Science & Technology
Science & Technology
Kids React to Apple II: “Look at How Humanity Has Used Their Intellect!”
Ari Armstrong September 5, 2014
A recent YouTube video, “Kids React to Old Computers,” is a fun and profound way to mark the rapid advance of computer technology. Children interviewed for the video have a variety of reactions to the Apple II, an innovative machine in its day—it was introduced in 1977—but now useful mainly as a museum piece.
Science & Technology
Mexico’s Oil Monopoly Looks to U.S. for Crude Oil Resulting from Non-Monopoly
David Biederman September 5, 2014
Under the control of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex)—Mexico’s State Run Oil Monopoly—oil production has declined to levels not seen since 1995. Fortunately for the people of Mexico, producers in the United States, operating in relative freedom, have, during that same time, massively increased their production of crude. Mexico may soon begin importing crude from the United States.
Philosophy, Science & Technology
Ice-Bucket Challenge Supports Embryonic Stem Cell Research—And That’s a Good Thing
Ari Armstrong August 28, 2014
If scientists rationally judge that they can make headway against ALS and other devastating diseases by engaging in embryonic stem cell research, that is what they should do—and those who voluntarily (and non-sacrificially) fund such research are morally virtuous in doing so.
Science & Technology
Government to Patients: “We Feel Pain Is Best for You”
Ari Armstrong August 27, 2014
Individuals’ lives and bodies belong to them, not to the government. Individuals have a moral right to seek out and use the drugs of their choice for pain management (and for any other purpose), and politicians and bureaucrats are morally wrong—indeed, they are detestable—when they violate those rights.
Science & Technology
European Industry Stagnates as Americans Prosper with Fracking
David Biederman August 8, 2014
The cause of this problem for the EU is not the shale gas revolution in the United States; rather, the cause of the problem is the lack of such a revolution in Europe—and the cause of that problem is European policies that stifle energy production.
Science & Technology
The Environmentalists’ War on People
Ari Armstrong August 4, 2014
Although environmentalists sometimes couch their policies in terms of improving the world for human benefit, fundamentally the environmentalist movement regards humankind as a blight on the earth whose productive activities are inherently immoral. Most recently, the Guardian reports a “plan to engineer a shorter, smaller human race to cope with climate change.”
Science & Technology
What Congress Should Do Rather than Sue
Ari Armstrong August 1, 2014
Unfortunately, this week’s response by House Republicans—to sue Obama—demonstrates that they are more interested in poking the President than in defunding and ultimately repealing the rights-violating laws that are throttling the ability of doctors, insurers, and patients to act according to their reasoned judgment.
Science & Technology
ObamaCare, Nonobjective Law, and Brothers’ Keepers
Ari Armstrong July 24, 2014
That ObamaCare pervasively violates the rights of individuals to control their own wealth and to freely negotiate terms of health insurance and health care on a free market is bad enough; that ObamaCare does so via ambiguous, nonobjective statutes is even worse. ObamaCare substantially empowers the executive branch and hordes of bureaucrats to create whatever health policies they wish.
Science & Technology
Contra Senator Udall, America Needs a “Not the Government’s Business Act”
Ari Armstrong July 21, 2014
Recently Udall announced he was sponsoring the so-called “Not My Boss’s Business Act” to overturn the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision and again force businesses to provide employees with health insurance covering the full spectrum of birth control mandated by ObamaCare.
Science & Technology
The Real Costs of the Government’s “Net Zero Energy” House
Ari Armstrong July 14, 2014
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has built a beautiful and technologically innovative house—at taxpayers’ expense. Although the technology in the house appears to work well—as NIST boasted in a recent media release—government should not have built the house, and the house is not economical to operate.