The right to drive, the right to carry a concealed weapon, the right to purchase alcohol,tobacco, the right to farm land, the right to pay less tax than other people are God given rights? Those rights are provided by the government.
No, those were actually all rights taken away by the government. You didn't use to need licenses to drive or carry weapons, you didn't use to need licenses to purchase alcohol or tobacco, or to farm, and people didn't use to have to pay income tax.
I've all along said to call it something else where it doesn't upset the church and then this group of people can make a case to the government as to why they should receive the same tax benefit as another group of people producing offspring when there is no possible way for them to.
So infertile heterosexual couples shouldn't receive tax benefits? Post-menopausal married women shouldn't receive tax benefits?
Also, most high schools (in the United States at least) don't have different tracks for STEM vs. non.
They effectively do. And by "high school level", I don't mean "I just barely passed the required courses", I mean "I did well enough to get into a science degree in college".
The fact that a humanities degree can be a catch basin for people that didn't really want to go to college in the first place or feel that you have to have a college degree to get a head doesn't really help,
No, that's in fact the problem: the humanities aren't intellectual fields anymore, they are fields for people who want academic credentials but aren't smart enough to do anything else.
Anthropology is actually a lousy example of someone that would need additional STEM education since it effectively is a STEM education.
Anthropology is a very mixed bag, like most humanities.
but the fact of the matter is that more often than not people with a STEM degree could do well with some more humanities (espically some writing classes, everyone needs more of those it seems like) than they generally care to admit.
Most science departments have given up on the humanities to teach anything useful. They teach their own writing classes, their own logical reasoning, and their own rhetoric (scientific talks).
However, the point that I was trying to get across is that advanced knowledge of calculus and some of the other examples that you gave really isn't meaning for to the vast majority of people
I didn't say "advanced knowledge of calculus", I said people should know calculus.
Saying that they need to have an understanding is all well and good, but without defining the parameters of what a resonable understanding would be, it's not very useful to say that.
What's reasonable is that they should be roughly one educational level ahead in their chosen field compared to another field. So, if you're an anthropology college grad, you should know as much science and math as a good high school science and math major. If you're a history Ph.D., you should have a good college level understanding of at least one scientific field. Etc. If you don't, don't call yourself an educated person.
People already can (and probably do) use ham radio for encrypted transmissions through steganography and you wouldn't even know it. Allowing this explicitly wouldn't let "the bad guys" do anything they can't already do, but it would help regular, law abiding citizens to use it more effectively and safely. It might also create a communications channel that you can be pretty certain is free from state-sponsored espionage and corporate control.
And I can't think of any reason for a physics major "to really need" any history or literature or philosophy. It's part of being an educated person. Without it, you have a grossly incompletely understanding of the world and man's place in it.
If you make an argument that scientists should understand the humanities, you need to accept that people in the humanities should understand science.
Your criticism of their choice of data set may or may not be valid. Your condemnation of the entire work ("garbage") is not and reflects a lack of understanding of the scientific method.
Engineering students should take humanities courses, and they often do. But humanities students should also take science and engineering courses. It's called a liberal arts education, and it should be mandatory. No English major, anthropologist, or historian should get a degree without demonstrating a reasonable understanding of statistics, calculus, physics, chemistry, and computer science.
Unfortunately, most people educated in the humanities are thoroughly ignorant of science, engineering, and mathematics. As a consequences, they are completely baffled by how the modern world works and then proceed to produce utter garbage in their own fields as a result.
We should be investigating the use of wind energy for moving ships. Perhaps there is some way (probably very complicated!) in which we could avoid converting the wind energy to electrical energy before converting it into propulsion. I have a feeling we might be able to create some zero emission ships that way.
You're comparing non-dispatchable and dispatchable energy sources; that doesn't make sense. Even in that comparison, wind is 50% more expensive than natural gas.
Wind will get adopted when it makes economic sense to do so, no sooner. If government wants to speed up the process, it should drop subsidies for all energy sources and reduce regulations.
This is how it went: subsidize rooftop panels ==> surge in demand ==> surge in production and private R&D (with some help form public R&D funding) ==> economies of scale and more efficient production methods ==> market saturation ==> price collapse
There hasn't been a "price collapse". The price of solar panels has steadily come down since the 1980's (and that's a good thing). Subsidies made no difference in the price decrease whatsoever (in fact, they may have contributed to a, fortunately temporary, shortage and price increase).
And then the twist ending ==> subsidies not longer as necessary ==> wave of consolidations ==> massive losses for solar shareholders but prices stay nice and low. Because there's a flip side to every coin.
Wow, you get your understanding of economics straight from Karl Marx? Actually, shareholders would love nothing more than to get prices down and demand up, because that means more money for the company.
If they could raise prices and still sell their stuff, they would've done so already, and just pocketed more money.
Who is this "they" you speak of? Some unidentifiable group of "evil rich guys"? Don't be stupid. Most companies are publicly traded: it's mostly people like you and I that "pocket" that money.
If their costs go up, this does not necessarily mean the price the market will bear will go up the same amount
Heck, prices may even go down, but so may salaries. In the end, "prices" just don't matter. If it takes 10% more labor or raw materials to produce the same output, then we are 10% poorer. No accounting tricks or inflation are going to help with that.
I'd rather spend $2 on R&D to improve technology than $1 on importing oil
You can spend as much as you like and it won't make any difference in the foreseeable future. There is no magical other source of energy. The bulk of energy can come from coal, gas, oil, and nuclear; pick one or more. Solar and wind are still far too expensive, and you can't artificially force their prices to come down. Of course, if you believe in cold fusion...
Yes, greater than 97% of scientists agree that the average temperature has been going up slighty over the last century). That's pretty much all they agree on.
Wow, talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. With people like you putting up such idiotic straw men, we're never going to get meaningful patent reform.
The term "regulation of innovation" has a common and pretty sinister meaning: government telling people how to innovate, what areas to innovate in, and what areas not to innovate in. Patents clearly do none of those things, and using the term "regulation of innovation" is misleading and biased.
Patents may disincentivize some innovation or raise the cost of innovation, but that's not regulation. Income tax disincentivizes spending and reduces the amount of money I have available for spending, but it doesn't "regulate" my spending.
Tabarrok seems to tacitly assume that innovation can be regulated via legislation.
Where in the world do you get that idea from?
He just says that too much patent protection has a cost that, at some point, must outweigh any benefits, so the optimal level of patent protection is not the maximum one. What the optimum level is, he doesn't know
If you're of the school that believes that patent protection is always bad, then his argument isn't meant for you. He isn't arguing for more patent protection with people like you, he is arguing against more patent protection with people who say "since some patent protection is good, more must be better".
Yes, that's the patent, and you're wrong. Just read the patent. That patent doesn't describe any hardware; it describes a way of modifying the layers of a 3D shape to be printed in software in order to allow smaller features to be printed. Nothing in the Formlabs printer hardware implements or infringes that patent. In fact, I doubt that this "invention" even runs on the printer; it makes far more sense to run it completely separately in the slicer. And, in addition, you don't need it to use the printer. 3D Systems was making printers for ten years before they implemented that themselves.
The hardware is non-infringing and has non-infringing uses (i.e., you can clearly print many useful things without that feature), so I don't see why its sales should be restricted. There is no clear evidence that Formlabs software was infringing, and if they had been, they could simply have removed the feature and delivered it via a software update 10 months later.
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No, those were actually all rights taken away by the government. You didn't use to need licenses to drive or carry weapons, you didn't use to need licenses to purchase alcohol or tobacco, or to farm, and people didn't use to have to pay income tax.
So infertile heterosexual couples shouldn't receive tax benefits? Post-menopausal married women shouldn't receive tax benefits?
If you own a pressure cooker and a box of nails, you are obviously in possession of the means for making a weapon of mass destruction.
Police states "work" in reducing crime. They don't "work" when it comes to providing a place anybody in their right mind wants to live.
They effectively do. And by "high school level", I don't mean "I just barely passed the required courses", I mean "I did well enough to get into a science degree in college".
No, that's in fact the problem: the humanities aren't intellectual fields anymore, they are fields for people who want academic credentials but aren't smart enough to do anything else.
Anthropology is a very mixed bag, like most humanities.
Most science departments have given up on the humanities to teach anything useful. They teach their own writing classes, their own logical reasoning, and their own rhetoric (scientific talks).
I didn't say "advanced knowledge of calculus", I said people should know calculus.
What's reasonable is that they should be roughly one educational level ahead in their chosen field compared to another field. So, if you're an anthropology college grad, you should know as much science and math as a good high school science and math major. If you're a history Ph.D., you should have a good college level understanding of at least one scientific field. Etc. If you don't, don't call yourself an educated person.
Welcome to Slashdot, Henrik Schoen!
You already can't determine the difference, nor is there any need to.
People already can (and probably do) use ham radio for encrypted transmissions through steganography and you wouldn't even know it. Allowing this explicitly wouldn't let "the bad guys" do anything they can't already do, but it would help regular, law abiding citizens to use it more effectively and safely. It might also create a communications channel that you can be pretty certain is free from state-sponsored espionage and corporate control.
And I can't think of any reason for a physics major "to really need" any history or literature or philosophy. It's part of being an educated person. Without it, you have a grossly incompletely understanding of the world and man's place in it.
If you make an argument that scientists should understand the humanities, you need to accept that people in the humanities should understand science.
Your criticism of their choice of data set may or may not be valid. Your condemnation of the entire work ("garbage") is not and reflects a lack of understanding of the scientific method.
Engineering students should take humanities courses, and they often do. But humanities students should also take science and engineering courses. It's called a liberal arts education, and it should be mandatory. No English major, anthropologist, or historian should get a degree without demonstrating a reasonable understanding of statistics, calculus, physics, chemistry, and computer science.
Unfortunately, most people educated in the humanities are thoroughly ignorant of science, engineering, and mathematics. As a consequences, they are completely baffled by how the modern world works and then proceed to produce utter garbage in their own fields as a result.
We should be investigating the use of wind energy for moving ships. Perhaps there is some way (probably very complicated!) in which we could avoid converting the wind energy to electrical energy before converting it into propulsion. I have a feeling we might be able to create some zero emission ships that way.
You're comparing non-dispatchable and dispatchable energy sources; that doesn't make sense. Even in that comparison, wind is 50% more expensive than natural gas.
Wind will get adopted when it makes economic sense to do so, no sooner. If government wants to speed up the process, it should drop subsidies for all energy sources and reduce regulations.
There hasn't been a "price collapse". The price of solar panels has steadily come down since the 1980's (and that's a good thing). Subsidies made no difference in the price decrease whatsoever (in fact, they may have contributed to a, fortunately temporary, shortage and price increase).
Wow, you get your understanding of economics straight from Karl Marx? Actually, shareholders would love nothing more than to get prices down and demand up, because that means more money for the company.
No, I learned it looking at the papers.
It appears you are confusing your progressive political sources with scientific sources.
Who is this "they" you speak of? Some unidentifiable group of "evil rich guys"? Don't be stupid. Most companies are publicly traded: it's mostly people like you and I that "pocket" that money.
Heck, prices may even go down, but so may salaries. In the end, "prices" just don't matter. If it takes 10% more labor or raw materials to produce the same output, then we are 10% poorer. No accounting tricks or inflation are going to help with that.
You can spend as much as you like and it won't make any difference in the foreseeable future. There is no magical other source of energy. The bulk of energy can come from coal, gas, oil, and nuclear; pick one or more. Solar and wind are still far too expensive, and you can't artificially force their prices to come down. Of course, if you believe in cold fusion...
Yes, greater than 97% of scientists agree that the average temperature has been going up slighty over the last century). That's pretty much all they agree on.
Wow, talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. With people like you putting up such idiotic straw men, we're never going to get meaningful patent reform.
The term "regulation of innovation" has a common and pretty sinister meaning: government telling people how to innovate, what areas to innovate in, and what areas not to innovate in. Patents clearly do none of those things, and using the term "regulation of innovation" is misleading and biased.
Patents may disincentivize some innovation or raise the cost of innovation, but that's not regulation. Income tax disincentivizes spending and reduces the amount of money I have available for spending, but it doesn't "regulate" my spending.
Be that as it may, the important conclusion is that limiting campaign contributions or publicly financed campaigns isn't addressing the problem.
And how does that translate into "regulation of innovation"???
Where in the world do you get that idea from?
He just says that too much patent protection has a cost that, at some point, must outweigh any benefits, so the optimal level of patent protection is not the maximum one. What the optimum level is, he doesn't know
If you're of the school that believes that patent protection is always bad, then his argument isn't meant for you. He isn't arguing for more patent protection with people like you, he is arguing against more patent protection with people who say "since some patent protection is good, more must be better".
Yes, that's the patent, and you're wrong. Just read the patent. That patent doesn't describe any hardware; it describes a way of modifying the layers of a 3D shape to be printed in software in order to allow smaller features to be printed. Nothing in the Formlabs printer hardware implements or infringes that patent. In fact, I doubt that this "invention" even runs on the printer; it makes far more sense to run it completely separately in the slicer. And, in addition, you don't need it to use the printer. 3D Systems was making printers for ten years before they implemented that themselves.
The hardware is non-infringing and has non-infringing uses (i.e., you can clearly print many useful things without that feature), so I don't see why its sales should be restricted. There is no clear evidence that Formlabs software was infringing, and if they had been, they could simply have removed the feature and delivered it via a software update 10 months later.