Atlas Shrugged

bluewolf wrote: »

The difference is one group claiming they're doing it for the good of everyone and demonising anyone who disagree

But that can be said about everything. Pro-life : we're doing this for your good.
Parenting: we're doing this for your good.
Professional Sports Rules: We're doing this for your own good.
Any propaganda piece: We're doing this for the good of X. They're doing this for the evil of Y.

It's a standard tactic. Demonise those who disagree with you. I hate it, but it's often very effective in gathering support from people.

Permabear wrote: »

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Fair enough. Political rhetoric and emotional manipulation has been around for ages. But if Rand's description and predictions are as accurate as you claim then fair dues to her. I have no way of verifying that so taking it on good faith.

Permabear wrote: »

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Short Answer: Why does the Irish Times publish shtye?
Publications have to publish something. Doesn't mean it's valid or invalid be it Nature or the Daily Mail. Though one would like to believe that Nature is more likely be valid.

Longer answer: That article isn't great. Reads as a rant against taxes somehow causing threats to people medical health without really providing anything to support its claim. It's substantiates its claims, but not in a way I would consider actually making a valid claim.


Few examples.

Medical company announced that it was canceling plans to open new factories because of the impending ObamaCare tax on medical device manufacturers scheduled to take effect in 2013.

Correlation =/= to causation especially where business/politics is concerned. Anyone with anyone knowledge of PR knows how Taxes are an easy scapegoat. Gotta fire people or cut back on employment prospects blame someone else. Blame taxes, if not that the recession. In reality though, it might not actually be taxes or the recession. Obviously without scrutinising the companies financials there's no way of stating for certain. But all too often business and, just about anybody, love scapegoats. Obamacare might indeed be a factor in the factories not opening but a significant factor?

You should note here that beyond stating the correlation that the author provides no actual data other than good faith to support this claim. That's not really how such a claim is expected to be made.

Let's continue:

This was especially frustrating for Pisano, who had co-authored a 42,760-patient study in the 2005 New England Journal of Medicine that demonstrated the reliability of digital mammography and showed that it was “‘significantly better’ than film in finding cancer in women under 50 and those before or during menopause.”

One study does not create a scientific tapestry.
Study finds X is significantly better than Y. There's a reason though that regulation is overly conservative. All too often X appears significantly better than Y but as more data is gathered Y is in fact just about equal to X. A wonderful example being MRIs vs CT scans. MRI was seen as the bees knees of medical imaging. Yet CT scanning is the one that time and thorough research has shown to be more efficient, reliable and accurate. Yet, thanks to marketing and ignorance most people demand MRIs. Medical imaging isn't as straight forward as people think. The reason why everyone with cancer, especially breast cancer, should get second, even third, opinions is because the imaging and the reading of that imaging is nowhere near robust. Digital mammography, shows promise but unless the person knowingly volunteers it can't be accelerated in as a replacement. And, yes, I fully realise that this may cost people lives. It's how science works, it's way overly conservative, because it has to be. If a biologic drug is rushed to market without prior prechecks and approval it can be a catastrophe and this one is personal because it meant I'd to wait several years in Ireland for one to be approved and my choices of travel to various countries is still limited. 90% of all medical products never make it to market for a reason. The spirit of the idea is that they are unsafe, obviously there are times when the system is abused. But that's not really an argument against the implementation of the system in the first place. By analogy, drivers driving dangerous isn't an argument against driving!

There's also the 'bobcat' effect. Whereby if in 1 in 30 of people who take a drug, use a medical device, whatever product, die over 99% of people will still be satisfied with that product. That's why you gotta be rigorous and in some cases overly rigorous. Is it ideal? Nope, but it's not anything that there really can be much done about. FDA has made mistakes, I could list several, one of which I was even prescribed, but mostly the spirit of the purpose is correct. You can't just let medical stuff go because of potential they offer. They need to be tested rigorously and approved.

This week's Nature has an article (paywall) on how most stem cell therapies are in fact junk science. Without regulation restricting these therapies millions of people around the world would be chasing false hopes. So, if we're going to be arguing about people dying. It's always worth keeping in mind the risks of unproven treatments or instruments let loose on a population.

Most people take for granted the benefits of exponential growth in the realm of consumer electronics. In 1998, the Apple iMac had a 233 MHz processor, 32 MB RAM, and 4 GB hard drive, selling for $1300. In 2012, the low-end MacBook Pro sports a 2.5 GHz processor, 4 GB RAM and a 500 GB hard drive for $1200. This represents a greater than 10-fold increase in processor speed and over 100-fold increases in RAM and hard drive sizes for roughly the same nominal dollar amount (30% fewer real dollars after adjusting for inflation).

Why is Moore's "law" being used? It's not even a law. It's a set of goals for the semiconductor industry to aspire to. And, being pedantic, most logarithmic laws, end up being mathematically true. Hell you can make logarithmic scale laws on people taking a dump, or a flow of traffic in a city, the rate of heartbeats per heart size. The point here is that these "laws" have little to do with economics and more to do with actual statistical physics and semiconductor physics. Taxes are unlikely to alter the truth of such claims. Unless, of course you bankrupt Intel and all research organisations involved in the research. Be it via taxes or whatever means. But taxes by themselves, will likely have no real alteration of these laws or the progress into them. As long as the research is funded either way.

To be clear here I'm not arguing that Intel should be extinct or anything. I'm saying that consumer electronics would likely progress regardless of how well the market actually is doing. As long as research is being published and often times this research has little if anything to do with market values. (Though if you're looking for funding it's probably best not to state explicitly state that!:pac:)

For most people, using a 1998 home computer to surf the Internet in 2012 would be unthinkable. For most doctors, using 1998 medical technology to treat brain tumors in 2012 would border on malpractice. When you need advanced medical care in 2022, don’t let the government’s war on medical innovation restrict your doctor to today’s 2012 technology.

This ... is just tosh. We use X-rays from over 100 years ago. Stethoscopes are hundreds of years old. Blood testing, basic physical. Lots of these are incredibly old. Medical technology needs to be rigorously tested and approved and often times even when approved we find it's been a mistake. Most people as I can tell everywhere are all for people living longer but not at the expense of rushing anything over safety. There's a reason NASA use really old computers in the vital components of their space shuttle and the space stations. When it comes to safety you start overly cautious and then as you understand the dangers you relax the regulations to more acceptable zones. This is where I have a problem with regulation often times people are terrified about lapsing any regulation that the state, or for that mattery industry bodies, just impose stricter regulation standards. In the case of industry it's a double win, it makes your product much safer but it also makes it far far harder for any competitor to emerge.

Permabear wrote: »

Also, where would the smartphone be today without companies such as Apple, Google, and Samsung?!

What is the point of such a question? Nobody says that a company is inherently a bad thing. Just like nobody states it's inherently a good thing. Companies, as do States, come in all varieties.

I have a love for Google stuff. Their labs especially. Coursera, Edx etc are awesome venture. I can list companies I can really really like but I suspect that would be rather boring.

Permabear wrote: »

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NSA is a really interesting discussion. Before the whole thing broke to mainstream. NewScientist and other publications, had articles of them researching ways to get access to data with user consent. In other words, I could 'volunteer' to have the necessary data collated. If I recall it correctly NSA were making the argument that the data they needed never compromised the personal identity of the individual and they just need to convince the public of this. The data would be used to create a picture of society but not of any one individual. You don't need to know the individuals in the society you just need to know the patterns of the keyholders. Then you can predict various things like fraud, conspiracy to theft.

Fast forward a few years and the thing about PRISM and everything else emerged. Nobody is surprised. A bigger question is do people really care? Yes, because their privacy is compromised. The argument the NSA had previously made was that people was compromising their privacy anywhere, the data was there, anyone could take it so they did. They want it, it's awkward to produce a way to get them to consent to giving it so let's take it instead.

It's a really interesting question should any entity state or private be allowed to use our data for its own goals? Even if we consent to giving that data. The EU recently had a case where a pharmaceutical was claiming its clinical trial is its own data and publicly releasing it would harm its competitiveness. This was data which patients had consented to the company.

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diveout wrote: »

Government can both kill and motivate innovation.

Yes the FDA is a very good example of the government inhibiting progress.

But NASA and the military have done a lot for technology and science.

The FDA is a bad example, purely for the fact that it's first duty is to the safety of the public. If that puts a hold on the innovation of the pharmaceutical and food industries then so be it. They'll just have to innovate a safer product to do what they want it to do.