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EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

washingtonpost.com

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Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#171

Post by wqaatwt »

Tenemo wrote: post #122
cogman10 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure. Julius ultimately just paved the way for the future tyrants. He consolidated the power into himself which made it a lot easier for his predecessors to take things further.

I understood what you meant, but the word you were looking for is "successors", not "predecessors". His predecessors were the senate, consuls, and the rest of the governing bodies of the republic.

> His predecessors were the senate, consuls, and the

Also Sulla and his opponents in the preceding civil war. Who paved the way for Cesar.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#172

Post by notahacker »

mothballed wrote: post #168
notahacker wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wait which is it. We have a "private" system where we save "the pesky" poor and regulate licensing, insurance, provide medicare/medicaid, have a quasi-public system for ER where private payers fund those who won't pay, or we don't? You have the fully private provision you insist is more efficient. It costs more for worse outcomes than every other developed country, who also have regulations. If your original claim…

It's an extremely strong indication you've no experience with the US ER system that you think the efficiency issues are checking insurance at the door of a MI patient vs the fact they're required to at least entertain the hordes of people coming in with self reported "STD" or "doctor note for flu" when that kind of stuff shouldn't be appearing at the ER unless a lower acuity clinic has suspicion it might actually req…

I mean, if we're in agreement that it'd be more efficient to have socialized healthcare than the non-socialized healthcare the US has, I'm not sure why you started off with the insistence that the private and charitable sector made everything so much more efficient it could provide all the actual benefits of the US government for a third of the cost.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't private hospitals entirely free not to accept EMTALA patients if they also choose not to accept Medicare funding? And that some do, and remarkably still manage to be significantly more expensive than the rest of the world. Weird all these profit making companies opting in to accepting the regulation though, if it's that big a burden.

Like I said, if it was easy to do so much better than socialized healthcare simply by abolishing regulations on the private sector (which itself is a different discussion entirely from whether private companies are intrinsically more efficient), it's surprising nobody seems to have achieved this, anywhere. The true purely private healthcare system that delivers the same or better health outcomes at lower cost doesn't exist.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#173

Post by estearum »

nickpp wrote: post #162
estearum wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it’s an imperfect system, but literally anyone anywhere can do what you’re describing. They don’t, hardly anywhere, because people don’t want to.

They don’t because the government is already confiscating their money to do (supposedly) exactly that.

Anyone can go buy a gigantic plot of land for dollars on the acre and do it. What are you talking about?

Here's a lovely 160 acre plot for $100,000: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/E1-4-Sec-15-T-24-R-89-Bk-...

Or do you mean people can't try this out in areas that have already been developed by generations' worth of other people's private and public investments?

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#174

Post by mothballed »

notahacker wrote: post #172
mothballed wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an extremely strong indication you've no experience with the US ER system that you think the efficiency issues are checking insurance at the door of a MI patient vs the fact they're required to at least entertain the hordes of people coming in with self reported "STD" or "doctor note for flu" when that kind of stuff shouldn't be appearing at the ER unless a lower acuity clinic has suspicion it might actually req…

I mean, if we're in agreement that it'd be more efficient to have socialized healthcare than the non-socialized healthcare the US has, I'm not sure why you started off with the insistence that the private and charitable sector made everything so much more efficient it could provide all the actual benefits of the US government for a third of the cost. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't private hospitals entirely free…

I've never claimed I thought totally private healthcare might be 1/3 the cost of universal healthcare. I postulated the functions of our government as currently implemented might be able to achieve for 1/3 the cost if privatized. You invented some straw-man that argued I was arguing vs something else, something our government isn't even offering, so I'm unsure how you even got to the point you got to.

If you truly thought our health care was privatized it's all a moot point, because it wouldn't have been included in our original argument. In either case your point is moot because I never compared to hypothetical socialized healthcare but rather our current entire government system.

It blows my mind you would even use the "1/3" statement if you thought it was private because if it was private it wouldn't have even been in the subset of stuff I was comparing relative cost to. I never claimed private things would cost 1/3 the price of things already "private."

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#175

Post by mothballed »

estearum wrote: post #173
nickpp wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t because the government is already confiscating their money to do (supposedly) exactly that.

Anyone can go buy a gigantic plot of land for dollars on the acre and do it. What are you talking about? Here's a lovely 160 acre plot for $100,000: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/E1-4-Sec-15-T-24-R-89-Bk-... Or do you mean people can't try this out in areas that have already been developed by generations' worth of other people's private and public investments?

In places where there are already public roads, private roads cannot generally compete because the price at point of use is $0 and the maintenance cost are sunk.

Imagine for a moment I had a private school that was equal in all ways to a nearby public school including cost. People would say "why I already paid taxes for the public school, why would I go there and then have to pay yet again." No one would go to the private school. Whereas if they were not made to pay the taxes, they'd be about as equally likely to go to the private school as the public one, and the overall costs would be same.

It is very difficult to establish a robust private road system in a place with public roads. The public views the public road as an established asset rather than the reality (they are an ongoing subscription of maintenance costs). The costs are invisible to the public, even if they might be worse, they just see the road as "free" when they drive on it. This means the public can end up spending even more money with worse results than use of private roads, but be stuck in a local minima they will never escape from.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#176

Post by LexiMax »

zebomon wrote: post #47
goku12 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wind power is bad, and "clean coal" is good. Can somebody explain the psychology behind these beliefs? I'm pretty sure they know how coal is mined. They must surely have heard about the black lung disease and COPD. Where does this 'clean coal' concept come from? And if that's about the products of coal burning, is it too hard to imagine breathing in hot air containing soot, fly ash, some obnoxious oxides, some unbu…

It's a combination of never having learned the basics of science and now seeing the falsehoods they've been fed as equivalent to science. Take the Tylenol thing. You can explain to one of them the scientific method, what a survey of studies is, why correlation often appears when there is no causation, etc. I experienced this last week: at the end of my explanation, the person (a 45-year-old) replied that he "simply d…

I think it's simpler than that. They believe in what they believe specifically because it contradicts the views of people they dislike. I guarantee you that the person you were talking to got a real kick out of you wasting so much of your time trying to explain a position.

However, these people do have a weakness. They feel good when they win the attention economy and the emotion economy, and those are actually really easy to subvert with a little out of the box thinking.

"I'm glad they've finally figured out the cause of autism."

"Chemtrails?"

"No, they said it was Tylenol."

"I don't think so. Did you know that the number of chemtrails the government has put into the air has increased 7-fold since January?"

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#177

Post by avmich »

mothballed wrote: post #165
avmich wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your definition of commons is the same as mine. How would you maintain the road if I, who also uses the road, doesn't pay for maintenance?

There are a few kinds of private roads -public access private easements (my road) -public access non easement (grocery store parking lot, cost amortized by customers) -toll road (some highways, etc) -completely private road (only owner uses it, i.e. private farm road) Only the first of those has the potential for the kind of abuse you mention, I think, because it mimics the government kind of road in some ways where…

That's not what I was asking. The definition - at least my def - is different, your cases don't explain how to solve it - indeed, there is no known solution, and that's the point. You can't get around government, which can solve some problems.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#178

Post by mothballed »

avmich wrote: post #177
mothballed wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few kinds of private roads -public access private easements (my road) -public access non easement (grocery store parking lot, cost amortized by customers) -toll road (some highways, etc) -completely private road (only owner uses it, i.e. private farm road) Only the first of those has the potential for the kind of abuse you mention, I think, because it mimics the government kind of road in some ways where…

That's not what I was asking. The definition - at least my def - is different, your cases don't explain how to solve it - indeed, there is no known solution, and that's the point. You can't get around government, which can solve some problems.

The only "known" solution is to privatize the commons. One way to do that in this example is to use a toll road.

It seems bizarre to damn some methods of private roads for not solving something you claim has no solution, then just glance over the ones that mitigate it.

You've shown no reason why you can't "get around government" but rather just dismiss the ways that just did.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#179

Post by estearum »

mothballed wrote: post #175
estearum wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can go buy a gigantic plot of land for dollars on the acre and do it. What are you talking about? Here's a lovely 160 acre plot for $100,000: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/E1-4-Sec-15-T-24-R-89-Bk-... Or do you mean people can't try this out in areas that have already been developed by generations' worth of other people's private and public investments?

In places where there are already public roads, private roads cannot generally compete because the price at point of use is $0 and the maintenance cost are sunk. Imagine for a moment I had a private school that was equal in all ways to a nearby public school including cost. People would say "why I already paid taxes for the public school, why would I go there and then have to pay yet again." No one would go to the pr…

Why are you ignoring what I just said?

You can go buy land anywhere you want (i.e. where there are no public roads) and your private roads can compete just fine.

Anyone has always been free to do this since this nation was created.

What's the problem?

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#180

Post by mothballed »

estearum wrote: post #179
mothballed wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In places where there are already public roads, private roads cannot generally compete because the price at point of use is $0 and the maintenance cost are sunk. Imagine for a moment I had a private school that was equal in all ways to a nearby public school including cost. People would say "why I already paid taxes for the public school, why would I go there and then have to pay yet again." No one would go to the pr…

Why are you ignoring what I just said? You can go buy land anywhere you want (i.e. where there are no public roads) and your private roads can compete just fine. Anyone has always been free to do this since this nation was created. What's the problem?

Alright, lets imagine what you say.

I build a private interstate next to a public interstate.

Lets say it costs me $0.20 / mi per honda civic that travels on it, and the public road costs $0.30 / mi per honda civic that travels on it in amortized costs.

At the point of use, the user sees my toll of say, $.25 / mi with some profit, and at point of use the user sees $0.00 for the public highway.

Who on earth would bother to take my toll road, even though it is more efficient and cheaper? They've already paid the tax, and not only that, it is largely invisible to them. The government will literally imprison them or take their shit if they don't pay it, it is a sunk cost, the government has violently usurped my competition via payment under threat of violence.

You can't compete with 'free' at the point of use enforced by a violent actor against a sunk cost. Yes if you buy a plot of land that appears to not even be accessible by vehicle without some kind of unknown corner-crossing easement (one linked), then you will win out vs the non-existent competition there, but of course if the government shows up and taxes you to build a road even then you would lose.

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