I was also redirected to Google.ca for several days in a row (for some reason still unknown to me). This happened whenever I connected from my home computer, which is located in central Virginia. Once you are at Google.ca, however, you can click on "Go to Google.com" which sends you to http://www.google.com/ncr, which will not redirect you to Google.ca, even if you actually are in Canada.
Even in the hypothetical world, it's only a zero-sum game when accounting for all participants.
That would be the definition of a zero-sum game. I'm not sure what you mean by "all participants", however, so I do want to stress that this is a zero-sum game even with a single thief committing a single theft. If the thief gains $1000, the store loses $1000: $1000-$1000=$0. If the thief gets caught and (hypothetically) loses $1M, the store (hypothetically) gains $1M: -$1M+$1M=$0.
Do you not see the burden caused by such a system?
Absolutely. In the real world this is not a good system. However, in the real world, simple restitution is also inadequate, at least for the majority of cases. If the only punishment is restitution, then the thief has two possible outcomes: he might gain $x, or he might lose $0 (+$x-$x). Obviously, in a small enough society it is possible that shame, etc., would mean that the thief is actually losing "value" when he gets caught, but in our modern society, restitution is simply not an adequate punishment. (Obviously, in the case of the child stealing the candy bar, the child would return the candy bar and get some punishment from his/her parents (presumably), so restitution by itself is not the only punishment.)
Decades of work has indicated more than three ways to make QM compatible with GR, including: string theory (AKA M-theory), twistors, and loop quantum gravity (LQG). However, it is suspected by some that, just like St. Patrick would tell us, these three are actually different facets of the same underlying reality. (Just like different interpretations of QM don't actually produce different predictions.)
Furthermore, Hawking radiation is inversely proportional to the mass of the black hole. In order for the amount of Hawking radiation to exceed the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, the black hole must have a mass significantly less than our sun. A super-massive black hole would emit a miniscule fraction of the CMB, and hence would be black for all intents and purposes.
If it's all 1's (I'll trust you on this, since I haven't RTFA), then it might make sense to transmit the first 42 Mersenne primes by transmitting the number of digits in them instead of transmitting their binary representation. Now, instead of transmitting 2 million 1's, we can transmit 21 0's and 1's. Of course, this gets back to them understanding what we're transmitting. (I think it would take a lot of patience for them to interpret 2 million (give or take) 1's as being a Mersenne prime. And what happens when Vega sets and they stop receiving our transmission?)
Please read the global cooling myth to understand that this statement is inaccurate, at best. This falls under the rubric of "if something is stated often enough..."
This is not meant to be a criticism of you. I've heard this so often myself that I believed it to be true. It wasn't until I did a little research that I found out otherwise.
Obviously, it is possible that scientists are wrong. They almost always are, although usually in minor details. E.g., we know that QM and GR can't both be right, but both are excellent approximations, at worst. Likewise, there might be some details that the scientists have wrong here, as well. The date that catastrophe X happens, or the amount that phenomenom Y is responsible for it, etc., are all quite debatable. However, it seems that the claim that global warming will continue, resulting in severe flooding of low-lying areas is almost indisputable. How much we can do to prevent it is obviously still one of the questions yet to be resolved. That we can, and should, do something, however, is not.
Judging from the chart on that site, it would appear that murder statistics are an excellent predictor of drug and alcohol policy. Specifically, prior to prohibition, murder was rising, and prior to the "war on drugs", murder was rising. This suggests that perhaps a rise in murder rates causes a change in drug and alcohol policy (although we all know that correlation != causation). It is very, very difficult from this chart to infer that making alcohol or drugs had an impact on murder rates. One could suggest that discontinuing prohibition reduced murder rates, but that would be confusing a one point sample with any kind of evidence.
The rest of the facts seem somewhat poorly strung together, so I'm not sure exactly what the points are. I guess that most people arrested for drug crimes are users and not dealers, which I don't dispute. I also agree that we should treat addicts as someone with a disease, and not as evil people. I'm not sure if there was another point here.
It's entirely possible that you were just sharing general information and this was not intended as any kind of rebuttal, in which case you can ignore my comments.:)
and US experience has taught us that making it suddenly illegal will probably do more harm than good. I don't see the harm in gradually raising the drinking age, however, until one must be 60 to enjoy a 60-year old Scotch. (And, no, I'm not yet 60, and won't see 60 any time soon.)
I freely acknowledge that the drug problem is complex. That was exactly my point. Legalizing drugs will not fix our problems, any more than legalizing alcohol did.
I'm not sure there's any evidence that giving out free needles encourages drug injection though - perhaps you can point to a study that shows this?
I re-read my post, and sure enough, I never said that giving out free needles encourages drug injection. I said that needle exchange programs (NEPs) should be analyzed. In fact, of course, they have, but most evidence is currently inconclusive. This includes whether NEPs increase drug use and whether NEPs decrease HIV incidents. The study I cited suggest that they do not increase drug use significantly, but they do decrease HIV incidents, although that study acknowledges that these claims are based on models and not empirical information. I think that claiming that these programs should be analyzed is therefore quite logical. Do you disagree?
I agree that given the current state of knowledge, there are reasons governments should consider getting involved in NEPs. However, there are good reasons for them not getting involved - specifically, their very involvement could jeopardize the NEPs chances of success.
It's just that I find it sad that there is this group of people (of which you do not seem to be a member) that think that most of our society's ills can be fixed by legalizing drugs. Illegal drugs cause more harm than good. Making them legal won't change this. I do agree, however, that trying to actually rehabilitate addicts (e.g., via treatment, education, monitoring) would no doubt be more helpful than merely jailing them.
I also recognize that there are some areas out there that are quite gray - such as providing clean needles to prevent transmission of HIV. I do not believe charities should be punished for this, but I acknowledge that such programs should be carefully analyzed. (I'm all in favor of reducing HIV, but I also wonder if such programs could be expanded to include some sort of education of the needle receivers before receipt. Obviously, there's a possible trade-off - fewer might be willing to get the needles resulting in more HIV, but this is not at all certain. Hence, a reason for analysis.)
You're a genius! If we legalize drugs, there will never be another reason to commit crimes. All crimes can be tracked to this single cause! Cop killers - the cops were trying to keep them away from their inalienable right to get loaded. Wife beaters - because drugs are illegal, the perpetrators needed some other way to amuse themselves. We should all sign a petition to make drugs legal immediately!
Sigh. OK, now seriously - is there any evidence behind your first claim or any data to back up your second claim, or is this just a dead horse that you're fond of beating?
I think what many object to is that they're being vague, at best, about what is the source of the "problem". If a message came up saying something like "Windows emulators are not supported for this operation", then there would be little room to complain. However, this is not the case, and many, myself included, suspect that MS is deliberately being vague about it, rather than having the courage (and smarts) to just be upfront about it.
When I went to Stonehenge (courtesy of Mad Max Tours) some loon (I mean that in the best possible sense) was flying in powered paraglider with an oversized fan attached to its back. He appeared to be steering with his elbows as he snapped pictures like a madman. He got close enough that I was sure that he was going to lose control of his craft and turn Stonehenge into Stoneunhenged.
On this same tour we also saw Avebury, and I do agree that it was more enjoyable. I never did see the devil behind my shoulder, however.
You're still calculating based on company losses rather than the proportion of "gain" by the thieves. This is an unjust solution.
Actually, in this hypothetical world, stealing is what is known as a zero-sum game. That means that the gain of the thieves equals the company losses. The fact that your arguments are centered around reality suggests to me that perhaps your understanding this, however, and are actually arguing that this hypothetical world has little to do with the real world. I agree. However, game theory can still inform us, as long as we take its results with a grain of salt.
Obviously, if we fine them $1000, then the risk to the thief is so small compared to his expected gain, that stealing will be a profitable business. In the real world, of course, this means that surveillance will also become profitable and a more reasonable equilibrium will be established. Still, punishing them based on the amount you think they've actually stolen is not a very adequate punishment for the reasons already discussed. (In fact, as others have mentioned, even if we make the expected gain for the criminal zero or only slightly negative, the illogicality that is human psychology will still mean that it is a tempting game for thieves to play.)
Also, I find your concepts of justice interesting. You describe what is unjust, but I see no descriptions of what you think would be just - to ALL parties involved. Justice, in general, is problematic. I'm afraid that I am guilty of being a reductionist, and as such, I am actually more interested in improving society than in meting out justice. (My previous arguments have nothing to do with improving justice or society, they were merely academic exercises addressing the game theory aspects associated with stealing.) So, the question that I ask myself in the real world scenarios are, what will reduce the probability of the crime in the first place, while not causing unneccesary burdens on society? This includes such strategies as pre-emptive elimination of crime. Of course, in my case I'm referring to eliminating the root causes of the crimes (psychological disorders, poverty, etc.) and not eliminating potential criminals before they become criminals. (If you haven't read Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor, you should!) Obviously, we probably will never eliminate all criminal intentions, so other pre-emptive strategies include (reasonable) surveillance. Finally, we will probably also never eliminate all crimes, so we do need to have logical strategies for dealing with criminals once they have been identified. (Of course, part of the problem is eliminating false positives in this identification process.) These strategies tie back into the first two strategies I mentioned. OK - I've rambled enough.
Consider, though, that almost everyone I know either uses Firefox now or avoids windows altogether. Heck, Firefox is even the default browser on the public computers on the UC Berkeley campus these days. I work there - I know how notoriously slow the PC techs are to change anything.
Kudos to Berkeley, but they are the exception in most cases, and this is no exception to that rule.:)
As long as IE is even almost as secure and almost as feature rich as Firefox, it will probably win the browser war. That is, unless and until Linux wins the OS war (or at least makes a bigger showing).
IE7, great. Microsoft will probably integrate it more tightly into the OS. In the meantime, the Mozilla foundation has at least 4 more months to get even better. Lets hope they build an even stronger lead.
About that word "lead". I don't think it means what you think it means.:) (Ob. quote.)
how we can compare the World Trade Center destruction to the tsunami disaster. After all, around 2,000 people died at the World Trade Center. Indonesia alone is reporting 241,687 dead and missing. Sri Lanka is reporting "more than 30,000" dead. India is reporting "over 14,000" dead, although this is from an old article and is most certainly out of date. A rough estimate, I would guess, is that approximately a third of million people died in the tsunami, making the death (and other devastation) from it have the same proportion to the WTC as the WTC has to Princess Diana's death. This does not in any way lessen the significance of the WTC, nor of the Princess Di's death.
But I will go back to the one point you didn't directly address (and the one most tied to reality). If the probability (per incident) of getting caught is low, then those who get caught are probably guilty of more than one incident. As a former manager who caught an employee stealing, I can tell you that thiefs rarely get caught their first time stealing. In the case of the person I caught, she claimed it was the only time she ever stole anything (and threw in a whole guilt trip thing about having a daughter to raise), but the only reason I caught her was because there had been evidence that someone was using a particular trick to steal from us. In order to catch her, I merely placed myself within visual range of where I knew the crime was happening so as to catch her in the act.
However, calculating utility is obviously harder to do and harder to explain. Suffice it to say, I made the assumption that the utility of a 99.99% chance of having $100 is higher than the negative utility of a 0.01% chance of losing $1M. (Of course, assuming that one has $1M in the first place.)
First of all, as I already explained, you need to make the expected value of shoplifting less than zero. (AKA "crime doesn't pay")
Secondly, if the probability of getting caught is 0.0001, then it is very unlikely you would get caught the first time you shoplifted. Therefore, it is likely you have done this more than once.
Finally, you want to send a message to the other shoplifters. See paragraph 1.
Of course, it makes far more sense to increase the probability of catching shoplifters, which is exactly what is done via surveillance, etc. Keep in mind, I'm just speaking hypothetical, and I suspect that you don't know that language.:)
Naturally, similar logic applies to the actual situation being discussed here. Rather than having disproportionately large fines, increase the probability of catching the perpetrators. However, since this is civil (I believe), the best policy for those doing the suing is to have large fines and a large probability of catching the infringers, but that has less to do with expected values than it does with maximizing profits.
Slashdot Mirror
I was also redirected to Google.ca for several days in a row (for some reason still unknown to me). This happened whenever I connected from my home computer, which is located in central Virginia. Once you are at Google.ca, however, you can click on "Go to Google.com" which sends you to http://www.google.com/ncr, which will not redirect you to Google.ca, even if you actually are in Canada.
That would be the definition of a zero-sum game. I'm not sure what you mean by "all participants", however, so I do want to stress that this is a zero-sum game even with a single thief committing a single theft. If the thief gains $1000, the store loses $1000: $1000-$1000=$0. If the thief gets caught and (hypothetically) loses $1M, the store (hypothetically) gains $1M: -$1M+$1M=$0.
Absolutely. In the real world this is not a good system. However, in the real world, simple restitution is also inadequate, at least for the majority of cases. If the only punishment is restitution, then the thief has two possible outcomes: he might gain $x, or he might lose $0 (+$x-$x). Obviously, in a small enough society it is possible that shame, etc., would mean that the thief is actually losing "value" when he gets caught, but in our modern society, restitution is simply not an adequate punishment. (Obviously, in the case of the child stealing the candy bar, the child would return the candy bar and get some punishment from his/her parents (presumably), so restitution by itself is not the only punishment.)
Decades of work has indicated more than three ways to make QM compatible with GR, including: string theory (AKA M-theory), twistors, and loop quantum gravity (LQG). However, it is suspected by some that, just like St. Patrick would tell us, these three are actually different facets of the same underlying reality. (Just like different interpretations of QM don't actually produce different predictions.)
Furthermore, Hawking radiation is inversely proportional to the mass of the black hole. In order for the amount of Hawking radiation to exceed the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, the black hole must have a mass significantly less than our sun. A super-massive black hole would emit a miniscule fraction of the CMB, and hence would be black for all intents and purposes.
As if there can be a bad Star Trek reference!
I don't speak French, so is this correct? (In its sense, not word-for-word)
the sixth sense was our vestibular sense. You know, the one that tells us which way we are oriented.
2^n-1 = 111....1
If it's all 1's (I'll trust you on this, since I haven't RTFA), then it might make sense to transmit the first 42 Mersenne primes by transmitting the number of digits in them instead of transmitting their binary representation. Now, instead of transmitting 2 million 1's, we can transmit 21 0's and 1's. Of course, this gets back to them understanding what we're transmitting. (I think it would take a lot of patience for them to interpret 2 million (give or take) 1's as being a Mersenne prime. And what happens when Vega sets and they stop receiving our transmission?)
Please read the global cooling myth to understand that this statement is inaccurate, at best. This falls under the rubric of "if something is stated often enough..."
This is not meant to be a criticism of you. I've heard this so often myself that I believed it to be true. It wasn't until I did a little research that I found out otherwise.
Obviously, it is possible that scientists are wrong. They almost always are, although usually in minor details. E.g., we know that QM and GR can't both be right, but both are excellent approximations, at worst. Likewise, there might be some details that the scientists have wrong here, as well. The date that catastrophe X happens, or the amount that phenomenom Y is responsible for it, etc., are all quite debatable. However, it seems that the claim that global warming will continue, resulting in severe flooding of low-lying areas is almost indisputable. How much we can do to prevent it is obviously still one of the questions yet to be resolved. That we can, and should, do something, however, is not.
Judging from the chart on that site, it would appear that murder statistics are an excellent predictor of drug and alcohol policy. Specifically, prior to prohibition, murder was rising, and prior to the "war on drugs", murder was rising. This suggests that perhaps a rise in murder rates causes a change in drug and alcohol policy (although we all know that correlation != causation). It is very, very difficult from this chart to infer that making alcohol or drugs had an impact on murder rates. One could suggest that discontinuing prohibition reduced murder rates, but that would be confusing a one point sample with any kind of evidence.
The rest of the facts seem somewhat poorly strung together, so I'm not sure exactly what the points are. I guess that most people arrested for drug crimes are users and not dealers, which I don't dispute. I also agree that we should treat addicts as someone with a disease, and not as evil people. I'm not sure if there was another point here.
It's entirely possible that you were just sharing general information and this was not intended as any kind of rebuttal, in which case you can ignore my comments. :)
and US experience has taught us that making it suddenly illegal will probably do more harm than good. I don't see the harm in gradually raising the drinking age, however, until one must be 60 to enjoy a 60-year old Scotch. (And, no, I'm not yet 60, and won't see 60 any time soon.)
I freely acknowledge that the drug problem is complex. That was exactly my point. Legalizing drugs will not fix our problems, any more than legalizing alcohol did.
I re-read my post, and sure enough, I never said that giving out free needles encourages drug injection. I said that needle exchange programs (NEPs) should be analyzed. In fact, of course, they have, but most evidence is currently inconclusive. This includes whether NEPs increase drug use and whether NEPs decrease HIV incidents. The study I cited suggest that they do not increase drug use significantly, but they do decrease HIV incidents, although that study acknowledges that these claims are based on models and not empirical information. I think that claiming that these programs should be analyzed is therefore quite logical. Do you disagree?
I agree that given the current state of knowledge, there are reasons governments should consider getting involved in NEPs. However, there are good reasons for them not getting involved - specifically, their very involvement could jeopardize the NEPs chances of success.
It's just that I find it sad that there is this group of people (of which you do not seem to be a member) that think that most of our society's ills can be fixed by legalizing drugs. Illegal drugs cause more harm than good. Making them legal won't change this. I do agree, however, that trying to actually rehabilitate addicts (e.g., via treatment, education, monitoring) would no doubt be more helpful than merely jailing them.
I also recognize that there are some areas out there that are quite gray - such as providing clean needles to prevent transmission of HIV. I do not believe charities should be punished for this, but I acknowledge that such programs should be carefully analyzed. (I'm all in favor of reducing HIV, but I also wonder if such programs could be expanded to include some sort of education of the needle receivers before receipt. Obviously, there's a possible trade-off - fewer might be willing to get the needles resulting in more HIV, but this is not at all certain. Hence, a reason for analysis.)
You're a genius! If we legalize drugs, there will never be another reason to commit crimes. All crimes can be tracked to this single cause! Cop killers - the cops were trying to keep them away from their inalienable right to get loaded. Wife beaters - because drugs are illegal, the perpetrators needed some other way to amuse themselves. We should all sign a petition to make drugs legal immediately!
Sigh. OK, now seriously - is there any evidence behind your first claim or any data to back up your second claim, or is this just a dead horse that you're fond of beating?
I think what many object to is that they're being vague, at best, about what is the source of the "problem". If a message came up saying something like "Windows emulators are not supported for this operation", then there would be little room to complain. However, this is not the case, and many, myself included, suspect that MS is deliberately being vague about it, rather than having the courage (and smarts) to just be upfront about it.
When I went to Stonehenge (courtesy of Mad Max Tours) some loon (I mean that in the best possible sense) was flying in powered paraglider with an oversized fan attached to its back. He appeared to be steering with his elbows as he snapped pictures like a madman. He got close enough that I was sure that he was going to lose control of his craft and turn Stonehenge into Stoneunhenged.
On this same tour we also saw Avebury, and I do agree that it was more enjoyable. I never did see the devil behind my shoulder, however.
Actually, in this hypothetical world, stealing is what is known as a zero-sum game. That means that the gain of the thieves equals the company losses. The fact that your arguments are centered around reality suggests to me that perhaps your understanding this, however, and are actually arguing that this hypothetical world has little to do with the real world. I agree. However, game theory can still inform us, as long as we take its results with a grain of salt.
Obviously, if we fine them $1000, then the risk to the thief is so small compared to his expected gain, that stealing will be a profitable business. In the real world, of course, this means that surveillance will also become profitable and a more reasonable equilibrium will be established. Still, punishing them based on the amount you think they've actually stolen is not a very adequate punishment for the reasons already discussed. (In fact, as others have mentioned, even if we make the expected gain for the criminal zero or only slightly negative, the illogicality that is human psychology will still mean that it is a tempting game for thieves to play.)
Also, I find your concepts of justice interesting. You describe what is unjust, but I see no descriptions of what you think would be just - to ALL parties involved. Justice, in general, is problematic. I'm afraid that I am guilty of being a reductionist, and as such, I am actually more interested in improving society than in meting out justice. (My previous arguments have nothing to do with improving justice or society, they were merely academic exercises addressing the game theory aspects associated with stealing.) So, the question that I ask myself in the real world scenarios are, what will reduce the probability of the crime in the first place, while not causing unneccesary burdens on society? This includes such strategies as pre-emptive elimination of crime. Of course, in my case I'm referring to eliminating the root causes of the crimes (psychological disorders, poverty, etc.) and not eliminating potential criminals before they become criminals. (If you haven't read Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor, you should!) Obviously, we probably will never eliminate all criminal intentions, so other pre-emptive strategies include (reasonable) surveillance. Finally, we will probably also never eliminate all crimes, so we do need to have logical strategies for dealing with criminals once they have been identified. (Of course, part of the problem is eliminating false positives in this identification process.) These strategies tie back into the first two strategies I mentioned. OK - I've rambled enough.
Kudos to Berkeley, but they are the exception in most cases, and this is no exception to that rule. :)
As long as IE is even almost as secure and almost as feature rich as Firefox, it will probably win the browser war. That is, unless and until Linux wins the OS war (or at least makes a bigger showing).
About that word "lead". I don't think it means what you think it means. :) (Ob. quote.)
You would have noticed the poster was asking the forefox users to be quiet. So, us Firefox users can keep on ranting. :)
Do you know how many people died in the accident with Princess Diana?
My math, as a reasonable aproximation, stands.
how we can compare the World Trade Center destruction to the tsunami disaster. After all, around 2,000 people died at the World Trade Center. Indonesia alone is reporting 241,687 dead and missing. Sri Lanka is reporting "more than 30,000" dead. India is reporting "over 14,000" dead, although this is from an old article and is most certainly out of date. A rough estimate, I would guess, is that approximately a third of million people died in the tsunami, making the death (and other devastation) from it have the same proportion to the WTC as the WTC has to Princess Diana's death. This does not in any way lessen the significance of the WTC, nor of the Princess Di's death.
But I will go back to the one point you didn't directly address (and the one most tied to reality). If the probability (per incident) of getting caught is low, then those who get caught are probably guilty of more than one incident. As a former manager who caught an employee stealing, I can tell you that thiefs rarely get caught their first time stealing. In the case of the person I caught, she claimed it was the only time she ever stole anything (and threw in a whole guilt trip thing about having a daughter to raise), but the only reason I caught her was because there had been evidence that someone was using a particular trick to steal from us. In order to catch her, I merely placed myself within visual range of where I knew the crime was happening so as to catch her in the act.
However, calculating utility is obviously harder to do and harder to explain. Suffice it to say, I made the assumption that the utility of a 99.99% chance of having $100 is higher than the negative utility of a 0.01% chance of losing $1M. (Of course, assuming that one has $1M in the first place.)
First of all, as I already explained, you need to make the expected value of shoplifting less than zero. (AKA "crime doesn't pay")
Secondly, if the probability of getting caught is 0.0001, then it is very unlikely you would get caught the first time you shoplifted. Therefore, it is likely you have done this more than once.
Finally, you want to send a message to the other shoplifters. See paragraph 1.
Of course, it makes far more sense to increase the probability of catching shoplifters, which is exactly what is done via surveillance, etc. Keep in mind, I'm just speaking hypothetical, and I suspect that you don't know that language. :)
Naturally, similar logic applies to the actual situation being discussed here. Rather than having disproportionately large fines, increase the probability of catching the perpetrators. However, since this is civil (I believe), the best policy for those doing the suing is to have large fines and a large probability of catching the infringers, but that has less to do with expected values than it does with maximizing profits.