If you're gonna make a faux-utilitarian argument to prove your point that utilitarianism is a bad way to make these decisions, you need to choose better arguments.
Matches are not banned, but they are regulated. In my youth, you could get non-safety matches. Not any more, and it's to prevent fire deaths. Swimming pools are also tightly regulated. However, they are also a net benefit in strictly utilitarian terms as the QALYs lost to people drowning is outweighed by the QALYs gained through improved fitness, in population terms.
OK, we're now entering the realms of true fuckwittery.
"No. If they could [lower their prices], they would. Now. That way, they'd capture more of the market. But the fact that they haven't indicates that they can't."
Erm. Revenues = Prices * Volume. Manufacturers will make a tradeoff between pricing and volume. And manufacturers -- and indeed every commercial enterprises -- certainly do respond to pricing pressure by cutting their own costs base further and finding new ways to do so. This is the story of SouthWestern and the other low cost carriers. It's (part of) the story of Toyota.
Sheesh. If you're gonna get a hard-on for pro-business gimmicks, you'll sound a lot more credible if you don't get basic commercial economics wrong.
I'd love to see some actual links to the story you describe. And I'd love to see some evidence on the relative proportions of staged:non-staged videos and abused:non-abused animals on farms.
That's a bit of a stoopid response. The vast majority of farm workers aren't also the owners. They're people being paid shit, and being treated like shit, and then passing the shit downhill on to the livestock they work with. They couldn't give a hairy fuck about the profitability of the giant corporations they work for, in just the same way that employees who drive for a living tend not to take anywhere near as good care of the coach / van etc they're driving as they do of their personal vehicle.
By the way, do you have any actual evidence to back up your statement that "in many cases the "Animal Cruelty" being documented is staged by the activist doing the filming"? You know, like court cases or well-documented media reports?
Seriously? You think that an 11% cut in the costs of a $40k US car would be make a really material difference in its competitiveness vs foreign car companies? You think that foreign car companies won't respond by innovating to cut their pricing yet further?
Did you not read about the Tata Nano? $2.5k for a car. Sure, a POS that you wouldn't touch with a bargepole, but the point is that *that* is the kind of pricing achievable with an Indian cost base.
that makes no sense! the government is stepping in *precisely because* the plants aren't economically viable right now. It is saying "there are considerations beyond economics that make this subsidy worthwhile" (energy security, creating jobs today, etc etc).
If you think that the difference in manufacturing costs between China and the US could be closed by moving to a "Fair Tax", you might want to get a friend who can add to help you before you go shopping, or you're going to get stiffed every time. Company directors would be failing in their fiduciary duties if they repatriated jobs to the US simply based on a 22% or similar cut in the costs of manufacturing in the US following introduction of a new tax regime. There are order of magnitude differences in the cost base.
OK, all of that sounds more than reasonable, except point 1, where the key factor is not "what is the most commonly used antibiotic" but "to what extent are antibiotics that are related to human antibiotics used".
You are conflating normative and descriptive. You would *like* labelling to be about real, important information blah blah blah (normative). You describe today's labelling as being about real, important information. But of course, today's labelling is about a compromise between the commercial interests of the food producers / retailers, the public duties and ideologies of the regulators, and the ideologies of pressure groups.
If food labelling were *really* about real, important information blah blah, then soda cans would say "For fuck's sake, don't buy this shit, it'll rot your teeth, give you diabetes and kill you stone dead of cancer or heart disease." Which is, of course, what fate and food has in store for a large percentage of the US population.
Erm....kosher food is already labelled as such. Religious Jews will only eat food that they *know* is kosher.
I'd like to know how you are *sure* there's nothing wrong with GMOs. Conceptually, it's related to plant breeding in the same way that a Cray is related to an abacus.
Your counterpoints are not that strong: 1. Bacteria typically develop resistance not to a single antibiotic but to multiple antibiotics. See the post directly before yours. 2. If the only variable you alter is presence/absence of subtherapeutic antibiotics, I could believe that more animals may end up sick and that more important classes of antibiotics are used. However, this would be a pretty fuckwitted thing to do. In the real world, you would want to mitigate the risks associated with the removal of subtherapeutic antibiotics by rethinking things such as stock density levels. Lots of us would say that would be a good thing in and of itself, and that the very notion of using subtherapeutic antibiotics to maintain stock densities above what would otherwise be safe is utterly repulsive. 3. It's never been definitively shown not to, either. It would be difficult to demonstrate one way or another, given the chain of causality. 4. Orthogonal. And obviously, efforts are also made to address this issue. 5. Listed as a counterpoint, but not actually a counterpoint, just an economic explanation for why people behave in a venal and idiotic manner.
Not sure I understand how the money-makers get to avoid the risks. This isn't like cigarette smoking, the environmental contamination can affect even the priciest steak or tomato.
What a more stupid asshole. I hope you have someone to help you wipe, because you don't seem like you've got the brains to do a decent job for yourself.
Let's see... A tiny minority of scientists proposed that "vaccines caused autism", in the teeth of scepticism from the vast bulk of their peer experts. A tiny minority of scientists propose that climate change does not happen, in the teeth of scepticism from the vast bulk of their peer experts.
What could possibly be the common thread between these situations?
I'm glad assholes like you are around to present pointless stupid strawman arguments that have no bearing on the facts. You MUST be a fuckwit. Oh look! You are
So, a question to the physics gurus here: what is an electron actually made of? Is the answer simply "matter"? And if so, what is that? Or is this a "turtles all the way down" kinda thing?
That is a *fantastic* challenge. I could believe that some material amount of time and money is soaked up by the public inquiries that go alongside decisions to build new nuclear plants, but I just don't believe that they come anywhere *near* the actual cost of building the things, nor do I believe that there are safety features in there that are simply security theatre. If advocates can show the contrary, let 'em!
The ordinary process of moving house is a high-stress event. High-stress events kill people. Being forced to flee your home is a way more traumatic experience than simply moving. Refugee communities the world over can testify to that. If sufficient numbers of people are forced to flee (Fukushima would be a clear example of this), you can guarantee whopping levels of associated morbidity and mortality, way more than the saving of a few lives from cancer through radiotherapy derived from the plant.
No, my argument is that "because conspiracy theories will exist no matter what we do, we should focus on doing the right thing measured by standards of practicality and morality, which in this instance suggested getting rid of the body at sea quickly". False dichotomy.
As if people would be satisfied with "independent testing samples"! They'd want to *see the body*. They'd say the samples weren't independent (and they'd be right, independence in this context is just absurd). And yes, it would take more than 24 hours. Where would they take the damned body anyway? Gitmo? Who gets into Gitmo to verify this is he? The US mainland? That'd sure keep a lid on bruised Islamist feeling.
As for discoverability of a land grave, I'm pretty sure you could expect to see FOIA requests for its location, concerted efforts by hostile state and non-state actors to find it by espionage and by applying pressure (eg terror), etc etc. Another frickin circus, but a Roman one with blood'n'guts.
While I can still instantly picture that jumping scene in my mind, it wasn't that transportation I had in mind -- it was the truck Max hitches a lift on, which goes closer the ground the faster it goes, but can never touch the ground because the repulsion "works by an inverse-cube law...the more the wind pushes us down, the harder the road pushes us up".
I'm not a conspiracy loon. I'm just a regular person pointing out that a secret mission followed by a press release found to be filled with holes and lies and immediately destroying the "evidence" and blocking all access to any information was a colossally stupid move.
Whereas, of course, holding on to the dead body of the world's most notorious Jihadi for way more than 24 hours and then burying on land in a location that is discoverable in principle is just an excellent and highly intelligent thing to do.
"we paid for his death, we should be able to verify it" the photos won't verify his death to the public. dna won't. inspection of the body wouldn't. his weeping children throwing themselves over his dead body wouldn't. his other children writing letters to the NYT complaining about the manner of his execution or his metaphorical children threatening revenge for his martyrdom won't.
because some people won't trust the evidence and you can't prove a negative (the negative being, "he's still alive!").
but as Obama said, wait and you'll see... no more videos or audiotapes from him ever again.
What *are* you talking about? A hate crime is committing a crime against someone because of *who they are*, not what they have done. I beat you up because you are Muslim or Jewish, for example.
The distinction between taking action based on evidence and taking action not based on evidence has *fuck all* to do with hate crime.
Slashdot Mirror
How the fuck do you know? Have you read all these scientists' emails?
Nobber
If you're gonna make a faux-utilitarian argument to prove your point that utilitarianism is a bad way to make these decisions, you need to choose better arguments.
Matches are not banned, but they are regulated. In my youth, you could get non-safety matches. Not any more, and it's to prevent fire deaths.
Swimming pools are also tightly regulated. However, they are also a net benefit in strictly utilitarian terms as the QALYs lost to people drowning is outweighed by the QALYs gained through improved fitness, in population terms.
OK, we're now entering the realms of true fuckwittery.
"No. If they could [lower their prices], they would. Now. That way, they'd capture more of the market. But the fact that they haven't indicates that they can't."
Erm. Revenues = Prices * Volume. Manufacturers will make a tradeoff between pricing and volume. And manufacturers -- and indeed every commercial enterprises -- certainly do respond to pricing pressure by cutting their own costs base further and finding new ways to do so. This is the story of SouthWestern and the other low cost carriers. It's (part of) the story of Toyota.
Sheesh. If you're gonna get a hard-on for pro-business gimmicks, you'll sound a lot more credible if you don't get basic commercial economics wrong.
"the owner of a hog farm would come unglued if 'he' saw workers..."
FFS. The owners of hog farms are normally large corps. Not individuals.
I'd love to see some actual links to the story you describe. And I'd love to see some evidence on the relative proportions of staged:non-staged videos and abused:non-abused animals on farms.
That's a bit of a stoopid response. The vast majority of farm workers aren't also the owners. They're people being paid shit, and being treated like shit, and then passing the shit downhill on to the livestock they work with. They couldn't give a hairy fuck about the profitability of the giant corporations they work for, in just the same way that employees who drive for a living tend not to take anywhere near as good care of the coach / van etc they're driving as they do of their personal vehicle.
By the way, do you have any actual evidence to back up your statement that "in many cases the "Animal Cruelty" being documented is staged by the activist doing the filming"? You know, like court cases or well-documented media reports?
Seriously? You think that an 11% cut in the costs of a $40k US car would be make a really material difference in its competitiveness vs foreign car companies? You think that foreign car companies won't respond by innovating to cut their pricing yet further?
Did you not read about the Tata Nano? $2.5k for a car. Sure, a POS that you wouldn't touch with a bargepole, but the point is that *that* is the kind of pricing achievable with an Indian cost base.
that makes no sense! the government is stepping in *precisely because* the plants aren't economically viable right now. It is saying "there are considerations beyond economics that make this subsidy worthwhile" (energy security, creating jobs today, etc etc).
If you think that the difference in manufacturing costs between China and the US could be closed by moving to a "Fair Tax", you might want to get a friend who can add to help you before you go shopping, or you're going to get stiffed every time. Company directors would be failing in their fiduciary duties if they repatriated jobs to the US simply based on a 22% or similar cut in the costs of manufacturing in the US following introduction of a new tax regime. There are order of magnitude differences in the cost base.
OK, all of that sounds more than reasonable, except point 1, where the key factor is not "what is the most commonly used antibiotic" but "to what extent are antibiotics that are related to human antibiotics used".
You are conflating normative and descriptive. You would *like* labelling to be about real, important information blah blah blah (normative). You describe today's labelling as being about real, important information. But of course, today's labelling is about a compromise between the commercial interests of the food producers / retailers, the public duties and ideologies of the regulators, and the ideologies of pressure groups.
If food labelling were *really* about real, important information blah blah, then soda cans would say "For fuck's sake, don't buy this shit, it'll rot your teeth, give you diabetes and kill you stone dead of cancer or heart disease." Which is, of course, what fate and food has in store for a large percentage of the US population.
Erm....kosher food is already labelled as such. Religious Jews will only eat food that they *know* is kosher.
I'd like to know how you are *sure* there's nothing wrong with GMOs. Conceptually, it's related to plant breeding in the same way that a Cray is related to an abacus.
Your counterpoints are not that strong:
1. Bacteria typically develop resistance not to a single antibiotic but to multiple antibiotics. See the post directly before yours.
2. If the only variable you alter is presence/absence of subtherapeutic antibiotics, I could believe that more animals may end up sick and that more important classes of antibiotics are used. However, this would be a pretty fuckwitted thing to do. In the real world, you would want to mitigate the risks associated with the removal of subtherapeutic antibiotics by rethinking things such as stock density levels. Lots of us would say that would be a good thing in and of itself, and that the very notion of using subtherapeutic antibiotics to maintain stock densities above what would otherwise be safe is utterly repulsive.
3. It's never been definitively shown not to, either. It would be difficult to demonstrate one way or another, given the chain of causality.
4. Orthogonal. And obviously, efforts are also made to address this issue.
5. Listed as a counterpoint, but not actually a counterpoint, just an economic explanation for why people behave in a venal and idiotic manner.
Not sure I understand how the money-makers get to avoid the risks. This isn't like cigarette smoking, the environmental contamination can affect even the priciest steak or tomato.
What a more stupid asshole. I hope you have someone to help you wipe, because you don't seem like you've got the brains to do a decent job for yourself.
Let's see...
A tiny minority of scientists proposed that "vaccines caused autism", in the teeth of scepticism from the vast bulk of their peer experts.
A tiny minority of scientists propose that climate change does not happen, in the teeth of scepticism from the vast bulk of their peer experts.
What could possibly be the common thread between these situations?
I'm glad assholes like you are around to present pointless stupid strawman arguments that have no bearing on the facts. You MUST be a fuckwit. Oh look! You are
So, a question to the physics gurus here: what is an electron actually made of? Is the answer simply "matter"? And if so, what is that? Or is this a "turtles all the way down" kinda thing?
That is a *fantastic* challenge. I could believe that some material amount of time and money is soaked up by the public inquiries that go alongside decisions to build new nuclear plants, but I just don't believe that they come anywhere *near* the actual cost of building the things, nor do I believe that there are safety features in there that are simply security theatre. If advocates can show the contrary, let 'em!
The ordinary process of moving house is a high-stress event. High-stress events kill people. Being forced to flee your home is a way more traumatic experience than simply moving. Refugee communities the world over can testify to that. If sufficient numbers of people are forced to flee (Fukushima would be a clear example of this), you can guarantee whopping levels of associated morbidity and mortality, way more than the saving of a few lives from cancer through radiotherapy derived from the plant.
Spot on. Spot fucking on. I think this is all the more likely given the bunker mentality of those involved in the nuclear industry
No, my argument is that "because conspiracy theories will exist no matter what we do, we should focus on doing the right thing measured by standards of practicality and morality, which in this instance suggested getting rid of the body at sea quickly". False dichotomy.
As if people would be satisfied with "independent testing samples"! They'd want to *see the body*. They'd say the samples weren't independent (and they'd be right, independence in this context is just absurd). And yes, it would take more than 24 hours. Where would they take the damned body anyway? Gitmo? Who gets into Gitmo to verify this is he? The US mainland? That'd sure keep a lid on bruised Islamist feeling.
As for discoverability of a land grave, I'm pretty sure you could expect to see FOIA requests for its location, concerted efforts by hostile state and non-state actors to find it by espionage and by applying pressure (eg terror), etc etc. Another frickin circus, but a Roman one with blood'n'guts.
While I can still instantly picture that jumping scene in my mind, it wasn't that transportation I had in mind -- it was the truck Max hitches a lift on, which goes closer the ground the faster it goes, but can never touch the ground because the repulsion "works by an inverse-cube law...the more the wind pushes us down, the harder the road pushes us up".
Glad to hear I'm not alone...
I'm not a conspiracy loon. I'm just a regular person pointing out that a secret mission followed by a press release found to be filled with holes and lies and immediately destroying the "evidence" and blocking all access to any information was a colossally stupid move.
Whereas, of course, holding on to the dead body of the world's most notorious Jihadi for way more than 24 hours and then burying on land in a location that is discoverable in principle is just an excellent and highly intelligent thing to do.
"we paid for his death, we should be able to verify it"
the photos won't verify his death to the public.
dna won't.
inspection of the body wouldn't.
his weeping children throwing themselves over his dead body wouldn't.
his other children writing letters to the NYT complaining about the manner of his execution or his metaphorical children threatening revenge for his martyrdom won't.
because some people won't trust the evidence and you can't prove a negative (the negative being, "he's still alive!").
but as Obama said, wait and you'll see ... no more videos or audiotapes from him ever again.
so time to stop wishing for the moon
What *are* you talking about? A hate crime is committing a crime against someone because of *who they are*, not what they have done. I beat you up because you are Muslim or Jewish, for example.
The distinction between taking action based on evidence and taking action not based on evidence has *fuck all* to do with hate crime.