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• Can one at least consider past failures and unintended consequences before advocating yet again for a policy with that terrible track record?
• Does it actually work in the first place or does it make the problems you're trying to fix worse?
• Is the loss of freedom and the harm caused to others justified by the results (even when it does work)?
• Are you even trying for an improvement or just trying to punish parties you don't like?
• Would you be for this policy, if it were in control of your worst enemies?
• How hard is it to evade, undermine, or otherwise corrupt this policy?

I find it amazing how people cab advocate for the same policies over and over again, even they have been shown to be utter failures or easily circumvented by the parties that are supposed to be affected. I guess it's not your hand which gets burned when the stove is touched collectively.

I used to use a trial of radiantviewer to try to read my wife CT scan, at her request, before we received the official report from the radiologist. This time I tried 3dslicer, I had to invest a day before obtaining a satisfactory 3d model, for comparison it was a click in Randiantviewer. But damm that was worth it, I was able to make the body translucent and highlight and colorize the radio active tracer. I was also able to make a 3d model that shows the port-a-cath and were it is routed to the heart trough the translucent skeleton.

The last 3 scan, I viewed and noted the same things as the radiologist. I hope I did not miss anything this time and that he reach the same conclusion as I had: no suspicious metabolitic activity detected.

1. https://www.radiantviewer.com/
2. https://www.slicer.org/

Okay, yeah, bla bla bla bla...

But why does everybody's report link to the paywalled Rupert Murdoch Rag? I thought single sources were supposed to be a bad thing.

This is a fairly simple concept. Economies, of any sort, thrive on the flow of goods and services, for which money is an abstraction. Money (currency) may be thought of as something like electrical current or water; it does useful work only when it's moving ("velocity of money"), because it's a proxy for the movements of goods, resources, and services.

Capitalism has the potential, realized repeatedly, to produce staggering amounts of goods and services, and to keep the flow of same in motion. However, the profit motive is a concentrating tendency. In particular, it tends to accumulate both money and the goods/services/resources represented by money in fewer and fewer hands over time, and this effect is a positive feedback loop, i.e., the longer it goes on the more it potentiates and reinforces and accelerates itself.

The problem here is that this accumulation stagnates the economy. When money and the things it abstracts away stop circulating, useful work is not done. The knock of effects are economic malaise, increase in rent-seeking behaviors, and widening disparities between the rich and poor (which, again, are self-catalyzing). Bluntly, a consumer economy grinds to a halt when people can't buy stuff.

When this reaches its logical conclusion, we find the vast majority of resources, goods, money, land, and political power in the hands of a wealthy few, with the huge mass of the people as impoverished slave laborers or serfs. In a word: *feudalism.* Without proper regulations to make sure wealth keeps circulating, then, capitalism will inevitably degenerate into feudalism. Which is, ironically, the very state it was created to oppose ideologically! The reason this happens is because the drives behind both systems are the same: greed.

This seems to be an inevitable consequence of unrestrained human nature. I am told a slur against progressives is that they believe humans and human nature are perfectible; this is not something I have actually heard from any of them, so it's probably another stupid slur and can be safely disregarded. That said, if we don't make some serious changes to how we think about economic activity and the reasons for engaging in it, we're going to end up in a dystopian nightmare. Some could argue we already have, and others might say we never left it.

The report this week that the US extracted a top spy from Russia in 2017 after President Donald Trump revealed classified information to two Russian officials landed with a bang in the national security apparatus.

On the one hand, the news wasn't surprising. The president has a long record of disavowing the intel community's findings, distorting its conclusions to suit his narrative, and publicly siding with hostile foreign powers over the US.

On the other hand, the stark implications of this development, first reported by CNN — that a US spy was extracted in part because the president could not be trusted to protect the person's identity — floored intelligence veterans because it confirmed some of the worst fears about Trump.

'You actually have to give a s--- about your spies': Intel veterans are floored by report that an asset was extracted from Russia in part because of Trump

It's no secret that Donald Trump is beholden to the copyright special interests.

The United States has been accused of demanding “enormous, even hundreds” of changes to Chinese laws to protect intellectual property, according to a Chinese government adviser, who said it was a key factor in the collapse of the trade talks.

It seems Trump wants to prevent a non-U.S. model of copyrights, patents, etc. from being successful. The Chinese are showing how terrible our current model is, and soon will surpass our technological capability. Instead of emulating them and reforming our IP laws, the IP lobby wants to exterminate this threat to Status-Quo Big Business Profits by eliminating it in China, so the Americans here don't wake up and realize just how ineffective and counterproductive our IP system actually is.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3014057/us-accused-undermining-trade-talks-demanding-hundreds-changes

Four states are poised to cancel their 2020 GOP presidential primaries and caucuses, a move that would cut off oxygen to Donald Trump’s long-shot primary challengers.

Republican parties in South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Kansas are expected to finalize the cancellations in meetings this weekend, according to three GOP officials who are familiar with the plans.

The moves are the latest illustration of Trump’s takeover of the entire Republican Party apparatus. They underscore the extent to which his allies are determined to snuff out any potential nuisance en route to his renomination — or even to deny Republican critics a platform to embarrass him.

Republicans to scrap primaries and caucuses as Trump challengers cry foul

Look up yesterday's shit... It is funny/tragic.

I can only ask why 95% of the people keep voting for it. That's the real insanity/tragedy. The psychosis is real. Just take a drive down the Strip

And now, to welcome the torrent of denial...

New research from Belgium provides evidence that deficits in emotion understanding and emotion management are related to right-wing and prejudiced attitudes.

The researchers found that individuals with weaker emotional abilities -- particularly emotional understanding and management -- tended to score higher on a measure of right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation.

Right-wing authoritarianism is a personality trait that describes the tendency to submit to political authority and be hostile towards other groups, while social dominance orientation is a measure of a person's preference for inequality among social groups.

"The results of this study were univocal. People who endorse authority and strong leaders and who do not mind inequality -- the two basic dimensions underlying right-wing political ideology -- show lower levels of emotional abilities..."

Those with lower emotional and cognitive abilities were also more likely to agree with blatantly prejudiced statements such as "The White race is superior to all other races."

"Of course, caution should be exercised in the interpretation of such results... One cannot discredit any ideology on the basis of such results as those presently obtained. Only in a distant future we will be able to look back upon our times, and then we can maybe judge which ideologies were the best. Cognitively and emotionally smart people can make wrong decisions as well."

Well, yeah, you do have to be a bit of a sociopath to think like a "right winger". Empathy is an anathema. Besides, emotion is a woman's thing, right? But which direction will evolution take us?

I think I may just have earned my RYA Dinghy Sailing Level 2 badge. Can I call myself Captain now?

Update: I have in my hand a piece of paper.