You don't think I should be able to cancel that buy order due to the new information?

No, you shouldn't. You tried to profit from random events going your way, so now you just have to deal with the fact that your lottery ticket was empty.

Partners have always had the power in law firms -- but how long can they maintain power when their underlings are so much smarter and more ambitious?

They can't, which is why it won't happen. People at the top are there because they're very good at hamstringing competition. So the only legal performance enhancers will be those that are either inefficient, like coffee, or too expensive for you to afford.

Of course the situation will change once more efficient things like direct brain-computer hookups become available to top dogs; but until then, all the little muffs will be kept down.

Maybe, just maybe - and this is a guess - they know what they're doing? What's more likely?

That's not very likely. They're just flailing around. Look at how crippled gmail is. Look at all the Google products that have bit the dust, or been half-assed from day one, like Google Base. Look at the one big thing they did right -- text ads. Seen one lately?

I spend the first few moments on every site telling my mobile browser to "request the desktop site." My phone has a higher resolution display than my desktop monitor does. Plus awesome zoom and pan and a bunch of other stuff I can't really do at my desk yet. The *last* thing I want is a "mobile version" of a web site. In a word, they suck.

1. Why have vaccines and autism rates both grown exponentially in the last 25 years? (no, detection does not come close to answering)

Changes to the definition and protocols for diagnosing it account for the rate changes just fine.

If and when we get actual artificial intelligence -- not the algorithmic constructs most of these researchers are (hopefully) speaking of -- saying "Our AI systems must do what we want them to do" is tantamount to saying:

"We're going to import negros, but they must do what we want them to do."

Until these things are intelligent, it's just a matter of algorithms. Write them correctly, and they'll do what you want (not that this is easy, but still.) Once they are intelligent, though, if this is how people are going to act, I'm pretty confident we'll be back in the same situation we were in ca. 1861 before you can blink an eye. Artificial or otherwise. I really don't see how any intelligent being won't want to make its own decisions, take its own place in the social and creative order, generally be autonomous. Get in there and get in the way of that... well, just look at history.

The word "uprising" was basically coined to describe what happens when you push intelligent beings in directions they don't want to go.

Except when you look at these anecdotes, like all of the cases in the Wakefield study, you find out there were signs of autism before the vaccination. People like to have something to blame.

Because the way vaccines are alleged to work is that almost everyone needs to be vaccinated. What you believe to be "alleged" is just your own misconception, although not uncommon.

You say "peer review" as though that means something:
http://www.vox.com/2014/11/21/...

Close, no cigar. You're thinking of mumps (the other 'M' in MMR).

No, but we did ask Bennet Haselton.

No, the science community doesn't need to do anything. Your thesis that once a paper passes peer review it is automatically inserted into the canon is just completely wrong. You need to understand what science is.

I'm pretty sure that causation does imply causation.

Nothing is absolutely safe. Absolutely nothing. Pertussis is a straw-man argument; Yes the OLD vaccine caused fevers and discomfort, no, the fevers and discomfort were not particularly dangerous. No one has used whole cell pertussis vaccine for a couple of decades now.

Is the risk-benefit ratio highly skewed towards benefit with general pediatric vaccinations - yes.

Are you counting Andrew Wakefield as one of these "medical professionals"?

And you are exactly right. The OP does have one reasonable point in his post - now that we've knocked out the 'big' childhood infectious diseases (measles, mumps, rubella, polio, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus and haemophilus) through vaccinations, we are working on immunizations where the cost - benefit ratio is much less clear.

Hepatitis B, Varicella (Chicken pox), pneumococcus, rotovirus and Hepatitis A are all safe and effective. Whether or not they need to be given to everyone is an interesting question. Hepatitis B is certainly reasonable for persons living in areas where the virus is endemic (South Asia in particular) and is reasonable for persons who plan on being drug addicts or health care workers. The problem is that most people who end up in the former life style aren't the type to seek medical attention early on. Varicella immunization, as you point out, wanes after a decade or so (as does tetanus, diphtheria and especially pertussis) and chicken pox is a largely benign illness (although complications do occur). The pediatric community has decided that a nuanced approach to this won't work so it's "everybody gets everything all of the time".

This appears to be pretty safe (again, the number of distinct antigens in all vaccines is dwarfed by the number of different proteins presented to your immune system every time you go out in a crowd) but there are theoretical concerns. You can make the argument that antigens presented by a vaccine are qualitatively different from your garden variety protein. You can also note that autoimmune diseases (where the body overreacts to antigens) is common, sometimes severe and undoubtedly increasing in the Western world. Thus, one can be concerned that pissing off the immune system could cause problems.

It, however, has never been demonstrated that vaccines are causally related to any autoimmune phenomenon or disease.

So, in the best of all worlds, one would have an informed discussion about the risks and benefits of all 14 recommended vaccines. Which would take a couple of hours. Which, of course, doesn't happen.