Who benefit to a government shutdown? Who would benefit from a default?

I ask my doctor. I use THE INTERNET the internet to look up things. I use my (I hope) well developed sense of BS, and I pays my money and takes my chances.
Let me give you an example. I have been seeing the same dentist for 20 years, perfectly happy with her. But a year ago we started a procedure, which is still unfinished 16 months later. i'm out $6K, and no hope of getting that money back without legal help. So, with the best intention, great stats (20 years of the same dentist) I felt confident and comfortable doing this surgery. But i was wrong, I'm out $6K and the resolution is still in the future.

I pays my money and I take my chances, no matter how good the statistics look.

I sort of figure that if it's making the news a lot, it's not science. Global cooling warming climate change is a prime example of what one of my fav economists called scientism. Scientific sounding but unscientific (hey, that describes our favorite conman).

all choice is 'real', what I think you mean is ore like useful or effective, but even if my only choices are surgery with a 90% failure rate, or doing nothing, it's still areal choice
and ultimately, only you can make the decision, based on your best research.

Yep.

And we always think it's the other guy who's like that.
Why think it is possible to 'teach' anyone? All you can do is present the evidence and the reasons behind it. No matter how persuasive or correct you are, people are perverse and will follow their own muse, no matter how much you or I disagree with them.

We pays our money and takes our chances...

But surely there are people who are trying their best to use good arithmetic and sensible methods for sifting evidence in every field, in contrast to those who say, "one idea is about as good as any other; pay up and take your chances."

Hey I know, since any single person is maybe 10% nuts, what if we double checked things. So if one guy gets the answer wrong 1/10 and another guy 1/10, the odds of both coming up with exactly the same wrong answer should be pretty low, like 1/100.

On the dental thing: my dentist recommends something called Invisalign. Plastic braces. But this guy I know who used to be married to a dentist told me it's not worth the money. He said some people get good results but there's a high drop out because people have a hard time wearing the plastic thing all the time.

So I don't know. Fuck, I have to trust my dentist. Dentists go to similar schools teaching, presumably, solid facts sifted through a lengthy peer review process. They take exams. They have a profession. If they can't police themselves of smooth talking cons, what hope have any of us got of sorting them out?

It is disturbing how many dentists have signed up with practice management companies related to Scientology. Mine has one, but I don't think it's WISE. I think it's some other feel-good income boosting stat counting thing that the worker bees hate. High staff turnover.

Exactly. Unless you're flipping a coin or reading the entrails of a chicken or some other irrational method, you are basing your choice upon information. The information is going to determine your choice.

If the available information is of low quality, then it may not determine what you pick. You may have to guess or use the chicken parts. But that's not a desirable situation.

Of course there are people in all fields who work every day to figure out how to do their job better. As you point out, the trick to how to figure out which, among all the possibilities, is the right choice. But it is rare that there is any one right choice, but a range of choices that give varying results.

I think you misunderstand me about the paying my money. I am not saying "Throw the dice and see what happens." I am saying that once I have all the information I can afford, in time, money, effort, to collect, then all i can do then is make the choice, collapse the wave function and see if the cat died.

You are thinking that expertise n one field (dentistry) means expertise n another field (finance, investing, management, whichever the problem is.)

This is not a new problem or exclusive to either dentists, or scientology. Doctors are as subject to being scammed, and are especially vulnerable to money scams, since they typically earn a lot, but aren't trained in business (one class in 5 years) and don't have a lot of time for due diligence. Add to that that doctors are notoriously self confident, and you have a great person to scam.

I was thinking more about the Invisalign recommendation. My dentist says I should do it but my friend who knows something about dentistry says no.

My dentist's waiting room is like a big walk-in Invisalign commercial. This alone makes me wary.

terminology--basing a decision on entrails is information , it is just exceptionally low quality, essentially, nothing but noise. But, information gained from irrational methods is still information to the person making the decision. It will have no effect in reality, but the person will act as if it did, hence it has to be accepted as part of the decision making process

I'd ask what it does, why it would matter, how much it costs and what I would get out of it. And i'd ignore pressure and feel put off if I got it. In fact, that would be a deal killer.

Mine has something about some thing to whiten the teeth. I ignored it so completely she never brought it up again. It also made me feel a bit uncomfortable because she asked me while I was in the chair. ie, when I was at the most vulnerable.

It is a complete power grab by Obama like any other 2 bit dictator.

Update: The House just passed the Senate budget 285 to 143. The government is now open for business.

oh darn.