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Nick Thompson

Power Law Poor

What proportion of the PLP would accept such solutions?

N

Nicholas Thompson
nickthompson at earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson

> [Original Message]
> From: <Friam-request at redfish.com>
> To: <Friam at redfish.com>
> Date: 2/13/2006 12:00:29 PM
> Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 32, Issue 12
>
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. power laws and social problems (Tom Carter)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 23:41:42 -0800
> From: Tom Carter <tom at astarte.csustan.edu>
> Subject: [FRIAM] power laws and social problems
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <FD05988E-B0F7-4048-B89E-6640386B5305 at astarte.csustan.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
> All -
>
> Interesting article in the most recent New Yorker (especially for
> all you Freakonomics fans . . .) taking a look at some social
> problems like homelessness, police brutality, and auto exhaust
> pollution. The article by Malcolm Gladwell titled "Million-Dollar
> Murray" observes that there are some problems that make more sense to
> solve than to manage, because of power-law distributions of the
> "offenders." Homelessness, for example, is (observed to be . . .)
> not a normally distributed problem (in terms, say, of length of time
> homeless), but rather power law distributed -- there is a relatively
> small number of chronically homeless individuals (most of the
> "homeless" are homeless for quite a short time). And, those
> (relatively) few tend to cost enormous amounts in medical/social/
> police services. Cheaper just to give the chronics an apartment and
> a support system than to set up soup kitchens and temporary shelters
> to help the "average" homeless person.
>
> The article also makes some good points about conflicts between
> "morality" and "economic" sense, and democratic evenhandedness versus
> "special treatment" . . . Helps explain why everybody should be
> taught something about power laws, fat tails, and how our
> expectations can be confounded . . .
>
> Anyway, worth reading. Available here: http://www.newyorker.com/
> fact/content/articles/060213fa_fact
>
> tom
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Friam mailing list
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> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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>
> End of Friam Digest, Vol 32, Issue 12
> *************************************

Stephen Guerin

Power Law Poor

Nick asks:
> What proportion of the PLP would accept such solutions?

Most of the people will accept the solutions very quickly. However, a few people
will resist for an extremely long time ;-)

-Steve

Michael Agar

Power Law Poor

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Hey Nick, where you been? Teaching post-structural psychology? (:

I'm using the power law distribution as a hypothesis in the book I'm
almost done with about my 35 years in the dope field. It's called
Dope Double Agent: The Naked Emperor on Drugs. The hypothesis is that
for most drugs, (including alcohol), use patterns are distributed in
a power law kind of way, that is, a large number of abstainers to
occasional users and a small number of heavy dependent users. Keeping
people on the left is what prevention is all about. Getting people
back from the right is what treatment is. Most war on drugs policy
demonizes the left side, occasional use, rather than understanding
and preventing the right. Most drug research draws samples from the
right side of the curve, so the picture of use is dramatically skewed
towards worst case scenarios. Power law is a useful metaphor with
some data to support it to see all this and other things, though--
surprise surprise--there's not a lot of research to draw on.

Mike

On Feb 13, 2006, at 10:15 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

> What proportion of the PLP would accept such solutions?
>
> N
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> nickthompson at earthlink.net
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson
>
>
>> [Original Message]
>> From: <Friam-request at redfish.com>
>> To: <Friam at redfish.com>
>> Date: 2/13/2006 12:00:29 PM
>> Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 32, Issue 12
>>
>> Send Friam mailing list submissions to
>> Friam at redfish.com
>>
>> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>> Friam-request at redfish.com
>>
>> You can reach the person managing the list at
>> Friam-owner at redfish.com
>>
>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>> than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."
>>
>>
>> Today's Topics:
>>
>> 1. power laws and social problems (Tom Carter)
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 23:41:42 -0800
>> From: Tom Carter <tom at astarte.csustan.edu>
>> Subject: [FRIAM] power laws and social problems
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>> <friam at redfish.com>
>> Message-ID: <FD05988E-B0F7-4048-
>> B89E-6640386B5305 at astarte.csustan.edu>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>>
>> All -
>>
>> Interesting article in the most recent New Yorker (especially for
>> all you Freakonomics fans . . .) taking a look at some social
>> problems like homelessness, police brutality, and auto exhaust
>> pollution. The article by Malcolm Gladwell titled "Million-Dollar
>> Murray" observes that there are some problems that make more sense to
>> solve than to manage, because of power-law distributions of the
>> "offenders." Homelessness, for example, is (observed to be . . .)
>> not a normally distributed problem (in terms, say, of length of time
>> homeless), but rather power law distributed -- there is a relatively
>> small number of chronically homeless individuals (most of the
>> "homeless" are homeless for quite a short time). And, those
>> (relatively) few tend to cost enormous amounts in medical/social/
>> police services. Cheaper just to give the chronics an apartment and
>> a support system than to set up soup kitchens and temporary shelters
>> to help the "average" homeless person.
>>
>> The article also makes some good points about conflicts between
>> "morality" and "economic" sense, and democratic evenhandedness versus
>> "special treatment" . . . Helps explain why everybody should be
>> taught something about power laws, fat tails, and how our
>> expectations can be confounded . . .
>>
>> Anyway, worth reading. Available here: http://
>> www.newyorker.com/
>> fact/content/articles/060213fa_fact
>>
>> tom
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Friam mailing list
>> Friam at redfish.com
>> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>
>>
>> End of Friam Digest, Vol 32, Issue 12
>> *************************************
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at various locations
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>

Roger Frye-2

Power Law Poor

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Jochen Fromm-3

Power Law Poor

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

No, I doubt that the chronically homeless individuals tend to cost
enormous amounts in medical/social/police services. Is this true?
Isn't it the aging part of the population that tends to cost
enormous amounts in medical services? If you take a look at a
waiting room of an arbitrary doctor, you can observe 10% young
people and 90% older folks.

-J.

-----Original Message-----
Subject: [FRIAM] Power Law Poor

> [...] there is a relatively small number of chronically homeless
individuals
> (most of the "homeless" are homeless for quite a short time). And, those
> (relatively) few tend to cost enormous amounts in medical/social/
> police services. Cheaper just to give the chronics an apartment and
> a support system than to set up soup kitchens and temporary shelters
> to help the "average" homeless person.
>

Justin Lyon

Power Law Poor

In reply to this post by Michael Agar

Mike,

Sounds like it's going to be an interesting book. Any chance for an early read? I'd like to share it with people in the UK Home Office who are doing research on drug policy over there.

Warmly,
Justin Lyon

http://justinlyonandsimulation.blogspot.com

----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Agar <[hidden email]>
To: nickthompson at earthlink.net; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <Friam at redfish.com>
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2006 11:37:20 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Power Law Poor

Hey Nick, where you been? Teaching post-structural psychology? (:

I'm using the power law distribution as a hypothesis in the book I'm
almost done with about my 35 years in the dope field. It's called
Dope Double Agent: The Naked Emperor on Drugs. The hypothesis is that
for most drugs, (including alcohol), use patterns are distributed in
a power law kind of way, that is, a large number of abstainers to
occasional users and a small number of heavy dependent users. Keeping
people on the left is what prevention is all about. Getting people
back from the right is what treatment is. Most war on drugs policy
demonizes the left side, occasional use, rather than understanding
and preventing the right. Most drug research draws samples from the
right side of the curve, so the picture of use is dramatically skewed
towards worst case scenarios. Power law is a useful metaphor with
some data to support it to see all this and other things, though--
surprise surprise--there's not a lot of research to draw on.

Mike

On Feb 13, 2006, at 10:15 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at various locations
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
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