Discussing Science with people who need to learn more science

[Bells]

So, this can be rather Annoying right?

I got myself caught up in a little discussion earlier on today, where basically people were discussing the properties of Sound and how much damage Sound can actually do.

Until someone posed that a Strong enough Sound wave could cause an Earthquake.

"Wait, what? No it can't." I said as a pure reflex.

Thus started the discussion that Sound could cause Earthquakes. I tried to explain that the worst case scenario would be for a Strong enough, constant sound wave replicate the effects of a decent Aftershock. But it would never trigger an Earth Quake by itself. It's just not feasible.

The the argument was made that if the sound was really really really really strong it could... which i just replied that a sound wave powerful enough to trigger a real Earthquake would be so devastating on it's own that it would be it's own Phenomena, this would be the same as saying that saying a ton of C4 could cause an Earthquake...

Then people started point out examples from Batman cartoons and other such sources... at that point, patience is running short.

Finally the discussing culminated with somebody citing HAARP. As an Example that it was possible and it was actually already done.

This HAARP here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program

At this point i promptly gave up on the discussion...

So, you guys ever went through stuff like this?

[Flarecobra]

Something similor involving Solid State Lasers. Friend of mine kept on insisting that they did not exist. But then I brought up The FIRESTRIKE laser. (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/14/weaponised_rayguns_hit_shelves_in_time_for_xmas/?d=154600) And then this came along. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/04/13/ap/africa/main20053780.shtml)

[gekkogo]

Not nearly as impressive but one day not too long past, my physics class got into an awful tangent about whether robots were going to become a "thing". I instinctually just shot the idea down (out of the 5 people that talk in that class) because the notion was brought up by a straight nerd. As such I was shooting down the idea of what could be programmed into the robot whether they would ever get into the complexity of doing anything useful, because at the time the most impressive thing I'd seen a robot do was play ping-pong. Or as the chinese call it Ping-Pong.

So the teacher gets in on the discussion and starts showing videos to the class of robots that have been programmed into doing tons of stuff like playing music, driving cars, and there's even one that can do the catwalk.

With the technological industry ever-booming robotics are coming into view, and I felt like a dumbass (nothing new).

[phil_]

With the technological industry ever-booming robotics are coming into view, and I felt like a dumbass (nothing new).Hey, as long as you feel like a dumbass instead of blindly rejecting all the evidence that made you feel like a dumbass, it means you learned something. That's not something everyone can say.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Using the word "sound" in a context like this is already misleading, because a sound wave is just an oscillating wave in air pressure that you can hear. A shockwave given off by a bomb is the exact same thing (a wave in air pressure), it just doesn't oscillate.

So yes, you could set off an earthquake if you made a sufficiently strong sound at a fault line, for the exact same reason you could cause an earthquake by setting off a sufficiently powerful explosive in the fault.

[rpgdemon]

Also, a loud enough sound could cause the earth to literally quake, might have been what they meant.

[Darth SS]

As an economics major, and due to certain soirees involved with my misspent early days of University, I'm friends with many people in the college of commerce. Or as they insist on being called, members of the Edwards School of Business. Through the miracle of facebook, people being expressing their political opinions. As way of criticism of a proposed policy from the NDP, someone makes the statement, "The trickle down effect is a proven fact!"

Note how I'm an aforementioned econ major. I comment, "No, it isn't, actually. Here's 4 papers written on that very subject. There's just no evidence to suggest it works." That guy's like "Okay, cool, thanks for clarifying that." I think that through the magic of science I've demonstrated that he should abandon a preconceived notion. But alas, a new challenger appears and is all "I'm a professional tax accountant, and what about this and this and this." My response is, "You're splitting hairs. It doesn't matter, there's just no evidence to suggest this works. The only way that taxation as you propose works as a method of wealth redistribution is if the only thing taxes are used for is welfare and you tax such that income is held constant. This is both theoretically and practically retarded."

His response to that? "HA! You literally just said we should tax the rich people poor. I'm done talking with an artsy about taxation policy." So I respond "I didn't literally say any of that. You can't read. I understand that it's inconvenient when reality does not conform to your political preference, but sorry that's just the way it is."

This ends with an epic bitch-fest, ending with me meeting him in person two days later, this guy saying something snarky about "leaving business to the real professionals" and my telling him that he was a parrot who kept repeating the same trick hoping someone will love him. In hindsight, that probably was a little bit personal, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

[Amake]

To be pedantic, a sufficiently strong sound probably doesn't exist, since a soundwave louder than 200 dB is called a shockwave.

I don't have any stories of conquering people with science since I'm usually the one annoying believers in science by talking about philosophical concepts using scientific terms.

Such as, "Trickle down theory" to me immediately paints an image of a great, tall table where all the rich people eat, where the potato peels and fish bones and cherry stones and half-chewed gristle and spilled drinks they don't care to eat mix and turn to a rotting liquefied sludge that trickles down the table legs to feed the poor masses. And trickle down theory is an attempt to rationalize this as a sound and beneficial state for the world to be in, because that sludge is the only thing there could ever be for poor people to eat. I don't know if that's an accurate metaphor for trickle down theory, but I like it, so I use it, in my various musings and fictions. Where it runs into problems from people who may mistake it for a part of a political agenda or something.

[Osterbaum]

That is the best metaphor for trickle-down I've heard so far.

I comment, "No, it isn't, actually. Here's 4 papers written on that very subject. There's just no evidence to suggest it works."
Could you possibly link those papers since I would actually be interested in learning more about trickle down. I'm against it already in principle but I have less knowledge of it's practical failings.

[rpgdemon]

As an economics major, and due to certain soirees involved with my misspent early days of University, I'm friends with many people in the college of commerce. Or as they insist on being called, members of the Edwards School of Business. Through the miracle of facebook, people being expressing their political opinions. As way of criticism of a proposed policy from the NDP, someone makes the statement, "The trickle down effect is a proven fact!"

Note how I'm an aforementioned econ major. I comment, "No, it isn't, actually. Here's 4 papers written on that very subject. There's just no evidence to suggest it works." That guy's like "Okay, cool, thanks for clarifying that." I think that through the magic of science I've demonstrated that he should abandon a preconceived notion. But alas, a new challenger appears and is all "I'm a professional tax accountant, and what about this and this and this." My response is, "You're splitting hairs. It doesn't matter, there's just no evidence to suggest this works. The only way that taxation as you propose works as a method of wealth redistribution is if the only thing taxes are used for is welfare and you tax such that income is held constant. This is both theoretically and practically retarded."

His response to that? "HA! You literally just said we should tax the rich people poor. I'm done talking with an artsy about taxation policy." So I respond "I didn't literally say any of that. You can't read. I understand that it's inconvenient when reality does not conform to your political preference, but sorry that's just the way it is."

This ends with an epic bitch-fest, ending with me meeting him in person two days later, this guy saying something snarky about "leaving business to the real professionals" and my telling him that he was a parrot who kept repeating the same trick hoping someone will love him. In hindsight, that probably was a little bit personal, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

To be fair, both of you could be entirely right and wrong at the same time, based on different papers.

The problem with saying one economic thing will work and another won't is that, until we have a country that we want to use as a test subject, we don't really know what certain economic ideas will give us. Same with political goals, really.

So, while yeah, you can go, "Look at all this as to why Trickle Down doesn't work", those papers aren't really conclusively rigorous, because of a lack of ability to test.

[TDK]

We have a test showing that Trickle Down doesn't work.

It is called America.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I have a pretty good test for trickle down econommics: It requires rich people to love money to implement it but rich people to hate money for it to work. Do you live in a world where the rules of logic (generally) apply?

On the original topic, I find people generally educated enough on science, but not educated enough on polotics which is far far more relevant to their daily lives.

Re The HAARP thing- this came up in our office a few weeks back and a room full of postgraduate science students found heaps of evidence that it was totally plausiable and could work. We then proceeded to troll the rest of the department. Good times.
The thing is, the US military did actually investigate man-made earthquakes but they found it requires such a ridiculous amount of power that it's jsut not feasiable. You far better of just bombing the shit out of people.

[Darth SS]

To be fair, both of you could be entirely right and wrong at the same time, based on different papers.

The problem with saying one economic thing will work and another won't is that, until we have a country that we want to use as a test subject, we don't really know what certain economic ideas will give us. Same with political goals, really.

So, while yeah, you can go, "Look at all this as to why Trickle Down doesn't work", those papers aren't really conclusively rigorous, because of a lack of ability to test.

They're about as rigorously conclusive as anything involved with social sciences. That's the beauty of econometrics, when you have an obscene amount of data you just need to be able to track down where and when your desired change happened, and then use the witchcraft of statistics to test for stuff like Granger causality to see if they're related. We can't run experiments but thankfully we don't really need to, most of the time someone has already tried something. In the case of the trickle down effect, we have 25+ years of data from many countries in the Western world.

I mean, I guess you can argue that it's still inconclusive, but...In the case of the trickle down effect, when after 10-15 years there was no evidence to support that the original model was right there was speculation that what was actually happening was a microcosm of the Kuznets curve. Basically that income inequality over time was a concave curve, so that as an economy became more developped income inequality would grow and then shrink. After 10-15 years though it kept growing, so it's inconclusive in the sense that you can argue that we're just not on the other side yet. After 30 years, though, most economists have pretty abandoned the trickle down effect as any kind functional redistributional theory. There just isn't enough evidence to support it, maybe enough to mount an argument for it, but those cases are pretty isolated.

[Magus]

I always thought the biggest weaknesses of trickle-down economics and supply-side economics (basically they go hand-in-hand) were the assumptions made by its proponents that:

1. rich people own and invest their money in businesses,
2. if they have more money they will invest more into the businesses they supposedly own instead of pocketing the excess,
3. if a company's profit goes up it will raise its employees' wages instead of pocketing the excess cash,
4. if companies make more money they will invest the money into their products to make them cheaper to produce rather than pocketing the excess,
5. if they make the products cheaper to produce they will sell them for a lower price (saving consumers money and therefore they have more) rather than just increasing their profit margin by selling them at the current price and pocketing the excess,
6. by reducing the price of a product you will sell so many more of them that the sales tax revenue for the state will not only make up for the income tax you have foregone because of the income tax reduction but will exceed it (despite the paradox that by decreasing the price of the product you have also decreased the amount of sales tax collected and are defying the basic Keynesian economic principle that a lower price and higher supply decreases demand for a product, although of course much of trickle-down economics flies in the face of Keynesian economics), etc. etc.

Basically there are so many leaps in logic involved I don't see how it works as a theory, let alone supposedly being proven fact for some people. Trickle-down economics is basically what we had prior to the creation of federal income tax and anti-trust legislation at the beginning of the 20th century, i.e. the age of the robber baron, not a particularly wonderful time for 99% of Americans.

[rpgdemon]

Yeah, but imagine: What if you could be that 1%.

Nah, in all seriousness though, didn't it mostly work during Reagan's administration, at least in terms of making the state more money?

Granted, the more money (And more than that) was spent on military funding, so the deficit ended up still going up, but it kind of worked.

[shiney]

Trickle down works in an ethical world, but in a world where people want to accumulate & hoard wealth at the expense of others (& society as a whole) it's just a nonsensical model & catchy phrase meant to distract idiots from the reality of the situation.

And trickle down never worked because our taxation system isn't progressive enough to force it to. Until we have a system that avoids loopholes, tax shelters, tax holidays and other schemes meant to protect the income of the very wealthy, trickle down is a broken promise.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Nah, in all seriousness though, didn't it mostly work during Reagan's administration, at least in terms of making the state more money?



Considering Reagen entered the white house directly after the worst economic depression since the great depression (at the time) it would be pretty hard to do any worse. Leading into the Reagen presidency there was high inflation and high unemployment which then eased as Reagen came in more due to this being how the market cycle works more than anything else.

Also income equality spiralled massively out of control (it was increasing beforehand but never really recovered afterwards) and most importantely in my mind productivity went downwards- the nation was producing less because the rich were hoarding not reinvesting which is exactly the opposite of what trickle-down is supposed to achieve- it is supposed to increase productivity.

[Darth SS]

Trickle down works in an ethical world, but in a world where people want to accumulate...it's just a nonsensical model & catchy phrase meant to distract idiots from the reality of the situation.

This.

Basically where it fell through is that after a certain point the aggregate marginal propensity to consume just hits zero. I.E. As you make more money, you spend more money, but the extra amount you consume decreases little by little, and eventually that extra amount consumed just hits zero. You literally get so much money that you don't have anything else you want to spend it on. This was always kind of a theoretical concept, and was assumed to be a quirk of algebra but then it started happening and everyone kind of stopped laughing.

As for why that happens, and why it isn't predictable on a micro level, and how you provide incentive for increased spending at that point...well...figure that out and you win a Nobel Prize, pretty much.

[Magus]

THE PLANS TO GET BILLIONAIRES TO INVEST IN STUFF:

1. Billionaires get big shiny prizes (like the Nobel Peace Prize) for donating enough money to poor people. They also get to sleep with world leader's wives and mistresses for enough money donated to the federal budget. I know I'd be givin' some money to Italy to get a hold of Sarkozy's harem, and who wouldn't want to wine and dine that fine lady Obama is traipsing about on his arm (I mean, she's kind of old for me, but to T. Boone Pickens she is just a spring chicken).

2. Billionaires are poisoned with exotic poisons, the antidotes to which are only offered if they donate money to medicinal research. Unethical, yes. Effective, yes. This is also known as the "Give Bill Gates AIDS So He'll Fund Research" plan.

3. Just build like, crazy-ass shit for billionaire's to buy, like cruise zeppelins, or at least cruise zeppelin rides. And motorcycles that fit into cars, or transform into mechs. If the only work out there is to build crazy shit, well, that is just the price we will have to pay to get some money into people's pockets.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Plan to get billionaires to invest in stuff:
1. Take all their money
2. Invest it in stuff

Like you could redesign markets so they scale better with wealth and things but as my buddy old Karl Dog M would say "Shit be bullshit, yo!"

[Magus]

Your plans have no pizazz, Smarty. Not a hint of it.

Besides Karl Marx couldn't even win that duel with that Prussian dude when he was in college, what does he know about overthrowing the bourgeoisie?

[Professor Smarmiarty]

He was a nerd but he was our nerd