omar (#32): “re: people trying to stifle technology – Do they exist?“

They’re running the asylum. Didn’t you notice? Any asshole who bitches about “big pharma” or puts for the the fantasy that medicine should be an exception to free market principles, that it’s immoral to profit from inventing drugs or producing equipment is stifling technology.

When people are left alone and allowed to profit from inventing things which are of value to others, and no government bureaubot decrees the set cost in lieu of consumer demand, the production of new technology blossoms. All of the government interventions, subsidies, price fixing, etc. work against that.

“re: people who want to “shut down human industry to save the planet”

It is an abject lie to tell people that they can “save the planet” with piddling little token gestures, if we assume that the alarmists are correct about how much influence we have on the global temperature. Nothing short of destruction of human industry on a global scale could possibly save us from the predicted catastrophe. Reusable grocery bags, windmills, and turning off all your lights once a year will alter the global temperature about 0.001°C. You’re going to have to shut down power plants and factories to a fraction of the current capacity, which means all the little people without political connections will need to give up most of the comforts they enjoy today. Starvation and pandemics caused by unsanitary conditions would likely result in a shrinking human population. Anything less will not make any real difference.

Don’t believe that there are people who recognize this and think it’s a good idea? Read this.

I reject your appeals to anything “harmful to society” as an example of the fallacy of the collective.

Values are an individual matter.

You are strawmanning all over the place.

re: people trying to stifle technology – Do they exist? Are they a vocal minority I’ve missed? I’m not seeing a movement to roll back technology by force of society or law in any meaningful way.

re: people making profit off medecine – Ok.

re: people who want to “shut down human industry to save the planet” – There are environmental concerns in the world. Despite all the wishing to the contrary, we all live on the same spaceship and have to breathe the same air. We can debate the line at which environmental laws become more harmful to society than the degradation, but having a baseline of what you can and can’t do to the wider world is not on its face a call for planet over people.

So… one way plane tix to North Korea?

Aresen (#27): “This 15-year-old kid will be labelled a parasite living off the misery of others if he makes any money off that patent.“

Wouldn’t it be great if people who attempt to stifle the incentive to invent new technologies to improve our lives were the only ones to face the consequences of freezing human development, or rolling back the calendar?

Those who think making a profit on anything related to medicine should live with the Amish or in some third world country, where all modern medicine which involved any sort of profit is disallowed.

And, environmentalists who want to shut down human industry to “save the planet” can go live with tribes who lack electricity. No internet, no Starbucks, no air conditioning, no supermarkets. Just dirt-scratching poverty.

If tomorrow some huge drug company announced a sure fire cure for all cancers, which they could manufacture for seven cents and sell for a quarter, the screams of denunciation would be audible on Mars.

We need to learn to ignore the twerps responsible for such hullabaloo. Or, alternatively, to brick up their mouths.

http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

Truly funny.

This 15-year-old kid will be labelled a parasite living off the misery of others if he makes any money off that patent.

SJE (#17):“But why should Yglesias apologize for what he has written in the past before we are to read him? That’s nuts, IMO.“

You’re the only one suggesting people don’t read his articles. Many good writers read his articles and post cogent rebuttals, which is the best way to discredit him when he is wrong, which is most of the time.

“Its symptomatic of the dysfunctional political and intellectual climate that we judge the message by the speaker.“

You’re the only one suggesting that the message of a single article should be judged by the history of articles by the author. You should really stop pretending other people are making such absurd arguments, thrashing away at strawmen.

Having the memory span of a butterfly is a far worse symptom of the wretched state of politics, intellect, and culture. Look at the fools embracing socialism and Islamic fundamentalist political parties today, oblivious to history. The utter fantasies being floated by the EU, and just a few years behind, by the US government, in complete defiance of basic math, and the lack of alarm by the victims, will mark this period of human history as a reversal of the Enlightenment. It’s the Endarkenment and people like Yglasias and Krugman are doing their best to provide the imprimatur of the intellectual class for the destruction of reason.

Yglasias may, like a stopped clock, make valid, rational arguments about regulation, but as a writer, he should be judged for the totality of his writing, not just the latest piece. He doesn’t gain my respect for a few odd cases of not being wrong. I simply don’t criticize him in those instances.

Yeah, does anyone know if this needs FDA approval and what the timeline fore that is?

“it’s almost certain he didn’t lead this research in any meaningful way.”

Excuse me, but where do you get this from? I read the article, and clicked through to the original news source. Both were, I admit, long on praise and short of detail. Do you know how this research was done? I don’t, and absent actual evidence to the contrary I have no reason to believe that a bright 15 year-old couldn’t do something like this from a flash of insight.

Frankly, it sounds like sour grapes.

http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/22/cato-relaunches-police-misconduct-tracke

http://www.policemisconduct.net/about/

Yes, there’s a whole lot of that going around, eh?