We should not ask statisticians to change their terms because people are too stupid to understand them.
I've always wondered about this attitude.
For me, any change requires an analysis of risk/reward versus value. For example, if code contains confusing names, it might be worthwhile to refactor it.
The tradeoff is in the time spent refactoring versus the perceived value - if it's a mature product that largely works with few planned updates and few people will have to deal with the confusion, then the effort outweighs the returned value. If the code is open source, being actively developed and with many eyes looking at it, there may be a great deal of value in making it easier to understand.
The same could be said of English versus Metric measurements. Why should the US change to use the new system when everyone understands the one we have?
If the Federal Reserve sometimes gets it wrong, there may be great value in changing terms. The effort to fix the mistakes people make might be a good deal less effort than changing the terms used by a subset of mathematicians.
You can look at the big picture and see changes that would return a large overall/distributed value, or you can look at small groups and see that making those changes would cost them time and effort.
Is it too much to ask statisticians to look at the big picture?
First of all, google is your friend. This is something that has been studied by many people, and many effective are available for you to use. For example, I happen to like the Method of loci which I use to memorize the main points of speeches and lists.
Different people like different methods, and there's a buffet of effective methods to choose from. Again, google is your friend.
That being said, here's the psychological answer:
If you want to increase your long term memory, you start with the theory of memory. Our brains remember things that are important to us, which means that either the information has perceived value or emotional content.
Emotional content in lectures is hard to get in a college setting - it's an aspect that good lecturers use - but you can use tricks to increase your retention. Get together with some friends and make up a "game" of reviewing the information. Play Jeopardy, make up funny physics stories, try to make puns from equations... anything that causes you and your group to laugh or think deeply will do. For example, how would "Ming the Merciless" destroy the Earth using magnetic fields (from your recent physics lecture)? Analyze it tongue-in-cheek with your friends to see if the idea is viable.
High value is anything that will get you towards your goals, but you can choose your goals. Pick an appropriate goal and you will sop up information like a sponge. Imagine starting your own company... what's your dream situation? All the MBA classes you are taking will now have new meaning: everything you are taught will cling to that goal like ornaments on a tree. Resolve to be an amateur astronomer who discovers a new comet, a teacher who wins "teacher of the year", a writer that wins a Hugo award... dream big and convince yourself that the information will get you towards that goal.
Learning is actually fun, and it's something your brain is evolved to do. As a consequence, and as a survival trait we get pleasure from learning. If you can tap into this basic function, you'll find that learning is both fun and easy.
Given the epidemic of stupid parents that refuse to immunise children nowadays it should not be long till many of the old virus's and diseases rear their ugly heads again.
Can't we feel good about doing something noble for a change? Even for a minute?
Polio remains endemic in three countries – Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. Until poliovirus transmission is interrupted in these countries, all countries remain at risk of importation of polio, especially in the ‘poliovirus importation belt’ of countries from west Africa to the Horn of Africa.
Only 372 cases worldwide last year! If we're careful, if we can convince certain political groups that polio is not an appropriate weapon of terrorism(*), we'll soon eliminate it completely.
Interestingly, polio is monitored from the sewage system in India. Since that appears to work for polio, people are thinking about using this method to monitor other things: other diseases, weapons manufacture, drug manufacture, and so on.
(*) Not making this up - some groups in Afghanistan think that spreading polio is a good way to get back at the Great Satan.
AI is not all about making "computer programs that can think" (a.k.a "Strong AI"), it's more about creating systems that can adapt to their environment in order to improve their chance of success.
Take a few moments and see if you can come up with a definition of Intelligence - one that can be used as a metric to see whether a topic falls within the field of study.
Abstract Algebra has a precise definition, so it's pretty easy to tell whether something falls within the realm of Abstract Algebra. There are corner cases and some overlap, but the field is pretty-well delineated.
In contrast, AI is all over the map. Anything and everything can be put under the term, including lots of stuff that more rightly belongs in other areas.
If you can come up with a good precise definition, you'll be the first.
Regex me a list of folks that have time to sit around fucking off their life-time in order to write a regex to work on the XKCD "problem", and folks that don't.
The field of study known as "AI" has been stagnant, for about 50 years now. One of the field's many problems is the lack of a good definition for intelligence.
Despite lacking a definition, we have working examples intelligent systems in the real world - humans.
Humans are very good at partitioning sets by descriptive differences, and they discover these descriptive rules largely by themselves.
We don't know what intelligence is yet, but if we keep looking at problems and trying to figure out the human approach, eventually we'll have enough contrasts and similarity to partition sets based on differences in intelligence.
In other words, the more problems we solve, the more data we can use to formulate rules that define intelligence.
That's a pretty important and useful goal.
(And belaboring the obvious: If we had even simple AI constructs we could automate much of out work force, freeing us up for more leisurely pursuits. Whether this leads to a post-scarcity utopia or unemployment/welfare apocalypse depends on your political affiliation.)
Absent any other evidence, is admission of guilt on the internet sufficient to convict someone in ideal circumstances?
Does anyone here with legal knowledge know the answer?
(I understand that you can get convicted of anything for any reason, and even for no reason, but I'm wondering about theory here. What's the situation, given an honest judge and correct representation?)
(And no, I'm not seeking legal advice on the internet since I'm not accused of a crime.)
Some examples of late: picture of teenager holding a beer (or holding a joint) leads to alcohol/drug charges, tweeting that you were driving drunk, and so on.
One issue that studies never seem to take into account is responsibility.
If a group of people will be killed but you could decide to kill a single person, there is a third option: you could choose not to decide.
When you switch the tracks you are taking responsibility for making the decision, and all consequences thereto. There will be an inquest, you will be brought up under charges for manslaughter, your actions will be made public in the newspaper... all sorts of bad things will happen, and your life will be forever changed.
For a recent example, consider the recent Asiana Airlines Flight 214, where a woman was run over by a fire truck. The battalion chief responsible for directing operations was put through the wringer by over-zealous bureaucrats looking for someone to blame. His helmet cam footage was all that saved him. Blameless, he only narrowly escaped taking the blame.
If you simply walk away, then it's not your problem. The responsibility lies somewhere else, no one can blame you for not making the decision. You weren't expected to handle it, it's not your fault.
This makes perfect sense in the current study: there's no consequences for killing virtual people, so it's easy to make the moral choice.
Real morality takes courage, and the willingness to sacrifice.
Flame away, but [...] People want to trade one fiat currency, for another? Okay. What's the point?
Our economic challenge is one of resource scarcity. Coming up with schemes to trade compute time for fiat paper is not doing anyone any good.
Your post was neither inflammatory nor derisive. Ask, and it will be answered.
Crypto currency has three major advantages over state-issued currency: reduced transaction fees, no counter-party risk, and lower barrier for use.
1) Counter party risk in this case is where some agent involved in a transaction does something which is not in the interests of the participants.
For example, consider the parties involved in making an eBay purchase: eBay can sell your purchasing habits to advertizers, PayPal could take your money and not give it back, ChoicePoint can lose your identity info, VISA can sell your buying habits, and your bank can give all your history to the government.
Each party adds a little bit of risk to your transaction without any benefit to you and without your consent.
Cryptocurrencies eliminate these risks entirely.
2) Transaction processors charge a hefty fee for their services - upwards of 5% in total cost, with a high minimum charge.
Crypto currency transactions have much smaller fees. With no employees or physical cards or credit scoring mechanism, there's very little overhead - just a few cpu cycles per transaction.
This will push prices down (or profits up) by 5% or more for anyone who uses the new system. A merchant could lower prices by 5% for crypto-currency transactions, and make the same profit with a competitive advantage over their competitors.
That's huge.
Lower fees will admit micropayments. That's also huge.
3) Crypto-currencies increase market liquidity in two ways: the reduced fees allow micro-transactions, and they have no barrier to use.
Anyone can use cryptocoin without a credit check, permanent address, or bank account. Cryptocoin is similar to a "prepaid" credit card with no fees. If you have the money, you can use it... there's no need to connect to government or the financial system. Anyone with a cell phone and the money can make transactions online, which will be popular in poor nations. The world economic market could skyrocket.
That's also also huge.
Overall, crypto-currencies hold a lot of promise for being more valuable and easier to use than traditional systems. Whether this added value is enough to foster widespread adoption is up for debate, but there's enormous incentive to do so.
Actually, there is an interesting related statistic, when you adjust for children raised in single parent households, black and white crime rates essentially equalize.
Thanks!
That neatly addresses my misgivings about citing that particular statistic.
I'll switch to your statistic with a clear conscience.
Ok, here is my question. I don't own a gun right now. If I get one, will the chance of death or injury (not just gun related) increase or decrease for me and my family? Is this a good enough question? I don't really care about being robbed. I don't own anything that can be easily taken from me and leave me ruined.
BINGO!!!
That's the right question to ask: "overall, is this good for everyone?"
One way to measure this is to look at mortality rates from all causes, comparing between similar environments.
Look at mortality rates between European countries with and without strong gun control laws. Look at mortality rates in the US between cities and areas with and without strong gun laws.
Well, here's a new section for my "beating down democracy" book.
Suppose you want to discredit crypto-currencies, or at least dilute their effect. What can you do?
You can start a raft of new currencies with sketchy names and origins. Currencies based on celebrities, currencies based on businesses, sports (such as Nascar commemorative plates - good as gold in many US locations), and even personal currencies!
"We can't stop people from using BitCoin! What can we do?"
"Let's generate alternatives - so many that people won't know which ones to use."
People don't even read the summaries here, let alone the articles. What makes you think anyone is going to bother doing the research? Especially if, as you seem to believe, they have preconceived notions that bias their views on the matter? They will discount you as a troll, disregard your commentary, and continue on in their beliefs.
I agree with your sentiment entirely, but at the same time I'm conducting experiments to find out. As a field of study, how does one change someone's mind about an issue? What techniques can be used?
As far as trolling, I use the Slashdot feedback system as a metric to tell what works and what doesn't. Getting a +5 tells me that the post is not particularly trollish, and was favourably accepted by most of the readers. I've put my views in front of a host of readers, with little or no push-back. That's a success.
I'm sensitive to the issues you raise, and am actively trying to navigate them.
In America a disproportionate number of gun murders are committed by blacks.
Northern European countries don't have the percentage of black population that America does (England 3%, America 13%), and compensating for this difference puts American gun violence at an almost even footing with Europe.
I didn't mention that in my original post, and I hesitate to put it even here because of the ramifications. Statistically, to reduce gun crime we should pass laws restricting blacks more than whites.
This is not what America is about, and I don't want to change that aspect of America, but it helps illustrate the difficulty in making an informed decision.
well, don't leave us hanging. after all that pontification, you could have at least given us the right question, and the answer, and the evidence to back it up! jeez!
Giving the answer doesn't seem to work well in practice.
As an experiment, I'm trying to encourage people to find the answer for themselves. My theory is that, by leaving you hanging you will have incentive to find the answer in systemic mode. The incentive comes from the need to fulfill an unanswered question, and phrasing it as a question puts the reader in systemic mode.
Your response indicates emotional involvement (annoyance), so I take that as (at least partial) success: the technique can foster involvement on the part of the reader.
Thanks for the feedback - I'll make note of it.
(And no, this isn't a jab. I'm completely serious.)
If one wanted to kill an idea, if one wanted to wage a propaganda war on an extreme viewpoint or tool, here is one way to do it.
Of course, you display the same methodology in supporting your idea - positing simplified and idealized circumstances and then treating said meme as reality.
Let's use the the same techniques our opponents use.
You're already doing it - your blinders are just too tight for you to see it. People rarely notice logical flaws when they accrue to their favor.
Whaddaya mean - "not see it"? I'm doing it actively, with that intent in a carefully thought-out manner. I'm literally experimenting with propaganda techniques, using this forum for feedback and in anticipation of the upcoming election (November). I'm trying to learn how to manipulate public opinion.
Clearly, having a full auto rifle would help the sick person achieve his goals more efficiently.
I'll tell you why there are so few deaths from fully automatic assault rifles: gun control works.
As someone who deals with statistics as his day job (AI research: extracting signal from noise), I find the question of gun control fascinating.
Ideally, there should be an evidence-based answer that one can use as a basis of opinion. We have an enormous amount of evidence and analysis from which to draw out conclusions, so the answer should be obvious.
Is it?
Actually, it is. There is a clear and unambiguous answer to the issue of gun control, an answer based on evidence and when implemented would minimize societal damage. Anyone who cares can go looking for it...
...and they will likely fail. The issue is completely polluted by bad statistics, emotional argument, and improper comparison. By both sides of the debate.
To a statistician and armchair observer, this is what makes it fascinating. The country cries out for the definitive answer that no one - no side of the debate - will give. I find it highly amusing.
Some examples:
Comparing America to any other country is not valid. Unlike other countries, America does not have good health care, which presents an overwhelming influence on the statistics. Fewer people die from guns in country X, but fewer people die from any cause in country X so don't form your opinion on that.
Comparing America to England specifically will not work because the two countries count murders differently. In America a gunshot victim is either an accident, suicide, or murder. In England, it's not murder unless there's a trial and conviction. England has fewer gun murders than the US, but it's not relevant.
Calling attention to a narrow, specific statistic will not work because it asks the wrong question. "If you own a gun you're more likely to shoot someone you know than an unknown assailant" is my favourite, but there are others: "...more likely to commit suicide by gun", "...more likely to accidentally shoot a family member", and so on. These are carefully-worded responses of the same nature as NSA denials: literally true and misleading.
Any statistic statistic related to deaths or injuries won't work because it asks the wrong question. Guns have an influence on society and behaviour that goes beyond their actual use: disincentives for crime, for example.
Can you find the right question to ask?
Once you have the right question, you can compare different sections within America to each other, and different European countries (with similar health care) to each other.
When you do that, the evidence is strong and unambiguous... but I find the squabble and debate surrounding the issue Pythonesque, almost something that Franz Kafka would write.
then how do you stop some bot taking many usernames every second? (doesn't say in the FAQ, and it could be a real problem if multiple bots try to generate many usernames each)
That's an interesting and insightful point.
I'm going to forward it to Miguel and the people over at the Twister forum (unless you'd like to do it - I'll hold off for a couple of hours in case you do).
This is exactly what they need. A nascent project looking for feedback from smart, informed, and motivated users.
The blockchain will soon grow disproportionally large. Right now it's probably managable, but you know what? I'm not downloading tens of gigabytes of blockchain just for the plessure of reading lols on decentralized blogs.
Nice idea though...
Apropos of nothing, where are you getting this meme?
I only ask because it doesn't happen to be true, yet it's an oft-repeated meme that everyone seems to put forth as the BitCoin "killer" flaw.
tl;dr Here's the relevant passage from that link:
It is not required for most fully validating nodes to store the entire chain. [...] the size of the unspent output set is less than 100MiB, which is small enough to easily fit in RAM for even quite old computers.
If one wanted to kill an idea, if one wanted to wage a propaganda war on an extreme viewpoint or tool, here is one way to do it.
1) Assume people know the basics of the system, but not the details.
2) Construct a "problem" consistent with the basic knowledge
3) Loudly advertize that "problem" and let others pick up and repeat it
It certainly seems plausible given the basics. Every transaction will add to the blockchain, and we process a whopping-big number of financial transactions every day! The blockchain will soon become unmanageable, and BitCoin will fail!
I've seen this in other arenas, including politics. Al Gore invented the internet for instance. He didn't, he never said that he did, but he did say something vaguely similar. It certainly seems plausible that this is what he did say, and boy what a gaff! It makes him look sooooo silly!
We should promote our own agenda this way - the UK spam filter, for instance. What right risible meme can we invent that is close enough to reality that people would find it plausible, repeat it, and use it to label the filter as badly conceived?
Let's use the the same techniques our opponents use. Human psychology, for the win.
How do you register a username in a fully decentralized environment?
In like manner of BitCoin registering a transaction in a fully decentralized way.
1) You make the claim to a username with a set of encryption keys.
2) The daemons accept the transaction and insert it into the block chain.
From then on, the only person who can claim to be that username must present credentials based on the encryption keys. Keep those safe, and no one cal masquerade as you on the system.
And yes, I know it's for distributing information without the iron heel of an oppressive government digging into you. And in all fairness, it could be used for that. In reality though, the people most likely to use this aren't actual freedom crusaders.
A genuine, bona-fide, copyright cartel internet shill. Bingo - Got one!
Yes people, let's not support this because we all know what sorts of unsavoury activities will be found there! It just kills me that someone might be doing something I don't like on the internet, and there will be no way to stop it!!!
There's no value in any of the other activities that might go on - none whatsoever.
The architecture is designed so that other users can’t know if you are online or not, what your IP address is, or which users’ posts you might be reading.
also:
Q: How do you make money out of this? A: I don't.
I like your definition of "Tech bubble" - we can use it as a label to beat down or promote all sorts of extreme views on the internets.
Slashdot Mirror
On the other hand, you also need to use 2-pass algorithms to compute Mean Absolute Deviation, whereas STD can be easily calculated in one pass.
Okay, just to be clear: you're saying that we should use STD because (in part) it's faster and easier to calculate?
Isn't that like the drunk looking for his keys under the lamppost - instead of where he dropped them - because the light is better?
We should not ask statisticians to change their terms because people are too stupid to understand them.
I've always wondered about this attitude.
For me, any change requires an analysis of risk/reward versus value. For example, if code contains confusing names, it might be worthwhile to refactor it.
The tradeoff is in the time spent refactoring versus the perceived value - if it's a mature product that largely works with few planned updates and few people will have to deal with the confusion, then the effort outweighs the returned value. If the code is open source, being actively developed and with many eyes looking at it, there may be a great deal of value in making it easier to understand.
The same could be said of English versus Metric measurements. Why should the US change to use the new system when everyone understands the one we have?
If the Federal Reserve sometimes gets it wrong, there may be great value in changing terms. The effort to fix the mistakes people make might be a good deal less effort than changing the terms used by a subset of mathematicians.
You can look at the big picture and see changes that would return a large overall/distributed value, or you can look at small groups and see that making those changes would cost them time and effort.
Is it too much to ask statisticians to look at the big picture?
First of all, google is your friend. This is something that has been studied by many people, and many effective are available for you to use. For example, I happen to like the Method of loci which I use to memorize the main points of speeches and lists.
Different people like different methods, and there's a buffet of effective methods to choose from. Again, google is your friend.
That being said, here's the psychological answer:
If you want to increase your long term memory, you start with the theory of memory. Our brains remember things that are important to us, which means that either the information has perceived value or emotional content.
Emotional content in lectures is hard to get in a college setting - it's an aspect that good lecturers use - but you can use tricks to increase your retention. Get together with some friends and make up a "game" of reviewing the information. Play Jeopardy, make up funny physics stories, try to make puns from equations... anything that causes you and your group to laugh or think deeply will do. For example, how would "Ming the Merciless" destroy the Earth using magnetic fields (from your recent physics lecture)? Analyze it tongue-in-cheek with your friends to see if the idea is viable.
High value is anything that will get you towards your goals, but you can choose your goals. Pick an appropriate goal and you will sop up information like a sponge. Imagine starting your own company... what's your dream situation? All the MBA classes you are taking will now have new meaning: everything you are taught will cling to that goal like ornaments on a tree. Resolve to be an amateur astronomer who discovers a new comet, a teacher who wins "teacher of the year", a writer that wins a Hugo award... dream big and convince yourself that the information will get you towards that goal.
Learning is actually fun, and it's something your brain is evolved to do. As a consequence, and as a survival trait we get pleasure from learning. If you can tap into this basic function, you'll find that learning is both fun and easy.
Given the epidemic of stupid parents that refuse to immunise children nowadays it should not be long till many of the old virus's and diseases rear their ugly heads again.
Can't we feel good about doing something noble for a change? Even for a minute?
Have a heart, guy!
From the Polio Eradication Website:
Polio remains endemic in three countries – Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. Until poliovirus transmission is interrupted in these countries, all countries remain at risk of importation of polio, especially in the ‘poliovirus importation belt’ of countries from west Africa to the Horn of Africa.
Only 372 cases worldwide last year! If we're careful, if we can convince certain political groups that polio is not an appropriate weapon of terrorism(*), we'll soon eliminate it completely.
Interestingly, polio is monitored from the sewage system in India. Since that appears to work for polio, people are thinking about using this method to monitor other things: other diseases, weapons manufacture, drug manufacture, and so on.
(*) Not making this up - some groups in Afghanistan think that spreading polio is a good way to get back at the Great Satan.
AI is not all about making "computer programs that can think" (a.k.a "Strong AI"), it's more about creating systems that can adapt to their environment in order to improve their chance of success.
Take a few moments and see if you can come up with a definition of Intelligence - one that can be used as a metric to see whether a topic falls within the field of study.
Abstract Algebra has a precise definition, so it's pretty easy to tell whether something falls within the realm of Abstract Algebra. There are corner cases and some overlap, but the field is pretty-well delineated.
In contrast, AI is all over the map. Anything and everything can be put under the term, including lots of stuff that more rightly belongs in other areas.
If you can come up with a good precise definition, you'll be the first.
Be sure to allow cookies, else the site won't work.
Cookies are an essential part of websites nowadays, dontcha' know...
Regex me a list of folks that have time to sit around fucking off their life-time in order to write a regex to work on the XKCD "problem", and folks that don't.
The field of study known as "AI" has been stagnant, for about 50 years now. One of the field's many problems is the lack of a good definition for intelligence.
Despite lacking a definition, we have working examples intelligent systems in the real world - humans.
Humans are very good at partitioning sets by descriptive differences, and they discover these descriptive rules largely by themselves.
We don't know what intelligence is yet, but if we keep looking at problems and trying to figure out the human approach, eventually we'll have enough contrasts and similarity to partition sets based on differences in intelligence.
In other words, the more problems we solve, the more data we can use to formulate rules that define intelligence.
That's a pretty important and useful goal.
(And belaboring the obvious: If we had even simple AI constructs we could automate much of out work force, freeing us up for more leisurely pursuits. Whether this leads to a post-scarcity utopia or unemployment/welfare apocalypse depends on your political affiliation.)
One thing I've wondered about of late is the reliability of evidence collected on the internet.
We've heard cases where someone was arrested because they admitted to something on Twitter, or had a picture of themselves doing something wrong on Facebook, and so on.
Absent any other evidence, is admission of guilt on the internet sufficient to convict someone in ideal circumstances?
Does anyone here with legal knowledge know the answer?
(I understand that you can get convicted of anything for any reason, and even for no reason, but I'm wondering about theory here. What's the situation, given an honest judge and correct representation?)
(And no, I'm not seeking legal advice on the internet since I'm not accused of a crime.)
Some examples of late: picture of teenager holding a beer (or holding a joint) leads to alcohol/drug charges, tweeting that you were driving drunk, and so on.
One issue that studies never seem to take into account is responsibility.
If a group of people will be killed but you could decide to kill a single person, there is a third option: you could choose not to decide.
When you switch the tracks you are taking responsibility for making the decision, and all consequences thereto. There will be an inquest, you will be brought up under charges for manslaughter, your actions will be made public in the newspaper... all sorts of bad things will happen, and your life will be forever changed.
For a recent example, consider the recent Asiana Airlines Flight 214, where a woman was run over by a fire truck. The battalion chief responsible for directing operations was put through the wringer by over-zealous bureaucrats looking for someone to blame. His helmet cam footage was all that saved him. Blameless, he only narrowly escaped taking the blame.
If you simply walk away, then it's not your problem. The responsibility lies somewhere else, no one can blame you for not making the decision. You weren't expected to handle it, it's not your fault.
This makes perfect sense in the current study: there's no consequences for killing virtual people, so it's easy to make the moral choice.
Real morality takes courage, and the willingness to sacrifice.
Flame away, but [...] People want to trade one fiat currency, for another? Okay. What's the point?
Our economic challenge is one of resource scarcity. Coming up with schemes to trade compute time for fiat paper is not doing anyone any good.
Your post was neither inflammatory nor derisive. Ask, and it will be answered.
Crypto currency has three major advantages over state-issued currency: reduced transaction fees, no counter-party risk, and lower barrier for use.
1) Counter party risk in this case is where some agent involved in a transaction does something which is not in the interests of the participants.
For example, consider the parties involved in making an eBay purchase: eBay can sell your purchasing habits to advertizers, PayPal could take your money and not give it back, ChoicePoint can lose your identity info, VISA can sell your buying habits, and your bank can give all your history to the government.
Each party adds a little bit of risk to your transaction without any benefit to you and without your consent.
Cryptocurrencies eliminate these risks entirely.
2) Transaction processors charge a hefty fee for their services - upwards of 5% in total cost, with a high minimum charge.
Crypto currency transactions have much smaller fees. With no employees or physical cards or credit scoring mechanism, there's very little overhead - just a few cpu cycles per transaction.
This will push prices down (or profits up) by 5% or more for anyone who uses the new system. A merchant could lower prices by 5% for crypto-currency transactions, and make the same profit with a competitive advantage over their competitors.
That's huge.
Lower fees will admit micropayments. That's also huge.
3) Crypto-currencies increase market liquidity in two ways: the reduced fees allow micro-transactions, and they have no barrier to use.
Anyone can use cryptocoin without a credit check, permanent address, or bank account. Cryptocoin is similar to a "prepaid" credit card with no fees. If you have the money, you can use it... there's no need to connect to government or the financial system. Anyone with a cell phone and the money can make transactions online, which will be popular in poor nations. The world economic market could skyrocket.
That's also also huge.
Overall, crypto-currencies hold a lot of promise for being more valuable and easier to use than traditional systems. Whether this added value is enough to foster widespread adoption is up for debate, but there's enormous incentive to do so.
Actually, there is an interesting related statistic, when you adjust for children raised in single parent households, black and white crime rates essentially equalize.
Thanks!
That neatly addresses my misgivings about citing that particular statistic.
I'll switch to your statistic with a clear conscience.
Ok, here is my question. I don't own a gun right now. If I get one, will the chance of death or injury (not just gun related) increase or decrease for me and my family? Is this a good enough question?
I don't really care about being robbed. I don't own anything that can be easily taken from me and leave me ruined.
BINGO!!!
That's the right question to ask: "overall, is this good for everyone?"
One way to measure this is to look at mortality rates from all causes, comparing between similar environments.
Look at mortality rates between European countries with and without strong gun control laws. Look at mortality rates in the US between cities and areas with and without strong gun laws.
Well, here's a new section for my "beating down democracy" book.
Suppose you want to discredit crypto-currencies, or at least dilute their effect. What can you do?
You can start a raft of new currencies with sketchy names and origins. Currencies based on celebrities, currencies based on businesses, sports (such as Nascar commemorative plates - good as gold in many US locations), and even personal currencies!
"We can't stop people from using BitCoin! What can we do?"
"Let's generate alternatives - so many that people won't know which ones to use."
"You mean like software standards?"
"Yes - exactly like software standards."
"Heh. They'll never see that coming..."
People don't even read the summaries here, let alone the articles. What makes you think anyone is going to bother doing the research? Especially if, as you seem to believe, they have preconceived notions that bias their views on the matter? They will discount you as a troll, disregard your commentary, and continue on in their beliefs.
I agree with your sentiment entirely, but at the same time I'm conducting experiments to find out. As a field of study, how does one change someone's mind about an issue? What techniques can be used?
As far as trolling, I use the Slashdot feedback system as a metric to tell what works and what doesn't. Getting a +5 tells me that the post is not particularly trollish, and was favourably accepted by most of the readers. I've put my views in front of a host of readers, with little or no push-back. That's a success.
I'm sensitive to the issues you raise, and am actively trying to navigate them.
Care to join me?
In America a disproportionate number of gun murders are committed by blacks.
Northern European countries don't have the percentage of black population that America does (England 3%, America 13%), and compensating for this difference puts American gun violence at an almost even footing with Europe.
I didn't mention that in my original post, and I hesitate to put it even here because of the ramifications. Statistically, to reduce gun crime we should pass laws restricting blacks more than whites.
This is not what America is about, and I don't want to change that aspect of America, but it helps illustrate the difficulty in making an informed decision.
well, don't leave us hanging. after all that pontification, you could have at least given us the right question, and the answer, and the evidence to back it up! jeez!
Giving the answer doesn't seem to work well in practice.
As an experiment, I'm trying to encourage people to find the answer for themselves. My theory is that, by leaving you hanging you will have incentive to find the answer in systemic mode. The incentive comes from the need to fulfill an unanswered question, and phrasing it as a question puts the reader in systemic mode.
Your response indicates emotional involvement (annoyance), so I take that as (at least partial) success: the technique can foster involvement on the part of the reader.
Thanks for the feedback - I'll make note of it.
(And no, this isn't a jab. I'm completely serious.)
Strawman arguments are lies.
So are cakes(*).
What's your point?
(*) Apparently - I'm only getting this from the internet.
If one wanted to kill an idea, if one wanted to wage a propaganda war on an extreme viewpoint or tool, here is one way to do it.
Of course, you display the same methodology in supporting your idea - positing simplified and idealized circumstances and then treating said meme as reality.
Let's use the the same techniques our opponents use.
You're already doing it - your blinders are just too tight for you to see it. People rarely notice logical flaws when they accrue to their favor.
Whaddaya mean - "not see it"? I'm doing it actively, with that intent in a carefully thought-out manner. I'm literally experimenting with propaganda techniques, using this forum for feedback and in anticipation of the upcoming election (November). I'm trying to learn how to manipulate public opinion.
Is that bad?
tl;dr: Whoosh!
Clearly, having a full auto rifle would help the sick person achieve his goals more efficiently.
I'll tell you why there are so few deaths from fully automatic assault rifles: gun control works.
As someone who deals with statistics as his day job (AI research: extracting signal from noise), I find the question of gun control fascinating.
Ideally, there should be an evidence-based answer that one can use as a basis of opinion. We have an enormous amount of evidence and analysis from which to draw out conclusions, so the answer should be obvious.
Is it?
Actually, it is. There is a clear and unambiguous answer to the issue of gun control, an answer based on evidence and when implemented would minimize societal damage. Anyone who cares can go looking for it...
To a statistician and armchair observer, this is what makes it fascinating. The country cries out for the definitive answer that no one - no side of the debate - will give. I find it highly amusing.
Some examples:
Comparing America to any other country is not valid. Unlike other countries, America does not have good health care, which presents an overwhelming influence on the statistics. Fewer people die from guns in country X, but fewer people die from any cause in country X so don't form your opinion on that.
Comparing America to England specifically will not work because the two countries count murders differently. In America a gunshot victim is either an accident, suicide, or murder. In England, it's not murder unless there's a trial and conviction. England has fewer gun murders than the US, but it's not relevant.
Calling attention to a narrow, specific statistic will not work because it asks the wrong question. "If you own a gun you're more likely to shoot someone you know than an unknown assailant" is my favourite, but there are others: "...more likely to commit suicide by gun", "...more likely to accidentally shoot a family member", and so on. These are carefully-worded responses of the same nature as NSA denials: literally true and misleading.
Any statistic statistic related to deaths or injuries won't work because it asks the wrong question. Guns have an influence on society and behaviour that goes beyond their actual use: disincentives for crime, for example.
Can you find the right question to ask?
Once you have the right question, you can compare different sections within America to each other, and different European countries (with similar health care) to each other.
When you do that, the evidence is strong and unambiguous... but I find the squabble and debate surrounding the issue Pythonesque, almost something that Franz Kafka would write.
Fascinating. And highly amusing.
then how do you stop some bot taking many usernames every second? (doesn't say in the FAQ, and it could be a real problem if multiple bots try to generate many usernames each)
That's an interesting and insightful point.
I'm going to forward it to Miguel and the people over at the Twister forum (unless you'd like to do it - I'll hold off for a couple of hours in case you do).
This is exactly what they need. A nascent project looking for feedback from smart, informed, and motivated users.
The blockchain will soon grow disproportionally large. Right now it's probably managable, but you know what? I'm not downloading tens of gigabytes of blockchain just for the plessure of reading lols on decentralized blogs.
Nice idea though...
Apropos of nothing, where are you getting this meme?
I only ask because it doesn't happen to be true, yet it's an oft-repeated meme that everyone seems to put forth as the BitCoin "killer" flaw.
tl;dr Here's the relevant passage from that link:
It is not required for most fully validating nodes to store the entire chain. [...] the size of the unspent output set is less than 100MiB, which is small enough to easily fit in RAM for even quite old computers.
If one wanted to kill an idea, if one wanted to wage a propaganda war on an extreme viewpoint or tool, here is one way to do it.
It certainly seems plausible given the basics. Every transaction will add to the blockchain, and we process a whopping-big number of financial transactions every day! The blockchain will soon become unmanageable, and BitCoin will fail!
I've seen this in other arenas, including politics. Al Gore invented the internet for instance. He didn't, he never said that he did, but he did say something vaguely similar. It certainly seems plausible that this is what he did say, and boy what a gaff! It makes him look sooooo silly!
We should promote our own agenda this way - the UK spam filter, for instance. What right risible meme can we invent that is close enough to reality that people would find it plausible, repeat it, and use it to label the filter as badly conceived?
Let's use the the same techniques our opponents use. Human psychology, for the win.
How do you register a username in a fully decentralized environment?
In like manner of BitCoin registering a transaction in a fully decentralized way.
1) You make the claim to a username with a set of encryption keys.
2) The daemons accept the transaction and insert it into the block chain.
From then on, the only person who can claim to be that username must present credentials based on the encryption keys. Keep those safe, and no one cal masquerade as you on the system.
And yes, I know it's for distributing information without the iron heel of an oppressive government digging into you. And in all fairness, it could be used for that. In reality though, the people most likely to use this aren't actual freedom crusaders.
A genuine, bona-fide, copyright cartel internet shill. Bingo - Got one!
Yes people, let's not support this because we all know what sorts of unsavoury activities will be found there! It just kills me that someone might be doing something I don't like on the internet, and there will be no way to stop it!!!
There's no value in any of the other activities that might go on - none whatsoever.
Tech bubble anyone?
From the twister FAQ:
The architecture is designed so that other users can’t know if you are online or not, what your IP address is, or which users’ posts you might be reading.
also:
Q: How do you make money out of this? A: I don't.
I like your definition of "Tech bubble" - we can use it as a label to beat down or promote all sorts of extreme views on the internets.
Do you have a newsletter I can subscribe to?