in terms of legal tender and fractional reserve banking, a system like this need not rise up around bitcoin as it consists of infinitely divisible units and does not require any special legal status to be useful to people.
2) The reason people would hoard their money under the mattress rather than in deposit accounts is because they don't trust the banks have the money. See above.
3) I think you are suggesting that for bitcoin to be successful it would have to be the only currency used by people. I don't think we should assume this. It can fill the niche that credit/debit cards and paypal fill now.
So, the problem is not with deflationary currency per se, it is that deflationary currencies have been deemed to be incompatible with the current FRB, debt-backed, single currency system due to fear of the deflationary spiral phenomenon you describe.
Perhaps these discussions should be focused on why the current system is ideal, or how it can be improved.
Otherwise known as "hoarding," which is extremely bad for an economy as it discourages trade. Deflation also discourages credit, which like it or not is an economic necessity.
If conserving and saving for the future or only buying things you really want or need is bad for an economy then perhaps there is something wrong with the way the economy is structured. This attitude of constant growth is unsustainable and by no means accepted by all people as ideal. Deflation discourages giving out bad loans to support unreliable people or unrealistic projects. Lenders are more likely to make sure thier investment is a good one. Therefore the society would be less wasteful.
There are many times I wish places accepted bitcoin or similar rather than a cc or paypal.
OK, but the government has absolutely no reason to accept Bitcoin payments. I understand the Bitcoin is popular among anarchists who love the idea of money without governments or large banks, but the fact is that money -- even gold coins -- gets is value from the legal structure that surrounds it. Bitcoin does not have any legal structure surrounding it; if you try to sue someone over a Bitcoin transaction, the first thing the court will do is convert all your Bitcoin values into whatever currency your government issues. At least in the USA, Bitcoin transactions would actually be considered barter for any legal purpose, and thus would be converted to dollar transactions when it comes to taxes, lawsuits, and so forth. This is why demand for Bitcoin will always be weak: people have to live with their government, and no government has a reason to use Bitcoin.
That is perfectly fine with me. My opinion is that the government solves problems that no one has figured out a good solution for beyond throwing tons of money at it. Widespread, cheap information transfer is slowly allowing us to reduce the need for government services. Email is making the USPS obsolete, telecommuting and possibly 3-D printers will reduce reliance on roads, solar panels will reduce reliance on electrical infrastructure, etc. I think some R & D can be crowdsourced. Demand for government is strong right now (and not necessarily a bad thing) , but this does not have to always be the case. I think providing people ways to reduce their reliance on government is one of the most virtuous goal a citizen can have. We will see.
People will figure this [secure offline transactions] out if it ever becomes worthwhile.
People already figured out how to make secure offline transactions, over a decade before Bitcoin was even envisioned. Look at the work of Chaum or Okamoto, who presented digital cash systems that were secure and provided offline transactions (meaning that no network beyond the connection between the parties engaged in the transaction is required; imagine inserting a smart card into a cash register). Chaum proved that any digital cash system that offers secure offline transactions will result in tokens that grow linearly in the length of the transaction chain; this basically implies a need for a central authority that can issue fresh, unused tokens.
There were reasons that these systems were not deployed, but they had nothing to do with technology or economics -- in fact, both of those weigh strongly in favor of those systems. The problem is politics, as major world governments basically do not care about computer or even financial security, and are much more interested in being able to watch every transaction that is made. This is not a problem that Bitcoin will solve, since governments can either attack the anonymity of Bitcoin (practically guaranteed to happen if it ever becomes a blip on the radar) or simply ban it altogether -- which would make it impossible to have money exit the system, which people will need to do if they want to buy anything legally.
The scam is that the early adopters are counting on popularity to increase the value of their holdings. It did not cost them much to create the bitcoins.
1) Encourages deflation - Deflation simply encourages saving and less waste. If the bitcoin experiment succeeds it won't be because people are artificially driven to consume. Also, I wouldn't assume economic theories devised to explain legal tender currencies will apply equally to an alternative currency. Further, I wouldn't assume that economic theories based on like N=1 datapoint with huge confounds (world wars, etc) necessarily describe what will happen in reality under different circumstances.
2) Has an inherently weak source of demand (nobody will lose their property if they have no Bitcoin, unlike currencies that are accepted for tax payment). - Right, people will only hold bitcoin if it stores value better than other options, or they can buy things easier with it. See deflation for the former, and we will see how the experiment goes for the latter. There are many times I wish places accepted bitcoin or similar rather than a cc or paypal.
3) Cannot offer secure offline transactions. - There are ways around this (see cascasius coins), anyway neither do debit or credit cards... there is clearly a huge niche for online-only transactions. This is not really an issue. People will figure this out if it ever becomes worthwhile.
4) Does not offer secure online transactions if the goods must be delivered in less than 10 minutes. - Escrow services, mt gox codes, reputation. You can equally say cash doesn't offer secure offline transactions if the goods must be delivered at a later time. This is not really an issue, infrastructure and social protocols can be devised to facilitate this type of trade.
5) Is not really anonymous, despite anonymity being one of the features that is driving demand. - It can be if you know what you are doing. It is definitely much more anonymous than using cc's online or to order food etc.
6) On the economic side, Bitcoin has big disadvantages that it must overcome, and nobody is really working to help Bitcoin overcome those disadvantages. On the technical side, Bitcoin is vulnerable to double spending attacks and cannot replace paper money for common uses of currency. - Your economic "disadvantages" are pretty much opinion at this point. Only time will tell. 51% attacks are a problem, however, anyone who has enough invested in mining equipment to do this has economic disincentive to actually reach 51%. Many people barely use paper money for anything anymore.
Buying shit you don't need is not a virtue. It is wasteful and at the root of many problems that face our society. I don't understand why more people don't see this.
Why is this insightful? You need to compare the amount of money lost to scammers to the cost of regulating and policing the market. Just looking at one side of the equation is pointless...
If you want regulation and chargebacks, use cc's and pay extra for it.
That chart is weird. It appears to take the cumulative emissions recorded from 1880 to 2004 and divide by the 2004 population (this is a guess, the text doesn't say) then divide by the number of years. It is well known that the proportion of CO2 emissions due to the US has been dropping. For some reason that chart needlessly leaves out this information.
The correct chart would be a time series of CO2 emissions per population each year for each country. There is also the aspect of carbon capture mentioned in the other responses.
The last thing is that it should be normalized to "quality of life" or some measure like that.
Thanks for actually doing running the numbers. Thats actually a better way of putting it. If each person making more than $75k/yr contributed $6k to various research causes, we could cover the research budget. That's $500 a month, which is basically the cost of living somewhere for 1 month. This is pretty steep but not impossible, especially if there are rich philanthropists who pick up the slack, or there some investment aspect to it (which of course there is, but would need to be emphasized).
It seems to me you do not think any alternative is feasible. It just won't happen so we shouldn't think of any alternatives to government funding. Very few alternatives have been tried.
I think that researchers are not being creative enough about this problem and they are relying on a government that is getting more and more unreliable when it comes to funding. We need to start devising alternative systems now, before shit hits the fan one day.
Lets imagine living in a world where the US government refused to spend more than a negligible amount on research, but was otherwise similar to our own.How would you, as a researcher. convince people to pay you to do basic research? How could you be convinced to contribute?
And finally, I really just want an answer to the main question. Forget about ignorant Joe Public, how much (% of income) would you contribute to basic research, and under what circumstances?
Well I chose 100 million people as an estimate of the number paying substantial income/capital gains taxes.
Personally though, humor me. How much would you voluntarily donate to research causes of your choosing if you knew the government wasn't going to fund it? I'd say your taxes would also be correspondingly lower, but it probably wouldn't go down like that.
There is also the possibility that the current system is grossly inefficient. It is common to "blow the budget" at the end of the year, etc.
Another thing is that grad students and lab techs spend alot of time performing work they are overqualified for. Some of this could be crowdsourced. I have spent alot of time manipulating images so that I can trace and measure things, etc. Perhaps some subset of people would be willing to donate some time to these tasks (in the vein of folding at home) rather than money. Or some kind of reward system could be used. Something like "the top three contributors get x,y, and z rewards".
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think that is completely true. Science is like anything else, the conclusions you draw from the data and how much confidence you place in those conclusions are subjective. Science just allows you to be right about 20% of the time rather than 1% of the time.
I'm not sure I understand. You mean if the method was revised then it would take another "climate cycle" to verify the new way due to the change, or that each run of 4 weeks calculates less than 30 years of climate and the models would have to be retuned or whatever?
Well, now that I think about it this is probably a joke... so never mind.
Isn't there an iphone app that tells you the name of a song by putting your phone up to the radio? Just run every video through something like that then send the hits to a human in india or wherever, then pay the judge to listen to short sound clips.
To be clear I am not in favor of any of this, but this guys argument is seriously flawed, he may have something wrong with him.
Also, just to mention it somewhere in this thread... I actually read the paper. I spent 3 hours trying to figure out what they did to generate those graphs and still I am not sure. For example, I can't figure out what this phrase means:
I don't see why there isn't a scatter plot.
I have no idea why I got modded flamebait... Couldn't you use an unevenly spaced grid with each pixel containing an equal equal number of sensors (whatever is practical)?
Hey since you seem to know what you are talking about... Why isn't the climate modeled as if it were being measured at the locations we have sensors?
"They" are? Isn't that using a flimsy rhetorical device? Both public support and opposition to AGW-informed policies is based on flimsy rhetorical devices, not understanding of the science.
I don't disagree with you, however the public support of it is about ideology as well. Most AGW advocates (or whatever title) "believe in" global warming, that alone should tell you there is a problem.
Well the first stage during which arguments with scientific merit "dry up" is how science is supposed to work... If the people who discovered AGW had done the necessary experiments (check the sensors, assess alternative possibilities, etc) and kept the big mouths in their field controlled before it became a policy tool then we wouldn't have the issue we have today.
I agree. I overstated my case. If you want something and it is worth it to you to buy it then you should if you have the money. I was talking about using monetary policy to artificially inflate people's desire to buy things.
I'm just going to focus on some key points where I feel we disagree.
1) You are still thinking in terms of legal tender and fractional reserve banking, a system like this need not rise up around bitcoin as it consists of infinitely divisible units and does not require any special legal status to be useful to people.
2) The reason people would hoard their money under the mattress rather than in deposit accounts is because they don't trust the banks have the money. See above.
3) I think you are suggesting that for bitcoin to be successful it would have to be the only currency used by people. I don't think we should assume this. It can fill the niche that credit/debit cards and paypal fill now.
So, the problem is not with deflationary currency per se, it is that deflationary currencies have been deemed to be incompatible with the current FRB, debt-backed, single currency system due to fear of the deflationary spiral phenomenon you describe.
Perhaps these discussions should be focused on why the current system is ideal, or how it can be improved.
The most elaborate pump and dump in history.
If conserving and saving for the future or only buying things you really want or need is bad for an economy then perhaps there is something wrong with the way the economy is structured. This attitude of constant growth is unsustainable and by no means accepted by all people as ideal. Deflation discourages giving out bad loans to support unreliable people or unrealistic projects. Lenders are more likely to make sure thier investment is a good one. Therefore the society would be less wasteful.
That is perfectly fine with me. My opinion is that the government solves problems that no one has figured out a good solution for beyond throwing tons of money at it. Widespread, cheap information transfer is slowly allowing us to reduce the need for government services. Email is making the USPS obsolete, telecommuting and possibly 3-D printers will reduce reliance on roads, solar panels will reduce reliance on electrical infrastructure, etc. I think some R & D can be crowdsourced. Demand for government is strong right now (and not necessarily a bad thing) , but this does not have to always be the case. I think providing people ways to reduce their reliance on government is one of the most virtuous goal a citizen can have. We will see.
So solutions exist but rely on governments
How is this a scam?
Wasn't money laundering not even a crime until the 1980s? I'm not even sure these laws are necessary or useful to society.
1) Encourages deflation
- Deflation simply encourages saving and less waste. If the bitcoin experiment succeeds it won't be because people are artificially driven to consume. Also, I wouldn't assume economic theories devised to explain legal tender currencies will apply equally to an alternative currency. Further, I wouldn't assume that economic theories based on like N=1 datapoint with huge confounds (world wars, etc) necessarily describe what will happen in reality under different circumstances.
2) Has an inherently weak source of demand (nobody will lose their property if they have no Bitcoin, unlike currencies that are accepted for tax payment).
- Right, people will only hold bitcoin if it stores value better than other options, or they can buy things easier with it. See deflation for the former, and we will see how the experiment goes for the latter. There are many times I wish places accepted bitcoin or similar rather than a cc or paypal.
3) Cannot offer secure offline transactions.
- There are ways around this (see cascasius coins), anyway neither do debit or credit cards... there is clearly a huge niche for online-only transactions. This is not really an issue. People will figure this out if it ever becomes worthwhile.
4) Does not offer secure online transactions if the goods must be delivered in less than 10 minutes.
- Escrow services, mt gox codes, reputation. You can equally say cash doesn't offer secure offline transactions if the goods must be delivered at a later time. This is not really an issue, infrastructure and social protocols can be devised to facilitate this type of trade.
5) Is not really anonymous, despite anonymity being one of the features that is driving demand.
- It can be if you know what you are doing. It is definitely much more anonymous than using cc's online or to order food etc.
6) On the economic side, Bitcoin has big disadvantages that it must overcome, and nobody is really working to help Bitcoin overcome those disadvantages. On the technical side, Bitcoin is vulnerable to double spending attacks and cannot replace paper money for common uses of currency.
- Your economic "disadvantages" are pretty much opinion at this point. Only time will tell. 51% attacks are a problem, however, anyone who has enough invested in mining equipment to do this has economic disincentive to actually reach 51%. Many people barely use paper money for anything anymore.
Buying shit you don't need is not a virtue. It is wasteful and at the root of many problems that face our society. I don't understand why more people don't see this.
Why is this insightful? You need to compare the amount of money lost to scammers to the cost of regulating and policing the market. Just looking at one side of the equation is pointless...
If you want regulation and chargebacks, use cc's and pay extra for it.
Actually bitcoin price isn't especially volatile if you normalize to market cap. The bubble looks exactly like dotcom and 1980 gold bubbles.
That chart is weird. It appears to take the cumulative emissions recorded from 1880 to 2004 and divide by the 2004 population (this is a guess, the text doesn't say) then divide by the number of years. It is well known that the proportion of CO2 emissions due to the US has been dropping. For some reason that chart needlessly leaves out this information.
The correct chart would be a time series of CO2 emissions per population each year for each country. There is also the aspect of carbon capture mentioned in the other responses.
The last thing is that it should be normalized to "quality of life" or some measure like that.
Well you don't meet our criteria then. Grad student = $24k/year, Post-doc = $30k/year, associate prof is what? $50k/year.
Thanks for actually doing running the numbers. Thats actually a better way of putting it. If each person making more than $75k/yr contributed $6k to various research causes, we could cover the research budget. That's $500 a month, which is basically the cost of living somewhere for 1 month. This is pretty steep but not impossible, especially if there are rich philanthropists who pick up the slack, or there some investment aspect to it (which of course there is, but would need to be emphasized).
It seems to me you do not think any alternative is feasible. It just won't happen so we shouldn't think of any alternatives to government funding. Very few alternatives have been tried.
I think that researchers are not being creative enough about this problem and they are relying on a government that is getting more and more unreliable when it comes to funding. We need to start devising alternative systems now, before shit hits the fan one day.
Lets imagine living in a world where the US government refused to spend more than a negligible amount on research, but was otherwise similar to our own.How would you, as a researcher. convince people to pay you to do basic research? How could you be convinced to contribute?
And finally, I really just want an answer to the main question. Forget about ignorant Joe Public, how much (% of income) would you contribute to basic research, and under what circumstances?
Well I chose 100 million people as an estimate of the number paying substantial income/capital gains taxes.
Personally though, humor me. How much would you voluntarily donate to research causes of your choosing if you knew the government wasn't going to fund it? I'd say your taxes would also be correspondingly lower, but it probably wouldn't go down like that.
There is also the possibility that the current system is grossly inefficient. It is common to "blow the budget" at the end of the year, etc.
Another thing is that grad students and lab techs spend alot of time performing work they are overqualified for. Some of this could be crowdsourced. I have spent alot of time manipulating images so that I can trace and measure things, etc. Perhaps some subset of people would be willing to donate some time to these tasks (in the vein of folding at home) rather than money. Or some kind of reward system could be used. Something like "the top three contributors get x,y, and z rewards".