Pooya Khodadadi

On 9/19/2021 at 6:09 PM, iNow said:

There are several parallel issues here.

One is that wealth acquired by the ultra wealthy tends to get put into tax shelters and nebulous investments so it grows (but remains outside the system), whereas that same money in the hands of the less fortunate goes IMMEDIATELY into the community around them.

They spend it on groceries and vehicle repairs and school clothes for kids and paying the electricity bill so it’s not dark in their apartment anymore at night and their kids can read. The providers of those goods and services in that community where this money is being spent ALSO spend the money once received for THEIR groceries and THEIR service needs and on THEIR kids. 

Dollar for dollar / unit for unit… the money in the hands of the less fortunate does more net good than money in the hands of the already fortunate. Yes, spending from the wealthy also creates jobs and injects money back into the system, but very little relative to money used in “trickle up” stimulation packages. 

Also, a bit of extra money in the hands of someone who already has a bunch of it doesn’t tend to change their behavior or encourage extra spending. Getting $1,000 tax break when you’re sitting on $50M isn’t going to suddenly result in them finally making a call to a plumber or the purchasing a new dishwasher… but for the person living paycheck to paycheck that money literally changes lives, gets spent and injected back into the system quickly, and results in lasting reductions in poverty and suffering. When you’re living at the margins, every dollar counts.

It also costs a lot to be poor. When the washing machine breaks, you can’t afford a new one but you can afford to pump quarters into the machine at the laundromat… but that ends up being more expensive on net. When the car breaks down, you don’t get to work on time and you get fired. The rich, however, have tax protected ways of growing their wealth and can afford tax attorneys to hide it. Paying more tax has more impact on their ego than on their lived experience.

The anger at the rich is out of hand, though. We need better policies and enforcement mechanisms, not more hate and vitriol directed at those doing better than us. Sadly, the anger is probably in large part intentionally being amplified by the very people on the receiving end. If they can keep everyone mad and focused on the wrong things, then the status quo remains stable and no progress or change gets made.

Like most issues in economics, we make a huge mistake by treating it as a moral failure when at its core it’s a policy failure. Fixing the policy is just super hard because the people with the power to change the laws tend to be the same ones benefiting the most from them… and also because focusing on wonky policy details is hard for a public who’s often just trying to survive through to tomorrow and who’d much prefer throwing stones and being distracted with us/them tribalism. 

Perhaps this thread could try focusing on wonky policy details instead of distractions like yachts and steel boats… or not. 

Great post! 

 

 

There are two different situations for which a different (scientific) method is appropriate.

Within these two situations many different methods may eixist.

 

So even at the top level of classification there is no one single 'scientific method'.

 

More specifically;

 

In the situation were we are discussing applied science, particularly engineering, we have the idea of the independent check.

When designing or assessing a bridge, an aircraft, a dam or whatever current practice demands that the desing is checked by an independent method and person(s).

So a bridge deck may be designed by one person or team using finite element methods, and checked by another team using energy methods, plastic hinge theory or Klein-Logel charts.

 

At a lower level operations should be carried out in a 'self checking' manner which incorporates and independent check.

A good example of this is the surveying practice known as the rise and fall method which submits surveying calculations to verification by an alternative arithmetical process.

Measure twice, cut once.

 

That was the first situation, the known.

The second one is where fundamental research is undertaken.

 

Here an independent check is sometimes possible ( as in the geological dating examples in another's post) , but often only one system of measurements are possible or available.

Sometimes the actual measurement is a chance observation.

 

In this case efforts may (should) be made not only to repeat the expereiment but also to take further observations in a range of conditions to place the

initial measurement in context and give confidence and credence to it.

 

There is another thread just posted in scientific news here, concerning carbon fixing into the rocks, where this process is just beginning.

 

 

The whole point of this is that mere repetition is (as you rightly said) dangerous.

Verification should be by different (=independent) means.

 

And if there are independent means if follows that there is more than one way.

 

Enjoyed reading your post Studiot... Thank You

Awesome thread.... Please keep it coming.....

Dawkins books are good... As stated they are more in line for the general reading purposes and the general pubic.

 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/green-neanderthals.html

 

"Surprisingly, about the same amount of Neanderthal ancestry is seen in all non-African genomes, even people from places where Neanderthals never lived, like the New World."

Thats what I was thinking...... Thanks for sharing..