Access to the site has been intermittent for the last couple of weeks and comments have been correspondingly scanty. But everything seems to be working now, and I’m hoping discussion will resume here. Meanwhile, it’s been a bit lonely. So please post your comments on any topic or even just a note to say you’ve been to visit the site (as always, civilised discussion and no coarse language, please).
15 thoughts on “Monday Message Board”
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John Quiggin 
Well, I for one always feel bound to keep a beady eye on what the brilliant bearded banana-bender is blogging about.
Lonely? Easily fixed. Post something on Windschuttle or elites (in WFW?) and you will get 60+ comments, sure as eggs. No promises about quality, though.
The first link in my comment above tangles up a couple of separate links and even obscures a point I made. Encoded in that link is the fact that the panel discussion was last Saturday, 6 September and is being re-broadcast this evening (Monday 8 September) on Radio National after the 7 o’clock news. You can listen to it on the Internet here if you have Real Audio. The program abstract with some links to particpants, the ALRC and other resources, is here.
I take this opportunity to correct one of the panelists, Kristine Barlow-Stewart’s reference to Gene Technologies Limited as GTG Technologies. She gets the name mixed up with their ASX code.
Also, it may not be clear from my ramblings that in principle I agree with John and Rory Hume but suspect the pragmatics may be too costly, subject to a thoroughgoing c-b analysis of the patent system. The big-picture choice seems to be to pay the price of a large number of people dying unnecessarily due to postponement of projects while waiting for public or charitable funding, but eventually taking everyone with us in the fight against disease; OR to pay the costs imposed by the patent system, bring forward the results of those projects that would otherwise be postponed much longer under a public/charitable funding system, postpone the results of others that are delayed by the operation of early patents issued under the system, and leave behind the poorest of us; ie, those who cannot afford the relatively expensive cures produced by the patent system.
Next I’d like to apologize to our multi-billionaires for the overstatement that most of their loot has been gained by withholdings from the public system. I know very well, of course, that only much of it has.
Finally, the substantive point of my last paragraph above obscurely expressed there, is the cynical one that the ALRC review may ultimately make a proposal to “put the genie back in the bottle”, only to have it confiscated by the government as a tradeable in the FTA negotiations for bartering off to the Americans in return for some required or perceived concession from them.
Sorry about the first three links above; now corrected.
Internet broadcast here.
You can get the free Real Audio player here (you have to look for the right link to the free version though).
Program abstract & resource links here.
John, now I know why comments sometimes appear twice – you think you’ve lost the first one because it takes longer to appear than you think it should, so you re-write. The re-write posts, then the wayward one turns up. The solution is, of course the old The hitch-hiker’s guide to the unverse proverb, DON’T PANIC! (and my new, complementary proposal, be patient).
If possible and convenient, you can now tidy up this post by removing this comment and the two immediately above!!!
I thought there were 7 comments, but there were really only three. I’m not sure this is enough to effect MR Q’s sense of isolation in a positive way.
However, at least you’re not Simon Crean.
The economist Garret Hardin introduced, so I believe, the idea of “the tragedy of the commons”, using the example of excessive grazing by cattle on public land, pointing out what was best for the group was best for the individual.
I was personally struck down by a virus doing the rounds this winter in Sydney, causing me to lose three or four weeks from work. Part of the explanation may be due to the inherent virulence of the viruses in play, but it seems to me that with the increased numbers of casual and part time workers with both less access to sick leave, and the greater individual need to be at work while sick, has effectively increased the propensity for such viruses to spread. Other factors are involved with a compound effect. For example, travel by public transport, a fertile environment for the spread of airborne viruses, is also an ingredient increasing the risk of contagion.
There are costs for employers whose employees become sick, but the disproportional cost is borne by individual employees without sick leave who lose income. The individual in a contagious state who stays at home with no recourse to sick leave bears the individual cost while performing a public benefit. These circumstances may perhaps be described as the tragedy of the common cold.
As I look at Simon Crean and remember that Mike Rann had an approval rating shortly before the SA election of 19% – one would have thought unelectable, but there he is, as a very popular premier with a nicely balanced parliament.
However with the alienation of responsibility from members of the federal govt minister’s staff along with the constant ability for minister’s to distance themselves from wrong doing by stating that nobody told them the govt has become teflon coated.
Radio National had an interesting item on this topic this afternoon which discussed a current review of the chain of responsibility – with the pessimistic view that no changes will be made to the system as it suits those who prevaricate very nicely.
OK, OK, it’s something of a dog’s breakfast. But if it isn’t clear, after a thoughtful read, what substantial points I’ve tried to make, then I could spend some time cleaning it up and posting again – how say ye all?
And, Andrew, desperately kind measures were definitely called for in the form of excessive posts, inadvertent as mine were! The evidence? Note the Professor’s own personal double-blog at Watching golf, on 30 August. The explanation for this is obvious: when posting it, John was starting to really suffer from his above-stated loneliness-effects of blog starvation.
Having apparently caught John’s multiple-blogging virus I can only hope it doesn’t lay me low for several weeks, but if it does, wmb, then I promise to avoid catching public transport or breathing air.
And for you Jill, there must be an ABC programme about this virus somewhere, because obviously none of the commercial media would carry discussion of something so obscure. Will make another 49 or more posts if and when I find it for you, to make up the 60-minimum required by James.
hi John. still reading, but still unqualified to comment on most topics!
here’s a question that i’ve been wondering about, perhaps your readers have some thoughts:
Q. are blogs ‘chatrooms’?
the reason i ask is that my work has decided to aggressively pursue me for internet use (ongoing repercussions from the process my old ‘mate’ the practice group leader put in train – could have something to do with my lefty content, or the fact that i’m due to collect maternity leave if i make it to december without getting a third warning for something, but that’s probably just paranoia!) and have decided that blogging is against co.policy (their 15 page electronic use policy forbids accessing chatrooms,though it’s silent on blogs).
my view is that perhaps blogs with comment facilities could be seen as chatrooms, though it puts the blogger more in the role of moderator than writer, i guess. but blogs without comment facilities are a bit of a stretch.
anyway, i’ve been banned from blogging or accessing blogs from work, even during lunch hours, but i did get my revenge by getting IT to block access to my site from work computers…heh heh…course, if people are keen enough they can log-on from home, but the idea of HR scrutinising my blog from work, and then using it against me, really annoyed me.
it sucks, though.
For those who can’t follow some of the discussion above, I’ve deleted a couple of surplus comments by Greg.
Blogs are not chatrooms. Feel free to quote me, with title, on this subject if it helps. I plan a short post on this.
One way to test the blog-as-chatroom thesis:
A/S/L, Gianna?
🙂
thanks John.
que, James? (You rest your case.)
In an idle moment I was looking at the Reserve Bank’s Annual report (checking out how much the Big Mac gets paid these days – looks like he’s cracked the $500,000 mark), which has just been put up on their web site http://www.rba.gov.au. But then, flicking through, I came to the bit about community relations.
Page 56: “The RBA seeks to encourage open discussions of issues related to public policy. For several years, it has made a modest contribution to the running costs of two Sydney-based think tanks, the Centre for Independent Studies and the Sydney Institute.”
Hang on! Should a statutary authority like a central bank be funding outfits like these? Firstly, it is taxpayers’ money that is being spent – without the taxpayers having a say. Secondly, these particular think-tanks are not exactly unbiased in their politics.
If think-tanks are benefitting from public money, it should be done through the central government. Or even better, not at all.