The Off Topic Topic

[Eddie Teach]

Here are the questions (actually they're statements that you either agree or disagree with):

1. Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable.- dunno

2. Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services.- agree

3. Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago.- agree

4. Rent control leads to housing shortages.- dunno

5. A company with the largest market share is a monopoly.- disagree

6. Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited.- matter of perspective

7. Free trade leads to unemployment.- neutral

8. Minimum wage laws raise unemployment.- possibly

9. A dollar means more to a poor person than it does to a rich person.- agree

10. Making abortions illegal would increase the number of black-market abortions.- agree

11. Legalizing drugs would give more wealth and power to street gangs and organized crime.- disagree

12. Drug prohibition fails to reduce people's access to drugs.- disagree. I for one have no idea where I could get illegal drugs.

13. Gun control laws fail to reduce people's access to guns.- disagree.

14. By participating in the marketplace in the United States, immigrants reduce the economic well-being of American citizens.- in general disagree, though exceptions will exist

15. When two people complete a voluntary transaction, they both necessarily come off better.- disagree

16. When two people complete a voluntary transaction, it is necessarily the case that everyone else is unaffected by their transaction.- disagree

[Sheilbh]

Exactly.  He found out everyone is crap.  He was hoping and expecting that the right would do better on the corrected test.  He learned something he didn't know before.

This argument is really bizarre.  It's as if some physicist proved two competing theories incorrect and you all jumped on him for taking the middle ground for the middle ground's sake.

Politics isn't like physics.  It's not a science.  I find the application of right and wrong to it kind of weird.

[Admiral Yi]

Politics isn't like physics.  It's not a science.  I find the application of right and wrong to it kind of weird.

His questions weren't about preferences, they were about cause and effect.

[Sheilbh]

His questions weren't about preferences, they were about cause and effect.

To be honest though those questions look more like a quiz than anything revealing.

[Admiral Yi]

To be honest though those questions look more like a quiz than anything revealing.

It is a quiz, and the questions are not at all anything revealing.

What the author of the article thought revealing was the relationship between the quiz-takers self proclaimed political philosophy and the number of incorrect response.

[Razgovory]

Some of these are somewhat contested.

Take for instance:  "Legalizing drugs would give more wealth and power to street gangs and organized crime", This question is very vague.   There lots of legal drugs.  For instance, Oxycontin is legal, and yet some people still sell it on the street.  Presumably some people are making money from doing so.  With harder drugs I'm not sure there's any evidence one way or the other.  Are there scientific studies done on communities that legalize heroin and the effect it has the local organize crime syndicate?  It would be rather hard to do that I think.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

My unread pile is over 100.

I have something like a dozen on mine.  I need to get on the stick.

Couple years ago I made a new year's resolution that I wouldn't buy any more books until my unread pile is under 20. It's now sitting at around 35.

Amateurs.   My wife has 1586 unread books in her library.

[Razgovory]

Where does she keep the ones she's read?

[Ed Anger]

Romance novels doesn't count. 

[Ed Anger]

Looks like Occupy Denver under their fuhrer dog is being taken down tonight.

[Josquius]

My timing is hilariously bad. Let out a huge fart in bed....just as the friend who had been sleeping over was walking past my bedroom to leave the flat. Woops, heh.

[Josephus]

Where does she keep the ones she's read?

She hasn't read any.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Where does she keep the ones she's read?

She hasn't read any.

She's read 87 this year alone.

[Eddie Teach]

Still, that's like 15 years backlog.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Still, that's like 15 years backlog.

You can take dictation: bite me!