"The first nine comments here all failed to get at Mark’s question, which was about why political partisans were giving slack to “their guy” on an issue where they’d berated the opponent, while attacking “their guy” on what is almost indisputably a more minor issue."
...so "is it happening to someone else or is it happening to me" isn't an answer to that question?
...so if it costs a trillion dollars to lower the defect rate from 1000 DPM to 20 DPM, that's worth it because you're eliminating 980 DPM and 980 is a really big number?
Seriously, the first question I'd ask in response to your philosophy is "what's the per-saved-unit DPM-reduction cost?" Because if the cost wipes out the profit on the saved units then it's not worth doing.
First off: "That a rational actor working inside the system’s rules might prefer — and even be able to bring about — a weak economy should scare us, even if we don’t believe they’ll purposefully try and do it."
It's funny to see the Democrats get to the place the Republicans were in 2008--"Bad People are intentionally making the economy go in the crapper so that they can use economics as a stick to beat on Republican incumbents!" I only wonder why Klein didn't address this history. (Indeed, he claims that there's "some evidence that the economy performs better under unified government". Like that's *not* what we had from 2001-2006?)
******
MFarmer: I agree. This whole thing seems like a fancy, extra-wordy version of the ad hominem fallacy.
"There will never — precisely never — be another airplane takeover using box cutters. "
But is that because "takeover using box cutters" was a one-in-a-million random occurrence? Or is it because potential attackers know we won't let box cutters get on the plane? (Even though passengers know it's necessary to fight back now, I wouldn't want to depend on a bunch of retirees and children to take down a group of suicidal knife-wielding fanatics.)
Yes? I'm not saying that it's *not* an indefensible argument?
And yes, the FDA is entirely willing to cost something off the face of the earth rather than ban it outright.
But, y'know, I can't really blame them. Despite what I said up-thread about Scary Large Numbers, if a reduction in the overall defect rate is possible then it should probably be employed. The real lesson here is the one that everyone should learn from even the most cursory reading of statistical analysis--that you can't make a decision based on just one number. "It's a really big number so it's good" is just as wrong as "it's a really small number so it's bad".
See, the thing is, I'd still look at that and say that the limit of the defect rate with the current process is 1%. The question here is not "how do we make that zero", the question is "can our business work with a 1% defect rate?"
You're doing exactly what Hanley does but from a different direction. He says "the possible improvement is small, therefore we shouldn't spend resources improving it." You're saying "no, the possible improvement is LARGE, therefore we SHOULD spend resources improving it." You're both making arguments based on the same numbers; you're just disagreeing about which way to look at the numbers.
That said: having worked with the FDA and other government agencies, they'd consider a 99.92% to 99.99% improvement to be well worth the cost.
One thing to remember is that nobody's going around pretending that the threat to Israel is nonexistent or that Israel's level of response is an overreaction to a once-in-a-million accident.
I flew on September 16th, 2001, to go to my first job on the other side of the country. At the airport, both my checked luggage and my carry-ons were dismantled and thoroughly searched before I even got *near* a metal detector. Same happened to everyone traveling that day. And you know what? I didn't hear one complaint.
"If the second, two immediate questions arise: should we care… and, even if we do care, how effective a deterrent is the U.S., really? It certainly didn’t stop Iraq from invading Kuwait. "
Ho, ho, ho. April Glaspie *told* Saddam Hussein that the US wouldn't respond if Iraq invaded Kuwait.
Erotic Harry Potter fanfic is practically being published and sold right along the actual books.
Hell, fanfic in generally is pretty mainstream these days. There are thriving fanfic communities for the darndest things--and, despite the desperate claims of the fanfic writers, these communities are almost entirely female or hikikomori.
Most authors wink-and-a-nod "ignore" the fanfic, but some try to handle it, usually with ovary-expoding results. http://www.teleread.com/copy-right/novelist-diana-gabaldon-causes-fanfic-furor/
Considering that urostomy patients are told not to sleep on their sides or stomach to avoid dislodging the bag, I'd argue that the TSA checkpoint wasn't the first time the guy found himself "wet with urine".
And yes, it is sad, but it does leave me wondering why these patients are satisfied with a medical solution so shitty that a minor bump will dislodge it and spill urine everywhere.
"what do we get out of (successfully) trying KSM?"
Well, the intent was to set a legal precedent that detainees could be held as criminals without needing to use the "enemy combatants" dodge (or invent a "third class" as Kilgore suggests.)
I can't blame the TSA guy for following his training. If he lets those nail clippers on the plane and someone finds out, he's fired.
Try asking a McDonald's burger-microwaver to give you one "medium rare". This is exactly the same situation. It looks stupid because we aren't thinking like the government bureaucrats who wrote the TSA procedures.
“Alberto told me, ‘It’s imperative that you believe completely in what we’re going to do,’ ” he recalled, “ ‘because it will be completely different from anything you’ve been taught.’ ”
...which sounds like the definition of "placebo effect" to me.
PS there's an amusing Javascript on that page that automatically appends an article link any time you copy a full sentence from the article.
PS your statement that "the 9/11 hijackers didn't take their box cutters through the metal detectors" is not correct. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_77#Boarding
Both the Reid and the Farouk attacks failed well before anyone got involved. If either had used a proper igniter then we wouldn't even be *having* this conversation.
Many people have pointed out the Progressive fascination with Strong Central Authority that's Objectively Superior and therefore Morally Acceptable. Very few of them *say* that they'd be happy with a return to out-and-out monarchy, but I doubt they'd kick very hard if we got one.
Indeed, see all the crying about the Kennedy Dynasty, and how Massachusetts was "Kennedy's seat", and all that.
And I can certainly understand the attraction. Who wants to spend their time thinking about the nitpicky grinding gritty-details *business* of life? All that grunting and sweating? Much better to lock ourselves up in ivory towers and devote ourselves to pure thought. Ding! Time to poop! Okay, I pooped. Ding! Time for a meal! Oh goody, granola bars again. Hm, is it time for TV yet? Nope, we haven't heard a Ding yet.
"I can’t defend having a defense budget that is larger than the next, I think, ten countries combined?"
If we didn't have a defense budget of that size, then someone would seriously think they could beat us in a stand-up fight, and the result of *that* would be *much* more expensive than the defense budget we've got now.
Great. Are you going to also require that the FDA automatically approve any drug submitted to it? The price of drugs mostly goes into repaying the costs of the clinical trials.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Political Blind Spots, Ctd”
"The first nine comments here all failed to get at Mark’s question, which was about why political partisans were giving slack to “their guy” on an issue where they’d berated the opponent, while attacking “their guy” on what is almost indisputably a more minor issue."
...so "is it happening to someone else or is it happening to me" isn't an answer to that question?
On “Are Substantial Improvements in Air Passenger Security Readily Available?”
...so if it costs a trillion dollars to lower the defect rate from 1000 DPM to 20 DPM, that's worth it because you're eliminating 980 DPM and 980 is a really big number?
Seriously, the first question I'd ask in response to your philosophy is "what's the per-saved-unit DPM-reduction cost?" Because if the cost wipes out the profit on the saved units then it's not worth doing.
On “Political Blind Spots, Ctd”
Well, the easy answer is to ask "is it Bush doing it or Obama doing it, and is it happened to someone else or happening to me?"
On “Dealing With Political Blind Spots”
First off: "That a rational actor working inside the system’s rules might prefer — and even be able to bring about — a weak economy should scare us, even if we don’t believe they’ll purposefully try and do it."
It's funny to see the Democrats get to the place the Republicans were in 2008--"Bad People are intentionally making the economy go in the crapper so that they can use economics as a stick to beat on Republican incumbents!" I only wonder why Klein didn't address this history. (Indeed, he claims that there's "some evidence that the economy performs better under unified government". Like that's *not* what we had from 2001-2006?)
******
MFarmer: I agree. This whole thing seems like a fancy, extra-wordy version of the ad hominem fallacy.
On “Are Substantial Improvements in Air Passenger Security Readily Available?”
"There will never — precisely never — be another airplane takeover using box cutters. "
But is that because "takeover using box cutters" was a one-in-a-million random occurrence? Or is it because potential attackers know we won't let box cutters get on the plane? (Even though passengers know it's necessary to fight back now, I wouldn't want to depend on a bunch of retirees and children to take down a group of suicidal knife-wielding fanatics.)
"
Yes? I'm not saying that it's *not* an indefensible argument?
And yes, the FDA is entirely willing to cost something off the face of the earth rather than ban it outright.
But, y'know, I can't really blame them. Despite what I said up-thread about Scary Large Numbers, if a reduction in the overall defect rate is possible then it should probably be employed. The real lesson here is the one that everyone should learn from even the most cursory reading of statistical analysis--that you can't make a decision based on just one number. "It's a really big number so it's good" is just as wrong as "it's a really small number so it's bad".
"
The father took the boy's shirt off before anyone asked.
"
This is like saying that because nobody has smallpox or polio anymore, we shouldn't bother with smallpox or polio vaccinations.
"
See, the thing is, I'd still look at that and say that the limit of the defect rate with the current process is 1%. The question here is not "how do we make that zero", the question is "can our business work with a 1% defect rate?"
You're doing exactly what Hanley does but from a different direction. He says "the possible improvement is small, therefore we shouldn't spend resources improving it." You're saying "no, the possible improvement is LARGE, therefore we SHOULD spend resources improving it." You're both making arguments based on the same numbers; you're just disagreeing about which way to look at the numbers.
That said: having worked with the FDA and other government agencies, they'd consider a 99.92% to 99.99% improvement to be well worth the cost.
On “Profiling, Political Correctness, and Airport Security”
"The US isn’t going broke...[t]o us scanners are a few extra dollars on an airline ticket."
Exactly. "Oh, we've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on these scanners!" Yeah? How many hundreds of BILLIONS did the stock market lose on 9/11?
Complaining about the cost of security is like complaining about the cost of polio vaccinations.
"
One thing to remember is that nobody's going around pretending that the threat to Israel is nonexistent or that Israel's level of response is an overreaction to a once-in-a-million accident.
I flew on September 16th, 2001, to go to my first job on the other side of the country. At the airport, both my checked luggage and my carry-ons were dismantled and thoroughly searched before I even got *near* a metal detector. Same happened to everyone traveling that day. And you know what? I didn't hear one complaint.
On “So What Should Be Done?”
You say that as though there weren't a massive US military presence in Western Europe from 1950 to 1990.
"
"If the second, two immediate questions arise: should we care… and, even if we do care, how effective a deterrent is the U.S., really? It certainly didn’t stop Iraq from invading Kuwait. "
Ho, ho, ho. April Glaspie *told* Saddam Hussein that the US wouldn't respond if Iraq invaded Kuwait.
On “Jack London, the socialist Ayn Rand”
Erotic Harry Potter fanfic is practically being published and sold right along the actual books.
Hell, fanfic in generally is pretty mainstream these days. There are thriving fanfic communities for the darndest things--and, despite the desperate claims of the fanfic writers, these communities are almost entirely female or hikikomori.
Most authors wink-and-a-nod "ignore" the fanfic, but some try to handle it, usually with ovary-expoding results. http://www.teleread.com/copy-right/novelist-diana-gabaldon-causes-fanfic-furor/
On “TSA Stays Abreast of the Problem”
Considering that urostomy patients are told not to sleep on their sides or stomach to avoid dislodging the bag, I'd argue that the TSA checkpoint wasn't the first time the guy found himself "wet with urine".
And yes, it is sad, but it does leave me wondering why these patients are satisfied with a medical solution so shitty that a minor bump will dislodge it and spill urine everywhere.
On “The Remnant”
I think what's funniest about this whole TSA thing is that freaking out about human nudity is now the progressive enlightened viewpoint!
On “Moderating Extremists”
Or Jon Stewart.
On “The Real Miscarriage of Justice”
"what do we get out of (successfully) trying KSM?"
Well, the intent was to set a legal precedent that detainees could be held as criminals without needing to use the "enemy combatants" dodge (or invent a "third class" as Kilgore suggests.)
On “The crazy misadventures of the TSA”
I can't blame the TSA guy for following his training. If he lets those nail clippers on the plane and someone finds out, he's fired.
Try asking a McDonald's burger-microwaver to give you one "medium rare". This is exactly the same situation. It looks stupid because we aren't thinking like the government bureaucrats who wrote the TSA procedures.
On ““The Perfect Stride””
“Alberto told me, ‘It’s imperative that you believe completely in what we’re going to do,’ ” he recalled, “ ‘because it will be completely different from anything you’ve been taught.’ ”
...which sounds like the definition of "placebo effect" to me.
PS there's an amusing Javascript on that page that automatically appends an article link any time you copy a full sentence from the article.
On “Why are Republicans Soft on Terror?”
PS your statement that "the 9/11 hijackers didn't take their box cutters through the metal detectors" is not correct. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_77#Boarding
"
Both the Reid and the Farouk attacks failed well before anyone got involved. If either had used a proper igniter then we wouldn't even be *having* this conversation.
On “The Moral Equivalent of Monarchy”
Many people have pointed out the Progressive fascination with Strong Central Authority that's Objectively Superior and therefore Morally Acceptable. Very few of them *say* that they'd be happy with a return to out-and-out monarchy, but I doubt they'd kick very hard if we got one.
Indeed, see all the crying about the Kennedy Dynasty, and how Massachusetts was "Kennedy's seat", and all that.
And I can certainly understand the attraction. Who wants to spend their time thinking about the nitpicky grinding gritty-details *business* of life? All that grunting and sweating? Much better to lock ourselves up in ivory towers and devote ourselves to pure thought. Ding! Time to poop! Okay, I pooped. Ding! Time for a meal! Oh goody, granola bars again. Hm, is it time for TV yet? Nope, we haven't heard a Ding yet.
On “So What Should Be Done?”
"I can’t defend having a defense budget that is larger than the next, I think, ten countries combined?"
If we didn't have a defense budget of that size, then someone would seriously think they could beat us in a stand-up fight, and the result of *that* would be *much* more expensive than the defense budget we've got now.
"
Great. Are you going to also require that the FDA automatically approve any drug submitted to it? The price of drugs mostly goes into repaying the costs of the clinical trials.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.