I don't know I still think Job's essay was a preconceived marketing smoke job. First I thought it was just for some good PR, but now I think it was a way to strike a compromise with the labels regarding tiered pricing. I wouldn't be surprised if only new songs (the ones the labels want to charge more for) are offered DRM free.
Ok, I'll concede the point that circuit city would be able to save more money by cutting the salaries of the top execs.
However, I'd still suggest that it would be easier to replace a single digit number of senior VPs from within the company (promote middle management with a small pay raise) than 3400 sales reps. Even if they don't have a problem hiring they are going to have a serious retention problem after they show their willingness to insert a knife into the back of their low-level employees. Turnover ain't cheep - in fact I wouldn't be surprised if it significantly effected the savings from this move.
If they really need the savings there are less distasteful ways of getting it.
How much difference do you suppose there is between a highly paid sales associate and a poorly paid sales associate. Pulling my own number out of thin air I'd say 50%. So rather than fire 3400 highly paid sales associates and re-hire 3400 poorly paid sales associates, perhaps they should have simply laid off 567 highly paid sales associates permanently - thats what about one for every 2 stores, and at least wouldn't look so bad. Or they could lay off 1700 poorly paid sales associates (~2/store) permanently.
Good management is about more than the immediate bottom line. Consider how this would effect morale. Now I can't imagine that previous to this announcement everyone at circuit city loved their job - you know since I've been to one - but after this announcement their retention is going to be horrendous, and hiring people due to high turnover isn't cheap either.
Actually, the point about home values wasn't about the current stagnant condition of that market, but rather that the previous "meteoric rise" has made it impossible for many new home buyers in the middle class to buy a house that they can afford - which results in adjustable interest only mortgages. Honestly at this point, as someone hoping to buy a house in the next five years or so, I'd see a decrease in the home values as a benefit.
What's a luxurious, frivolous or unnecessary item? Start with bottled water -- as long as your tap water is safe to drink -- and move up from there.
Safe and dangerous water is not binary. Bottled water may be a tad overprieced, but how much does the average American spend on bottled water - I'd say I spend ~$150/year - clearly a luxury I shouldn't be entitled to...
The whole thing just says - we've elevated the bottom, so don't complain if you can't make any headway. After all you're better off than you would have been if you lived in the dark ages, so stop complaining the Bill Gates has holographic art.
And then there's this:
A poor person having a heart attack gets the same treatment as a rich person
Could someone please repeat that with a straight face? Now what about non-life threatening injuries or non-immediate health concerns, such as preventative care or cancer screening. There is a vast difference in quality of care between the poor (who frequently don't have health insurance, because Wal Mart or Circuit City reclassified them as part time) and the rich who can afford "elective" treatments that any sane doctor will say is mandatory.
The fact that the middle class is eroding is best demonstrated by looking at average debt. If we have nice things, but don't own them per say we don't have wealth, and we never will. Sure today the average middle class family still lives in a single family home, but unless something changes I don't see this continuing (remind me what is happening to foreclosure rates and home values). The middle class is slipping, and we're ceding our wealth to the top 5%. If something doesn't change soon the middle class ON TWO INCOMES won't be able to afford a house anymore - the author conveniently left off the part where in days past the middle class survived on ONE income.
The real problem in the last 100 years or so is that often times a country will identify itself first and foremost by its economic system. When the economic system becomes identity people will refuse to change it.
In the US we've been fiercely defending capitalism since before the cold war (nevermind we've been weakly socialists since at least the "New Deal") that the adoption of anything that is perceived as socialist is considered unamerican. This limits our ability to fine tune our economy and allows for the current situation where big-business gets to make all the tweaks in its favor.
Really I think the beef isn't so much with capitalism as it is with corporatism.
Most of the problems really emerged with widely held companies. Every investor wants a return, and everyone is an investor. The problem is that this is a self-defeating proposition, because to increase profits means to cut costs, and the investor is also an employee. Essentially the investor is urging for his own termination.
Not that there aren't serious problems with private companies, but when only a few people make the decision they can sometimes be convinced that the parts of the business that cost a lot are precisely what makes customers want to buy their wares.
I'm in my mid twenties, and am constantly amazed at what people in my age range feel entitled to. I expect to work my way up, and don't expect any particular loyalty from my employer. Pension plan ha - that's a good one - now tell me about social security that cracks me up every time. On the flip side that they expect some long-term loyalty from me is really hilarious.
However, that circuit city feels that they can exercise their lack of loyalty so egregiously is disgusting. As soon as I read about this I decided not to spend another dime there - not that big a loss since the last three times I went in there prepared to throw money at them they made it so frustrating that I drove the extra 15 minutes to Best Buy (not exactly the savior of the little guy I know).
Wouldn't that only be a problem if intelligent comments on slashdot were not countable? I've been counting since sometime in 2004, and I've still got plenty of unused fingers.
Lt me preface my comment by saying that I think IFRs are a good solution to the nuclear waste disposal problem. But every time I read about them, I imagine the guy who said, "You know, light water reactors have some serious disadvantages, and I think I have a solution. First I'm going to need a nuclear reactor and a giant vat of molten sodium..."
Then I chuckle a little bit and marvel at how he was able to get funded for any length of time.
If you have a significant holding, you have to disclose that when writing about the company.
Unless you're a blogger. And therein lies the problem. Journalists have codes of conduct and ethics. If they fail to follow the rules and somebody finds out they get reprimanded, or access cut, or even fired. If a blogger doesn't play by the rules they can get access cut - which is only a problem to the good bloggers who have access to begin with. The advantage of being a journalist is that if you break the rules before you have credibility of your own you will be punished by your boss. Bloggers don't have bosses so they have the chicken-and-egg problem of gaining access without being notable.
Umm, isn't the whole point of a public protest to show your dedication to a cause?
Oh no, I really believe in anti-globilization, but don't want to run the risk of catching a fire-hose or breathing some teargas... So I'll send a tersely worded internet petition to all my like-minded cowardly friends. That'll teach those nasty corporations that I can't be bullied.
There is value in standing up for something in spite of the danger of being beaten, imprisoned, or killed. There have been anonymous protests for ever e.g. roman graffiti, only problem is that it hasn't ever accomplished anything - unless I missed the chapter where Rome was sacked by anonymous graffiti artists. If you won't risk your skin it must not really be a cause worth fighting for. That is what makes the Rosa Parks, George Washington, John Hancock, and Mahatma Ghandi such icons. They believed in something strongly enough to publicly buck the system.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the role grammar to accurately reflect the tone and meaning of what one types? The proper use of punctuation should convey the tone. The problem is that everyone has started typing like they speak, when the written word is conveys emotion differently - i.e. not better, not worse - than spoken English.
This is especially true of irony and sarcasm. Every day some slashdotter complains about leaving off the irony tags - as if they didn't exist pre-internet. The problem isn't that sarcasm translates badly to text, the problem is that the poster hasn't learned to properly write sarcastic statements.
We should really be learning how to write better, rather than forcing spoken English into text.:)
From where I stand the attack on communism is warranted - and Orwell certainly had the Marx's communism in mind when writing 1984. The clearest example is the usage of the word proles. Look at the communist manifesto, the dichotomy of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is what inspired Marx in the first place.
While Marx's theories describe a classless society, I believe that he acknowledges that in the transition it would be necessary to have a body (the communist party) redistributing the wealth. The very valid criticism of communism, that Orwell and others make is that the interim lasts forever with one body forever deciding who gets what. This naturally results in the deciding persons giving themselves more, their friends less, and everyone else very little, in the process creating a different class division - 1n 1984 the inner party v. the outer party v. the proles.
I think you missed the point. The reason the system is broken is due to conflicting and contradictory human (not systematic) motives for punishing people. The problem is the other rationals for punishment trump rehab every time. We are fooling ourselves if we think we can tweak the current system which is designed - intentionally or not - to make rehabilitation very, very difficult.
Like I said, if rehab really is the driving force, not punishment, not deterrence, not retribution, not incapacitation, then we really ought to be sending these people to the couch, not the slammer.
The reality is, and will continue to be, that people find rehabbing criminals to be a distasteful waste of money. The would much rather see them suffer. They play lip-service to rehab to ease their consciouses.
All you have to do is see the huge following of people that think John Walsh can do no wrong and the way the "War on Drugs" is being fought to see that people are, in general, opposed to the idea of rehabilitation.
The other rationals for punishing people are valid, but we really ought to do a better job recognizing (1) that they exist, and (2) that they are often at odds with the idea of rehabilitation.
Hey, I think the system is broken too, but we shouldn't assume that (a)we are capable of rehabilitating criminals, (b) that criminals need to be rehabilitated for their own benefit, or that (c)rehabilitation is a necessary part of the criminal justice system.
The problem is that justice is institutionalized, so people have the tendency to think of the process as an abstract entity, when in reality it is just a bunch of very human desires, reactions, and policies that seem best to the people making the decisions at the time. If we recognize the human motivations, rather than appeal to abstract justifications, like rehabilitation, we might be in a better position to fix the system.
Personally, I think that prison is not the place for rehabilitation, and all evidence shows that any and all attempts to rehab people in prison fail miserably. If we want rehab, we should send them to counselors. If that doesn't sit well, then we shouldn't be pretending that rehab is the goal, and face the facts that we are more interested in deterrence, punishment, and maybe even revenge.
Generally I agree with your sentiment, but referencing the Old Testament in an argument condemning capital punishment is disingenuous. The OT has no trouble with capital punishment and has a pretty exhaustive list of offenses that require it.
I don't know why I feel compelled to join a debate every time a similar point comes up, but here I go again...
Prison, and punishment in general is not about all about rehabilitation. Other important reasons for punishing law breakers include, but are not limited to, incapacitation, general and specific deterrence, and good old fashioned punishment.
The measure of a persons punishment should consider much much more than the person's current rehabibility status.
A couple of examples:
A bum breaks a window because it gets really cold in Chicago in the winter - he'd rather face the punishment than freeze to death. Sure there may be better ways to stay warm, and he may have chosen unwisely, but given similar circumstances in the future he'd likely do the same thing. Do we lock him up forever for breaking a window - or execute him as you suggest?
I get pulled over for speeding - 60 in a 55 zone, and pay my fine. Three months later I get pulled over again in the same spot again doing 60. Clearly I haven't been rehabilitated of my wanton need for speed. How do you deal with me?
A severely mentally ill person is caught running around your local park naked. Rehab is impossible because there are no known treatments for his condition. Numerous experts testify that in the future he may cause more nuisance crimes, but he is in no way a danger to himself or others. Do we jail him? Is permanent civil commitment a better option? Do we execute all mentally handicap persons? What if is mother testifies that she takes care of him, and she foolishly left the back door unlocked allowing the streaker to escape. She vows that she will be more diligent - and points out that nothing like this has ever happened before. She also makes the excellent point that he will certainly be better cared for at her home than in a state institution. She unfortunately can't guarantee another event like this will never happen again - and as was previously mentioned the man certainly isn't rehabilitated.
Control theory is great, but the difficulty doesn't just lie in applying the concepts - it isn't really that hard once you understand Laplace transforms sufficiently well. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert, but I learned enough to put a bit into practice in undergrad mechanical engineering.
Anyway, like I said the problem isn't in concepts it is anticipating and modeling all the spurious inputs and having a fast enough controller. If control theory were as easy to put into practice as you make it sound we'd have a lot more dynamically walking bipedal robots running around - after all that is the prime example of a control system problem. I don't really have a any basis for this statement, but, but I'd venture that sub orbital control is on the same order of difficulty as dynamic walking.
I'd also doubt that anyone designing a control system for such an application would have any hang-ups talking having someone who understands feedback control do the work.
Can you name a single instance anywhere any time that any "benign" organism has been released into the environment and has not resulted in unexpected shifts in ecological equilibria that have had significant negative consequences, often for the humans the introduced organism was originally intended to help?
How about horses in America, and potatoes in Europe.
There are plenty of non-native plants and animals that have generally been a boon to society.
We should worry about unintended side effects, but that isn't to say that we should never introduce anything non-native.
I haven't heard these stories, but I'd bet they are a load of crap. Either the teller is doing lots of drugs and needs an excuse, or the lab screwed up.
The amount of drugs on bills is in the nanogram level, in order for enough to absorbed through the skin to be measurable once diluted in your blood stream you'd probably have to soak billions of dollars in acetone then rub it all over your body.
Labs probably flag unusual results because it is a good indicator that they screwed something up.
How would the cost of R&D decrease in a patentless world? It would cost the same amount of money to do the chemistry, build the prototype and feed rabits drugs.
The only difference is that there would no longer be any motivation to pay for it because when all is said and done somebody else takes the results and makes the product cheaper.
Patents aren't supposed to help sell a product, they are supposed to stop other people from selling it. That way you paid to figure it out you get to make the money from it for a limited amount of time.
Before patents people made their living by keeping their inventions secret, the founding fathers decided this was a bad idea because this way they got to milk a monopoly for as long as they could keep the interesting parts of their automatic loom locked up away from sight of people making or buying the fabric. Also before patents people weren't making things like drugs that in order to be useful have to be sold on the open market.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know I still think Job's essay was a preconceived marketing smoke job. First I thought it was just for some good PR, but now I think it was a way to strike a compromise with the labels regarding tiered pricing. I wouldn't be surprised if only new songs (the ones the labels want to charge more for) are offered DRM free.
Ok, I'll concede the point that circuit city would be able to save more money by cutting the salaries of the top execs.
However, I'd still suggest that it would be easier to replace a single digit number of senior VPs from within the company (promote middle management with a small pay raise) than 3400 sales reps. Even if they don't have a problem hiring they are going to have a serious retention problem after they show their willingness to insert a knife into the back of their low-level employees. Turnover ain't cheep - in fact I wouldn't be surprised if it significantly effected the savings from this move.
If they really need the savings there are less distasteful ways of getting it.
So what happens when you decrease 50% of the VPs salaries from $300,000 (more realistic) to $150,000.
How much difference do you suppose there is between a highly paid sales associate and a poorly paid sales associate. Pulling my own number out of thin air I'd say 50%. So rather than fire 3400 highly paid sales associates and re-hire 3400 poorly paid sales associates, perhaps they should have simply laid off 567 highly paid sales associates permanently - thats what about one for every 2 stores, and at least wouldn't look so bad. Or they could lay off 1700 poorly paid sales associates (~2/store) permanently.
Good management is about more than the immediate bottom line. Consider how this would effect morale. Now I can't imagine that previous to this announcement everyone at circuit city loved their job - you know since I've been to one - but after this announcement their retention is going to be horrendous, and hiring people due to high turnover isn't cheap either.
Go Bucks!
Actually, the point about home values wasn't about the current stagnant condition of that market, but rather that the previous "meteoric rise" has made it impossible for many new home buyers in the middle class to buy a house that they can afford - which results in adjustable interest only mortgages. Honestly at this point, as someone hoping to buy a house in the next five years or so, I'd see a decrease in the home values as a benefit.
Apologies for not being clearer.
Lets start with this:
Safe and dangerous water is not binary. Bottled water may be a tad overprieced, but how much does the average American spend on bottled water - I'd say I spend ~$150/year - clearly a luxury I shouldn't be entitled to...
The whole thing just says - we've elevated the bottom, so don't complain if you can't make any headway. After all you're better off than you would have been if you lived in the dark ages, so stop complaining the Bill Gates has holographic art.
And then there's this: Could someone please repeat that with a straight face? Now what about non-life threatening injuries or non-immediate health concerns, such as preventative care or cancer screening. There is a vast difference in quality of care between the poor (who frequently don't have health insurance, because Wal Mart or Circuit City reclassified them as part time) and the rich who can afford "elective" treatments that any sane doctor will say is mandatory.
The fact that the middle class is eroding is best demonstrated by looking at average debt. If we have nice things, but don't own them per say we don't have wealth, and we never will. Sure today the average middle class family still lives in a single family home, but unless something changes I don't see this continuing (remind me what is happening to foreclosure rates and home values). The middle class is slipping, and we're ceding our wealth to the top 5%. If something doesn't change soon the middle class ON TWO INCOMES won't be able to afford a house anymore - the author conveniently left off the part where in days past the middle class survived on ONE income.
The real problem in the last 100 years or so is that often times a country will identify itself first and foremost by its economic system. When the economic system becomes identity people will refuse to change it.
In the US we've been fiercely defending capitalism since before the cold war (nevermind we've been weakly socialists since at least the "New Deal") that the adoption of anything that is perceived as socialist is considered unamerican. This limits our ability to fine tune our economy and allows for the current situation where big-business gets to make all the tweaks in its favor.
Psst, selling crack pays less than working at McDonald's. I'd recommend the "Why drug dealers live with their parents" chapter of Freakenomics
There's a pretty massive difference between cutting the salary of wildly overpaid top execs, and cutting the highest paid low level employees.
But hey somebody is probably going to get a giant bonus for this idea...
Really I think the beef isn't so much with capitalism as it is with corporatism.
Most of the problems really emerged with widely held companies. Every investor wants a return, and everyone is an investor. The problem is that this is a self-defeating proposition, because to increase profits means to cut costs, and the investor is also an employee. Essentially the investor is urging for his own termination.
Not that there aren't serious problems with private companies, but when only a few people make the decision they can sometimes be convinced that the parts of the business that cost a lot are precisely what makes customers want to buy their wares.
I agree with you ... to a point.
I'm in my mid twenties, and am constantly amazed at what people in my age range feel entitled to. I expect to work my way up, and don't expect any particular loyalty from my employer. Pension plan ha - that's a good one - now tell me about social security that cracks me up every time. On the flip side that they expect some long-term loyalty from me is really hilarious.
However, that circuit city feels that they can exercise their lack of loyalty so egregiously is disgusting. As soon as I read about this I decided not to spend another dime there - not that big a loss since the last three times I went in there prepared to throw money at them they made it so frustrating that I drove the extra 15 minutes to Best Buy (not exactly the savior of the little guy I know).
Wouldn't that only be a problem if intelligent comments on slashdot were not countable? I've been counting since sometime in 2004, and I've still got plenty of unused fingers.
Lt me preface my comment by saying that I think IFRs are a good solution to the nuclear waste disposal problem. But every time I read about them, I imagine the guy who said, "You know, light water reactors have some serious disadvantages, and I think I have a solution. First I'm going to need a nuclear reactor and a giant vat of molten sodium..."
Then I chuckle a little bit and marvel at how he was able to get funded for any length of time.
Unless you're a blogger. And therein lies the problem. Journalists have codes of conduct and ethics. If they fail to follow the rules and somebody finds out they get reprimanded, or access cut, or even fired. If a blogger doesn't play by the rules they can get access cut - which is only a problem to the good bloggers who have access to begin with. The advantage of being a journalist is that if you break the rules before you have credibility of your own you will be punished by your boss. Bloggers don't have bosses so they have the chicken-and-egg problem of gaining access without being notable.
Umm, isn't the whole point of a public protest to show your dedication to a cause?
Oh no, I really believe in anti-globilization, but don't want to run the risk of catching a fire-hose or breathing some teargas... So I'll send a tersely worded internet petition to all my like-minded cowardly friends. That'll teach those nasty corporations that I can't be bullied.
There is value in standing up for something in spite of the danger of being beaten, imprisoned, or killed. There have been anonymous protests for ever e.g. roman graffiti, only problem is that it hasn't ever accomplished anything - unless I missed the chapter where Rome was sacked by anonymous graffiti artists. If you won't risk your skin it must not really be a cause worth fighting for. That is what makes the Rosa Parks, George Washington, John Hancock, and Mahatma Ghandi such icons. They believed in something strongly enough to publicly buck the system.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the role grammar to accurately reflect the tone and meaning of what one types? The proper use of punctuation should convey the tone. The problem is that everyone has started typing like they speak, when the written word is conveys emotion differently - i.e. not better, not worse - than spoken English.
:)
This is especially true of irony and sarcasm. Every day some slashdotter complains about leaving off the irony tags - as if they didn't exist pre-internet. The problem isn't that sarcasm translates badly to text, the problem is that the poster hasn't learned to properly write sarcastic statements.
We should really be learning how to write better, rather than forcing spoken English into text.
From where I stand the attack on communism is warranted - and Orwell certainly had the Marx's communism in mind when writing 1984. The clearest example is the usage of the word proles. Look at the communist manifesto, the dichotomy of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is what inspired Marx in the first place.
While Marx's theories describe a classless society, I believe that he acknowledges that in the transition it would be necessary to have a body (the communist party) redistributing the wealth. The very valid criticism of communism, that Orwell and others make is that the interim lasts forever with one body forever deciding who gets what. This naturally results in the deciding persons giving themselves more, their friends less, and everyone else very little, in the process creating a different class division - 1n 1984 the inner party v. the outer party v. the proles.
I think you missed the point. The reason the system is broken is due to conflicting and contradictory human (not systematic) motives for punishing people. The problem is the other rationals for punishment trump rehab every time. We are fooling ourselves if we think we can tweak the current system which is designed - intentionally or not - to make rehabilitation very, very difficult.
Like I said, if rehab really is the driving force, not punishment, not deterrence, not retribution, not incapacitation, then we really ought to be sending these people to the couch, not the slammer.
The reality is, and will continue to be, that people find rehabbing criminals to be a distasteful waste of money. The would much rather see them suffer. They play lip-service to rehab to ease their consciouses.
All you have to do is see the huge following of people that think John Walsh can do no wrong and the way the "War on Drugs" is being fought to see that people are, in general, opposed to the idea of rehabilitation.
The other rationals for punishing people are valid, but we really ought to do a better job recognizing (1) that they exist, and (2) that they are often at odds with the idea of rehabilitation.
Hey, I think the system is broken too, but we shouldn't assume that (a)we are capable of rehabilitating criminals, (b) that criminals need to be rehabilitated for their own benefit, or that (c)rehabilitation is a necessary part of the criminal justice system.
The problem is that justice is institutionalized, so people have the tendency to think of the process as an abstract entity, when in reality it is just a bunch of very human desires, reactions, and policies that seem best to the people making the decisions at the time. If we recognize the human motivations, rather than appeal to abstract justifications, like rehabilitation, we might be in a better position to fix the system.
Personally, I think that prison is not the place for rehabilitation, and all evidence shows that any and all attempts to rehab people in prison fail miserably. If we want rehab, we should send them to counselors. If that doesn't sit well, then we shouldn't be pretending that rehab is the goal, and face the facts that we are more interested in deterrence, punishment, and maybe even revenge.
Generally I agree with your sentiment, but referencing the Old Testament in an argument condemning capital punishment is disingenuous. The OT has no trouble with capital punishment and has a pretty exhaustive list of offenses that require it.
I don't know why I feel compelled to join a debate every time a similar point comes up, but here I go again...
Prison, and punishment in general is not about all about rehabilitation. Other important reasons for punishing law breakers include, but are not limited to, incapacitation, general and specific deterrence, and good old fashioned punishment.
The measure of a persons punishment should consider much much more than the person's current rehabibility status.
A couple of examples:
A bum breaks a window because it gets really cold in Chicago in the winter - he'd rather face the punishment than freeze to death. Sure there may be better ways to stay warm, and he may have chosen unwisely, but given similar circumstances in the future he'd likely do the same thing. Do we lock him up forever for breaking a window - or execute him as you suggest?
I get pulled over for speeding - 60 in a 55 zone, and pay my fine. Three months later I get pulled over again in the same spot again doing 60. Clearly I haven't been rehabilitated of my wanton need for speed. How do you deal with me?
A severely mentally ill person is caught running around your local park naked. Rehab is impossible because there are no known treatments for his condition. Numerous experts testify that in the future he may cause more nuisance crimes, but he is in no way a danger to himself or others. Do we jail him? Is permanent civil commitment a better option? Do we execute all mentally handicap persons? What if is mother testifies that she takes care of him, and she foolishly left the back door unlocked allowing the streaker to escape. She vows that she will be more diligent - and points out that nothing like this has ever happened before. She also makes the excellent point that he will certainly be better cared for at her home than in a state institution. She unfortunately can't guarantee another event like this will never happen again - and as was previously mentioned the man certainly isn't rehabilitated.
Control theory is great, but the difficulty doesn't just lie in applying the concepts - it isn't really that hard once you understand Laplace transforms sufficiently well. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert, but I learned enough to put a bit into practice in undergrad mechanical engineering.
Anyway, like I said the problem isn't in concepts it is anticipating and modeling all the spurious inputs and having a fast enough controller. If control theory were as easy to put into practice as you make it sound we'd have a lot more dynamically walking bipedal robots running around - after all that is the prime example of a control system problem. I don't really have a any basis for this statement, but, but I'd venture that sub orbital control is on the same order of difficulty as dynamic walking.
I'd also doubt that anyone designing a control system for such an application would have any hang-ups talking having someone who understands feedback control do the work.
How about horses in America, and potatoes in Europe.
There are plenty of non-native plants and animals that have generally been a boon to society.
We should worry about unintended side effects, but that isn't to say that we should never introduce anything non-native.
I haven't heard these stories, but I'd bet they are a load of crap. Either the teller is doing lots of drugs and needs an excuse, or the lab screwed up.
The amount of drugs on bills is in the nanogram level, in order for enough to absorbed through the skin to be measurable once diluted in your blood stream you'd probably have to soak billions of dollars in acetone then rub it all over your body.
Labs probably flag unusual results because it is a good indicator that they screwed something up.
How would the cost of R&D decrease in a patentless world? It would cost the same amount of money to do the chemistry, build the prototype and feed rabits drugs.
The only difference is that there would no longer be any motivation to pay for it because when all is said and done somebody else takes the results and makes the product cheaper.
Patents aren't supposed to help sell a product, they are supposed to stop other people from selling it. That way you paid to figure it out you get to make the money from it for a limited amount of time.
Before patents people made their living by keeping their inventions secret, the founding fathers decided this was a bad idea because this way they got to milk a monopoly for as long as they could keep the interesting parts of their automatic loom locked up away from sight of people making or buying the fabric. Also before patents people weren't making things like drugs that in order to be useful have to be sold on the open market.