>> ^JiggaJonson:

Nevermind the fact that Washington University, the school that created the Foldit program, is a public (that is to say, funded by the state; a.k.a. statist) institution.


Right, and I'm sure the researchers there are fantastic. Still, they opened the market to allow more people to work on what they themselves and others weren't able to succeed at.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

Nevermind the fact that healthcare, up until very recently, has been privatized (excluding medicare and medicaid) for a substantial time now; yet the lifetime cost of HIV medications and treatment is roughly $385,000.


And available only from big pharma. And that's thanks to government regulations. Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine privately and offered it without patent. If he were to bring the same drug to market today by FDA restrictions he'd have to pay millions.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

Shouldn't free market generic meds have landed in your local Wally World for $5 a month by now? Why is the free market dictating these insane prices where how much you can pay is directly relational to how long you get to live.


The pharmaceutical industry is heavily regulated. I think you're erroneously conflating corporatism with free market.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

Now, as we know, if the market was not worthy, pharmaceutical businessmen would not get involved with it and essentially let the project die. The logical solution to these huge dilemmas in cost then is to create a larger customer base. All they need now is a furtive way to deliver the virus to a sect of the population that is either expendable and large or rich and small.


Again, you're claiming the current market is free. If it was, people like Salk could enter and compete (much like the gamers in the article above) without retribution from government. What you have today is a limited amount of pharma companies that can compete in the market, and because there's less competition, you have higher prices.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

I don't see where the "market" part comes in. Just the "free" part.


The market is just a system of exchange. Look at my example of Salk above. He developed and released a cure to polio, but today the restrictions on the market makes this kind of charitable action illegal. But in regards to the article specifically, Wash. Univ. opened their system of exchange and asked the online gaming community to help in figuring out a complex structure of an AIDS protein. The exchange was charitable. That's the free market.

Now if there was a regulation against this sort of thing because the online gamers weren't "licensed" for instance, then that would be a restrictive market. Right?

I think I understand what you're saying. It's not that your logic isn't "easy".

Well, Polio research didn't save any lives or improve our living conditions until AFTER we found the cure. It had potential to, just like the space program does now. But we didn't know for sure that we could find a cure until afterward. And in fact, we never did find a cure, only a vaccine. The fact is that most scientific advancement happens sort of randomly. We never really know where the next big step is going to be made.

It's simply not possible to ONLY fund things that we KNOW will save lives or improve our living conditions, because we don't know where the next advancements are going to come from.

Either way, the space program HAS improved our living conditions. Even if you exclude the ones listed in this video.

http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html

>> ^Ryjkyj:

>> ^Yogi:
I'm all for science and funding it in order to move our species forward. But we don't get to do it as long as there is a child still hungry or dying in our country from something easily preventable.

By this logic we should never have funded Polio research, as there were still children who were hungry or dying in our country from things that were easily preventable.


If you choose to follow it absurdly than yes. The Shuttle program hasn't saved our lives or improved our living conditions. Is that logic easier?

>> ^Yogi:

I'm all for science and funding it in order to move our species forward. But we don't get to do it as long as there is a child still hungry or dying in our country from something easily preventable.


By this logic we should never have funded Polio research, as there were still children who were hungry or dying in our country from things that were easily preventable.

Here's some more articles from naturalnews.com covering the potential dangers of vaccines. The articles are sourced. I used Naturalnews because it's a website I personally trust and one that I read on a regular basis.

Re: infants
The hepatitis B vaccine is linked to infant death, multiple sclerosis and autoimmune disorders
New study: Nations requiring the most vaccines tend to have the worst infant mortality rates
More than 2,000 vaccinated babies died: The cost of doing business
Abortion stillbirth events from Gardasil far exceed all other vaccines
Are MMR vaccines dangerous for children? Dr Suzanne Humphries urges parents to get informed
Flu vaccine causing infant seizures; FDA to investigate
Babies given pneumococcal vaccination risk infection with serious drug resistant respiratory disease

Re: fraud
CDC vaccine scientist who downplayed links to autism indicted by DOJ in alleged fraud scheme
Dr. Jonas Salk, inventor of polio vaccine, exposed as criminal-minded scientist who conducted illicit medical experiments on mental patients
Medical 'experts' pushing HPV vaccines told what not to say about them, including their death toll
The FDA is a clearing house for Food and Drug Corruption
Hidden government papers expose lies about measles vaccines for infants
WHO list reveals flu advisors with financial ties to pharma, vaccine manufacturers
Flu Vaccines, pharma fraud, quack science, the CDC and WHO -- all exposed by Richard Gale and Gary Null
WHO scandal exposed: Advisors received kickbacks from H1N1 vaccine manufacturers
Central Figure in CDC Vaccine Safety Studies Investigated for Fraud
Vaccination Quackery Appears in Plain Sight

Re: autism
Sixth study in recent months links mercury in flu shots to brain damage, autism
Multiple studies link autism to mercury, which is still present in most flu vaccines
Government vaccine compensation payouts prove autism link
Latest research links autism to vaccines
Thimerosal-free childhood vaccines still suspect in autism

Re: other
Vaccines lower immunity
Swine flu vaccine linked to 900 percent increased risk of developing narcolepsy
Government Admits Link between H1N1 Vaccine and Deadly Nerve Disease
Japan halts vaccines from Pfizer, Sanofi after deaths of four children
Influenza vaccine sends children into convulsions
Australia bans flu vaccines in children after vomiting, fevers, seizures
Finland suspends H1N1 vaccines after children suffer narcolepsy from vaccinations
Flu vaccine push already underway; first batch causes seizures in children
Pig virus contaminates rotavirus vaccines, but FDA says no problem
India halts HPV vaccine trial after six girls die, US does nothing in response to 67 deaths and counting
Seasonal flu vaccines increase risk of pandemic H1N1 flu, stunned scientists discover

When I argue with Christians, I sometimes use the word God, which is occasionally confusing to them considering the fact that I don't believe in God. When I refer to God, I'm not really talking about God, but rather Biblical doctrine, it's real world effects and the words and attitudes of its adherents. Abstractly I don't object to an all knowing, all loving God that answers prayers and reunites you with your loved ones after death, but I do object to all the real world suffering and strife that seems to be done in the name of God. If you were to say, "it's not God's fault", you would be correct.

Similarly, when I speak of "free markets", I am not talking about your idealized utopic vision of a volunteerist sociecty, I am actually referring to market doctrine, it's real world effects and the words and attitudes of it's adherents. Abstractly I don't object to a volunteerist utopia. Abstractly I don't object to any utopia. The problem is that I don't believe in utopia - be it one with invisible hands or one with invisible deities. I do object to all the real world suffering and strife that seems to be done in the name of unfettered markets.

It's not the Free Market's fault.

1. Concepts do not have the capacity for thought or emotion, nor the ability to speak, so I agree with you that free markets do not state anything, however, it's adherents - Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand and yourself - in defense of free markets assert their affection for greed and selfishness, while cursing the evils of empathy, compassion and dogooderism. They never provide any evidence to support these assertions, and real world evidence seems to contradict these assertions.

2. I understand that corporatism has no place in your utopic vision of a free market, but that doesn't seem to stop corporations from bankrolling the free market movement. I'm not sure if corporations think they exist within the spirit of the free market or if they are just using the free market as a tool to manipulate people into supporting plutocracy. Either way, corporatism and the free market are in completely solidarity on subjects of taxes, deregulation, privatization and organized labor.

3. Again, I understand that violence and coercion have no place in your utopic vision, but in the real world, as illustrated in great detail in The Shock Doctrine, coercion and force seem to be the only reliable methods of forcing market principles of austerity on an unwilling public.

4. Again, I understand that concepts are not capable of promoting ideals, but adherents to free market ideology use anti-scientific arguments against climate change regulation. I would respect their arguments more if they were based on the principle that regulations should not be used, even in the face of environmental disaster. It wouldn't be a very persuasive argument, but at least it would have some integrity.

5. Write off corporatists and Republicans all you like, but they outnumber you by the billions. If you are all fighting for 'free markets', whose vision of the free market do you think will win the day? Probably not yours.

6. Keeping people from joining together is a time honored totalitarian tactic. I can cite you examples if you need them.

7. Would you agree that deregulation, privatization, taking power away from labor and lowering taxes are free market principals? Is there some reason why these principles should not function as you intend them to if they are implemented by force? Milton Friedman has lavished much praise on the free market reforms put in place by authoritarian regimes. Only one of you can be correct, and I'm siding with you on this one.

8. An unregulated market is an unregulated market is an unregulated market.

9. A better system: A balance of 'pro employee' socialism with 'pro employer' capitalism where free enterprise is allowed to thrive, but abuse of labor, the economy, the political system or the environment is not.

10. This is pretty much the same as 5, but I wanted to make it an even 10, so....

11. Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?


I know you said you didn't want to be spoonfed by a liberal, which I took to mean you don't want to read about "The Shock Doctrine" from the person who wrote "The Shock Doctrine". How's about a bargain, if you read the book, I'll promise to read something you care about of similar length. Freidman? Adam Smith? Selma Von Heyak? Whatever you want me to read, so long as it is a legit, important mainstream book. Also, I'd send you the book in the mail so you don't have to give your money to some pinko commie bitch, and I'll use my own cash to buy 'Road to Serfdom' or whatever it is you want me to read. It's only appropriate for the socialist* to give his book away, while purchasing the capitalist book.

Fair?

In all honesty, I think you'd get a lot out of the book. All of the dirty deeds are carried out by governments, corporations and Chicago based economists. None of it lives up to your ideal of a free market and all of it could be correctly defined as statism. It really makes sense of our foreign policy; which nations are chosen and why; why every president seems to have to have his own conflict... I'm officially anti-Libya now (I'm sure your happy to hear this) because the CIA is a recurring theme in all of these tales and they are usually the ones that teach strategic foreign allies how to torture, kill and disappear anyone who stands up to the despotic puppet of choice. The only negative you might get out of the book is seeing how closely Friedman works with the government, the right wing and despotic dictators. It's all cited and footnoted. If Chomsky were into some nasty shit, I wouldn't be happy about it, but I'd want to know.

Have a bitchen summer. - dft

*dft is not really a socialist. He wants a system that balances the rights of the worker with the rights of the boss.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Response to your 10 reasons list below.

1. Patently false. Free markets do not "state" anything, as it's a system of free exchange between people without coercion. Free markets do not have an opinion of altruism or empathy or greed or selfishness anymore than it can of Biblical literalism, axiology, utilitarianism, happiness, Chinese philosophy and so on.

2. Also false. Corporations enjoy corporate welfare, government subsidies, franchise monopolies and crony-capitalism. All of those things are not part of a free market, as they constitute intervention.

3. Ridiculous on its face. How can voluntary interactions without coercion (aka, a free market) be implemented through "force" and "terror"? Here again, you're conflating free markets with government/corporate collusion.

4. Free markets don't promote anything. It's the free exchanges between people without coercion, and was used effectively to aid science in the past. Jonas Salk gave the polio vaccine away without a patent. He was free to patent it and charge through the nose for it, which is what a corporation would do, but he chose to voluntarily give it away. Free market in action.

5. Meh. Republicans speak the rhetoric of free markets, but they believe in them as much as the Democrats do.

6. Sounds like someone is paranoid.

7. False. Government "implementing" anything is not free in nature. Government uses the threat of violence to "implement" their policies, which is antithetical to free markets.

8. I like how you added this to the list. Irrelevant to free markets, except at least as far as governments encroach on free markets by regulating private exchanges among the people.

9. Free markets are capable of faults. So is capitalism. I'd charge you to offer a better system. An ad hoc system of government plus capitalism is a regulated market, and we've seen those fail countless times in the past 100 years. Our current economic mess comes from central planning and interventionism, not free markets.

10. I don't listen to those people, so I cannot respond.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Top ten clues that the Free Market movement is a racket.

1. It states that altruism and empathy are bad; greed and selfishness are good.
2. It claims to be anti-corporate, yet is completely funded by corporations from the ground up.
3. It claims to be about liberty, volunteerism and non-aggression, but can only be implemented through force and terror.
4. It promotes irrational/anti-scientific thinking when science gets in the way of business. (read: Global Climate Change).
5. It is largely embraced by Republicans, whom are easily manipulated into believing corporatist falsehoods on a regular basis.
6. It is obsessed with keeping people from organizing, under the guise of 'individualism'. Corporatists know that we are much easier to dominate as separate individuals.
7. In cases where free market reforms have been implemented by a government, it has resulted in plutocracy.
8. In failed states where no government or taxes exist, chaos reigns. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmn9asN-8AE
9. There is no empirical evidence to prove the merit of Free Market doctrine, and plenty of evidence against.
10. It is embraced by the biggest propagandists of our times, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Ayn Rand, etc.

Response to your 10 reasons list below.

1. Patently false. Free markets do not "state" anything, as it's a system of free exchange between people without coercion. Free markets do not have an opinion of altruism or empathy or greed or selfishness anymore than it can of Biblical literalism, axiology, utilitarianism, happiness, Chinese philosophy and so on.

2. Also false. Corporations enjoy corporate welfare, government subsidies, franchise monopolies and crony-capitalism. All of those things are not part of a free market, as they constitute intervention.

3. Ridiculous on its face. How can voluntary interactions without coercion (aka, a free market) be implemented through "force" and "terror"? Here again, you're conflating free markets with government/corporate collusion.

4. Free markets don't promote anything. It's the free exchanges between people without coercion, and was used effectively to aid science in the past. Jonas Salk gave the polio vaccine away without a patent. He was free to patent it and charge through the nose for it, which is what a corporation would do, but he chose to voluntarily give it away. Free market in action.

5. Meh. Republicans speak the rhetoric of free markets, but they believe in them as much as the Democrats do.

6. Sounds like someone is paranoid.

7. False. Government "implementing" anything is not free in nature. Government uses the threat of violence to "implement" their policies, which is antithetical to free markets.

8. I like how you added this to the list. Irrelevant to free markets, except at least as far as governments encroach on free markets by regulating private exchanges among the people.

9. Free markets are capable of faults. So is capitalism. I'd charge you to offer a better system. An ad hoc system of government plus capitalism is a regulated market, and we've seen those fail countless times in the past 100 years. Our current economic mess comes from central planning and interventionism, not free markets.

10. I don't listen to those people, so I cannot respond.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Top ten clues that the Free Market movement is a racket.

1. It states that altruism and empathy are bad; greed and selfishness are good.
2. It claims to be anti-corporate, yet is completely funded by corporations from the ground up.
3. It claims to be about liberty, volunteerism and non-aggression, but can only be implemented through force and terror.
4. It promotes irrational/anti-scientific thinking when science gets in the way of business. (read: Global Climate Change).
5. It is largely embraced by Republicans, whom are easily manipulated into believing corporatist falsehoods on a regular basis.
6. It is obsessed with keeping people from organizing, under the guise of 'individualism'. Corporatists know that we are much easier to dominate as separate individuals.
7. In cases where free market reforms have been implemented by a government, it has resulted in plutocracy.
8. In failed states where no government or taxes exist, chaos reigns. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmn9asN-8AE
9. There is no empirical evidence to prove the merit of Free Market doctrine, and plenty of evidence against.
10. It is embraced by the biggest propagandists of our times, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Ayn Rand, etc.

Big upvote from me. I recently watched a local news item about a women who lives near me had major fails on two of my bigger pet peeves. Rather than use the mainstream vaccinations she had her kids receive "homeopathic vaccinations"! And she even claimed that her kids were proof that they work because they hadn't had polio, pertussis, diphtheria or meningitis etc.

Polio
In reply to this comment by blankfist:
What makes the CRTC any different from the FCC? Net Neutrality.

Also, what happened to that whole leg-braces industry, their business must have been booming in the good old Polio days.

>> ^hPOD:

>> ^criticalthud:
it's just so arrogant to think that "we" (scientists) are smarter than 4 billion years of evolution, and that we can make better plants. fuckballs. we know so little about this planet.
this seems to be a case of profit vs. common sense

I know what you mean...I think. Getting rid of polio, smallpox, and other such illnesses/diseases...damned stupid scientists. The world was a better place when children caught polio and died from it...right?
I know it's not directly linked to genetic manipulation of crops...but maybe these scientists aren't all "fuckballs", and some of the things they do, including certain genetic manipulations for food, help us more than then harm us.
After all...at the current population growth of the world, without genetic crops, even more of them would be starving to death...
I know...I know...people starving to death rules.


it's not that scientists are stupid (and fuckballs is just a term for "things are fucked", not directed at scientists or anyone in general), and quite clearly they've accomplished some amazing things, and the science behind gmo's is impressive as well. it's just that we're not as smart as we think we are, especially when we start messing around with genetics, and doing so with a profit motive in mind. We are barely getting to know this planet, meanwhile we're wiping out species of plant and animal life left and right.

As for starvation, the population growth of this planet is due to an industrial revolution fueled by oil, which is of limited quantity. Both rapid population expansion and fossil fuel consumption create a variety of negative consequences for the biosphere. You could accurately consider the human race to be an infestation of the planet. Yes GMO's can help feed such rapid population, but is this the correct course of action when you consider the biosphere as a whole? And are we really at that point where we think we are smarter than 4 billion years of evolution? We are upsetting the balance, and this will come back to bite us in the ass.

>> ^criticalthud:

it's just so arrogant to think that "we" (scientists) are smarter than 4 billion years of evolution, and that we can make better plants. fuckballs. we know so little about this planet.
this seems to be a case of profit vs. common sense


I know what you mean...I think. Getting rid of polio, smallpox, and other such illnesses/diseases...damned stupid scientists. The world was a better place when children caught polio and died from it...right?

I know it's not directly linked to genetic manipulation of crops...but maybe these scientists aren't all "fuckballs", and some of the things they do, including certain genetic manipulations for food, help us more than then harm us.

After all...at the current population growth of the world, without genetic crops, even more of them would be starving to death...

I know...I know...people starving to death rules.

Haha, gets started with a brilliant line, "George Lucas didn't ruin my childhood fucking polio did!"

Quorum sensing seems like a more mechanical version of smell. Smell doesn't cause anything to directly occur (though it has very potent indirect triggers like nausea). Though, they could be exactly the same if the bacteria are counting the presence of communications. I want to know if the receptors are unable to take in signals unless the volume of communications cause a pressure that forces the receptor in the slot. In that case, it would be kind of like smell, but more like a trigger. If, however, the cell is just keeping track of how many communications is receives (keeping track of the volume of communications), then it is a programed response that resembles our own feelings of illness when a foul smell is in the air. In other words, from what I got out of that video, I think you are right; quorum sensing is nearly identical to smell.

What they pointed out rightfully in that other video, current antibacterials actually bread for stronger bacteria. If you could dumb down, bread out, or otherwise interfere with their order you wouldn't encourage such evolutions. That was a very great video there flech, I thank you for it.

And everyone take it easy on Yogi. I think a healthy dose of skepticism keeps us from making bad assumptions. Look at all the people that took radium as a cure all then later died. Vaccinations came in and took over without a real study to show if they had negative long term or unexpected consequences. They were adopted rapidly because the results of less kids dead from polio was viable. And, because of the recent speculations, we have real data now that shows they are indeed, mostly benign. If it wasn't for people being skeptical, we wouldn't have put the science forward to finding the answer to a question we should of asked a long time ago. Since then, we have about 3 different good studies that show vaccines are a non-factor in cancer, and other more neurological disorders.

Wow looks like I really pissed off some people. Can vaccines trigger autoimmune diseases? I think they can...you know why I think this? Cause I've seen it...you can trust me...I'm a doctor.

And I really REALLY Hope I give everyone Polio.