Extended debate

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You admit the FDA doesn't reproduce anything, they just review data. In the "real" scientific world, when a scientist claims X, other scientists try to reproduce X. That's how cold fusion was found to be bogus. Nobody could reproduce it.


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This is not the only way that peers review one's work. Before you embarass yourself further by persisting that scientists must try and reproduce their colleagues' experimental results before passing judgement, run a damn google. There must be something out there.


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And why is government magically better at this task than anyone else? How is government magically able to do this cheaper? What's the special sauce?


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You did not understand the point. Cost does not include only monetary figures. (The giveaway should have been the words "costly in every sense of the word".)


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I don't see any reason to assume that people are going to have an interest in developing a one-mile stretch of road between two other one-mile stretches of road. Efficiencies suggest that if you're going to go through all the trouble of building a road, you'll build more than one mile


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Who said anything about building a road in order to own it? You're not gonna stop me from buying one mile of road, are you?

And possibly creating a trading market, futures an' all, with miles of road as the traded unit?

And how all of a sudden "efficiency" comes into play, to magically and immediately optimize things in your world? Until we get to a point of "efficiency" (or "equilibrium", or whatever), we're supposed to go through a bit of trials and tribulations!


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So it's impractical to have roads with different owners every mile. Therefore, the alternative to government owning all roads is to have different owners every mile. What an argument.


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I didn't say it was the only alternative, I said that it is a very distinct possibility - and it renders the whole argument abt all public roads being actually private completely unworkable. (One immediately sees the need to have universal rules and regulations for traffic not to stand still!)

Your debating tactics BTW are getting more and more obtuse.


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So it's not necessary [to always take drugs], therefore we need someone to prevent us from getting it.


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I'm merely pointing out to you something useful abt drugs, since drugs happen to be the topic we're using as an example. Ignore the advice if you want, it has nothing to do anyway with the issue. (I brought it up only because you wrote "How many lives could have been saved by drugs the FDA quashed or bogged down in red tape for years?" You'd be surprised by how few!)


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Who said you can't get any information? The alternative to government-supplied information is no information. It's always the same. The alternative to government is living in a cave.


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Certainly you would get information! You'd get information from different doctors -chosen by you-, evaluate the information and then proceed according to your own, individual judgement, right? I guess I can't get it across that this involves a tremendous amount of time lost. Every time you want to make any informed decision you want everything to start from zero. The very idea that someone might have judged something as dangerous before you make your own judgement is anathema. Alrighty.


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My choice to take experimental cancer drugs ... is going to cause havoc to your way of living?


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No. But your choice to stop paying taxes might. Or your choice to follow your own rules and regulations when speeding past the intersection.