Economics: I, Pencil

[shanek]

Did I make my claim before or after you made yours?

Claus, you asked for my OPINION about the free market. Then you made a CLAIM about patents. Back it up or stop whining and pretending you're a skeptic.

 

[CFLarsen]

Claus, you asked for my OPINION about the free market. Then you made a CLAIM about patents. Back it up or stop whining and pretending you're a skeptic.

Oh, man...that is so pathetic.

You are merely stating opinions, while I make claims, therefore you are not accountable for your posts, but I am?

If you cannot argue like a man, you are excused to the kiddie's table.

 

[shanek]

Oh, man...that is so pathetic.

You are merely stating opinions, while I make claims, therefore you are not accountable for your posts, but I am?

If you cannot argue like a man, you are excused to the kiddie's table.

You made a verifiable claim. You did NOT back it up. You are NO skeptic.

 

[CFLarsen]

For the sake of the movement, please stop.

I agree.

Shanek is abusing the skeptical movement for his own political goals. He is not interested in countering the false claims and beliefs that hurt so many people world-wide, and hinders human and scientific progress.

All he wants is power for himself, so he can force his egomanical, selfish and heartless political agenda on other people. And he takes advantage of this forum, the credibility of the people who support it, the JREF and James Randi himself to achieve it.

It is shameful.

 

[CFLarsen]

You made a verifiable claim. You did NOT back it up. You are NO skeptic.

Oh, this is rich. You did not make a verifiable claim?

Then, WTF have you been arguing for the past 8 pages??

 

[RichardR]

And I can't tell you how to make a pencil, either. Gee, they must not exist then!

Your stubborn dogmatic and repeated insistence that “the pencil” answers all questions is really pretty silly. The pencil does show that free markets work at producing goods and services that people need, without an overall master plan directing operations. I don’t dispute that and I suspect most others on this board wouldn’t. My own views are broadly libertarian, actually. The problem though, is that you are a fundamentalist, and fundamentalists ignore the exceptions to the wonderful theoretical scenarios they paint.

Here was my simple question, which arose from a claim you made:

are patents needed to protect pharmaceutical companies?

It seems to me that there are only two possible answers to this, either “yes” or “no”. (I may be wrong – if someone can think of a third answer, please enlighten me. Refusal to answer the question because it is “immaterial”, doesn’t count.)

If you answer “yes”, then the discussion on this particular issue is over. You accept that patents are required in some cases.

If you answer “no”, then I have the obvious follow-up question, how would a pharmaceutical company protect its inventions?

You say this is argument from incredulity, because the market always provides solutions, and so you don’t have to provide the specific solution it will come up with in this case. But your premise is incorrect. Markets do not always come up with solutions. You agreed earlier (IIRC) that a framework of laws is needed, and that framing these laws is a valid role of government. An obvious example is law of contract. Without a law of contract, no contract could be enforced (peacefully), and the free market would not function. Since there is this exception to your, the market always provides solutions premise, the burden of proof is upon you to show that the market would in this case provide a solution.

The need for patents to protect inventions is similar in concept to the need for contract law to protect agreements. I believe patents are needed at least in some cases. I am actually interested in how a pharmaceutical company would protect its inventions without patents. Perhaps they could. You have failed to make the case, though.

 

[shanek]

Oh, this is rich. You did not make a verifiable claim?

How is my stating an OPINION that patents were not part of a free market system in any way a verifiable claim?

 

[CFLarsen]

How is my stating an OPINION that patents were not part of a free market system in any way a verifiable claim?

Then, what have you been arguing these past 8 pages?

 

[shanek]

Your stubborn dogmatic and repeated insistence that “the pencil” answers all questions is really pretty silly.

Strawman; I make no such insistence. I only insist that it answers your specific questions, and it does.

Here was my simple question, which arose from a claim you made:

are patents needed to protect pharmaceutical companies?

And my answer to that is: there is no proof that they are.

It seems to me that there are only two possible answers to this, either “yes” or “no”.

Then you are no skeptic, because any skeptic knows about the fallacy of the excluded middle. And we employ that knowledge every time we debunk alleged UFO abductees, talking-to-the-dead psychics, or just about anyone else.

(I may be wrong – if someone can think of a third answer, please enlighten me.

What about the one I've been giving?

Refusal to answer the question because it is “immaterial”, doesn’t count.)

Okay: Have you stopped beating your wife? Yes or no, please, and don't refuse to answer the question on some bogus basis of invalid assumptions.

If you answer “no”, then I have the obvious follow-up question, how would a pharmaceutical company protect its inventions?

I have already given three possibilities. This is ridiculous.

An obvious example is law of contract. Without a law of contract, no contract could be enforced (peacefully), and the free market would not function. Since there is this exception to your, the market always provides solutions premise, the burden of proof is upon you to show that the market would in this case provide a solution.

The difference is, a contract is voluntarily agreed to by all involved parties. That's why it's justifiable to have a structure in place to enforce it.

You have failed to make the case, though.

I don't have to "make the case" as the burden of proof is on those who claim that patents ARE necessary (meaning, there is no other option). Coming up with the alternatives that I have is actually going beyond the call of duty, and yet, here you are, insisting that I do more while ignoring the fact that the people WHO ARE MAKING THE CLAIM have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATSOEVER to back it up.

So, can you PROVE that patents are necessary?

 

[shanek]

Then, what have you been arguing these past 8 pages?

There's another question you've just refused to answer...and by asking a question that I have already covered here. Pathetic.

 

[digitalmcq]

I think it may be time for this thread to die.

 

[CFLarsen]

There's another question you've just refused to answer...and by asking a question that I have already covered here. Pathetic.

OK.

You are not able to explain what you have been arguing for the past 8 pages. Instead, you try to turn the tables, so you won't be held accountable for your own claims.

Shanek, you really should stop. Stop posting here. Stop pretending that you are a skeptic. Remove the Randi banner from your site. You are abusing the skeptical cause for your own political goals. You are hurting the rest of us, those who genuinely want to see an end to the false claims and hurtful practices of the paranormal world. People lose their money. They lose their sanity. They lose all perspective. They lose their lives, shanek.

You clearly have no interest in that. All you want to do is preach your sick, egotistical political agenda, designed to benefit you, and you alone.

Who do you think you are kidding? You don't give a ◊◊◊◊ about the victims of occult claims. You only give a ◊◊◊◊ about yourself, and how you can force your own political views on other people.

Stop. Please stop.

 

[shanek]

OK.

You are not able to explain what you have been arguing for the past 8 pages.

Claus, you are a LIAR. I have said several times that the entire purpose of this thread is to refute an argument from incredulity that you and many other posters have made.

Now, answer the questions, and stop with the pathetic, desperate personal abuse.

 

[CFLarsen]

Claus, you are a LIAR. I have said several times that the entire purpose of this thread is to refute an argument from incredulity that you and many other posters have made.

Now, answer the questions, and stop with the pathetic, desperate personal abuse.

So sad. You are truly a fanatic. It doesn't matter how much you hurt other people, as long as you yourself benefit.

Stop.

 

[RichardR]

Strawman; I make no such insistence. I only insist that it answers your specific questions, and it does.

It didn’t answer my specific question, yet you continued to pretend it did. Answer the question please, don’t just say “oh pencils must not exist then”. That’s just looking really silly.

And my answer to that is: there is no proof that they are.

No proof they’re not, either. There is actually no proof of anything, just evidence.

Then you are no skeptic, because any skeptic knows about the fallacy of the excluded middle. And we employ that knowledge every time we debunk alleged UFO abductees, talking-to-the-dead psychics, or just about anyone else.

Yes, I know about fallacies, which is why I followed it up with “I may be wrong – if someone can think of a third answer, please enlighten me”. This is just intellectually dishonest of you.

What about the one I've been giving?

Your last answer was to refuse to answer.

Okay: Have you stopped beating your wife? Yes or no, please, and don't refuse to answer the question on some bogus basis of invalid assumptions.

The “have you stopped beating your wife” question is invalid because whether I answer “yes” or “no”, I am admitting I beat my wife. The question is a dishonest one designed to make the questionee look bad no matter what he says. My question was a valid question designed to ascertain your view on a specific issue. So your response is a false analogy. And a red herring. Funny, I thought any skeptic knows about fallacies.

Anyway I’m not married, so the question is invalid.

I have already given three possibilities. This is ridiculous.

This is the frustrating thing with you. Why don’t you just give the three possibilities again? I’m not plowing through 8 pages to find them. What are they? Why is this so hard?

The difference is, a contract is voluntarily agreed to by all involved parties. That's why it's justifiable to have a structure in place to enforce it.

But it would be worthless without law of contract. You missed the point – the free market does not always come up with a solution and so it will not necessarily do so here.

I don't have to "make the case" as the burden of proof is on those who claim that patents ARE necessary (meaning, there is no other option). Coming up with the alternatives that I have is actually going beyond the call of duty, and yet, here you are, insisting that I do more while ignoring the fact that the people WHO ARE MAKING THE CLAIM have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATSOEVER to back it up.

Hardly.

So, can you PROVE that patents are necessary?

No. Never said I could. Never asked you to prove they aren’t, either. Pretty silly to demand proof though – I’m looking for evidence to suggest whether patents are necessary or not. I haven’t seen any evidence that pharmaceutical companies could protest their inventions without them. Always willing to look at some, though.

 

[shanek]

So sad. You are truly a fanatic. It doesn't matter how much you hurt other people, as long as you yourself benefit.

Stop.

Claus, you are a patheic, desperate bigot. You don't care one bit for the millions and millions of lives that I have shown to have been destroyed by government practices. And these are people who can't even avoid the mess if they're only properly educated as is the psychics, etc.

You are no skeptic, Claus. You are a joiner. You see skepticism as some list of issues and a skeptic as someone who gives the right answer to those issues and never questions it. That's why you have driven off poster after poster who could have been converted just because they didn't come around immediately and stick their tongue straight up your @$$. That's why you immediately took to personal abuse when I made a perfectly honest and straightforward request for information about a potential link between autism and MMR. Look at the attitudes of the other posters in that thread—the real skeptics, who provided information and helped explain things to me so I could understand it. You, on the other hand, provided irrelevant links and got all testy when I pointed out that they didn't apply to this article. You kept bleating on about thimerosal and how it was long shown to not be linked with autism even though the study specifically said that these vaccines contained no thimerosal and others had pointed out that MMR never contained it. That's the action of someone blindly spouting dogma, Claus, not someone seriously examining the evidence. You insisted that it was just me going on about my political agenda, but refused to answer my questions as to what that could possibly be. You then took it personally, as a slight against your precious Denmark, when that's just where the study happened to have taken place. You resorted to namecalling and bullying. You kept bleating on and on about an irrelevant EPA study we discussed in a completely different forum. The other skeptics, especially Eos, were wonderful in giving me the information I needed to reach the proper conclusion. You didn't do a damn thing. And then you wonder why I don't want to open up myself to even more abuse from you by posting in areas outside of politics.

Claus, pseudo-skeptics like you are one of the biggest hurdles we face. Whenever I talk to someone who could be converted, and start arguing the skeptical view, they always tell me about they argued with some skeptic or another and he treated them very badly, and it sounds like an almost perfect description of you. Unfortunately, there are a lot of pseudo-skeptic joiners like you; James Randi and Penn & Teller even spoke out against them in an interview on the Bulls--t! DVD. You are the ones holding back skepticism, not the rest of us.

Even worse, you don't care ONE BIT how many people are hurt and even DIE from political agendas that you agree with. And yet you have the gall to throw in my face the lives of people destroyed by psychics, etc.

You are no skeptic, Claus, just a pathetic joiner participating in nothing more than setting the movement back.

Now, ANSWER THE QUESTIONS.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I agree.

Shanek is abusing the skeptical movement for his own political goals. He is not interested in countering the false claims and beliefs that hurt so many people world-wide, and hinders human and scientific progress.

All he wants is power for himself, so he can force his egomanical, selfish and heartless political agenda on other people. And he takes advantage of this forum, the credibility of the people who support it, the JREF and James Randi himself to achieve it.

It is shameful.

Agreed.

Although he isn't abusing it very efficiently - he still finished dead last in his race for dog catcher in Trailerville, NC!

 

[shanek]

It didn’t answer my specific question, yet you continued to pretend it did.

Then maybe you should clarify your question and state why my answer didn't satisfy it. I answered the question as I read and parsed it.

No proof they’re not, either.

You can't prove a negative. If you're a skeptic, you should know that.

Your last answer was to refuse to answer.

No, my last answer was to show why the question was invalid as it contained a fallacy.

The “have you stopped beating your wife” question is invalid because whether I answer “yes” or “no”, I am admitting I beat my wife.

Yes, and if I answer either "yes" or "no" to your question, I am validating your false dichotomy.

This is the frustrating thing with you. Why don’t you just give the three possibilities again? I’m not plowing through 8 pages to find them. What are they? Why is this so hard?

Look, I don't see why it's my fault that you don't want to read the thread. Asking for information is one thing, but not reading the thread and then pretending that I haven't presented certain information is just downright dishonest.

One option was the protection of trade secrets, which does not require government.
Another option was a contractual license agreement, which requires no government intervention, only the normal contract laws to be enforce to resolve disputes.
The third option was the private "patent" exchange company, which, like #1, would require no government intervention and would only require the contract laws as protection to resolve disputes.

But it would be worthless without law of contract. You missed the point – the free market does not always come up with a solution and so it will not necessarily do so here.

No one ever said there shouldn't be an authority to resolve disputes. This is a strawman and a non-point. Especially since this discussion is about patents, not contracts.

Hardly.

Oh? Then where did Claus back up his claim that I quoted above? Because I, unlike you, have read every post in this thread (except for Scrut's, as I have him on ignore) and I seem to have missed it.

No.

Fine. Then why am I being asked to prove a negative?

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

i]You[/i] are the ones holding back skepticism, not the rest of us.

"The rest of us" for shanek = Rouser2, Ion, Woo_Lowe, Interesting Ian, and other assorted woo-woos.

 

[RichardR]

One option was the protection of trade secrets, which does not require government.

How would they stop another company doing a chemical analysis of their product, and just producing the same molecule for sale?

Another option was a contractual license agreement, which requires no government intervention, only the normal contract laws to be enforce to resolve disputes.

How would this prevent a company with no license agreement from doing a chemical analysis of their product, and just producing the same molecule foe sale?

The third option was the private "patent" exchange company, which, like #1, would require no government intervention and would only require the contract laws as protection to resolve disputes.

How would this stop another company from doing a chemical analysis of their product, and just producing the same molecule for sale?