You are correct about the NRA both suppressing research and sponsoring bad research. Nevertheless, when the academic world is almost universally opposed to the idea of firearms to the point of being unable to rationally consider the topic, and commits a series of profound errors without fail that defy all intelligence and logic, I am frankly not concerned about suppressing that. I am sorry the academic world cannot properly research the topic, because there is considerable and important knowledge to be gained in this area.
Skimmed your link, unfortunately the entire book does not seem to be available on that link. There are two major problems with the research portrayed. Frankly, since you claim to be open-minded, I am extremely surprised that you posed that book as an example of good research.
#1: There is a significant difference between violence statistics among law-abiding gun owners, and criminal gun owners. The research studies only the criminal element, then extends that to cover law-abiding gun owners. I am not sure what to call this in scientific terms, so I will suffice by saying: this is simply wrong. In order to obtain an accurate look at the effects of firearms in society, you must inspect either the population as a whole, or split the law-abiding from the criminal and look at both. You cannot consider only the criminal element and call it "good science."
#2: Average number of people who die when police stop a mass shooting: 14.3. Average number of people who die when a citizen stops a mass shooting: 2.3. You will notice that when a civilian stops someone who is apparently beginning a rampage shooting (random public targets) it does not go over 3-victim "mass shooting" qualifier. This is why you never see private citizens stopping a mass shooting: they stop it before it becomes a mass shooting. The research you linked does not consider this. If you want, I can dig up a source for the figures I mentioned.
You will likely take issue with point #2. I am pretty sure your mind is closed so I'm not going to bother looking up a source when you are perfectly capable of finding it yourself if you were actually open-minded.
I am quite interested on your opinion on point #1. It seems like a blatant invalidation of (nearly?) every piece of gun violence research conducted in the past several decades, and I am unable to find anyone who can adequately explain the rationale behind it.
If you want to be free from gun violence, the absolute best way to accomplish that is to let every law-abiding citizen carry whatever firearm they desire.
That will stop gun violence. That's what both statistics and common sense show.
For example: Average number of people that die when police stop a mass shooting: 14.3
Average number of people that die when a citizen stops a mass shooting: 2.3 If they are armed, it drops to 1.8.
The fun is going to start when additive-metal printing comes down in price and folks can start printing metal guns with a neighborhood-level investment. This plastic stuff is crazy important idealogically and philosophically, but the handwriting is on the wall. Firearms are about to become a lot more available to a lot more people.
No, because even in minute quantities it damages your ability to accurately judge risk and make good decisions. Specifically, it reduces your perception of the negative outcomes from decisions.
There are plenty of other substances that will settle jittery drivers without negatively affecting value judgements that may include human life.
Alcoholic impairment of judgement is something that is much riskier than being able to stay in your lane, and is something most people (including you, apparently) either don't think about or don't know about. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-005-0057-9 Even small amounts of alcohol impair your ability to make risk/reward decisions. When driving, this means you damage your ability to decide to go ahead and hit the dog in the road when swerving would hit a pedestrian.
That is the problem with low amounts of alcohol. Not reaction time, but rather your ability to make the *correct* snap decision under pressure.
You are right, of course, but I looked at the potential use cases for bitcoin and I do not personally think it will really reach overpriced-tulip-mania price until it passes seven figures.
I believe we are in a bubble at this point in time because people are coming in from the mainstream coverage over the past week. I was hoping we would be well into 2014 before hitting four figures. There will be a correction, as there seems to be on a 8-month cycle, but the underlying idea seems to be driving a much longer trend that I do not see collapsing for a decade or more.
If you take a look at what bitcoin represents, the current price is vastly below steady-state.
Consider global payment remittance. That is a $500+ billion/year market (in profit, not considering the amount of money moving), and something bitcoin excels at. It will be extremely difficult for Wells Fargo (for example) to offer global money transfers for $0.05 flat rate. If bitcoin captures even a tiny section of that market, its current value is grossly under-market.
This is just one. There are several big ones that are immediately applicable, and many more that will require some work.
I can't tell you how many people I've heard say, "I'll buy when it drops back to $30....$50....$100...$300..." In a few day, I'll be hearing it about $1,000. "I shoulda bought when it dropped below $1,000 just before Thanksgiving!"
The price is going up because a lot of people are interested in it!
This price spike is a natural result of the mainstream coverage bitcoin enjoyed last week. It takes a few days for newbies to learn how to move money into bitcoin. Many of them have figured it out, thus today's spike (and crash).
Actually, you are wrong. Bitcoin has several million dollars worth of silicon and steel backing it up, in the form of mining equipment that is largely worthless for any other purpose.
You are correct, but you have missed the actual danger.
Even tiny amounts of alcohol affect risk aversion behavior. This affects your ability to make the correct snap decision in a surprise situation. Long before alcohol affects your ability to drive, it screws up your ability to go ahead and hit the animal in the road when swerving would kill a bicyclist (for example).
Your math is faulty. One squirt of tincture correlates to well under a gram of alcohol. Nevertheless, I contend that it does influence sensory perception and judgement for a short while, until it is removed from the blood stream.
Now if you want to argue that taking a squirt of tincture on a full stomach means the alcohol is absorbed so slowly that it doesn't affect judgement, I might agree with you. You would still be an idiot in my book, but you are probably safe to drive a car or carry a firearm.
Strawman fallacy, don't be obtuse. I am aware that those substances contain trace amounts of alcohol, but you cannot consume enough of them to even approach the beginnings of intoxication.
Unless the juice has fermented in your refridgerator, in which case yeah, no drinking before driving. Same for fruit.
An even more edge case question would be alcoholic tinctures. 1ml of echinacea-infused vodka is about 1/30 of an ounce. I would argue that if you throw back a squirt or two of tincture and get behind the wheel, you are a fucking fool. Wait 10 minutes for the liver to process it, then drive.
Sorry, but you are part of the problem. The fact that there is a legal amount you can drink and still drive is obscene. Passing the test is not the question. The question is whether you are a danger to others.
If you drink anything and get behind the wheel of a car before you are completely sober, you are endangering others. If you disagree, you are clearly ignorant of how alcohol affects judgement.
Why do you think anarchy is worse than the government we currently have? All of those functions you describe are perfectly reasonable to be accomplished on a town- or city-level at the highest.
Since we are talking about practicalities, I agree with each of your points. Authority is not consensus either, and sometimes it is absolutely required.
Personally, I think our only hope is to let the financial system collapse and embrace a permanent recession. 2007 was the peak CO2 output for the U.S.: every year since has shown a reduction in CO2 emissions. This, combined with our declining birth rate, are the first signs of hope I have seen.
Absolutely. Yet, consensus does not determine what is true or not true. If we are lucky, consensus agrees with truth. That is not necessarily the case.
Not so much; airplane mode does not disable camera or microphone. Furthermore, why should you trust airplane mode? The concern is that malicious software could pre-empt the users' instructions; wouldn't Airplane Mode potentially fall into this situation as well?
Slashdot Mirror
You are correct about the NRA both suppressing research and sponsoring bad research. Nevertheless, when the academic world is almost universally opposed to the idea of firearms to the point of being unable to rationally consider the topic, and commits a series of profound errors without fail that defy all intelligence and logic, I am frankly not concerned about suppressing that. I am sorry the academic world cannot properly research the topic, because there is considerable and important knowledge to be gained in this area.
Skimmed your link, unfortunately the entire book does not seem to be available on that link. There are two major problems with the research portrayed. Frankly, since you claim to be open-minded, I am extremely surprised that you posed that book as an example of good research.
#1: There is a significant difference between violence statistics among law-abiding gun owners, and criminal gun owners. The research studies only the criminal element, then extends that to cover law-abiding gun owners. I am not sure what to call this in scientific terms, so I will suffice by saying: this is simply wrong. In order to obtain an accurate look at the effects of firearms in society, you must inspect either the population as a whole, or split the law-abiding from the criminal and look at both. You cannot consider only the criminal element and call it "good science."
#2: Average number of people who die when police stop a mass shooting: 14.3. Average number of people who die when a citizen stops a mass shooting: 2.3. You will notice that when a civilian stops someone who is apparently beginning a rampage shooting (random public targets) it does not go over 3-victim "mass shooting" qualifier. This is why you never see private citizens stopping a mass shooting: they stop it before it becomes a mass shooting. The research you linked does not consider this. If you want, I can dig up a source for the figures I mentioned.
You will likely take issue with point #2. I am pretty sure your mind is closed so I'm not going to bother looking up a source when you are perfectly capable of finding it yourself if you were actually open-minded.
I am quite interested on your opinion on point #1. It seems like a blatant invalidation of (nearly?) every piece of gun violence research conducted in the past several decades, and I am unable to find anyone who can adequately explain the rationale behind it.
If you want to be free from gun violence, the absolute best way to accomplish that is to let every law-abiding citizen carry whatever firearm they desire.
That will stop gun violence. That's what both statistics and common sense show.
For example: Average number of people that die when police stop a mass shooting: 14.3
Average number of people that die when a citizen stops a mass shooting: 2.3 If they are armed, it drops to 1.8.
End the violence!
Good luck finding a police station in an unfamiliar city.
Oh and don't get stuck in traffic on the way.
It's a nice sentiment, but one that is at odds with reality.
The fun is going to start when additive-metal printing comes down in price and folks can start printing metal guns with a neighborhood-level investment. This plastic stuff is crazy important idealogically and philosophically, but the handwriting is on the wall. Firearms are about to become a lot more available to a lot more people.
God help the charity that tries to negotiate the maelstrom of US healthcare and try to actually help people.
No, because even in minute quantities it damages your ability to accurately judge risk and make good decisions. Specifically, it reduces your perception of the negative outcomes from decisions.
There are plenty of other substances that will settle jittery drivers without negatively affecting value judgements that may include human life.
Yet everyone is affected. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2026922/
Alcoholic impairment of judgement is something that is much riskier than being able to stay in your lane, and is something most people (including you, apparently) either don't think about or don't know about. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-005-0057-9 Even small amounts of alcohol impair your ability to make risk/reward decisions. When driving, this means you damage your ability to decide to go ahead and hit the dog in the road when swerving would hit a pedestrian.
That is the problem with low amounts of alcohol. Not reaction time, but rather your ability to make the *correct* snap decision under pressure.
You are right, of course, but I looked at the potential use cases for bitcoin and I do not personally think it will really reach overpriced-tulip-mania price until it passes seven figures.
I believe we are in a bubble at this point in time because people are coming in from the mainstream coverage over the past week. I was hoping we would be well into 2014 before hitting four figures. There will be a correction, as there seems to be on a 8-month cycle, but the underlying idea seems to be driving a much longer trend that I do not see collapsing for a decade or more.
If you take a look at what bitcoin represents, the current price is vastly below steady-state.
Consider global payment remittance. That is a $500+ billion/year market (in profit, not considering the amount of money moving), and something bitcoin excels at. It will be extremely difficult for Wells Fargo (for example) to offer global money transfers for $0.05 flat rate. If bitcoin captures even a tiny section of that market, its current value is grossly under-market.
This is just one. There are several big ones that are immediately applicable, and many more that will require some work.
Lots of rehypothecation in the gold market, too ... how exactly is gold better?
Isn't it interesting how quickly we see comments decrying bitcoin, instead of marvelling at its technological ingenuity?
For a nerd news site, there sure are a lot of people blind to the future. Scratch that, blind to what's happening right now, let alone the future.
Waiting for bitcoin to drop is a dangerous game.
I can't tell you how many people I've heard say, "I'll buy when it drops back to $30....$50....$100...$300..." In a few day, I'll be hearing it about $1,000. "I shoulda bought when it dropped below $1,000 just before Thanksgiving!"
How about this for a revolutionary idea:
The price is going up because a lot of people are interested in it!
This price spike is a natural result of the mainstream coverage bitcoin enjoyed last week. It takes a few days for newbies to learn how to move money into bitcoin. Many of them have figured it out, thus today's spike (and crash).
Actually, you are wrong. Bitcoin has several million dollars worth of silicon and steel backing it up, in the form of mining equipment that is largely worthless for any other purpose.
You are correct, but you have missed the actual danger.
Even tiny amounts of alcohol affect risk aversion behavior. This affects your ability to make the correct snap decision in a surprise situation. Long before alcohol affects your ability to drive, it screws up your ability to go ahead and hit the animal in the road when swerving would kill a bicyclist (for example).
Your math is faulty. One squirt of tincture correlates to well under a gram of alcohol. Nevertheless, I contend that it does influence sensory perception and judgement for a short while, until it is removed from the blood stream.
Now if you want to argue that taking a squirt of tincture on a full stomach means the alcohol is absorbed so slowly that it doesn't affect judgement, I might agree with you. You would still be an idiot in my book, but you are probably safe to drive a car or carry a firearm.
Strawman fallacy, don't be obtuse. I am aware that those substances contain trace amounts of alcohol, but you cannot consume enough of them to even approach the beginnings of intoxication.
Unless the juice has fermented in your refridgerator, in which case yeah, no drinking before driving. Same for fruit.
A better question would be, what about yeast infections that manufacture ethanol in your gut? To which I answer, if you have that, do not drive. For example, http://www.kltv.com/story/23490141/mystery-infection-leaves-etx-man-legally-intoxicated.
An even more edge case question would be alcoholic tinctures. 1ml of echinacea-infused vodka is about 1/30 of an ounce. I would argue that if you throw back a squirt or two of tincture and get behind the wheel, you are a fucking fool. Wait 10 minutes for the liver to process it, then drive.
Sorry, but you are part of the problem. The fact that there is a legal amount you can drink and still drive is obscene. Passing the test is not the question. The question is whether you are a danger to others.
If you drink anything and get behind the wheel of a car before you are completely sober, you are endangering others. If you disagree, you are clearly ignorant of how alcohol affects judgement.
Why do you think anarchy is worse than the government we currently have? All of those functions you describe are perfectly reasonable to be accomplished on a town- or city-level at the highest.
You can't, but it's expensive to put all that stuff in. Worthwhile for a specific target, not for the rest of us.
Since we are talking about practicalities, I agree with each of your points. Authority is not consensus either, and sometimes it is absolutely required.
Personally, I think our only hope is to let the financial system collapse and embrace a permanent recession. 2007 was the peak CO2 output for the U.S.: every year since has shown a reduction in CO2 emissions. This, combined with our declining birth rate, are the first signs of hope I have seen.
Absolutely. Yet, consensus does not determine what is true or not true. If we are lucky, consensus agrees with truth. That is not necessarily the case.
Not so much; airplane mode does not disable camera or microphone. Furthermore, why should you trust airplane mode? The concern is that malicious software could pre-empt the users' instructions; wouldn't Airplane Mode potentially fall into this situation as well?
Your trust is misplaced, I think?
Put away the pitchfork, friend, and open your eyes. Would you like examples from history, or philosophy?