The Human Thirst for Knowledge - Blessing or Curse?

[Dotini]

Are unusual diseases afflicting the British people?
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...illnessescuriouser-and-curiouser-2084669.html

 

[Famine]

Are unusual diseases afflicting the British people?

Yes.

In unusual cases.

I'm sure these unusual diseases also afflict people of other nationalities in unusual cases too. In fact:

she has fared better than the Norwegian woman who was the first recorded victim of the syndrome

[...]

those who claim affliction – and there are several thousand in the US

[...]

This is a relatively common condition and a potentially dangerous one, as it can induce panic in drivers, which can be quite a hazard in bridge-dense places such as New York. So much so that the authorities are available to guide drivers over the Tappan Zee Bridge, and in San Francisco they are well used to dispatching tow trucks to panic-stricken drivers.

 

[Dotini]

Man drives Segway off cliff:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/segway-owner-dies-falling-river-cliff/

A wealthy British executive who owns the Segway company.

I don't know if this should be posted under "Fail" or something else, but here it is.

 

[Dotini]

Cancer is man-made, say leading British scientists.

"Cancer is a man-made disease fuelled by the excesses of modern life, a study of ancient remains has found.

Tumours were rare until recent times when pollution and poor diet became issues, the review of mummies, fossils and classical literature found.

A greater understanding of its origins could lead to treatments for the disease, which claims more than 150,000 lives a year in the UK.

'The virtual absence of malignancies in mummies must be interpreted as indicating their rarity in antiquity, indicating that cancer-causing factors are limited to societies affected by modern industrialisation.'"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...s-finding-trace-disease-Egyptian-mummies.html

Assuming these Scotsmen are serious and haven't been too deep into their whiskey and haggis, how are we to evaluate this kind of information? It would be easy to say "Three cheers for cancer! It's worth it because of all the fun and security we derive from industrialization". And of course the techno-genie can never be put back into the bottle. Perhaps the best plan is to ignore what we don't want to hear and marginalize those who express doubts about the wholesome benefits of modernity? The findings of these scientists just goes to show that there is too much money spent on medical research, and steep further cuts must be in order. After all, to find the cause (and cure) of cancer would be an affront to our health care industry, after munitions probably the healthiest of our remaining profitable industries.

Hopelessly old-fashioned,
Dotini

 

[Famine]

Tumours were rare until recent times when there were more people, making them more common, and they starting living past 35.

Inherited cancer kills you young - no mummies and fossils to examine. Non-inherited cancer kills you old - no-one lived long enough to suffer from it.

 

[Dotini]

Inherited cancer kills you young - no mummies and fossils to examine. Non-inherited cancer kills you old - no-one lived long enough to suffer from it.

All is well, then. Good to know! Silly those Scots. Proceed with the budget cuts, theirs first.

 

[Touring Mars]

Assuming these Scotsmen are serious

Scotsmen? Manchester is in England... 💡

Here's an article about some of the problems with this recent finding:

http://www.newscientist.com/article...ern-world.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

 

[Dotini]

From the article cited by TM:

"Their big fear is that by blaming industrialisation generally for cancer, it will make people feel helpless about the situation, and divert attention from the many changes they can make to their behaviour to reduce their risk, such as quitting smoking, exercising more, drinking less and eating more healthily."

I never feel helpless! I make loud noises and stinking smoke by driving my go-kart as fast as possible.

 

[Famine]

I'm missing your point here, Dotini. To which mast are you nailing your colours - the "Scotsmen" or the Scotsman?

 

[Dotini]

A thousand pardons!
I've been drinking and smoking all morning and my geography, never terribly sound, is off by a few miles.

I'm now reasoning that cancer is a sure sign of freedom and success!! Three cheers for cancer!

 

[Touring Mars]

Atleast I've learned something today, which is that Manchester University has a "Centre for Biomedical Egyptology"

 

[Dotini]

You lads have WAY too much money being spent on BS.

 

[Famine]

I'm now reasoning that cancer is a sure sign of freedom and success!! Three cheers for cancer!

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrright.

You do seem to have a talent for third-way thinking.

 

[Dotini]

You do seem to have a talent for third-way thinking.

My blushes.

 

[Joel]

 

[niky]

Inherited cancer kills you young - no mummies and fossils to examine. Non-inherited cancer kills you old - no-one lived long enough to suffer from it.

I don't imagine they had many 80 year olds suffering from prostate cancer back in the days when you were lucky to make it to 50.

 

[Dotini]

I don't imagine they had many 80 year olds suffering from prostate cancer back in the days when you were lucky to make it to 50.

With such intuitive wisdom such as this freely available, there is obviously no place for Manchester University and its Centre for Biomedical Egyptology. Liquidate and privatize these useless academic parasites, and send their funding into research on better condoms, more attack helicopters and nuclear fusion!

 

[Famine]

There's certainly little place for people who'd claim there are no environmental, natural causes for cancer and it's all man-made.

I wonder how many species they looked at in antiquity. Humans aren't the only animal to suffer cancer.

 

[Dotini]

There's certainly little place for people who'd claim there are no environmental, natural causes for cancer and it's all man-made.

I wonder how many species they looked at in antiquity. Humans aren't the only animal to suffer cancer.

For some inexplicable reason, the ancient Egyptians mummified millions of birds. Do birds get cancer? Some say bird-precursing dinosaurs did, but these perfect beasts give up secrets reluctantly.

Nuclear radiation (natural and man-made), which is known to mutate cells, ought to be a top candidate for causing cancer.

 

[Famine]

The Sun particularly so.

If it has actively dividing cells, it can get cancer. So yes, birds can get cancer. Anyone with pet dogs and cats - especially since we're now pushing the limits of their life expectancies - will know that they can get cancer too.

 

[Dotini]

Everyone has heard of psychosomatic illness and hypochondria. Perhaps people become bad or ill by thinking bad or ill thoughts?

 

[Famine]

My doctor once told me I had hypochondria.

I was really pleased - I'd been telling people I was ill for years.

 

[niky]

With such intuitive wisdom such as this freely available, there is obviously no place for Manchester University and its Centre for Biomedical Egyptology. Liquidate and privatize these useless academic parasites, and send their funding into research on better condoms, more attack helicopters and nuclear fusion!

The findings are akin to looking at a cross-section of centenarians and declaring that regular imbibing of known carcinogens is a sure method of ensuring longevity.

It's taking one fact and then taking a separate fact not normally related to the first fact and putting them together with a total disregard for the factors in-between that are normally related to the first fact. Almost as bad as the news articles proclaiming that a study had linked soda to heart disease... while ignoring the fact that the soda drinkers in the study ate red meat regularly, while the juice drinkers did not.

If that's the quality of research coming out of that particular group, then perhaps they shouldn't stay out in the sun so long.

 

[Dotini]

The wise will take note of this one:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130704695

While we Americans and Euros indolently fritter away our patrimony, the Chinese now have us all firmly by the nads. We (you) did it to ourselves with outsourcing, and there's nothing we can do to fix it anytime soon.

We are technologically helpless without rare earth minerals, and everybody in the world now knows it. We can make frivolous excursions over French pension riots, the British budget implosion and Americans once again coming to Jesus on gun rights and business deregulation. But now the chickens have come home to roost on our many failures to think straight.

Sincerely yours,
Dotini

 

[Danoff]

Their monopoly on cheap labor will be undercut by their trade games - this will once again make it economically viable to purchase from other nations. This is not a real problem. This is a temporary fluctuation in a market that can and will compensate if need be. China's hand here is much weaker than, say, a middle eastern nation with large oil reserves.

Again, it's not a problem. We should continue to take advantage of their cheap labor for as long as they're willing to offer it. Outsourcing is done for economic efficiency.

 

[Dotini]

Their monopoly on cheap labor will be undercut by their trade games - this will once again make it economically viable to purchase from other nations. This is not a real problem. This is a temporary fluctuation in a market that can and will compensate if need be. China's hand here is much weaker than, say, a middle eastern nation with large oil reserves.

Again, it's not a problem. We should continue to take advantage of their cheap labor for as long as they're willing to offer it. Outsourcing is done for economic efficiency.

Your blind faith in markets is touching, Dan. You are probably the most zealous true believer in the supernatural power of efficiency to provide security that I have ever seen or heard. This "nation" of ours no longer has the capacity to manufacture high efficiency magnets. Hello? Magnets which are crucial to your computer hard drive, and other motors and generators such as are found in other commercial and military transportation, surveillance and weapons systems. You are too trusting of foreigners to obey your quirky personal rules of market efficiency. You, and all the other naive trusters in ideology to solve practical problems are heading into a Brave New World of dependence and slavery. Pity the fool who follows you into error and disaster. You think that your enemy must trade with you. But when he has his knife at your throat and his hand in your pocket, you are his slave.

 

[FoolKiller]

This "nation" of ours no longer has the capacity to manufacture high efficiency magnets. Hello? Magnets which are crucial to your computer hard drive, and other motors and generators such as are found in other commercial and military transportation, surveillance and weapons systems. You are too trusting of foreigners to obey your quirky personal rules of market efficiency. You, and all the other naive trusters in ideology to solve practical problems are heading into a Brave New World of dependence and slavery. Pity the fool who follows you into error and disaster. You think that your enemy must trade with you. But when he has his knife at your throat and his hand in your pocket, you are his slave.

Exaggerate much?

Though not truly rare [they are actually found all over the world and in relative abundance], these minerals are mined almost exclusively in China. Their extraction is difficult and dangerous, and other countries have generally left the business to China, which currently provides more than 95 percent of the world's supply.

I'm not sure how a knife to our throat metaphor works here. We have other options that we (meaning everyone else in the world) can take as soon as China becomes too much of a pain to mess with. They don't have 95% of the world's rare earth stuff, they just produce it. Anyone else that could do it for a similar price could screw over their plans. Then it will be China who is screwed.

I repeat, they are not messing with people on a resource that can't be gotten elsewhere.

But what if they screw us suddenly? How much different is that than when an earthquake knocks out computer manufacturing plants for as much as weeks? All those plants are in geologically unstable areas and some places (like Taiwan)have gone without power for extended periods of time. The ultimate effect was that computer prices spiked until things returned to normal.

So, what happens if China suddenly screws us? Devices that rely on rare earth materials will see a price increase until the mining operations can be setup elsewhere. Any other goods they export as well will see similar temporary disturbances.

The markets won't shut down because China is trying to flex its muscles. China doesn't have the power to do that. Or can you think of something China does that no one else can do?

 

[Danoff]

You think that your enemy must trade with you.

Nope.

We should continue to take advantage of their cheap labor for as long as they're willing to offer it.

This is not a resource monopoly. It's a cheap labor monopoly, and only by a small margin at that. If the government makes their labor less cheap, others will become economically viable. I'll repeat, this is a non-issue. China has the power to cause a temporary price fluctuation at best (I might add that such a move will cost them both in the short and long term).

 

[niky]

This is not a resource monopoly. It's a cheap labor monopoly, and only by a small margin at that. If the government makes their labor less cheap, others will become economically viable. I'll repeat, this is a non-issue. China has the power to cause a temporary price fluctuation at best (I might add that such a move will cost them both in the short and long term).

It doesn't even have to be the government. As China gets richer and more prosperous, they'll have to pay miners more money to keep them from emigrating to urban areas to get better jobs.

As China's standard of living goes up, and their capital goes up due to the amount of investment poured into the country... they'll be the ones who start outsourcing labor to the next lowest bidder.

 

[Joel]

Your blind faith in markets is touching, Dan. You are probably the most zealous true believer in the supernatural power of efficiency to provide security that I have ever seen or heard. This "nation" of ours no longer has the capacity to manufacture high efficiency magnets. Hello? Magnets which are crucial to your computer hard drive, and other motors and generators such as are found in other commercial and military transportation, surveillance and weapons systems. You are too trusting of foreigners to obey your quirky personal rules of market efficiency. You, and all the other naive trusters in ideology to solve practical problems are heading into a Brave New World of dependence and slavery. Pity the fool who follows you into error and disaster. You think that your enemy must trade with you. But when he has his knife at your throat and his hand in your pocket, you are his slave.

If China stops making cheap computer parts, we'll just get somebody else to do it... (possibly ourselves).