Irene Pepperberg (the linguist that trained Alex, among others) talks about it extensively, and uses it predominantly. Wikipedia has some articles on it, and The Alex Studies (which is a collection of papers on her parrots, how they were trained, what linguistic skills they demonstrated in particular tests) talks about it in significant detail. It's a great book if you're into that sort of thing... ;)

Parrots and other birds are trained very poorly via Pavlovian conditioning. That isn't the only type of training, and Model-Rival training works much more effectively on birds (which isn't to say anything about how it works on other animals).

"Good health care" isn't a boolean value. It's a tradeoff. You can pay for this one extra test, and maybe detect something, maybe not. If the likely-hood & severity & immediate and long term cost all have the "correct" ratio, then it's a good idea to have the test.

With this brave new world, the balance is shifted dramatically, which means usage will increase dramatically, which means costs will skyrocket.

If you're too short sighted to see that - well, you're in the company of a lot of people that are in the process of bankrupting our country....

I agree with your 1 or 2. But the writer's point about vast technological differences is really true, probably more-so than he realizes. And I do agree with the writer that alien contact will be such a HUGE deal to society as a whole, that it very well could be the sort of year 0 thing he suggests.

And I totally agree that they'll know we're sentient, and odds are good they'll be able to have perfect translators pretty damn quickly once they've come into contact with our radio transmissions, if they're able to fly around the galaxy...

Just in case you, or someone you know turns out to be the first, everyone should read this

It's not exactly rigorous, but it gets the main points across.

Touche'. I don't have an iPhone, but I'm surprised it doesn't... How the heck do you get data on or off the damn thing??

That's just ridiculous. Did you even read the summary? This isn't about you installing a trojan on your phone, or about how open the platform is or isn't. It's about it COMING FROM THE CARRIER that way. This could have just as easily happened to an iPhone and had a mac or PC virus on it...

You are correct, there are boom-bust cycles outside of government intervention. But who has more ability to incite them, who has more ability to make them continue.

Even in the article you cite, it questions how big a bubble the "tulip mania" really was. How does any existing government structure limit how much I want my Pokemon, or Care Bear or Cabbage Patch doll, and how much I'm willing to throw at it? Those are speculative bubbles just the same, and some people take a hit from them, and some people don't. Should the government somehow prevent those?

And how long did it take society to recover from the bubbles before the government started intervening? Typically not very long. Do you think tulip mania caused a great depression in Holland?

What does lowering interest rates do? It makes more money available, to be applied to less-valuable or more risky ventures. (i.e. if you only have a small amount of capital, you'll be cautious were you spend it, and you'll spend it where you'll minimize risk and maximize reward. If you have a second small amount of capital, you'll use that on the next best, and so on.) We should be raising interest rates, to reduce the amount of risk we're taking on as a society.

What about subsidies? The government is a giant layer of "management". Any dollar that's funneled through it, gets a large hunk shaved off, before it's spent on anything. And in order to get that dollar, the government either has to take it from someone else who'd be perfectly happy to invest it or spend it, or it needs to take it in the form of a loan. The loan is just taking it from a citizen later on, and with interest. Again someone who'd much rather have that dollar, and spend it or invest it themselves.

Given the recent situation, should the government have let the banks collapse? I don't know. Should the gov't have let the automakers collapse? Absolutely (and helped other companies purchase the assets, smoothly, and helped with retraining).

Be aware, not every economist agrees that _capitalism_ has a natural boom-bust cycle, and I expect few believe a lack of government subsidies _caused_ the Great Depression.... Some economists believe that government intervention in the market (through fiat currencies, through manipulations of the interest rates, through many complex and interacting regulations (with a variety of tax consequences) of commerce that have unpredictable consequences) cause the boom-bust cycles.

Of course costs have something to do with prices, if the costs are in excess of prices (for too long), the company goes under (except for banks, or the US automotive industry, or the airlines, or the rail system, or busses, or primary education or the postal system... ).