from the are-you-a-net-gain-or-a-net-drain? dept.
Many jobs have spillover effects on the rest of society. For instance, the value of new treatments discovered by biomedical researchers is far greater than what they or their employers get paid, so they have positive spillovers. Other jobs have negative spillovers, such as those that generate pollution.
A forthcoming paper, by economists at UPenn and Yale,1 reports a survey of the economic literature on these spillover benefits for the 11 highest-earning professions.
There's very little literature, so all these estimates are very, very uncertain, and should be not be taken literally. But it's interesting reading.
Here are the bottom lines – see more detail on the estimates below. (Note that we already discussed an older version of this paper, but the estimates have been updated since then.)
(Emphasis in original retained.)
At the top, researchers who generate +$950,440 in positive externalities; at the bottom, financiers who generate -$104,000 in negative externalities. In a glaring omission, telephone sanitisers were not listed.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2017, @11:49PM (1 child)
Ah yes, the value of the great Augean stables they have produced for future generations to clean out:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270077/ [nih.gov]
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/future_tense/2016/04/biomedicine_facing_a_worse_replication_crisis_than_the_one_plaguing_psychology.html [slate.com]
http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v10/n9/full/nrd3439-c1.html [nature.com]
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-cancer-idUSBRE82R12P20120328 [reuters.com]
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/483531a.html [nature.com]
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1411 [sciencemag.org]
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002165 [plos.org]
http://www.nature.com/news/cancer-reproducibility-project-scales-back-ambitions-1.18938 [nature.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @12:15AM
The reproducibility project is actually now 4 out of 7 (after dropping an initial 25% because it was impossible for the original labs to explain how they got the results), but they have relaxed the definition of reproduced to allow for changing the protocol:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/rigorous-replication-effort-succeeds-just-two-five-cancer-papers [sciencemag.org]
https://www.sciencealert.com/two-more-cancer-studies-have-just-passed-an-important-reproducibility-test [sciencealert.com]
Why are they changing the protocols when the purpose is to see if others can reproduce your results?... it is like they do not understand the purpose of their actions.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by stretch611 on Wednesday June 28 2017, @11:50PM (21 children)
CEOs
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Gaaark on Thursday June 29 2017, @12:22AM (20 children)
Sports 'stars'/'athletes'.
People who would do badly at "Would you like fries with that?" but get angry when their not paid more and more millions for hitting a baseball.
And CEO's and politicians.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @12:31AM (1 child)
"when their not paid more ..."
People who don't fucking know the difference between "their" and "they're".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @03:22PM
I guess someone has never typed faster than their brain can autocorrect. Get some new fingers slowpoke
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @01:44AM (9 children)
Politicians might actually need to be paid more, they take on a hell of a lot of responsibility sometimes and it might help a little with corruption. The ability to tell someone to piss off because you're doing fine. Corruption is what is killing us.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 29 2017, @02:11AM
Politicians can always get more by letting others pay so no salary will be enough. The solution is to be found elsewhere.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @02:59AM (4 children)
Politicians might actually need to be paid more
No. When you look at the 5-star healthcare plan they get while deciding on a fuck-you plan for everybody else, it could easily be said that they're already paid too much for delivering bad results.
it might help a little with corruption
Y'know what would help a lot?
Prosecutors[1] doing their jobs and enforcing the Emoluments Clause[2] in the Constitution that says NO PUBLIC OFFICIAL can accept anything that even smells like a bribe.
Now, clearly, "campaign contributions" have been given a waiver.
The way to fix that is publicly-funded election campaigns.
they take on a hell of a lot of responsibility
...and get to bask in the glory when they handle it right.
Spike Lee/Ozzie Davis summarized it pretty well: "Always do the right thing."
Another way to say it is "Do the most good for the greatest number of people."
[1] There's another that's overpaid for the results they get WRT justice.
[2] That's actually "Emoluments Clauses"; it's important enough that they put it in there TWICE.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @03:52AM
Fortunately, they stacked the court with incompetent jurists that will find whatever ruling they're looking for. Just look at what the likes of Thomas and Scalia ruled over their tenure on the court. I don't think we've ever had jurists on the bench that were that lacking in competence. Hell, Thomas couldn't even be bothered to ask questions for years on end while in session. They regularly ignored precedence and the constitution when inconvenient.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @06:42AM (1 child)
That's small thinking. We pay the people who decide on trillion dollars budgets a shlub salary of 180k. Then you wonder why they don't put the people's interest first. Pay them like big company CEOs. That is their level of responsibility.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @08:31AM
Yup, the current model means only millionaires get represented in the legislature.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 29 2017, @12:29PM
And how will you qualify for public funding? What's to prevent someone from turning that into a business model?
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday June 29 2017, @04:18AM
They get paid quite enough (starting at over three times average salary).
Politicians who actually take responsibility for their actions are about as common as rocking horse shit (YMMV).
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @07:30AM
Less carrot and more stick.
It works for leakers and security clearances. Try to bribe them, if they accept, shoot them in the head.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @10:43AM
When was the last time a politician went to prison for their decisions? We could start with the murder of thousands of people in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. "War" is just a term for murder that nobody gets held responsible for.
No, they get to make the decisions without ever being held responsible.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 29 2017, @02:12AM (5 children)
Hey, I'm not a big fan of sports or sports stars either (in fact I think spectator sports are a complete waste of time), but I will admit that professional sports do generate a lot of economic effects. All those game tickets, cable TV sports packages, etc. add up to a lot of money, and a lot of employment for many people. And the sports stars at least are actually doing a big part of that, because they have unique physical talents that very few people can match. I can't say the same for CEOs or politicians; they're just bullshitters who got lucky or had the right connections. They're really leaches on society or the companies they work for (I'll throw in an exception for CEOs who are actually founders, rather than just hired guns as most of them are).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Thursday June 29 2017, @08:19AM (3 children)
You identify generation of economic activity - but what is the societal benefit there?
(Score: 1) by ewk on Thursday June 29 2017, @10:56AM
No economy => no society ?
I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 29 2017, @03:14PM (1 child)
Um, do you really need an answer to that? As the other poster said, no economy = no society and no civilization. Seemingly pointless stuff like that gives people jobs and makes the economy function. I'm sure sports fans can give you intangible reasons sports benefit society too, though I disagree with them. Likewise, I can give you reasons that the music I prefer benefits society substantially and everyone would be far better off if they stopped listening to certain genres of music I don't like, and listened instead to music that I do like. Or I could tell you why society would be better if people stopped watching TV shows I don't like, and instead spent their TV-watching time watching movies or TV shows that I approve of.
In your mind, is something a waste of time if it doesn't have an immediately apparent benefit to society, such as curing cancer? Do you never watch movies, listen to music, or do anything at all for sheer entertainment? You sound like a very dull person. Heck, I could go much further: do you spend any time exercising? What's the societal benefit of that? Some would say reduction of resources needed to keep you healthy and avoid expensive medical treatments. But why not just euthanize you instead? Which brings us to the problem of: what's the point of even having people or a society? Why not just euthanize everyone at once?
Maybe you should go take some philosophy classes.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday July 03 2017, @10:06AM
> In your mind, is something a waste of time if it doesn't have an immediately apparent benefit to society, such as curing cancer?
> Do you never watch movies, listen to music, or do anything at all for sheer entertainment?
You missed my point. The "societal benefit" is the entertainment provided. The economic benefit/whatever is at best a fringe benefit.
I thought the OP was emphasising the revenue generated above the actual entertainment provided, which was, to my mind, the wrong weighting. I Should have been a bit clearer...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @05:27PM
There is another big effect of pro sports. They are ritual combat and to the extent that they substitute for actual combat (war) they save society a huge amount of damage and expense. Without the World Cup (soccer) to soak up a lot of testosterone, I wonder how many more countries would solve their problems with a small war?
I'm looking forward to a future where international disputes are not solved by armies, but by "arbitration", using national sports teams.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday June 29 2017, @03:05AM
Sports stars are like actors. There is public demand for them, they generate ticket sales and more importantly, ad revenue. Attention is paid to their personalities, personal lives, disputes/fights, etc. They are branded not just by performance but also personality to extent (Lebron James is undeniably a brand). Of course, the competitive aspect is a little different than acting.
I have probably read a better article on this subject, but this one explains it pretty well:
https://www.si.com/thecauldron/2016/10/20/professional-athletes-underpaid [si.com]
Also consider that there is a significant risk of injury. Torn muscles, broken bones and such are bad enough, but some athletes (read: American football players) face traumatic brain injuries which are devastating on many levels and have led to suicides. Would you rather be quadriplegic or deeply mentally ill? So there is more risk than what most actors face (not sure about stunt men), and more medical treatment needed.
CEOs and politicians don't normally face broken bones or traumatic brain injury due to the job. Maybe a shooting or two, but that's why they hire security.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday June 29 2017, @09:41AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday June 28 2017, @11:58PM (1 child)
Look, I contribute almost a million dollars of value to society!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 29 2017, @12:14AM
Especially "researchers" striving to knock down open doors...
Can we mod the research itself "unsubstantiated flamebait", or just the media for propagating it for clickbait?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Mykl on Thursday June 29 2017, @12:01AM (2 children)
...but I'd be interested to see how some other 'professions' turn out, like:
- Patent Assertion Entities
- Lobbyists
- Televangelists
- The cast of Jersey Shore
(Score: 5, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 29 2017, @02:05AM (1 child)
The positive externality of the cast of Jersey Shore is incalculable. Every one of us, no matter how mean, how low, how down-and-out, how dark a hole we feel we have fallen into, can turn to the Jersey Shore and realize we have not yet sunk to that level of vapidity, that level of retardation, and we can feel a bit better about ourselves and suspect that, maybe, we have something to build on and can still have value to the world.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday June 29 2017, @01:11PM
Not to mention the positive economic and societal benefits of keeping such people quarantined far away from any normal human habitation for the duration of the show...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday June 29 2017, @12:05AM (14 children)
A friend of mine was a lab assistant at UC Berkeley. The best she could afford was a one-room apartment.
She asked me how she could make more money. I suggested coding. She took some classes, then got an internship at a startup. Quite soon she was offered a permanent position with stock options - founders' options.
It was not long at all before she bought a house in a nice neighborhood. In a little while she hired a contractor to build a second storey on her house.
Now she's a director of a successful company. She often travels to foreign lands to oversee their outsourcing.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @12:17AM (2 children)
"Now she's a director of a successful company. She often travels to foreign lands to oversee their outsourcing."
She made it, so fuck everyone around her trying to make it here now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @01:46AM
Not everyone can code, yadda yadda, automate away tons of jobs, bippitty bop, we have the lowclass jobless and the elite employables. Stratify society yeah!!! Keep a history long enough and you can start learning from it.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 29 2017, @02:16AM
No, she was really lucky, and probably also very talented and would have done a good job in any field she entered. But the point of the OP's anecdote, I'm sure, was that the biology field was a financial dead-end for her, whereas coding was the ticket to big success.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @01:50AM (9 children)
I'm in that situation and know many other people that are leaving the field.
Four years of undergrad and six years for a PhD and what we're qualified for are $40,000/year "training positions" as postdoctoral researchers with no job security. Because there are already ~35,000 biomedical postdoctoral researchers (with an average of six years experience), the job market is saturated.
Getting a non-science job that pays well and donating money to EA charities seems like it is the best option to make the world better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @12:56PM (8 children)
Ever think that is because most of the "training" is actually learning incorrect stuff, ie a waste of time? The post-doc salary actually is close to reflecting the true value of the average biomed project. It is probably 2x too high if anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @03:59PM (7 children)
Depends on your definition of "true value".
Relative to the value cited in TFA, postdocs are underpaid.
Market prices set the value of industry postdocs higher than academic postdocs and industry prefers those with postdoctoral experience over those without it.
There is a societal cost for highly educated people being underemployed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @05:25PM (6 children)
The healthcare market is propped up by FDA approval (do NHST twice and see an effect at least as large as the current standard) acting as a proxy for "a treatment works" though. Many people still don't realize the danger they are put in by accepting these treatments. You will still see people who clamor to take part in clinical trials and be first in line to get injected with newly synthesized chemicals!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @08:13PM (5 children)
Well, ~90% of drugs fail to get approval going through clinical trials.
If you think you can hack the statistics to get a better approval rate, then you should pursue a very lucrative career in the drug industry (or as an investor). The industry is either more ethical than you think, incompetent in their ability to hack statistics, or the current standard is working. The effectiveness of treatments is never really known until they are used for large groups of patients, but demonstrated effectiveness in Phase III trials increases the likelihood that treatments will be effective for other patients.
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/06/02/are-things-getting-any-better-in-the-clinic [sciencemag.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @09:10PM (4 children)
I do in fact think that, and no I don't want to help to scam people about their health. Also, the 90% rejection rate is something that is chosen by choosing alpha = 0.05, or 0.01 or whatever it is these days along with other criteria. It will fluctuate from year to year but overall you will see that rate maintained unless there is political pressure to change it.
As the submitters get better at "hacking" the criteria you will see that alpha gets more stringent, and they start looking harder at methodological issues, side effects, etc to maintain the 90% rejection rate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @09:38PM (3 children)
Fine, then use your power for good: analyze clinical trial data, predict what will be effective, then make money investing. The excess money can be donated to effective altruism charities.
The rejection rate is not chosen by the FDA. The FDA would love to have a 100% approval rate as long as the drugs demonstrated effectiveness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @10:12PM (2 children)
No, they really wouldn't. It isn't that 90% is special, it is that deviations from the usual lead to questions being asked of the administrators: "Are you saying the last guy sucked at his job because people under him approved too many/few new treatments?" Then you make political adversaries. Btw, I didn't come up with this idea on my own, I was told it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @10:30PM (1 child)
Well, I'll tell you differently: there is not a vast conspiracy at the FDA that is keeping good therapies off the market. There has also been a lot of political pressure to eliminate the requirement to show efficacy.
You might not believe me, but how about an appeal to simple logic: Do you honestly believe that drug companies with billions of dollars on the line would sit on their hands and let the FDA arbitrarily deny them approvals?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @10:50PM
I didn't describe a conspiracy. I described an incentive system that encourages a certain outcome. I also don't think drug companies are sitting on their hands, or that the denials are arbitrary (although you surely agree that, eg, alpha = 0.05 in 2 trials involves two arbitrary numbers). So your most recent post has nothing to do with my claims.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @03:11AM
He was a lab assistant (chemistry).
He got himself a new gig.
Now he has cool threads, cool digs, and a cool car. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @12:12AM (7 children)
Politicians, CEOs, Managers, Executive Staff... probably lots of others I am forgetting. Executive Staff in this case referring to upper administrative staff like at colleges, universities, etc. While I am sure there are a few who are value adds to schools, just like with politicians, ceos, and managers, they are few and far between, and setting the pay bar at those levels hasn't improved society, whether locally in the organization, or regionally, whether county, state, national, or internationally.
If you purged these groups salaries you would have more than enough money to ensure the rest of society was getting paid a liveable wage, although job retention would still depend on outside factors, and internal management's forward thinking, neither of which have been proven helped by higher salaries for executives.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @01:00AM (6 children)
Good managers are worth a lot, bad ones worth negative amounts.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 29 2017, @02:14AM (5 children)
The problem is that, by and large, the bad ones are getting huge paychecks. Just look at Carly Fiorina, Marissa Meyer, Bob Nardelli, etc. They ran their companies into the ground and got enormous compensation packages out of the deal. This even works for middle managers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @03:56AM (1 child)
Nardelli? I had to double check that he was who I think he was. He increased the value of Home Depot by billions while he was leading the company. Granted, the stores were understaffed, but including his name with those other incompetent hacks is rather ridiculous.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 29 2017, @03:24PM
Everything I read about him at the time trashed him, saying he took enormous amounts of money out of the company for his personal compensation, while ruining the store's reputation among customers by replacing knowledgeable staff with an insufficient number of idiot know-nothing teenagers. He was even rated as one of the worst American CEOs of all time [cnbc.com]. According to his Wikipedia article, "he dramatically overhauled the company and replaced its entrepreneurial culture of innovative product design with one focused on relentless cost-cutting." Further, "His stint is widely noted to be the most "repulsive" in the history of Home Depot. Nardelli's toxic actions served to kill an enduring company culture and turned Home Depot into a laggard." My first link says of him, "Nardelli was fired from Home Depot after losing market share, alienating executives, downplaying customer service, and refusing to cut his fat pay package. ". His does "losing market share" equate to increasing the value by billions? And why on earth would he be fired if he was doing such a great job? Are you sure you aren't confusing him with someone else? After HD, he took over Chrysler, took billions in government aid, and then went bankrupt. He sounds like a classic short-term profits over long-term success CEO to me. That's not something be proud of.
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Wednesday July 05 2017, @03:00PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday July 05 2017, @04:40PM (1 child)
I have a bit of a problem with your idea of tarring and feathering these people and then kicking them off a cliff: I don't really see the point of the feathers if you're just going to kick them off a cliff. Seems like a waste of feathers.
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Friday July 07 2017, @03:49PM
I do see your point in that it may soften the landing somewhat, or be instrumental in a form of rapid evolution enabling them to learn to fly before hitting the bottom. But tarring and feathering is so delightfully old-school, don't you think?
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Thursday June 29 2017, @12:49AM (4 children)
And a lot of basketball coaches too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @01:04AM (3 children)
Sports is entertainment. Whether entertainment is valuable is an involved philosophical question. If you say entertainment (including sports) is NOT valuable, then you'd have to also discount Beethoven, Bach, Stanley Kubrick, Rembrandt, etc.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 29 2017, @02:19AM
Personally, I think sports is NOT valuable, but (good) music and movies are. However, you can't deny the economic effects of both sports and bad music and movies. How much money have the Transformers movies made, and how many people did they provide a good living for, for instance?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @03:22AM
Just a reminder here that not so long ago in SoCal, For Rent signs had an addendum: No dogs and no actors.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Thursday June 29 2017, @04:49AM
An addendum: I'm talking specifically about state college coaches here.
In almost every state in the United States the highest paid public employee (often by a million or more dollars) is the head coach of whatever sport is popular locally. Does paying the coach that much really help the team play better, and thus earn that much more money? Does diverting that money away from the college help society by that money?
Considering that college sports do make so much money for their college, I agree they should be paid well, but multiple millions of dollars in some cases? No. The athletes do the work for free, and they are the ones people show up and pay to see.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snotnose on Thursday June 29 2017, @01:03AM (20 children)
Problem is, when the government is after you for whatever reason you're looking at a 20k minimum to have a lawyer help you. That's minimum. Think DUI.
Look at Bill Cosby's case. Don't care if he's guilty or not, he spent several hundred grand, minimum, for his defense. If the government retries him he has to spend that same money again. This seems wrong to me.
You get accused of a Bill Cosby offense? Doesn't matter if you're guilty or not, can you come up with a few hundred kay to defend yourself? No? I thought not.
Our "justice" system is a joke. We have a legal system. If you can afford to pay the lawyers you're golden as long as someone isn't looking to make an example out of you. Otherwise, too bad somebody somewhere decided to train their sites on you.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jelizondo on Thursday June 29 2017, @01:34AM (19 children)
The very first thing they drill into you at Law School is that justice is inexistent, there is only application of the law; so you are correct, as with many other things, the ‘justice system’ is a misnomer and we really have only a legal system.
My professional malformation, I can’t imagine a different system. Would it be better to have Solomon the Wise pass judgment on every case? Yes, but what happens when he dies? Would it be as good under Pontius Pilate? No.
What about a council of elders? You can see the problem, who elects the elders or what are the required qualifications to be an elder? How is this different from electing judges in the current system? What happens when you feel the elders failed to see your point of view?
Think of Socrates, we regard him highly nowadays but in his day he was sentenced to death by a council of elders… and he had no recourse, except escaping the city to avoid the penalty.
It is like democracy, not perfect but better than every other system we tried.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @01:54AM (4 children)
I think we can have the law handle matters quite well, we've proven it as an effective means to maintain civilized society. The issue is varying forms of justice in the form of lawyers and personal ability to hire one. How about we provide a much broader public defender support base, reduce the clientele for the snakes.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snotnose on Thursday June 29 2017, @02:00AM (3 children)
An alternative? How about 1/3 of the DA's budget goes to public defenders. As it is the DA has no skin in the game, they have a fixed (unlimited to you and me) budget, force them to pay for your defense.
It's absurd the average American has to take a second mortgage on their house to defend themselves, guilty or not. And, it found not guilty, they still have to pay off that second mortgage.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @03:34AM
With dozens and dozens of women claiming that he victimized all of them in similar ways, Bill Cosby isn't the best example.
I would have used a whistleblower who got screwed by O'Bummer and his "transparency in gov't" bullshit as the example.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Thursday June 29 2017, @08:50AM (1 child)
You do know who the public defenders are, right? There are three classes:
- Freshly minted attorneys, who don't yet have a client base or reputation. They may be good or bad, but they are certainly inexperienced.
- Incompetent attorneys who cannot make a living any other way.
- Good attorneys who do some public defense because it's the right thing to do. This is a very small group.
So, sure, you can probably insist on a public defender (although, iirc, the court can decide that you are too rich, and aren't entitled to one until you've bankrupted yourself). But the quality of representation you will get is likely to be poor.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TheRaven on Thursday June 29 2017, @09:45AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @02:02AM (4 children)
Aren't you being a little hyperbolic with your comparisons?
There are other legal systems (e.g. France uses the inquisitorial system) and it isn't like we'd be forced to start praying to Solomon for legal guidance if we wanted to fix some problems with our legal system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitorial_system [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Thursday June 29 2017, @02:57AM (3 children)
Even third-world countries are moving away from the inquisitorial system: Mexico, with the help of the U.S. Government [usembassy.gov], moved to a modern, oral system.
Again, not perfect but the best we tried.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @03:38AM
I guess your example of Mexico switching is at least better than Pontius and Solomon, but the logic of "Even third-world countries are [jumping off bridges/smoking Marlboro Reds]" isn't incredibly compelling.
You made the claim that our system is the best, but haven't really provided evidence for that claim. I'm sure that you'll acknowledge the problems associated with cost and plea bargains, but do the "pay to play/win" parts balanced out relative to other modern approaches?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @03:59AM (1 child)
It's rather more complicated than that. The US system is being split into different legal systems and some of them are very different. Drug court and family court around here are very different from what you'd see in civil court or criminal court. Mental health problems are also handled by a different model from what people associate with the US system.
The problem with the US system is that money has a huge influence. If you've got enough, you can hire the best attorneys, consultants and even have focus groups. Whereas the poor receive attorneys making minimum wage, who may not even be conscious or free of Alzheimer's.
The inquisitorial system and some of the other systems out there have a different set of problems associated with them. In the US, if you really want the judge to be involved all you have to do is request a bench trial.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @01:12PM
I provided an example of a couterpoint that wasn't a strawman from 2000 years ago and I understand that legal systems are complicated and have different advantages/disadvantages.
Are you making the claim, "better the devil you know than the devil you don't know" (appeal to ignorance), because that is also not a compelling argument why the US has the best system. Juxtaposing the US system to that of France and showing the US system is better would provide one piece of evidence.
You seem to speak with authority on the topic, but when you make such a poor argument for your claim and deliberately ignore alternatives then it seems like you are assuming your claim is true and simply rationalizing.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 29 2017, @02:11AM (6 children)
Seems to me we could task an AI with the entirety of the legal system, and get vastly better justice out of it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jelizondo on Thursday June 29 2017, @03:16AM (5 children)
Many functions of the legal system can indeed be automated, even without true AI but the core must and will, remain human-centered.
I’m an engineer by training and vocation, but I happen also to be a lawyer, so I can see the two sides of the fence :-)
The concept of mens rea [wikipedia.org] is the core of the criminal justice system and very difficult to automate. Even with a human jury, it is difficult to clearly demonstrate the intent of someone when performing a criminal act.
As an example, you’re at a party and after a few drinks you push someone, that someone falls, strikes his/her head on the corner of a piece of furniture and dies.
You are a murderer, the law makes that perfectly clear, but what penalty should be given to you? If your intention was to harm that person, you get first-degree murder; if you and him/her were horseplaying, you get manslaughter, even if you were not horseplaying, you can allege that it was a friendly push, not meant to harm anyone.
Take the case of Philando Castile [wikipedia.org], probably you’ve seen the video. To me, the police officer is guilty as hell, but he convinced a jury that he was afraid for his life and he walked away, literally, with murder.
How AI would know about your intentions or the fear the police officer said he felt? I don't see that happening anytime soon, unless we really write new laws and trash centuries of precedent.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @11:35AM
Concept of mens rea is bringing thought crime into real crime and diluting the concept of responsibility.
You should have known better then to drink or to push people around in a room with hard protrusions.
If you are afraid for your life, you have to make a tough decision, a bargain of your life or your life in prison, and it is your decision. Don't ask the judges to overturn your decision after the bargain was already made. If you were afraid of dying, you should be content that you stayed alive, even for a long while under lock and key.
I know why you need mens rea, because you want to get back to really evil, nasty, sadistic characters by punishing them for taking joy in crime. I understand that, but it is wrong, because mens rea is exactly what gives them an evasion route. If you hate them and what they represent that much, make a responsible decision and off them from their lives. In the legal system of fixed punishments, you would know the exact price (see above). Someone with a sense of duty toward society, or just appalled enough, would knowingly and willingly sacrifice some of their freedom for betterment of all. The fact that there exist people who would, should keep sociopaths from getting too far.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 29 2017, @01:07PM (3 children)
As your subsequent sentences demonstrated, no the law doesn't make that perfectly clear.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Thursday June 29 2017, @08:30PM (2 children)
The law if perfectly clear: the act of killing someone is murder. That describes the action. Then the penalties associated to how the action was performed: was it self-defense? Walk away free. Was is accidental? It is manslaughter. Was it intentional? Yes, then sub-clause, was it premeditated? The penalty you get depends on how the act was committed.
If you can’t understand such a simple and clear arrangement, you make my point that AI is far from being able to run the legal system.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 29 2017, @09:38PM (1 child)
No, it's not. Not even intentionally killing someone. You need more such as the mentioned mens rea or aggravating circumstances such as while committing a felony.
I'm not misunderstanding anything. Murder is more than just killing someone.
As to running the legal system, there's already several ways that humans are integral to the system, particularly a jury of peers. But the rest doesn't require humans. I don't feel the urge to automate the process since it works well enough and automated processes can be vastly less efficient in ways that human counterparts can't match.
(Score: 1) by jelizondo on Friday June 30 2017, @10:26PM
You are correct, the word I should have used is homicide, not murder.
I normally avoid technical terms (such as homicide) that might not be familiar to people in the group or have a subtle meaning, thus with lawyers I won’t bring up the Fresnel Zone and call it simply line of sight and with engineers or other technical people I would use murder instead of homicide.
Cheers
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @11:01AM (1 child)
Times change slowly bit by bit. There is always something we haven't tried yet. Let's keep on trying, even though there is always a push-back by those who got it good for themselves. No system is stable until the majority is content.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday June 29 2017, @04:25PM
And therein lie the cracks and stagnant pools of corruption that some of the most virulent evildoers in our society thrive in.
For instance, it's perfectly obvious that the "drug war" is, as to its asserted purpose, a resounding failure and source of harm to society that far outweighs its purported benefits. Yet getting rid of it is one of those very areas resistant to change; this is because there is a very large amount of money and power pendant upon the lies that form the foundation of the drug war. The slow change isn't a natural thing, one of simply moving towards the right thing as we learn what that is; it's a matter of overcoming resistance by those who use the existing faults to enable their parasitism upon the rest of us. What is right is obvious when the data is in front of you, and we already know what it is. That tells you the precise nature of the resistance to change: Evil.
Many other social issues are similar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @01:06AM (5 children)
One of the major reasons for high healthcare costs is "new treatments discovered by biomedical researchers".
Is the idea that the value is positive because people pay money for it? Is that the value? This is a defective way of looking at things. We find ourselves unable to say "NO" to an expensive treatment. This situation is somewhat like an addiction.
Given treatment that is mostly like it was in 1950, we'd save a huge amount of money. That money could go to other things. The medical researchers are thus effectively helping to steal resources -- of course we are willing victims, but such is the nature of addiction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @02:09AM
Yes, it's all their fault that people are willing to
paybe complicit in the theft of their hard-earned money.(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @04:03AM (3 children)
Not true. The main reason for the high cost of medical care is that there's a large number of people who don't have medical coverage who then get charity care. Or, after years of no routine preventative care they get a job with coverage and all those expenses that weren't being paid come back in triplicate.
There's also a huge amount of over-testing that goes on in order to cover the doctor's backside in case something was missed and a system where doctors and hospitals overbill for absolutely everything because there's little to no chance of being paid the right amount for all of it. Some health insurance companies will pay excessively for one part of the procedure and nothing for another. And in order to get the money they need and want, the people doing the billing will overcharge for basically everything knowing that the insurance company will only allow a fraction of the amount billed to be paid.
The correct solution to this is to pay for medical school and medicare for all singlepayer system where the government handles the accounting and payment for all medical care received in the country. It's what every other industrialized country does.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 29 2017, @01:05PM (2 children)
Every other "industrialized" country has medical costs that rise faster than their economy whether or not they run single payer systems. While the US is much worse than the rest, everyone has the same problems that will make the status quo, single payer or not, unsustainable in the long run.
My view is that individual pays is the only approach that makes sense in the long run.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @04:24PM (1 child)
A single payer system is essentially mandatory insurance.
Nobody chooses to be sick. So requiring the individual to pay won't really reduce the use of the system.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 30 2017, @12:33AM
The point of a health care system isn't to force people to pay to be sick.
The individual would make choices about what's important to them as opposed to a one-size-fits-all system that uses other peoples' money. If health care is really important to them, then they can spend more of their personal wealth on that. If it's not, then they can spend less.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 29 2017, @02:23AM
.
* Executives and shareholders in major industrial polluters
* Executives and shareholders that risk the ecosystem for the whole planet in search for a more profitable GMO (Monsanto etc)
* Ecosystem destroyers by farming Penaeus monodon, palm oil, overfishing, antibiotics in meat industry etc.
* Missmanagement of nuclear power stations (Soviet, TEPCO etc)
* Political process corruption by donations and kickbacks etc (lobbyists, PR etc)
* Driving up prices by cheap lending and subsequent collapse (collaborating banks)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday June 29 2017, @06:01AM (1 child)
Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments, chapter XLII
In this regard, several modern nation-states are in bad shape!
And:
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics IX:1
And, oh, nothing for me, thank you. After a certain point, compensation seems just, um, kind of dirty.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @11:38AM
Ill take your share then, since you dont want it.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @06:23AM
The profession "Holocaust Survivor(tm)" get paid for life without providing any value in return. What they do provide is false stories that were imagined.
An example is "Anne Frank diary", which was written by the jewess' father after the war to make money and to lay the foundation of the holocaust industry. The people who work in the holocaust industry get paid large sums for telling lies.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @10:54AM
Bankers- all they do is trapping people into dept and cause a financial crisis once in a while.
Lawyers - making sure the law is so complicated that nobody can defend themselves without hiring a lawyer. That alone should be enough to require lawyers to work for free until the legal system is fixed.
CEOs - running companies into the ground, then collecting their "golden parachute".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @11:02AM
How politically correct of you. bleh. you get paid what the market will bear, 'social value' has nothing to do with this.
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Thursday June 29 2017, @12:35PM (1 child)
The textbook definition of finance is connecting those with capital to those that need capital. So every dollar taken by the finance industry is one less available to those that will create companies/products/jobs etc.
They do work so they deserve some compensation. But the current finance industry is a bloated parasite sucking up way too much and giving back very little.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 29 2017, @12:47PM
You are completely ignoring the value of the connection. Why have grocery stores and restaurants? All they do is take money away from people who need food.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 29 2017, @12:43PM
For example, biomedical researchers' externalities are based on the public's alleged willingness to pay for better medical research, while financiers' externalities are based on fees for investing. If we were to make a proper comparison, we would either have to note the public's obvious willingness to pay financiers for their services - even when the services are well below market rate (which probably will make the financier have a strong "positive externality") or we would have to note other researcher costs like lab and administration overhead and the high percentage of irreproducible research that is generated (the combination may be enough to turn the latter into "negative externality" territory as well).
(Score: 2) by srobert on Thursday June 29 2017, @03:55PM (1 child)
I was more interested in which professions pay too little. Top of that list: school teachers?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 30 2017, @12:58AM