At this point, there should probably just be a generic "THIS PRODUCT IS KNOWN TO THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA TO CAUSE CANCER" sticker that companies can stick on pretty much anything they sell there. <eyeroll>
Feces are produced by the human body, too. Should you be eating them?
Just because something is also produced by the human body or is "natural" doesn't mean it is good for humans to ingest, especially in significant quantities over long periods of time.
I get the sarcasm, but would this be legal? It's satire if it's not actually known as a carcinogen, and a legal requirement if it is. It would dilute the warning in the public's perception, but companies might find it cheapest and easiest to just stick it on everything.
If something is carcinogenic is always a matter of volume. Most things are carcinogenic if consumed in quantities large enough. Most things carcinogenic if aerosolized and inhaled. Most things are carcinogenic if left on your skin long enough.
The latest is maple syrup it now has to have a warning it "may contain lead".
Which is I think is an inflammatory way to phrase it. There should be a level shown: "This product has lead levels of 11ppb, California drinking water has lead levels of 11ppb".
edit: Oh and apple seeds naturally contain cyanide, bananas have radioactive potassium-40, fish has mercury and on and on.
I dunno, there are still places in the US where you can buy decent land, outside of any city limits, for under $1,000 an acre. And there are absolutely scads of places you can buy NICE parcels (including tree lines, water, etc.) for around $2K / acre or less.
This just doesn't seem too completely unattainable to me. The average able-bodied person, properly motivated and living frugally, should be able to secure a few acres over one or two summers, easily.
... Unless you're talking about true "Swiss Family Robinson" style independence from any and all societal benefit or influence. Because then, yeah, that is pretty much not possible any more. Finding someplace a little out of the way, and "living off the land" in relative peace, however - that remains quite attainable.
Just for argument's sake... Do you think the greater good would be served by protecting that politician's privacy, and that of several dozen school teachers who also carried that set of genes? Or would society be better off if the politician and the teachers were subjected to greater scrutiny, leading to some percentage of them being removed when discovered to be actual pedophiles?
This isn't meant as rhetorical, and I'm not trying to score some point. I'm honestly not sure where I land on this. Part of me wants to say "tough noogies, it's worth it to stop those kiddie diddlers" and another part is going, "whoa nellie, what if most of those people are completely innocent but will now forever live with this awful stigma?"
I think there's a multi-track drifting joke in here somewhere too, but I haven't had my coffee yet.
“Whatever the chain of events is, the chain begins before birth,” said James M. Cantor, a University of Toronto professor of psychiatry whose research team has made a series of startling correlations finding that pedophiles are likely to share physical attributes, such as slightly lower IQs, shorter body height, left-handedness and less brain tissue.[1]
See, we don't even need genetic tests. Just don't hire left-handers under 5'8" and we'll be okay. And remember: blacks are more likely to be criminals and Jews have big noses.[2]
The hypothetical "pedo gene" is probably too emotionally charged; some may find it difficult to engage rationally as a result.
Suppose instead there were a gene found which caused a toxic reaction in some children. Some, but not all, children exposed to these substances might sicken or even die.
I suspect that in such a scenario, if the evidence showing correlation was compelling - you would be OK with mandating testing, and separating children from contact with known carriers of the gene - at least until it could be better understood and/or treated, cured, the harm mitigated, or what have you.
I would further suggest that if YOU were discovered to be a carrier of the gene, that you yourself would probably feel an obligation to self-report and avoid any contact with children, so as to prevent any accidental exposure and harm.
The other point here you're missing is that these genetic test won't accurately predict acts of pedophilia. But they will be misconstrued and misrepresented as if they do. How would you like to be identified with a gene that's associated with a 10% more likely incidence of pedophilia? What would that even mean?
See my other question below. If there were a 10% chance that children who were exposed to your presence might sicken and die from a toxic reaction to your sweat, would you take steps to avoid any such contact? Would it be wrong to prevent you from working in schools?
Your question was reasonable. I wondered the same thing. Perhaps it was misinterpreted as signalling some sort of defense of conspicuous consumption / flaunting of wealth. To be clear, that would be an irrational and unfounded interpretation, but such are the hazards of wading into emotionally charged issues (even if you aren't really wading in, just asking an honest question).
FYI, I'm a chronic insomnia sufferer, and I also found melatonin was a "miracle cure". Even if/when it didn't help me get to sleep on time, I would still wake up feeling mostly rested and able to function the next day.
Flash forward a couple of years, and it started to catch up to me. In retrospect, I guess it was NOT working a lot more often than it WAS, but I was still able to get up at my normal time and slog through another day... until all of a sudden I wasn't.
I started having a really hard time concentrating, remembering things, etc. I went from being proud I had memorized the first 40 digits of pi, to not being able to remember my own damned zip code.
Frankly, I thought it was early onset Alzheimer's, and I started putting my affairs in order. Initial tests were inconclusive, but that's not necessarily surprising: the simple cognitive tests are only useful for spotting advanced decline if you are even remotely non- "neuro-typical". Fancier (and noisier) brain scans showed nothing unusual.
Anyway, long story short: on medical advice I threw away the melatonin, and practically overnight my symptoms evaporated.
This is all highly anecdotal, I know - and you would be foolish not to be skeptical. But I would suggest that if you are using melatonin regularly, and especially if you have been for a long time... You might want to casually start tracking your actual sleeping hours, and verify that you are really getting enough - and not just "compensating."
I think some of the most interesting (and hard!) problems are behavioral, centering around "spotting the bad apple." Which employee is most likely to steal, and why? What sorts of activities may be deemed suspicious, and merit closer investigation? There's a dangerous place in that direction, shades of 1984 - but there's also some pretty fascinating stuff too, i.e. "this guy just deviated from his routine in a significant way right after a big fight with his significant other, and now he's buying large quantities of ammunition; flag for increased surveillance."
I don't know where the proper line lies, exactly, between protecting privacy and building the magic "bad apple detector." But the geek in me desperately wants to see more time and cleverness invested in human heuristics...
I don't understand why this function is needed if the search engine performs its purpose. Shouldn't searching on any of those symptoms return results that suggest the possibility of pancreatic cancer? As designed, it returns those results to the very person with the most vested interest in both the results and their own privacy.
How is this project anything more than "other people snooping around in my search queries," or any better than simply tuning the search engine to highlight those results more if they are believed under-represented?
It could find correlations based on search that were previously unknown. Imagine a world where the link between tobacco and cancer isn't known: perhaps it emerges that there's a correlation of people 10 years before searching for cancer also searching of where to buy cigarettes.
I think it's interesting that this research can happen.
Well, I admit that does sound like a promising concept, but it's not quite the same one described in the article. By my reading, this project seems oriented more towards correlating some number of searches and connecting the dots in a present-tense, Clippy "Your search patterns indicate you might have pancreatic cancer. Can I show you patient reviews of several good Oncologists in your area?" - sort of way.
That seems rather different than "Hey, 10 years ago you searched on some stuff that indicated you might have had pancreatic cancer. Sorry we didn't catch it sooner, since the 10 year survival rate is below 5%..."
To be clear, either one seems potentially quite cool and interesting. But if someone else besides me and Clippy are privy to these results - unless I explicitly shared them - then it seems a little creepy.
In retrospect, I suppose I wouldn't be too terribly offended if I died already, but my results were later able to help prevent someone else's untimely demise...
What strikes me as odd about apocalyptic "the perils of the singularity" navel-gazing is that we automatically assume that machines, and ONLY the machines, will improve far beyond our capabilities - perhaps even infinitely.
Why shouldn't we improve as well? Every day it seems there is a new story about further advances in amazing / fast / cheap / etc. gene splicing technology, or some new breakthrough in understanding how cancers work, or how longevity may be achieved, or how to correct color-blindness, etc.
Is it any less presumptive to assert that humans will make ourselves more and more amazing, as it is to assert that machines inevitably will?
I am hesitant to engage at this level, but - you just couldn't be more wrong about Comey. I know him to be every bit as thoughtful and reasonable as your glowing description of Hayden. That doesn't mean I agree with all of his positions, but he is one of the smarter people I've met, and I do not believe that is an indication of how sheltered my life has been. I also know him to be perfectly capable of acknowledging when he's gotten it wrong, and generally willing to admit it, change course, and move on. That leaves me fairly optimistic about how this whole mess will turn out.
In any case, you taking this instance, and something you obviously feel strongly about, and using it to craft barbs about "the worst kinds of cops" - well, frankly that's exactly the kind of emotional hyperbole that will continue to make rational discourse here difficult. This sort of frothy angst distracts from otherwise potentially reasonable arguments, and probably makes dismissing them seem more reasonable. Can you see how that might be happening here?
Might you share an example of what leads you to believe that Comey is capable of acknowledging when he's gotten things wrong, changing course, and moving on? I've never had the chance to meet him but even General Hayden's remarks on Comey seem less glowing than yours. For example, while Hayden does describe Comey as a "very competent" and "very honourable man", Benjamin Wittes, in a conversation with Hayden, described some "not so veiled hostility to Comey" in Hayden's recent book [0]. Hayden has, in my view, been able to weigh the national security benefits on encryption alongside the national security risks. I've never once heard Comey speak with any degree of clarity or comfort on the issue, and has instead doggedly pursued his goal of ensuring the FBI's access into content data. Thus, I've described him as a 'one-track-mind kind of guy'.
Well, I'm not sure if my comment about "the worst kinds of cops" is necessarily hyperbolic or even emotional, but I can see how it does make having 'purely rational discourse' more difficult. Surely, a singular focus and unwillingness to consider the validity of alternative perspectives is not unique to some members of the law enforcement community, but I think that the shorthand I employed does cut to the core of my understanding of Comey; He doesn't understand this issue as well as the technology experts who, virtually uniformly, disagree with his position on crypto.
[0] Hayden did rebuff that characterization, though I think the public forum might have had something to do with it.
I wish I could provide such an example in good conscience, but a (very broad) NDA with a former employer precludes me from doing so. They might not mind, and he might not mind - but I would have gone back on my word, which I definitely would mind.
I know that this reduces the strength of my argument to essentially "nuh-uh!" ... sorry. But I will tell you that, when he says (in that keynote address) that he is willing to explore the possibility that he could be wrong - I believe that he is being completely honest.
As to your description of his "singular focus and unwillingness to consider the validity of alternative perspectives" - that just doesn't seem accurate at all; it describes neither this speech nor his observable approach at large. It does, however, remind me of a funny pinterest picture/quote:
"Once you hate someone, everything they do is offensive. 'Look at this bitch, eating those crackers like she owns the place'. "
lol, good quote. To be clear, I don't hate the guy.
One of the first times I heard him speak was in late 2014 and he was essentially arguing for all the same things that he argues now: "I don't know how the tech community is going to do it, but they're smart, and they can build in secure access for law enforcement". He still completely ignores the national security implications of such a precedent, and he also ignores the fact that, over and over again, crypto experts are telling him that the community has enough trouble building secure systems at the moment, and adding access to third parties is likely to exponentially weaken system security.
