The worst argument against anything

People don't like to change their views, even when confronted with good evidence or arguments against their positions. Our minds are skilled at using various tricks to comfort us when we resist the urge to change with new information.

Of course, it's extremely aggravating when other people use those tricks in front of us to shrug off our brilliant opinions. The one I find most frustrating is the idea that yes, my complaint is legitimate, but I shouldn't bother talking about it because there's another issue that is more important.

For example, I recently wrote about a false story that Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson was trying to block fracking near his home, or block water extraction intended for fracking near his home, and a far-left friend responded on social media that I should ignore this topic and only talk about Exxon receiving tax breaks.

So pointing out lies and disproving bad arguments is only something we should do when it hurts things we care about? Does anyone actually believe that?

I hear it when someone criticizes police and prosecutors for letting false rape accusers escape criminal charges (We should be talking about real rapes!) or wants to stop welfare abuse (Corporate Welfare is a bigger issue so let's not talk about that!)

This isn't a liberal vs. conservative thing; it's a universal bogus tactic. One could be arguing against the abuse of American prisoners and be told that that they should instead focus on the treatment of crime victims. We can care about feminist issues in America and the treatment of women in backwards poor countries, and not pick one over another.

Talk is cheap, and having a conversation about a topic doesn't have to pass a cost-benefit analysis. We can all make an infinite number of complaints. Prioritizing is for solutions, and when you want to actually focus resources on solving a problem that's when the cost-benefit analysis comes into play.

Until then, gripe away.


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Why I'm not at TAM this year

Last year I had an amazing time at The Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas. I flew in Friday night and left Sunday evening after giving a short presentation on my views of why the skeptic view is rarely represented in the media.

But this year I'm not going.

Other people have spoken up why they're sitting this one out, such as political reasons or to avoid conflict. I do not fit into either one of these camps.

For me, it's all about the money.

In April I attended the North East Conference for Science and Skepticism in New York City. By the time I returned home, I had spent around $300 on my ticket, bus pass, subway, food and optional events. Part of that cost was offset by having a gracious host let me stay with him for free so I had no hotel fees.

The three times I've gone to TAM have cost around $1,000 for the ticket, airfare, hotel room, food and optional events.

I had a great time at TAM, don't get me wrong. As much as I enjoyed NECSS, TAM was the superior experience. It attracts more people and provides convenient nearby spaces for attendees to find each other and talk outside of lecture, which is the true point of going to any conference.

However, for a third of the cost, NECSS was a good deal. It's not as elaborate or memorable as TAM, but people on a budget and with little vacation time need to take into account the cost of an event, not just the experience itself.

Next year I will probably decide to go to TAM, but for now, NECSS was an amazing substitute and a great change of pace.
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Utilitarianism for the greater evil

Good ideas have a tendency to crash and burn when they move from the textbook to the streets.

Like every former Philosophy 101 student, I accepted utilitarianism's call to commit a limited amount of evil in order to vanquish a larger evil. The classic case is the "innocent fat man" where a group of people are stuck in a cave that is starting to flood from high tide. An innocent fat man becomes stuck in the only exit, and the only way to save the lives of the innocent people is to dynamite porky.

There's also the trolley problem, where five people standing on railroad tracks are oblivious to a speeding train, and the only way to save them is to throw the switch and redirect the train to another track where it will kill one person instead of five.

Of course, it's never that simple in real life. These fables assume godlike knowledge of the situation. What if the cave was only going to flood knee-deep levels and there were small holes to breath from? What if the five people on the train tracks weren't oblivious to the train or were planting a bomb?

They also assume a dichotomy of actions. Do nothing, or kill. There's no option to swim out of the cave, wait for rescuers or warn the people on the tracks.

Case in point a video posted this morning of far-left leaders discussing rioting and violence as ways to achieve their goals. This wasn't a collection of ground level recruits who said something idiotic or atypical. This was a public meeting last month at the New School in New York City about what the goals and tactics of the Occupy Wall Street movement should be. After some generic anti-capitalist nonsense, activist leader Yotam Marom said:

Why are we, like harassing ourselves about broken windows and bombs when we should be talking about police brutality... I don't even want to get into the questions of whether it's ethical or not ethical to use violence in such and such. That's why I said earlier that it's about context... This system is incredibly violent and no amount of broken windows will ever add up to the misery of loss of human potential that these systems of oppression have yielded.

Marom and several other speakers at the summit invoked utilitarianism as a justification for violence. They believe that the system, man is so evil that it's excusable to use violence to reach their political goals.

If there's one lesson we can take from the Soviet Union, it should be how much evil can be heaped upon the innocent in a bloody quest to rid the world of an imagined devil. There is no one alive who can evaluate the suffering caused by murderers like Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin and say that was a better society than one that would have existed under capitalism.

And just like those communist murderers, the violent far-left is eager to spill blood to fight capitalism because they believe it causes more evil. This is what utilitarianism has brought the world.

This is the secular version of holy genocides carried out by religious men who committed atrocities in the name of a peaceful god. Every religious war is an exercise in utilitarianism. People who consider themselves good and just will become butchers when fooled into believing their actions are justified because of words written in a book, be it the Bible, the Quran or Mao's Little Red Book.

These utilitarian thugs assume they understand how the world works perfectly. People like Marom are so confident that capitalism is an evil that they are willing to injure or even kill people. Utilitarianism plus ignorance equals innocent victims.

When you ask people if a violent action would be justified to stop the Nazi war machine in World War II, and then turn that logic to stopping a peaceful system like capitalism, you end up creating evil in the name of a greater evil.

Utilitarianism also assumes false dichotomies, such as violent actions or peaceful protests are the only options. They think their violence will be more effective than peaceful actions and haven't considered that there is a world of other ways to reach their goals.

The same fallacies apply to the few cases of abortion doctor assassinations and the idea that we should torture a suspected terrorist to prevent a future attack. How do you know for sure he's a terrorist and that he can provide information to stop an attack? Torture use sounds great on paper, but it gets murky when you factor in the potential innocence of the suspect.

In theory, utilitarianism is a compromise for the greater good. It can do good things like help the poor and save lives. But in practice, it becomes the ultimate act of hubris. It justifies human sacrifices in the names of false gods. We are all flawed thinkers, but it assumes perfect information.

Utilitarianism carries a great potential for evil and should be handled like plutonium. It can improve things when used responsibly, but when combined with ignorance it makes the world far worse.
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I was wrong

There's a lot of fun things going on with the Transportation Security Authority - "fun" being a synonym for a farcical horrors - from yet another case of TSA agents going mad with their moderate amount of power to a satirical Playmobil Security Check Point playset posted on Amazon.com All of this has caused me dig up a post I wrote almost a year ago.

I predicted that the public outcry would continue to rise on the Sophie's Choice scenario the TSA was giving passengers of being felt up or photographed with an 80's teen movie clothing-penetrating nudie camera. Public opinion would cascade into people finally evaluating the trade-off between security and freedom, and the public would finally stand up and say the terrible cost does not justify the limited benefit and self-interested politicians would cave and interfere.

What happened instead was, nothing.

Nothing has changed, we're just where we were a year ago. Members of the general public have now absorbed the phrase "security theater" into their vocabularies and understand that a lot of these civil right violations give us no actual increases to security in return.

I still have a month to go from a full year when I made the prediction, but I'm calling it here. We're going to be stuck with this, and it'll get worse before it gets better.
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Stop being such a good loser

It's been a decade since I stopped playing Magic: The Gathering, and about five years since since I painted my last Warhammer 40K figure. I don't watch anime, Dr. Who or Firefly and I put more effort into my appearance than on my forum tag lines.

But I still get nerd cred because of one integral personality quirk, one little reflex that sticks out like a pocket protector and redeems my mainstream camouflage: I get unreasonably annoyed when someone makes an intuitive conclusion that violates some esoteric concept that average people have no reason to understand.

In this case, it's the idea of easy come, easy go. Say a friend at a thrift store looking through a $5 item bin finds the Cosmos DVD set staring Carl Sagan, which they would be willing to buy for its retail price of $130. They buy it, but somehow lose it before they go home.

Most people I know in that situation will be disappointed, but say something cheery like "Oh well, I'm only out $5."

And that's when my teeth gnash.

That person is not out a mere $5, they are out $130 dollars. Let me explain.

Prices and values are not the same thing. The price is what you give up to have something. The value is what something is actually worth to you. If the price is lower than what you value something, then the difference is called your consumer surplus. In the example, the friend just left that thrift store with a DVD set and a $125 consumer surplus, and should be very glad to have both.

After you've paid something and you can't do anything to reverse the purchase, what you paid is called a sunk cost. You don't need to factor sunk costs into future actions - doing so is a common fallacy - so just remove them from consideration. Once a cost is sunk, it's irrelevant. Your friend paid $5, and left with $130 in value. It doesn't matter if the store took $5, $10 or $50 for those DVD - that cost is now sunk. The DVD set is still worth $130 to your friend.

So when your friend says "easy come, easy go. I'm only out $5," they are looking at a sunk cost, and forgetting about that amazing consumer surplus they were so happy to have earlier.

Remember those consumer surpluses - they're yours, and if something takes them from you, get very upset.
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Nurses union claim strike is for the good of the patients

...and if you believe that one I have some oceanfront property in Montana for sale.

In Maine this week unionized nurses went on strike claiming that the ratio of nurses to patients is too high, and more nurses should be hired to bring the ratio down. I can understand why a union would want to use strikes to increase their membership levels (and membership dues), but what bothers me is that they are claiming their sole motivation is for the good of the patients.

It reminds me of when unions lobby for higher minimum wages. They frame it as a charitable act for non-members, when in fact its really in their own interest.

The real story is summed up in a 1988 paper by Matthew Kibbe:

As would be expected, labor unions are the main political force behind minimum-wage legislation. Although unions already hold privileged positions in labor markets, minimum wages further increase their gains by raising employers' labor costs. As long as union members earn wages above the minimum rate, their positions are made more secure by the government policy that eliminates those who might undercut the union wage. People willing to work for less than the government's minimum are not allowed into the labor market at all. Indeed, union leader Edward T. Hanley stated in a catering industry employees' publication, 'The purpose of the minimum wage is to . . . provide a floor from which we can upgrade your compensation through collective bargaining.'

So the obvious reason a hospital would not want to hire more nurses is that it's expensive to do so. Nationally, registered nurses command a median wage of $31.99. That adds up to $63,750 a year an hour plus benefits. That's a pretty expensive position to increase.

A friend of a friend was one of the striking nurses and said the following:

It is unsafe for nurses to be working past their 12 hour shift, but many nurses consistently work 16 hour shifts because we are so short staffed. Patients don't always get their medications on time because each nurse commonly has 5-7 patients, which is too many for one person to be able to take care of.

In addition, she said there are numerous studies that show a lower nurse-to-patient ratio results in better outcomes for patients. I completely believe her, but I think it misses a larger point.

It costs money to increase the number of nurses, and that will mean higher health care costs, which will in turn raise the cost of health insurance. But don't hold your breath expecting the union to take responsibility for those increased costs: it will be blamed on the insurance industry.

Increasing the ratio of nurses to patients will probably have even better outcomes if two nurses look after on duty for each patient, but the importance of a cost-benefit analysis becomes even more apparent at that level. More nurses means better patient outcomes, but it is also prone to diminishing returns. There must be some optimal point for the nurse to patient ratio.

And I have no idea what ratio is optimal.

But I have to be skeptical when the people who to push or pull those figures will profit if we take their advice.

When the American automobile CEO's went to Washington DC to ask for a bailout, they didn't frame it as something good for their company. They said it was good for the American public. We knew they were a biased source, and we knew it was foolish to believe them.

I don't know how many nurses we should have at a given hospital, but I do know that the union is hiding behind the patients. I've never heard of a nurses union of asking to reduce the number of nurses when there are too many on duty, and I don't see them offering to lower the wages of nurses so hospitals can afford to hire more. I would rather hear it from someone who doesn't stand to gain from the action they advocate.

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