21st Century Schizoid Boy

Aristotle called man the rational animal, identifying human beings’ ability to reason as their essential defining characteristic. I think this is a mistake. I think man is the imaginative animal. Human beings undoubtedly have the ability to reason, but they also have the ability to imagine that the world is different than it is, and the latter is a far more powerful force. People root for the Chicago Cubs because they can imagine the Cubs winning the World Series, despite all evidence to the contrary. People regularly get married because they can imagine that they will change their obviously incompatible partner into the ideal husband or wife. People devote their time, effort, and money to political campaigns because they can imagine that if only Bill Clinton or Bob Dole or George W. Bush or John Kerry were elected, Washington, DC would be transformed into Camelot. And more significantly, people volunteer to fight wars because they can imagine themselves running through a field of machine gun fire unscathed. Only the ability to imagine an afterlife for which they have absolutely no evidence can explain why human beings would strap explosives to themselves and blow themselves up in an effort to kill as many innocent people as possible.

Do you ever wonder why people believed in the divine right of kings, despite the fact that the monarchs of their time were patently not the type of individuals an all-knowing, all-good god would choose to reign over them? They believed in it because they were taught to believe in it and because they could imagine that it was so, regardless of all evidence to the contrary. We no longer believe in such silly things as the divine right of kings. We believe that government is necessary for an orderly peaceful society and that it can be made to function according to the rule of law. We believe this because we have been taught to believe it from infancy and because we can imagine that it is so, regardless of all contrary evidence.

One should never underestimate the power of abstract concepts to shape how human beings see the world. Once one accepts the idea that government is necessary for peace and order and that it can function objectively, one’s imagination will allow one to see the hand of government wherever there is law, police, and courts and render the non-political provision of these services invisible. But if you lay aside this conceptual framework long enough to ask where these services originated and where, to a large extent, they still come from, the world assumes a different aspect. If you want the strongest argument for anarchy, simply remove your self-imposed blinders and look around.

The Obviousness of Anarchy, John Hasnas, Associate Professor, Georgetown University, http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/AnarchyDraft.pdf.

Anarchy refers to a society without a central political authority. But it is also used to refer to disorder or chaos. This constitutes a textbook example of Orwellian newspeak in which assigning the same name to two different concepts effectively narrows the range of thought. For if lack of government is identified with the lack of order, no one will ask whether lack of government actually results in a lack of order. And this uninquisitive mental attitude is absolutely essential to the case for the state. For if people were ever to seriously question whether government actions are really productive of order, popular support for government would almost instantly collapse…

A wise man once told me that the best way to prove that something is possible is to show that it exists. That is the strategy I shall adopt in this article. I intend to show that a stable, successful society without government can exist by showing that it has, and to a large extent, still does.

Same

The entire world lives in anarchy – which best characterizes the international system. Since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the major European nations, and gradually all nations, have been at the highest level of political architecture, interacting in a global anarchy. In the international relations of nation-states, groups and organizations, and individuals, there has been no law with force, and no government with a monopoly of force, or any global force at all. This is the definition of anarchy. Strange to say, that this has been missed by most everyone who has actually lived under this anarchy for all their lives. This anarchic international system has been stable over the centuries, and has not collapsed into mob rule…

Fewer people have been killed in combat among nations then have been domestically murdered by totalitarian nations.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/QA.V2.HTML#policy

Some people love the pharmaceutical and some people despise it: there is little middle ground. The pharmaceutical industry is the poster-child of every intellectual monopoly supporter. It is the vivid example that, without the sheltering patents provide inventors with, the outpouring of new wonder drugs we have grown accustomed to would have not materialized, our life expectancies would be a lot shorter, and millions of people would have died of the diseases Big Pharma has instead managed to cure. In the opposite camp, Big Pharma is the scourge of humanity: a club of oligopolistic white men that, by controlling medicine around the globe and refusing to sell drugs at their marginal cost, are letting millions of poor people die. Withdrawal of supply by the big pharmaceuticals is as close to economic crime as anything can be, we are told. The wonders of contemporary medicine and biotechnology are the fruits of intellectual property, it is countered…

It is often argued that the best case for patents is in the pharmaceutical industry. The fixed cost of innovation is large, with estimates of the average cost of bringing a single new drug to market as high as $800 million in current dollars… Indeed, according to industry surveys, the only industry in which patents are thought to play an important role in bringing new products to market is the pharmaceutical industry…

The pharmaceutical industry is a complicated beast to vivisect, which can be approached from many contradictory angles and viewpoints. We will stick to ours, narrow that it may be, and ask – how strong is the case for patents in pharmaceuticals? Is there substantial evidence that without patents we would not have the medicines we have, or at least we would have a lot fewer and worse medicines? Would the industry shut down and talent move to some other, more rewarding, enterprise if patents on drugs were more or less abolished, that is, if the world became like Switzerland until 1978 or Italy until a year later?

In fact, we shall see that… the case for patents in pharmaceuticals is a lot weaker than most people think – and so, apparently, even under the most favorable circumstances patents are not necessarily good for society, for consumers, or in this case, for sick people. Patents are good for monopolists, [Big Pharma], but that much we knew already.

Historically, intellectual monopoly in pharmaceuticals has varied enormously over time and space. The summary story: the modern pharmaceutical industry developed faster where patents were fewer and weaker…

In the U.S. drugs have been patentable since the beginning, for the very simple reason that chemical products have always been patentable…

In most of continental Europe, until recent years, only the process of producing a drug could be patented, so once a drug was discovered, a second producer could also produce it provided they found a different way of doing so. The rationale behind process versus product patents is given by the German Association of the Chemical Industry in a memoire to the Reichstag. They point out that the same chemical product can be obtained by different processes and methods and even starting from initially different materials and components. Hence, there is social value in patenting a new process, as it rewards the innovator without preventing further innovation. There is negative social value in patenting a specific product, as this would exclude all others from producing it, even through different processes…

In France, under the law of July 5, 1844 pharmaceutical inventions could not be patented… the law of January 2, 1966 finally introduced limited patents for pharmaceutical products in France; the ban on patenting drugs was completely lifted only in 1978…

In Germany, the law of May 25, 1877 introduced patents for both chemical and pharmaceutical processes, while products were explicitly excluded…The Law of April 4, 1891 extended patent protection to products obtained via a patented process. Finally, the law of September 4, 1967 introduced general patentability of chemical and pharmaceutical products in Germany…

In Switzerland, patents for chemical and pharmaceutical products were explicitly prohibited by the constitution… Constant German pressure eventually led to the adoption of patents for processes with the Swiss Law of June 21, 1907, which was nevertheless quite restrictive. The Law of June 25, 1954 continued to apply only to processes but extended the length of patents from 10 to 18 years. Patents for products were introduced in Switzerland only in 1977…

In Italy, pharmaceutical patents were prohibited until 1978… Despite this complete lack of any patent protection, Italy had developed a strong pharmaceutical industry: by the end of the 1970s it was the fifth world producer of pharmaceuticals and the seventh exporter…

In Spain, the Ley de Patentes introduced patents for products in 1986, as a consequence of the country’s entrance in the EEC. The law began to be applied only in 1992. Before that date, regulations dating back to 1931 explicitly prohibited the patenting of any substance and, particularly, of any pharmaceutical substance. Patenting of processes was instead allowed…

Now, you may be wondering, why are we boring you with all these details about specific countries, patenting of chemical processes, and pharmaceutical products, and so forth? For a very simple reason: if patents were a necessary requirement for pharmaceutical innovation as claimed by their supporters, the large historical and cross country variations in the patent protection of medical products should have had a dramatic impact on national pharmaceutical industries. In particular, at least between 1850 and 1980, most drugs and medical products should have been invented and produced in the United States and the United Kingdom, and very little if anything in continental Europe. Further, countries such as Italy, Switzerland and, to a lesser extent, Germany, should have been the poor sick laggards of the pharmaceutical industry until recently. Instead the opposite was true for longer than a century.

Against Intellectual Monopoly, Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, Professors of Economics, UCLA and Washington University, 2010, http://www.micheleboldrin.com/research/aim/anew.all.pdf (amazon, interview).

In a very recent and publicized case, Pfizer announced the writing off of almost $1 billion of expenditure sunk into the development of a new drug, Torcetrapib, which failed dramatically short of its expectations. Of the billion dollars involved, $800 million went to pay for clinical trials, while the Irish plant where the drug was supposed to be produced amounted to just $90 million.

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Slightly related:

Most people who illegally download movies, music and TV shows would pay for them if there was a cheap and legal service as convenient as file-sharing tools like BitTorrent.

That’s the finding of the most comprehensive look yet at people who illegally download TV shows, movies and music in Australia, conducted by news.com.au and market research firm CoreData.

The survey canvassed the attitudes of more than 7000 people who admitted to streaming or downloading media from illegitimate sources in the past 12 months.

It found accessibility was as much or more of a motivator than money for those who illegally download media using services like BitTorrent.

More respondents said they turned to illegal downloads because they were convenient than because they were free, when it came to all three types of media covered by the survey — TV shows, movies and music.

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And more than two-thirds said they would pay for downloads from a legitimate service that was just as convenient if it existed.

Most pirates say they’d pay for legal downloads, news.com.au, Andrew Ramadge, May 06, 2010, http://www.news.com.au/technology/download-culture/internet-pirates-say-theyd-pay-for-legal-downloads/story-fn58oolp-1225863187697.

The large changes in mortality observed in the developing world [between 1965 and 1995] are consistent with the interpretation that poor countries absorbed technology and knowledge previously available in rich countries, at relatively low costs, while most of the changes in mortality in developed countries took advantage of recent developments on the frontier of medical technology.

The Quantity and Quality of Life and the Evolution of World Inequality, Becker et al, Department of Economics, The University of Chicago, June, 2003, http://home.uchicago.edu/~gbecker/Becker-Philipson-Soares.pdf.

Life expectancy at birth in 1965 and 1998, The World Bank, http://www.worldbank.org/depweb/english/modules/social/life/chart1a.html.

A funny Zsa Zsa Gabor quote and the potential pitfall of being a non-hunky, faithful dude:

Some husband-seekers trade off masculinity for companionship and good parenting. Others forfeit compassion in exchange for wealth. “I want a man who’s kind and understanding,” Zsa Zsa Gabor once griped. “Is that too much to ask of a millionaire?” To secretly have it all, some women adopt a “dual mating” strategy—marrying a solid, faithful guy and enjoying trysts with hunks. As a result, up to 10% of babies born in some populations have fathers who are presumed to be their biological dads but aren’t.

Why Women Don’t Want Macho Men, The Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704100604575145810050665030.html.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, the U.S. produces or imports about 3,900 calories per person, per day, and consumes about 2,700 calories of that, per person, per day. “Consumption” is more than calorie intake as it includes food lost in preparation, thrown out, etc. The difference between available and consumed (1,100 calories per person, per day) is either used for farms (feed and seed), used by industry, spoiled, or wasted [usda.gov].

Economic Research Service (ERS), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food Availability (Per Capita) Data System, available, consumed.

Supermarket food loss:

ERS found that annual supermarket losses for 2005 and 2006 averaged 11.4 percent for fresh fruit, 9.7 percent for fresh vegetables, and 4.5 percent for fresh meat, poultry, and seafood.

Supermarket Loss Estimates for Fresh Fruit, Vegetables, Meat, Poultry, and Seafood and Their Use in the ERS Loss-Adjusted Food Availability Data, Buzby et al, Economic Research Service, U.S.D.A., March, 2009, http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB44/EIB44.pdf.

Breakdown by type:

Cheese!

Poor sweet potatoes.

Tracking a Century of American Eating, Morrison et al, Economic Research Service, U.S.D.A., March 10, 2010, http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/March10/PDF/TrackingACentury.pdf (http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/).

And…

Random: Old Drum:

Gentlemen of the jury: The best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it the most. A man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him and the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog.

Gentlemen of the jury: A man’s dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master’s side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him to guard against danger, to fight against his enemies, and when the last scene of all comes, and death takes the master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even to death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Graham_Vest#Old_Drum

If we think the world is here for us, we will continue to destroy it in the way that we have been destroying it because we think we can do no harm. There’s an awful lot of speculation, one way or another at the moment, about whether there’s life on other planets or not… In a way, it doesn’t matter… There are two possibilities: Either there is life out there on other planets, or there is no life out there on other planets. They are both utterly extraordinary ideas.

But, there is the strong possibility there isn’t anything out there remotely like us. And we are behaving as if this extraordinary, utterly, utterly extraordinary little ball of life is something we can just screw about with any way we’d like. And maybe we can’t. Maybe we should be looking after it just a little bit better. Not for the world’s sake. We talk rather grandly about saving the world. We don’t have to save the world– the world is fine.

The world has been through five periods of mass extinction. 65 million years ago when, as it seems, a comet hit the Earth at the same time as there were vast volcanic eruptions in India, which saw off the dinosaurs and something like 90% of the life on the planet at that time. Go back another, I think it’s 150 million years before that to the Permian Triassic boundary– another giant extinction. The world has been through it many times before. What happens invariably after each mass extinction, is that there’s a huge amount of space available for new forms of life suddenly to emerge and flourish into it. Just as the extinction of the dinosaurs made way for us. Without that extinction, we would not be here.

So, the world is fine. We don’t have to save the world, the world is big enough to look after itself. What we have to be concerned about is whether or not the world we live in will be capable of sustaining us in it. That’s what we need to think about.

There is a problem I’m very conscious of here which is that even though I’m talking from a conservationist point of view, very strongly, you look back over the history of the conservationist movement and most of what we’ve said we have to do about it and all the ways we’ve gone about it have actually turned out to be wrong. So, it’s very hard for me to say we have to do this and we have to do that, because they may not be the right solution… Time after time we’ve gone about it the wrong way. The conservation efforts of one set of ten years will be about as much as anything else undoing the progress of the last set of ten years. So it is a question of a constant self-education, trying to assimilate the information, trying to see what the consequences of what we’ve done so far has been, and what we can learn from that… There may be effects of the Law of Unintended Consequences. I think the best thing we can do is to continuously inform ourselves of what is actually happening… I’m worried it may be a good answer but I’m also worried it may not be the rigth answer, which is a complicated way of saying, “I don’t know.”

Douglas Adams, 1:13:35, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZG8HBuDjgc.