Our society should have precious little tolerance for people who only come up with ideas on paper, without being able to put them into practice. You think we should get rid of all the theorists in physics, chemistry, biology, etc., not to mention philosophy and literature? Good thing you aren't the one making the decisions!
No work is copyrighted unless application is filed along with two copies in the Library of Congress This is ridiculous. The burden on newspapers and magazines - especially small independents - would be immense. I want my website content to be copy-righted. Also, imagine the storage demands...
say if the military has more than 5,000 of any particular type of weapon, it becomes fair game. Are you saying nuclear weapons are fair game? Or did I miss the irony.
It's funny that you would pick Robert Putnam as an example of someone who didn't get the attention that he deserved. In fact, a few years ago, he got plenty of attention - interviews on national TV, etc. - for his book Bowling Alone, which basically said that democracy was falling apart because people were no longer joining civic and fraternal organizations or other organized activities like bowling leagues.
He blamed television, ultimately, for causing this change, raising the question of why the major networks had him on their morning talk programs.
Humans treat tools as an extension of ourselves? Amazing. How much grant money did they spend on that gem? I think the significance lies in what it says about the brain, not just how we use tools. I can think of some possibilities for why it matters. It might have significance for the cognitive processes we use in developing more complicated technology than hammers. It might make a difference (be good news?) for anyone trying to develop artificial limbs. It could be that 'easier to use' technology might be that which is more readily visualized as part of the body. Probably many other reasons. Who knows? IANAN (I am not a neuroscientist).
Studies have suggested that the decline in violent crime is pretty much a result of locking up almost everyone that might step out of line. Some people won't be satisfied until all violence has been suppressed (except, of course, violence done by the state or their subcontractors). I don't expect reason will be an impediment to their agenda.
I read the study. The author says, near the beginning, that in understanding the relationship between media violence and real violence, the "response should be to understand the dangers... [and] to avoid exaggerating the dangers (which would destroy our credibility)." He should take his own advice! The smoking comparison is terribly misleading, as are the other comparisons to "public health problems"(hitting someone while playing hockey, for example, appears to be considered equally harmful to contracting HIV). If they looked at the effect of violent games or movies on murder rates, for example, you can bet it would be a much smaller effect.
More problems:
First, beware the word, "significantly." When a social scientist uses that word, you can bet they are talking statistical significance, which is not the same as a large magnitude of effect.
Also, he reports r values as if they are measures of the 'strength' of an effect, but I think that's debatable - if there isn't a lot of violent behavior in general, but a lot of video game playing, it doesn't make sense to call the effect of games on violence 'strong'. Furthermore, the correlations that he calls "strong" (such as r=.3) means that about 9% of the variation they find in violent behavior can be explained by watching violent TV. He ignores the fact that the vast majority of violent behavior (91% of variation!) is unexplained by violent media.
He tries to overstate the effectiveness of the results - he reports the greater tendency to shove one's spouse for individuals in the top quartile, etc. in the same paragraph where he says he 'controlled' for previous violence, but those appear to be raw numbers. The effects when controlling for background (which is difficult to do) are not reported.
Speaking of the longitudinal studies: in social science terms, long term studies have serious problems with endogeneity: in other words, violent people might choose to play violent games, and not the other way around. In other words, he may have discovered that really violent people tend to like violent entertainment!
The experimental results are a little more convincing, except that 1) it's a short-term effect and 2) the violent incidents in question are pretty trivial - the generally find rougher forms of play, typically, which isn't the same as spousal abuse, assault, or murder.
It's been my opinion that video game playing makes people more passive and sedentary (in general) rather than violent and active. Somebody should do a study!
a recent study showing that the ozone holes at the north pole are getting smaller (did we do that? doubtful. Yes - we did that. That's what reducing CFCs was all about. Look up the Montreal Protocol. I'll wait.
There are plenty of studies showing that the global warming issue is caused by the sun getting hotter There are studies like this one showing that variability in the sun's output isn't to blame.
I'm not a global warming catastrophist but that doesn't mean we should stick our heads in the sand.
The same argument about "inefficiency" can be made for any industry, not just those you mentioned. Not really. This point has already been made. The problem is transaction costs. Grocery stores and basic infrastructure are fundamentally different, which is why your grocery store analogy is ridiculous. Potential revenues would have to be high to recoup the costs of running more lines, so the 'threat of direct competition' would be rather low. Without government intervention, any competitor would be faced not just with the costs of construction but also the need to negotiate with every property owner to get access to build. You'd need a large number of customers to make it profitable (at least a high density of them). The monopoly in place could cut prices, driving the competition out of business, then raise them as they see fit. No one would be stupid enough to make that investment. In contrast, building a grocery store is pretty easy, and if you put it in a convenient place, your customers come to you. It's theoretically possible to start small and grow.
But wait, you say - competitors will find a way to cut costs (wireless, for example)! Maybe, eventually, but 1) they could do this with a government granted 'monopoly' anyway and 2) it might take a good while. What would we do in the mean time? Finally, less profitable customers would simply be ignored - which good for 'economic growth', maybe, but not for a free and democratic society. Most of us don't see money as the only measure of value.
Words are the building blocks of ideas. As languages disappear, we've potentially lost not only a method of communication but a great deal of information - the product of countless years of development. It's sort of like the "biodiversity as a resource" argument. There are lots of plants and animals with no apparent value at the moment, but one could turn out to provide the cure for cancer.
The 'fraction' of our population that goes to a university for a four year program is pretty high. About 50% of adolescents enter college at the expected time (18-19 years old), and there's a fair number of nontraditional students as well. Of course, many never graduate.
About 75 percent of U.S. high school graduates enter college and about 70 percent of 9th graders go on to graduate from high school, according to one study. If you do the math, you get about 50% (I've heard this elsewhere but can't recall where.)
It's the same with nuclear weapons. By restricting their sale and manufacture, the government has done NOTHING to keep them from the evil-doers, only out of the hands of private, law-abiding citizens. I think every man, woman and child should have their own tactical nuclear weapon - it's the only way to guarantee our safety and security. MAD works!
Also, trade only occurs because that which is received is valued more than that which is given away in exchange. Thus, both parties *profit* from every instance of trade, at the moment of trade. By your logic, no one ever is on the losing end of a trade. Reality is full of counter examples. You're making the implicit assumption that people (or businesses) are perfectly rational actors with complete knowledge. They aren't - see the last 50 years or research in the social sciences.
There is no deficit whatsoever that occurs from any single instance of trade, even if that trade involves promises to repay at a future time. Just to give you one example of how this is wrong... Material goods may depreciate at a different (faster?) rate than currency does. So if I give you cash for a car, that car will be worth at lot less in 5 years than the value I paid for it. You can't assume that somehow the use of that car balances out the difference, because the car depreciates EVEN IF YOU DON'T USE IT. New, better cars are on the market, and people buy those cars instead of your older model. Thus, people lose money in the trade... it happens all the time. If you borrowed to make your purchase in the first place, then you are doubly screwed.
Re:Shows the failures of socialism
on
Failing Our Geniuses
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· Score: 2, Insightful
This proves the point, that when ever someone cries "the government should do something" the answer is probably NO Say what? For the most part, the countries that are beating the pants off of us on test scores have excellent PUBLIC education systems.
In fact, from what I can tell, most have fewer private schools than the United States.
Give everyone guns, particularly young people, and we would have vastly increased rates of gun deaths.
They would simply occur in groups of 1 to 3, instead of 18 or 30. Most violence isn't premeditated, and so putting guns into everyone's hands would mean that shoving matches or fist fights would be much more likely to become people shooting each other or innocent bystanders.
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Funny, I do almost all my fleeing from snipers online. Well, other than on my drives through Phoenix.
Even dumb folks can (sometimes) learn from their mistakes.
It's funny that you would pick Robert Putnam as an example of someone who didn't get the attention that he deserved. In fact, a few years ago, he got plenty of attention - interviews on national TV, etc. - for his book Bowling Alone, which basically said that democracy was falling apart because people were no longer joining civic and fraternal organizations or other organized activities like bowling leagues.
He blamed television, ultimately, for causing this change, raising the question of why the major networks had him on their morning talk programs.
Your "mistakes" aren't always your fault. Persistence in the face of failure or rejection might have some benefit for survival... or for reproduction!
I laughed, but I don't have any mod points.
Studies have suggested that the decline in violent crime is pretty much a result of locking up almost everyone that might step out of line. Some people won't be satisfied until all violence has been suppressed (except, of course, violence done by the state or their subcontractors). I don't expect reason will be an impediment to their agenda.
I read the study. The author says, near the beginning, that in understanding the relationship between media violence and real violence, the "response should be to understand the dangers ... [and] to avoid exaggerating the dangers (which would destroy our credibility)." He should take his own advice! The smoking comparison is terribly misleading, as are the other comparisons to "public health problems"(hitting someone while playing hockey, for example, appears to be considered equally harmful to contracting HIV). If they looked at the effect of violent games or movies on murder rates, for example, you can bet it would be a much smaller effect.
More problems:
First, beware the word, "significantly." When a social scientist uses that word, you can bet they are talking statistical significance, which is not the same as a large magnitude of effect.
Also, he reports r values as if they are measures of the 'strength' of an effect, but I think that's debatable - if there isn't a lot of violent behavior in general, but a lot of video game playing, it doesn't make sense to call the effect of games on violence 'strong'. Furthermore, the correlations that he calls "strong" (such as r=.3) means that about 9% of the variation they find in violent behavior can be explained by watching violent TV. He ignores the fact that the vast majority of violent behavior (91% of variation!) is unexplained by violent media.
He tries to overstate the effectiveness of the results - he reports the greater tendency to shove one's spouse for individuals in the top quartile, etc. in the same paragraph where he says he 'controlled' for previous violence, but those appear to be raw numbers. The effects when controlling for background (which is difficult to do) are not reported.
Speaking of the longitudinal studies: in social science terms, long term studies have serious problems with endogeneity: in other words, violent people might choose to play violent games, and not the other way around. In other words, he may have discovered that really violent people tend to like violent entertainment!
The experimental results are a little more convincing, except that 1) it's a short-term effect and 2) the violent incidents in question are pretty trivial - the generally find rougher forms of play, typically, which isn't the same as spousal abuse, assault, or murder.
It's been my opinion that video game playing makes people more passive and sedentary (in general) rather than violent and active. Somebody should do a study!
You can believe it was because of Jewish spies - I'm torn between Microsoft and global warming.
I'm not a global warming catastrophist but that doesn't mean we should stick our heads in the sand.
Why not?
But wait, you say - competitors will find a way to cut costs (wireless, for example)! Maybe, eventually, but 1) they could do this with a government granted 'monopoly' anyway and 2) it might take a good while. What would we do in the mean time? Finally, less profitable customers would simply be ignored - which good for 'economic growth', maybe, but not for a free and democratic society. Most of us don't see money as the only measure of value.
Words are the building blocks of ideas. As languages disappear, we've potentially lost not only a method of communication but a great deal of information - the product of countless years of development. It's sort of like the "biodiversity as a resource" argument. There are lots of plants and animals with no apparent value at the moment, but one could turn out to provide the cure for cancer.
The 'fraction' of our population that goes to a university for a four year program is pretty high. About 50% of adolescents enter college at the expected time (18-19 years old), and there's a fair number of nontraditional students as well. Of course, many never graduate.
About 75 percent of U.S. high school graduates enter college and about 70 percent of 9th graders go on to graduate from high school, according to one study. If you do the math, you get about 50% (I've heard this elsewhere but can't recall where.)
It's the same with nuclear weapons. By restricting their sale and manufacture, the government has done NOTHING to keep them from the evil-doers, only out of the hands of private, law-abiding citizens. I think every man, woman and child should have their own tactical nuclear weapon - it's the only way to guarantee our safety and security. MAD works!
In fact, from what I can tell, most have fewer private schools than the United States.
Give everyone guns, particularly young people, and we would have vastly increased rates of gun deaths.
They would simply occur in groups of 1 to 3, instead of 18 or 30. Most violence isn't premeditated, and so putting guns into everyone's hands would mean that shoving matches or fist fights would be much more likely to become people shooting each other or innocent bystanders.