Oh, China.

China has been stripped of the Olympic team bronze for gymnastics for... 2000? WTF?

My first thought is, duh. It was pretty obvious that China used girls who were quite under-age for the 2008 games, which resulted in something of a controversy. So, I guess it's not surprising that they did the same thing in other years as well.

But on second thought, While it's shitty that China ignored the rules, especially considering that their handling of Olympic hopefuls is still very much in the vein of totalitarian governments, the girls did it, not the government. I say let them compete. They won, fair and square. They worked hard, and to take the medals away because their government is run by a group of self-centered sacks of shit doesn't seem right.

China stripped of 2000 gymnastics medal for underage athlete (Yahoo.com)

Go Go Gadget Racial Profiling

I'm assuming that this connection has already been made, but I'm going to lend my voice to the din. Does anyone in Arizona, who recently passed a law so stupid that it would be hilarious if it wasn't so infuriating, realize how hypocritical they are?

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Yes, hypocritical. They are vehemently against Obama and his health care, yet they have just passed a law that is closer to 1984 than anything Obama has ever done, talked about, or even thought about.

Well, that of course assumes that their resistance to Obama was logical and not rooted in racism, political fear-mongering, and dogma.

At times, I feel like Obama isn't wrong simply because those who are vocally against him are so dumb that they can't be right.

MMORPG Economics

I'm always saying that the various online games are stuck in the old economics of game play. Namely, they're still operating on the concept that you make a game, package it on some kind of medium, sell it, and then count your money. Even World of Warcraft is basically that. The only difference is that you then have to pay for access to a service.

Dungeons and Dragons Online has discovered the profits possible from opening the game entirely. Previously, they were trying to operate under the same business model as WoW, which I thought was dumb then, and has since been proven to be dumb. D&D-O was heading towards oblivion until they opened the game, which immediately sent user numbers through the roof.

Still, they then followed Farmville and any number of games from Aeria in a business model built on restricting access to certain parts of the game unless you pay up. I've nailed why this doesn't work, and why Farmville and all of Zynga makes almost none of their money from direct sales, all the while gold and items in World of Warcraft sell for, in some cases, hundreds of dollars.

In WoW, everything people are buying is attainable in-game. When someone buys, there's no way to tell if they bought their way through or if they earned it. That's important. In Farmville, many items can only be purchased with real money, they thus hold no value since they represent nothing but the money behind them.

And that's the key. When something is only attainable with money, they have no opportunity cost in the game. Obviously, classic opportunity cost applies, but not virtual. In WoW, for example, you want the Sword of a Thousand Truths. You can look up online and find that you need to go through a long quest called a raid to get it. You have a 10% chance of getting it on any given raid. The raid takes 3 hours to complete. That means that you can decide if buying the item is worth a possible 300 hours of game time required to get the item in-game.

Everything or nearly everything must be accessible in-game. Only then can a user apply a value to the things for which you are charging. The developer cannot lock up anything behind money or its value becomes nebulous.

WoW may want to consider this. They need to do something, because the population appears to have plateaued at about 11-12 million.

Results From Dungeons & Dragons Online Going Free: Revenue Up 500% (TechDirt.com)
World of Warcraft- Population 11.5 Million and shrinking? (RecklessGamer.net)

How Far My Ownership Goes.

The New York Times has a story about a Native American tribe that has sued The University of Arizona and reclaimed some blood samples taken from the tribe because the DNA was being used for research other than that which was initially discussed. They discuss the legal issues, and, as with most popular stories about science clashing with dogma, the only argument presented in favor of the science is that it's "good science," and that progress demands that we make concessions in the degree of control individuals have in the data that they submit.

One of the biggest issues is that the DNA indicates a link between the tribe and people making the trek over the Bering land bridge, which doesn't exactly jive with the tribes creation story (shocker!) that says that they were plopped there to be the Grand Canyon's defender.

This isn't a matter of moral or ethical problems. If a research institution wants to be tender and understanding with dogmatic beliefs, then that's their choice, but not their legal or ethical obligation. The blood was taken, and the DNA is nothing more than information, now. They have more blood, they haven't "lost" any DNA. The University didn't take it from them. The situation is similar to a researcher telling a man that, if he has a blue string in his pocket, he's, I dunno', psychic. The man empties out his pocket and the researcher finds many strings of different colors. None blue, but the researcher remembers the colors that he did see. If the researcher then writes a paper on those other colors, what harm has there been?

There are certainly a great number of ethical issues with DNA, especially as our ability to analyze it gets ever-greater, but this story is not one of them. The Universities actions did not diminish the tribe or its people. They did not steal anything. They did not harm the people. Just because a group of backwater, uneducated people don't like science clashing with their official story of their creation is not a basis for a fucking law suit.

Indian Tribe Wins Fight to Limit Research of Its DNA (NYTimes.com)

Good News

Well, at least we've gotten that out of our system.

"The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to [the most devious and mediocre]. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

-H. L. Mencken

Inelastic Joints.

The New York Times has recently discovered the concept of inelasticity in the artificial joint industry.

I can only assume that they know this and simply assume that their readership is retarded, because, duh. Of course artificial joints are a total rip-job. In economics, the elasticity of a good is how widely its price can vary with no effect on its market value (price). For example, if bicycles suddenly all cost $5,000, almost no one would buy bicycles anymore. But if insulin suddenly cost $5,000, its sales would only drop a small amount because it's literally a matter of life and death for those who buy it. So it is said that insulin is inelastic.

As such, any good that is highly inelastic is going to foster corruption. If I'm the only maker of bread, and people need bread, even if I don't act like an asshole and charge $500 per loaf, my successor may discover that, regardless of what she does, people always come back. A relationship of such imbalance is never good. The buyer and the seller must both need each other.

So here we are with artificial joints. People who need them NEED them. The market is very difficult to get in to. So, we have a limited, inelastic good that because of its nature limits competition. And we are surprised that the companies suck? Seriously?

Inelasticity is merely one detail in the economic web that, in anything other than medicine, is fine. It's only once it becomes part of medicine that we have, dare I say it, a moral issue. If insulin is a necessity for life, can a society that supposedly cares about its members truly allow free-market principles keep its price high? I don't think so.

Health System Bears Cost of Implants With No Warranties (NYTimes.com)

Capitalism and Democracy and Pressure

I've always looked at capitalism and democracy as the best systems of management that we have because both of them have pressure release valves built in. Economy gets overheated or too cold, natural mechanisms take over and set it on another course. People hate the government, they just elect new assholes.

It's for that reason that I doubt we'll ever see armed rebellion again. There's no reason. Taking up arms happens when there's no way for unrest and pressure to escape the system. Look at France. They had bloody uprising on a near-weekly basis. Compare this to Britain, a paragon of stability in comparison, because Britain had pressure release valves that allowed the expunging of unrest without violence.

Who Wears The Genes in This House?

Monsanto, the most evil corporation on Earth if you have seen Food Inc., is currently in an antitrust suit with a bunch of states and companies. Again, all of this comes back to Monsanto's ownership of their RoundUp-Ready soybeans.

First off, Monsanto is not the most evil corporation in the world. They, like many other large companies, are taking advantage of a totally fucked patent, trademark, and copyright world to the detriment of, pretty much, everyone.

What's at issue is that Monsanto owns the genetics to the seeds, which means that if the seeds blow onto your land and grow, Monsanto owns those plants and any possible cross breeds that may arise.

This hasn't always been the case. Previously, it was understood that life could not be patented. This was generally recognized for moral reasons, but I have a different interpretation of the situation.

It has to do with what a patent does. Nominally, it provides a temporary monopoly on a product. It does not prevent people from owning something. For example, Eli Whitney makes the cotton gin. A competitor makes one illegally and sells it to me. I am now the owner of that cotton gin. Even if Eli sues his competitor, he cannot take the one that was already built away from me.

It is not a right of sale, since if Eli builds some cotton gins and sells them, I can lawfully sell them again. The only part left is manufacture. A patent is a monopoly on making the thing. Eli Whitney has the right of manufacture on cotton gins for a set time.

This cannot apply to life. Life is, by its nature, replicative. When a device is made that can reproduce itself, the maker relinquishes, by the very nature of their creation, the right of replication. A patent cannot logically apply. This would apply to any machine that replicates itself. If I create a robot that, when left to its own devices, wanders about, gathering materials, and builds a copy of itself, I cannot patent that.

It's absurd that life can be patented. Our legal system and the judges who allowed this should be ashamed and either throw themselves or be thrown off of a cliff. Morality need not be applied, it's logically nonsensical.

Change the law. Change it now. Life cannot be patented.

Monsanto’s Seed Patents May Trump Antitrust Claims (Bloomberg.com)

Justification For Life

In everyday life, there are really only three philosophical issues with which people are concerned and should be concerned: God, ethics, and justification.

Other more esoteric concepts are of less importance. For example, the meaning of life. It gets discussed all the time, but what good does it actually do for us when we go to the store for milk?

Ethics is critical because right and wrong are central to our actions involving other people. We do what's right and shun what's wrong. Thus, those two adjectives are REALLY important to define.

Justification is important because we have to understand the reasons behind our actions. My dad will frequently be heard saying that the most important things in life are knowing who you are, what you're doing, and why you're doing it.

Those first two parts sound simple but are really tough. Importantly, I also think that a person who completely lacks those first two parts can bumble happily through life. But why you're doing something is so important. If you don't understand that part, your actions are chaotic. Anything can happen because you don't grasp the motivations of your actions. You are a slave to your own impulses.

Justification allows us to semi-quantify our motivations. God is the complete abdication of justification. There is no philosophically strong way to rely on God as a way to explain our actions. It is lazy justification.

That's where the disconnect between religion and science lies. A religious person can easily be a scientist, but they cannot fully believe in the precepts of analysis and justification since a critical part of their life is predicated on something that is totally devoid of justification.

That is my answer to those who argue that I should simply leave people alone. That religion has a small effect on people's everyday life, and that they would act and be basically the same person with or without religion.

That's entirely possible, but it's also possible that people would be different. No, I think the question of God is critical and that people would in fact be different, and be different for the better. This study drives home the degree to which people rely on God for either direction or justification for actions.

God is important. These people are directing their lives and having an effect on society and those around them based on a philosophically baseless belief! So rarely does philosophy come into the average person's life, but it does here, and does so in a big way.

Is it any wonder that people once used religion to justify the oppression of women, blacks, and other religions? Or that we now have a war being waged against homosexuality? Or that we now have an "our God can beat up your God" situation going on with Islam? Or that evolution is tantamount to heresy? Or that Fox News is WATCHED?

Baseless beliefs are bad, especially when people don't know that they are. It is in this way that religion is fundamentally dangerous.

God Helps with Personal Decisions, Most Americans Say (LiveScience.com)

Get.... Out.

The New York Times has been shown a report that outlines what pretty much anyone with knowledge of Africa already knew: aid to Africa is fucked.

The report shows that as much as 50% of food aid to Somalia is diverted to various nefarious groups and not to those poor, needy savages.

Here's a novel idea, GET THE FUCK OUT. I understand that us hyper-advanced, white westerners always know what's best for the rest of the world, but it's painfully obvious that our actions are just doing more damage. We're helping no one.

Yes, we're feeding some people for a time, but the old saying of fish and fishing has been around for a lot longer than Africa and its endless crises. We need to get out now. If we want to help anyone, we have to let them find their own way. We did it, everyone remember the Middle Ages? Yeah. It was a shit-show. But we managed!

People are going to die. Governments will fall. Stuff is going to appear to get worse before it gets better. But that shit must be excised from the system before it has any hope of moving forward. Once they've achieves some degree of stability on their own, we can begin doing business with them. We can let them into the big clubhouse that is the global economy.

Some numbers, Africa is the second largest continent after Asia, and the second most populous after Asia. Near-as-makes-no-difference one billion people live in Africa with the vast majority of them living in poverty. Africa has a massive amount of natural resources.

Western nations give about $100 billion per year to Africa. One percent more, ONE PERCENT, of the global economy going to Africa would result in six times that number. Once the systems are in place, our single most important mission, if we actually care about Africa, is to get their businesses up-and-running. There is nothing more important.

Up until this point, I've ignored the moral question. In my plan, letting lots of people die is fine. But morality certainly comes into the equations, but not in simply giving them food and money.

We must stand by our ideals as a nation and not accept human rights violations in the countries with which we are doing business. Countries rich in resources such as oil are going to develop highly corrupt nascent governments. The west must stand by and reject business with these nations until certain goals of human rights development are met. Basically, we must do what we are not doing with the Arab nations and their oil.

Half of Food Aid to Somalia Is Diverted, Report Says (NYTimes.com)

Molten Dinos

It's hypothesized that the asteroid impact that nuked the dinosaurs was powerful enough to fling chunks of Earth into orbit. Has anyone done any work on attempting to find chunks of terrestrial rock on the moon to confirm this? Just wondering.

Why Copyright is Totally Broken

I mention TechDirt on a pretty regular basis. It's the best site to read for a quick crash-course in trademark and copyright law and philosophy. This video is a recent speech from Larry Lessig, a strong advocate for copyright reform, and it's an entertaining presentation of the issues at hand.

The Tubes Are All Clogged!

Brilliant in its simplicity.

I'm Aware, Alright! I'm Aware!

What, praytell, does this video have to do with anything? Oh, right. Silly me. Breast cancer awareness. Of course it does. It's taking something that's predominantly male, involving boobies, and wrapping it up in breast cancer awareness.



Fuck you. It has nothing to do with that. It's an excuse for men to stare at boobs and pretend like it's something noble. And FUCK YOU about breast cancer awareness.

We're all aware! We ARE AWARE. Trust me. We all know how bad it is. You want to help? Stop spending money on awareness and start donating to research clinics. America, stop buying little pink stickers down at the fucking Piggly Wiggly and acting like you've done something.

The plague of stickers showing our support for Breast Cancer research or "our troops," is driving me up a wall. You know what having one of those stickers tells me? It tells me that you're an asshole. You're an asshole who acts self-righteous about things instead of doing something.

You know what you should support? Breast cancer research awareness. Support awareness that cancer research in this country is a mess of slapdash clinics working in secret, ignoring each other, and failing to communicate and collaborate. Support that shit. Support systems whereby groups and companies work together and draw from a centralized pool of donations. I don't know, have a fucking March of Dimes, just cure that shit.

If you have a pink sticker on your car, or have EVER said "breast cancer awareness" seriously and in context, I fucking hate you.

Continued Stratification

I wrote a review of Chipotle for my Watery Gourmet blog where I referred to the restaurant as the new fast food. As America's palate grew, be it caused by just greater interconnectedness or the Food Network, traditional fast food would fade and be supplanted to a degree by higher-quality food.

This is definitely happening. Burger King, Arby's, and Wendy's are all facing difficult times. McDonald's has managed growth, but is that at the expense of Chipotle or other fast food joints? I suspect it's the latter.

I also suspect that McDonald's has been aware of this market shift for a long time, going all the way back into the early 1990's when they created the Arch Deluxe. We're seeing it to an increasing degree, with McDonald's selling lattes, Dunkin' Donuts selling panini sandwiches and deli meat, and Subway overhauling their entire menu a number of years back.

Again, if you watch documentaries like Food Inc. or Super Size Me, you'll hear all of the arguments against fast food and the government subsidized cheapness of it. Cows are treated poorly, meat is of low quality, and as long as the food won't kill you, they'll sell it.

Ok, I exaggerate a bit on that last one, but it's obvious that the price point is of greatest interest to the fast food companies. The introduction of the dollar menu by Wendy's has pushed the entire industry to, effectively, a race to the bottom. The primary goal is to lower prices, but that will inevitably mean lower-quality foods. And, what with McDonald's and Dunkin' pushing out higher quality stuff, that none of them want to be part of that race.

For evidence of this, just look to the recent lawsuits between Burger King franchisees and BK corporate. The $1 double cheeseburger was actually losing money in an attempt to grab customers from the other dirt-cheap competitors. A race to the bottom means a race to zero profits.

But in much the same way as there is growing stratification in the economic and educational worlds, will we actually see increased delineation between classes in the world of food? Where the only people going to the cheap places are those to whom price is the primary determinant? Because there's certainly a market segment for whom price is more important than quality. How far will that market separate from the market where they'll pay for extra quality like Chipotle or Panera Bread? Will we get to a point where people go to McDonald's to have slop shoveled into their mouths while anyone who can afford to do so goes elsewhere, thus perpetuating a fat, ignorant, and poor lower class?

That just sounds horrible. That's Time Machine/Soilent Green level shit. But is it also inevitable? Is the necessary end result of classic capitalism social stratification perpetuated by the levels themselves because of economic forces? The lower class wants cheap food, for obvious reasons, but that only serves to send them ever-lower on the SES ladder.

That's the classic conservative model, where those that deserve a good life rise to the top. The classic liberal model would be free, good food to all. Obviously, the classic liberal model is too expensive and pie-in-the-sky to work, but is the conservative model, while feasible, what we want? Do we want to live in a world where the lower class are all but fated to stay fat, dumb, and poor?

I know that I don't. I'm a free-market capitalist like the day is long, but if that world is the end result of capitalist forces, I don't want it. I want stops and measures in place to stop that slide. We got out of that shit in the 1800's and I don't want to go back.

I'm not making a moral statement about that, mind you. I don't think that it is amoral for poor people to die in the streets. Nor is it amoral for other people to not care. But that's a nasty world in which I wouldn't want to live.

I remain hopeful. I love capitalism and democracy because both systems have pressure release valves, as I call them, built into the nature of the system. Democracy can get unbelievably broken, like it is now, but once the pressure gets bad enough, we throw all the bums out... Unlike old political systems which generally required violent revolution. Capitalism is based on the money. If the social system underlying the economics gets so out of whack that huge chunks of the populace can barely live, it collapses and we start again. At what point the system is broken enough for that to happen is a matter for the academics, but that is the backstop for the entire mess.