Repeat after me, some people are very susceptible to drug addiction after being users. Not all, but enough that one has to consider the consequences.
And? Those people have already ruined their lives through alcoholism anyway. Since we're obviously not going to reinstate alcohol prohibition (knowing how it turned out last time), why should we worry about people who are already lost?
The ONLY thing that prevents me from actually buying black and milds, is that it isn't worth it. 2 minutes of escape isn't enough to justify the health consequences. However, if it was meth, and the promise was 8 hours of escape, who the hell knows what I would do.
So, what you're saying is that meth has a better cost/benefit ratio than tobacco? Then it's tobacco that should be illegal instead!
You have failed to show how things would be worse if you could buy a 'teen of meth for $40 from the Walgreen's vs. being able to buy a 'teen of meth from Joe the Biker at the bar for $80.
More to the point, things would be better because the Walgreen's employee is much less likely to shoot you for looking at him funny.
Try some reading comprehension, dumbass. He never said that druggies "tend" to do anything. He made an assumption that a non-zero number of drug users would lose control, but he never made any claim what proportion of the total number of drug users that was.
But, again...how did they get away with this way to ban drugs....again, it took a constitutional amendment for booze....which in many cases is arguably a lesser level drug.
In addition to my other reply, here's another line of reasoning: it didn't take a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol; they just hadn't thought of the alternative method yet.
But seriously....Why is it that it took a constitutional amendment to start prohibition of alcohol, and bring it back...but, other drugs have been taken out of public use by the swipe of a pen?
Because illegal drugs aren't "technically" illegal; they just require a permit and the government doesn't ever issue one. You can thank the Interstate Commerce Clause for that bullshit.
It doesn't say they can't, though -- they have no obligation to the insurance company. But they do have an obligation to the patient, so if something's in the patient's best interest and there's no other directive against it (and in this case there's not, as I just said), then the doctor should do it.
Besides, I think if doctors got together and committed fraud on a massive scale, then it would be good for the industry. And by "good," I mean it would collapse the whole insurance system and we'd go back to paying reasonable prices as we go for routine services, just like how people did before WWII.
Not really, because it only takes one case to generate an epidemic among unvaccinated subjects. So the very low odds of catching it in the first place only apply to the first case.
Right, and all that means is that I didn't accurately determine the risk factor either (of course, I wasn't claiming to have done so, so that's okay). My point that you still committed the fallacy still stands.
Let me reiterate that I agree with your conclusion! In fact, I never disagreed with it; I merely was trying to point out the irony of your statement.
You can still have incorrect reasoning and reach the correct conclusion, just like a kid that says "2 * 2 = 4" even though he actually added instead of multiplied.
You misunderstand me: I wasn't advocating not getting vaccinated; I was pointing out that Reziac himself committed exactly the statistical fallacy he was complaining about!
The problem is they can't likely renegotiate those peering agreements.
So what? How is that Google's problem?
This is about them wanting the force of law to give them more metering opportunities so they have something to negotiate for to get better terms in peering agreements.
If they want "the force of law" to help them then they should pursue anti-trust complaints against Cogent, not try to legalize extortion against content providers!
Heh, talk about complete inability to compare risk factors!
Chances of a mild reaction to whooping cough vaccine runs somewhere around 1 in 10,000, with the chance of a fatal reaction about 1 in 1 million (but in that case, the child's immune system is a bomb waiting to go off, and sooner or later something will get 'em).
Chances of death if the child contracts whooping cough: about 1 in 4 with modern hospitalization, or 1 in 2 without.
You forgot to multiply that "chance of death if the child contracts whooping cough" by the chance of contracting the disease (without having been vaccinated) in the first place. If the chance of contracting whooping cough is less than 1 in 250,000 (and we assume that the child has access to modern hospitalization), then it's less risky to forgo the vaccine than to take it!
Chance of death with vaccine: 1/1,000,000 (according to you)
Chance of death without vaccine: I * 1/4, where I = incidence of disease. If I = 1/250,000, then 1/250,000 * 1/4 = 1/1,000,000
Since the cause of autism is unknown, but the incidence of it is up the last few decades
The incidence of diagnosis of autism is up, but that doesn't necessarily mean the incidence of occurrence is up also. It could very well be that it simply went undiagnosed before -- instead of being called "autistic," the children were just called "slow" or "shy" or "retarded" or something.
As a doctor, I agree wholeheartedly. There are a number of reasons for this, but, honestly, the biggest reason is this is just not paid for. The biggest insurers in this country - medicaid and medicare do not pay for annual preventative health visits except for children. Also, they pay per visit, not what you did or how good a job you did as a doctor. I can spend 30 minutes discussing stuff with my patents about non-medicine treatments, about vaccines or whatever (and I do because I consider it my job to do what is best for my patients), but I won't get paid a dime to do it by their insurance for all that extra time with them or for many of the preventative health visits. That costs me quite a bit of money actually. I have to pay staff and office cost so it comes straight out of my families pocket. Many docs, are understandably (to a certain degree) not willing to make that sacrifice.
So lie to the insurance companies! Tell them you did something that they'll reimburse you for, but actually do the preventative/non-medicinal treatment instead. In fact, the way I see it your Hippocratic oath requires it, because failing to practice preventative medicine and/or prescribing unnecessary drugs harms the patient!
Neither Google nor the customers are the hogs -- they each paid for their half of the connection! The ISPs are the hogs, because they want Google to pay TWICE!
Google pays exactly the amount that Google's ISP was willing to accept. If that's too low, then Google's ISP shouldn't have accepted it!
The ISPs on the other end of the connection -- the ones complaining -- have peering agreements (directly or indirectly) with Google's ISP. If they want more money, they need to negotiate more favorable terms for their peering agreement, causing Google's ISP to raise its rates. All this noise about charging Google again for what it already paid for is greedy, offensive, and ridiculous!
Ah, well I use the payee's own system rather than my bank's. I have more leverage if they unduly delay the payment, because I can claim they had a conflict of interest.
I think you're not looking at the big picture here.
I think I'm looking at a bigger picture than you realize.
Whether DRM is right or wrong doesn't depend on what the "intent" of the machine is; DRM is inherently wrong by its nature. It doesn't become magically okay if you were "aware" of it, or if it helps the publisher, or even if it's "isolated" to a single platform. Think about it -- DRM is "isolated" to Windows and Mac, "freeing up" our Linux machines from that burden. But is that good enough? Of course not! Trying to put DRM in a "walled garden" and then pretending it's okay to ignore it doesn't work; in reality the walls are around us and we're just depriving ourselves of the outside world.
Let me ask you a question: is it okay for a movie to have DRM? What about a song? What about a book? Is the answer "no?" Well, then, what makes a game any different? Why should games get a free pass if other forms of expression don't?
In fact, you know what? Game software has even more of a need to be free of DRM than anything else! Compare it to a normal piece of software -- Linux, for instance. Fifty years from now, who's going to care about 2.6.whatever? Nobody! But fifty years from now, who's going to care about Half-Life? I know I will! Unlike applications, where the only important thing is functionality that can be completely superseded by a new version, unique stories and fun experiences don't go obsolete.
Now, compare a game to a movie or song. Even when a movie or song is DRM'd, it's more likely to last than a game. Since it's a standard, there'll still be hardware around 50 years from now that can play DVDs. But consoles aren't standards, and a PS3 is going to be a rare beast in 2058. Unlike music and movies, games need to be maintained by either porting them or writing emulators for them. And it's perversely evil to intentionally make that harder to do by infecting them with DRM!
Of course, all these arguments I make about DRM also apply to proprietary source code (and art assets, etc. for that matter). It's a tragedy how much has already been lost, and will continue to be lost, because we were too stupid to keep copies of it. And to exacerbate that with DRM is unconscionable -- it's like tossing a lit match into the Library of Alexandria.
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My gut doesn't need to be peer-reviewed; I made no claims. I only pointed out the flaw in SpinyNorman's reasoning.
And? Those people have already ruined their lives through alcoholism anyway. Since we're obviously not going to reinstate alcohol prohibition (knowing how it turned out last time), why should we worry about people who are already lost?
So, what you're saying is that meth has a better cost/benefit ratio than tobacco? Then it's tobacco that should be illegal instead!
More to the point, things would be better because the Walgreen's employee is much less likely to shoot you for looking at him funny.
Try some reading comprehension, dumbass. He never said that druggies "tend" to do anything. He made an assumption that a non-zero number of drug users would lose control, but he never made any claim what proportion of the total number of drug users that was.
In addition to my other reply, here's another line of reasoning: it didn't take a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol; they just hadn't thought of the alternative method yet.
Because illegal drugs aren't "technically" illegal; they just require a permit and the government doesn't ever issue one. You can thank the Interstate Commerce Clause for that bullshit.
It doesn't say they can't, though -- they have no obligation to the insurance company. But they do have an obligation to the patient, so if something's in the patient's best interest and there's no other directive against it (and in this case there's not, as I just said), then the doctor should do it.
Besides, I think if doctors got together and committed fraud on a massive scale, then it would be good for the industry. And by "good," I mean it would collapse the whole insurance system and we'd go back to paying reasonable prices as we go for routine services, just like how people did before WWII.
Right, and all that means is that I didn't accurately determine the risk factor either (of course, I wasn't claiming to have done so, so that's okay). My point that you still committed the fallacy still stands.
Let me reiterate that I agree with your conclusion! In fact, I never disagreed with it; I merely was trying to point out the irony of your statement.
You can still have incorrect reasoning and reach the correct conclusion, just like a kid that says "2 * 2 = 4" even though he actually added instead of multiplied.
You misunderstand me: I wasn't advocating not getting vaccinated; I was pointing out that Reziac himself committed exactly the statistical fallacy he was complaining about!
Wouldn't it have been easier to just delete them instead of writing that apology?
So what? How is that Google's problem?
If they want "the force of law" to help them then they should pursue anti-trust complaints against Cogent, not try to legalize extortion against content providers!
Then the complaining ISPs should have negotiated better peering agreements! It's not Google's fault they screwed up!
Heh, talk about complete inability to compare risk factors!
You forgot to multiply that "chance of death if the child contracts whooping cough" by the chance of contracting the disease (without having been vaccinated) in the first place. If the chance of contracting whooping cough is less than 1 in 250,000 (and we assume that the child has access to modern hospitalization), then it's less risky to forgo the vaccine than to take it!
Chance of death with vaccine: 1/1,000,000 (according to you)
Chance of death without vaccine: I * 1/4, where I = incidence of disease. If I = 1/250,000, then 1/250,000 * 1/4 = 1/1,000,000
The incidence of diagnosis of autism is up, but that doesn't necessarily mean the incidence of occurrence is up also. It could very well be that it simply went undiagnosed before -- instead of being called "autistic," the children were just called "slow" or "shy" or "retarded" or something.
So lie to the insurance companies! Tell them you did something that they'll reimburse you for, but actually do the preventative/non-medicinal treatment instead. In fact, the way I see it your Hippocratic oath requires it, because failing to practice preventative medicine and/or prescribing unnecessary drugs harms the patient!
Neither Google nor the customers are the hogs -- they each paid for their half of the connection! The ISPs are the hogs, because they want Google to pay TWICE!
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck full of hard drives.
(Or the latency, for that matter!)
Google pays exactly the amount that Google's ISP was willing to accept. If that's too low, then Google's ISP shouldn't have accepted it!
The ISPs on the other end of the connection -- the ones complaining -- have peering agreements (directly or indirectly) with Google's ISP. If they want more money, they need to negotiate more favorable terms for their peering agreement, causing Google's ISP to raise its rates. All this noise about charging Google again for what it already paid for is greedy, offensive, and ridiculous!
Ah, well I use the payee's own system rather than my bank's. I have more leverage if they unduly delay the payment, because I can claim they had a conflict of interest.
I think both Visa and the court system would take a dim view if Valve tried to pull a stunt like that.
I don't think the game has been out long enough for the credit card chargeback period to have expired, has it?
You know, you can pay online without making it automatic.
I think I'm looking at a bigger picture than you realize.
Whether DRM is right or wrong doesn't depend on what the "intent" of the machine is; DRM is inherently wrong by its nature. It doesn't become magically okay if you were "aware" of it, or if it helps the publisher, or even if it's "isolated" to a single platform. Think about it -- DRM is "isolated" to Windows and Mac, "freeing up" our Linux machines from that burden. But is that good enough? Of course not! Trying to put DRM in a "walled garden" and then pretending it's okay to ignore it doesn't work; in reality the walls are around us and we're just depriving ourselves of the outside world.
Let me ask you a question: is it okay for a movie to have DRM? What about a song? What about a book? Is the answer "no?" Well, then, what makes a game any different? Why should games get a free pass if other forms of expression don't?
In fact, you know what? Game software has even more of a need to be free of DRM than anything else! Compare it to a normal piece of software -- Linux, for instance. Fifty years from now, who's going to care about 2.6.whatever? Nobody! But fifty years from now, who's going to care about Half-Life? I know I will! Unlike applications, where the only important thing is functionality that can be completely superseded by a new version, unique stories and fun experiences don't go obsolete.
Now, compare a game to a movie or song. Even when a movie or song is DRM'd, it's more likely to last than a game. Since it's a standard, there'll still be hardware around 50 years from now that can play DVDs. But consoles aren't standards, and a PS3 is going to be a rare beast in 2058. Unlike music and movies, games need to be maintained by either porting them or writing emulators for them. And it's perversely evil to intentionally make that harder to do by infecting them with DRM!
Of course, all these arguments I make about DRM also apply to proprietary source code (and art assets, etc. for that matter). It's a tragedy how much has already been lost, and will continue to be lost, because we were too stupid to keep copies of it. And to exacerbate that with DRM is unconscionable -- it's like tossing a lit match into the Library of Alexandria.
How does one go about picking a lawyer, anyway (aside from avoiding the ambulance-chasing shysters who advertise on TV)?