Lunch at the Labs

Various web links I found to be of interest recently.

• In Praise of Hassles: Why "Rationing through Inconvenience" May Be More Ethical than Other Mechanisms for Allocating Care

  In a provocative and thoughtful article, Can Rationing through Inconvenience Be Ethical, Nir Eyal, Paul Romain, and Christopher Robertson consider a critical, but often overlooked, form of implicit rationing—the use of “burdensome arrangements” such as “application processes, forms, waiting periods, and the like,” that make accessing health care inconvenient. To the extent “rationing through inconvenience” has received attention, they note, it has typically been to condemn it. At best, it is considered a waste of time and energy; at worst, it is attacked as a harmful barrier to care. However, they argue that, “under certain conditions, rationing through inconvenience may turn out to serve as a legitimate and even a preferable tool for rationing,” as compared to other available alternatives.

• The Contrarian Who Cures Cancers

  James P. Allison believed that unleashing the immune system was a way to beat cancer when almost no one else did. A Nobel Prize and a growing list of cancer survivors vindicate him.

  Allison's drug wasn't the first or only form of immunotherapy; scientists have worked on anticancer vaccines, for example, for decades. What made Allison's "immune checkpoint therapy" unique was that it used antibodies to unlock the immune system's potential to kill cancer cells.

• The Cancer Industry: Hype vs. Reality

  Cancer medicine generates enormous revenues but marginal benefits for patients

  Cancer boosters commonly point to improvements in survival rates, the length of time between diagnosis and death. Survival rates for some cancers have indeed grown as a result of more widespread and higher-resolution testing, which detects cancer earlier. But as a 2015 analysis points out, in general people do not live longer as a result of early detection. They simply live longer with a diagnosis of cancer, with all its harmful emotional, economic and physiological consequences.

• What do you really know about gullibility?

  Hugo Mercier

  Not Born Yesterday explains how we decide who we can trust and what we should believe--and argues that we're pretty good at making these decisions. In this lively and provocative book, Hugo Mercier demonstrates how virtually all attempts at mass persuasion--whether by religious leaders, politicians, or advertisers--fail miserably. Drawing on recent findings from political science and other fields ranging from history to anthropology, Mercier shows that the narrative of widespread gullibility, in which a credulous public is easily misled by demagogues and charlatans, is simply wrong. Mercier has identified 10 things about gullibility you may not know.
  ...
  In fact, all the existing quantitative research suggests that propaganda in totalitarian regimes doesn't change anyone's mind. It can allow existing preferences to express themselves from forcefully. For example, it seems Nazi propaganda made already anti-Semitic Germans engage in more anti-Semitic acts, but it had no effect, or the opposite effect, on non-anti-Semitic Germans. By and large, displays of allegiance to authoritarian regimes stem not from persuasion but from self-interest, as people seek to ingratiate with those in power or, on the contrary, fear their wrath.
  ...
  A recent meta-analysis looked at all the studies on the effects of political campaigns in the US. These studied had carefully estimated whether mailing, canvassing, cold calling, or advertising could get people to vote for another candidate. In general elections--such as the presidential election--there are simply no effects on voting behavior.

• What's Wrong with Physics

  A physicist slams hype about multiverses, string theory, and quantum computers and calls for more diversity in his field

  I think in the future there will be certain very specific applications for simple quantum computers that we may be able to build. However, I don't think there is any chance that ordinary computers are ever going to be supplanted by quantum ones.
  ...
  I think those people doing string theory forget they are actually doing science, or perhaps they should be sent back to middle school to be reminded of the scientific process. What distinguishes science from other modes of inquiry about the world we live in (e.g. religion and philosophy) is that new theories have to be tested experimentally. If they are not confirmed by experimental results, we discard them.

• Jordan Peterson's year of 'absolute hell': Professor forced to retreat from public life because of addiction

  The controversial author and professor is recovering from addiction to tranquilizers and near-death in Russia, his family says.

• Musicians Algorithmically Generate Every Possible Melody, Release Them to Public Domain

  Programmer, musician, and copyright attorney Damien Riehl, along with fellow musician/programmer Noah Rubin, sought to stop copyright lawsuits that they believe stifle the creative freedom of artists.
  Often in copyright cases for song melodies, if the artist being sued for infringement could have possibly had access to the music they're accused of copying--even if it was something they listened to once--they can be accused of "subconsciously" infringing on the original content. One of the most notorious examples of this is Tom Petty's claim that Sam Smith's "Stay With Me" sounded too close to Petty's "I Won't Back Down"" Smith eventually had to give Petty co-writing credits on his own chart-topping song, which entitled Petty to royalties.
  

• Leaked Document Shows How Big Companies Buy Credit Card Data on Millions of Americans

  Yodlee, America's largest financial data broker, says the data it sells it is anonymous. A confidential document obtained by Motherboard shows people could be unmasked in the data.

  "The anonymization process described in the document is relatively simple. It does appear to remove the PII data as legally defined but does not remove spatio-temporal traces of people that can be used to connect back the data to them," Vivek Singh, assistant professor at Rutgers University, added in an email.

• A Review of Thomas Sowell's Discrimination and Disparities

  In Discrimination and Disparities, Thomas Sowell describes how economists think about the causes of disparities in socioeconomic outcomes.

  Most economists would agree with Sowell on his definitions of discrimination and potential unintended consequences of government intervention. But many -- including me ---will disagree with him about the current state of evidence and his policy takeaways. My interpretation of existing evidence is that government intervention can move us closer to our societal goals and make markets work more efficiently. But the possibility of unintended consequences is real and should push us to (1) consider what is causing the disparities we want to address, (2) design interventions that target those underlying causes, and (3) rigorously evaluate the policies we implement, to make sure they are having the net benefits we'd hoped for.

• The intelligence coup of the century

  For decades, the CIA read the encrypted communications of allies and adversaries.

  But what none of its customers ever knew was that Crypto AG was secretly owned by the CIA in a highly classified partnership with West German intelligence. These spy agencies rigged the company's devices so they could easily break the codes that countries used to send encrypted messages.

• The IRS Decided to Get Tough Against Microsoft. Microsoft Got Tougher.

  Gutting the IRS. Who Wins When a Crucial Agency Is Defunded

  For years, the company has moved billions in profits to Puerto Rico to avoid taxes. When the IRS pushed it to pay, Microsoft protested that the agency wasn't being nice. Then it aggressively fought back in court, lobbied Congress and changed the law.