Category Archives: Mail

Mail 803 Sunday, December 22, 2013

Catching up with some of the mail. I get extremely interesting mail, and I try to post it with comments. I read all my mail, but sometimes I get overwhelmed, and often there is enough on a given subject that all the major views are covered, and more would simply be proof by repeated assertion, which we don’t do here. I try to print mail that disagrees with me and gives reasons; I seldom select mail that simply asserts that I am wrong and ought to be ashamed of myself.

This site is devoted to rational discussion of important matters coupled with things I find interesting. When I was part of the editorial committee that gave the BYTE Editor’s Choice awards and the Best of COMDEX Awards, our criterion was “Innovative, influence on the industry, and Way Cool.” I tend to use those criteria in selecting mail to answer, and since I am not picking the “best” of anything I can give more attention to what is just plain Way Cool and ought to be brought to the attention of my readers. That’s the way it’s supposed to work, anyway. In the real world I often get so much mail that I can’t possibly comment at length on all of it, and sometimes it gets past the point at which I can even give short shrift to everything.

This is one of those times.

Poverty and Industrial Revolutions Message

Rome may have been heir to a recent industrial revolution in the Mediterranean that increased agricultural output. Have you read "The Forgotten Revolution" by Lucio Russo?

Executive summary: circa 300BC Hellenist Greeks were at the center of a flourishing of science and technology, that the Roman conquests and possibly some structural weaknesses quenched.

Longer reviews at http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-forgotten-revolution-by-lucio-russo.html or http://www.ams.org/notices/199805/review-graffi.pdf

And of course there was more than one industrial revolution in the West: windmills and watermills drove the earlier one, steam began the later.

James Bellinger

I have read extensively about ancient technologies, both in derivative works like those of my friend and colleague L. Sprague de Camp as well as ancient sources and I think I am well acquainted with most of that period. There were local inventions in the time but they did not become wide spread.

See Nightmare with Angels, by Stephen Vincent Benet in an earlier View https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/iron-law-and-hatch-act/ which has a few other pertinent comments.

Way Cool

: Hand of God, or music of the spheres?

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/11/26/unusual-ice-circle-forms-in-north-dakota-river/

A forwarded letter:

DO YOU APPRECIATE THE LAW OF PHYSICS?

A very big Thanks to Michigan member Mike Partridge who sent in this bit of humor, which was forwarded from a senior-level person at Chrysler. The date on this note was Sunday, July 19, 2009.

Monday morning, I attended a breakfast meeting where the speaker/guest was David E. Cole. Chairman Center for Automotive Research (CAR and Professor at the University of Michigan). You have all likely heard CAR quoted. or referred to in the auto industry news lately.

Mr. Cole. who is an engineer by training, told many stories of the difficulty of working with the folks that the Obama administration has sent to save the auto industry. There have been many meetings where a 30+ year experienced automotive expert has to listen to a newcomer to the industry, someone with zero manufacturing experience, zero auto industry experience, zero finance experience and zero engineering experience, tell them how to run their business.

Mr. Cole’s favorite story is as follows: There was a team of Obama people speaking to Mr.

Cole (engineer, automotive experience of 40+ years, and Chairman of CAR). They were explaining to Mr. Cole than the auto companies needed to make a car than was electric and liquid natural gas (LNG) with enough combined fuel to go 500 miles so we wouldn’t "need"

so many gas stations (a whole other topic). They were quoting BTUs of LNG and battery life that they had looked up on some website.

Mr. Cole explained that to do this you would need a TRUNK FULL of batteries and a LNG tank as big as the car to make that happen, and that there were problems related to the laws of physics that prevented them from….

The Obama person interrupted and said (and I am quoting here). "These laws of Physics? Whose rules are those? We need to chance that." (Some of the others wrote down the law name so could could look it up.) "We have the congress and administration. We can repeal that law, amend it or use an executive order to get rid of that problem. That’s why we are here, to fix these sorts of issues."

…….And these are the same people who are going to fix healthcare?!

: 2013

without comment:

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/topten/articles/20131220.aspx

David Couvillon

Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; Chef de Hot Dog Excellance; Avoider of Yard Work

Who qualifies to teach reading to youngsters?

Jerry:

Your plea for competent reading teachers would not be hard to fulfill. As you say, the education establishment just needs to get out of the way, or the students just need to get out of the government education establishment.

My daughter (not trained as a teacher) taught her oldest daughter to read by the age of 5. Over the course of a couple of years she used homemade flash cards to teach the alphabet and then words and pronunciation using phonics. Of course she read to her daughter every day.

This oldest daughter at age six then took it upon herself to teach her younger sister to read. After that sister was reading by age 5 the two of them taught the third and youngest daughter to read. And so it came to pass that at Christmas time the youngest daughter at age 4-1/2 was reading Luke 2 from the NIV to her 90-year-old grandmother. (OK, I was there and helped with pronouncing some of the proper names.)

So it seems that children at 6 or 7 years of age are quite capable of doing what today’s college-educated teachers are taught is impossible, i. e., teaching young children to read.

I concluded that the qualifications for teaching reading included 1.) being able to read yourself, 2.) being passionate about books and reading, 3.) being interested in teaching others to read.

There are also qualifications for being a successful student of reading, namely, 1.) wanting to learn to read and 2.) willingness to practice reading.

Best regards,

–Harry M.

My wife taught reading for more than a decade in the school of last resort, a Los Angeles County Juvenile Detention Center. Her pupils came with five pounds of paper by experts proving that this child could not be taught to read and thus it was not the fault of the system that the kid was illiterate. She threw the paper away and taught them to read. All 6,000 of them. They all insisted that they did not want to learn; after they began to discover that they were learning to read they discovered they did want to learn: to the extent that when new one came into the class, which was frequent given what the school was, the students themselves imposed discipline on disturbers because they were learning and they wanted to continue to learn and they weren’t going to let the troublemakers take their education away from them. I can only tell you that in at least one case which I know about from direct evidence they all learned to read. Of course there was imposed discipline – although as I said, when they began to learn and realized they were learning, the students themselves took care of most classroom discipline.

”We’ve gotten smoking out of bars and restaurants on the basis of the fact that you and I and other nonsmokers don’t want to die. The reality is, we probably won’t.”

<http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2013/12/16/is-it-safe-yet-to-have-an-honest-conversation-about-secondhand-smoke-and-lung-cancer/>

Roland Dobbins

I have to say that I am glad to see the effective end of smoking, and I am not all that thrilled with the rise of electronic delivery of nicotine: I concluded forty years ago that smoking – even without lung cancer – cost about ten years of your life, and I can get a lot done in ten years. But I was never worried about second hand smoke; my resentment of other smokers had to do with temptation, not worry about second hand smoke. After a while I began to see smokers as horrible examples reinforcing my resolution to quit.

Todos Santos will be near San Francisco not LA

Jerry,

You and Niven were right about some things in Oath of Fealty, but I think it’s gonna be near either Google or Apple, not LA.

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/12/progress-haters-attack-google-bus.html

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/11/tech/innovation/google-bus-protest/index.html?iref=allsearch

There seems to be some fairly serious organization behind the protests and attacks, with both Google and Apple shuttles being targeted. Maybe the protestors prefer that all those employees drive themselves to work. Or maybe they prefer that everyone with a nice job live somewhere else and use their disposable income to enrich some other community. Or maybe they’re mad at life in general and just want to attack anyone who makes a serious attempt at doing things “right”. Todos Santos will be built in or near Silicon Valley, not Los Angeles. Maybe the reality is that with their new massive donut shaped building project, Apple is actually thinking too small.

Sean

Arcologies are very green, too. You will not that the Todos Santos people are middle class rich and very middle in politics. Oath of Fealty was meant as a serious work.

Merry Christmas

Dr Pournelle

For your holiday amusement:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

Remarkable

: Weather

Joe Bastardi (@BigJoeBastardi) tweeted at 6:00 AM on Sat, Dec 21, 2013:

Global sea ice now 2cnd highest on record http://t.co/bEI38xzYBd

Joe Bastardi (@BigJoeBastardi) tweeted at 5:52 AM on Sat, Dec 21, 2013:

Thirteen Years Of NASA Data Tampering – In Six Seconds http://t.co/WpcwQSqybN via @wordpressdotcom

Joe Bastardi (@BigJoeBastardi) tweeted at 5:50 AM on Sat, Dec 21, 2013:

Warmingistas, 3 more days of your weather then icebox returns. Severe cold developing over next 2 weeks plains east http://t.co/SA9TMWCXTL

Subject: What Happened when liberal Adolf Hitler’s Health Insurance is Cancelled

Things are rough all over.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USG_gjaEYak <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USG_gjaEYak>

Dr Pournelle

Economics 101 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h8O7V-WxWQ>

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

 

It’s not genetics or racism it’s victimhood.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/12/thomas-sowell/does-the-welfare-state-lower-iqs/

Counter-developing countries

Dr Pournelle

May we use the term ‘counter-developing’ for countries that once were productive but have been turned unproductive? For example, Zimbabwe. I recall when Zimbabwe exported wheat and good coffee. Now they import food.

What changed? Well, we all know the answer to that, don’t we: the gov’t.

I suppose the same can be said for Liberia. (I am in favor of making Liberia an American protectorate. We made the mess. We ought to manage it.)

FWIW, I say that since 1975 famine anywhere is not a production problem; it is a political problem. Somalians were starving. The Army and Marines landed and imposed order. Somali farmers produced enough to feed their countrymen. The Army and Marines left. Somalians are again starving.

Same goes for North Korea.

In the world today, if someone is starving, it is because someone else wants him to starve.

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

We used to call them primitive, tribal, possibly barbarian; or kleptocracies or just plain despoties. I notice that despoty is not even in the standard Word dictionary. It is not politically correct. And we seldom teach that rule of law and property security are needed to have high economic growth.

"We are getting to the point where we will have to pay people not to produce power."

<http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-grid-renewables-20131203,0,6231790,full.story>

Roland Dobbins

Dr Pournelle

Star Wars Downunder <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhTn8cjm9ZM#t=11>

The funniest thing about this is that the subtitles are indispensable.

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

They certainly are indispensible, and it turns out that I didn’t have subtitles turned on in Firefox so it was unintelligible to me. Now they’re on and it makes sense.

‘Because so few serving in politics have worn their country’s uniform, they have collectively forgotten how to put country before party and self-interest.’

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-restore-conscription-restore-america/2013/11/29/>

—–

Roland Dobbins

A matter of concern since the Roman Republic. The Civil Wars of Marius and Sulla converted Rome from a nation of citizen soldiers to long term professional troops loyal to their officers. The results used to be known to every school kid in America but now I suspect most Harvard undergraduates barely know who Marius was and have only a vague knowledge of Cicero.

Response to Chris Carson

Dr. Pournelle,

Apparently Mr. Carson took umbrage with my letter regarding ACA, specifically with my comment that as a society the United States population did have disdain for people that did not try to take care of themselves (as opposed to people who legitimately cannot take care of themselves). I wish that he would explain why this makes us a "barbaric people"? Why is toleration of sloth a virtue? As to having a virgin continent to exploit, Africa, Russia (Asian and European areas) and South America have at least as many resources that were no better developed 200 years ago than the United States, and yet today they still have a much lower standard of living than the US. For that matter, Europe was exploiting the resources of Asia and Africa and the indigenous people and still didn’t equal the production of the United States. Further, people from these areas still come to the US despite all our faults and generally live better than in their country of origin and they frequently do better than people that are born in the US. I would never say that we don’t have lots of areas to improve, but I don’t think the government’s current direction is doing anything to improve the situation and I still think our best hope is for freedom for people to pursue their own goals. Apparently even Bono agrees. How anyone construes freedom to mean uncharitable or uncaring is boggling to me.

Doug Lewis, MD

I have been looking for a place to use this, and too long has gone past, so it will just have to go here today. I will repeat: the best way to get more of something is to subsidize it, and the best way to get less is to tax it. We tax employment – I am calculating my self-employment tax now – and pay people to be unemployed, extending the time of payment as needed, as well as raising the benefits of being poor as we streamline their delivery by using debit cards and other such gimmicks. I am not sure this is a way to increase employment or decrease welfare recipients.

‘MacGyver’ geezer makes ‘SHOTGUN, GRENADE’ from airport shop tat,

Jerry

A shotgun made from items purchased AFTER passing security in the airport:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/26/madcap_macgyver_builds_shotgun_grenade_from_airport_shop_parts/

Don’t you feel safer now?

Ed

Question about space and temperature

Jerry,

The discussion on starlight and cold reminded me of you once talking about designing spacesuits and cooking more astronauts than any cannibal. The problem, as I recall, was how much heat the human body generates, and how as a vacuum space offers very little to absorb heat and thus doesn’t really have a temperature.

I may have gotten that wrong, but ever since then, I’ve been wondering about what seems to be the typical portrayal in science fiction of space being very, very cold. The discussion on starlight would seem to support that.

How does that fit in with the "temperature" of space?

-Philip

Space has no CONDUCTIVE cooling, and the irradiative environment depends on where you are: about a kilowatt a square meter in sunlight at Earth orbit distance. Radiative cooling works, but you need to design things so that the internal conduction of a device gets the heat to the radiation surface, and that that surface faces the cold of space, not the Sun or a planet. It can get complicated. With the proper type of space activity suit your own sweat will take care of heating, and a coverall can adjust radiative heating/cooling.

Human flesh in the marketplace?

It all depends on whose flesh and how it got there. Vat-grown long pig from pedigreed DNA vs. kidnapping and slaughtering random victims. I can see it now: I ATE EINSTEIN’S BRAIN!!! personally, I could really get into a Kaley Cuoco rump roast. Anyway – A few anarcho-capitalists aside, capitalism does not exist outside of a structure of laws and ethics, so I don’t see how we arrive at human flesh etc. from a capitalist starting point. The only documented cases of widespread cannibalism in the modern world are places like communist China.

Man Mountain Molehill

I will repeat: unregulated capitalism will result in the sale of human flesh in the market place. The question becomes what restrictions allow economic growth without allowing things to go that far; because there are no built in limits to pure economic freedom. Pure freedom without restrictions results in the kind of work described by Hobbes: Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. How to avoid that without giving all power to the State – how to preserve freedom and order, or ordered liberty – used to be the subject matter of American political science. That no longer seems to be the case.

If love of money is the root of evil, perchance love of theory is the root of folly.

Roy Lofquist

The most interesting Pope in the world

Dear Jerry Pournelle:

I write you about Pope Francis, whom I call ‘the most interesting Pope in the world’. This description is not entirely vacuous, for after all Benedict is still in the world. He’s a Pope too, of sorts; or maybe I should call him an ex-Pope, or a Pope Emeritus. I’m not sure what to call Benedict; Popes don’t retire every day, or even most centuries. This, and other curious facts, would normally make Benedict the object of fascinated planetary scrutiny; but almost everyone has forgotten about him, and why? Because Francis is the most interesting Pope in the world.

For what are we to make of a Pope who calls capitalism a new tyranny? Who calls it dehumanizing? Who denounces supply-side economics as unproven and unfair? Who says that inequality kills? Who snarks about ‘sacralized markets’? Is this coming from the Vatican or from Occupy?

I like hearing this, but I am startled to hear it from a Pope. I’m not a Catholic, he’s not my Pope, I’m skeptically minded and I prize my sense of personal independence; so I strive for a certain aloofness. This is difficult in Francis’s case, for he keeps saying such interesting things.

My attitude toward Pope Francis is like my cats’ attitude towards me. I’m not a cat, I’m not the boss of them, they’re wild-minded and they prize their sense of personal independence; so they strive for a certain aloofness. This is difficult in my case, for I keep giving them such yummy treats.

My cats like me despite themselves; similarly I like Francis despite myself. To me he poses a conundrum. A _Pope_ said that?! I suspect that he poses an equal-but-opposite problem for you. A Pope said _that_?!

I write to ask what you think of Pope Francis. I’m sure you too find him interesting.

Sincerely,

Nathaniel Hellerstein

paradoctor@aol.com

I find few surprises in Pope Francis. What you see is what we have. He is a Jesuit superior who chose to name himself after the founder of the Franciscans. As a Jesuit he will uphold the letter of the law and the doctrines of the church, but having taken the name of Francis you may be sure his attention will be more on the condition of the poor.

One can hope that he will learn that the poorest in the United States would be though pretty well off in the slums where he served in South America. He is correct in saying that unrestrained capitalism results in evil; he is incorrect in implying that elimination of capitalism will result in a better life for the poor. Distributism is useful only when there is something to distribute, and Socialism, as Margaret Thatcher observes, works fine until you run out of other people’s money. Given enough assured wealth a number of societies are possible that cannot exist without that assured wealth; and pure charity and good intentions can result in monstrous harm, as documented in The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty by Nina Munk will tell you. I hope someone calls it to the attention of His Holiness.

The Capitalist engine is the best known mechanism for creation of wealth known to human history. Other systems of nationalism can create great fervor, but it generally does not bring about wealth: more likely it brings about destruction. When the mob goes forth in search of bread for the poor, the result is usually burning bakeries and dead bakers.

Jerry,

I was slow to read "polymorhhochromatic"

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/jerrypournelle.c/chaosmanor/

I assume that it means "many changing colors" but I have no clue is to the possible context.

Today is my 25th engagement anniversary. Perhaps I will take my wife out for dinner.

James Crawford=

If you come up with a known definition please let me know: I made the word up to show that you can read “words” that haven’t been invented yet.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

Mail 802 Tuesday, December 10, 2013

We haven’t had the plague of locusts yet, but there have been a number of distractions here. I hope most have ended, and we can catch up a bit on mail. Today I will try to reduce the pile of unpublished comments on the evolution discussion.  I’ll try to continue this tomorrow.

Do we understand evolution?

Note that this is not a discussion of whether or not evolution takes place. That seems quite certain. The question is whether we understand the mechanisms.

A lot of this discussion came about from comment on Fred’s observations, particularly

http://fredoneverything.net/BotFly.shtml

And http://fredoneverything.net/LastDarwin.shtml

Fred concludes that if you think you understand this complex subject you must have been smoking Drano. He does not assert that he understands it. I come from a somewhat different tradition: I was brought up to believe in evolution but I was basically taught by wolves and my own reading habits until I encountered the Christian Brothers in high school. I had always been taught to “believe in evolution” and that was not contradicted by the Brothers who pointed out that church doctrine accommodated the notion of creation through primitive forms. But since that time the biology world has become much more complex, and the theories that account for evolution have become more so; and I find myself in agreement with Fred, you have to be smoking Drano to believe the current theories. Which isn’t a “disproof” of evolution because some kind of evolution has in fact taken place; but whether it was all be blind chance is another story. Sir Fred Hoyle was also an influence on my thinking although is notion of the Designer would not be acceptable to those who reject Darwin on religious grounds.

Mostly I don’t smoke Drano.

“About thirty years ago I wrote an essay on evolution and origins using the analogy of a watch: you can take all the components of a watch, but them in a bag, and shake them forever and they probability that they will fall into place is still remains vanishingly small with relation to the age of the universe. You can make the probability a bit larger by adding multiple copies of some of the components, but a bit larger still leaves you a vanishing probability. If you find a watch in the woods, that’s pretty overwhelming evidence for the existence of a watchmaker. Now what do you look for if you find a watchmaker?”

———————

But suppose there are rules that cause the different components to fall together in a particular pattern under the right conditions? The different components of the watch are not amino acids which bond together by themselves is placed in proximity. Magnetize the watch components and make their shape such that they fit together properly in some cases and they might form a ‘peptide watch’. What it takes to make these form a DNA strand isn’t known, thus the probability if this happening can’t be calculated. We know there is a factor of randomness to this, but what is unknown is how much is chaotic and how much is statistical.

You mix hydrogen and Chlorine together, you know what happens. Both elements do not just mix around and form random compounds, there is a strong statistical probability Hydrogen Chloride forms when light is added.

With organic chemistry the formation of compounds is less statistically certain, side reactions happen. Sometimes compounds form that catalyze other reactions. I suggest the beginnings of life are much the same.

This controversy can be easily resolved. All we need to do is define the conditions where life has formed, set that up and wait a few billion years. Stick around and when it completes I will let you know….

The problem here is that your rules have to apply all the time. If you know where you are trying to go, then it’s not so hard to get to the right place even with a random walk; it’s when you have no idea where you are going yet you get somewhere interesting that things need explanations. It is just not reasonable to suppose that a cloud of hydrogen gas will some day dance Swan Lake and build San Francisco.

Evolution

Here is a link to a pretty good on-line UW lecture dealing with some recent findings in what I guess you could call mathematical genetics:

Making Genetic Networks Operate Robustly: Unintelligent Non-design Suffices, by Professor Garrett Odell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsbKzFdW2bM

I understand the assertion. I do not see the proof.

Jerry

Me, I’m not so sure that mutations really are random, given the cellular mechanisms not only for redundancy and self-repair, but also for accommodating any alteration by making other alterations in response. The laws of chemistry might matter more than the struggle for existence.

Shapiro: New findings about the genetic conservation of protein structure and function across very broad taxonomic boundaries, the mosaic structure of genomes and genetic loci, and the molecular mechanisms of genetic change all point to a view of evolution as involving the rearrangement of basic genetic motifs. A more detailed examination of how living cells restructure their genomes reveals a wide variety of sophisticated biochemical systems responsive to elaborate regulatory networks. In some cases, we know that cells are able to accomplish extensive genome reorganization within one or a few cell generations. The emergence of bacterial antibiotic resistance is a contemporary example of evolutionary change; molecular analysis of this phenomenon has shown that it occurs by the addition and rearrangement of resistance determinants and genetic mobility systems rather than by gradual modification of pre-existing cellular genomes.

http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/Shapiro.1992.Gentica.NatGenEngInEvo.pdf

There’s an attachment of a slide presentation by Shapiro that touches some of these points. Feel free to slide over the more technical items, as I did.

Mike

A link to Shapiro that isn’t quite so complex is http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/Shapiro.2013.Rethinking_the_%28Im%29Possible_in_Evolution.html

Evolution

I have this vague uneasy thought regarding evolution.

That where we actually exist is the result of someone’s science fair project. Like an ant farm. Or an aquarium. You know, the kind where various objects are added to make it more interesting. One that has been long forgotten and banished to an attic storage room.

I believe I have developed this idea from a short story I read a half century ago.

Sci-Fi writers can be so disturbing sometimes.

tonyb

Asimov wrote one such story. Of course that means you have found a watchmaker: but what brought the watchmaker about?

Richard Dawkins on the evolution of the eye

Hi Jerry,

Mr. Dawkins, who is a renowned evolutionary biologist and a member of the Royal Society as well as the most famous apologist for atheism, has a detailed explanation for how the eye may have evolved here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwew5gHoh3E

I find it plausible.

Thanks for your books and all your columns, I’ve enjoyed them all.

Regards,

Julian Treadwell

He certainly does find it plausible. I fear I do not. Every step must lead to something fit enough to survive until the next step and some of those steps must make the new creature more fit.. I do not see how they do. If you know what you want, it’s fairly easy to describe a path that gets you there.

Evolution: "of Man" vs. "of Microbes"?

I wonder whether the Biology Teachers have their priorities right?

Is it not at least arguably more important, that kids learn about the evolution of antibiotic-resistant microbes than that they learn about the evolution of humans from apes?

The development of antibiotic resistance is easy to demonstrate in the laboratory and has potentially catastrophic implications for the health of billions of people, and not just in Third World hell-holes. You want a horror story that *we’re*all*living*right*now*? Try _The Forgotten

Plague: How the Battle Against Tuberculosis Was Won – And Lost_.

It affects individual liberty: Must we return to the days of involuntary detention in quarantine of infected people? Must we withhold treatment from patients who refuse to, or are unable to, complete their courses of antibiotic treatment — thereby turning themselves into breeding-grounds for resistant strains? Or are we Doomed, by our devotion to individual liberty, to slide on down the slippery slope to the End of the Age of Antibiotics and the Dawn of the Second Age of Sanatoria?

It affects property rights: Should we, by Law, restrict the dispensing of new antibiotics, developed at tremendous cost, to preserve their effectiveness? What would that do to manufacturers’ willingness to invest in developing such drugs?

Am I just blind and deaf, that I never see or hear this discussed?

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Aren’t we already headed there? I agree that practical evolution seems not well understood, although animal husbandry has understood for a thousand generations. Somehow it isn’t happening now.

Two Quick Points On Evolution

Why do you continue to use the straw man of "Darwinian" evolution? Do you also talk about astronomy as Ptolemaic or physics as Copernican? Also, why do you insist that evolution must lead to an improvement? What about cave dwelling species that have evolved to not have eyes (or functional eyes). Is this an improvement, or simply an adaption to environment?

I hate to say it, Jerry, since I love your writing, but your understanding of evolution is juvenile at best. And your continued use of logical fallacy betrays your inability to overcome simple cognitive dissonance.

Brian Walsh

I would appreciate enlightenment. I tend to concentrate on Darwinian evolution because that is what I taught in the schools. If there is a high priesthood with better understanding some of us await being informed. The new mechanism must account for the observed complexities.

Good Enough

Reproduction of the Good Enough

I may have been thinking of your oft-used Good Enough when I was discussing evolution with someone several years ago.

What occurred to me was that "Survival of the Fittest" was an unfortunate phrase to have captured peoples’ fancy. Instead, I have started using "Reproduction of the Good Enough." The idea that multiple variations can exist within a population until some external change happens with culls part of the population. To me, that explains much of what appears confusing at first glance.

A canonical modern example is DDT resistance. Where the resistance varied across a population, but it really didn’t matter. Then, DDT was introduced and it became paramount.

I think that metaphorically similar variations in light sensitive cells probably happened many times within populations. Within the extent environment, the differences were essentially "ornamental." Trivial. Then, some new predator showed up. Or, some new competitor for a resource. Or, a volcano erupted and the dust blocked much of the sunlight for several generations. Or, part of the population was isolated, which now produced different pressures on the different groups. And then, the differences in light cell patches allowed a portion of the population to survive and reproduce while some or most of the rest reproduced much less, or not at all. Ebbs and flows. Feast is followed by famine. Tranquility by adversity. Rinse and repeat.

That’s how species can end up with an eyeball, even though that was never a goal. Different light sensing mechanisms were tried within a forgiving environment. All were Good Enough to reproduce. Until some of them were no longer Good Enough. A subset passes on their then-winning trait.

That also explains how the progression of a species can start from one "peak" to travel through a "valley" to get to another "peak." Within the environment that existed when the trait variation sprang up, it just didn’t matter. Then things changed. The members of the population still living within the valley, and maybe most or all of the individuals living with the older genetic peak trait, are culled. Only those at the new peak can continue to reproduce.

And what’s left can look like it could have been goal driven. Even though it wasn’t.

Drake Christensen

I have always found that the most convincing of the arguments: they need not lead to fittest, but must at least be good enough for survival so that mutated individuals will reproduce and carry the next step along until the next mutation, which also must be good enough – but eventually a step must lead to “more fit”. I find the leap of faith less arduous than that of the “every step must be more fit”, but as the complexities of life continue to be discovered I do not find it sufficient.

Evolution discussion continues:

Entropy and Life

Jerry,

One of your correspondents posited that life should not be because of entropy. If life represents increasing complexity and entropy tears down complexity, how can life spontaneously come into existence? The answer is quite simple — one can not measure the entropy of a system without considering the entire system. Take a freezer for a simple example. If one looks only inside the freezer and watches the temperature drop and sees the water freeze, one would start wondering how such an anti-entropic activity could take place. After all, everything in the freezer is becoming more organized as its temperature drops. The key is realizing that an enormous amount of work is being done on the content of the freezer to generate that order. Measure the heat output of the entire freezer and one would find that more heat was created by the freezer than was removed from the inside of the unit. Overall, entropy was increased dramatically, even though locally entropy was reversed.

Living creatures consume enormous amounts of energy from the environment, creating far more disorder in the system as a whole than the order it produces. In fact, life is one of the best and most efficient entropy generating systems in existence. Given enough of a usable entropy gradient (environments with low entropy) life can expand until that gradient is eliminated, using up the gradient and an ever faster rate. Then everything dies and the created order decays into chaos and entropy still increases.

Life on Earth is possible because the energy of the sun is very low entropy compared to the space around it. This provides a very high entropic gradient for life to utilize. There will come a point in the future where nowhere in the universe will have enough of an entropic gradient for life to use. At that time, life in the universe, the entire universe, will no longer be possible.

Kevin L Keegan

Well of course entropy decreases in local systems. The question is how those local systems are created.

Biodiversity

Jerry,

Evolution theory readily explains biodiversity. Living organisms survive best by eating things that other living organisms don’t eat. So the earliest drive in competition for resources would have been toward unused resources. Beat the competition by not competing. We can see it now all across the ecosystems of the world. Hunting at night reduces competition from other predators and allows tapping of nocturnal foragers who evolved that habit because of daylight predation. The evolution of flight happened over and over again (insects, reptiles, mammals) because it allows escape from predation and access to resources not available to walking, crawling, burrowing, or swimming organisms. Tolerance of otherwise toxic plants, animals, and insects grants access to a resource no other organism can use. The list goes on and on.

It is too easy to think about evolution strictly as a head-to-head competition. This indeed does happen a lot and evolution theory has largely been taught on that basis. But evolution is not really about competition, but more about a drive towards accessible resources. Plants do it by happenstance — a lucky quirk in a gene complex allows progeny to survive in soil the parental stock found unsuitable. Animals do it by experimentation — I’m hungry and I can’t get what I normally eat; can I eat this? Those that can, survive and reproduce; those that can’t perish. It is, for most organisms, not a conscious choice, just desperation.

It is also important to remember that evolution is a process without direction. The environment effectively tests mutant genes for their effectiveness at conferring survival. Those that confer survival become more prevalent in a population. Those that don’t tend to become scarce. But there is no drive towards any particular mutation. For example, the brains of the ancestor stock for the modern house cat has a brain that is 30% larger than that of the modern house cat. Wild cats need more brain power to survive, but it is metabolically expensive, reducing the number of off-spring that can be produced. The modern house cat occasionally needs to catch a mouse, but mostly relies on its human companions to bring it food. It needs to buy their affections by being cute and playful — kitten-like — for its entire life, so a large brain is just a wasteful expense. The pressures of surviving with humans favored house cats with less brain and more kitten making capacity. The modern house cat is a ‘simpler’ organism than its predecessor stock.

Kevin L Keegan

But the point is that it produces results that do not look as if they were accomplished without direction. You can get here from there, but some of the steps appear impossible if you did not know where you were going.

Hi Jerry,

I read with interest your posting on "Asking Questions about Darwin" (https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=16304). You used

an example of evolution involving a bag of watch parts and the probability that shaking said bag would result in a fully functional

watch. Or rather, the improbability of such a result without the involvement of an "Intelligent Designer".

I must say, were evolution as complex as you make it out to be, then the most parsimonious answer would be that an intelligent

designer was probably involved. However, your analogy is… incorrect…

While you could use a "bag of stuff" as an analogy to describe evolution, the contents of said bag would have to be a lot different

than watch parts, although a timekeeping device could reasonably be the outcome of this process.

Please allow me to repeat that. We could indeed get a functional watch out of a bag of parts through a stochastic process… But it

requires lots of bags, and a process that sieves the successes of one bag into the next bag.

To bring the analogy in line with what is actually going on in evolution, you would have to start with something simple like the

attached image of a child’s toy. Place that in a bag. Shake it around long enough and some of the shapes will make it through to the

inside of the sphere. Most will not…

This is the "test", as it were, and it is no more complex than that. The steps are small, and the evaluation process is unambiguous.

Nature shakes the bag, the parts change slightly, and we see what survives. Lather, rinse, repeat…

From such humble beginnings, endless levels of complexity can come about as long as it receives energy inputs from the sun.

..Ch:W..

and a process that sieves the successes of one bag into the next bag.

Which is in fact the point I was trying to make. If you know what you are trying to get, then you can select among random steps; but if each of your steps must itself be beneficial to the species, the ‘survival of the fittest’ is not likely to produce anything.

I suspect that it would take a lot of random clouds of gas to become San Francisco or the Ballet Russ de Monte Carlo

Jerry Pournelle

Chaos Manor

"If you know what you are trying to get, then you can select among random steps;"

Nature is a harsh mistress and only has one selection criteria – death. That which finds a way to cheat death a little bit better than another, will propagate more than the other.

"but if each of your steps must itself be beneficial to the species, the ‘survival of the fittest’ is not likely to produce anything."

I am not sure what you mean by that. If you ratchet one success over death after another, what do you think will result after billions of years? Mutations never stop, hence innovations against nature’s harsh hand never end. Eventually some sort of form will come of that. It will not look like San Francisco, but it might look a lot like a quadrapedal body plan (for land dwellers), or perhaps a sleek fin and a set of very sharp teeth.

For what it is worth, I had the same skepticism the first time I opened up the back of a TV. Such a bundle of wires and components could hardly make sense to anyone. Then over time I understood that, indeed, no one need understand the whole thing. What makes sense are small systems that are combined to make something more complex.

And so it goes with nature, such as when the mitochondria, existing only as a bacterium in one of nature’s many niches, finds benefit by combining with a primitive cell in another of nature’s niches. Suddenly oxygen metabolism and ATP generation allows new possibilities.

Of course, in saying this, we conveniently ignore the trillions and trillions of useless mutations and failed combinations that were ablated away by nature, much as we do not see the years of effort that Yo-Yo Ma put in prior to a tear inducing rendition of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1.

And it appears as if you and I are very much in agreement about San Francisco and the Ballet Russ de Monte Carlo. Evolution could never produce those things. They are obviously the work of an intelligent designer.

I appreciate the opportunity to engage with you. Your mind is interesting.

..Ch:W..

With faith all things are possible,

A Change of Pace:

Don’t watch this until tomorrow:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/28/exploding_whale_video/

Ed

Unsung DEAD WHALE EXPLODER hero, who gave the early internet a purpose, passes away

Jerry

Don’t watch the video until after your Thanksgiving meal.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/05/exploding_whale_man_dies/

Ed

I remember hearing it on the radio as it happened…

: Trivium and Quadrivium

I find it interesting that you covered the Seven Classical Liberal Arts and Sciences i.e. the Trivium and Quadrivium.  Someone that you may know published this essay under the pseudonym Jester-Inquisitor.  I am certain you and certain of your readers will find this interesting.  Also, I hear a revised and expanded version is in the works…

<.>

The Trivium is — in the correct order — grammar, logic, and rhetoric. As an aside, Freemasonry and the Catholic Church teach this order in an improper sequence. Grammar forms the building blocks of language and allows expression of facts. Logic allows the ability to make relationships among the blocks or facts. Rhetoric allows attempts to inform, persuade, or entertain using grammar and logic for effect. Critical thinking and effective communication are among the many rewards achieved through undertaking study of the trivium; moreover, one proficient in the trivium does not need instruction from others e.g. teacher, professor to learn. One can — through his mental faculties — learn without aid and without an institution.

The Quadrivium is mathematics, geometry, music, and astronomy. Just as language is a human construct, so is the number. We introduce ourselves to the mental construct that we call a number through mathematics. Geometry allows us to perceive the number in space — as further explained in the degree work. Music allows us to get a sense of the number in time. Astronomy is where we apply the number in space-time. The quadrivium was — in old times — taught in college or university. Since then we’ve come to offer other programs. Through the quadrivium one can attain a better understanding of both the universe and one’s place within it.

One way to develop the Quadrivium further is to explain how one understands one’s place in the universe. In Freemasonry, we learn about the Pythagorean Theorem or the 47th Proposition of Euclid – 5, 3, 4. Five represents the five senses or empiricism — the Buddhists recognize six senses, three represents the Trivium, and four represents the Quadrivium. The sixth sense is the mind, which makes sense of the senses; else, we would experience the universe as a series of random "boom, bang, boom".

Reality is an ineffable, interdependent and interdeterminant process that exists in more dimensions than we are able to perceive with our six senses. The bible alludes to this by describing the ineffable name of God, but — really — everything is ineffable as Korzybski pointed out in Science and Sanity and Manhood of Humanity through the discipline of General Semantics. The computer screen that you are reading this post on is an ineffable object; we bind that object to the words, sounds, etc. of "computer screen". When I use those words — in auditory or visual form — they create a semantic reaction in your nervous system and call a sensation and related associations from your linguistic index. In this way, we can communicate and this important.

When we get into the Quadrivium, we further index reality. Reality is a wiggle and we use language and the Quadrivium to create a grid on that wiggle; it works in the same way that latitude and longitude work on a map. Some examples follow: with mathematics we can use numbers; so I can tell you how many cows I want in exchange for how many pigs and we can have a rudimentary economy. Mathematics is important when exchanging monies or currencies. With geometry, we can agree to meet at a certain point in the forest and if we cannot make that agreement we cannot meet. Geometric operations like intersection and resection help immensely with land navigation and are still used today in competent armed forces. Music gives one a sense of timing; it is possible to use music to gauge distances where other forms of measurement are not possible — shaman use this technique to walk from one rock to a certain area. Music is a pattern, essentially, and it is the pattern of the moon that allowed life to occur on Earth in the first place. Without the moon, there would be no rhythm to the seas for the first organisms to manifest. Through astronomy we can predict the movements of heavenly bodies and their affects on our existence here. We can understand seasons, we can understand when objects might strike the Earth causing mass extinctions, and we can better understand how the Earth became what we see today. We can also begin to unlock the secrets of the universe.

</>

http://goo.gl/QniNYH

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

experience modifies genes

hi Jerry,

This article about passing an aversion to smell onto offspring shows some of the first evidence that evolution is not completely random.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25156510

Jeff Marshall

Jerry

Geneticists have known about Lamarckian inheritance for quite some time, only they don’t call it that. The call it epigenetics.

It appears that various parts of your genome can be methylated. This is the one mechanism I have seen cited. Of course, there may be more.

As for the mice – well, good luck to them. I hope they can avoid the cat.

Ed

Jeff Marshall offered a link to this article

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25156510

suggesting that evolution is not completely random. I remain unconvinced. From the article:

“They showed a section of DNA responsible for sensitivity to the cherry blossom scent was made more active in the mice’s sperm.”

While interesting and important, this does not exonerate Lamarck, and certainly not Lysenko. Please note that no changes have been introduced into the genetic code – no new information and not even an alteration of existing information. This is an example of an environmental factor triggering the expression of an existing gene, an event which should surprise no one. A similar phenomenon was observed in a population of bees a few years ago and greeted with much the same fanfare.

Lamarck’s principle ideas were rejected by the scientific community over a century ago, yet their seductive appeal is so powerful, it seems, that biologists slip into their embrace time and time again. An article appearing in a peer-reviewed journal many years ago described what happened to a population of Darwin’s finches on one of the Galapagos islands when it experienced several years of drought. The preferred food source for these birds – certain seeds – dwindled, and they were forced to feed on a secondary plant whose seeds were tougher and harder to reach. Those birds with longer, narrower beaks found it easier to reach these seeds and as a result, they survived and reproduced in greater numbers than those with the “standard” beak. No surprises here. Natural selection at work, doing what it does best.

The paper’s authors, though, speculated that if the drought persisted for many years, or decades, that eventually a new species of finch would emerge that was better adapted for survival in that new climate, even to the point of being unable or unwilling to mate with unaltered or unaffected finches. This is undiluted nonsense. There is not a shred of evidence, nor even a plausible theory, showing how environmental factors can force a specific, adaptive change in the genetic makeup of an organism. The birds’ beaks – long and short – were well within the natural variability for the species.

Lamarckism, it seems, is the Holy Grail of biology, offering a quick and easy fix to their pet theory, toning up the flabby science that permeates evolution. It certainly induces smart, well-educated professionals to abandon the scientific rigor that is a sine qua non in the other disciplines.

Richard White

Austin, Texas

But isn’t genetic splicing a form of intelligently driven Lamarckism? Lysenko thought he could force evolution through Lamarckian heredity.

‘The mismatch between the anatomical and genetic evidence surprised the scientists, who are now rethinking human evolution over the past few hundred thousand years.’

<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/science/at-400000-years-oldest-human-dna-yet-found-raises-new-mysteries.html?_r=0>

————-

Roland Dobbins

This is a partisan presentation, and presents a growing view of events. I do not share this theory. I do believe that there is a strong Republican faction that would rather be in office as minority and will compromise with anything.

Hello Jerry,

I have been saying for years that the Obamunists are not incompetent; they are frighteningly competent—and evil to the core. You have been cautioning that we should not ascribe to evil that which is adequately explained by stupidity and incompetence.

Here is a piece by a guy (that I know nothing about other than what appears here) who is clearly in my camp—which of course proves nothing. Just another voice (from my perspective) crying in the wilderness:

Bob Ludwick

Why Obamacare is a Fantastic Success By Wayne Allyn Root

There are 2 major political parties in America. I’m a member of the naïve, stupid, and cowardly one. I’m a Republican. How stupid is the GOP? They still don’t get it. I told them 5 years ago, 2 books ago, a national bestseller ago ("The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide"), and in hundreds of articles and commentaries, that Obamacare was never meant to help America, or heal the sick, or lower healthcare costs, or lower the debt, or expand the economy.

The GOP needs to stop calling Obamacare a "train wreck." That means it’s a mistake, or accident. That means it’s a gigantic flop, or failure. It’s NOT. This is a brilliant, cynical, and purposeful attempt to damage the U.S. economy, kill jobs, and bring down capitalism. It’s not a failure, it’sObama’s grand success. It’s not a "train wreck," Obamacare is a suicide attack. He wants to hurt us, to bring us to our knees, to capitulate- so we agree under duress to accept big government.

Obama’s hero and mentor was Saul Alinsky- a radical Marxist intent on destroying capitalism. Alinksky’s stated advice was to call the other guy "a terrorist" to hide your own intensions. To scream that the other guy is "ruining America," while you are the one actually plotting the destruction of America. To claim again and again…in every sentence of every speech…that you are "saving the middle class," while you are busy wiping out the middle class.

The GOP is so stupid they can’t see it. There are no mistakes here. This is a planned purposeful attack. The tell-tale sign isn’t the disastrous start to Obamacare. Or the devastating effect the new taxes are having on the economy. Or the death of full-time jobs. Or the overwhelming debt. Or the dramatic increases in health insurance rates. Or the 70% of doctors now thinking of retiring- bringing on a healthcare crisis of unimaginable proportions. Forget all that.

The real sign that this is a purposeful attack upon capitalism is how many Obama administration members and Democratic Congressmen are openly calling Tea Party Republicans and anyone who wants to stop Obamacare "terrorists." There’s the clue. Even the clueless GOP should be able to see that. They are calling the reasonable people…the patriots…the people who believe in the Constitution…the people who believe exactly what the Founding Fathers believed…the people who want to take power away from corrupt politicians who have put America $17 trillion in debt…terrorists?

That’s because they are Saul Alinsky-ing the GOP. The people trying to purposely hurt America, capitalism and the middle class…are calling the patriots by a terrible name to fool, and confuse, and distract the public.

Obamacare is a raving, rollicking, fantastic success. Stop calling it a failure. Here is what it was created to do. It is succeeding on all counts.

#1) Obamacare was intended to bring about the Marxist dream- redistribution of wealth. Rich people, small business owners, and the middle class are being robbed, so that the money can be redistributed to poor people (who vote Democrat). Think about it. If you’re rich or middle class, you now have to pay for your own healthcare costs (at much higher rates) AND 40 million other people’s costs too (through massive tax increases). So you’re stuck paying for both bills. You are left broke.

#2) Obamacare was intended to wipe out the middle class and make them dependent on government. Think about it. Even Obama’s IRS predicts that health insurance for a typical American family by 2016 will be $20,000 per year. But how would middle class Americans pay that bill and have anything left for food or housing or living? People that make $40K, or $50K, or $60K can’t possibly hope to spend $20K on health insurance without becoming homeless. Bingo. That’s how you make middle class people dependent on government. That’s how you make everyone addicted to government checks.

#3) As a bonus, Obamacare is intended to kill every decent paying job in the economy, creating only crummy, crappy part-time jobs. Why? Just to make sure the middle class is trapped, with no way out. Just to make sure no one has the $20,000 per year to pay for health insurance, thereby guaranteeing they become wards of the state.

#4) Obamacare is intended to bankrupt small business, and therefore starve donations to the GOP. Think about it. Do you know a small business owner? I know hundreds of them. Their rates are being doubled, tripled and quadrupled by Obamacare. Guess who writes 75% of the checks to Republican candidates and conservative causes? Small business. Even if a small business owner manages to survive, he or she certainly can’t write a big check to the GOP anymore. Money is the "mother’s milk" of politics. Without donations, a political party ceases to exist. Bingo. That’s the point of Obamacare. Obama is bankrupting his political opposition and drying up donations to the GOP.

#5) Obamacare is intended to make the IRS all-powerful. It adds thousands of new IRS agents. It puts the IRS in charge of overseeing 15% of the U.S. economy. The IRS has the right because of Obamacare to snoop into every aspect of your life, to go into your bank accounts, to fine you, to frighten you, to intimidate you. And Obama and his socialist cabal have access to your deepest medical secrets. By law your doctor has to ask your sexual history. That information is now in the hands of Obama and the IRS to blackmail GOP candidates into either not running, or supporting bigger government, or leaking the info and ruining your campaign. Or have you forgotten the IRS harassed, intimidated and persecuted critics ofObama and conservative groups? Now Obama hands the IRS even more power. Big Brother rules our lives.

#6) Obamacare is intended to unionize 15 million healthcare workers. That produces $15 billion in new union dues. That money goes to fund Democratic candidates and socialist causes- thereby guaranteeing Obama’s friends never lose another election, and Obama’s policies keep ruining capitalism and bankrupting business owners long after he’s out of office.

Message to the GOP: This isn’t a game. This isn’t tidily-winks. This is a serious, purposeful attempt to highjack America and destroy capitalism. This isn’t a train wreck. It’s purposeful suicide. It’s not failing; it’s working exactly according to plan. Obama knows what he’s doing. Stopapologizing and start fighting.

Oh and one more thing…Conservatives aren’t "terrorists." We are patriots and saviors. We represent the Constitution and the Founding Fathers. We are the heroes and good guys. Unless you get all this through your thick skulls, America is lost…forever

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

Mail 798 Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Commercial Space is real:

6 satellites ready for space

Each one is a 10 cm cube loaded into a dispenser. They will fly to ISS next month. You can post the picture.

Someone told me Von Braun thought kicking sats out the door of a space station was the best way to do it. You heard this? Want to ask your readers? Would love to get a source.

Rich Pournelle

I remember that everyone thought von Braun said something of that sort, but I don’t recall him saying it when I was listening.

Subj: Thomas Aquinas and Philosophical Realism

http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=9884

Being a report on a Conference featuring, amongst others, Michael Flynn

— yes *that* Michael Flynn! 😎

>>Thomistic realism is the kind of realism you most likely have in mind when you bother to think about the subject at all. Stuff exists, it’s out there; other people exist; trees make noise if nobody is around to hear them fall, and so on. …<<

An antidote to much currently fashionable Stuff and Nonsense.

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Mike Flynn is always worth reading when he makes Thomas Aquinas relevant in the modern world. Actually I have always found Aquinas relevant, but one must be careful of the translation, and alas, I no longer read Latin fluently.  Mike is a good teacher of Thomistic philosophy.

We have a great number of items on health care. I have selected a broad sample.

The President on Healthcare Coverage and the Midterms

Jerry,

For those that only believe in the nuanced, here are the President Obama’s own words:

"So let me begin by saying this to you and to the American people: I know that there are millions of Americans who are content with their health care coverage — they like their plan and, most importantly, they value their relationship with their doctor. They trust you. And that means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. (Applause.) If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. (Applause.) No one will take it away, no matter what. My view is that health care reform should be guided by a simple principle: Fix what’s broken and build on what works. And that’s what we intend to do."

President Obama’s remarks at the Annual Conference of the American Medical Association on June 15, 2009, Hyatt Regency Chicago, Chicago, Illinois <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-annual-conference-american-medical-association>

No nuance there. Nowhere did the President say, "for those that have non-junk policies," like his apologists are saying.

Although President Barack Obama has no election of his to worry about, I hope the consequences for the Democrats in the midterm election are as grave as those that befell President George H W Bush after

"I’m the one who won’t raise taxes. My opponent now says he’ll raise them as a last resort, or a third resort. When a politician talks like that, you know that’s one resort he’ll be checking into. My opponent won’t rule out raising taxes. But I will. The Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I’ll say no, and they’ll push, and I’ll say no, and they’ll push again, and I’ll say to them, ‘Read my lips: no new taxes.’ "

President George H. W. Bush’s Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans, August 18, 1988 <http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25955#axzz2jJOspjAE>

Special healthcare for the Congress, the President, and the Courts, and unspecial care for us.

A pox on their houses! Tar, Feathers!

As Bill the Cat would say, "Pfft!"

Regards, Charles Adams

Insurance and state rights

I am continually floored by otherwise reasonable people repeatedly comparing state mandated auto insurance with federally mandated health insurance. It’s a false comparison.

Setting aside the significant difference between state powers and federal powers for a moment, auto insurance is generally required under the notion that driving an automobile can be inherently dangers to others should you fail to drive in a competent manner and the insurance is their protection from your negligence.

How is requiring a single man to pay for coverage which includes maternity leave protecting anyone from his actions? How is having health insurance protecting anyone other than that person?

As far as the state/federal issue goes I find an appalling number of people have no understanding of federalism, no concept of state rights and still fewer see states as sovereign governments.

Regards

Will

Will Nonya

States Rights is just another way of saying that the Constitution created “A Nation of States” i.e. a Federal Republic. It was never intended to be a national democracy. And our school system has few civics teachers who understand the point of federalism and states to begin with.

From the Sacrament Business Journal via Weasel Zippers:

Specific language in the contracts major health insurers signed with Covered California to participate in the exchange required them to cancel the individual coverage which is at the center of a growing national debate.

Anthem Blue Cross, Kaiser Permanente,Health Net and Blue Shield of California have confirmed to the San Francisco Business Times that their Covered California contracts, signed in August or September, required the cancellations. Other plans on the exchange are subject to the same contract language.

More: http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2013/11/01/covered-calif-insurers-non-compliant-can.html

On a healthcare related note my Dad, a WWII vet, called the VA today to get an appointment for his annual checkup. They scheduled him on a Saturday! Told him they that they had to start making appointments on Saturdays due to a sudden ‘increase in business’. Hmmm….

-Blair

Jerry,

http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2013/11/04/obamas-catastrophic-victory/

One reason for the increased cost of Obamacare policies – MUCH higher taxes on insurance companies to pay subsidies http://blog.al.com/breaking/2013/11/rep_mo_brooks_blue_cross_to_pa.html <http://blog.al.com/breaking/2013/11/rep_mo_brooks_blue_cross_to_pa.html>

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/363083/obamas-weapon-mass-deception-has-senate-dem-fingerprints-all-over-it-deroy-murdock

Ted Cruz is starting to look less opportunistic and more realistic

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/11/04/the_obamacare_death_panels_have_arrived

http://www.nationaljournal.com/white-house/will-insularity-incompetence-and-lies-doom-obamacare-20131104

http://ph.news.yahoo.com/n-korea-developing-electromagnetic-pulse-weapons-135357782.html

Jim

Health Care, Freedom, and Equality: More

Dear Jerry,

Along with a number of others, I wanted to respond to your friend the doctor. You tended to focus on the obligation or lack of it from the Constitution (or elsewhere) to make me pay for your health care. While that concerns me too, maybe a simpler issue is more likely to engage your friend. He thinks that loads of other countries have better medical care than the US. I doubt it; I have relatives in Israel, which is pretty modern and actually at the forefront of developing new medical technology – and everyone there knows that you go to the USA for most major operations.

But say that it’s so; these other countries are better. Does that mean that the United States should set up a medical system that matches them? I don’t think so. Our current federal government is just not capable of it.

Most of my relatives are very liberal. I remember asking them five years ago, as the struggle took place over the health care bill: “Tell me the truth. Is this the health care bill that you pictured?” Pretty much all of them answered me, “Of course not. They were going to raise taxes and pay for everyone’s health care! It’s insane: How did they end up with this thing that’s written by health insurance companies and Big Pharma?”

A question for my relatives, and your friend the doctor: Can someone believe in both these statements, or are they contradictory? 1) It is appropriate for the US federal government to run the Coast Guard and help build the interstate highway system. 2) The United States federal government is currently controlled by politically connected special interests, is acting as a conduit to funnel money from middle-class taxpayers to the special interests that control it, and is right now more barnacles than ship. It is currently very difficult for that government to get anything worthwhile done.

Is it possible for a rational person to believe both of them? In fact, don’t most rational people conservative or liberal believe both?

And if they do, what are they arguing about? It isn’t proposition (1) (which makes it seem odd that so many liberals quote it as proof of something). It isn’t even (2), as everyone basically agrees on that as well. It’s a corollary of (2): Given that that is so, we should be very reluctant to put the US federal government in charge of anything important.

Dear friend doctor. I am sorry. I share your concern for the sick poor people of America. You aren’t going to be able to help them this way. Regardless of your plans and intentions, what you _actually end up with_ will be far more costly, far more cumbersome, and will kill far more people than it helps. The rules created will all be the result of political deals somewhere in Washington, nothing to do with what American health care needs. Perhaps you’ve noticed that this is happening already. I work at one of the premier teaching and research hospitals in America, and I can already see how we are diverting resources to handle edicts from Washington that force us to do things that aren’t good ideas for us. And we’re huge; we can handle it. Smaller hospitals will get killed, and so will medical practices. Doctors will shift to concierge practices where the patients are 100% responsible for dealing with insurance. Some of my doctors already have. All the lucky people who can now get insurance for the first time may find that they simultaneously cannot get doctors or hospitals.

That’s all assuming that they eventually get their website working properly. Have you noticed yet that they are incompetent?

Join the real Reality Based Community.

mkr

Yes They Can

Pass now to days of universal health care: can the Mayo Clinic exist? For that matter, can “Cadillac Plans” such as I have had with Kaiser for more than twenty-five years continue to exist under single payer universal health care? Could the Kaiser system itself survive?

——————–

To answer your question… YES, if you are in Congress…

“Why should Frank Herbert have access to better health care than I can get?” Or Bill Gates, or – but you get the idea. If we ever get to single payer universal health care that will be a question that must be answered. Why should anyone have access to something better than everyone can afford?

——-

I have to ask if these expensive procedures exist because of the research that went into creating them?

Was the motivation for doing the research from the expectation of a large financial reward?

Once the procedures were created, was there a financial incentive to make them cheaper and more mainstream?

Places like the Mayo Clinic can develop new techniques because they exist. They can do that here in the US, or in Borneo and Thailand, or some other more civilized place.

You wrote: "I invite comment. If we have universal health care, will it allow Bill Gates and Frank Herbert options that you and I won’t have? How? Will physicians be allowed to offer concierge practice to the rich? How will physicians be paid?"

My answer: VIPs will always get needed treatment, whether they be useful celebrities, really rich donors, or party officials. Streisand, Soros, and Sibelius will get whatever they need. The Koch brothers will get their care from their personal physicians and the black market. You and I are screwed.

But surely the Affordable Care Act will see that we all get affordable care? This is its intention.

Jerry,

I guess, in these chaotic times, that you and perhaps myself have lived past the time (times?) where the county doctor comes to the door. I suppose we have to find him and go to his door. Whether he will accept cash payment or not is an interesting question. I suppose maybe I and I hope not you, have lived to the time of the old curse "may you live in interesting times."

I imagine that the system set up will render my payments to the ‘independent’ physician moot. I imagine that the quality of care that I receive from undocumented ‘doctors’ in time may be diluted, you may however benefit. You know your doctors, or at least trust them.

I can go with the state sponsored "good enough docs" and must live my life with the declining quality of the ‘back alley physicians’.

In some way I find myself envying your position. I don’t know my ‘doctors’ and I have yet to meet them. You have the unique (at least in this time frame) of knowing your physicians, and they knowing you, albeit your individual condition(s)….

I have a generic (I assume) condition that a generic doctor has to diagnose. Who reads the ‘nets anyhow?

"If we have universal health care, will it allow Bill Gates and Frank Herbert options that you and I won’t have? How? Will physicians be allowed to offer concierge practice to the rich? How will physicians be paid?"

Dear Dr. Pournelle:

I would guess the answer to your question lies in the reification of concepts you have already explored under several different forms (variously in High Justice, and of course in Oath of Fealty), and which appear to be starting <http://www.economist.com/node/21541391> to <http://www.economist.com/node/21541392> happen <http://reason.com/blog/2011/12/06/seasteaders-take-to-the-land-in-honduras> in actuality (albeit at the moment with uncertain <http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/04/honduran-private-city-plan-shot-down-by> prospects <http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/30/another-blow-to-the-cause-of-honduran-fr> ): moving the elite institutions offshore, either in the current metaphorical sense, or literally (as in seasteading).

We already have a thriving <http://www.medicaltourismresourceguide.com/medical-tourism-in-2013> –albeit somewhat under the radar <http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/11/12/244611440/will-colombias-gamble-on-medical-tourism-pay-off> –international "medical tourism <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism> " trade: it seems likely the next step will be for the Mayo Clinic and others to expatriate themselves to friendlier venues, which will of course accelerate both the pace and the volume of medical tourism: a vicious (if you are the single-payer government) or virtuous (if you are the prospective individual consumer) cycle, but in any event a self-reinforcing one.

Very respectfully,

David G.D. Hecht

Indeed.  Which was really the point.

Universal Health Care

Jerry,

You ask if elite care will still be available under universal health care with a single payer. The answer seems obvious: yes. You can bet that the President, the Congress Critters, and their ‘best friends’ will have access to a level of care unavailable to everyone else. It will likely be provided by the same doctors and at the same clinics and hospitals that the rest of us go to, but they will not have all the odd limits that will crop up in all of our care. There will be that therapy, drug, or surgery that is inaccessible to the rest of us because of some cost-benefit analysis that they will receive without question or hesitation. There will be that extended care or therapy that mysteriously stops for us before it can do the most good, but will go on and on for them, regardless of benefit.

The cute thing about it is that even though these people can afford to pay for the elite care, they wont. The rest of us will through our taxes and co-pays. After all, it is universal health care with a single payer and everyone has a right to that care without additional cost.

I know it sounds cynical and bitter, but look at how Congress keeps itself above and beyond the law of the land in almost every other way. I don’t think any other conclusion is possible.

Kevin L Keegan

"If we have universal health care, will it allow Bill Gates and Frank Herbert options that you and I won’t have? How? Will physicians be allowed to offer concierge practice to the rich? How will physicians be paid?"

If we get universal health care Bill Gates will simply fly to where his physician is. I don’t expect this to be in the US, but [Canada, Mexico, Bahamas].

I predict he will find no shortage of very smart, very excellent, US-born physicians who will care for him there.

I don’t know where Mr. Herbert, or you, or I, will get our care. I predict what we’ll experience will be similar to the care we experienced in the military. Generally ‘ok’ to ‘meh’: expect lines, impersonal care, and bureaucracy.

—

Brian Dunbar

Two Interesting Stories of Health Care:

 

Health Care, Freedom, and Equality

Jerry,

I have lived under quite a few health care environments over the past four years in multiple countries. I’ll give you my perspective on my experiences. I visit the doctor more often than not for sinus/ear infections due to allergies and the amount of travel I do for work so I visit the doctor a couple of times a year.

1. Concierge Care – Houston, Texas

I signed up for this in 2009 as I was tired of waiting 2-3 hours past my appointment time to see my doctor. I had very good insurance but it made no difference. I learned about concierge care, did some research and interviewed doctors before I found the one I liked. At that time it was $1500 out of pocket a year but that came with a very comprehensive 2 day physical that included complete blood work, EKG, stress test, hearing, eyes, the whole nine yards. The physical alone was worth half the price I paid.

I was given my doctor’s cell phone and home phone numbers. He was on call to his patients at all times. This service limited a doctor’s practice to 800 members. He had his overhead costs covered right off the bat. Staff was minimal (less paperwork to process) and doctor visits could be scheduled an hour before you needed to see them. When I needed to visit there was no wait and the doctor spent a good 30 minutes with me every time.

Interesting thing is that they accepted insurance, including Medicare/Medicaid. The annual fee limited members per doctor so filing claims only required one staff member.

2. Expat Singapore 2010 – 2011

Moved to Singapore for work early 2010 and lived there for two years. They have socialized medicine. They also have private medicine. Your choice. I had expat insurance and could go anywhere but I went to the local clinics more than private doctors. Great thing was open pricing. I could call any doctor and ask how much a visit/procedure would cost and they would tell me. Completely open pricing. I could go to the cheap subsidized clinic and wait 30 minutes or I could go Cadillac to an expat doctor and pay a significant amount more. My choice.

I needed to get immunized for every tropical disease in Asia and went to a clinic in a shopping mall. 30 minute wait, 7 immunizations, total bill $20 US cash. I had a bad sinus infection, went back to the clinic, waited 30 minutes and had a doctor visit and my prescription filled for a total of $30. No insurance was involved at all.

When I needed a physical I went to an expat doctor and had the 2 day comprehensive everything physical. $1800 US.

All options are available and you can choose (if you have money).

Social care in Singapore is very good but there are limits. If you are diagnosed with cancer the state will treat you until you go into remission, once. If the cancer comes back they will give you opiates to ease the pain until you die. If you don’t want to die you have to pay for treatment yourself.

3. Expat Norway 2012

European socialized medicine. Within 1 month of moving there we were assigned doctors. No choice. Our neighbors were a nurse and anesthesiologist couple and they flat out told us to go to private doctors and to not use the state system. So there is a state subsidized system that everyone pays in to, and a separate private one that is used by those who chose to.

I encountered the state system the day we landed in Oslo. I had such a severe ear infection that as soon as we got to the hotel we dropped our bags off and went straight to the emergency room. Waited a long time and eventually saw a very young doctor. I told him I had an ear infection and antibiotics would clear it up. He looked at it, gave me some drops that “could cause possible permanent hearing damage” as he did not wait to make a call on antibiotics and referred me to a state ear specialist. $100 as I did not have Norwegian papers at the time. I did not use the drops.

Visit the specialist the next day and it is going back into the Old West. The array of instruments was spectacular and the autoclave nearby was assuring. He took a look and asked if the previous doctor has prescribed antibiotics. He was pissed when I told him no. To rule out the wild prognosis from the younger doctor he needed to take a sample for testing. I nearly came out of my chair from that particular violence and it is a miracle I did not punch him in the face. It was gratuitous and I was just an animal going through the system, just another guy to get through. Being from the US probably did not help my cause. $200 US.

After that I went to private doctors and was treated much better, albeit at cost.

Late last year I had an accident and cut three tendons in my hand that required surgery. Emergency room, surgery two days later, and a 3 month recovery. I was in the state system but at a teaching hospital so I received tremendously good care including physical therapy weekly for 5 months. Out of pocket maybe $300.

I also had a 50% income tax rate and a 25% VAT on all purchases including food while I lived in Norway so I consider the surgery and therapy a wash.

4. US 2013

Back to concierge care. I could not be happier. Shopped for the right doctor, found him and I’m set until the government comes and screws that up.

Overall, state care works at a lowest common denominator of care. I got lucky in Norway with the hand surgery. But both places I went had private options that cost more but provided more.

I have one body and one life and I take my healthcare seriously. I am willing to pay for it. Seeing the disaster that is looming with Obamacare I envision a lot of people leaving the system entirely to form private relationships with doctors outside of government control. I do not think anything good is going to come out of the path we are on.

Regards,

M

Universal Health Care and Equality-

Hi Dr Pournelle,

I just wanted to comment on "free" healthcare. If there is universal health care a separate paid system will develop alongside it. The big questions would be what is the quality of the "free" system and how expensive the paid system is, and is it available.

In the past 8 years we’ve lived in Mexico, Italy and Colombia. All three have universal health care, in Colombia one can pay a social security payment that is very low and reasonable and you can go to the public hospitals, which looked pretty terrible from the outside. We had private insurance so we went to the shiny new hospital that gave great care at a reasonable cash price, then we were reimbursed.

Then we moved to Italy where the healthcare is free. It was paid for by a 8% payroll tax that is taken off along with the 45% income tax. The key difference there is there are no deductions, so 53% tax is 53% off the top.

The healthcare there is very similar to what we received in the early 70’s at the Navy hospital in New Orleans, and the public health hospital we went to after they closed the Navy hospital, dumping Navy dependents among the riffraff.

The one key difference is in Italy there is no great incentive for doctors to be thoracic surgeons, so the best doctors

are pediatricians. There are really excellent pediatricians in Italy, just very little technology. To get an ultrasound

we had to travel an hour to Bologna, then it took a week for results. No trauma center in a city with 100,000 people,

so when young man was killed in a motorcycle accident down the street from the office, they sent a helicopter from

bologna. In the end, I made a deal with the company’s personnel people and paid the private insurance premium

so that we could use the good system of private hospitals that exist. Plus the 8% tax made for very expensive free healthcare.

Here in Mexico, everyone has a right to health care, there is also a pretty good private health system. We pay very reasonable cash prices in the private system and get pretty good care. It appears that many of the doctors in the private system have day jobs in the public system, so we get weird appointment hours of 7pm. I’ve heard horror stories about both the private and public systems; private hospitals that overdiagnose and operate just to increase the bill, public hospitals that are dirty and shabby. the public hospital I’ve seen looks pretty shabby, but they have a CAT scan machine.

The best outcome I can hope for in the US is that we end up with a crappy public system and the private systems switch to a cheaper cash price. Obamacare could be avoided just by paying the tax and going all cash, with insurance only for hospital stays.

The worst case would be a crappy public system, plus a private system that still keeps the current outrageously expensive price structure so that only movie stars and the 1% get good treatment. That is the sort of system that will breed revolution; instead of the sans-culottes we’ll have the sans-chemos and the sans-Cat scans.

The US lacks the uniform population and nice wine that makes the Italian system bearable, perhaps instead of pushing to repair the soon to be broken health system we should push for better, cheaper wine.

best regards,

Joe

The War on Drugs

The official complaint filed against the police is in a .pdf in the document. Evidently the man was pulled over at a traffic stop, a drug-sniffing dog started barking, and he was rectally searched 8 times and came out clean.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131105/05401425129/cops-subject-man-to-rectal-searches-enemas-colonoscopy-futile-effort-to-find-drugs-they-swear-he-was-hiding.shtml

The one ray of sunshine is that the police were evidently honest and didn’t try something stupid like planting crack on him to justify all the hullabaloo.

I’m at the point where I’m willing to legalize pretty much all forms of drugs, though I myself indulge in nothing more powerful than caffeine or occasional alcohol. My cost-benefit analysis is as follows: Cost: No-knock police raids, militarized operations, and a way of life alien to that desired by the founders. Benefit : A street price increase on drugs, but continued addiction and the problems which come with it.

So far as I can tell, the war on drugs costs us all a great deal and benefits no one save bureaucracies and politicians who have made it their hobby horse.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I have long thought that the war on drugs was lost from its earliest days. I would have thought we would have learned from Prohibition – and we repealed the Amendment that made the Volstead Act constitutional. If it took the 18^th Amendment to allow the feds to make possession and sale of alcohol within a state a federal crime, and we repealed that, which Article of Amendment makes the DWA constitutional? I asked Speaker Gingrich that one night in the Capitol and he had no answer, and began thinking about it, but apparently he was distracted because nothing came of it. But the question remains. Where do the feds get the right the forbid growing and smoking pot in your own back yard?

I find it intriguing that you wrote the passage below regarding the discussion about the Permanent Underclass just down the page from a discussion of computers "coming alive."

"The American education system, coupled with the drive for higher and higher minimum wages, seems designed to produce a society which would rather buy robots than hire citizens.

I suppose it is not appropriate to ask, Why wouldn’t it? Robots don’t form unions to demand guns, and they don’t feel entitled. And what do our schools qualify the lower half of the class to do." (emphasis added)

What if they did?

Nick Hegge

Exceptionalism

You derive most of your success from the fact you had a virgin continent to rape, at just the right time. There is no inherent superiority at all. With views like:

"I would agree that we have a cultural disdain for people that do not take care of themselves, and I think this is a right and proper disdain. I did not say people that cannot take care of themselves."

You are in fact a barbaric people. Simple and vindictive. You are also done. Fork is ready.

Chris Carson

This has been said before. I recall the Soviet Chairman speaking before the United Nations telling the United States that “We Will Bury You.”

The Mote in God’s Eye

Dr Pournelle

NASA photos <http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/the-most-spectacular-nasa-photos-ever-taken>

God’s Eye is number 12. Is that the Mote north of the center of the picture?

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

“If the draft rule is approved, it would allow the EPA to regulate virtually every body of water in the United States, including private and public lakes, ponds and streams.”

<http://pjmedia.com/blog/epa-stealthily-propels-toward-massive-power-grab-of-private-property-across-the-u-s/?singlepage=true>

——

Roland Dobbins

But that has always been the goal. At one point they tried to say that a mud puddle was navigable water subject to Federal control, and fine a man for draining his swamp. A Federal Action. The Iron Law always applies.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

Mail 797 Sunday, November 03, 2013

Destroy the Market To Save It

Jerry,

This from today’s WSJ: "For all of the Affordable Care Act’s technical problems, at least one part is working on schedule. The law is systematically dismantling the individual insurance market, as its architects intended from the start."

"The millions of Americans who are receiving termination notices because their current coverage does not conform to Health and Human Services Department rules may not realize this is by design. Maybe they trusted President Obama’s repeated falsehood that people who liked their health plans could keep them. But Americans should understand that this month’s mass cancellation wave has been the President’s political goal since 2008. Liberals believe they must destroy the market in order to save it."

The piece goes on to cover in some detail what’s to happen to the individual market, and why. Read the whole thing at

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304200804579163541180312658

We individually insured types are a mere 7% of the national insurance market, and thus there may have been a political calculation we’re expendable. But note the table embedded midway through that Washington Post "Wonkblog" piece you mentioned, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/29/this-is-why-obamacare-is-cancelling-some-peoples-insurance-plans/

Key point: As of this year, only 36% of *group* insurance plans are grandfathered under the ACA. So it’s not just individuals. Many, many millions of people in group plans are also going to be hearing over the next year that they can’t keep their current insurance, that it’s going to be either costing them significantly more, or going away entirely as their employers decide to just pay the fines and dump them too on the exchanges.

I expect the political storm from this is just getting started.

Porkypine

Jerry,

RE: Obamacare

Well, this is a plausible explanation of incompetence http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/24/obamacare-site-fixer-no-amount-testing-could-have-prevented-disastrous-launch/

Apparently, DHHS served as systems integrator in-house rather than hiring an integration contractor. That makes it very probable that they let contracts for the different parts without giving adequate (any?) attention to making the puzzle pieces fit together at the end. Of course, that is not inconsistent with the chaos being a planned feature rather than a bug..

Jim

Medical Costs

Dr. Pournelle,

I have been trying to write a response to the letter you received from the cardiologist. I was hoping to find some objective data to help illustrate my points, but I haven’t had time yet. So, before the point gets to be too moot I thought I would just give some of my observations.

I would agree that we have had amazing number of advances in the last 40 years; to extend let cardiologist’s point MI’s in the time of President Eisenhower were largely wait and see affairs. People that did not die immediately frequently became "cardiac cripples" as they almost inevitably developed heart failure and a life expectancy of less than 5 years. By the early 1980’s a patient might have emergency bypass surgery on a ‘heart-lung’ machine, spend several days in the cardiac intensive care, several days to weeks on the surgical floor, be released and have months before returning to work. They might have a "balloon" without a stent, again with a prolonged ICU and hospital stay, and prolonged time before return to work. Now they do several bypass surgeries "off the pump", no need to stop the heart, no need to use expensive ‘heart-lung’ machine and technician, and much reduced hospital stay and time until return to work. With stents initial cost is higher, but re-occlusion rates are much lower. So better care at a high cost, but dropping due to reduced hospitalization and rehabilitation time and much less "cripple". Another example is use of "scopes" in surgery, such as laparoscopic surgery. When I started medical school in 1986 only a few surgeons trained in the use of fiber optic scopes for abdominal surgery, OR times were longer than "open surgery" times, and cost of equipment was very high. By the end of my residency in 1993 a large number of abdominal surgeries such as gallbladder removal where done by laparoscope and now virtually all gallbladders, appendectomies, hernia repairs, bowel resections are done through laparoscopy with a much shorter recovery time and much lower morbidity.

I would also disagree regarding our lack of "universal access". Everyone in the US has universal access to at least emergency care through a law known as EMTALA. Everyone that presents to virtually any hospital in the US requesting an evaluation for a potential emergency condition must have a medical screening exam to rule out life or limb threatening conditions, and further patients may not be discharged until they are stabilized so that they can safely follow up as an outpatient. If the first hospital does not have the capability of stabilizing the patient they have to be transferred to a facility that can stabilize the patient, and the receiving hospital may not refuse the transfer at the risk of being cut out of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, and hefty fines for each infraction. I will agree that follow up care for patients without health insurance is difficult, and we certainly need to figure out ways to promote health maintenance compared to treatment of illness.

He also makes the claim that the 39 other countries that provide care have "better quality at less cost"; I would like to see his yardstick for this claim. Again, I will stipulate that there are several things that the US system could do better, but the most advanced care in the world is available here. Note that this doesn’t necessarily mean we always have the best care across the entire spectrum.

I would also argue with his rationale for why we are resistant to ObamaCare. His contention that universal coverage does not necessarily mean single payer coverage is technically correct, but the writing is on the wall. If I recall correctly most of the administration and congressional people involved in pushing the current legislature through Congress have stated they wanted single payer but didn’t think they could get there in one step. Meanwhile, the requirements for the offered plans have caused hundreds of thousands to lose access to their low cost plans because they didn’t include all the mandated bells and whistles, and a large number of people who now have "substandard" insurance through their work will lose their current coverage, too. I think the goal is to have most of these people end up on government financed plans and have a de facto single payer for a very large majority of people.

I don’t think that our "exceptionalism" attitude contributes to our dissatisfaction with ACA. I think American’s rightly recognize that as a nation we have achieved numerous exceptional feats, and realize that to a large extent this is due to freedom. At least intuitively, we know that decreases in freedom will limit our abilities to achieve remarkable things and that nationalizing health care is a very big step toward limiting our freedoms.

As to his "dark side of fierce independence" I would agree that we have a cultural disdain for people that do not take care of themselves, and I think this is a right and proper disdain. I did not say people that cannot take care of themselves. Clearly, Americans as a people are very charitable, and previously we were able to provide a large majority of our care through charitable institutions such as church sponsored hospitals, benevolent groups such as Shiners’, and local charities. I think that these traditional sources of care have died out to some extent due to cost, but much more due to overregulation of their organizations and the "bubble" effect that we see in all areas where the national government as artificially manipulated costs (e.g. college tuitions, housing, e.g. prices). I think these same factors have also limited the traditional social mobility we have enjoyed in the US compared with many European countries, largely because the national government is doing its best to emulate those countries and not amazingly having the same results. I also think that tax payers are getting fatigued taking on any cost that some group is able to lobby congress to provide for them.

I think our antipathy to ACA is much more centered on our rightful distrust of having our individual health care choices managed by a national, or state, or even local government, the fact that a large proportion of American’s were generally satisfied with their health care, and that the system mandated by ACA is inherently unfair and substandard. The fact that congress, labor unions, and big business are all trying to exempt themselves from it make it pretty obvious that this is not premium care.

I believe we would do much better to make good health care affordable if we would change laws to bring the users of healthcare closer to the decision and responsibility of what we pay for our care. If people perceive a service as being "free" it will get utilized even when not appropriate, but if they have to pay for the same care out of their own pocket it takes on a whole different value (that I think is closer to its "true" value). I think if we gave individuals the same tax advantages that businesses have for care, allow large pretax medical savings accounts, allow insurance companies to provide a wider choice of options that people could pick their coverage, and would allow private patients some cost transparency we would see a big improvement in utilization and costs. I think one of the reasons that Kaiser has been as successful as it has been (up until now) is because they have been able to use market forces to encourage health maintenance vs. paying for treatments of diseases that are preventable to some extent. I find it very ironic that the beacons of excellent care such as Kaiser, the Cleveland Clinic, etc. that the supporters of ACA tout as models are having to cut costs and lay off health care providers to meet the mandates of ACA. If these are the groups that are doing it right, and ACA is supposed to try to replicate this care across the spectrum, then shouldn’t these be the very institutions that have to change the least to meet the requirements of ACA. I also find it immoral that ACA is going to force taxpayers to pay for care that they find objectionable, and prevent people from being able to seek the highest quality of care because it is not available to everyone. I believe that the FDA recently rescinded approval of a medication used in treatment in breast cancer because it was too expensive and had a limited applicability; but what about those people that it is indicated? Shouldn’t they at least have the possibility of access to this medication?

I continue to think that ACA has almost nothing to do with providing affordable care, improving care, or getting access for people without the means of providing their own care. I think it is a power grab to control a large portion of the economy and also to have increased control over individuals to decrease our autonomy (violates the Pournelle Law of Bureaucracy).

Thank you for allowing my rant,

Douglas Lewis, MD

I am a Bunny Inspector

Hi Dr. Pournelle,

I have been reading with interest your several recent pieces of commentary on the over-reach and general uselessness of government Bunny Inspectors. As a long-time reader of your column (way back in the Byte days), I remember your saying along the lines of, “We do silly things so you don’t have to.”

Well, I did a silly thing. I spent time digging into the actual record, and found that the government employs about 120 animal care inspectors – some of who actually inspect bunnies! Of course, these 120 inspectors cover all the inspection requirements under the Animal Welfare Act, including all zoos, circuses, animal exhibitors, commercial sales facilities, research labs, and the like to help make sure that animals are treated humanely. (http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_welfare/about_ac.shtml)

Even so, I was still concerned. Since my grand-daughters show rabbits (several state fair “best of breed” and “best of show” awards), I was worried that they might be subject to these regulations, but found there are broad exemptions for such backyard operations, as well as 4-H programs, state fair exhibitions, and similar uses. (Title 9, sec 2.1, U.S.C. – www.ecfr.gov).

The budget for these “Bunny Inspectors” and their parent organization is a lot of money; about $22.5 million. Arguably, even $1 spent for one animal welfare inspector may be too much, but we should put this in the context of the $55 billion annual US expenditures on pets. (http://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp) Doing the math means that zeroing the budget appropriation would defray US spending on pets for less than 4 hours.

Since you were no doubt already aware that the actual cost or burden of actual “Bunny Inspectors” is pretty miniscule in terms of what we spend on other things, and is not focused at all on “Bunny Inspections” as a primary role, I conclude that you are using this term to symbolically mean the great majority of those who work in government are simply glorified “Bunny Inspectors” who add little of value to society (e.g., your recent post “Rejoice the Bunny Inspectors Are on the Job”, along with “President Obama threatens international financial disaster if we do not continue to pay the Bunny Inspectors …” 10/9/13).

Accordingly, my 28 years of government service must mean that I am a Bunny Inspector as well. Similarly, my friends and neighbors who are still on active duty, or in the Border Patrol (who unlike the military had to work through the shutdown without pay – http://www.businessinsider.com/the-government-shutdown-is-a-big-deal-to-this-border-patrol-agent-2013-10) are also Bunny Inspectors. Who knew?

Worse yet, since I was an instructor during my time in government and still teach government students, I am also a teacher of new Bunny Inspectors. Worse yet, all of my education and training, including my post-service degree was paid for by the American taxpayer – yet another example of government over-reach and inefficiency in the pursuit of Bunny Inspections.

Clearly, government can and does do silly things from time to time. We all have examples. We can even make the case that protecting the welfare of animals used for commercial purposes is a silly thing to do, and that it is beneath the lofty purposes of the US Constitution, since the Constitutional Framers did not see fit to further define “promote the general welfare.” The idea of “Bunny Inspectors” is clearly symbolic, but that’s not the only symbol we should use for the government. Otherwise, we risk mistaking the symbol for the actual thing.

Warm Regards,

William Hanson, PhD, Colonel, USAF, (ret) Free Range Professor, Bunny Inspector, Teacher of Bunny Inspectors

I wonder if you expect a serious answer?

I would imagine that you would be shocked to discover that there is any government enterprise that does not have needless offices embedded it it. I have chosen the Bunny Inspectors because I do not believe anyone can seriously defend the proposition that what they do is so vital that we need to borrow money in order to pay them to do it. I would have thought it fairly obvious that most people would not think it reasonable to pay Federal agents to protect stage rabbits or prevent backyard rabbit raisers from selling rabbits – for pets, not for meat. If sold for meat no Federal license is needed, but if the bunnies go off as pets, then the Department of Agriculture charges very stiff fines for each instance if you have no federal license (and likely an inspection of your facilities). Colonel, if your grand daughters sell even a single bunny as a pet, you may find yourself called on to bail their parents out of their predicament.

You argue, but do not believe, that if there are any superfluous jobs in the federal government then all are superfluous, which is absurd. As to the comparative triviality of the costs of the inspectors’ salaries and benefits, the amount is trivial only if you believe improvement is not possible. True, a few tens of millions of dollars is small compared to the trillions of the budget; but then you do not seriously believe that I cannot find many more needless offices occupied by highly paid civil servants? If there needs to be such inspections, let the states handle them: the Constitution nowhere hints that Federal officers would be involved in such nonsense.

The point of Federalism is that if one state does something silly it is not a national problem. And the cost of Federal regulations is enormous: indeed it can be argued that the Great Recession that continues to this moment is a major outcome.

As to your Border Patrol friends, they were paid. Not as much as some of the civil servants who took unemployment pay for the shutdown period, then received their pay retroactively – some have voluntarily returned that money, but others have gone to the union to see if they can’t be allowed to keep not only the salary they missed even though they did not work, but also the unemployment compensation. I will not comment on the honor involved in that claim.

And see also

the LATEST on Magicians & bunnies

The latest on the USDA rules for how Magicians need to formulate plans on how they’ll care for their bunnies during any disaster:

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/07/23/bunny-disaster-plans-unveiling-the-magic-behind-regulations/

Emma Cate

Bunny Disaster Plans: Unveiling the Magic Behind Regulations

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently sent a letter to several magicians telling them that they needed to draft a “disaster plan” for the rabbits they pull out of hats. They must satisfy the federal government that they’re prepared to protect their rabbit from fires, floods, tornadoes, power failures, and so forth.

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/07/23/bunny-disaster-plans-unveiling-the-magic-behind-regulations/

Obamacare prime contractor

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I have been learning some disturbing information about the prime contractor for the Obamacare web site (CGI). As you can see in the linked articles, they have a history of high-profile failures and cost overruns on government contracts.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/362255/obamacares-magical-thinkers-mark-steyn/page/0/1

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10/22/history-of-high-profile-failures-attributed-to-main-obamacare-website-contractor/

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/10/25/cgi-why-did-failure-plagued-company-get-the-obamacare-contract-perhaps-connection-to-the-nsa-and-prism-explains-it/

Mark Steyn is the most readable as he discusses the failure to produce the Canadian Firearms Information System (CFIS):

"The registry was estimated to cost in total $119 million, which would be offset by $117 million in fees. That’s a net cost of $2 million. Instead, by 2004 the CBC (Canada’s PBS) was reporting costs of some $2 billion — or a thousand times more expensive.

Yeah, yeah, I know, we’ve all had bathroom remodelers like that. But in this case the database had to register some 7 million long guns belonging to some two-and-a-half to three million Canadians. That works out to almost $300 per gun — or somewhat higher than the original estimate for processing a firearm registration of $4.60. Of those $300 gun registrations, Canada’s auditor general reported to parliament that much of the information was either duplicated or wrong in respect to basic information such as names and addresses.

Sound familiar?

Also, there was a 1-800 number, but it wasn’t any use.

Sound familiar?

So it was decided that the sclerotic database needed to be improved.

Sound familiar?

But it proved impossible to “improve” CFIS (the Canadian Firearms Information System). So CGI was hired to create an entirely new CFIS II, which would operate alongside CFIS I until the old system could be scrapped. CFIS II was supposed to go operational on January 9, 2003, but the January date got postponed to June, and 2003 to 2004, and $81 million was thrown at it before a new Conservative government scrapped the fiasco in 2007. Last year, the government of Ontario canceled another CGI registry that never saw the light of day — just for one disease, diabetes, and costing a mere $46 million."

=====

I have already written my congressman asking him to inquire into the truth of these allegations, and if so to determine exactly why this company was awarded this contract. I live outside DC. CACI, CSC, SAIC … I can think of many contractors with the expertise to tackle this project and not fail.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Was it supposed to work? Given who they hired, why would you expect it to?

Will: “The absence of a national police power is a critical element of the Constitution’s liberty- preserving federalism.”

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-carol-bond-case-showcases-government-run-amok/2013/11/01/9146cdf8-4276-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html>

——-

Roland Dobbins

And of course the pressure is on to arm the TSA, the least competent agency in Homeland Security. The purpose of TSA is to convince Americans they are subjects, not citizens, and they are doing that well enough now; giving them guns will not make us safer, but it will make it easier to abolish citizenship.

‘Like many hackers, NSA operatives seem to have done things sometimes for the thrill of it, just because they could.’

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-more-chatter-than-needed/2013/11/01/1194a984-425a-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html>

————

Roland Dobbins

Astonishing…

My appearance on Jim Lynch’s "Everything is Broken" radio show next Tuesday

Dear Jerry:

https://www.facebook.com/WUSBfm

I will be on Jim Lynch’s program "Everything Is Broken" again on Tuesday, November 5th at about 10:25 AM PST. We will be talking about security guards in general and the TSA in particular. WUSB is a high-powered non-commercial radio station located on the campus of Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, NY. There is an online feature that allows people not in the immediate broadcast area in upstate New York to listen in. It’s 90.1 FM

This is my fourth time on the show this year. My background as a security consultant and former Contributing Editor at Security Technology & Design magazine give me a perspective that most people don’t have. The recent tragic incident at LAX will be what we will start with, but I imagine that the role and history of the TSA will also be examined.

Sincerely,

Francis Hamit

Mr. Heinlein still needs your vote!

Doctor Pournelle,

I’m certain your readers would be interested in this poll to select a famous Missourian. Mr. Heinlein being one of the finalists.

http://www.house.mo.gov/FamousMissourianVoting.aspx

Best Regards,

Paul T.

Libertarians are such elitists. They think you know how to run your own life better than they do.

I’d gently suggest that 39 other countries have solved the issue to some degree or another.

The correspondents who think they are NOT paying for health care for the poor are, of course, incorrect. We all pay for those costs. It is one of the reasons why health care is so expensive in the US and why it is less expensive overseas. It is hard to “track” that money. Of course, we all directly pay for Medicaid and State, County, and Municipal medical care. However, we also pay the “hidden” costs for those who can’t pay.

After 30+ years of practice, I’d guess that the “deserving” poor outnumber the “undeserving” poor by 20-1. There are a LOT of people out there who go to work every day and can’t afford to be insured. Is that their fault? If they’d been smarter or just worked harder or something….they’d be insured. Of course, that argument can be extended to say “well if you are middle class, are you just too lazy to be rich?”

Do people all over the globe “flock to the United States for medical care.” It is uncommon for people from “First World” countries to come to the US. Why would you? The health care is FREE in their home countries and often at least the equal of the care we provide.

The idea that its “unfair” to be fined/taxed for not having insurance is silly. Try driving without auto insurance…there are other examples.

It is a very emotional topic and probably needs to be solved over a number of generations….as was done in Europe.

I don’t argue whose fault something is: I do ask why I am expected to pay for someone else’s misfortunes. If you say, see Genesis 4:9 I can only say that the lesson may apply to me, but it does not do so by the US Constitution. Moreover, while I may have a moral obligation to be charitable, I do not have anything like an obligation to require you to be charitable – and particularly I do not have any moral right to skip the obligation on myself but impose it on you, since you are a physician and wealthier than me.

I am no expert on medical travel plans, but it is my understanding that many Canadians come to the United States for voluntary medical procedures they cannot obtain free in Canada. I am told that Canada is not the only source of such people.

Your "old doctor" author writes:

snip/

One really, really good thing we should be doing is looking at the 39 countries who DO have universal coverage and see how they do it. For example, the national health service in Great Britain has great public support, their costs are something like 8 times less and their life expectancy is better. What do they do that we don’t?

/snip

PBS TV/Frontline/ says:

snip/

In the 1990s, Taiwan researched many health care systems before settling on one where the government collects the money and pays providers. But the delivery of health care is left to the market. Every person in Taiwan has a "smart card" containing all of his or her relevant health information, and bills are paid automatically. But the Taiwanese are spending too little to sustain their health care system, according to Princeton’s Tsung-mei Cheng, <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/interviews/reinhardt.html> who advised the Taiwanese government. "As we speak, the government is borrowing from banks to pay what there isn’t enough to pay the providers," she told FRONTLINE.

/snip

ref: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

[according to Google: April 15, 2008]

Wasn’t there a book entitled "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants"?

My friend, Jim, recently married and moved to Taiwan. His diabetes medicines that cost US$400 a month now cost him US$4 a month….I don’t know what the exchange rate is….he says he doesn’t wait in a line and has ready access to a doc when he needs one…

sjb

You can always save money by not paying your bills, but the process is not likely to last forever.

So, they’re going to build a new YF-12A/F-12B out of unobtanium?

<http://www.aviationweek.com/Article/PrintArticle.aspx?id=/article-xml/awx_11_01_2013_p0-632731.xml&p=1&printView=true>

—–

Roland Dobbins

Homeland Security workers routinely boost pay with unearned overtime, report says – The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/homeland-security-workers-routinely-boost-pay-with-unearned-overtime-report-says/2013/10/31/3d33f6e4-3fdf-11e3-9c8b-e8deeb3c755b_story.html?wprss=rss_social-nonBlogPolitics-rss&Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

Shocking.

The Speed Of Light

Jerry,

You wrote today about an article published in 2001 indicating that, by theory, the speed of light should not be constant. I have research papers on this subject several times, so I followed your link with some interest. One theory I am familiar with is that the speed of light varied in time, that it was faster in the past and getting slower as the universe ages. This theory has been shown to be incorrect as it is not supported by cosmological observations. The second theory is that the speed of light varies with the frequency of the light. This theory was not supported by observation, either, as it should have caused observable aberration in the images of distant objects, and that has not been seen. A new theory, a consequence of joining relativity theory with quantum field theory for gravity (relativistic quantum field theories already exist for all of the other force/particle parings), predicts that the speed of light should not be a constant in open space, because open space is not a true vacuum. Even in the most rarified regions of the universe, the zero-point fluctuations predicted by quantum field theory are present, and these fluctuations should couple with photons. So the speed of light will still be a maximum of the currently accepted value, but it will not always reach that value, even in open space.

You should also note that the constancy of the speed of light is not a direct consequence of the Michelson-Morley experiment only — it was predicted by Ernst Maxwell in his work on electromagnetism. His work is what is currently classified as a "classical" model of electromagnetism as it did not account for quantum effects, which he had no clue about in the 19th century. What Maxwell found was that no matter how he formulated his equations for the electromagnetic field, the speed of light always came out as a fixed value, indicating to him that the speed of light is a constant.

So, the speed of light is still the top known speed of the universe and the quantum effects that grand unification is predicting merely act to slow photons, not speed them up.

On the brighter side, Einstein said that objects traveling faster than the speed of light might exist — the tachyons — as his restriction is placed on all matter that starts its existence at any speed less than that of light. For tachyons, the speed of light is also a limit, but it is their lower limit, as their mass goes to infinity if they slow down that much.

Kevin L Keegan

Einstein and the Speed of Light

Jerry,

In my first post tonight, I meant to include a link to the article about the research I wrote about. Here it is: http://www.examiner.com/article/new-research-shows-speed-of-light-is-a-variable

Kevin L Keegan

I am aware of Maxwell’s work. I had not thought that theory trumped observation. Now it is not at all certain that the observations are repeatable and properly interpreted, but I would have thought that experimental evidence trumps theory. Indeed, the notion of Dark Matter – and Dark Energy – comes from attempts to reconcile current theory including both general and special relativity with some of the observations of things happening in distant galaxies. If the speed of light is not in fact constant but may vary with the strengths of fields serving as media for waves – in other words, the aether rejected by Einstein’s Special Theory – then other interpretations are possible, and some may not in fact require postulating invisible matter and undetectable energy.

Relativity may be the best explanation of observed data; it is certainly not the simplest theory. It is likely that the standard theories will hold but if so, they will not suffer much from being questioned.

Firmware kills.

<http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-killer-firmware–Bad-design-and-its-consequences>

<http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-toyota-damages-20131026,0,7844943,full.story>

—-

Roland Dobbins

Healthcare converts

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I direct your attention to the Chicago Sun-Times, which describes the travails of a Democratic staff person who has decided, suddenly , that she doesn’t want to defend Obamacare any longer. Something about having her premium jump from $291/mo with $3500 deductible to $322/mo with $6500 deductible.

The injection of additional money into the insurance market is causing prices to go up. Who’d a thought it?

http://www.suntimes.com/news/marin/23352031-452/obamacare-jacks-up-her-insurance.html

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Gored Ox Syndrome?

Britney Spears Music Used To Scare Off Somali Pirates

Jerry

A cultural weapon of mass destruction — Britney Spears Music Used To Scare Off Somali Pirates:

http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/10/28/Britney-Spears-Music-Used-To-Scare-Off-Somali-Pirates

“I’d imagine using Justin Bieber would be against the Geneva Convention,”

Ed

Subj: Improved Obamacare Software (?)

The Onion (TM)

http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-improved-obamacare-program-released-on-35-flop,34294/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=Default:Week1:Default

Second strike.

<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/31/inside-china-nuclear-submarines-capable-of-widespr/?page=all>

——-

Roland Dobbins

1st stage landing in 4 months?

Jerry,

I saw the mention of the latest Grasshopper flight on your web site, but a quick search didn’t turn up the following, so perhaps you weren’t aware of the next step toward a TSTO RLV.

"If all goes well, Musk says, the first stage of the Falcon 9 used for that flight (2/2014) will have landing legs. The plan is to have the first stage booster touch down back at its Cape Canaveral launch site."

Consider my mind boggled!

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/rockets/musk-spacex-now-has-all-the-pieces-for-reusable-rockets-15985616

Sincerely,

Calvin Dodge

I will be among those cheering.

Scientific American censors blog post where female scientist objects to being called a whore

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/on-science-communication-respect-and-coming-back-from-mistakes/

—

73s/Best regards de John Bartley K7AAY

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.