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Comment "Evidence" (Score 2) 77

I don't think it's much of a stretch to find the Claude AI evidence inadmissible for another reason, though judges widely don't do so: undue prejudice. The evidence of typing "how to get away with a crime I committed" isn't being offered for the purpose of showing the defendant did commit the crime, after all, it's being offered to impeach the credibility of the defendant testifying they didn't do it. Myself, I just don't believe juries can separate the two, so I'd never admit such evidence. But as I said, judges generally disagree, which is likely why they decided to try "Claude is a lawyer."

Comment Re: Statues (Score 1) 42

Another mechanism for resistance is obviously fine, and I'm pretty sure there are actually zero cases of Monsanto asserting any infringement for that.

As for crossbreeding the "wild" gene, Canada's highest court dealt with that directly and found in Monsanto's favor in that case on the basis of what Canadian patent law actually protects. You can dislike that, sure, but it's no more deserving of scare quotes than my home mortgage interest tax deduction.

Comment Statues (Score 2) 42

Seriously, there should be statues in some hall of shame at a prominent business school for Robert Shapiro and everyone that followed him at Monsanto and Bayer. They had developed and patented some of the best plant gene insertion technology, and instead of creating a ton of wealth, basically destroyed a ton of otherwise unrelated wealth. It almost seems laughable now that they spun off Sygenta in the '90's to avoid PCB liability, only to double down on glyphosate and "glyphosate-ready" seeds shortly thereafter and use the cash flows to acquire a bunch of promising life sciences companies that will lie in comparative ruin. To say nothing of how their failure to effectively manage accusations of replanting and maintain decent PR made them pariahs, both here on slashdot and in the minds of many of their customers.

They can't even come clean in the linked announcement- the "far less funding" of the 2020 settlement was US$10B (US$19B in 2026 dollars) and has already gone out the door. If they put $19B toward the same problem that the current settlement addresses in the next four years, there'd be *way* more money paid to class claimants.

Comment Re: can we go back to the 60-80's and maybe the 90 (Score 2, Interesting) 47

significant portion of a target audience

Well, AC, there's your problem. The vast majority of those in the target audience knew exactly who was performing, many outside of that target were cheerfully willing to learn, and only whacked-out bigots got as upset about it as you appear to be.

Comment 124% probability? (Score 1) 25

Hey, if somebody really understands what calculation they're doing to measure "accuracy," I think a brief explanation would be very welcome. I'll admit I gave up when their top-line, explicit example involved a pair of contracts selling for .67 and .57- I'd say spending $1.24 for $1 is the very definition of an inaccurate market.

Comment Re: Lifestyle change (Score 1) 175

Why wouldn't it be answerable? These drugs have all been tested against placebo, so if there's not an actual difference in natural production or sensitivity, then the only remaining avenue for these drugs to work is that fat people *are* nothing but weak-willed and lazy, and need an essential overdose to act "normally." Seems like you could easily measure serum levels of GLP-1 and GIP, to start with, but why would you? Just to make the people who take the drugs successfully feel bad about themselves? What would the point of that research be? Nobody's trying to work out how much pain you're *really* feeling before they decide whether it was okay that you took some ibuprofen. It'd be just as easy to say "ibuprofen doesn't address the underlying problem that you're a crybaby."

Comment Re: treating the symptoms (Score 1) 175

There's not one of these drugs that "just slightly increas(es) the supply of naturally-created compounds." They are absolutely not to be found in the unmedicated human body- they are agonists, meaning they find to the cell receptors that the naturally-occurring hormone does. Though I don't know these current drug molecules' origins, I do know the research started with gila monster venom.

Comment Re: Hand out (Score 1) 309

You should probably consider that the interest rate that has you freaking out isn't that far from market returns of late. Perhaps he doesn't want to lose a year of making 17% on the cost of his vacation just to avoid the possibility of paying 19% for a couple months when it turns out he can actually go.

I don't like paying people interest, either, but I also don't like making no money on my money, or converting my anticipated stepped-up $0 taxes to short term capital gains at 32%, or discovering I've got to pay interest and penalties on that tax to boot, or any number of other things that can make 20% credit card interest rates look like a bargain.

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