Setting Fire To Sleeping Strawmen (now with extra Toniiiiiiiiiight, you're right, you're right, you're right)
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I get that.
Shitloads of unnecessary testing => heavy investment cost => no way to patent = no new drugs.
Take out the testing part, you get.
Heavy investment cost => no way to patent = no new blank.
If the argument is that patents offset the heavy FDA testing, that without the testing we don't need patents, then it follows that patents offset heavy investment.
Being told that I'm wrong, is the paradox.
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@Intercourse said:
No, @boomzilla was arguing that the shitloads of testing are unnecessary, which feeds in to my comment. At least that is how I read his comment.
How did you get that from his comment? He just said that without drug patents1:
No one would pay for all the testing that the FDA requires.
How do you go from that to "the shitloads of testing is unnecessary"? @boomzilla did not say anything like that.
@xaade had the summary right.
1 That's paraphrasing the conversational context.
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I could have been wrong. Shit happens. He will be by at some point to tell us.
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If the argument is that patents offset the heavy FDA testing, that without the testing we don't need patents, then it follows that patents offset heavy investment.
You are ignoring the fact that the testing is in place because the pharmaceutical industry is profit driven and they will only do the testing that is required of them. The isn't the only way to run a country. A world without drug patents would have a different approval protocol.
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Everything's profit driven.
I'm profit driven. It's a major motivator.
People abusing welfare are profit driven.
We pick things that we can't abide by, and make a stand.
Companies do that too.
At this rate, blame the investors, because they're the ones that really drive cutting corners.
Sustainable growth is what responsible companies do. And I work for those companies.
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Oh thank the flying spaghetti monster! You've saved and improved the human condition — just not necessarily in the way you think you have.
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Here's the deal:
Patents were originally designed to cover things you could drop on your foot (such as a lock), or processes whose products could be dropped on your foot (such as a fancy new antibiotic). Efforts to extend patents to other things were soundly rejected early in the history of patent law -- the Morse case is a good recognition of it, where the last claim of Samuel F.B. Morse's famous telegraphy patent was struck down because it pre-empted all uses of electromagnetism for sending signals.
Fast-forward to the 1970s, when the Digital Age was just getting into swing after crawling out of the primordial swamps. Some lawyer types decided to try to sneak software around the restrictions in the patent system by arguing "software isn't math, it makes the inert computer into a 'new machine'". This eventually reached the courts, leading to a trilogy of cases known as Benson, Flook, and Diehr that established that:
- Software by itself is not patentable as it's a branch of mathematics (the Curry-Howard isomorphism is the simplest route to this conclusion, btw), and
- You can patent a machine that uses a fundamental equation or algorithm as part of its job, provided that the patent neither preempts the use of that equation or algorithm in other contexts and the post-solution activity is not some trivial step, but actually involves patentable activity.
Unfortunately -- this happy state was not to last. Another bunch of lawyers continued to push the "software makes a computer into a new machine" argument further and further, as well as variants such as the notion of a "non-mathematical algorithm", and eventually won sympathy from patent-infatuated judges in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, leading to Alappat and State Street, where patents on a rasterizer (expressed as hardware in the patent, but claimed broadly enough to preempt a software implementation of the algorithm as well) and a banking method (!!!) were allowed to stand as valid.
This rightly triggered a strong backlash from the computer-science-savvy part of the world, who raised issues both with the practicability (the double patenting of the LZW algorithm by IBM and Unisys remains a classic example of this) and the factual basis (Curry-Howard again -- just because the law says that you can have a "non-mathematical algorithm" doesn't mean a counterexample to Curry-Howard exists) of this legal position. Furthermore, patents started to crop up not only on machines, chemicals, and algorithms, but on methods of doing business, medical test procedures, segments of genes, and other things the authors of patent law had never considered as patentable -- patents on gene segements and medical tests raised particular hackles in significant portions of the medical community.
These two opposition forces pushed together to create a second Supreme Court trilogy of cases, namely Bilski v. Kappos, Mayo v. Prometheus, and Alice v. CLS Bank; taken collectively, they put software and business method patents on a very weak footing. So, right now, the problem is mainly the need to deal with continuing trollish behavior, and thresh the patent pool thoroughly as it's full of legally unsupportable chaff at the moment.
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I'll just leave this here.
Google: "The key problem appears to be that the cost of manufacturing the components of the renewable power facilities is far too close to the total recoverable energy – the facilities never, or just barely, produce enough energy to balance the budget of what was consumed in their construction. This leads to a runaway cycle of constructing more and more renewable plants simply to produce the energy required to manufacture and maintain renewable energy plants – an obvious practical absurdity. "
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I am going to have to look at all of these. Thanks for the insight. I have often wondered how we got to the point that math can become patentable and computers are nothing but math.
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@Intercourse said:
How about doing something and doing it better than anyone else? No one can take that away from you. If you do a shit job of it, then someone else does it better and they reap the rewards.
Several years ago, I worked at a company that served a niche industry and had been in business for well over a decade, and thus had both vast amounts of domain experience as well as technical debt. About a year after I started working there, a sales executive jumped ship for a newer competing company that, unlike our company, had a backer with deep pockets. Naturally, he took with him many ideas about the direction of our products, and within a year or two, when we would demo our solution to clients, they would say, "Wow, your software is almost like an inferior copy of Initech's solution!"
Suddenly, ten plus years of experience, knowledge of the business domain, and the sweat of many developers to get the product to where it was had been severely compromised. The other company got all those hard-earned insights for free. It was taken from us.
I wonder if there would be some way to validate work and investment done into engineering a solution prior to production, and whether that can be used to bring patents more in line.
In a perfect world, this would be a good solution, but the appointment of a Patents Engineering Czar is going to draw the contempt of the libertarian bloc among us. In this instance, I'm inclined to agree with them because it would be nearly impossible to get right.
@Intercourse said:
Tough shit. Someone else does it in a way that is better suited to the market demands.
It's easy to say "tough shit" from the sidelines. If you were the owner of the company I described above, would you accept the predicament without complaint?
@Intercourse said:
-VC- "Because we invest in people, not ideas. If you are the right person to bring an idea to market, we will love to work with you. If not, you are having us sign an NDA because nothing you have is patentable or original and we would be better off to either pass or pay you off and take it to market without you. Regardless, you need us or you would not be sitting here so we can either proceed without the NDA or you can leave and we will meet with the next group."
"What assurance do we have that you won't turn around and exploit our idea, which we spent a great deal of effort developing, without compensating us for that effort we put in?"
Ideas may be a dime a dozen, but good ideas do not grow on trees.
@Intercourse said:
Just like patents don't really mean anything anyway because if Google or MS "steals your idea", do you really have the resources to fight them? No. But they do have the resources to fight you. Patents and copyright only protect the big guys because the big guys care fuckall about your patents and copyrights. They can engage in a war of attrition if they think your IP is worth it.
The general theme I'm getting here is that might makes right. Money does command quite a bit of power. Does it not make sense to have sensible measures to protect the less-moneyed from the more-moneyed so that there are fewer barriers to entry and the playing field is more level?
The patent trolls need to be kicked out, but there needs to be some recourse for the people who have done all the hard work coming up with solutions only to have the spoils taken from them.
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It's easy to say "tough shit" from the sidelines. If you were the owner of the company I described above, would you accept the predicament without complaint?
No, but I would realize that it was my own damned fault.
"What assurance do we have that you won't turn around and exploit our idea, which we spent a great deal of effort developing, without compensating us for that effort we put in?"
None, but if the idea is right and the person presenting it is a shitty prospect to bring it to market then it would be a foolish investment. Meetings like this are not a "let's see everything you have, including code base, etc" (They frequently are not even tech related). It is more like a business version of a first date. Starting off with an NDA shows no faith. If they have no faith in the person they are presenting to, then you are already starting off on a bad footing. It would be like expecting your date to have a recent STD panel and genetic screening to hand you when you pick her up. It might be a good idea in theory, but it will not get you anywhere.
Ideas may be a dime a dozen, but good ideas do not grow on trees.
Yes they do. Ideas are worth fuckall if the implementation of them is shit. Ideas are a base value and the team behind them is the multiplier. A great idea, with a shitty team and no business experience in sight will produce no money. A marginal idea with a good team and business experience in the mix can make money. A decent idea with a rockstar team behind it and good business acumen can make a fucking fortune.
The general theme I'm getting here is that might makes right.
Not at all. What I said was that "right" doesn't mean anything if you do not have the resources to back the patent lawsuit. You can come up with an idea and if a leviathan like MS or Apple wants it they can just take it. You could rightfully sue them, but they can keep you tied up in court for years until you are out of money and bankrupt. Lawsuits are frequently a war of attrition. I say we take away the power of the leviathans to hold IP and ideas hostage and let people do with them what they wish. If you have an awesome idea (and the ability to bring it to market, which is the most important part), but your idea relies on technology that one of the big boys holds in their IP locker, you are screwed. Get rid of the majority of patent law and let the best man win.
Now is a great time to be an entrepreneur because right now there are a lot of amazing tools that are GPL'd. You can build amazing things with a hell of a lot less cash outlay than you could a couple of decades ago. It is precisely because those frameworks, RDMS, web servers, languages, compilers, operating systems, etc. are "copyleft" that we are seeing another surge in tech. If everything were patented and everything required a cash outlay, most of the great tech of today would not and could not exist.
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@Intercourse said:
No, but I would realize that it was my own damned fault.
Where was the fault, though?
- Not anticipating that your sales executive was a sociopathic asshole
- Not being a younger company with more resources and less technical debt
- Door 3
@Intercourse said:
None, but if the idea is right and the person presenting it is a shitty prospect to bring it to market then it would be a foolish investment. Meetings like this are not a "let's see everything you have, including code base, etc" (They frequently are not even tech related). It is more like a business version of a first date.
Oh, ok, I can accept that, as long as it's broad and high-level without delving into implementation details. That's where all the hard work is.
@Intercourse said:
It would be like expecting your date to have a recent STD panel and genetic screening to hand you when you pick her up. It might be a good idea in theory, but it will not get you anywhere.
I dunno, I could see some advantages to this.
@Intercourse said:
Yes they do. Ideas are worth fuckall if the implementation of them is shit. Ideas are a base value and the team behind them is the multiplier. A great idea, with a shitty team and no business experience in sight will produce no money. A marginal idea with a good team and business experience in the mix can make money. A decent idea with a rockstar team behind it and good business acumen can make a fucking fortune.
I should have clarified that when I said "good idea," it comprises the implementation. "We want to build a better mousetrap" would be a very short meeting. "We want to build a better mousetrap by sourcing the frobinator from Contoso instead of Initech, and using an alternate widget to improve durability as well as reduce weight and overall manufacturing costs" would be a longer and more interesting meeting.
@Intercourse said:
What I said was that "right" doesn't mean anything if you do not have the resources to back the patent lawsuit. You can come up with an idea and if a leviathan like MS or Apple wants it they can just take it. You could rightfully sue them, but they can keep you tied up in court for years until you are out of money and bankrupt. Lawsuits are frequently a war of attrition.
Agreed, courts are a money sink.
@Intercourse said:
Now is a great time to be an entrepreneur because right now there are a lot of amazing tools that are GPL'd. You can build amazing things with a hell of a lot less cash outlay than you could a couple of decades ago. It is precisely because those frameworks, RDMS, web servers, languages, compilers, operating systems, etc. are "copyleft" that we are seeing another surge in tech. If everything were patented and everything required a cash outlay, most of the great tech of today would not and could not exist.
Also agreed. I have the complete source code to the stack on my side project, when just a few years ago, licenses to commercial libraries would be five figures apiece.
At the same time, I'm just one guy, and I'm competing against studios with $10+ million budgets and hundreds of developers, and I worry sometimes about someone with far greater resources getting a hold of my ideas and/or hard work...
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Where was the fault, though?
Not anticipating that your sales executive was a sociopathic asshole
Not being a younger company with more resources and less technical debtYes and yes. Don't hire shady salespeople, and repay the technical debt as you go. We all incur it, but any company that lets it accumulate is going to be fucked anyway, it is only a matter of when. The longer you put it off, the more interest you will pay on that debt.
(I really hate the metaphorical term "technical debt". It only spawns more bad metaphors.)
I dunno, I could see some advantages to this.
I could have also back in the day. Not that is would have dissuaded me, but at least I could have known what I was getting in to. Crazy girls were always the most fun. ;)
I should have clarified that when I said "good idea," it comprises the implementation.
For me, as a businessman, the implementation is worth a hell of a lot more than the idea is. I get pitched a few times a week. "Oh, you own an IT business? I have this great idea..." Unless that idea is a barn burner, I am not interested. The few times I have been interested, no one likes my offer.
As an example, a few years ago we took on a project for a friend who was doing a startup. He had a great idea (it still is a fucking great idea, and a space I would love to move in to at some point), he was an awesome person for it, his business partner was a total ass though. We got it built and it was gorgeous. We had backers ready to roll. We had some revenue coming in from ancillary business that came from our meetings. We had customers ready to go. We were there.
Then the asshole partner pretty much ruined it all. Long story, but we had to walk away. I made some money (realistically the opportunity cost put me strongly in the red on it though), my friend lost his ass and 18 months of income.
Implementation, business knowledge, a good team and contacts (business success is mostly based on nepotism), all of these things are worth way more than the idea ever is. Hell, even writing the code and laying the infrastructure means fuckall if no one ever sees it and no one ever buys it. If people buy it and you cannot manage cashflow, the idea will be stillborn.
Also agreed. I have the complete source code to the stack on my side project, when just a few years ago, licenses to commercial libraries would be five figures apiece.
At the same time, I'm just one guy, and I'm competing against studios with $10+ million budgets and hundreds of developers, and I worry sometimes about someone with far greater resources getting a hold of my ideas and/or hard work...
I feel you. We are a small shop also and we have two projects in the works ourselves. We get a lot done for a small team though. Project #1 will likely be a success if no one else beats us to it. It could still tank if someone takes the idea and does it better. Those are the risks. Project #2, I am not sure on. I will likely have to bring in an outside investor if I really want to hit the ground running. It kills me to think about it, but it is pretty likely. I am not sure if I can bootstrap it. If Project #1 hits, I might be able to roll the cashflow in to #2 and achieve our goals.
These are the risks we take as business people. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But man, is it a good time to do it. So many great, free tools. In the early 90's, these same projects would have started at $500K just to get them rolling with licensed software and dev tools.
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@Intercourse said:
(I really hate the metaphorical term "technical debt". It only spawns more bad metaphors.)
And yet your use of it illustrates why it is such an apt metaphor!
@Intercourse said:
"Oh, you own an IT business? I have this great idea..."
I would have a hard time not rolling my eyes after hearing that. It's like a canary in a mine full of bad ideas.
A while back, I was talking about my project on a chat server somewhere, and some guy suggested that I allow players (in an RPG) to create their own abilities with as few limitations as possible. Because it would be cool. I responded that that would entail spending at least a year (on an already ambitious project) creating a scripting language/environment that would be simple enough for the lowest common denominator yet be powerful enough to accomplish anything meaningful. Someone else sane pointed out that such a proposal would be near impossible to balance.
@Intercourse said:
Implementation, business knowledge, a good team and contacts (business success is mostly based on nepotism), all of these things are worth way more than the idea ever is. Hell, even writing the code and laying the infrastructure means fuckall if no one ever sees it and no one ever buys it. If people buy it and you cannot manage cashflow, the idea will be stillborn.
There's also, frustratingly, being in the right place at the right time.
@Intercourse said:
These are the risks we take as business people. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But man, is it a good time to do it. So many great, free tools. In the early 90's, these same projects would have started at $500K just to get them rolling with licensed software and dev tools.
Definitely a plus. The low barriers to entry also mean you can experiment while still holding a day job, to see how effective an idea is before going all-in.
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I would have a hard time not rolling my eyes after hearing that. It's like a canary in a mine full of bad ideas.
Yeah, but some people do have good ideas, sort of. There is just no way to make money off of them, or not enough to be worthwhile. There is always risk and when someone says that to you, there is a really good chance you will be taking all of it.
Also, I cannot roll my eyes because you never know who you might be offending. But I feel you.
some guy suggested that I allow players (in an RPG) to create their own abilities with as few limitations as possible.
So basically "God mode" for everyone. Got it. He did not think that one through, eh? It reminds me of this XKCD:
There's also, frustratingly, being in the right place at the right time.
Yeah, but if you wait for all the lights to turn green before you take off, you will never leave the driveway. Weigh your risks and then go full-steam if it seems to be worth it. Just go for it.
Definitely a plus. The low barriers to entry also mean you can experiment while still holding a day job, to see how effective an idea is before going all-in.
Yep. Lots of great projects start that way, but the more time you can spend the better. I was fortunate enough to be able to go all-in. Most people cannot though.
Edit: The biggest benefit though is that it has lowered the cost of entry so that people do not have to raise $1M in capital to get off the ground. You can start lots of software projects with nothing but a laptop and your time. We did our first project for under $5K, all-in. Well, a lot of sweat equity, but we made our initial cash investment back very quickly.
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@Intercourse said:
Also, I cannot roll my eyes because you never know who you might be offending. But I feel you.
Well, you don't necessarily want to be completely candid in a business setting.
@Intercourse said:
Edit: The biggest benefit though is that it has lowered the cost of entry so that people do not have to raise $1M in capital to get off the ground. You can start lots of software projects with nothing but a laptop and your time. We did our first project for under $5K, all-in. Well, a lot of sweat equity, but we made our initial cash investment back very quickly.
I think I've spent < $2k on art assets for this project so far, and I believe they're all licensed such that they could be reused for any number of projects. Plus, it's fun to mess around with them.
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all the quoting in this thread made my eyes hurt.
aside.quote { border-radius: 5px; border: 1px solid #CFCFCF; overflow:hidden; } aside.quote blockquote{ margin-bottom:0px !important; background:#FBFBFB; } aside.quote .title{ padding-bottom:10px; background:#FBFBFB !important; }
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I think you're not getting it.
I'm not talking about some joe shmoe that has an idea! (TM)
I'm talking about someone that put 18 months of development into the idea, shows it works, make mockups, and maybe even have a prototype.
That's 18 months of life lost, if some major corp dupes the idea on a whim and sells it.
That kills innovation. People just won't spend the effort. The idea guy is going to quit trying and get a desk-job. And we lose out on cool stuff.
The only reason he markets the idea is because he doesn't have a manufacturing plant to produce it, or the equity to afford hosting it.
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I tried that, and the title area doesn't get the lighter background. What gives?
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I added important to the CSS. see updated snippet. should work Now
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Places with high rates of population growth are just going to get more and more grindingly and miserably poor. This has nothing to do with me being a murderous bastard or otherwise, it's just how ecology and capitalism work. It sucks, but there's very little I can do about it.
So how did capitalist North America, Europe, and Eastern Asia get fantastically richer while their populations skyrocketed too?
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So how did capitalist North America, Europe, and Eastern Asia get fantastically richer while their populations skyrocketed too?
The problem isn't (as such) capitalism, at least not until Malthusian limitations actually kick in. The problem is ecology (more accurately, environmental activism) and capitalism collide. More specifically, when some bright spark gets the idea that letting environmentalism govern in the particular way it is trying to do at the moment in certain places, and you get people advocating that the only hope for "saving the planet"(1) is, or more or less amounts to, a return to a mediaeval living standard, maybe even a Stone Age one.(1) No, dudes, the planet will be just fine. There is nothing we can do that will make much of an impression on the 8000-mile pebble we call home. The not-quite-invisibly thin layer of green stuff on the surface might have issues, but the pebble will be just fine, at least until now + 5E+009 years (more or less). (The green layer won't last that long. They say that at now + 1E+009 years, the oceans will be boiling off as the fusion lamp continues to warm up. Don't forget that when people advocate solar energy systems, they are advocating the use of an unshielded fusion reactor.)
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If we (humans) keep getting richer and more educated, birth rates will decline in the poorer parts of the world (as they have in the richest parts) and we will reach a stable, rich, healthy and educated population. With technology constantly improving and getting more efficient.
To me it, seems like an attainable stability that leaves humanity AND the planet pretty well off.
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If I did, I'd volunteer for that Mars mission. After all, in a decade or three, we might start to have a solution to overpopulation that doesn't involve having less people.
Words simply fail me as I contemplate the degree of innumeracy required to take this position seriously.
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@Intercourse said:
(I really hate the metaphorical term "technical debt". It only spawns more bad metaphors.
With interest.
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Everything's profit driven.
Government is also profit-driven. The difference is the profit is measured in power instead of currency.
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I'm talking about someone that put 18 months of development into the idea, shows it works, make mockups, and maybe even have a prototype.
That's 18 months of life lost, if some major corp dupes the idea on a whim and sells it.
That kills innovation. People just won't spend the effort. The idea guy is going to quit trying and get a desk-job. And we lose out on cool stuff.
Your hypothetical are getting so far from something resembling reality that I find them difficult to debate.
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facepalm
Don't you get what I'm trying to say.
The described scenario is the ONLY scenario that patents are supposed to protect.
You're supposed to have vast amount of evidence that your idea works. Then you patent and sell your idea to someone who has the prowess to produce, market, and productise.
All these patents about "slide to unlock" and "I haz idea" are total bullshit. Patent trolling by patenting something already in the market, is total bullshit. Big corporations protecting their production is total bullshit. Intellectual property rights are total bullshit.
Patents are just there to allow someone to innovate and get rewarded for their effort before handing it over to someone else to productise.
What it has become, is total bullshit.
The only point I'm trying to make is that if you do not allow someone to gain from the research and investment costs, then you stop innovation. Sure, there is another company that can bring a product to market better, and sure they get their chance and reap the reward, but if there's some idea out there that blows the current status quo out of the water, no one will spend the time necessary to prove the idea, and it's lost.
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Patents have a twofold purpose:
- Encourage innovation by granting a monopoly to the inventor on his novel invention, even if he tells other people about it.
- Ensure that the invention becomes available for anyone to implement after the limited period of protection finishes.
Patents that are not clear, or that have key functional parts kept as trade secrets, should be automatically thrown out.
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Your point would have more merit were it not for the fact that any piece of engineering worth marketing in the 21st century is always going to be complex enough to give the original design team an almost unbeatable advantage - unless they fuck up bigtime.
Patents were developed at a time in history when machinery was simple, and the thing worth protecting was the compelling new concept - like the cotton gin with interchangeable parts or the stump-jump plough. But that's not how things are now.
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- Complexity doesn't matter, because if someone gets a blueprint and has the tools to manufactor it, same problem.
- http://www.google.com/patents/US5004134
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Your entire argument hinges on the assumption that people wouldn't innovate without patent protection. This is simply not true. I agree that there would be unfortunate consequences of a world without patents, but I disagree that innovation wouldn't happen.
I write software for a living. I have never patented anything and I don't plan to. This has not caused me to be afraid to innovate.
Entrepreneurs always overestimate the value of their ideas. Most great ideas aren't successful simply because they are great. The ones that succeed are the ones that are acted on just as they become feasible. The timing is much more important than the idea. Streaming media companies that tried to start up fifteen years ago failed due to a lack of customers with sufficient bandwidth, not because their idea was bad. The same idea is viable today - but the winners and losers are picked based on content deals, quality of execution, and luck.
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The only point I'm trying to make is that if you do not allow someone to gain from the research and investment costs, then you stop innovation
So there was no innovation before patents were invented?
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because if someone gets a blueprint and has the tools to manufactor it
In software, if you have the "blueprint", you have the software. Unless you'd consider a design document a "blueprint", in which case, you're now 18 months of development behind the guy who produced the design document. Which goes right back to what @flabdablet was saying:
the original design team [has] an almost unbeatable advantage
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all the quoting in this thread made my eyes hurt.
Cry me a river.
all the quoting in this thread made my eyes hurt.
Build a bridge.
all the quoting in this thread made my eyes hurt.
And get over it.
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Agreed. Also, trying to reverse engineer a conversation that is missing context makes my brain hurt.
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In software, if you have the "blueprint", you have the software.
Usually, yes. The source code is effectively the detailed blueprint, but we've got excellent tools now for automated manufacturing and distribution. Software engineering is an unusual engineering discipline precisely because we've been so good at reducing costs in those areas (which normally dominate what it takes to get something into customers' hands, so forcing entirely different optimisation strategies).
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The problem isn't (as such) capitalism, at least not until Malthusian limitations actually kick in.
Malthusian model is just plain wrong, thus its limitations can't kick in.
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Malthusian model is just plain wrong, thus its limitations can't kick in.
All models are wrong. Some are usefully wrong, others aren't.
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All models are wrong. Some are usefully wrong, others aren't.
And what you mean by that is....?
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Models necessarily omit parts of real life. It's necessary as it is what makes them tractable, but it also means they are wrong. If they were really right, they'd be as complicated as the whole of real life and would be totally useless. But a model can be informative even if it omits details; you've just got to understand the preconditions and exactly what it tells you (often not quite what journalists think it does, but whatever).
But some models omit too much. They become totally misleading, impossible to use to learn or predict anything.
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Models necessarily omit parts of real life. It's necessary as it is what makes them tractable, but it also means they are wrong. If they were really right, they'd be as complicated as the whole of real life and would be totally useless. But a model can be informative even if it omits details; you've just got to understand the preconditions and exactly what it tells you (often not quite what journalists think it does, but whatever).
Well, if you generalize 'wrong' heavily, that is correct. I would rather grade models by their fitness to past data and precision of their predictions, and call 'wrong' only those which can't predict anything useful.
But some models omit too much. They become totally misleading, impossible to use to learn or predict anything.
Yes, just like Malthusian model.
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When you say "Malthusian model", to what exactly do you refer?
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I am either missing the point that you are trying to make, or you are completely wrong. Malthusian models of population growth have been proven wrong by ~200 years of population growth. It is not inherently Malthus' fault though, at the time he lived it would have been impossible to foresee just what an effect technology would have had on the ability of the planet to sustain life.
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@Intercourse said:
I am either missing the point that you are trying to make, or you are completely wrong.
Sorry, how does either of those conclusions follow from my having asked you what you mean when you use the term "Malthusian model"?
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When you say "Malthusian model", to what exactly do you refer?
Is the term "Malthusian model" ambiguous?
The population model, that assumes unrestricted exponential growth.
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Yes, just like Malthusian model.
It's crude, and a number of its predictions are off because of it. It assumes that populations grow geometrically — they don't necessarily because there are other things that kick in at higher population densities before the lack of food becomes a limiter — and it also assumes that food production grows linearly. That's also not entirely true, and definitely runs into problems when you take into account the effects of technology. Since those two are the foundational assumptions of the model, the model isn't very useful as it stands.
The fundamental insight, that linear growth in production and exponential growth in consumption inevitably lead to on-average shortages in the resource, is sound. It's merely whether this applies to food and population per se that is unsafe.
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The fundamental insight, that linear growth in production and exponential growth in consumption inevitably lead to on-average shortages in the resource, is sound. It's merely whether this applies to food and population per se that is unsafe.
Consumption doesn't grow exponentially. There's no insight, just false assumption.
It doesn't apply to food, it doesn't apply to oil, it doesn't apply to anything, it's just plain wrong.
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Consumption doesn't grow exponentially.
Unrestrained population growth is exponential, on the grounds that a reproduction rate of more than 1 child per parent is exponential growth. (Strictly, that's more than 1 child per parent surviving and choosing to become a parent. Non-reproducing children inflate the population, but don't cause the exponential growth phenomenon. [spoiler]Do-doo-de-do-do[/spoiler]) Consequently, consumption of resources by that growing population would also be growing exponentially (under some parsimonious assumptions, such as static resource use per head).
Real world population growth is mostly not unrestrained.
The Malthusian model does not apply strongly to reality.
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