Asymmetrical Information

Jennifer Galt...? You know, the evil twin sister?

7) An account of my robbery (pending authorisation by the nice polices)

Wow, I'd have never guessed. Who'd you stick up? Did you use a knife or a gun?

;)

I'd be particularly interesting in your commentary on Paygo. I have to admit I did not follow your comment a couple of threads back.

I think I get the gist that it is possible to manipulate such a system through overly rosy forecasts. My sense though is that it would represent a significant improvement over the current system and did function fairly well under a variety of environments in the 1990s.

Tom

What would y'all like to see me blog about?

The many reasons and issues _why_ we (as a culture) aren't doing more in space.

Not technical stuff - lord knows the reasons and why of rockets vs. space planes vs. space elevators are done to death elsewhere.

I am fascinated instead by the cultural and economic reasons why we don't have passenger service to Mars and O'Neil habitats. I'm convinced for no good reason that the reason we don't have those things is not technical but political and cultural.

Well you asked.

Brian
Think of it as a conspiracy by those evil realators to keep housing prices high. Do you really think fifty year old Palo Alto cottages on 1/8 acre lots would go for 500,000 dollars if we had space habitats with whatever weather your little heart desired? No mosquitos, no ticks, no taxes...
Consider the National Road, the Erie Canal, and the Transcontinental Railroad in the US, and how long we had to wait for those to be built.

I'd like 1), 4), 5), and 6) with a side of 7). Mainly 4) though. I can't get enough of that topic.

Consider the National Road, the Erie Canal, and the Transcontinental Railroad in the US, and how long we had to wait for those to be built.

Bah.

We've known _how_ to build habitats and fly to the moon and beyond since Armstrong proved it could be done in 1969. I'm interested in 'why' we haven't been back and why we have not gone further since.

Knowing 'why' will give us a clue of 'how' and 'what comes next'.

I'd like to see your analysis of the value of a white/black name as a signalling mechanism. There's an interesting article up at Slate.

http://www.slate.com/id/2116449/#sb2116453

Actually, low class versus middle class is more likely to be the cause/problem. As some blogger pointed out several months ago, Jim Bob and Bill Jack are likely to have the same or similar problems as people with recognizably "black" names.

That's part of what the researchers conclude - that a "very black" name signals an antisuccessful black subculture. Of course, it was interesting that ~30% of the black names were unique in terms of spelling...

How about where libertarians can find common ground with the new Democratic Congress (legit stuff, not the pie in the sky crap that keeps circulating)

"I am fascinated instead by the cultural and economic reasons why we don't have passenger service to Mars and O'Neil habitats."

For the same reason there isn't a housing complex at the South Pole, or a baseball stadium in a bubble at the bottom of the Marianna Trench, or an elevator that runs up the center of Mt. Everest. The places I mentioned are much more hospitable than outer space, and any of these projects would probably be a lot cheaper than colonizing Mars. However, they are equally pointless, unless the idea is simply to do something cool.

How about the war in Iraq?

I've long wondered what happened to your previously promised Tour de Force on the Federal Reserve.

And, Brian, you are correct, engineering is seldom the reason why things are not as they could otherwise be. It is 'Political'.

I would love to hear your thoughts on how we as a society/government should deal with drug abuse.

I freely admit that the current "war" on drugs is a farce. It is a waste of resources, time, people and generally an abuse of police power. I just haven't seen anything better.

So, when I am king for a day, I will legalize or decriminalize drug use~ whichever you prefer.

Now, explain to me what you'd like to see done and how it would be an improvement over the current mess.

Oh, please, don't forget the kitchen post. I'll graduate next year and will move to my own apartment. Not having cooked much in college, I need your help with kitchen stuff shopping.

Thse are good, but I've got internet access in Asia for the first time since the quake (OK, four days, but that's, like, forever), and I don't see anything so far about it.

And by "internet access", I mean access to non-Chinese sites. Did you know the Chinese government released a white paper last week? They're for goodneighborliness.

We're almost up to 3000 American soldiers killed in Iraq, you know. Those dead-enders sure do know how to stretch out those last throes, don't they?

I would pay "good money" (on the order $5-20) for the kitchen post. Why? Because I have been outfitting ours and I need a baseline for comparison. Keep in mind my kitchen is probably the size of your apartment in New York so you might want to include that in your post - outfitted post graduate, medium sized kitchen, and larger sized kitchens. Anywho - post the kitchen and some small money is headed your way. In fact Megan you could use this as a fund generator and see which article gets the most cash!

BSD

You haven't mentioned the robbery before, have you?

"I would pay "good money"...for the kitchen post."
--BSD

That simple act of truth telling only reinforces my thought that JG's comp. adv. is truly in "the kitchen".

Is it a conflict of interest for police stations to collect the money received from fines?

Given that a recent study showed a very common viral infection (CMV) to correlated, in some cases, with cognitive decline, pubmed link pubmed link and in light of the recent HSV and HPV vaccines, would the bulk of the efforts to cure or treat rare illnesses like HIV be better applied to researching more common chronic illnesses?

Discuss some of the big changes that loom.

I have in mind the coming (or not) Singularity - the moment when exponential progress in biotechnology, robotics, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology (or maybe something else) will collectively transform our existence beyond recognition in just the next few decades.

In particular, how such enormous technological changes mesh with global warming and cultural change, particularly the rise of "charismatic" religion (Christian and Islamic) in parallel with the contradictory collapse of the traditional family structure.

Perhaps this could follow and complement your (presumably technical) assessment of the long-term thinking in the Stern report.

I'm not afraid of the dark, but I am quite concerned about how these large and contradictory forces will play out. I'm hoping an economist's perspective will offer a better way to think about them.

"I am fascinated instead by the cultural and economic reasons why we don't have passenger service to Mars and O'Neil habitats."

"For the same reason there isn't a housing complex at the South Pole, or a baseball stadium in a bubble at the bottom of the Marianna Trench, or an elevator that runs up the center of Mt. Everest. The places I mentioned are much more hospitable than outer space, and any of these projects would probably be a lot cheaper than colonizing Mars. However, they are equally pointless, unless the idea is simply to do something cool."

I've thought about your reply, Rob. I'm not sure it is as simple as that.

I was being glib and reaching for the more fantastic goals in that area. Scale it down then - why don't we have tourism to orbit, more competitors in the space launch industry?

Replying directly to your comment - it's hazardous to apply terrestrial analogies to space; space is different. Any attempt to apply terrestrial analogs to that environment will fail.

We don't have houses in the Antarctic because they're forbade by UN treaty. No one has built an elevator to the top of Everest because there isn't a demand for such. I have no idea why people have not built a baseball stadium in the Marianas Trench - lack of demand and cost?

But there are resources 'out there' and they might be worth going to get; 90% of the resources in the solar system ain't here - they're outside our atmosphere.

It's too expensive to get them today. This need not always be so.

Discussing basic kitchen exercises would be a very useful thing for a lot of people. If the recession I am expecting arrives in 2007, a lot of people are going to start cutting back on expenses, and paying people to cook for you is one easy way to do that, if you don't just turn around and start buying stacks of frozen dinners. I still remember the day I was making a couple of sandwiches for lunch at work & bothered to calculate the price of my lunchmeat in dollars per pound. It was more expensive than sirloin steak, but sure wasn't as good to eat.

A basic kitchen setup ought to be something every person starts learning to use from the age of 10 on, as part of becoming an apprentice adult.

The committment is _not_ credible. If JG deviate we are allowed to nag her - that is, appeal to her own conscience. Talk about bad accountability methods...

JG has to put some money on the table!

Sex and the single girl.

The Shiites who predominated at the hanging began a refrain at one point of “Moktada! Moktada! Moktada!”— the name of a volatile cleric whose private militia has spawned death squads that have made an indiscriminate industry of killing Sunnis — appending it to a Muslim imprecation for blessings on the Prophet Muhammad

Awesome how well Jane's pet war is turning out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/world/middleeast/01iraq.html?hp&ex=1167714000&en=85dae91ed8178e3a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

I'm not sure it is as simple as that.

I was being glib and reaching for the more fantastic goals in that area.

It's not as simple as economics? Most things are. I was being glib with my examples, too. The things I mentioned are all equally absurd, from a cost/benefit perspective, as the "fantastic" goals of sending tourists to Mars, or building habitations in a rotating space-ring.

We don't have houses in the Antarctic because they're forbade by UN treaty. No one has built an elevator to the top of Everest because there isn't a demand for such. I have no idea why people have not built a baseball stadium in the Marianas Trench - lack of demand and cost?

Fine, international law forbids settlement of Antarctica. That's beside the point. I could have said 'Franz Josef Land', or some other extreme northern or southern place. Why is Franz Josef Land not a better place to build a town than in some rotating structure in space? It's certainly much easier to get to. Too cold? You could build a giant heated dome. It would be a lot cheaper than building an "O'Neill Habitat" or anything else you've encountered in science fiction novels, that's for sure. Yeah, I suppose a hundred people could get together and pony up a few hundred million dollars apiece to build and launch some giant space habitat. They could have a little town full of houses, and air to breath, and transportation back to earth. If it's large enough, I suppose they could even have farms and be entirely self-sufficient. But what exactly would they have that I don't already have here in Connecticut, for minute fraction of the price? What is the impetus to spend a fortune to live in space, aside from the fact that it's a neat thing to do?

No demand for the things I mentioned? Sure there is. A lot of people would pay something to ride an elevator up Everest, or visit the sports stadium (or shopping mall or whatever) in the underwater bubble, or stay at a hotel in a space habitat. Those are all neat projects. The problem is, not enough people would be willing to pay enough to cover even a fraction of the enormous costs associated with building and operating such things.

Scale it down then - why don't we have tourism to orbit

That's quite a scale-down from your initial questions. This, at least, is coming soon. You're aware of Richard Branson's plans, I'm sure?

Will the idea take off? Will many competitors spring up, will prices drop, and will these services attract a sustainable client base of thrill-seekers willing to spend x thousands of dollars a pop to spend a few hours floating in zero-g and looking down at the earth from the rather mundane distance of 60-70 miles?

I suppose it's possible. But keep in mind that the Concorde failed, and high-speed air service between viable destinations like New York and London strikes me as a much more useful service than shooting people into the thermosphere for amusement.

more competitors in the space launch industry

Why aren't there commercial entities competing with government space agencies to carry payloads (which I guess just means communication satellites) into space? I don't know. Regulatory barriers? High cost of entry? Inability to compete with taxpayer-subsidized space agencies? Those are my guesses.

But there are resources 'out there' and they might be worth going to get; 90% of the resources in the solar system ain't here - they're outside our atmosphere.

It's too expensive to get them today. This need not always be so.

Back to far-flung fancies. As far as this one goes, you answered your own question - it's too expensive. Resources are only worth so much. If there were a two-ton brick of solid gold just sitting on the surface of Mars waiting to be picked up, it would not be cost effective to go and retrieve it. It's not even in the same order of magnitude. A slice of pizza has value, so why don't I hop a plane to Miami to get one? What makes you certain that it won't always be too expensive to mine other planets? What specific advances are you envisioning? Anyway, you answered your own question as to why nobody is doing this.

I am fascinated instead by the cultural and economic reasons why we don't have passenger service to Mars and O'Neil habitats. I'm convinced for no good reason that the reason we don't have those things is not technical but political and cultural.

Well, that's what I blog about...

A post of the economic illiteracy of the World Trade Center owners claim that they need the insurance company proceeds to rebuild the WTC.

You promised.

Prior emails will be resent if needed.

As a new year resolution I will be helpful today.

The reason the baseball stadium hasn't been built in the Marianas Trench is that there are no taxpayers there to fund it.

Baseball stadiums are almost never paid for by the teams that benefit from them.

The other questions are tougher. But those who point out space is different are correct. With the exception of satellites for communication and for observing the Earth and universe very little has come from the billions we have spent.

Does that make space a bad investment? Certainly not. It does suggest that we think carefully about why we keep launching people into space and retrieving them after a while. That has been done with little change for thirty years.

The reason the baseball stadium hasn't been built in the Marianas Trench is that there are no taxpayers there to fund it.

Baseball stadiums are almost never paid for by the teams that benefit from them.

There are taxpayers in San Francisco, though. Why didn't they build Pac Bell Park in a semi-submerged bubble in the middle of the Bay? Because it makes no sense to do so as long as there is perfectly good dry land available.

Building space habitats or mining other planets makes even less sense. It's likely that people who dream about such things never really think much about the economics or practical benefits. They grew up reading authors like Asimov and watching things like 2001: A Space Odyssey, harbor romantic notions about space being "mankind's destiny", and are disappointed that "we" (whether that means government or private enterprise, I'm never certain) aren't rushing forward with all sorts of huge projects in the solar system and beyond, just because they are neat ideas.

Actually, I would love to see Jane blog about the viability of extraterrestrial commercial ventures in the near and far future.

"Something on whether we should assume rape victims are telling the truth"

And robbery victims!

Space habitats:

IF someone succeeds in making fusion work and
IF they need a good supply of Helium-3
THEN
it may well make sense to put a habitat at one of the Lunar poles, along with a nice, big, superconducting loop to generate a deep magnetic field (see current issue of "Analog").

In such a case, other things become possible.

But people will still need to know how to cook...

I'm curious to hear about your robbery. Who did you rob anyway?

I don't think Quiggin's post is deserving of a response. The guy's a hack. All rhetoric, no substance.

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