numbernotami

Recent Actions

• Commented on The Ferguson Question
  Normal things are never news. "Man bites dog" is news, "dog bites man" is not. If Ferguson was normal, we would never have heard of it. An almost all-white police force in a majority-black municipality is not normal in America...
• Commented on The prospects of the Space and Freedom Party reconsidered in light of the crisis of 21st century capitalism
  Historically, wages are inversely related to population growth. Supply and demand - lots of people means low wages. The Black Death increased wages in Europe for a long time. World population growth is levelling off - will that possibly lead...
• Commented on The prospects of the Space and Freedom Party reconsidered in light of the crisis of 21st century capitalism
  You want to know why inequality is bad? May I recommed another fact-based book? It's by two epidemiologists who apply their usual statistical tools to social statistics instead of contagious diseases. http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/spirit-level Inequality is statistically correlated with a whole raft...
• Commented on A hypothesis
  Interesting point, reinforced doors might be counterproductive that way if they're left open....but overall, successful hijackings are still less common post 9/11, and nonexistent or near-nonexistent in the First World: http://www.skyjack.co.il/pdf/aviation-terrorism.pdf http://www.timelinesdb.com/listevents.php?subjid=709&dayinhist=0&date1=-99999999999&date2=99999999999&words=&title=Hijacking&fromrec=60 I don't know of any hijacker who's actually...
• Commented on A hypothesis
  This is an interesting guess at what it would take to attempt another 9/11...but it seems like an overly elaborate plan to me. Overly elaborate to be successful, anyway....
• Commented on A hypothesis
  "This is because hijacking is a risk that applies not only to the flight's passengers but also, as we saw on 9/11, to thousands of bystanders. " No, it isn't. September 11 is totally nonrepeatable. This is basic common sense....
• Commented on Parasites
  Oops, I meant viroids, not retroviruses....
• Commented on Parasites
  "Imagine how the immune system might react to some truly alien chemical signal?" Well, if they're too alien to use proteins, the immune system might not react to it at all. Most allergens and antigens are proteins. Retroviruses slip by...
• Commented on Parasites
  Yes, that's exactly the main example I had in mind. (There are plenty of others.) HPV is extremely common. But the great majority of HPV-infected people do not develop cervical or other HPV - associated cancer....
• Commented on Parasites
  A contagious cancer epidemic seems even less plausible than most thriller plots, though. Cancer's dangerous because it's part of you - your immune system has trouble targeting it, and so do medicines. Someone else's cancer will be readily targeted by...