Archive for the 'General' Category

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Thought crime in America

Posted by David on December 22nd, 2007

What thoughts will be against the law tomorrow?

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Broken promises

Posted by David on December 21st, 2007

The Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The F.B.I. Oath of Office:

I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Is it too much to ask FBI agents to keep their oath?

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Wild about Mint.com

Posted by David on December 13th, 2007

I just signed up with Mint.com, a free personal finance management site. You provide your banking and credit card login information, and it provides detailed analysis and alerts regarding your financial situation.  I’ve never used personal finance software before, but this seems like a terrifically useful application, especially for anyone who wants to stick to a budget.  Check out the screenshots for youself.

I also tried Geezeo.com, which is the same kind of thing, but it’s not as slick, and was unable to import my accounts for whatever reason.

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Genetic discrimination saves lives

Posted by David on December 6th, 2007

Thanks to recent technological innovations, companies like 23andme are now able to offer comprehensive genetic profiles that can reveal predispositions towards certain health problems, and allow patients to take proactive measures to prevent them. Unfortunately, this potentially lifesaving diagnosis will not be available to most individuals because of so-called “genetic privacy” laws, such as the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, passed by the House earlier this year. One common argument used to justify such laws, is that genetic profiling will lead to a “second-class” of people who cannot obtain insurance or employment. Like most “ethical dilemmas” attributed to technology, this “Gattaca argument” demonstrates a lack of understanding of individual rights and basic economic principles. An analogy is useful to understand its flaws:

Suppose that you wanted to buy a used car. You have a choice of two dealerships: One dealership will provide the full specifications of the car, offer a test drive, let you look under the hood, provide a complete history from a trustworthy third-party, let you take it to your own mechanic, and even let you take the car back after a few days if you don’t like it. The other dealership tells you the year and model of the car and allows you to look at it, and that is it. Take it or leave it. Which dealership would you prefer?

Suppose that used car dealerships lobbied for a law that limited your information about their cars. (Such laws are common for doctors, lawyers, and drug companies, who face numerous restrictions on their freedom to advertise.) Who benefits from such a policy? First, due to the increased risk of purchasing a lemon, the value of used cars will fall dramatically. Owners of reliable cars will now prefer to keep their cars longer, while owners of lemons will prefer to sell. Less people will be able to afford a decent used car, and more will be stuck with cars they don’t want. There will be less incentive for car owners to maintain their cars, since their resale value will fall, as will the quality of used cars on the market. The auto dealers margins will go up, but their sales will shrink. New dealers will find it more difficult to enter the market because reputation will become more important than the prices and quality of individual cars. Much more effort will be spent on both advertising and researching reputable dealers. The overall effect will be to raise costs for everyone, discourage responsible ownership, increase fraud and deception, and benefit incumbent dealers at the expense of newer competitors.

Consider the consequences of such an egalitarian policy if it applied to health insurance. If the government completely outlawed discrimination based on all risk factors, insurance companies have to offer all customers a single rate. Healthy young women would be quoted the same rate as overweight, elderly men. What would be the result? It does not take an economist to predict that rates would immediately rise, as healthy people, refusing to pay for their neighbor’s health risks, stopped using insurance altogether. As the young and healthy jump ship, insurance companies would have to increase rates, accelerating the trend. Without further government interference, the health insurance business would disappear completely, shortly after millionaires on their deathbeds became the only people able to afford policies.

While such drastic restrictions on the ability of insurers to discriminate seem unlikely, the same principles apply to less restrictive measures, as well as “universal” insurance schemes. In response to the higher insurance premiums that these laws create, the public lobbies legislatures for price controls on health insurance and subsidies for the uninsured. Insurers and taxpayers respond to the growing costs of health welfare laws by pushing legislation that makes unhealthy behaviors and products (such as smoking and fatty foods) illegal. The more the government restricts discrimination based on health risks, the more pressure it faces to regulate and provide subsidies for health providers and forbid “unhealthy” behaviors by the public. Each additional restriction of insurers requires a corresponding subsidy or restriction of consumers, controls breeding more controls, until the entire healthcare industry is nationalized and freedom sacrificed for the “common good.”

Industries that do not face the odious regulatory burden of the healthcare industry have strong incentives to compete on the quality of their product. As their margins have shrunk, the total size of the market has grown. In competitive markets for used cars, some dealerships give cars expert inspections, refuse to buy lemons, and advertise their pricing up front.

If discrimination based on comprehensive genetic screening is legal, we can expect health providers to tailor plans according to our individual risk factors. That might be to the disadvantage of a minority of high-risk individuals, but greater information about risk factors will lower uncertainty, and thus lower rates overall. Furthermore, insurers will offer incentives to people who take proactive steps to discover health risks and take steps to alleviate them. Expensive procedures such as frequent biopsies or preemptive removal of organs might be fully covered for individuals whose genetic profiles uncover a high cancer risk.

If individuals are concerned with keeping the results of their genetic screenings private, they should ensure that screeners like 23andme are contractually obligated to keep their test results private, and prosecute them for the full damages resulting from an intentional or accidental disclosure. While the supposed purpose of genetic anti-discrimination laws is to “protect genetic privacy,” the actual effect is to remove the ability of insurers to provide financial incentives for people to get screened for potentially fatal genetic risk factors. This will only lead to unnecessary deaths from treatable genetic disorders and higher health insurance costs.

 

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Christmas Was Secular Before Your Righteous Indignation Was In Your Mommy’s Sacred Womb

Posted by David on December 4th, 2007

I know no one likes a history lesson, but my point here isn’t that your Christmas shouldn’t be about Christ. I don’t care what you do on Christmas. But when you get on television and complain that your kids wanting a Nintendo Wii is a vast departure from the “real” meaning of Christmas, you are an asshole. Christmas has no meaning because it is culled from so many sources. It means the birth of someone’s savior, sure. But it’s also a time for people to drink and be merry. And have sex. And worship the sun god. And feast on the harvest during a dark time.

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Get rich quick: read Atlas Shrugged

Posted by David on December 4th, 2007

A recent Zogby poll found that 8.1 percent of American adults have read “Atlas Shrugged.”

“The poll of 1,239 adults was conducted by Zogby International between October 10 and October 14, 2007 at the request of Freestar Media, LLC. Among the poll’s 80 questions was ‘Have you everread the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand?’”

“Could reading Atlas Shrugged promote financial success? The poll found that 14% of those earning $100,000 a year or more have read Atlas Shrugged while only 2% percent of those earning less than $35,000 a year have read it. ” [It worked for me!]

More interesting tidbits:

About the same percentage of men and women have read Atlas Shrugged, 48.2% men vs. 51.8% women. However, respondents living in the east (11%), west (10%), and south (9%) are about twice as likely as those living in the central/Great Lakes region (5%) to say they have read the book. Among the poll’s other findings: 38.7% of passport holders have read it, as have 10.8% of people who visit YouTube.com a few times a month.

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Creationist Museum

Posted by David on November 13th, 2007

If you’re too lazy to read the bible, the second best way to become an atheist is probably to visit this place.

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Who are the real monsters?

Posted by David on November 10th, 2007

Watching a segment about the U.S. Coast Guard today, I heard an agent describe the immigrant smugglers who bring people from Cube as “ruthless” men who “care nothing for human life.” That may well be true. Yet moments before saying those words, the agent intercepted a Cuban family moments before their attempt to seek a life of freedom would have been successful. They likely paid their life savings to the smuggler – and will probably be sent back to prison – or worse.

The smugglers risk their life to bring desperate people to a free society. The border agents casually condemn people to a life of persecution and oppression and force them to undergo a perilous and financially ruinous journey. If it were not for their persecution, the trip from Cuba, Mexico, and China would certainly be far safer and cheaper for the immigrants. Yet the border agents are supposed to be celebrated as the moral heroes? The agents are well aware of their atrocities: “They hear the stories. But they need work. They need to eat. They’re desperate.” Why isn’t everyone else?

(By the way, as much as their are vilified, the smugglers have a strong incentive to keep their cargo alive and out of jail – so much that they provide free legal aid if they are caught. If they sometimes get too aggressive about making a profit, the migrants have only an uncaring and hostile immigration policy to blame.)

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New features on Amazon.com

Posted by David on September 30th, 2007

I am really impressed with the new Amazon mp3 website. Not only are the downloads DRM-free, but they are cheaper than Apple’s iTunes store. I had stayed away from iTunes because I wanted some security in case I got a non-Apple media player, but also because I am deluded by rap songs on the iTunes homepage and have to search for the songs I like. In Amazon, I get great recommendations based on music I like. Why hasn’t Apple done this yet??

For those of you who are interested in such things, Amazon is making available an RSS feed with my recent purchases. This is a cool feature, but I think it would be even cooler to browse “John Smith’s Store” which shows everything a person has bought along with their ratings. Obviously, you’d need to build some privacy control into this.

How cool would be to browse a virtual store with all your purchases and your ratings of products? This would make grocery shopping much faster. When can we finally get a kitchen which will reorder products automatically? How great would it be to visit a bookstore with just the books all your friends liked? I’m afraid that the hysteria over privacy rather than technology is the biggest roadblock here.

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MIT’s learning Leonardo Robot

Posted by David on September 28th, 2007

How cool is this:

(More cool robots.)

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