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San Francisco, 12:51 AM
Sun Nov 22
10 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/11/09
Its normal far more complex then "me want X so I lie to get it cheaper"
The other factor to take into account is everyone tends to think everyone else is more stupid them themselves.
09/11/09
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09/11/09
And it looks like some enterprising defense attorneys have already tried using the fMRI as a lie detection test in CA:
[www.wired.com]
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09/10/09
Oh well, all these economists are going to find out from me is that all military spending should go to boobs.
09/10/09
The economists have finally realized that all people rationalize (as opposed to being rational) and will always look for the free lunch. What a breakthrough!
And THIS is their solution? Spend $1M-$2.5M USD per fMRI machine so people can spend 15min-1hr and $400-$3500 USD per scan to tell them whether or not a voter values something?
Fail.
09/10/09
Actually, a public pool isn't a "public good," as it is very easy to make only the people who use it pay for it. A public good is something like national defense, in which it's rather difficult to defend an entire continent while excluding Joe's house because he refuses to pay up.
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09/11/09
Godwin's Law keeps me from giving the most compelling examples, but there are plenty of them. We wouldn't probably have any civil rights for racial minorities, or women, if laws were decide by what people subconsciously want. And you Americans don't have equal rights for other minorities,like the homosexuals, because the majoritary feelings are opposed to them.
My point being: Politics should be done with your brains, not your guts. As a white heterosexual male, I'm bombarded with messages telling me I'm a supreme being and should despise everyone that is not the same, and it would be naive to think that does not affect my judgement. But fortunately, I have enough brains not to say "fuck them, if they earn less, it's because they're not as good as me, after all, I'm a supreme being, you just have to see how everyone in any position of power looks like me, because we're better, except for a couple ones, but that's because of a conspiracy".
We've evolved to be like that, callous and narcissistic, but if we've grown past killing everyone who looks from another tribe, and rape everyone who seems fertile, it's because, part of the time, we don't do what we want, but what we think we should
09/11/09
09/11/09
I can't see how having a machine that tells you what somebody really thinks can help you empathize with anyone. It could help if it was applied to politicians and the results would be made publicly available... but it probably would keep everybody from voting
09/11/09
09/10/09
Like socialized health care--a lot of people say they don't want it, but how much of that is based on some irrational fear of state-run anything (oh noes! Communism!) and how much of it is based on actual understanding or experience with the costs and benefits of socialized health care?
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09/10/09
(see this guy: [en.wikipedia.org])
So, if you have bad information, or bad context, you can have bad (but perhaps honest) preferences and end up making bad decisions--even though the choices you made were perfectly rational / consistent with respect to the context.
09/11/09
09/10/09
I asked a group of economics experts questions about the market and the global economy. Each time the fMRI scan showed that they didn't know shit, they received an electric shock.
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[www.dailymail.co.uk]
08/12/09
Google.
08/11/09
08/11/09
Looking at Physics, namely the Large Hadron Collider, even if they get some experimental results that point to higher dimensions - it's not like they could use that information to create new technologies that would change our lives. It takes a gigantic collider and I don't know how many joules of energy just to barely detect these "dimensions". It's not like we would be able to engineer some technology that everyone could use from this.
It just feels like we've hit a wall in physics research that not even the large hadron collider can solve.
08/11/09
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08/11/09
___
*iPod - Walkman
*Mac/PC - Mac/PC
*25mpg Car - 30mpg Car
*Microwave - (still a) Microwave
*TV - HDTV
*Cell phone - Cell phone
*Airplanes - (mostly the same) Airplanes
*Modern Medicine - 'Modern Medicine'
___
Aside from the internet, I can't imagine much of what today would astound people from 1959. Maybe video games. However, if you took someone from 1909 and brought them to 1959, their mind would be blown. (Lightbulbs, Mass Produced Radios, Cars, Televisions, Modern Airplanes, etc).
08/11/09
08/11/09
___
As for everything else, someone in 1989 would have no problem figuring out how to use a cell phone today. We still have the same number pad and dial button. Computers are more advanced, but still use the point and click interface.
___
Color TV wouldn't be unrecognizable to people from 1959, and I think they'd be a little disappointed that HDTV isn't more advanced than it is.
___
Oh, and airplanes? Pretty much the same hunks of metal, with very small changes:
[www.epsrc.ac.uk]
08/11/09
Yes, we "still" have the same idea of old boring personal portable music players. How passe! How can any reasonable human being not be amazed at the difference between an ipod and an old 80s walkman. Sure they're both for the obvious design of portable music, but the difference in technology is still rather staggering.
That's almost like comparing Gutenberg's printing press to the Kindle. Yeah, they both help disseminate books, etc. Boring! Unspectacular!
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08/11/09
I think people just aren't paying attention to the advances that are happening now, because people only see consumer products as the end result and corporations are stuck in a rut when it comes to taking risks with new kinds of products - manufacturing corporations like to keep things the way they are and make everyone a good consumer of "durable goods". It stifles innovation in consumer goods, but scientific advancements are still occurring off the average person's radar.
08/11/09
For example: in the 60's, things we now take as commonplace, such as space ships and space stations, digital libraries, cell phones, video conferencing, personal mobile computers, global networks, voice interfaces for computers, personal lasers, military robots, etc. were science fiction (i.e. Star Trek, etc.).
And while you may be right that people from 1989 would not be astounded by 2009, I doubt that the people from 1909 would be astounded by the technology of 1929. I suspect almost any 20 year period is going to have small incremental progress rather than massive, dramatic, changes.
08/12/09
Plus, mobile phones.
08/12/09
Flatscreen would.
Also, your being rather stupid to say "cell phones havnt advanced much because we still use numbers" >_