[FRIAM] the arc of ai (was Re: Whew!)

Sun May 7 01:32:18 EDT 2017

On 5/6/17 10:52 AM, Joe Spinden wrote:
>
> The talk of who went to what school seems beside the point.
>
> The benefits of Pre-K seem indisputable to me.. As do the benefits of 
> reduced sugar consumption.
>
For those with limited access to the basics of modern education, I think 
Pre-K is a great thing (under-literate parents with overwhelming 
distractions like double-career or substance/behaviour/media 
addictions).   For children with an over-abundance of calories 
(especially those from purified sugars/carbs/fats/alcohol!) reduced 
sugar consumption is a "good thing".    In sweeping societal/group 
measures I suppose that increasing access to the former and reducing 
access to the latter is a doubly good thing.

Whether I should exercise financial support for the former or 
instigating regulation on the latter is a different thing.   I am 
*personally* willing to help make sure that pre-K (and K-12) is highly 
accessible to all, up to and including paying more taxes, but am a 
little reluctant to declare that *everyone* should do the same.   I am 
also of the mind that reduced sugar (and carbohydrates, and alcohol) 
consumption in our culture is generally a "good thing" but I'm not sure 
I am ready to bluntly interfere with those whose lifestyles and choices 
includes consuming more of those items than *I* think is healthy.
>
> I did not focus on the benefits of Pre-K vis-a-vis the proposed tax 
> because I was never convinced the administration could competently 
> determine how to administer the receipts.  But, since Martinez is 
> trying to gut education in NM, anything would be better than nothing.
>
I think Conservative Politicians of the Susanna Martinez stripe are 
likely to *mostly* do things I don't agree with, and feel even unlikely 
to maintain a competent bureaucracy to do those things *even* if I 
agreed with thm.
>
> Nor do I consider it elitist to advocate for improved health.  If some 
> reduced their sugar consumption because it cost more, that would not 
> be a bad thing.
I think advocating for good health is a great thing.  The question is 
what measures do we consider acceptable?

  When Nicotine was declared the devil incarnate (I am not a nicotine 
consumer myself) I found myself winding up my smoking-hater friends with 
the idea that there is *another* extant evil with many of the same 
qualities that *MUST* be eradicated for the general good as soon as 
Nicotine was properly suppressed.  I could get the whole room jumping up 
in down with me in self-righteous resentment, right up until I declared 
the devil himself to be "caffeine".  After all, it is a strong 
mood-altering substance, it has significant health risks (high blood 
pressure at the forefront), it stains your teeth, it causes lost 
work-time (coffee/soda breaks!) and to anyone who doesn't like the smell 
is quite offensive (ew!  I smell COFFEE brewing!  Do you know how bad 
your COFFEE breath is?).

Many here would condemn white sugar (or high-fructose-corn-syrup in 
drinks) and nicotine (smoked or smokeless) or maybe even alcohol as a 
social evil, but would still defend their cup of coffee to their dying 
sip... "you can pry that coffee cup from my cold, dead fingers!).

I don't know how to argue elitism, but somehow I think there IS some 
form of elitism in these arguments, or at least self-righteous judgement?
>
> Separately, the idea that Michael Bloomberg spending $1MM of his own 
> money -- with no financial benefit to himself -- to support the tax 
> here is somehow equivalent to the soda distributors' spending large 
> sums to protect their own profits is ludicrous. Bloomberg is a genuine 
> billionaire who should be commended for his willingness to spend his 
> own money to advocate for causes he considers beneficial to all.
I do agree that there is some conflation between the two examples. I 
don't know why Bloomberg has taken on sugary drinks as a crusade, and I 
personally think that my own occasional consumption of sugary drinks is 
not healthy for me, but I guess I don't know how to parse "genuine 
billionaire"... and have to question why HE (or any billionaire) gets to 
try to directly shape public policy?   Sure the, sugar (or corn syrup, 
or beet or ???) industry has NO business being allowed to influence 
legislation, but that doesn't mean (to me) that Bloomberg or Gates or 
Buffett or (OMG) Trump have an intrinsic right to use wealth to 
influence public policy either?

I *happen* to agree that helping make pure sugar less 
appealing/available might improve the collective health but that doesn't 
mean I want to put sin/Pigovian taxes on it (whether we fund PreK with 
it or not).    I would *also* like to see a lot fewer deaths by firearms 
in our culture and could suggest that if ammunition (or gunpowder or 
primers or ??)  were heavily taxed ($5/round for most ammo?), but am 
loathe to try to impose a false-economy on top of the existing false 
economies.

Carry on,
  - Steve

>
> Joe
>
>
> On 5/6/17 9:44 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>> Let's summarize.  I said I wish people would focus on the benefits of 
>> pre-K education rather than the economic impacts of the tax and the 
>> effects on diet.  I mentioned that my wife, who went to graduate 
>> school at the Harvard Ed School, is a big proponent of pre-K.  Merle 
>> said that I missed the point and that Jeff Skilling and Jared 
>> Kushner's father also went to Harvard.  I said that Ted K went to 
>> Berkeley to make the case that having alumni in prison is 
>> irrelevant.  Merle says it's not.
>>
>> My wife hates being mentioned in this context. Let me tell you a 
>> little more.  When she was at Harvard she worked with Jonathan Kozol 
>> to improve educational opportunities for Puerto Rican toddlers in 
>> South Boston.  In Pittsburgh she worked in a therapeutic Headstart 
>> program as head teacher to offer pre-K education to high risk kids 
>> whose mothers were schizophrenic. They were 3-4 years old and at 
>> least one of them witnessed the murder of her mother. They were 
>> mostly African American and arrived at school very hungry.  They ate 
>> at school. This was done under the auspices of the University of 
>> Pittsburgh Psychiatry Department.  There's more but...
>>
>> Frank
>>
>> Frank Wimberly
>> Phone (505) 670-9918
>>
>> On May 6, 2017 9:15 AM, "Marcus Daniels" <marcus at snoutfarm.com 
>> <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     Frank writes:
>>
>>
>>     "Which notorious person went to which university? Why?"
>>
>>
>>     It’s a question of fairness and consistency relative to values,
>>     not a question of correct vs. incorrect.
>>
>>     Here are two more personal experiences which I doubt I really
>>     need to give but I will for completeness.
>>
>>     1. A disruptive technology is reported in a peer-reviewed journal
>>     which I argue is worth considering.   I provide background (cited
>>     papers), and my colleague skims over the affiliations over the
>>     authors of those papers rather than reading the abstracts.
>>
>>     2. Our team arranges a meeting with a possible funding source and
>>     have a pitch prepared with preliminary results and working
>>     prototype code.    First thing the person does is flip to the
>>     section with the staff bios to see which universities they attended.
>>
>>     I could give many more examples of this kind of authority-based
>>     selection that I see every day. I'm not arguing that there is
>>     nothing to this approach, or that it is complete ineffectual.  
>>     It depends on what the deciders are optimizing for. One thing
>>     they could be optimizing is to ensure their collaborators are
>>     presentable and demonstrate a baseline of intelligence, and
>>     certain breadth and depth of knowledge.
>>
>>     However, when such a person that otherwise would passes muster,
>>     puts out a document that starts from fairly common premises to
>>     surprising conclusions, that chain of reasoning might be subject
>>     to consideration.  Sure, if there is more context, like knowing
>>     in retrospect that the person was guilty of murder, then that may
>>     or may not cause them to discard consideration of the argument.
>>        For me, it makes me more interested in understanding the
>>     motives and reasoning and to make sure I convince myself I have
>>     an idea of where they lost it.
>>
>>     Marcus
>>
>>     **
>>
>>
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>>
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>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>
> -- 
> Joe
>
>
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> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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