Unfortunately in writing the article Vox themselves seem to have fallen prey to some of the same stupidity; if you're familiar with Vox's general left-wing sympathies you'll be unsurprised that the examples of stupidity used in the article are overwhelmingly from right-wing sources. If you really want to improve people's thinking, you need to focus on your own tribe at least as much as the enemy tribe.

I previously wrote about this here.

I am bound by many contracts signed by Congress and they didn't even have well-aligned incentives.

Thanks for the suggestions!

• My plan was to include a 1-day lag of the independent variable as a control variable in some of the regressions and see what effect that had.

• Yep, plan to do that, and then also add a 'date' control variable as well.

repeat, as I posted at the end of the last Open Thread, probably too late in its life for comments.

I'm planning on running an experiment to test the effects of Modafinil on myself. My plan is to use a three armed study:

• Modafinil (probably 50mg as I am quite small)
• B12 pill (as active control) or maybe Vitamin D
• Passive Control (no placebo)

Each day I will randomly take one of the three options and perform some test. I was thinking of dual-n-back, but do people have any other suggestions?

I'm planning on running an experiement to test the effects of Modafinil on myself. My plan is to use a three armed study:

• Modafinil (probably 50mg as I am quite small)
• B12 pill (as active control) or maybe Vitamin D
• Passive Control (no placebo)

Each day I will randomly take one of the three options and perform some test. I was thinking of dual-n-back, but do people have any other suggestions?

You've misunderstood Jacob's suggestion. Under his system there are no 'claims' - the health insurer simply pays for whatever healthcare it thinks will extend promote your health, up to the value it gets from your prolonged health (presumably around $100k / QALY )

The government is incentivised to keep people alive and paying tax, and disincentivised to treat people unnecessarily.

Unfortunately I don't think that's true:

Many Californians - most Californians - are assets. That is: productive citizens, or children who will grow up and become productive citizens. Their place is the left side of the balance sheet. Their presence in California increases California's productive power, and thus its value as a financial asset.

As the King begins the transition from democracy, however, he sees at once that many Californians - certainly millions - are financial liabilities. These are unproductive citizens. Their place on the balance sheet is on the right. To put it crudely, a ten-cent bullet in the nape of each neck would send California's market capitalization soaring - often by a cool million per neck.

And we are just getting started. The ex-subject can then be dissected for his organs. Do you know what organs are worth? This is profit!

If we claim to derive the responsibility of government from mere financial prudence, we must explain why the business strategy of culling unwanted subjects for their organs is not viable. Most would not find this profitable strategy consistent with responsibility. Yet, since a sovereign is sovereign, no higher sovereign can exist to outlaw or preclude it. The design must solve this problem on its own.

source

Thanks very much, this is very helpful. I had never heard of the books that I guess it looked like I was writing fanfic for!

In a small attempt to help, I cross-post all my high-quality LW-relivant posts to LW.

I don't suppose someone who knows lisp (?) could explain the comment someone made on reddit here ? Despite writing the original story, I don't understand their explanation!