>Not all knowledge is equal. Knowledge of E=mc^2 and its physical applications has more value than the knowledge of how much lint is in my pocket right now. Allowing that both have "infinite" value, we see that each has different levels of "infinite" value.
So ? Aleph-one is bigger than Aleph-zero but both are infinite. Don't argue mathematics if you don't KNOW mathematics.
>Next, we have limited resources. There may be an infinite demand for any knowledge we find (by counting on there being infinite people in the future), but we have a finite number of people to discover that knowledge.
Which is why I never said we should devote ALL our resources to knowledge seeking, that was somebody else trying to set up a strawman. I just said that no resources we DO spend on that are ever WASTED.
>How much money are you willing to shell out for the knowledge of how much lint is in my pocket?
Me, very little, but an Australian scientist who made a study of various types of lint to answer the question "what is it and where does it come from" used to pay quite a bit for samples - exactly to find out how much lint was in somebody's pocket (or belly-button) at a given time and what it was composed off. That's STILL valid science, it won an award.
>The system of accounting you're using justifies throwing an infinite amount of resources at even trivial knowledge, because it has "infinite value".
Strawman attack, I didn't suggest we should do that, merely that what we DO have for it is never wasted - even if we cannot get a return in terms of MONEY. Thus that limiting research to that which has practical application is stupid. Indeed it goes against the very definition of science. Engineering is about making things work - without understanding them. Science is about understanding things, without making them work. The moment it even HAS a practical application it has ceased to BE science and has become engineering. E=MC2 is science, building an atom bomb is engineering.
>I don't mind if you want to criticize a society or gov't for putting the wrong value on some types of knowledge. But saying any and all knowledge has "infinite value" is simply wrong.
And saying it doesn't is provably just as wrong. Just because it's not all equal, doesn't mean it's not all infinite. Infinite is not A number, it's an entire number SYSTEM with an infinite number of infinite numbers in it.
>PS: Economists don't assign a value of 0 to knowledge. Economists say the value of knowledge is the cost a person/society is willing to pay for it
Strictly speaking I was being a bit oversimplistic. Economist say the value of anything is determined by supply/demand (well the PRICE really but they use price as a value METER so it comes down to much the same thing). So when supply is infinite, well any infinite number divided by any non-infinite number (and the demand is never infinite at any GIVEN moment - since there is a finite number of people at any given moment) is equal to (or rather TENDS TOWARDS in calculus) - ZERO. But if you consider future generations, then the demand is ALSO infinite - and any infinite number divided by any other infinite number is ALSO zero.
Why is the supply infinite ? Because you cannot use knowledge up. If I tell you something I know, I don't STOP knowing it, now TWO people know it, and can tell other people - the supply of any given PIECE of knowledge is infinite. The supply of NEW knowledge is NOT infinite of course, it takes investment to acquire knowledge, but that's a once-off cost and even when it's comparatively HUGE it pales in comparison to the INFINITE value derived from infinite supply of it in future. It's the same problem capitalism has with ANY post-scarcity technology - especially when it's something with an initial input cost. That's why we are living in the copyright wars. Capitalism hasn't been able to offer a way to fund initial creation when re-creation is infinite and thus effectively free which creates i
>No, it's because no one is willing to spend their own money for this "infinite value" good
I am. The day my government STOPS allocating a share of my taxes to university subsidies and research grants is the day I will revolt against taxes, same goes for welfare programs. I owe my success to two things - hard work, and privilege. I had privilege. And privilege is a debt, debts must be paid. Welfare isn't TAKEN from me, it's paying my debt - by taking some of the results of my privilege and using it to provide privilege to those who don't have it. A debt that is paid forward. Paying Forward: still the single best idea Benjamin Franklin ever had. In short: speak for yourself.
>That gives us a good idea of the level of bullshit you're spreading here. If science truly were of infinite value to us, then we would all without exclusion devote all of our collective efforts to scientific discovery and knowledge. It isn't so we don't.
That's argument by pushing to the absurd - a fallacy. And the reasoning is flawed. Just because something has infinite value, doesn't mean it's the ONLY thing that does, or that it's value is interchangeable with all that does - or more importantly all that is neccesities. Knowledge however is what all other value is built on, and it's usually not POSSIBLE to predict which knowledge will be most valueable ahead of time - any more than it's possible to predict which starving artist is creating paintings that will, after his death, sell for millions. We can't tell the Van Gogh from the idiots until a century later- what makes you think we can truly evaluate the value of any other knowledge ?
Knowledge lets us create value, it increases the availability and reduces neccesity of all other things - that is important, but it doesn't do so instantly, hence we need to devote some, perhaps most, resources to other needs - but the idea that we should only pursue such research as we can see a profitable cause for is... er... stupid.
Why then do we fund astronomy ? Anything beyond the engineering needed to plant satelites have ZERO profitable returns for the foreseable future. Why do we fund (most) biology ? What monetary value is there in knowing that Elephants are related to Mannatees ? And why is it that the second largest scientific breakthroughs of the entire 20th century was made by it's LEAST capitalist nation ?
Clearly science exists JUST as well in socialism as in capitalism - just as long as the science itself is allowed to NOT be capitalist. If you do research for profit, then there is value in secrecy - and secrecy is the OPPOSITE of the value of science.
Most recently, the 1960's one of the most academic and scientifically progressive eras in American History. Granted the real source of that drive was the urge to outdo Russia - but it put a man on the moon, and all the science and technology needed for one of the most incredible feats of engineering ever achieved grew from that. Along the way thousands of other scientific advancements were made by building on pieces created for that goal, and still other ideas pursued towards that goal which proved to be useless for it would later turn out to be very valuable for other work.
It was in this same period that radio astronomy first became big - and one of it's first major discoveries was made by a female Grad Student studying reams of paper, we call them pulsars. We still don't know for sure what a pulsar is ! We have one theory that at least makes sense, but zero proof for it. We know they exist, we have no idea what they are. But knowing they exist is one step toward finding out what they are.
>But that isn't gonna pay any bills, let you go on a great vacation trip, nor get you laid.....
Knowlege creates all the means by which bills can be paid, and indeed the ability to create bills in the first place. Knowledge lets you know where to go on vacation, why you may want to go there, and why it's good to take vacations. And knowledge of sex is the difference between bad and good lovers - good lovers most certainly DO get laid more often.
First of all, I was privately educated. Secondly - maybe you should clarify which statement exactly you are referring to - because clearly we aren't talking about the same one, oh and thirdly - I'm not American, so practically nothing you assume about me is likely to be correct.
Oh you have the right to ignore them, that doesn't make them wrong however. A lot of people like hsi books, and think they have good things to say that are worth listening to. Whether he is a nice person or not does not REDUCE how worthy his books' messages are.
The only thing that determines whether something is worthy of debate is the likelihood of it being right. NOT the source of the statement, but the MERIT of the statement.
If anything this was an ad hominem attack taken to an even worse than usual level.
Things that start with "let me guess" are not "statements", they are deductions stated with teh pre-acknowledged admission that they are guesses and could be wrong.
I see no reason to apologize for guessing wrong when I clearly STATED it was just a guess.
>Value can be measured in the real world, it's not that hard, either people want it and are willing to SPEND on it, and thus you can have profit and you can measure efficiency or people don't want it and then there is NO VALUE except for what is in your head.
That's an economist's definition of value - it's not an accurate or complete picture. Knowing the movements of the planets is information we cannot use to make a product, we cannot sell it, we cannot make anything out of it, if we ever can it won't be for probably hundreds of years - yet it DOES have value. Any and ALL knowledge have value. In fact, the value of it is INFINITE since knowledge cannot be used-up. It's a true post-scarcity supply. Economists measure that value as "zero" - but that's because economists are using a too limited view.
>If you are not seeing this, then all you are talking about is mental masturbation, sure sure, you can have your mental masturbation, you can have your mental orgasm even because you believe that you have some knowledge that wasn't there previously, but if this knowledge never translates into anything that the economy actually is willing to pay for with profits, then its purely irrelevant, it was no more relevant than any other form of entertainment.
That kind of view is the antithesis of human progress. All knowledge has infinite value just by existing.
>My argument is that the basic science is done in the private sector as long as there is no government stealing money from the private sector, and it's done as a side effect of people searching for profit.
If we limit science to that which has the potential for profit (or at least the currently VISIBLE potential for profit) we destroy it, not least because it isn't science AT ALL unless the results are freely available. It's only science WHEN it is public domain, until then - it's not science. Fundamental principle of the scientific method is peer-review, public scrutiny and openness - directly contradictory with a profit motive.
>Before 1913 there were no income taxes, there were no corporate taxes, there were no payroll taxes, there were no capital gains taxes, no taxes on dividends, no taxes on rent, no taxes on PRODUCTIVITY
Not only an idiot, an idiot who thinks America is the world. Read the bible, the first version of income taxes will be found the very first chapter of Kings I. 4000 years ago the governments charged taxes. Most of the Industrial-age scientific revolution came from Britain, not America and that WAS a welfare state. Most scientists were not employed by industry but by the church or by TAX-FUNDED academia (which Britain had, had for hundreds of years by then). The idea of tax-funded academic research was already WELL ESTABLISHED when it gave us Isaac Newton in the 1600's !
>But how necessary is it to have government stealing money from the private sector to fund research into such things, what is the efficiency of this model? It takes something of fixed/limited value to buy something of infinite value that only gets MORE valuable the bigger the supply becomes and MORE valuable the more people have access to it. It's the greatest deal in the world, the ultimate investment.
>It is the institutions that are concerned with education that allow the environment to develop that is necessary to do scientific research, including basic sciences.
Cause and effect reversed - AGAIN. It's institutions that are concerned with research that double as the best training grounds for other researchers. That should be the total extent of university education: training the next generation of scientists. Everybody who does not WANT to be a scientist should NOT get a degree, but go to some or other form of trade school.
>You are completely wrong, putting the cart ahead of a horse, thinking that the education and science came before the free market capitalist looking for profit. The first example of a University was Plato's academy, established in 387BC, it charged no admissi
Top of my head? Both the British and the Boers used it extensively in the South African war from 1900 to 1903. Partly for purposes of vandalism (e.g. blowing up railway lines and the like) and for attacks. It is quite effective for ambushing/laying traps. Not as effective as some other explosives that came later, but it worked if you did it right.
Some of the Boers even used it to make rudimentary early hand-grenades. They would stuff explosives into a container, fill it with nails and debris, add a fuse, light it and chuck it into the Blockhouses the British built to defend things like railways from attacks. Often the explosive was just gunpowder but there are documented cases where it was a stick of dynamite.
That said- I never suggested a remorse angle. I suggested the exact opposite: Nobel established his prize because he saw the value of scientific knowledge for saving and improving lives. Considering even the South African war only happened after his death - I am not sure he ever actually SAW his invention used as a weapon of war, so I doubt that the possibility would have influenced his decision - I believe he did what he did because I wanted to encourage and enable scientific research as a betterment for mankind.
In other words - I don't think he was remorseful, I think he was altruistic.
>- no? So tell me then, what is the motivation if it is not for profit? So how do you measure scientific output, how do you figure what scientific paths to pursue?
Knowledge, knowledge is the most valuable commodity in the universe, far moreso than profit - especially monetary profit. Besides which - all knowledge ultimately translates into profit anyway - but sometimes that takes centuries. That's exactly why profit should NOT be a motivator. Where is the profit in studying planets around stars 20 milion lightyears away ? It will never be profitable -but it could ultimately turn out to the most important thing humans ever did.
>Do you understand why science developed mostly starting with the industrial revolution, which was the consequence of free market capitalism? You've got the cause and effect exactly BACKWARDS. Science can, and does, drive industry - but while industry can drive science it must NEVER be allowed to. For-profit science didn't EXIST during the industrial revolution, the idea of academic research being patentable, the idea of a PHD holding patents was unthinkable in those years (as it OUGHT to be today). Scientists produced knowledge, some of that knowledge was used by industrialists to create products, but a lot of it wasn't useful for products. In fact the vast majority of non-university scientists in the industrial revolution were priests ! Why ? Because priests had lots of free time, which they devoted to research, and no profit motive to detract from researching what was INTERESTING. By your logic one of the greatest scientific discoveries should never have been allowed to happen: Darwin's theory of evolution. Since Darwin was trained in theology and medicine, and never worked as either, and his research was absolutely useless to ANY industries that existed at the time (in fact it would take almost 70 years for the next piece of the puzzle - genetics to be discovered - and another 50 years before industries were able to make use of that combination for anything at all, it's only STARTING now).
You're another typical "free market uber alles" capitalist who refuses to see even the POTENTIAL value in PUBLIC goods.
Let me guess, you want eternal copyright too - because knowledge in the public domain has no value according to you. What value does Shakespeare have, what profit is there in Snow White - how can there be value in something that belongs to EVERYBODY ?
>That would be ideal. Unfortunately that only works if people at large are happy to pay taxes to fund the science. In the real world we live in, majority of people bitch and whine about taxes that don't bring them direct, immediate benefits.
Sad, but true, not an insurmountable problem however. The difference is in education: teach people the value of knowledge, that all scientific research DO bring tangible benefits and that making it publicly available gives you as an individual a greater SHARE of that benefit. For example if all drug-research was done publicly, and made by whoever had a factory, without patents, then medicines would be MUCH, MUCH cheaper for all of us.
>Science investment brings with it incredible returns, but in incomprehensible forms that can only be put into practical inventions many years later.
Some generations have figured that out in the past, often the next one undid the progress, but like I said, it can be done.
>Idealism just doesn't survive in the real world. This I radically don't agree with. Idealism is the only thing that changes the real world. To quote Richard Stallman: "If I had set out to say 'a mostly free operating system is okay' back when even that seemed impossible to most people, then we would not have had completely free operating systems available today. We have completely free operating systems because we set out to create nothing less than the ideal. Idealism is stating the ideal, and pushing for the ideal, even if you never quite get there, because every step you get closer is an improvement".
Not at all. Even if all money is made in a profit-based market - and thus the funding for science comes from there- that doesn't mean that science has to be done with a profit motive.
Crichton is strongly opposed to privatization of science and believes it must be tax-funded as a public-good without a profit motive, he also strongly opposes laws that allow publicly funded research to be patented. Now that tax-money may have been made by profit-seeking companies originally, but the intermediary step prevents THEIR motivations from becoming the motivations of the SCIENTISTS.
His point is science should be done for knowledge, if somebody can use that knowledge to make a profit that's fine- but that somebody must not be the scientist. I tend to agree.
If you take that approach, then you can prevent the kind of stupid laws that want to turn universities into more "business-like" entities, if anything they are TOO MUCH like private enterprize already, they OUGHT to operate as a public service. Nobody ever asks if a neighbourhood playground makes MONEY - we just build them because it's better to live in a world with them than a world without them. That is what science should be. A neighbourhood playground.
Nice comeback - though I obviously meant to type "noble".
That said - most people miss the point of the Nobel prize, I just hope most scientists don't. Alfred Nobel made his money from an invention called dynamite. While it later found use as a weapon of war, that wasn't the purpose of his creation. Dynamite is derived from the Latin for "alive" - and it was created to SAVE rather than TAKE lives. Specifically dynamite was invented for mining purposes - the most common mining explosive prior to that was nitro-glycerine, dynamite is MUCH safer to work with and it saved millions of lives by reducing explosion-accidents in mining. Nobel firmly believed that science and knowledge are the greatest tools to advance a peaceful world with happier and longer-living people. His prize was intended to encourage scientists to do just that- produce knowledge for the good of mankind. This is also why the only NON-science prize is the peace prize. There is no Nobel-prize for business or economics (no really there isn't - the so-called Nobel-prize for economics was created much later by a bunch of Swiss bankers and has no affiliation with the fund Nobel left or the committee who awards the prizes from that fund).
Nobel was a humanitarian. The irony is that the very life-saving invention that convinced him of science's great potential for humanity was also just a few decades later such a major part in racking up the body counts in the world wars. Nobel would not have been pleased...
>The reason DNA degrades in amber is, among other things, due to background radiation, a factor which is less worrisome when dealing with ice.
More importantly, later studies found that the degraded DNA in the amber wasn't dinosaur DNA in the first place, that had completely broken down millions of years ago already, what was there was DNA from more recent contamination by other life-forms (bacteria and such that managed to survive in there for a short period) and which was sufficiently degraded that the genetics of the early 1990's couldn't tell what it was (yet).
>And for the entire time, science has gone ahead anyway, and within a generation or two everyone pretty much agrees that it was a good thing... just in time to complain about whatever new field of knowledge is opening up and is therefore Scary and Dangerous.
Because the atom bomb was a good thing, so is computers used to destroy privacy, drone strikes killing civilians who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - all examples of science driven technology that wasn't possible until quite recently... it's not as simple as you think. Science is knowledge, knowledge is power, power can be used for good or evil (the same nuclear power can produce energy, the same guidance systems in drones can make safer plane landings, the same computers can help dissidents revolt against terrible governments more safely), the point of cautionary science fiction I always thought was to warn us about the potential evil, so we can avoid that while still using the knowledge for good.
Not in the least. Read the forewords and author's notes as well and you'll see a very different point of view: science for PROFIT is extremely risky.
His concern isn't science for the sake of knowledge, but the inherent dangers of doing science for the sake of money. That become science done in secret rather than open, science that cuts corners to save costs, science that is applied for dubious rather than nobel goals.
He loves genetic engineering and it's possibility to improve lives for example, but as he shows in "Next" - he despises the idea of "gene patents".
The problem with Jurassic Park wasn't that it was science, but that it was consumerist-driven.
>Doesn't it come across as "never do anything because there might be unintended consequences", though? I mean, the point of unintended consequences is you can't predict whether anything you do will have bad ones or not.
Actually no, Chrighton's point was that while we cannot predict what unintended consequences would be - with chaos theory we can predict the likelihood of there being unintended consequences and the likely impact there-off on the overall stability of the prediction system - and if those predictions say "you will have unintended consequences to the extent that prediction and stability becomes extremely unlikely" then you probably shouldn't go ahead.
> Maybe because people aren't being exploded in your neighborhood, you don't realize that Islamic terrorism is part of life in the Middle East.
Right, and the fact that Islam represents 99% of the population of the middle east doesn't influence your views ? In that population - it' NOT Islamic terrorism - it's just terrorism, there isn't anybody else to perform any other kind. Are you purposefully ignoring the fact that most terrorism acts committed in non-Muslim countries are committed by non-Muslims as well ?
>By definition all lawful arrests are "justified", they are nothing more than the physical precursor to a formal accusation (charges), in many cases they are also used simply to "keep the peace" by physically separating drunks from each other long enough for them to "sleep it off" .
So I guess that all those people who have sued the cops for the illegal activity of "unjustified arrest" and all the judges who awarded them damages are just wrong ? You did specify "lawful" arrest but then you seem to imagine that "lawful" means "done by a cop". That's wrong on every level. Firstly citizens-arrest can also be lawful, and secondly there are restrictions on when ANY arrest if lawful, you cannot just arrest somebody because you INTEND to charge him, you have to have probably cause or a reasonable suspicion that he has broken the law. In other words - you must have a reasonable standard of evidence already - the kind that prosecutors consider enough to continue with charges. If the VAST majority of a police officer's arrests are NOT pursued by the prosecutors then that officer ought to be fired for incompetence.
>Going on the assumption of the predictative accuracy of this technology what ethical imperative does the government have to reengineer these situations to make crime not tempting or not an option?
That depends entirely on the nature of the reengineering. If you find that crime is more common in areas with particularly bad or underfunded schools and you respond by improving funding and management of those schools you are reducing the amount of drop-outs who become criminals. None of this includes any increase in current government powers - merely using available information to do the jobs we ALREADY gave them with more efficiency. On the other hand, if you find that there is a significant amount of carjackings at drive-through restaurants and you therefore ban hamburger sales then I would be protesting.
>Now I know that in the case of blacks it is due to social deprivation, etc. - I am not blaming them - but it is a fact that they commit more crime.
No it's not. There is no evidence to support your claim. The evidence you're about to cite - actually proves something else: more black people are CONVICTED of crimes, but that doesn't prove they COMMIT more crimes. You'd see the exact same thing if, for example, they just get CAUGHT more often. You'd also see the exact same thing if they were generally poorer, and thus had worse lawyers and therefore were more likely to be convicted than an equally guilty white person.
Now we have STRONG evidence supporting the idea that they get caught more often (the very police biasses that you mention suggest they would get more attention on them) and you yourself acknowledged the evidence that they are more likely to be convicted because they can't afford high quality lawyers who are good at getting guilty people off.
See there is absolutely no proof that white people commit LESS crime than black people - there is only proof that white people are less likely to be CONVICTED, those are NOT the same thing as there are not one but TWO mutually reinforcing explanations for that scenario -both of which provably exist.
More-over, while perhaps a lot of street criminals are of a particular race - street criminals in the real world are almost NEVER self-employed, they always work within syndicates (because syndicates tend to kill freelancers who interfere with their territory) and the evidence suggests that the people at the TOP of the syndicates are overwhelmingly wealthy people - from wealthy backgrounds - and disproportionately white.
But those people are almost never caught.
Black people commit more crimes? Well it's possible you're right- but there is NO evidence to support that position, and certainly none that supports the idea that white people commit LESS crimes - only that white people don't get caught as often.
So Occam's razor suggests that in fact the likelihood of somebody committing a crime is an individual measurement in which group membership/dynamics play little or no role.
Just like there is no proof that muslims commit most acts of terrorism. In fact, there seems to be a massive amount of terrorist attacks done by Christians. Muslims may have destroyed the WTC but they weren't the first to try - that was Timothy McVeigh. They just did it better. The Norway shooter was a radical Christian conservative. The Unabomber was an atheist. Muslims don't commit more terrorist activities - Muslim terrorists just get more news coverage.
It can only be a matter of time before the wealthier criminal elements (drug gangs for example) are buying list of "places to avoid this month because the prediction systems told us to put more cops there" from the less honest members of the force...
The reason it's not the same argument is that AGW deniers decry ALL warming events as "weather", and deny there being even a potential sign of "climate" involved. When there is an atypically cold spell somewhere- they then cite this as proof that AGW cannot be happening.
Their argument in other words is that it's 'weather' when it doesn't suit them, but 'climate' when it does.
Proponents may do the same - but the scientists among them at least do not, they rule out as weather genuine cases of out-of-the-ordinary, but the majority of "atypically cold" events which occur during their indication of a warming climate they don't dismiss, they in fact expect and explain them as SYMPTOMS of a climate warming.
That's a hugely different argument.
There is however a major problem. We cannot really do a like-for-like comparison. AGW proponents I looked at what scientists say, and assumed that most layman would be at least partially informed by those scientists. We cannot make the same assumption for AGW deniers, because there are virtually NO scientists who agree with their position - and therefore almost no scientifically sound arguments to be made in support of them. They cannot even misunderstand or misquote their scientific voices because they don't HAVE any scientific voices.
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>Not all knowledge is equal. Knowledge of E=mc^2 and its physical applications has more value than the knowledge of how much lint is in my pocket right now. Allowing that both have "infinite" value, we see that each has different levels of "infinite" value.
So ? Aleph-one is bigger than Aleph-zero but both are infinite. Don't argue mathematics if you don't KNOW mathematics.
>Next, we have limited resources. There may be an infinite demand for any knowledge we find (by counting on there being infinite people in the future), but we have a finite number of people to discover that knowledge.
Which is why I never said we should devote ALL our resources to knowledge seeking, that was somebody else trying to set up a strawman. I just said that no resources we DO spend on that are ever WASTED.
>How much money are you willing to shell out for the knowledge of how much lint is in my pocket?
Me, very little, but an Australian scientist who made a study of various types of lint to answer the question "what is it and where does it come from" used to pay quite a bit for samples - exactly to find out how much lint was in somebody's pocket (or belly-button) at a given time and what it was composed off. That's STILL valid science, it won an award.
>The system of accounting you're using justifies throwing an infinite amount of resources at even trivial knowledge, because it has "infinite value".
Strawman attack, I didn't suggest we should do that, merely that what we DO have for it is never wasted - even if we cannot get a return in terms of MONEY. Thus that limiting research to that which has practical application is stupid.
Indeed it goes against the very definition of science.
Engineering is about making things work - without understanding them.
Science is about understanding things, without making them work. The moment it even HAS a practical application it has ceased to BE science and has become engineering.
E=MC2 is science, building an atom bomb is engineering.
>I don't mind if you want to criticize a society or gov't for putting the wrong value on some types of knowledge. But saying any and all knowledge has "infinite value" is simply wrong.
And saying it doesn't is provably just as wrong. Just because it's not all equal, doesn't mean it's not all infinite. Infinite is not A number, it's an entire number SYSTEM with an infinite number of infinite numbers in it.
>PS: Economists don't assign a value of 0 to knowledge. Economists say the value of knowledge is the cost a person/society is willing to pay for it
Strictly speaking I was being a bit oversimplistic. Economist say the value of anything is determined by supply/demand (well the PRICE really but they use price as a value METER so it comes down to much the same thing).
So when supply is infinite, well any infinite number divided by any non-infinite number (and the demand is never infinite at any GIVEN moment - since there is a finite number of people at any given moment) is equal to (or rather TENDS TOWARDS in calculus) - ZERO.
But if you consider future generations, then the demand is ALSO infinite - and any infinite number divided by any other infinite number is ALSO zero.
Why is the supply infinite ? Because you cannot use knowledge up. If I tell you something I know, I don't STOP knowing it, now TWO people know it, and can tell other people - the supply of any given PIECE of knowledge is infinite.
The supply of NEW knowledge is NOT infinite of course, it takes investment to acquire knowledge, but that's a once-off cost and even when it's comparatively HUGE it pales in comparison to the INFINITE value derived from infinite supply of it in future.
It's the same problem capitalism has with ANY post-scarcity technology - especially when it's something with an initial input cost. That's why we are living in the copyright wars. Capitalism hasn't been able to offer a way to fund initial creation when re-creation is infinite and thus effectively free which creates i
>No, it's because no one is willing to spend their own money for this "infinite value" good
I am. The day my government STOPS allocating a share of my taxes to university subsidies and research grants is the day I will revolt against taxes, same goes for welfare programs.
I owe my success to two things - hard work, and privilege. I had privilege. And privilege is a debt, debts must be paid. Welfare isn't TAKEN from me, it's paying my debt - by taking some of the results of my privilege and using it to provide privilege to those who don't have it. A debt that is paid forward. Paying Forward: still the single best idea Benjamin Franklin ever had.
In short: speak for yourself.
>That gives us a good idea of the level of bullshit you're spreading here. If science truly were of infinite value to us, then we would all without exclusion devote all of our collective efforts to scientific discovery and knowledge. It isn't so we don't.
That's argument by pushing to the absurd - a fallacy. And the reasoning is flawed. Just because something has infinite value, doesn't mean it's the ONLY thing that does, or that it's value is interchangeable with all that does - or more importantly all that is neccesities.
Knowledge however is what all other value is built on, and it's usually not POSSIBLE to predict which knowledge will be most valueable ahead of time - any more than it's possible to predict which starving artist is creating paintings that will, after his death, sell for millions.
We can't tell the Van Gogh from the idiots until a century later- what makes you think we can truly evaluate the value of any other knowledge ?
Knowledge lets us create value, it increases the availability and reduces neccesity of all other things - that is important, but it doesn't do so instantly, hence we need to devote some, perhaps most, resources to other needs - but the idea that we should only pursue such research as we can see a profitable cause for is ... er... stupid.
Why then do we fund astronomy ? Anything beyond the engineering needed to plant satelites have ZERO profitable returns for the foreseable future. Why do we fund (most) biology ? What monetary value is there in knowing that Elephants are related to Mannatees ?
And why is it that the second largest scientific breakthroughs of the entire 20th century was made by it's LEAST capitalist nation ?
Clearly science exists JUST as well in socialism as in capitalism - just as long as the science itself is allowed to NOT be capitalist.
If you do research for profit, then there is value in secrecy - and secrecy is the OPPOSITE of the value of science.
Most recently, the 1960's one of the most academic and scientifically progressive eras in American History.
Granted the real source of that drive was the urge to outdo Russia - but it put a man on the moon, and all the science and technology needed for one of the most incredible feats of engineering ever achieved grew from that.
Along the way thousands of other scientific advancements were made by building on pieces created for that goal, and still other ideas pursued towards that goal which proved to be useless for it would later turn out to be very valuable for other work.
It was in this same period that radio astronomy first became big - and one of it's first major discoveries was made by a female Grad Student studying reams of paper, we call them pulsars. We still don't know for sure what a pulsar is ! We have one theory that at least makes sense, but zero proof for it. We know they exist, we have no idea what they are. But knowing they exist is one step toward finding out what they are.
>But that isn't gonna pay any bills, let you go on a great vacation trip, nor get you laid.....
Knowlege creates all the means by which bills can be paid, and indeed the ability to create bills in the first place. Knowledge lets you know where to go on vacation, why you may want to go there, and why it's good to take vacations. And knowledge of sex is the difference between bad and good lovers - good lovers most certainly DO get laid more often.
Your point exactly ?
First of all, I was privately educated. Secondly - maybe you should clarify which statement exactly you are referring to - because clearly we aren't talking about the same one, oh and thirdly - I'm not American, so practically nothing you assume about me is likely to be correct.
Oh you have the right to ignore them, that doesn't make them wrong however. A lot of people like hsi books, and think they have good things to say that are worth listening to.
Whether he is a nice person or not does not REDUCE how worthy his books' messages are.
The only thing that determines whether something is worthy of debate is the likelihood of it being right. NOT the source of the statement, but the MERIT of the statement.
If anything this was an ad hominem attack taken to an even worse than usual level.
Things that start with "let me guess" are not "statements", they are deductions stated with teh pre-acknowledged admission that they are guesses and could be wrong.
I see no reason to apologize for guessing wrong when I clearly STATED it was just a guess.
Ad Hominem fallacy.
What kind of person Crichton is has NO bearing on whether or not he is right about something or not.
>Value can be measured in the real world, it's not that hard, either people want it and are willing to SPEND on it, and thus you can have profit and you can measure efficiency or people don't want it and then there is NO VALUE except for what is in your head.
That's an economist's definition of value - it's not an accurate or complete picture. Knowing the movements of the planets is information we cannot use to make a product, we cannot sell it, we cannot make anything out of it, if we ever can it won't be for probably hundreds of years - yet it DOES have value.
Any and ALL knowledge have value. In fact, the value of it is INFINITE since knowledge cannot be used-up. It's a true post-scarcity supply.
Economists measure that value as "zero" - but that's because economists are using a too limited view.
>If you are not seeing this, then all you are talking about is mental masturbation, sure sure, you can have your mental masturbation, you can have your mental orgasm even because you believe that you have some knowledge that wasn't there previously, but if this knowledge never translates into anything that the economy actually is willing to pay for with profits, then its purely irrelevant, it was no more relevant than any other form of entertainment.
That kind of view is the antithesis of human progress. All knowledge has infinite value just by existing.
>My argument is that the basic science is done in the private sector as long as there is no government stealing money from the private sector, and it's done as a side effect of people searching for profit.
If we limit science to that which has the potential for profit (or at least the currently VISIBLE potential for profit) we destroy it, not least because it isn't science AT ALL unless the results are freely available. It's only science WHEN it is public domain, until then - it's not science.
Fundamental principle of the scientific method is peer-review, public scrutiny and openness - directly contradictory with a profit motive.
>Before 1913 there were no income taxes, there were no corporate taxes, there were no payroll taxes, there were no capital gains taxes, no taxes on dividends, no taxes on rent, no taxes on PRODUCTIVITY
Not only an idiot, an idiot who thinks America is the world. Read the bible, the first version of income taxes will be found the very first chapter of Kings I. 4000 years ago the governments charged taxes. Most of the Industrial-age scientific revolution came from Britain, not America and that WAS a welfare state. Most scientists were not employed by industry but by the church or by TAX-FUNDED academia (which Britain had, had for hundreds of years by then). The idea of tax-funded academic research was already WELL ESTABLISHED when it gave us Isaac Newton in the 1600's !
>But how necessary is it to have government stealing money from the private sector to fund research into such things, what is the efficiency of this model?
It takes something of fixed/limited value to buy something of infinite value that only gets MORE valuable the bigger the supply becomes and MORE valuable the more people have access to it. It's the greatest deal in the world, the ultimate investment.
>It is the institutions that are concerned with education that allow the environment to develop that is necessary to do scientific research, including basic sciences.
Cause and effect reversed - AGAIN. It's institutions that are concerned with research that double as the best training grounds for other researchers. That should be the total extent of university education: training the next generation of scientists. Everybody who does not WANT to be a scientist should NOT get a degree, but go to some or other form of trade school.
>You are completely wrong, putting the cart ahead of a horse, thinking that the education and science came before the free market capitalist looking for profit.
The first example of a University was Plato's academy, established in 387BC, it charged no admissi
>when was dynamite used as a weapon of war?
Top of my head? Both the British and the Boers used it extensively in the South African war from 1900 to 1903. Partly for purposes of vandalism (e.g. blowing up railway lines and the like) and for attacks. It is quite effective for ambushing/laying traps. Not as effective as some other explosives that came later, but it worked if you did it right.
Some of the Boers even used it to make rudimentary early hand-grenades. They would stuff explosives into a container, fill it with nails and debris, add a fuse, light it and chuck it into the Blockhouses the British built to defend things like railways from attacks. Often the explosive was just gunpowder but there are documented cases where it was a stick of dynamite.
That said- I never suggested a remorse angle. I suggested the exact opposite: Nobel established his prize because he saw the value of scientific knowledge for saving and improving lives. Considering even the South African war only happened after his death - I am not sure he ever actually SAW his invention used as a weapon of war, so I doubt that the possibility would have influenced his decision - I believe he did what he did because I wanted to encourage and enable scientific research as a betterment for mankind.
In other words - I don't think he was remorseful, I think he was altruistic.
>- no? So tell me then, what is the motivation if it is not for profit? So how do you measure scientific output, how do you figure what scientific paths to pursue?
Knowledge, knowledge is the most valuable commodity in the universe, far moreso than profit - especially monetary profit. Besides which - all knowledge ultimately translates into profit anyway - but sometimes that takes centuries.
That's exactly why profit should NOT be a motivator. Where is the profit in studying planets around stars 20 milion lightyears away ? It will never be profitable -but it could ultimately turn out to the most important thing humans ever did.
>Do you understand why science developed mostly starting with the industrial revolution, which was the consequence of free market capitalism?
You've got the cause and effect exactly BACKWARDS. Science can, and does, drive industry - but while industry can drive science it must NEVER be allowed to.
For-profit science didn't EXIST during the industrial revolution, the idea of academic research being patentable, the idea of a PHD holding patents was unthinkable in those years (as it OUGHT to be today). Scientists produced knowledge, some of that knowledge was used by industrialists to create products, but a lot of it wasn't useful for products.
In fact the vast majority of non-university scientists in the industrial revolution were priests ! Why ? Because priests had lots of free time, which they devoted to research, and no profit motive to detract from researching what was INTERESTING.
By your logic one of the greatest scientific discoveries should never have been allowed to happen: Darwin's theory of evolution. Since Darwin was trained in theology and medicine, and never worked as either, and his research was absolutely useless to ANY industries that existed at the time (in fact it would take almost 70 years for the next piece of the puzzle - genetics to be discovered - and another 50 years before industries were able to make use of that combination for anything at all, it's only STARTING now).
You're another typical "free market uber alles" capitalist who refuses to see even the POTENTIAL value in PUBLIC goods.
Let me guess, you want eternal copyright too - because knowledge in the public domain has no value according to you.
What value does Shakespeare have, what profit is there in Snow White - how can there be value in something that belongs to EVERYBODY ?
Oops... idiot.
>That would be ideal. Unfortunately that only works if people at large are happy to pay taxes to fund the science. In the real world we live in, majority of people bitch and whine about taxes that don't bring them direct, immediate benefits.
Sad, but true, not an insurmountable problem however. The difference is in education: teach people the value of knowledge, that all scientific research DO bring tangible benefits and that making it publicly available gives you as an individual a greater SHARE of that benefit. For example if all drug-research was done publicly, and made by whoever had a factory, without patents, then medicines would be MUCH, MUCH cheaper for all of us.
>Science investment brings with it incredible returns, but in incomprehensible forms that can only be put into practical inventions many years later.
Some generations have figured that out in the past, often the next one undid the progress, but like I said, it can be done.
>Idealism just doesn't survive in the real world.
This I radically don't agree with. Idealism is the only thing that changes the real world.
To quote Richard Stallman: "If I had set out to say 'a mostly free operating system is okay' back when even that seemed impossible to most people, then we would not have had completely free operating systems available today. We have completely free operating systems because we set out to create nothing less than the ideal. Idealism is stating the ideal, and pushing for the ideal, even if you never quite get there, because every step you get closer is an improvement".
Not at all. Even if all money is made in a profit-based market - and thus the funding for science comes from there- that doesn't mean that science has to be done with a profit motive.
Crichton is strongly opposed to privatization of science and believes it must be tax-funded as a public-good without a profit motive, he also strongly opposes laws that allow publicly funded research to be patented.
Now that tax-money may have been made by profit-seeking companies originally, but the intermediary step prevents THEIR motivations from becoming the motivations of the SCIENTISTS.
His point is science should be done for knowledge, if somebody can use that knowledge to make a profit that's fine- but that somebody must not be the scientist. I tend to agree.
If you take that approach, then you can prevent the kind of stupid laws that want to turn universities into more "business-like" entities, if anything they are TOO MUCH like private enterprize already, they OUGHT to operate as a public service. Nobody ever asks if a neighbourhood playground makes MONEY - we just build them because it's better to live in a world with them than a world without them. That is what science should be. A neighbourhood playground.
Nice comeback - though I obviously meant to type "noble".
That said - most people miss the point of the Nobel prize, I just hope most scientists don't. Alfred Nobel made his money from an invention called dynamite. While it later found use as a weapon of war, that wasn't the purpose of his creation. Dynamite is derived from the Latin for "alive" - and it was created to SAVE rather than TAKE lives. Specifically dynamite was invented for mining purposes - the most common mining explosive prior to that was nitro-glycerine, dynamite is MUCH safer to work with and it saved millions of lives by reducing explosion-accidents in mining.
Nobel firmly believed that science and knowledge are the greatest tools to advance a peaceful world with happier and longer-living people. His prize was intended to encourage scientists to do just that- produce knowledge for the good of mankind. This is also why the only NON-science prize is the peace prize. There is no Nobel-prize for business or economics (no really there isn't - the so-called Nobel-prize for economics was created much later by a bunch of Swiss bankers and has no affiliation with the fund Nobel left or the committee who awards the prizes from that fund).
Nobel was a humanitarian. The irony is that the very life-saving invention that convinced him of science's great potential for humanity was also just a few decades later such a major part in racking up the body counts in the world wars. Nobel would not have been pleased...
>The reason DNA degrades in amber is, among other things, due to background radiation, a factor which is less worrisome when dealing with ice.
More importantly, later studies found that the degraded DNA in the amber wasn't dinosaur DNA in the first place, that had completely broken down millions of years ago already, what was there was DNA from more recent contamination by other life-forms (bacteria and such that managed to survive in there for a short period) and which was sufficiently degraded that the genetics of the early 1990's couldn't tell what it was (yet).
>And for the entire time, science has gone ahead anyway, and within a generation or two everyone pretty much agrees that it was a good thing ... just in time to complain about whatever new field of knowledge is opening up and is therefore Scary and Dangerous.
Because the atom bomb was a good thing, so is computers used to destroy privacy, drone strikes killing civilians who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - all examples of science driven technology that wasn't possible until quite recently... it's not as simple as you think. Science is knowledge, knowledge is power, power can be used for good or evil (the same nuclear power can produce energy, the same guidance systems in drones can make safer plane landings, the same computers can help dissidents revolt against terrible governments more safely), the point of cautionary science fiction I always thought was to warn us about the potential evil, so we can avoid that while still using the knowledge for good.
Not in the least. Read the forewords and author's notes as well and you'll see a very different point of view: science for PROFIT is extremely risky.
His concern isn't science for the sake of knowledge, but the inherent dangers of doing science for the sake of money. That become science done in secret rather than open, science that cuts corners to save costs, science that is applied for dubious rather than nobel goals.
He loves genetic engineering and it's possibility to improve lives for example, but as he shows in "Next" - he despises the idea of "gene patents".
The problem with Jurassic Park wasn't that it was science, but that it was consumerist-driven.
>Doesn't it come across as "never do anything because there might be unintended consequences", though? I mean, the point of unintended consequences is you can't predict whether anything you do will have bad ones or not.
Actually no, Chrighton's point was that while we cannot predict what unintended consequences would be - with chaos theory we can predict the likelihood of there being unintended consequences and the likely impact there-off on the overall stability of the prediction system - and if those predictions say "you will have unintended consequences to the extent that prediction and stability becomes extremely unlikely" then you probably shouldn't go ahead.
> Maybe because people aren't being exploded in your neighborhood, you don't realize that Islamic terrorism is part of life in the Middle East.
Right, and the fact that Islam represents 99% of the population of the middle east doesn't influence your views ? In that population - it' NOT Islamic terrorism - it's just terrorism, there isn't anybody else to perform any other kind.
Are you purposefully ignoring the fact that most terrorism acts committed in non-Muslim countries are committed by non-Muslims as well ?
>By definition all lawful arrests are "justified", they are nothing more than the physical precursor to a formal accusation (charges), in many cases they are also used simply to "keep the peace" by physically separating drunks from each other long enough for them to "sleep it off" .
So I guess that all those people who have sued the cops for the illegal activity of "unjustified arrest" and all the judges who awarded them damages are just wrong ?
You did specify "lawful" arrest but then you seem to imagine that "lawful" means "done by a cop". That's wrong on every level. Firstly citizens-arrest can also be lawful, and secondly there are restrictions on when ANY arrest if lawful, you cannot just arrest somebody because you INTEND to charge him, you have to have probably cause or a reasonable suspicion that he has broken the law.
In other words - you must have a reasonable standard of evidence already - the kind that prosecutors consider enough to continue with charges. If the VAST majority of a police officer's arrests are NOT pursued by the prosecutors then that officer ought to be fired for incompetence.
>Going on the assumption of the predictative accuracy of this technology what ethical imperative does the government have to reengineer these situations to make crime not tempting or not an option?
That depends entirely on the nature of the reengineering.
If you find that crime is more common in areas with particularly bad or underfunded schools and you respond by improving funding and management of those schools you are reducing the amount of drop-outs who become criminals. None of this includes any increase in current government powers - merely using available information to do the jobs we ALREADY gave them with more efficiency.
On the other hand, if you find that there is a significant amount of carjackings at drive-through restaurants and you therefore ban hamburger sales then I would be protesting.
>Now I know that in the case of blacks it is due to social deprivation, etc. - I am not blaming them - but it is a fact that they commit more crime.
No it's not. There is no evidence to support your claim. The evidence you're about to cite - actually proves something else: more black people are CONVICTED of crimes, but that doesn't prove they COMMIT more crimes. You'd see the exact same thing if, for example, they just get CAUGHT more often. You'd also see the exact same thing if they were generally poorer, and thus had worse lawyers and therefore were more likely to be convicted than an equally guilty white person.
Now we have STRONG evidence supporting the idea that they get caught more often (the very police biasses that you mention suggest they would get more attention on them) and you yourself acknowledged the evidence that they are more likely to be convicted because they can't afford high quality lawyers who are good at getting guilty people off.
See there is absolutely no proof that white people commit LESS crime than black people - there is only proof that white people are less likely to be CONVICTED, those are NOT the same thing as there are not one but TWO mutually reinforcing explanations for that scenario -both of which provably exist.
More-over, while perhaps a lot of street criminals are of a particular race - street criminals in the real world are almost NEVER self-employed, they always work within syndicates (because syndicates tend to kill freelancers who interfere with their territory) and the evidence suggests that the people at the TOP of the syndicates are overwhelmingly wealthy people - from wealthy backgrounds - and disproportionately white.
But those people are almost never caught.
Black people commit more crimes? Well it's possible you're right- but there is NO evidence to support that position, and certainly none that supports the idea that white people commit LESS crimes - only that white people don't get caught as often.
So Occam's razor suggests that in fact the likelihood of somebody committing a crime is an individual measurement in which group membership/dynamics play little or no role.
Just like there is no proof that muslims commit most acts of terrorism. In fact, there seems to be a massive amount of terrorist attacks done by Christians. Muslims may have destroyed the WTC but they weren't the first to try - that was Timothy McVeigh. They just did it better.
The Norway shooter was a radical Christian conservative.
The Unabomber was an atheist.
Muslims don't commit more terrorist activities - Muslim terrorists just get more news coverage.
It can only be a matter of time before the wealthier criminal elements (drug gangs for example) are buying list of "places to avoid this month because the prediction systems told us to put more cops there" from the less honest members of the force...
The reason it's not the same argument is that AGW deniers decry ALL warming events as "weather", and deny there being even a potential sign of "climate" involved. When there is an atypically cold spell somewhere- they then cite this as proof that AGW cannot be happening.
Their argument in other words is that it's 'weather' when it doesn't suit them, but 'climate' when it does.
Proponents may do the same - but the scientists among them at least do not, they rule out as weather genuine cases of out-of-the-ordinary, but the majority of "atypically cold" events which occur during their indication of a warming climate they don't dismiss, they in fact expect and explain them as SYMPTOMS of a climate warming.
That's a hugely different argument.
There is however a major problem. We cannot really do a like-for-like comparison. AGW proponents I looked at what scientists say, and assumed that most layman would be at least partially informed by those scientists. We cannot make the same assumption for AGW deniers, because there are virtually NO scientists who agree with their position - and therefore almost no scientifically sound arguments to be made in support of them.
They cannot even misunderstand or misquote their scientific voices because they don't HAVE any scientific voices.