yeah spending hundreds of millions of dollars eradicating diseases like malaria in poor countries is so immoral...oh right but you only care that Windows is closed source.
To be fair, Gates got that money by breaking the law. His unfair competition resulted worldwide adoption of an insecure system, causing untold hardship across the industry (against more robust systems with few security flaws).
Should we cheer Al Capone for the good he was doing for Chicago?
The fundamental problem with this is that overeating doesn't cause obesity.
Some recent scientific results (*) have clarified obesity, and are completely at odds with every "common knowledge" explanation. The bad news is that we don't know what causes obesity and there's nothing anyone can do [currently] to combat it. The good news is that it's not related to a) what you eat(**) b) how much you eat, c) your willpower, d) genetics, or e) exercise.
Relax, it's not your fault.
In the current model the digestive system presents a river of nutrients, from which the body takes what it needs to maintain a specific weight.The body has a set-point in the manner of a thermometer for how much nutrition to take in, and something in the environment disturbs this set-point(***), resulting in obesity. There is strong statistical evidence that this is not related to the amount or type of food eaten(*) (within dietary reason) or the level of exercise. Over 700 possible factors have been suggested, including Bisphenol-A in packaging, estrogenic compounds in the environment, and water fluoridation.
Your diet worked for you, and that's great; however, it didn't fix your obesity(***): something you did along with the diet changed the environment and your body regained a normal set-point. For this reason, no diet is universal: it's happenstance.
Exercise isn't what fixed your obesity. Again, nothing related to nutrition (within obvious limits) or exercise is the cause of obesity. Something else is at play. Whether exercise is good for you is a different issue; it's just not the cause of your obesity.
Modeling your body as a thermodynamic system sounds logical and "makes sense", but without actually going into starvation it's not the correct description of the problem. You can burn many calories simply by sleeping with fewer covers (more than you can by exercising), but your body will simply take more from the stream. This won't affect your obesity.
* Modern-day laboratory animals are fat, despite having the same diet and exercise as lab animals raised in previous decades. Statistically, the trend is very strong.
** A nutritional balance is necessary (of course). Whether junk food is good for you is a separate issue; however, it's not the cause of your obesity.
*** The difference in caloric intake between normal and obese is about 30 calories/day (about 3 peanut M&Ms), which is roughly 1% of your daily nutritional needs. No diet has this level of resolution, no diet can be this accurate by measuring servings without taking into account the condition of the serving (ie - chicken fattier than average, veggies drier than average, &c.)
I'm assuming you're being sarcastic, but the fact is that because as a species we've been systematically looking into the unknowns for a few hundred years now, there's not very much low-hanging fruit left.
(Yes, I was being sarcastic)
I strongly disagree. I've read many scientific papers which are nothing more than refinements of manufacturing technique, and I've seen lots of innovative ideas posted on blog sites by people who try things out, simply because they don't know any reason why it won't work.
I'm all about bolstering arguments with examples, so let's examine chemistry.
Chemistry has lots of underlying theory and calculations, but whenever I read chemistry papers I'm still astonished by effects and behaviours that couldn't be predicted. Theory is good, but in Chemistry you still have to try things to see what happens. Justification from theory comes later.
To take a specific example, Copper nanoparticles can be produced from Copper(II) sulfate using Ascorbic acid as a reducing agent. As near as I can tell, this reaction was first discovered in 2005, and it's something that anyone can do in their home lab. This could be the first step towards inkjet printing copper traces for circuit boards. The process happens at 60' C, so it's tough to get this to work in an inkjet. No one predicted the outcome before they tried it.
A different process using Iron(III) citrate appears to work at much lower temperatures. This was discovered in 2009.
No theory in Chemistry allows you to calculate a reaction suitable for inkjet printing of copper traces. It's all "try and see", and most of that is accessible to the home experimenter. Lots of people are looking at this right now, the field is wide open.
I really disagree with your position. It reads as "cheer up, you won't succeed but that's a good thing".
Chemistry is a concrete example where an amateur experimenter could make insightful and valuable discoveries today.
Since then, Wilson has [...] conducted research on medical isotopes for cancer treatment...
As impressive as his site is, that's not real research.
Real research is only done by professionals who have (or are pursuing) an advanced degree, with the backing of a university or government-funded research facility. There are no "gentleman" scientists any more, and there are no contemporary examples of real science done by 'regular folks.
This issue was addressed in an article from a couple of days ago. Haven't you been listening?
I'm so glad that the fate of software patents in the US is being left up to a bunch of old geezers who probably can't figure out how to publish their legal opinions online without the help of their IT department.
Don't worry - they'll render a decision that only affects the narrowest possible circumstances, "leaving the subject open" to further litigation on other slight differences in scope.
The supremes don't actually rule on the big issues any more - in modern times, it's all subtle refinements and clarifications.
When doctors or nurses use their knowledge of anatomy in order to torture or conduct medical experiments on helpless subjects, we are rightly outraged. Why doesn't society seem to apply the same standards to engineers?
When a doctor tortures a patient there is a direct cause and effect from the doctor's actions to the pain and suffering of the victim.
When an engineer designs a weapon, he's not actually causing the pain and suffering. Once you get away from "complete responsibility", the rest is easy:
1) If I don't do it, someone else will 2) I need to feed myself and my family 3) It'll only be used on the bad guys 4) It helps protect my country 5) It's the user's responsibility, not mine 6) The boss thinks it's a good idea 7) It has significant non-evil uses 8) No one will ever know it was me
For a concrete example, consider the Collateral Murder video from a couple of years back. Who was responsible for these deaths?
The helicopter pilots got the go-ahead from their commanders, the commanders [probably] got the go-ahead from intelligence services, the services made the correct decision based on the information they had, and the information was somehow "wrong".
Who's to blame for the collateral murder incident? By deftly distributing blame among many players, it changes from personal responsibility to "a failure of the system", or "a tragic accident".
For a second example, consider Bush's Iraq war: he was on TV stating that he had convincing evidence of WMDs in Iraq. A couple of years later it came out that the intelligence services had never said this and tried to convince the president of the opposite. Bush's response was: "We [the administration] didn't get the message". (Note the use of "we" in his statement.)
Who's responsible for the war? The President says he got bad intelligence, the intelligence services say they never gave bad intelligence. It's impossible to lay the blame on someone, it's a "failure of the system".
But don't worry, the problem is fixed - it'll never happen again.
(Epilogue: The Gulf oil spill was largely enabled by failures of the Minerals Management Service, who is responsible for overseeing the safety procedures of off-shore drilling. The problems were largely fixed by renaming the service to Bureau of Ocean Management. The problem is fixed, now we won't have any more disasters. Sorry about that...)
For those who hadn't noticed, I'm referring to an INTERstate road on an island, while also parodying a government legal rationalization and general ignorance of geography and logic by the US.
For those who still can't figure it out... yes, it's humor.
For those who did figure it out... check out all the people here who couldn't figure this out!
Don't get out your popcorn just yet. From the article:
But Judge Alsup noted that the document with the DHS instructions to the airline was not supported by any sworn testimony or evidence of its authenticity. “You have to have a sworn record before I can do something dramatic.” Judge Alsup said he would consider the document if and when Ms. Mustafa Kamal arrives in San Francisco and can testify as to its authenticity.
Ms. Pipkin said that Ms. Mustafa Kamal was reluctant to spend the money on another airline ticket to San Francisco without some assurance that this time she would be allowed to board her flight.
“Get her on an airplane and get her here,” Judge Alsup responded. “She’s a U.S. citizen. She doesn’t need a visa. I’m not going to believe that she can’t get on a plane until she tries again. ” And Mr Freeborne, with disingenuous faux-solicitude, claimed that the government is “willing to do whatever we can to facilitate” Ms. Mustafa Kamal’s ability to board a flight to the U.S.
A day or so ago there was a discussion about whether amateurs could do real science. The consensus among professional researchers was that no amateur could do significant research without first getting an advanced degree.
One poster challenged the readers to give an example of an amateur scientist who had contributed in a meaningful way to an existing field of study.
Elon Musk has a BSc. in physics. Does this count?
(Or is this more engineering than science? Or maybe he's more of a bank-roller than a scientist?)
I'm now of the opinion that this isn't a sock-puppet post. I've reviewed the user's history and it doesn't seem especially partisan and it doesn't have other clues, such as infrequent posts or recent creation.
I'm still on the lookout for sock-puppetry. This is made more difficult by the automatic backlash from many readers, which you don't seem to have. I'm still wondering how to detect false opinions and other manipulation of the board - if you have any ideas, please let me know.
It seems you've missed the point of the joke (which implies that we ought to have a government that actually takes care of things which are vital to society), but thank you for displaying your resplendent knowledge of game theory.
In all fairness, it's hard to tell that it was a joke.
In any event, I agree with you that the government should work for the benefit of the people. I'm still playing with message delivery - using a math construction to see if it plays well to an audience of geeks. We'll see how it gets modded in the next day or so.
Why are you (and TFA) both assuming that the market is wrong and that finding new antibotics is more important than the value placed upon it by companies in a position to do it? You have this intuition that it is important, and some rationale that cannot be tested because it involves some speculation about the future need for new antibiotics.
The situation has basically been taken out of the "market" model.
Risk-averse bureaucrats make the safety requirements without any cost burden of implementing the requirements. As a result, the drugs must be "safe at any cost", rather then "do more harm than good".
The consumers are captive, forced to use the system: no one can choose a "risky, less-well tested, but cheaper" treatment. While this may seem reasonable on the surface, it means that companies don't have to compete for consumers based on the value of their services.
Nothing about this system even remotely resembles a market.
To address your point directly, let's assume that one human life is worth $5 million. That's a reasonable estimate, and it doesn't much matter where you put the estimates, you can still do the analysis. Also assume that it costs $5 billion to develop a new antibiotic.
The trade-off appears to be 1,000 lives lost. If no company develops a new antibiotic and 2,000 lives are lost, then the regulations have hurt society more than they have helped. The problem is that the cost of 2,000 human lives is not borne by the regulatory agency or the drug companies. They can safely claim "it isn't our fault" if anything bad happens.
As you say, the need for future antibiotics can't be tested - but the break-even point is small and we have abundant historical evidence from before the discovery of antibiotics about the effect on our population health.
"Speculation" and untested rationale aren't the appropriate words to use here. "Impending disaster" is much closer than you would have us believe.
Say, asking from the general public a portion of their wages in exchange for an investment into such research.
Let's construct a mathematical model(*).
Define a block and call it "the public". Note that this block consists many little blocks, each representing an individual member of the public.
Define another block and call it "medical services". This block also consists of lots of little blocks, but somewhat fewer than the "public" blocks since 1 hospital will serve more than one person &c.
Draw arrows representing the flow money from the "public" block to the "medical" block. We can construct the arrows any way we want - each arrow can be an "average" consumer, or we can have a range of consumers, or we can mirror the actual population one-for-one. Bundle the arrows into a flow or "river" that represents the money going from the public to the medical services.
Now place a block in the middle of that flow, between the consumers and the services. Call this block "the corporation".
From a games-theory point of view, the goal of the corporation is to divert as much of the money stream as possible into its own coffers. If the diverted money optional, then the company has to compete for the streams: it has to provide a service which the public thinks is worth the amount of money diverted.
If the diverted money is not optional, then the corporation need not supply any benefit or services. Indeed, the corporation benefits by increasing the input money flow to the maximum amount that the system can handle, and reducing the output money flow to the minimum amount the system can tolerate.
I'm happy to support legislation/regulation that will solve a problem. Can you find a solution where the players have incentive to provide the best value... for the public?
(*) Wildly simplistic for illustration, but the trends are overwhelming: accurate refinements will show the same result.
You should note that, despite what many believe, we don't really "subsidize" fossil fuels to any major degree
The response:
Bullshit: [with references]
Is this an example of an industry shill?
I've been turning my attention to sock puppets and industry shills lately, the first question being: how can we tell the sock puppets from the regular folk?
Here is a well-formulated partisan post which is completely contrary to conventional wisdom, and is contrary to facts supported by references and evidence. It is trivially refuted by easily-found references. I expect it was "modded up" based on clarity and construction. It certainly *seems* like an informativie position by an expert in the field.
An actual expert in the field would not expect to gain esteem by posting something so easily refuted (they would expect it to be modded down immediately). I'm left to wonder what the original posted hopes to gain.
The states of Oregon and New Hampshire in the United States do not collect sales tax.
NOW it's "nuff said", bitch.
And to further drive the point, New Hampshire manages to keep the streetlights on and the fire departments funded, while California (and a number of other governments) are going down in flames.
This despite California having one of the highest tax rates in the US ($3,266 per person per year, ranked 11th) compared to NH ($1,760 per person per year, ranked 42nd). (source)*
Before we debate whether the court's decision seems equitable or "reasonable" for the purpose, let's stop and consider whether the basic premise - that the state needs the money - is valid.
Consider a hypothetical situation where the state was completely funded by some other means. I don't know what that would be, but let's suppose the state has investments that return a profit or something. If the state didn't want to expand, didn't need to increase services, and didn't need more money... in that situation, does this tax seem equitable or reasonable? What function does it have, and is the benefit of that function worth the cost of compliance?
We have a clear-cut case of a state that is fiscally prudent and well-managed without excessive taxation.
Before we allow the states to apply the brakes to internet commerce, shouldn't we first consider what the state will do with the money?
(*) NH taxes are about 50% of California, but spends proportionally much more than 50% per person. California is simply inefficient at making use of taxes.
Would that work? Sure, it would work. It would make bikes anonymous, and overcome the problem that they are identifiable (with serial numbers, colors, etc.). The question is what the hell would be in in for legitimate bike owners?
There is a difference between short-term and long-term benefits. In the short term, there is no benefit for someone "swapping bikes". In the case of digital currency, there is no short-term benefit for swapping coins, but there is no loss either.
In the long term however, having anonymous currency removes opportunities for oppression and corruption in government, manipulation and injustice. The bike-swappers enjoy a stronger, more robust government which has less opportunity to screw with their lives.
Of course, every change must be considered in the context of alternatives. Digital currency removes opportunity for manipulation by bad people, but also allows for bad usage. People will buy guns without being traced, people will buy contraband without being caught, and people will buy magazines with unapproved content. We'll have to transition away from "thought crime" ("conspiricy to grow marijuana" is my favourite) to a more "action oriented" crime: people will be jailed not for planning to do things or for researching how to do things, rather they will be jailed for actually doing things.
Whether society is better by big brother guessing our intent or judging our actions is a question worthy of debate....but swapping money to achieve anonymity is valuable in its own right.
I have to disagree... If I get strep or pneumonia, they give me a z-pack and bam, it magically goes away. If I have a broken finger, they give me vicodin and bam, I magically don't care about the pain (though yes, the finger itself just takes time to heal). If I have insomnia, they give me ambien and bam, I can magically sleep again. When my knees or hips eventually wear out, they give me new ones and bam, I magically get to walk for another 20-30 years. And keep in mind that many of our "magic bullets" work on a larger scale and longer term scale - Vaccination, water sterilization, sewage treatment, annual physicals, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
yeah spending hundreds of millions of dollars eradicating diseases like malaria in poor countries is so immoral...oh right but you only care that Windows is closed source.
To be fair, Gates got that money by breaking the law. His unfair competition resulted worldwide adoption of an insecure system, causing untold hardship across the industry (against more robust systems with few security flaws).
Should we cheer Al Capone for the good he was doing for Chicago?
Every season, without fail, they achieve drastic weight loss based on those two factors alone...
And their subjects are in the same environment they were in when they got obese. Yes?
And every participant achieves drastic weight loss - no one finds the new regime ineffective, yes?
I should get all my scientific opinions from reality TV. It's so much easier than reading the literature...
A person eating a normal amount of healthy food should not grow to obese proportions 98% of the time.
Modern laboratory animals are obese, despite having the same diet and same exercise as ones grown in previous decades, per the study referenced above.
Is your world-view on obesity fixed, or can it be adjusted based on new information?
I'd be interested to hear how your world-view of obesity explains this facts. Can you enlighten us?
Scientific paper referenced is here.
Along with a table and chart of the increases.
The fundamental problem with this is that overeating doesn't cause obesity.
Some recent scientific results (*) have clarified obesity, and are completely at odds with every "common knowledge" explanation. The bad news is that we don't know what causes obesity and there's nothing anyone can do [currently] to combat it. The good news is that it's not related to a) what you eat(**) b) how much you eat, c) your willpower, d) genetics, or e) exercise.
Relax, it's not your fault.
In the current model the digestive system presents a river of nutrients, from which the body takes what it needs to maintain a specific weight.The body has a set-point in the manner of a thermometer for how much nutrition to take in, and something in the environment disturbs this set-point(***), resulting in obesity. There is strong statistical evidence that this is not related to the amount or type of food eaten(*) (within dietary reason) or the level of exercise. Over 700 possible factors have been suggested, including Bisphenol-A in packaging, estrogenic compounds in the environment, and water fluoridation.
Your diet worked for you, and that's great; however, it didn't fix your obesity(***): something you did along with the diet changed the environment and your body regained a normal set-point. For this reason, no diet is universal: it's happenstance.
Exercise isn't what fixed your obesity. Again, nothing related to nutrition (within obvious limits) or exercise is the cause of obesity. Something else is at play. Whether exercise is good for you is a different issue; it's just not the cause of your obesity.
Modeling your body as a thermodynamic system sounds logical and "makes sense", but without actually going into starvation it's not the correct description of the problem. You can burn many calories simply by sleeping with fewer covers (more than you can by exercising), but your body will simply take more from the stream. This won't affect your obesity.
* Modern-day laboratory animals are fat, despite having the same diet and exercise as lab animals raised in previous decades. Statistically, the trend is very strong.
** A nutritional balance is necessary (of course). Whether junk food is good for you is a separate issue; however, it's not the cause of your obesity.
*** The difference in caloric intake between normal and obese is about 30 calories/day (about 3 peanut M&Ms), which is roughly 1% of your daily nutritional needs. No diet has this level of resolution, no diet can be this accurate by measuring servings without taking into account the condition of the serving (ie - chicken fattier than average, veggies drier than average, &c.)
I'm assuming you're being sarcastic, but the fact is that because as a species we've been systematically looking into the unknowns for a few hundred years now, there's not very much low-hanging fruit left.
(Yes, I was being sarcastic)
I strongly disagree. I've read many scientific papers which are nothing more than refinements of manufacturing technique, and I've seen lots of innovative ideas posted on blog sites by people who try things out, simply because they don't know any reason why it won't work.
I'm all about bolstering arguments with examples, so let's examine chemistry.
Chemistry has lots of underlying theory and calculations, but whenever I read chemistry papers I'm still astonished by effects and behaviours that couldn't be predicted. Theory is good, but in Chemistry you still have to try things to see what happens. Justification from theory comes later.
To take a specific example, Copper nanoparticles can be produced from Copper(II) sulfate using Ascorbic acid as a reducing agent. As near as I can tell, this reaction was first discovered in 2005, and it's something that anyone can do in their home lab. This could be the first step towards inkjet printing copper traces for circuit boards. The process happens at 60' C, so it's tough to get this to work in an inkjet. No one predicted the outcome before they tried it.
A different process using Iron(III) citrate appears to work at much lower temperatures. This was discovered in 2009.
No theory in Chemistry allows you to calculate a reaction suitable for inkjet printing of copper traces. It's all "try and see", and most of that is accessible to the home experimenter. Lots of people are looking at this right now, the field is wide open.
I really disagree with your position. It reads as "cheer up, you won't succeed but that's a good thing".
Chemistry is a concrete example where an amateur experimenter could make insightful and valuable discoveries today.
Since then, Wilson has [...] conducted research on medical isotopes for cancer treatment...
As impressive as his site is, that's not real research.
Real research is only done by professionals who have (or are pursuing) an advanced degree, with the backing of a university or government-funded research facility. There are no "gentleman" scientists any more, and there are no contemporary examples of real science done by 'regular folks.
This issue was addressed in an article from a couple of days ago. Haven't you been listening?
Blah blah blah ponzi scheme
Wank wank not real money
*cough*cough*hyper-inflation
warghaghgahgahl... money laundering
Have I missed any?
Gah! Gah! Child Pornography!
Whoa, Whoa... terrorism!
Huh? Huh? Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
Look! Look! Just like tulips!
Nope, Nope - can't pay taxes!
I'm so glad that the fate of software patents in the US is being left up to a bunch of old geezers who probably can't figure out how to publish their legal opinions online without the help of their IT department.
Don't worry - they'll render a decision that only affects the narrowest possible circumstances, "leaving the subject open" to further litigation on other slight differences in scope.
The supremes don't actually rule on the big issues any more - in modern times, it's all subtle refinements and clarifications.
When doctors or nurses use their knowledge of anatomy in order to torture or conduct medical experiments on helpless subjects, we are rightly outraged. Why doesn't society seem to apply the same standards to engineers?
When a doctor tortures a patient there is a direct cause and effect from the doctor's actions to the pain and suffering of the victim.
When an engineer designs a weapon, he's not actually causing the pain and suffering. Once you get away from "complete responsibility", the rest is easy:
1) If I don't do it, someone else will
2) I need to feed myself and my family
3) It'll only be used on the bad guys
4) It helps protect my country
5) It's the user's responsibility, not mine
6) The boss thinks it's a good idea
7) It has significant non-evil uses
8) No one will ever know it was me
For a concrete example, consider the Collateral Murder video from a couple of years back. Who was responsible for these deaths?
The helicopter pilots got the go-ahead from their commanders, the commanders [probably] got the go-ahead from intelligence services, the services made the correct decision based on the information they had, and the information was somehow "wrong".
Who's to blame for the collateral murder incident? By deftly distributing blame among many players, it changes from personal responsibility to "a failure of the system", or "a tragic accident".
For a second example, consider Bush's Iraq war: he was on TV stating that he had convincing evidence of WMDs in Iraq. A couple of years later it came out that the intelligence services had never said this and tried to convince the president of the opposite. Bush's response was: "We [the administration] didn't get the message". (Note the use of "we" in his statement.)
Who's responsible for the war? The President says he got bad intelligence, the intelligence services say they never gave bad intelligence. It's impossible to lay the blame on someone, it's a "failure of the system".
But don't worry, the problem is fixed - it'll never happen again.
(Epilogue: The Gulf oil spill was largely enabled by failures of the Minerals Management Service, who is responsible for overseeing the safety procedures of off-shore drilling. The problems were largely fixed by renaming the service to Bureau of Ocean Management. The problem is fixed, now we won't have any more disasters. Sorry about that...)
I couldn't find "Zoe vs. Williams" in the 1982 registry. "Zobel vs..." is something about Alaska mineral resource dividends.
Were you thinking of a different case?
I really have to congratulate you. Reading the long string of replies from idiots who didn't follow the link and/or get the joke is hilarious.
It's like I touched the third rail of the internet. I am astonished.
Flying is a privilege, not a right. She can just drive to court.
It's not like we don't have interstate highways in every state in the union.
For those who hadn't noticed, I'm referring to an INTERstate road on an island, while also parodying a government legal rationalization and general ignorance of geography and logic by the US.
For those who still can't figure it out... yes, it's humor.
For those who did figure it out... check out all the people here who couldn't figure this out!
Don't get out your popcorn just yet. From the article:
But Judge Alsup noted that the document with the DHS instructions to the airline was not supported by any sworn testimony or evidence of its authenticity. “You have to have a sworn record before I can do something dramatic.” Judge Alsup said he would consider the document if and when Ms. Mustafa Kamal arrives in San Francisco and can testify as to its authenticity.
Ms. Pipkin said that Ms. Mustafa Kamal was reluctant to spend the money on another airline ticket to San Francisco without some assurance that this time she would be allowed to board her flight.
“Get her on an airplane and get her here,” Judge Alsup responded. “She’s a U.S. citizen. She doesn’t need a visa. I’m not going to believe that she can’t get on a plane until she tries again. ” And Mr Freeborne, with disingenuous faux-solicitude, claimed that the government is “willing to do whatever we can to facilitate” Ms. Mustafa Kamal’s ability to board a flight to the U.S.
Flying is a privilege, not a right. She can just drive to court.
It's not like we don't have interstate highways in every state in the union.
A day or so ago there was a discussion about whether amateurs could do real science. The consensus among professional researchers was that no amateur could do significant research without first getting an advanced degree.
One poster challenged the readers to give an example of an amateur scientist who had contributed in a meaningful way to an existing field of study.
Elon Musk has a BSc. in physics. Does this count?
(Or is this more engineering than science? Or maybe he's more of a bank-roller than a scientist?)
Thank you for the well-reasoned response.
I'm now of the opinion that this isn't a sock-puppet post. I've reviewed the user's history and it doesn't seem especially partisan and it doesn't have other clues, such as infrequent posts or recent creation.
I'm still on the lookout for sock-puppetry. This is made more difficult by the automatic backlash from many readers, which you don't seem to have. I'm still wondering how to detect false opinions and other manipulation of the board - if you have any ideas, please let me know.
It seems you've missed the point of the joke (which implies that we ought to have a government that actually takes care of things which are vital to society), but thank you for displaying your resplendent knowledge of game theory.
In all fairness, it's hard to tell that it was a joke.
In any event, I agree with you that the government should work for the benefit of the people. I'm still playing with message delivery - using a math construction to see if it plays well to an audience of geeks. We'll see how it gets modded in the next day or so.
Why are you (and TFA) both assuming that the market is wrong and that finding new antibotics is more important than the value placed upon it by companies in a position to do it? You have this intuition that it is important, and some rationale that cannot be tested because it involves some speculation about the future need for new antibiotics.
The situation has basically been taken out of the "market" model.
Risk-averse bureaucrats make the safety requirements without any cost burden of implementing the requirements. As a result, the drugs must be "safe at any cost", rather then "do more harm than good".
The consumers are captive, forced to use the system: no one can choose a "risky, less-well tested, but cheaper" treatment. While this may seem reasonable on the surface, it means that companies don't have to compete for consumers based on the value of their services.
Nothing about this system even remotely resembles a market.
To address your point directly, let's assume that one human life is worth $5 million. That's a reasonable estimate, and it doesn't much matter where you put the estimates, you can still do the analysis. Also assume that it costs $5 billion to develop a new antibiotic.
The trade-off appears to be 1,000 lives lost. If no company develops a new antibiotic and 2,000 lives are lost, then the regulations have hurt society more than they have helped. The problem is that the cost of 2,000 human lives is not borne by the regulatory agency or the drug companies. They can safely claim "it isn't our fault" if anything bad happens.
As you say, the need for future antibiotics can't be tested - but the break-even point is small and we have abundant historical evidence from before the discovery of antibiotics about the effect on our population health.
"Speculation" and untested rationale aren't the appropriate words to use here. "Impending disaster" is much closer than you would have us believe.
Say, asking from the general public a portion of their wages in exchange for an investment into such research.
Let's construct a mathematical model(*).
Define a block and call it "the public". Note that this block consists many little blocks, each representing an individual member of the public.
Define another block and call it "medical services". This block also consists of lots of little blocks, but somewhat fewer than the "public" blocks since 1 hospital will serve more than one person &c.
Draw arrows representing the flow money from the "public" block to the "medical" block. We can construct the arrows any way we want - each arrow can be an "average" consumer, or we can have a range of consumers, or we can mirror the actual population one-for-one. Bundle the arrows into a flow or "river" that represents the money going from the public to the medical services.
Now place a block in the middle of that flow, between the consumers and the services. Call this block "the corporation".
From a games-theory point of view, the goal of the corporation is to divert as much of the money stream as possible into its own coffers. If the diverted money optional, then the company has to compete for the streams: it has to provide a service which the public thinks is worth the amount of money diverted.
If the diverted money is not optional, then the corporation need not supply any benefit or services. Indeed, the corporation benefits by increasing the input money flow to the maximum amount that the system can handle, and reducing the output money flow to the minimum amount the system can tolerate.
I'm happy to support legislation/regulation that will solve a problem. Can you find a solution where the players have incentive to provide the best value... for the public?
(*) Wildly simplistic for illustration, but the trends are overwhelming: accurate refinements will show the same result.
The original post:
You should note that, despite what many believe, we don't really "subsidize" fossil fuels to any major degree
The response:
Bullshit: [with references]
Is this an example of an industry shill?
I've been turning my attention to sock puppets and industry shills lately, the first question being: how can we tell the sock puppets from the regular folk?
Here is a well-formulated partisan post which is completely contrary to conventional wisdom, and is contrary to facts supported by references and evidence. It is trivially refuted by easily-found references. I expect it was "modded up" based on clarity and construction. It certainly *seems* like an informativie position by an expert in the field.
An actual expert in the field would not expect to gain esteem by posting something so easily refuted (they would expect it to be modded down immediately). I'm left to wonder what the original posted hopes to gain.
Any ideas?
Your claim is not 100% true.
The states of Oregon and New Hampshire in the United States do not collect sales tax.
NOW it's "nuff said", bitch.
And to further drive the point, New Hampshire manages to keep the streetlights on and the fire departments funded, while California (and a number of other governments) are going down in flames.
This despite California having one of the highest tax rates in the US ($3,266 per person per year, ranked 11th) compared to NH ($1,760 per person per year, ranked 42nd). (source)*
Before we debate whether the court's decision seems equitable or "reasonable" for the purpose, let's stop and consider whether the basic premise - that the state needs the money - is valid.
Consider a hypothetical situation where the state was completely funded by some other means. I don't know what that would be, but let's suppose the state has investments that return a profit or something. If the state didn't want to expand, didn't need to increase services, and didn't need more money... in that situation, does this tax seem equitable or reasonable? What function does it have, and is the benefit of that function worth the cost of compliance?
We have a clear-cut case of a state that is fiscally prudent and well-managed without excessive taxation.
Before we allow the states to apply the brakes to internet commerce, shouldn't we first consider what the state will do with the money?
(*) NH taxes are about 50% of California, but spends proportionally much more than 50% per person. California is simply inefficient at making use of taxes.
Would that work? Sure, it would work. It would make bikes anonymous, and overcome the problem that they are identifiable (with serial numbers, colors, etc.). The question is what the hell would be in in for legitimate bike owners?
There is a difference between short-term and long-term benefits. In the short term, there is no benefit for someone "swapping bikes". In the case of digital currency, there is no short-term benefit for swapping coins, but there is no loss either.
In the long term however, having anonymous currency removes opportunities for oppression and corruption in government, manipulation and injustice. The bike-swappers enjoy a stronger, more robust government which has less opportunity to screw with their lives.
Of course, every change must be considered in the context of alternatives. Digital currency removes opportunity for manipulation by bad people, but also allows for bad usage. People will buy guns without being traced, people will buy contraband without being caught, and people will buy magazines with unapproved content. We'll have to transition away from "thought crime" ("conspiricy to grow marijuana" is my favourite) to a more "action oriented" crime: people will be jailed not for planning to do things or for researching how to do things, rather they will be jailed for actually doing things.
Whether society is better by big brother guessing our intent or judging our actions is a question worthy of debate. ...but swapping money to achieve anonymity is valuable in its own right.
I have to disagree... If I get strep or pneumonia, they give me a z-pack and bam, it magically goes away. If I have a broken finger, they give me vicodin and bam, I magically don't care about the pain (though yes, the finger itself just takes time to heal). If I have insomnia, they give me ambien and bam, I can magically sleep again. When my knees or hips eventually wear out, they give me new ones and bam, I magically get to walk for another 20-30 years. And keep in mind that many of our "magic bullets" work on a larger scale and longer term scale - Vaccination, water sterilization, sewage treatment, annual physicals, etc.
Wow - great response. Thanks for that!
Good response, brilliant insight. Thanks for that!