That post struck me as profoundly ignorant. To make such a choice as you indicate, one must be aware of the options. Many 'poor people' grew up that way, have never known anything different, and simply cannot imagine how to free themselves of the depressing reality into which they were dumped. Until you and your ilk can somehow prove that all 'poor people', absent retardation, have happily chosen their lives of squalor I do wish you'd keep the 'they love it' arguments to yourselves.
I wonder if you'd really enjoy the world you seem to prefer; where the government pays for nothing and we rely solely on the kindness of other people to take care of these 'problems'. I'd venture to guess it would not be your cup of tea afterall -- that we can have these hypothetical conversations only because the world you know has gone to great lengths to lift people up wherever possible. -j
Wait until they publish a controlled study in a peer-reviewed journal. Until then, this is all science-by-press-release and not worth the paper on which it's printed.
That said, I hope they're successful and manage to strike a healthy balance between profit and humanity. -j
These types of technologies will someday threaten the very foundations of our society.
Or, more interestingly, perhaps they'll force us to come to terms with what it means to be 'messy-thinking meat'. Plenty of human-human interaction depends upon keeping our deepest, darkest thoughts and activities secret from one another. If any one, single human being is suddenly exposed, as, say, a fan of strip clubs, it's easy to look down upon that individual... but what if we're all equally exposed? And ay, there's the rub... equality? Since when have we been particularly good at that? Would this found a market for privacy in which the rich could afford to shield their activities while the poor could not? Fascinating.
not only did Congress approve this, but 50 million Americans did, too
Congress funded the idea in an appropriations bill. They never explicitly gave the FTC authorization to create the list. Executive agencies cannot create powers never explicitly given them by Congress. This is a good thing, even if it means your access to a do-not-call list is delayed until Congress gets its shit together. -j
Legislation passed by Congress might be perfectly acceptable.
The decision comes right out and says that explicit legislation from Congress would be perfectly acceptable. Congress tried to end-run the process by funding the list in a larger (and easier-to-pass) appropriations bill rather than explicitly handing authority for such a list to the FTC. -j
Re:For those of you who don't know waxman....
on
Politicizing Science
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· Score: 1
No one ever bitched at Clinton for allowing the EPA to publish bogus studies on second-hand smoke, for example.
Perhaps because that's the one example that comes readily to mind rather than a pattern of dissembling and deceit so rampant that even the major scientific journals feel compelled to comment on the trend. -j
Or, rather, it shouldn't matter. But it does. Look at the areas of science that the report alleges has been misstated and/or slanted. Note the bent towards morality/reproductive issues like the impact of abortion on breast cancer, stem-cell research, condom use and abstinence-only education. Clinton was a Baptist but I've never heard anyone allege that Clinton attempted to hide good science that disagreed with his base.
Bush is abusing our nation's scientific infrastructure to push his fundamentalist Christian worldview (which, in contradiction to your assertion is not the worldview of the majority of our nation's Christians) on an unsuspecting populace with the potential for dangerous results (e.g. higher STD transmission rates/teen pregancy in populations underserved by sex education who hear only about abstinence).
This is dangerous behaviour and regardless of your political bent (admittedly I'm a slightly-left-of-center scientist) you should be concerned about government actively working to obscure the truth. Politicking is one thing, actively working to lie to young women seeking abortions and scaring them into believing they might get breast cancer for their troubles is quite another. -j
Re:For those of you who don't know waxman....
on
Politicizing Science
·
· Score: 1
Ok -- so what part about his contributor list makes the allegations in the report (which are heavily supported by references to well-established, peer-reviewed scientific literature) any less valid?
When Science, Nature and the Lancet all agree that something is rotten in the state of Denmark the American public would do well to listen -- regardless of the political affiliation of those in the White House.
While I understand your disagreement with most Democrats, their policies, and practices; Waxman's staff has done an excellent job of supporting their allegations with publically funded, peer-reviewed science. This would be a travesty in any administration. -j
This post makes a good point albeit not directly. The RIAA's two real 'services' are (1) to spend lots of money to lobby w/ a single voice (thereby making it easier for Congress to receive their message) and (2) to act as a focal point for bad publicity and consumer rage so that we, the consumers, don't notice that it's not the RIAA causing us problems -- it's Sony, AOL/Time-Warner, BMI, etc.
The fact that in this forum we so often toss the RIAA back and forth with indignation while buying up plenty of products (with exceptions -- keep the flames to yourselves) produced by member companies proves that their strategy is working exactly as intended. -j
From a cog. neuro friend of mine, the argument is that when a person lies, there's a characteristic increase in bloodflow to a particular area of the brain. The IR system discussed in the story is used to measure this increase in bloodflow (which is the same thing that makes it useful in many other aspects of functional cognitive neuroscience; it's much cheaper than an fMRI). The real question here isn't really the machine or even the patent (God knows we get enough stupid patents around here). The real question is whether or not this increase in bloodflow is 100% always indicative of lying and nothing BUT lying.
There's another variation on this theme that I find much more fascinating. Using the same technique (or fMRI for increased resolution and depth) one can screen a subject for a particular type of lie -- by showing the subject a picture of a crime scene and testing for neural recognition (and nothing but) you have a sort of 'lie detector' that relies on a lot more heavily proven science.
So you've worked your way throughout the legal system and can say this with authority? As cynical as you may be, there are plenty of lawyers out there doing it for the love of the game; for the exact same reasons programmers write GPL'd code. -j
I was trying to be associate the lack of wiggle-room w/ a police-state, I'm aware of what the word means, but thanks.:P
Our laws are not complex out of need, they are complex because they are constantly being tweaked by greedy, purchased politicians with an axe to grind.
The second half is certainly true, but I disagree with the first half. Human governance must be complicated to ensure fairness for all with some degree of gray area no matter what the situation. That this also happens to invite unscrupulous politicians to file their own personal whims is but an unfortunate side-effect. -j
I found it hard to read their answers all the way through. There was this built-in droning sound, that lulls you into not listening or caring.
Maybe a code of law to make just you and those like you happy would be nice and simple. Crafting law that ensures the stability of a country composed of 280M+ wildly different human beings requires the complexity and attention to detail which seem to bore you.
You would do well to accept the complexity required in the laws that govern us; the alternative is a simple code of law created to cater to the majority with no room for exception.
THAT is the very definition of a 'police state'. -j
These are federal prosecutors. They are not overpaid , whiny, corporate defense attorneys. Lawyers working for the DoJ often choose to take an enormous hit in their salary for the opportunity to work on the other side of the federal fence. Having read the answers they provided I think it's clear the problem lies not with those in the trenches @ DoJ but rather with the leadership. -j
The global mortality rate is sitting at 0.9%. A poster in this thread intimated that China has yet to release data on their case/death counts but the WHO report linked above indeed has this data (though perhaps in error). -j
The problem with stopping the common cold is not that the cold is a single virus that's impossible to vaccinnate against. It's a collection of more than 200 viruses (so far) that all cause similiar symptoms. If SARS is indeed a single virus from the coronavirus family it should be possible to vaccinate against it.
This is certainly a bug about which to be concerned; my confusion stems from the world-wide response to a condition that has yet to affect more than 3,000 people worldwide. It just seems like overkill. -j
And of those numbers what percentage were immunocompromised in some way (elderly, etc.)? What percentage were impoverished? The BBC's summary counts tell us little about the true mortality rate given medical care and a healthy immune system.
Frankly I'm not running for my surgical mask just yet. -j
And the 4% mortality rate is probably inflated from the true mortality rate given modern medicine: the majority of the deaths occurred in the rural Chinese province from which the bug first emerged. For the life of me I can't figure out why everyone worldwide is so concerned about SARS.
That said, the CDC is doing a tremendous job of keeping the public informed about the state of the art where SARS is concerned. -j
I like the bounty idea. The only problem is that, long-term, pharma companies make way more than $2B for a blockbuster drug.
The bounty idea would work really well on drugs for niche conditions who's markets aren't large enough to support a $700M R&D pricetag.
It seems to be a catch-22. Drugs to treat conditions with large public exposure would be worth far more, patented, than under a $2B bounty model. Amassing the $2B purse for niche drugs would be hard for conditions with little presence in the public eye. -j
The BSA is certainly morally corrupt but I must admit I don't understand what the parent poster was trying to say by suggesting they should fall under RICO. -j
I have no idea where that statistic might've come from but, for argument's sake, let's say it's true. Couldn't it be that we solved all the easy ones first and that those that remain are friggin difficult?
If Pfizer could cure you of something tomorrow, it would, because you'd give them a big chunk of dough for the cure. True, it's a better economic model to 'treat' you over time than it is to cure but do you really think the scientific community would accept a pharma company knowingly doing this when a cure was available and locked up under patent? -j
Slashdot Mirror
I have to ask ... how does an agnostic 'practice'? :)
-j
That post struck me as profoundly ignorant. To make such a choice as you indicate, one must be aware of the options. Many 'poor people' grew up that way, have never known anything different, and simply cannot imagine how to free themselves of the depressing reality into which they were dumped. Until you and your ilk can somehow prove that all 'poor people', absent retardation, have happily chosen their lives of squalor I do wish you'd keep the 'they love it' arguments to yourselves.
I wonder if you'd really enjoy the world you seem to prefer; where the government pays for nothing and we rely solely on the kindness of other people to take care of these 'problems'. I'd venture to guess it would not be your cup of tea afterall -- that we can have these hypothetical conversations only because the world you know has gone to great lengths to lift people up wherever possible.
-j
Wait until they publish a controlled study in a peer-reviewed journal. Until then, this is all science-by-press-release and not worth the paper on which it's printed.
That said, I hope they're successful and manage to strike a healthy balance between profit and humanity.
-j
These types of technologies will someday threaten the very foundations of our society.
... but what if we're all equally exposed? And ay, there's the rub ... equality? Since when have we been particularly good at that? Would this found a market for privacy in which the rich could afford to shield their activities while the poor could not? Fascinating.
Or, more interestingly, perhaps they'll force us to come to terms with what it means to be 'messy-thinking meat'. Plenty of human-human interaction depends upon keeping our deepest, darkest thoughts and activities secret from one another. If any one, single human being is suddenly exposed, as, say, a fan of strip clubs, it's easy to look down upon that individual
Disclaimer: I'm not in favor of crap like this.
What homeless shelters have the least cockroaches?
Fewest cockroaches. Cockroaches are discrete. And, by that, I don't mean that they can keep secrets.
-j
not only did Congress approve this, but 50 million Americans did, too
Congress funded the idea in an appropriations bill. They never explicitly gave the FTC authorization to create the list. Executive agencies cannot create powers never explicitly given them by Congress. This is a good thing, even if it means your access to a do-not-call list is delayed until Congress gets its shit together.
-j
Legislation passed by Congress might be perfectly acceptable.
The decision comes right out and says that explicit legislation from Congress would be perfectly acceptable. Congress tried to end-run the process by funding the list in a larger (and easier-to-pass) appropriations bill rather than explicitly handing authority for such a list to the FTC.
-j
hippy. :)
-j
No one ever bitched at Clinton for allowing the EPA to publish bogus studies on second-hand smoke, for example.
Perhaps because that's the one example that comes readily to mind rather than a pattern of dissembling and deceit so rampant that even the major scientific journals feel compelled to comment on the trend.
-j
It just does not matter.
Or, rather, it shouldn't matter. But it does. Look at the areas of science that the report alleges has been misstated and/or slanted. Note the bent towards morality/reproductive issues like the impact of abortion on breast cancer, stem-cell research, condom use and abstinence-only education. Clinton was a Baptist but I've never heard anyone allege that Clinton attempted to hide good science that disagreed with his base.
Bush is abusing our nation's scientific infrastructure to push his fundamentalist Christian worldview (which, in contradiction to your assertion is not the worldview of the majority of our nation's Christians) on an unsuspecting populace with the potential for dangerous results (e.g. higher STD transmission rates/teen pregancy in populations underserved by sex education who hear only about abstinence).
This is dangerous behaviour and regardless of your political bent (admittedly I'm a slightly-left-of-center scientist) you should be concerned about government actively working to obscure the truth. Politicking is one thing, actively working to lie to young women seeking abortions and scaring them into believing they might get breast cancer for their troubles is quite another.
-j
Ok -- so what part about his contributor list makes the allegations in the report (which are heavily supported by references to well-established, peer-reviewed scientific literature) any less valid?
When Science, Nature and the Lancet all agree that something is rotten in the state of Denmark the American public would do well to listen -- regardless of the political affiliation of those in the White House.
While I understand your disagreement with most Democrats, their policies, and practices; Waxman's staff has done an excellent job of supporting their allegations with publically funded, peer-reviewed science. This would be a travesty in any administration.
-j
This post makes a good point albeit not directly. The RIAA's two real 'services' are (1) to spend lots of money to lobby w/ a single voice (thereby making it easier for Congress to receive their message) and (2) to act as a focal point for bad publicity and consumer rage so that we, the consumers, don't notice that it's not the RIAA causing us problems -- it's Sony, AOL/Time-Warner, BMI, etc.
The fact that in this forum we so often toss the RIAA back and forth with indignation while buying up plenty of products (with exceptions -- keep the flames to yourselves) produced by member companies proves that their strategy is working exactly as intended.
-j
From a cog. neuro friend of mine, the argument is that when a person lies, there's a characteristic increase in bloodflow to a particular area of the brain. The IR system discussed in the story is used to measure this increase in bloodflow (which is the same thing that makes it useful in many other aspects of functional cognitive neuroscience; it's much cheaper than an fMRI). The real question here isn't really the machine or even the patent (God knows we get enough stupid patents around here). The real question is whether or not this increase in bloodflow is 100% always indicative of lying and nothing BUT lying.
There's another variation on this theme that I find much more fascinating. Using the same technique (or fMRI for increased resolution and depth) one can screen a subject for a particular type of lie -- by showing the subject a picture of a crime scene and testing for neural recognition (and nothing but) you have a sort of 'lie detector' that relies on a lot more heavily proven science.
-j
Near-infrared neural imaging is already a very useful technique.
This is a new application whether or not you approve.
-j
So you've worked your way throughout the legal system and can say this with authority? As cynical as you may be, there are plenty of lawyers out there doing it for the love of the game; for the exact same reasons programmers write GPL'd code.
-j
That is not the definition of a police state.
:P
I was trying to be associate the lack of wiggle-room w/ a police-state, I'm aware of what the word means, but thanks.
Our laws are not complex out of need, they are complex because they are constantly being tweaked by greedy, purchased politicians with an axe to grind.
The second half is certainly true, but I disagree with the first half. Human governance must be complicated to ensure fairness for all with some degree of gray area no matter what the situation. That this also happens to invite unscrupulous politicians to file their own personal whims is but an unfortunate side-effect.
-j
I found it hard to read their answers all the way through. There was this built-in droning sound, that lulls you into not listening or caring.
Maybe a code of law to make just you and those like you happy would be nice and simple. Crafting law that ensures the stability of a country composed of 280M+ wildly different human beings requires the complexity and attention to detail which seem to bore you.
You would do well to accept the complexity required in the laws that govern us; the alternative is a simple code of law created to cater to the majority with no room for exception.
THAT is the very definition of a 'police state'.
-j
These are federal prosecutors. They are not overpaid , whiny, corporate defense attorneys. Lawyers working for the DoJ often choose to take an enormous hit in their salary for the opportunity to work on the other side of the federal fence. Having read the answers they provided I think it's clear the problem lies not with those in the trenches @ DoJ but rather with the leadership.
-j
Latest WHO statistics.
The global mortality rate is sitting at 0.9%. A poster in this thread intimated that China has yet to release data on their case/death counts but the WHO report linked above indeed has this data (though perhaps in error).
-j
The problem with stopping the common cold is not that the cold is a single virus that's impossible to vaccinnate against. It's a collection of more than 200 viruses (so far) that all cause similiar symptoms. If SARS is indeed a single virus from the coronavirus family it should be possible to vaccinate against it.
This is certainly a bug about which to be concerned; my confusion stems from the world-wide response to a condition that has yet to affect more than 3,000 people worldwide. It just seems like overkill.
-j
And of those numbers what percentage were immunocompromised in some way (elderly, etc.)? What percentage were impoverished? The BBC's summary counts tell us little about the true mortality rate given medical care and a healthy immune system.
Frankly I'm not running for my surgical mask just yet.
-j
And the 4% mortality rate is probably inflated from the true mortality rate given modern medicine: the majority of the deaths occurred in the rural Chinese province from which the bug first emerged. For the life of me I can't figure out why everyone worldwide is so concerned about SARS.
That said, the CDC is doing a tremendous job of keeping the public informed about the state of the art where SARS is concerned.
-j
I like the bounty idea. The only problem is that, long-term, pharma companies make way more than $2B for a blockbuster drug.
The bounty idea would work really well on drugs for niche conditions who's markets aren't large enough to support a $700M R&D pricetag.
It seems to be a catch-22. Drugs to treat conditions with large public exposure would be worth far more, patented, than under a $2B bounty model. Amassing the $2B purse for niche drugs would be hard for conditions with little presence in the public eye.
-j
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act
The BSA is certainly morally corrupt but I must admit I don't understand what the parent poster was trying to say by suggesting they should fall under RICO.
-j
I think Chris Rock said something to the effect that we haven't cured a disease in 50 some odd years
:)
I find him funny, too, but never quote Chris Rock as the authority on morbidity and mortality. It makes one look silly.
we used to do it twice a week. It's really sad.
I have no idea where that statistic might've come from but, for argument's sake, let's say it's true. Couldn't it be that we solved all the easy ones first and that those that remain are friggin difficult?
If Pfizer could cure you of something tomorrow, it would, because you'd give them a big chunk of dough for the cure. True, it's a better economic model to 'treat' you over time than it is to cure but do you really think the scientific community would accept a pharma company knowingly doing this when a cure was available and locked up under patent?
-j