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America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

motherjones.com

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Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#111

Post by rayiner »

baddox wrote: post #80
jpdoctor wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll never understand how people can suppose that a government solution,... is by any definition or stretch of the imagination "more efficient" than private litigation. You mean private litigation which employs gov't judges to adjudicate and the gov't police to enforce? If so, you have a confusing definition of private. The only private litigation I'm aware of is the mob, which has a self-contained judgement and en…

> You mean private litigation which employs gov't judges to adjudicate and the gov't police to enforce? No, I mean private litigation and conflict mediation that is private. There is a lot of that already.

And it blows because the conflict mediators side with the people who have the deepest pockets and can offer repeat business.

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#112

Post by leot »

baddox wrote: post #96
sophacles wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then the insurance company becomes the government. (Insurance companies will merge until there is a single one... if the history of companies is to be believed). Or the insurance company also just says "No I don't like you, and since there is no actual way for you to enforce me paying you out, I just won't". Again, if the insurance company decides not to pay, they are enacting bad things on someone and not honorin…

> So then the insurance company becomes the government. Why? Retail stores don't become the government or merge into one. Neither do private security agencies. It's unlikely that any organization could "become the government" unless a vast portion of society accepts them as the sole legitimate purveyor of violence, which is precisely what I don't want to happen. > Or the insurance company also just says "No I don't l…

... and "in the long run" everything would work out, right?

Except for the most part, there's no such thing as "the long run", since the entire concept depends on the universe being relatively stationary (from a probabilistic/statistical perspective). In fact, the universe, and especially the economy/culture/society, is highly non-stationary, making the entire notion of "the long run" fallacious.

In other words, your model assumes that aggregate consumer demand for a particular basket of goods will "stay still" long enough for bad actors to get weeded out. But this is an empirical claim, and one that has been shown to be frequently false. Indeed, its falsehood is in part responsible for the 2008 financial crisis.

The world is always changing deeply and unpredictably. In the imagined scenario above, your needs for insurance wouldn't remain constant, and neither would the base of providers. Indeed, the entire ontology of the marketplace would be constantly in flux, making "in the long run" free market approaches mostly impotent as compared with collective action that directly deals with the problems we face right now.

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#113

Post by sophacles »

baddox wrote: post #106
clavalle wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What can private insurance do for me if I am killed? What if I can't afford private insurance? What if I am not allowed private insurance? Seems like decrying a 'monopoly of violence' and replacing it with a 'vibrant violence marketplace' is quite a few steps in the wrong direction.

> What can private insurance do for me if I am killed? What can anything do for you if you are killed? I don't understand the relevance. You could still have private life insurance to provide for your family, but that's no different than today. > What if I can't afford private insurance? What if you can't afford the fees associated with litigation in the government court system? I never claimed that my suggestion wou…

The only reason violence is currently risky is because the government will put forth a lot of resources (more than most businesses or individuals could afford or consider prudent) to stop violence or at least punish the perpetrators. In your system, there is no reason for me not to kill someone in a slightly sneaky manner - basically as long as it can't easily be pinned on me, there is no repercussion. No one will track me down. I can just come by and kill you whenever. Oh wait, you'd pay for security. Then the security companies would start enforcing rules in their zones (remember property doesn't exist without someone there to enforce the property). Those security guys could take over the zone next door. Oh and prevent people from living. Repeat for larger and larger groups. Suddenly we have government of the feudal or warlard kind all over again. Crap.

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#114

Post by nnethercote »

I think many of the commenters here didn't see that there is a 2nd page of this article (http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-li...)

The first paragraph of that second page reads:

"If econometric studies were all there were to the story of lead, you'd be justified in remaining skeptical no matter how good the statistics look. Even when researchers do their best—controlling for economic growth, welfare payments, race, income, education level, and everything else they can think of—it's always possible that something they haven't thought of is still lurking in the background. But there's another reason to take the lead hypothesis seriously, and it might be the most compelling one of all: Neurological research is demonstrating that lead's effects are even more appalling, more permanent, and appear at far lower levels than we ever thought."

And the rest of the second page goes into much more detail.

In other words, just saying "correlation doesn't imply causation" doesn't win you the thread. There is clear causation evidence at the neurological level.

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#115

Post by clavalle »

baddox wrote: post #106
clavalle wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What can private insurance do for me if I am killed? What if I can't afford private insurance? What if I am not allowed private insurance? Seems like decrying a 'monopoly of violence' and replacing it with a 'vibrant violence marketplace' is quite a few steps in the wrong direction.

> What can private insurance do for me if I am killed? What can anything do for you if you are killed? I don't understand the relevance. You could still have private life insurance to provide for your family, but that's no different than today. > What if I can't afford private insurance? What if you can't afford the fees associated with litigation in the government court system? I never claimed that my suggestion wou…

>What can anything do for you if you are killed? I don't understand the relevance.

What is to keep someone from killing me to get their way? Private insurance? Are they going to go to war for me after I'm dead?

>What if you can't afford the fees associated with litigation in the government court system?

Well, if the conflict 'resolution' involves the other party resorting to violence or theft, I can turn the matter over to the into the State whether I can pay for it or not. There are hard limits placed on how far the other party can go in getting what they want.

>violence is expensive

I don't see how violence is expensive. Violence is cheap. Bullets don't cost much. Rocks are even cheaper.

In fact, violence can be very profitable. Got $10 in your pocket? Just paid for my bullet and then some. Got a $30,000 car? Well now, that should pay for a few rounds.

What you propose is a fantasy, pure and simple. And not even a very plausible one.

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#116

Post by clavalle »

baddox wrote: post #107
clavalle wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Declaring it false does not make it so. Violence is always a specter (a potential action) in any conflict between people. The question is; How do we minimize the role of violence in coming to resolutions to conflicts? I think the rules we've evolved to answer that question of the course of human history have done a decent job. Do you have a different set of rules that you think would better optimize this minimization…

> Declaring it false does not make it so. Of course not. It was already false, long before I declared it so. > Violence is always a specter (a potential action) in any conflict between people. The question is; How do we minimize the role of violence in coming to resolutions to conflicts? I agree completely. > I think the rules we've evolved to answer that question of the course of human history have done a decent job…

>Of course not. It was already false, long before I declared it so.

Show me how it is false. I am a very reasonable person who is prone to change his mind when presented with a solid argument. I am inviting you to make that argument.

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#117

Post by r00fus »

STRML wrote: post #63

The great blog Damn Interesting did a post about this about 5 years back. It's a great read. In fact I just read it yesterday and was very surprised to see the MotherJones article today. http://www.damninteresting.com/the-ethyl-poisoned-earth/ They tell a great story and reveal some interesting facts about Ethyl's creator, Thomas Midgley, who very unfortunately was also responsible for chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The…

While leaded fuels may have been avoided, I can't see how CFCs would have not been discovered by someone else.

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#118

Post by sophacles »

javert wrote: post #93
sophacles wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reconcile your weird semantics of "laws" and "regulation" with the constant screams of "oh no regulation" every time there is an attempt to pass laws preventing harm to people?

There are no semantic oddities. It's just that "regulation" is context dependent, even in everyday English. When people scream "oh no regulation," they mean "no rights-violating/improper laws," but there are other cases where "regulation" just means "laws." It's not as if Rand claimed to be "against regulation" and left it as that, which would be pointless and sloppy. In talking about politics, as elsewhere, she was…

So is a law banning certain allergens from food a regulation or a protection from violence for those to whom the allergen is poison?

What about law requiring those who give others food to warn them about potential allergens?

What about a law requiring that warning to be stated in a clear, easy to read manner (rather than hidden fine print)?

(say the allergen is soy, which is not an obvious ingredient in say, ice cream, yet is present in a lot of ice creams).

The line isn't so clear as you pretend.

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#119

Post by pixl97 »

smsm42 wrote: post #105
gruseom wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article cites research that goes way beyond the usual sort of correlation. How much stronger would the evidence need to get?

Well, for starters to prove casuation one doesn't only need to show X moves in sync with Y. One also needs to show that it is not because both X and Y are caused by some reason Z which influences both even though X and Y are completely independent from each other. E.g. correlation between good lead data and good crime data may be caused by the fact that in cities with better law enforcement both criminal laws and env…

How lead is chemically similar to calcium? They are on opposite...

Then you go on to explain how lead is like calcium in its bioavailability, so in relation to the operations of a human body, lead is chemically similar to calcium (only dangerous).

http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/126/1/5.full

For example, lead’s ability to pass through the blood–brain barrier (BBB) is due in large part to its ability to substitute for calcium ions (Ca2+)

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#120

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

baddox wrote: post #108
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd love to hear it. And sadly you are dealing with a Libertarian and you will.

Yes, because "Libertarians" (improperly capitalized) are the only people who express their ideas to other people. Good point.

> because libertarians are the only people who express their ideas to other people.

Express them like this? yeah. Well, libertarians and Jehovah's witnesses.

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