Re:Daft Punk
on
Tron: Legacy
·
· Score: 4, Informative
The Daft Punk music suits a movie like Tron so much more than the original's symphonic score, I think.
In that case, you're not listening to the original score very closely.
The original score was written by Wendy Carlos, who is one of the very early pioneers in electronic music. For that particular movie, she created a mix of orchestral sounds with synthesized sounds. Later in her career, as the technology improved, she started creating entirely synthesized music that sounded closer and closer to real orchestral music. Ultimately, some of this work led to the creation of synthetic instruments, whose sound was inspired by real instruments, but was impossible (eg, a percussive woodwind sound).
In my opinion, this is an idea fit for the world of Tron.
(The Daft Punk soundtrack to the new one was also awesome.)
I'll admit that I wrote my post while feeling a bit grouchy, so my tone was poor.
My opinions come from a lot of reading of Edward Tufte, whose career has been focused on the visual display of quantitative information. It is hard for me to see ANY graph without looking at it with the perspective of what I've learned.
I'm not trying to take away from Rosling's accomplishments in world health. Reading up on his background, I have a lot of respect for the man. At the same time, I found his graphics and presentation a bit too flashy, and it seemed that he favored style over clarity, which (in my opinion) is getting in the way of his good message.
If we could just harness your ego to power electricity we could power the continental United States... And you've accomplished...what, exactly?
Please avoid these personal attacks. Name calling and putting people down is self-diminishing. I know that my original post had some of that tone (which was my fault, and I shouldn't have done it).
Also, what I have or have not accomplished in my life is of no relevance here.
In my experience in industry it's the opposite. People spend a lot of time on the formatting and presentation, but any actual statistics used is elementary. And of course our salesman basically don't know anything about statistics.
Don't get me wrong. I think a lot of people spend a lot of time on formatting and presentation, but they do a horrible job. I've seen people take a perfectly readable, clearly presented graphic, then spend 5 minutes adding shadows, 3D effects, etc. The result looks all shiny and pretty, but as a way of presenting data, it is a failure.
Good data presentation should be appealing to the eye AND easy to read. In my experience these kinds of presentations are very few and far between.
1) This is a show. Watch the ted talk if you want proper backgrounds and so on. Television needs to be entertaining if you want people to listen to you until the end.
But I fail to see that accurate data presentation is in conflict with entertainment.
2) His Y-axis is not distorting the truth one bit. With zero health-care, people tend to live into their late teens. That's your comparison point. Low and behold, the bottom of the graph corresponds to.... late teens! It's debatable whether there's an upper limit or not.
Did you read the link on lie factors?
You need to think.
Although you may disagree with me, please be polite about it. (Insert tongue-in-cheek pejorative here)
I'd be willing to bet that he knows plenty about graphics presentation. It is just a (successful) attempt to make it visually interesting to non-stats geeks. I certainly enjoyed it.
It was certainly enjoyable, but I actually doubt that he knows plenty about presentation. In my experience (as a scientist), many, many more people understand statistics and data analysis than understand the power of presentation.
Statistics is an analytical skill. Data presentation is much more of a design/aesthetic skill, which is woefully undervalued. (in my opinion)
Furthermore, although there are theoretically rules governing what cops can do, in practice they can get away with a lot of gross violations of your civil liberties.
For example, in order to search your car, consent is great, but if a cop sees something that "looks like drug paraphernalia," he gets to search your car for free. I've heard of an example where an upside-down frisbee was used to claim evidence of cocaine use.
Guess what? If the cop then finds something, it is easy enough to just claim to have seen the true contraband. Unless you have strong evidence to the contrary, if it comes to court, you're screwed (unless you're rich enough to spend a lot on a legal defense).
This power from cops goes even further. They can beat you if you are "resisting arrest," and unless someone tapes the whole incident, you're screwed.
If they see you driving and don't like the look (or color) of your face, they will find a reason to pull you over. A lawyer friend of mine told me stories of riding with a cop in a car and learning how they could find a "legitimate" reason to pull over every single car.
So, think very, very carefully before pulling a self-righteous stance in front of a cop.
I applaud what he is trying to do. Seriously. At the same time, this guy needs to read a bit more about data presentation.
First of all, the background setting for this talk is a terrible choice. The windows make it difficult to see the individual plots, and what's up with the large ball of lights off to the right? Ugh.
His y-axis is also distorting the truth. With the y-axis beginning at 25 and going to 75, he is conveying a huge lie factor in the progress.
Further to this last point, there is pretty much universal consensus that there is a limit to the lifespan of fossil fuels, hence the classification as "non-renewable".
Even if you choose to completely ignore the environmental concerns, it makes long term economic sense to start investing in long-term energy solutions. That way, the transition to a more sustainable economy can happen without a major disruption.
The whole idea that environmental stewardship is at odds with business is just bunk. In fact, it turns out that monitoring carbon is good for businesses. The choice isn't between having a good economy and having a clean environment. The choice is between two different economic systems - one that considers long-term environmental costs and one that ignores them until they are serious problems, both environmentally and economically.
In my mind, the biggest failure of the environmental movement is the fact that they rarely talk about the long term economic gains that can happen with good land stewardship.
What is driving your assumption that if the US looses influence, totalitarian governments will gain influence? To me, that isn't at all obvious.
Also, exactly how much corruption should we tolerate in order to keep working towards the greater good? Isn't it possible to oppose the creep of corruption in the more democratic societies while still striving to remove the totalitarian ones?
Let me also ask you this question - how many people in the world think that a society like, for example, North Korea represents a goal? (And I'm not talking about *other* dictators, I'm talking about the general population.)
Maybe I have a naive view of the world here, but it seems to me that you're giving corruption a free pass as long as worse places exist, which is a tough pill to swallow.
With a heavily programmer-biased crowd here, I'm not surprised to see these comments extolling the virtues of programming, and they are all right - the best idea in the world is worthless without good code. Likewise, the most beautiful code can't make a terrible idea appealing.
Clearly, the people who say that they "just need a programmer" are idiots. The best products are ones that consider *everything*, from the details of implementation up to a user's first experience with the product. This isn't to say that all of the details need to be recorded on paper before beginning, but rather that the function and the form of what is being created are in close harmony.
In practice, though, I rarely see this. Instead, I hear marketing folks saying vague, poorly thought out ideas, which are then handed over to developers. Programmers think about details, so before you know it, you have a new feature with about 15 different options, since the developers wanted to make sure that the user could control their experience. The trouble is that in 99% of the cases, the user wants to do the same thing, and having to slog through 10 different questions ruins the experience and confuses the user.
I'm sure that people are reading the above paragraph and thinking of solutions. By now, you probably have even though of the idea of putting in a set of defaults and having the ability to edit the defaults. Then, when the user starts the function, they have the choice of going to "advanced mode" or just using the defaults.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Here, in a hypothetical situation, is is really easy to start proposing solutions, but there is absolutely no context for understanding the idea and the intended use. (Because I deliberately omitted them.) Instead, the complexity is starting to snowball without any thought to overall vision.
This is my complaint with nearly every piece of software in the world. Outside of the world of software engineers, most people don't care about all the options. They are using a piece of software because they are trying to accomplish something in their lives (even it that something is just entertainment). The most ideal software is what allows the person to focus most specifically on that goal and to have all the flexibility that they need, which is a big difference to having all the possible functionality.
Accomplishing this goal is extremely difficult, and to do it well, designers and programmers must be in close contact (and both competent).
A parting thought from the French author and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
No, it's not. There are two parties that happen to be more effective than anybody else at getting votes but there is nothing in the US Constitution or Federal/State laws that define this country as a two-party state.
What you say is technically correct, but you're missing the point.
Right now, there are two parties that effectively control the U.S. political scene. Because of this, back in the 2008 election, it was a sure thing, even before the election started, that the winner would belong to either one of these two parties.
You could have voted for any one of those "other names". You decided not to. Whose fault is that?
I decided not to because of the basic fact that if I voted for one of the other names, nothing would change. Yes, yes, I know the argument that says that we need to start voting for other parties to "send them a message."
As much as I would like to believe that it is that simple, it just isn't. A real substantial change to the system will take a lot of hard work, including a lot of political organizing, lots of money, a large number of highly publicized rallies, etc., etc.
THAT is the hard work of democracy. If you go to the polls, vote for some other party, and walk away feeling like you've helped to make a difference, you are deluding yourself.
If you really want to see some changes attend (or better yet, organize) rallies, give money to the causes you believe in, get in touch with media. Until you start doing any of these things, I don't care which box you're checking at election time - you are not changing the system.
I wasn't aware that Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin were the only two choices on the 2008 ballot.
Seriously?
Sure, there were other names on the ballot, but the US is a two party system. Changing that fundamental fact is much more complicated than voting for Random Other Person on a ballot.
So, yeah, the ballot had other names, but, really, there were only two options.
I would expect that the more popular you and the more friends you have, the more time you'll spend on Facebook and/or texting. Likewise, the larger your social group, the more likely you are to have sex and go to parties with drugs/alcohol.
I'm sure, though, that this will prompt a huge backlash trying to protect our children from the corrupting evils of technology.
And, in my thinking, this illustrates how very much the lead singer in a lot of modern pop is just a tool. Someone like Britney Spears is a low-tech version of Hatsune Miku.
...despite a large body of research, the committee found no credible evidence that the passage of right-to-carry laws decreases or increases violent crime... Some studies find that right-to-carry laws reduce violent crime, others find that the effects are negligible, and still others find that such laws increase violent crime.
The real trouble with gun control as an issue, from a scientific perspective, is that it is impossible to study it with a classic double-blind study. I'm sure that we'll see an explosion of posts here with a lot of anecdotal evidence that shows the issue one way or another, but in the end, I don't think that we will have a clear answer to that question.
The difference between Libertarians and anarchists in general is that Libertarians want the government to protect people from other people, with no artificial limits on liability.
Here is an idea that I think we all need to embrace. In fact, I would even extend this to a more aggressive stance, that says that the government should hold companies accountable for all the indirect costs of what they do.
Of course, to play devil's advocate, I can easily imagine that companies will find ways around these kinds of policies. For example, if a mining company wanted to do a very dirty (and cheap) extraction that would poison a nearby stream, which resulted in severe health issues for those downstream, they could potentially establish some kind of temporary company which assumes all liability. Then, when the shit comes crashing down on their heads, they could just fold up the small company, declaring bankruptcy and walking away.
Yes, it may be possible to track down the responsible people and prosecute them, but that would take (potentially) years and years of lawsuits and legal wrangling. Furthermore, in cases like this, the wealthy parent company would be capable of spending a lot more resources in court than would any of the (presumably) less well off people that would be harmed by the mining, which may practically prevent any accountability.
In the end, wouldn't it just be simpler (and prevent less suffering) if there was (in addition to the unlimited liability) a set of rules (ie, regulations) that could prevent this whole ugly situation in the first place?
...but it's not like the government does anything to help this now anyway.
I think it is very disingenuous of you to claim that government does nothing to help you here. Look at all the issues of food safety in China absent any regulations.
Generally speaking, we enjoy a very safe food supply, thanks in large part to the government regulations. If you chucked out all those regulations, the system of checks and balances may kick in to eventually reach some kind of stable equilibrium, but in the meantime, a lot of people will get sick and die from bad food.
Isn't it simpler to try to prevent this in the first place?
Your point is well-taken about having former CEOs, etc. in positions to oversee their former industries, but should we throw out the whole system simply because there is some abuse of power? Industry people hate regulators. Full stop. I have never read an account of any corporation cherishing the regulations laid down by the government. Instead, they complain about too much cost, etc.
In my mind, that means that there are a whole host of regulations that don't directly benefit corporations, which makes your statement that "regulation just supports more corporatism" pretty questionable.
You also fail to address my question - what do you think will happen if there is no regulation? What will stop companies from engaging in unsafe practices, like what happened with BP? Why will any factory install expensive systems to clean their waste instead of just dumping it in the river? Why will any company disclose all of their ingredients if they don't have to?
The libertarian argument is that the consumers will demand it, but I doubt that this can happen. Do you know where the plastic in your keyboard came from? Do you have any idea where in the world all of your food is grown? The world is too complicated for each consumer to fully research every shopping decision and come to a final conclusion that carefully balances the needs of everybody.
The only solution that I see is some external regulating body. It doesn't have to be the government per se (and examples like ISO show that some privately run regulations can work), but I totally fail to see how a lack of any regulation benefits anybody other than the companies.
You don't trust corporations, but you refuse to realize that regulation just supports more corporatism?
Huh? I was with you until I read this statement. Could you elaborate on what you mean by this? I'm not trolling, I just fail to see what you're getting at.
The examples you give are clear failings of the current regulatory system, but what are the alternatives to some sort of regulation? Without any sort of oversight on companies, they will almost always seek out the path that minimizes direct costs, without any regard to long-term indirect costs to society.
How do you propose holding companies to any standards absent any external third party (ie, regulators)? Again, I'm not trolling, I just fail to see how such a system could work.
I agree with your sentiment, but I don't hear anything useful in it.
In my experience, it is very hard to get anything done by just being against the status quo. If you want change, find something specific that you want to change, then do what you can to get that changed to your specific alternative.
When facing a large issue like the fact that there is a shitty two-party system in the US, I'm not sure where to start, but jumping on to support anybody else because they are not "in the system" seems a tad directionless.
(And yes, I know that I'm not offering anything helpful in this post, either, but I'd love to hear a specific idea of something to do.)
Ah, good, so you have a way to absolutely, legally determine when one thing doesn't relate to another?
This is easy. One bill = one point of law. If you read any law statutes, each item is very short and specific.
Yes, there are a lot of examples you can come up with when, for a complex piece of legislation, certain laws will need checks and balances and exceptions, but there is even a simple way to do that - pass the points that patch up the holes before you pass the major piece.
I'm sure that there are things that I'm not thinking of here (because life is never this simple), but I think that the concept of making laws more simplified is a very, very good one.
To be honest I am surprised that on Slashdot this article hasn't resulted in a full-blown trash-the-conservatives-fest.
I find this comment pretty interesting.
My experience reading slashdot is that on any given issue, there seems to be a wide array of opinions from across the political spectrum. Take any thread on global warming, gun control, economist, etc. and you'll see a lot of people advocating the conservative line as well as the liberal line.
Perhaps your expectation of a "trash-the-conservatives" fest is more an indication of your politics than anything else? (Just like my perception of both sides may indicate my political leanings...)
I'll agree whole-heartedly that there is a lot of value in having people with strong mathematical (or better yet statistical) backgrounds review large datasets like this. I would, however, emphasize that it is extremely important that these other experts must work closely with the domain experts. Otherwise, they can tend to create mathematically pure models that have little to do with reality.
For example, I once knew a mathematician that was working on scoring function for calling whether or not X matched Y. In his model, the best score was reached when Y a bit bigger then X, based upon the detailed probabilistic modeling. When pressed, his response was something on the order of, "Yes, but look at the equations." His math was fine, but his understanding of the problem was wrong. If you're trying to match X, a perfect match had damn well be the best scoring value.
So, yes, it is useful for experts in other fields to review the data, but it is essential that all the experts work together to compensate for the shortcomings in how each expert will view the data, based upon his/her understanding and education.
This reminds me of the joke:
A biologist, a physicist, and a mathematician watch two people enter a building and three people leave. The biologist says, "Clearly, they reproduced." The physicist says, "It was simply a measurement error." The mathematician says, "If one more person goes into that building, it will be empty."
Slashdot Mirror
In that case, you're not listening to the original score very closely.
The original score was written by Wendy Carlos, who is one of the very early pioneers in electronic music. For that particular movie, she created a mix of orchestral sounds with synthesized sounds. Later in her career, as the technology improved, she started creating entirely synthesized music that sounded closer and closer to real orchestral music. Ultimately, some of this work led to the creation of synthetic instruments, whose sound was inspired by real instruments, but was impossible (eg, a percussive woodwind sound).
In my opinion, this is an idea fit for the world of Tron.
(The Daft Punk soundtrack to the new one was also awesome.)
I'll admit that I wrote my post while feeling a bit grouchy, so my tone was poor.
My opinions come from a lot of reading of Edward Tufte, whose career has been focused on the visual display of quantitative information. It is hard for me to see ANY graph without looking at it with the perspective of what I've learned.
I'm not trying to take away from Rosling's accomplishments in world health. Reading up on his background, I have a lot of respect for the man. At the same time, I found his graphics and presentation a bit too flashy, and it seemed that he favored style over clarity, which (in my opinion) is getting in the way of his good message.
Please avoid these personal attacks. Name calling and putting people down is self-diminishing. I know that my original post had some of that tone (which was my fault, and I shouldn't have done it).
Also, what I have or have not accomplished in my life is of no relevance here.
In my experience in industry it's the opposite. People spend a lot of time on the formatting and presentation, but any actual statistics used is elementary. And of course our salesman basically don't know anything about statistics.
Don't get me wrong. I think a lot of people spend a lot of time on formatting and presentation, but they do a horrible job. I've seen people take a perfectly readable, clearly presented graphic, then spend 5 minutes adding shadows, 3D effects, etc. The result looks all shiny and pretty, but as a way of presenting data, it is a failure.
Good data presentation should be appealing to the eye AND easy to read. In my experience these kinds of presentations are very few and far between.
1) This is a show. Watch the ted talk if you want proper backgrounds and so on. Television needs to be entertaining if you want people to listen to you until the end.
But I fail to see that accurate data presentation is in conflict with entertainment.
2) His Y-axis is not distorting the truth one bit. With zero health-care, people tend to live into their late teens. That's your comparison point. Low and behold, the bottom of the graph corresponds to.... late teens! It's debatable whether there's an upper limit or not.
Did you read the link on lie factors?
You need to think.
Although you may disagree with me, please be polite about it. (Insert tongue-in-cheek pejorative here)
I'd be willing to bet that he knows plenty about graphics presentation. It is just a (successful) attempt to make it visually interesting to non-stats geeks. I certainly enjoyed it.
It was certainly enjoyable, but I actually doubt that he knows plenty about presentation. In my experience (as a scientist), many, many more people understand statistics and data analysis than understand the power of presentation.
Statistics is an analytical skill. Data presentation is much more of a design/aesthetic skill, which is woefully undervalued. (in my opinion)
Furthermore, although there are theoretically rules governing what cops can do, in practice they can get away with a lot of gross violations of your civil liberties.
For example, in order to search your car, consent is great, but if a cop sees something that "looks like drug paraphernalia," he gets to search your car for free. I've heard of an example where an upside-down frisbee was used to claim evidence of cocaine use.
Guess what? If the cop then finds something, it is easy enough to just claim to have seen the true contraband. Unless you have strong evidence to the contrary, if it comes to court, you're screwed (unless you're rich enough to spend a lot on a legal defense).
This power from cops goes even further. They can beat you if you are "resisting arrest," and unless someone tapes the whole incident, you're screwed.
If they see you driving and don't like the look (or color) of your face, they will find a reason to pull you over. A lawyer friend of mine told me stories of riding with a cop in a car and learning how they could find a "legitimate" reason to pull over every single car.
So, think very, very carefully before pulling a self-righteous stance in front of a cop.
I applaud what he is trying to do. Seriously. At the same time, this guy needs to read a bit more about data presentation.
First of all, the background setting for this talk is a terrible choice. The windows make it difficult to see the individual plots, and what's up with the large ball of lights off to the right? Ugh.
His y-axis is also distorting the truth. With the y-axis beginning at 25 and going to 75, he is conveying a huge lie factor in the progress.
He needs to read Tufte.
Further to this last point, there is pretty much universal consensus that there is a limit to the lifespan of fossil fuels, hence the classification as "non-renewable".
Even if you choose to completely ignore the environmental concerns, it makes long term economic sense to start investing in long-term energy solutions. That way, the transition to a more sustainable economy can happen without a major disruption.
The whole idea that environmental stewardship is at odds with business is just bunk. In fact, it turns out that monitoring carbon is good for businesses. The choice isn't between having a good economy and having a clean environment. The choice is between two different economic systems - one that considers long-term environmental costs and one that ignores them until they are serious problems, both environmentally and economically.
In my mind, the biggest failure of the environmental movement is the fact that they rarely talk about the long term economic gains that can happen with good land stewardship.
What is driving your assumption that if the US looses influence, totalitarian governments will gain influence? To me, that isn't at all obvious.
Also, exactly how much corruption should we tolerate in order to keep working towards the greater good? Isn't it possible to oppose the creep of corruption in the more democratic societies while still striving to remove the totalitarian ones?
Let me also ask you this question - how many people in the world think that a society like, for example, North Korea represents a goal? (And I'm not talking about *other* dictators, I'm talking about the general population.)
Maybe I have a naive view of the world here, but it seems to me that you're giving corruption a free pass as long as worse places exist, which is a tough pill to swallow.
With a heavily programmer-biased crowd here, I'm not surprised to see these comments extolling the virtues of programming, and they are all right - the best idea in the world is worthless without good code. Likewise, the most beautiful code can't make a terrible idea appealing.
Clearly, the people who say that they "just need a programmer" are idiots. The best products are ones that consider *everything*, from the details of implementation up to a user's first experience with the product. This isn't to say that all of the details need to be recorded on paper before beginning, but rather that the function and the form of what is being created are in close harmony.
In practice, though, I rarely see this. Instead, I hear marketing folks saying vague, poorly thought out ideas, which are then handed over to developers. Programmers think about details, so before you know it, you have a new feature with about 15 different options, since the developers wanted to make sure that the user could control their experience. The trouble is that in 99% of the cases, the user wants to do the same thing, and having to slog through 10 different questions ruins the experience and confuses the user.
I'm sure that people are reading the above paragraph and thinking of solutions. By now, you probably have even though of the idea of putting in a set of defaults and having the ability to edit the defaults. Then, when the user starts the function, they have the choice of going to "advanced mode" or just using the defaults.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Here, in a hypothetical situation, is is really easy to start proposing solutions, but there is absolutely no context for understanding the idea and the intended use. (Because I deliberately omitted them.) Instead, the complexity is starting to snowball without any thought to overall vision.
This is my complaint with nearly every piece of software in the world. Outside of the world of software engineers, most people don't care about all the options. They are using a piece of software because they are trying to accomplish something in their lives (even it that something is just entertainment). The most ideal software is what allows the person to focus most specifically on that goal and to have all the flexibility that they need, which is a big difference to having all the possible functionality.
Accomplishing this goal is extremely difficult, and to do it well, designers and programmers must be in close contact (and both competent).
A parting thought from the French author and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
What you say is technically correct, but you're missing the point.
Right now, there are two parties that effectively control the U.S. political scene. Because of this, back in the 2008 election, it was a sure thing, even before the election started, that the winner would belong to either one of these two parties.
I decided not to because of the basic fact that if I voted for one of the other names, nothing would change. Yes, yes, I know the argument that says that we need to start voting for other parties to "send them a message."
As much as I would like to believe that it is that simple, it just isn't. A real substantial change to the system will take a lot of hard work, including a lot of political organizing, lots of money, a large number of highly publicized rallies, etc., etc.
THAT is the hard work of democracy. If you go to the polls, vote for some other party, and walk away feeling like you've helped to make a difference, you are deluding yourself.
If you really want to see some changes attend (or better yet, organize) rallies, give money to the causes you believe in, get in touch with media. Until you start doing any of these things, I don't care which box you're checking at election time - you are not changing the system.
Seriously?
Sure, there were other names on the ballot, but the US is a two party system. Changing that fundamental fact is much more complicated than voting for Random Other Person on a ballot.
So, yeah, the ballot had other names, but, really, there were only two options.
Would you please quit using facts and reasonableness to explain things like this? I'm sure that we can find a much less reasonable explanation.
Now, isn't that more fun?
I would expect that the more popular you and the more friends you have, the more time you'll spend on Facebook and/or texting. Likewise, the larger your social group, the more likely you are to have sex and go to parties with drugs/alcohol.
I'm sure, though, that this will prompt a huge backlash trying to protect our children from the corrupting evils of technology.
From Hamlet, quoted in a different context than intended, but still a great line.
And, in my thinking, this illustrates how very much the lead singer in a lot of modern pop is just a tool. Someone like Britney Spears is a low-tech version of Hatsune Miku.
Personally, I found this review article to be very informative.
From the article:
The real trouble with gun control as an issue, from a scientific perspective, is that it is impossible to study it with a classic double-blind study. I'm sure that we'll see an explosion of posts here with a lot of anecdotal evidence that shows the issue one way or another, but in the end, I don't think that we will have a clear answer to that question.
Actually, I blogged about a very similar issue a while back, so some of us (like you) are talking about it.
We just need to keep making sure that our voice is out there, so that others start to appreciate the issues you raise.
Here is an idea that I think we all need to embrace. In fact, I would even extend this to a more aggressive stance, that says that the government should hold companies accountable for all the indirect costs of what they do.
Of course, to play devil's advocate, I can easily imagine that companies will find ways around these kinds of policies. For example, if a mining company wanted to do a very dirty (and cheap) extraction that would poison a nearby stream, which resulted in severe health issues for those downstream, they could potentially establish some kind of temporary company which assumes all liability. Then, when the shit comes crashing down on their heads, they could just fold up the small company, declaring bankruptcy and walking away.
Yes, it may be possible to track down the responsible people and prosecute them, but that would take (potentially) years and years of lawsuits and legal wrangling. Furthermore, in cases like this, the wealthy parent company would be capable of spending a lot more resources in court than would any of the (presumably) less well off people that would be harmed by the mining, which may practically prevent any accountability.
In the end, wouldn't it just be simpler (and prevent less suffering) if there was (in addition to the unlimited liability) a set of rules (ie, regulations) that could prevent this whole ugly situation in the first place?
What about the regulations on food package labeling? Isn't that a big help? What about all of the regulations on food safety?
I think it is very disingenuous of you to claim that government does nothing to help you here. Look at all the issues of food safety in China absent any regulations.
Generally speaking, we enjoy a very safe food supply, thanks in large part to the government regulations. If you chucked out all those regulations, the system of checks and balances may kick in to eventually reach some kind of stable equilibrium, but in the meantime, a lot of people will get sick and die from bad food.
Isn't it simpler to try to prevent this in the first place?
Sorry, but here I have to object to what you say.
Your point is well-taken about having former CEOs, etc. in positions to oversee their former industries, but should we throw out the whole system simply because there is some abuse of power? Industry people hate regulators. Full stop. I have never read an account of any corporation cherishing the regulations laid down by the government. Instead, they complain about too much cost, etc.
In my mind, that means that there are a whole host of regulations that don't directly benefit corporations, which makes your statement that "regulation just supports more corporatism" pretty questionable.
You also fail to address my question - what do you think will happen if there is no regulation? What will stop companies from engaging in unsafe practices, like what happened with BP? Why will any factory install expensive systems to clean their waste instead of just dumping it in the river? Why will any company disclose all of their ingredients if they don't have to?
The libertarian argument is that the consumers will demand it, but I doubt that this can happen. Do you know where the plastic in your keyboard came from? Do you have any idea where in the world all of your food is grown? The world is too complicated for each consumer to fully research every shopping decision and come to a final conclusion that carefully balances the needs of everybody.
The only solution that I see is some external regulating body. It doesn't have to be the government per se (and examples like ISO show that some privately run regulations can work), but I totally fail to see how a lack of any regulation benefits anybody other than the companies.
Huh? I was with you until I read this statement. Could you elaborate on what you mean by this? I'm not trolling, I just fail to see what you're getting at.
The examples you give are clear failings of the current regulatory system, but what are the alternatives to some sort of regulation? Without any sort of oversight on companies, they will almost always seek out the path that minimizes direct costs, without any regard to long-term indirect costs to society.
How do you propose holding companies to any standards absent any external third party (ie, regulators)? Again, I'm not trolling, I just fail to see how such a system could work.
I agree with your sentiment, but I don't hear anything useful in it.
In my experience, it is very hard to get anything done by just being against the status quo. If you want change, find something specific that you want to change, then do what you can to get that changed to your specific alternative.
When facing a large issue like the fact that there is a shitty two-party system in the US, I'm not sure where to start, but jumping on to support anybody else because they are not "in the system" seems a tad directionless.
(And yes, I know that I'm not offering anything helpful in this post, either, but I'd love to hear a specific idea of something to do.)
This is easy. One bill = one point of law. If you read any law statutes, each item is very short and specific.
Yes, there are a lot of examples you can come up with when, for a complex piece of legislation, certain laws will need checks and balances and exceptions, but there is even a simple way to do that - pass the points that patch up the holes before you pass the major piece.
I'm sure that there are things that I'm not thinking of here (because life is never this simple), but I think that the concept of making laws more simplified is a very, very good one.
I find this comment pretty interesting.
My experience reading slashdot is that on any given issue, there seems to be a wide array of opinions from across the political spectrum. Take any thread on global warming, gun control, economist, etc. and you'll see a lot of people advocating the conservative line as well as the liberal line.
Perhaps your expectation of a "trash-the-conservatives" fest is more an indication of your politics than anything else? (Just like my perception of both sides may indicate my political leanings...)
I'll agree whole-heartedly that there is a lot of value in having people with strong mathematical (or better yet statistical) backgrounds review large datasets like this. I would, however, emphasize that it is extremely important that these other experts must work closely with the domain experts. Otherwise, they can tend to create mathematically pure models that have little to do with reality.
For example, I once knew a mathematician that was working on scoring function for calling whether or not X matched Y. In his model, the best score was reached when Y a bit bigger then X, based upon the detailed probabilistic modeling. When pressed, his response was something on the order of, "Yes, but look at the equations." His math was fine, but his understanding of the problem was wrong. If you're trying to match X, a perfect match had damn well be the best scoring value.
So, yes, it is useful for experts in other fields to review the data, but it is essential that all the experts work together to compensate for the shortcomings in how each expert will view the data, based upon his/her understanding and education.
This reminds me of the joke:
A biologist, a physicist, and a mathematician watch two people enter a building and three people leave. The biologist says, "Clearly, they reproduced." The physicist says, "It was simply a measurement error." The mathematician says, "If one more person goes into that building, it will be empty."