In an age of blogs, video conferencing, unlimited cell phone plans and so forth what exactly is the point of banning someone?

I'd much rather watch product placement then watch a 'clean' movie with a bunch of commercials at the beginning. Goes double for TV.

I'd pay to minimize the hassle going through security. It's bad enough with a laptop.

Go to a school based on where you want to work. Local schools tend to have local alumni, and outside of the top tier that matters more then 'rank'.

One of the differences between collective judgment and that of an individual is that the collective decision need not reflect a single cohesive metric. Angels will make decisions based on what is important to angels and devils will make decisions based on what is important to devils.

Dictating a metric is equivalent to dictating an outcome.

The method of "aggregation" matters. You are implying an aggregation based on consensus- everyone goes into a room and talks it through until they reach something everyone can agree to. That is not the only possibility however.

Voting, particularly anonymous voting distances the decision from the sway of group dynamics and permits individuality while still creating a group decision. Stock markets work the same way.

What would the internet be if there had not been an internet bubble?

"For one thing, this gas tax holiday doesn't seem all that popular. Hillary endorsed it an ended up with a worse run in Indiana than expected."

That's an argument that McCain and Clinton miscalculated the public's response to the holiday plan. As I indicated previously, that's not a hard argument to make and polling data can prove or disprove it. I don't know of any such polls but would like to see them. Anyone?

Clinton's recent decline in relative popularity is not evidence by itself. It could be due to any number of factors, and I'd point out that there has been no appreciable decline McCain's popularity despite his support for a similar policy.

With respect to whether majorities tend to be correct or not, I feel that question is significant and different enough from the gas tax as to warrant it's own debate.

If the gas tax holiday is bad, then either politicians are wrong and voters don't really want it and won't vote for them because of it or voters are wrong and want the holiday even though it is bad for them.

It's easy to say the politicians are wrong, miscalculations happen and the truth will out in the polling numbers. But to say that masses of voters are wrong about their own interests ought to be harder, to go against them is by definition to say you know better then they do what is good for them.

That's not to say that large numbers of people are never wrong, it does happen (real estate bubble, internet bubble, 2004 presidential election). I think it just doesn't happen that often and claims of such shouldn't be thrown around lightly.

I'd like the ability to add a "Troll" icon or a "Devil's Advocate" icon, something visual you could tag on your own argument to indicate whether you believed what you were saying. Maybe even emoticons?