A correlation is not a law dude. You are setting yourself up for a black swan. Once you find a correlation ('this is what happens') you try to figure out the causal relation ("this is why it happens") if any so that you know how and when you can extrapolate. Don't assume things will stay the same.

The problem is exactly the opposite: math is all over the place in social science. The problem is that the things you want to quantify like maybe 'power' or other concepts close to real human behaviour are very hard to quantify. But since you really, really want to do math or else it wouldn't be 'real science' you settle for 'hard facts', things that are easy to quantify like the GDP the author of the article is using (he really is a pretty typical economist as far as his methods go). There is even a name for this disease, it's called positivism.

So how does the GDP quantify products with a marginal cost of (almost) zero like open source software? How does it quantify work done in a non-commercial setting like the family? These kind of numbers are just indicators which might sometimes be useful but as inputs for a model they are garbage. And so the GIGO principle applies.

You misunderstood. From the linked worldhunger site:

The world produces enough food to feed everyone. World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day (FAO 2002, p.9). The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food.

Okay, so what is the problem exactly?

The main problem is that some societies are badly organized which results in them either producing too little or makes them vulnerable to exploitation by insiders (invariably) and sometimes outsiders.

Thanks, that beats any explanation that I had come up with so far.

I'm thinking about implementation because I am talking about the implementation. When I hear 'list' I would prefer to have it refer either to the abstract concept of a list (so the IList interface is ok in my book) or to an implementation that involves a single or double linked list.

ArrayList also has the word 'Array' in it as you might have noticed, so there it is immediately clear that we are dealing with an array implementation of a list.

So it seems that Microsoft named their implementation of a dynamic array a 'List'. They must have known beforehand that this would confuse many people. So why still use that name? It is an implementation and not an interface after all.

Well, trail and error remember. Maybe the interested parties involved like now sometimes happens with patent pools, maybe independent experts, maybe some fixed formula taking several factors in account. Perfect will never happen but doing better than the current fail system should be easy.

LOL. You really don't understand the patent system. Who determines what counts as an "invention"? Exactly, the government you trust so much. And this is just one of the reasons that the current situation is total FAIL.

This is of course the hard part which will involve a lot of trail and error. A good first step would probably be killing the monopoly element in patents and copyrights so that everyone would be able to use the technology as long as they pay a fixed fee. Currently the IP situation is preventing whole industries from developing. We have been lucky that the IP lobby was asleep and/or less developed when the internet developed and that things like linking to other sites and searching the web now don't involve fees.

Anyway the fact that the number of patents granted is exploding at the same time that fundamental R&D is apparently declining is a sure indication that something has to change.

Following your logic it seems they didn't, look at the patent statistics since 1790: http://www.uspto.gov/go/taf/h_counts.htm

Culture is by definition something you learn, not something that is in your genes (like race). It is passed from one generation to the next and each generation can 'decide' what to keep, what to throw away and what to add.

Yes, what is your point?

Funny but wrong.

A successful culture will adapt when new technology arrives. Japan dit it. China is doing it. Europe itself dit it, gunpowder after all isn't a western invention. Technology only gives a very temporary advantage, it is culture that matters.