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The link doesn't work anymore for some reason. Oh, well, I'll just post pro-homosexual propaganda to restore equilibrium: http://www.asstr.org/files/Collections/nifty/index.html (Adult site)

IMM, you are very impressive.

I DO NOT support these views. My friend does. His essay is below. I was wondering if you people have any arguments agaisnt (or for) it?

This shocked me when I first saw it, but what you do think of the rise of the "childlove movement"? There seems to be quite a few pedophile activists out there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childlove_movement

Have a look at this old 1961 anti-homosexuality propaganda video. It's quite interesting to see how much attitudes have changed since the old days. http://www.archive.org/details/boys_beware

It is widely believed that foreign aid to poor countries does little to help the actual citizens and instead end up in the hands of corrupt leaders. Is this a justification for removing this corrupt government by force? It is suggested that the reason why those in power do not put effort into promoting economic growth is because there is little incentive to do so. Low economic growth may attract more foreign aid. Furthermore, too much economic growth may enpower other groups within the country that may challenge the government in power. A politician cares only about his own welfare and not that of "his people." The solution, therefore, is to make the politician's incentives in line with those of the citizens. I believe that instead of dumping foreign aid into a poor country, that an efficiency wage is paid to the politician, that the amount the politician earns is directly related to the GDP growth rate of the country and the foreign aids goes directly into the hands of the politician in power. (Of course the GDP Growth rate is measured by independent auditors.) CEOs are paid huge amounts and their bonuses are linked to performance. The same should apply to those in charge of countries because operating a firm is exactly the same as operating a country.

Is the original poster suggesting that US oil companies are colluding to raise prices? Aren't there competition laws against that in the US? Cartels in the international oil market can easily get away with it because there is no international authority strong enough to stop them (e.g. OPEC) but within the US oil companies can be controlled by the government.

Tax brackets are discrete. Bascule wants a countinous function. This prevents people deliberately working marginally less to be in a lower tax bracket. If tax were a continous function of income, this wouldn't happen

For the sample y: 2 3 4 4 6 6 7 8 9 11 What is the first and third quartile? My notes say it's 4 and 8.25 respectively, but my brother says it's 4 and 8.

If variables are independent, they are uncorrelated. If variables are dependent they may be uncorrelated.

Why do rapists rape? Why are some people aroused by discomfort in others? Is there an evolutionary explanation? Is this behavior learnt?

As I recall reading from Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, average global temperature and the number of pirates in the world is negatively correlated. These two variables are independent.

Should a man be allowed to have many wives, say, ten wives? Same applies with women. Should a woman be allowed to have ten husbands?

Economic growth in China is good because China makes up a large chunk of the world's population. Therefore, reduction in poverty in China will have most impact on the goal of reducing world poverty. Economic growth in the world's second largest country India is also high.

If there is a way pharmaceutical corporations could price discriminate, perhaps poorer people could afford the drugs. What must be avoided is poor people buying cheap drugs and selling it to richer people, i.e. arbitrage. Perhaps corporations could inject the drug into people who can prove low income or prove nationality from a state with very low GDP per capita (not as good as proof of low income in terms of predictive power of individual wealth but maybe good enough given the difficulty of knowing someone's true wealth compared to knowing his nationality). There would have to be a way for corporations to do this cheaply though.

From http://www.alexfridman.com/sexuality/essays/short/5.html Extreme perversion is widespread now. The mediums of sex fantasy are unimaginably large today. Arguably the internet is the biggest channel for unrestricted exploration of our desires. On the internet, a person can become a whole different being. A shy overweight middle-aged man could become a sexy confident young guy looking for a one-night stand. Of course, such possibilities are rarely left unabused. I can type in “bestiality” in a search engine and receive thousands of sites that contain thousands of pictures of women having sex with animals. So the question is: “Is this kind of free explorations of our fantasies healthy for our minds?” What do you think?

Many seem to believe that Islam is the only "extreme" religion, but I think that any religion can evolve into extremism.

Gary Becker, a Nobel-prize winning economist (A UC economist, in fact) believes that fines are superior to jail. Fines certainly are a deterrant because nobody likes to loose money and costs of transferring money is much lower than jail or even torture costs. The view presented above may seem objective but really it is based on value judgments. The sentiment above is based on utilitarianism. A person should be sacrificed and suffer if his suffering results in other people being satisfied to a greater extent. But this differs to another competing value, that of Pareto optimality. “A set of alternative allocations and a set of individuals, a movement from one alternative allocation to another that can make at least one individual better off, without making any other individual worse off is called a Pareto improvement.” Utilitarianism is more collectivist than the Pareto optimality value, which is more individualistic. Imagine one person has a body organ that, if taken out and put into other people, can save 10 lives. However, that person from whom the organ was taken will die if this happens. Some people here argue that killing the bomber was right based on expected deaths versus expected lives saved. This analogy I'm presenting is simpler in that there are no mathematical expectations. Killing one individual will save ten lives. Some people would argue that it's okay to kill him. Communists, who believe that individuals should sacrifice themselves to the state and society will agree with this. Those who emphasize the good of the whole as opposed to the good and the rights of the individual will argue this. Others, however, will believe that what matters are choice and freedom. The man with the vital organ should only give up his own organs if he wants to, regardless of the needs of others ("Each according to his needs..."). It is his choice. It is his freedom to live, to be safe, to be free, and to be productive ("life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"). It is his own right to live as a means to himself and not be sacrificed for society.

Whether inequality is common depends on the government. Some governments redistribute wealth from rich to poor moreso than others, for example Belgium versus the USA. You can look at Gini indexes for different countries to see this. But even if you have inequality within countries reducing owing to government intervention, you may still have inequality between countries. For example, Japan has much higher living standards than Rwanda. Is inequality in the world increasing? In terms of countries, yes, but in terms of population, no. If countries like China and India, countries with massive populations, are weighted more than countries with smaller populations, then what you find is that because of rapid economic growth in India and China (about 7% and 9% GDP growth respectively) then the poor are catching up with the rich. However, this hides sluggish economic growth in Africa, excluding South Africa and Botswana. Back to the original within-country analysis...if inequality is high within a country, that is because of the government. Why is there inequality? I'm not too sure about this but maybe it's due to compounding. Money begets money. If a millionaire puts his one million dollars into a business and if a poor person only puts $100 into that same business, the millionaire will get much more from this investment because he puts more in to start with. Richer people have leverage.

Is this a real phenomenon? What are the psychological explanations for why people post on message boards?

[math]X =^{d} R(0,\theta)[/math] and we obtain five independent observations on X: 1.2, 3.7, 2.1, 5.9, and 4.0. The median [math]\hat{M}[/math] is 3.7 and I'm told that [math]var(\hat{M})=\frac{\theta^2}{28}[/math]. How is this obtained? Do I use the formula [math]var(\hat{M})=\frac{1}{4nf(m)^2}[/math]?

Maybe give greater weight to the probability the terrorist sits at the front because he has a heavy backpack, which means he'll want to minimize walking. If he gets on at the front then there more chance he'll sit at the front than at the back, as opposed to that rectangular R(0,l) assumption, perhaps use exponential pdf.

It could be true that tighter security after a bombing may make the place safer but if the government is good then that tighter security should be applied in the first place. Also, if you get a heads five times in a row, that doesn't mean that the likelihood of a tails is higher on the sixth throw. It's still .5. So assuming that terrorist attacks are independent trials like coin flips, then watch for gambler's fallacy.

Many religious creationists support the idea that both sides of an issue should be presented to kids who will then decide for themselves what is right, which is why these people let kids experience Internet pornography so that they can figure out by themselves that porn is immoral.

Should government focus more on correct procedure or correct consequences? Consequential justice focuses only the result. For example, if someone is suspected to be a suicide bomber then it is better to kill him to potentially save more lives. The killing is bad and taking away individual freedom may be bad but the damage is much worse if this person were in fact a suicide bomber so it's okay to kill him. You can calculate it as follows (probability bomber blows up)*(aggregate social unhappiness from many people killed by bomber) > (probability bomber doesn't blow up)*(aggregate social unhappiness from one person killed), and therefore it is okay to kill the suspected bomber. Another example is that of one hundred men gang-raping a woman. Assuming that each man who participates in the act gains identical satisfaction and also assuming that satisfaction is additive, and that dissatisfaction is comparable with satisfaction, then if (dissatisfaction of raped woman) < (satisfaction of a man from raping)*100, then using the same similar reasoning it is okay for the woman to be raped for the good of society. Procedural justice, however, considers the procedure. It may be argued that expected social welfare is better off if a suspected terrorist is killed immediately but that would violate an individual's freedom to life and safety. Likewise, is may be good for social welfare that a woman is raped to satisfy the strong demands of the sex-crazed men, but that would violate the woman's individual right to freedom of choice, freedom to safety, and so forth. So which should the government emphasize? Or should it be a bit of both? If it is both, under what circumstances should one form of justice be emphasized over another?