Whew!

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Glen writes:

< If a listener abstracts their self, they are just as evil as a speaker abstracting their self. >

Steve writes:

< Firstly, my own throwdown of "rhetoric" was intended to be very specific.  I believe that you both took it to be a bit more broad than intended.  I specifically meant rhetoric as "language intended to persuade".  I hold this specifically distinct from "language intended to inform" and "language used to think or contemplate".  Unfortunately I discovered that in fact the formal definition of rhetoric includes "to inform" as well as "to persuade" >

In PROLOG, free variables are upper case, meaning that the reader should expect some effort in establishing their values.   If Glen were forced to write down his arguments and propositions in PROLOG he'd have to say "Evil" and not "evil" because the latter would be something constrained by a dictionary.  I tend to use single quotes to highlight terms where I am encouraging the reader to find a grounding or tolerate my loose or arbitrary set of constraints in the definition.

Sure, Glen's crypto-obsfucation is a sort of rhetoric.  He forces you to both consume and actively doubt every single one of his words.   Advertisements have a similar effect over time.   I can appreciate Flo and the Gecko, but then I don't purchase Progressive or Geico insurance either.  I become immune to many of their tricks!     For many years I've believed the purpose of this is to make arguments robust to perturbation.   You can reject all the parts of his argument but still be forced to accept the conclusion.  :-)

Marcus




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[gepr]

And as always I'm tremendously grateful for all my friends, who are immeasurably smarter than me, for their tolerance of my nonsensical attempts to navigate reality.


On May 5, 2017 12:02:15 PM PDT, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

>Glen writes:
>
>< If a listener abstracts their self, they are just as evil as a
>speaker abstracting their self. >
>
>Steve writes:
>
>< Firstly, my own throwdown of "rhetoric" was intended to be very
>specific.  I believe that you both took it to be a bit more broad than
>intended.  I specifically meant rhetoric as "language intended to
>persuade".  I hold this specifically distinct from "language intended
>to inform" and "language used to think or contemplate".  Unfortunately
>I discovered that in fact the formal definition of rhetoric includes
>"to inform" as well as "to persuade" >
>
>In PROLOG, free variables are upper case, meaning that the reader
>should expect some effort in establishing their values.   If Glen were
>forced to write down his arguments and propositions in PROLOG he'd have
>to say "Evil" and not "evil" because the latter would be something
>constrained by a dictionary.  I tend to use single quotes to highlight
>terms where I am encouraging the reader to find a grounding or tolerate
>my loose or arbitrary set of constraints in the definition.
>
>Sure, Glen's crypto-obsfucation is a sort of rhetoric.  He forces you
>to both consume and actively doubt every single one of his words.  
>Advertisements have a similar effect over time.   I can appreciate Flo
>and the Gecko, but then I don't purchase Progressive or Geico insurance
>either.  I become immune to many of their tricks!     For many years
>I've believed the purpose of this is to make arguments robust to
>perturbation.   You can reject all the parts of his argument but still
>be forced to accept the conclusion.  :-)

--
⛧glen⛧

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[Frank Wimberly-2]

Which notorious person went to which university?  Why?

On May 5, 2017 11:50 PM, "Merle Lefkoff" <[hidden email]> wrote:

It's NOT irrelevant, Frank!

On Fri, May 5, 2017 at 3:06 PM, glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Heh, just in case you think my comments about my gratefulness or admission of my stupidity are somehow intended as ironic, I'll confirm they are NOT.  All y'all are way smarter than me.  And I am very grateful for your presence, interaction, tolerance, and the very existence of the forum.  I suppose that's the best I can do.  If anyone still reads my words as disingenuous, that's up to them.

On 05/05/2017 01:28 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> I have 30+ years experience reading and, rarely, posting to bboards, forums, etc.  Use of irony can cause problems.  Even if most people know what you mean, there will often be people who think you mean what you say.  I admit that I have occasionally used irony, such as when I mentioned that Ted Kaczinski is an alum of my alma mater.  In that case I was using reductio ad absurdum to argue the irrelevancy  of which celebrity went to what school.


--
☣ glen

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--

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[Frank Wimberly-2]

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 

On May 6, 2017 9:15 AM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> 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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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Frank writes:

"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. "

In a state where the governor vetos funding for higher-education across the board and defunds the legislature?  If we believe her, the only thing New Mexican's care about is taxes.   All public services could be at risk, not just those that address kids with schizophrenic and/or murdered mothers.    Maybe a green chili tax to fix potholes?

Marcus

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]>
Sent: Saturday, May 6, 2017 9:44:59 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the arc of ai (was Re: Whew!)

 

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 

On May 6, 2017 9:15 AM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> 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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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Frank writes:

"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. "

As to the question of whether or not argument from authority is appropriate, I had concluded from your original remark that you think is.  But, I guess, that some exceptions are to be expected like Skilling and Kaczynski.   Maybe so.

Another point of view is that while argument from authority is pervasive, even in intellectual circles, it is the kind of thinking that puts group loyalty over rationality and trust over truth. 

Marcus 

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]>
Sent: Saturday, May 6, 2017 9:44:59 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the arc of ai (was Re: Whew!)

 

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 

On May 6, 2017 9:15 AM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> 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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[Joe Spinden]

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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 

On May 6, 2017 9:15 AM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> 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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[Marcus G. Daniels]

On funding Pre-K, Joe writes:

"anything would be better than nothing"

From a parent's perspective, if there are whole categories of support services that are inadequate or collapsing perhaps the best thing is not to live here, or if the means are sufficient, use private services. 

From a city planner's perspective, putting together these services seems hopeless without predictable and sustainable revenue.    So why waste time on these little one-sie two-sie efforts if the will just isn't there in the community?

To me this failed effort was a Hail Mary that was a symptom of a deeper problem.

Marcus

---

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Joe Spinden <[hidden email]>
Sent: Saturday, May 6, 2017 10:52:54 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the arc of ai (was Re: Whew!)

 

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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 

On May 6, 2017 9:15 AM, "Marcus Daniels" <[hidden email]> 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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[Robert J. Cordingley]

Let me throw some things into this mix

Some estimates (SFNewMexican) suggest in total over $3.12 million was spent by both sides on the campaign while the expected cost of the Pre-K to be funded was $7.7million in the first year. Subsequent years ought to be less because facilities would already be in place.

Some roughly 800  Pre-Ks (4 yr olds) would be included. That's ~$9,000/yr per child which sounds like a good deal based on Frank's numbers. Pre-K <> child-care btw. Some 160 teachers+assistants+extended care providers would be needed to run a 5 day program for 40 classes of 20 students each (2 teachers/class + 2 for extended day care).

The Santa Fe Public Schools are expected to expand their free (to parents) Pre-K programs subject to legislative funding but I don't know details of when, probably never 'cos NM State budget is at an impasse.

A possible but unconfirmed motivation for the Mayor's proposal was to get to a point where Pre-K would be indispensable and thus get sustainable funding and not have to depend on hopefully declining soda tax revenues.

According to the New Mexican again, lemonade powder would be taxed on the made up quantity changing the price from something like $7/can to $28/can - bad 'optics'.

Some claimed tourists might be big contributors to the soda-tax revenues anyway.

Some people suggested they would buy sugary drinks in order to support Pre-K.

Others suggested the beverage industry ('Big Soda') could not stand the idea that the soda-tax would be a seen as sin-tax and are trying desperately not to get it labelled as such.

No-one on the for side in the campaign I saw made any suggestions on what folks should switch to to avoid the tax, e.g. flavored water, water, plain teas and coffees. The last being more profitable for businesses.

Based on district voting the people most likely to benefit health wise voted against it. Sound familiar?

It's claimed the for side didn't play up the health benefits enough in their campaign and that Big Soda came over as the local group while the the for side came over as elitist and out of state.

If passed, lookout for Soda stands outside the city limits.

So it all looks a little silly. I support both ideas tho' living in the county I couldn't vote.

The questions remain: how to fund Pre-K and how to cut consumption of unhealthy sugary drinks? The against side said it should be funded from the 'surplus' the city has but there are legal restrictions on those funds apparently. The city has it's own component of Gross Receipts Tax (which is like a Sales Tax but applied more broadly).

So what's the real problem and how do we fix it?  The mayor is still looking for good ideas.

Robert C

On 5/3/17 9:43 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

 

< $13-16k per year is a huge number. Does this include "child care" .. i.e. taking care of the child for working parents? That is a lot more expensive than "pre-school". >

 

Doggy day care is about half that.  If a dog has the intelligence of a 2 year old, and pre-K child is 4, then a linear extrapolation to an 18 year freshman’s day care (tuition) is about $63k a year.  Must be the complexity of the control system that is required!

 

Marcus

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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Owen Densmore]

Ya gotta love the City Different:

The small print:

On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 11:37 AM, Robert J. Cordingley <[hidden email]> wrote:

Let me throw some things into this mix

Some estimates (SFNewMexican) suggest in total over $3.12 million was spent by both sides on the campaign while the expected cost of the Pre-K to be funded was $7.7million in the first year. Subsequent years ought to be less because facilities would already be in place.

Some roughly 800  Pre-Ks (4 yr olds) would be included. That's ~$9,000/yr per child which sounds like a good deal based on Frank's numbers. Pre-K <> child-care btw. Some 160 teachers+assistants+extended care providers would be needed to run a 5 day program for 40 classes of 20 students each (2 teachers/class + 2 for extended day care).

The Santa Fe Public Schools are expected to expand their free (to parents) Pre-K programs subject to legislative funding but I don't know details of when, probably never 'cos NM State budget is at an impasse.

A possible but unconfirmed motivation for the Mayor's proposal was to get to a point where Pre-K would be indispensable and thus get sustainable funding and not have to depend on hopefully declining soda tax revenues.

According to the New Mexican again, lemonade powder would be taxed on the made up quantity changing the price from something like $7/can to $28/can - bad 'optics'.

Some claimed tourists might be big contributors to the soda-tax revenues anyway.

Some people suggested they would buy sugary drinks in order to support Pre-K.

Others suggested the beverage industry ('Big Soda') could not stand the idea that the soda-tax would be a seen as sin-tax and are trying desperately not to get it labelled as such.

No-one on the for side in the campaign I saw made any suggestions on what folks should switch to to avoid the tax, e.g. flavored water, water, plain teas and coffees. The last being more profitable for businesses.

Based on district voting the people most likely to benefit health wise voted against it. Sound familiar?

It's claimed the for side didn't play up the health benefits enough in their campaign and that Big Soda came over as the local group while the the for side came over as elitist and out of state.

If passed, lookout for Soda stands outside the city limits.

So it all looks a little silly. I support both ideas tho' living in the county I couldn't vote.

The questions remain: how to fund Pre-K and how to cut consumption of unhealthy sugary drinks? The against side said it should be funded from the 'surplus' the city has but there are legal restrictions on those funds apparently. The city has it's own component of Gross Receipts Tax (which is like a Sales Tax but applied more broadly).

So what's the real problem and how do we fix it?  The mayor is still looking for good ideas.

Robert C

On 5/3/17 9:43 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

 

< $13-16k per year is a huge number. Does this include "child care" .. i.e. taking care of the child for working parents? That is a lot more expensive than "pre-school". >

 

Doggy day care is about half that.  If a dog has the intelligence of a 2 year old, and pre-K child is 4, then a linear extrapolation to an 18 year freshman’s day care (tuition) is about $63k a year.  Must be the complexity of the control system that is required!

 

Marcus

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Marcus G. Daniels]

With Amazon Prime, this is all irrelevant.   Click and ship what you want and such taxes will be bypassed.  Further, Amazon’s distribution costs will be lower than going through a local distributor anyway.    Stupid to build a tax base on an business model that is obsolete.   

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2017 10:37 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Whew!

 

Ya gotta love the City Different:

 

 

The small print:

 

 

On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 11:37 AM, Robert J. Cordingley <[hidden email]> wrote:

Let me throw some things into this mix

Some estimates (SFNewMexican) suggest in total over $3.12 million was spent by both sides on the campaign while the expected cost of the Pre-K to be funded was $7.7million in the first year. Subsequent years ought to be less because facilities would already be in place.

Some roughly 800  Pre-Ks (4 yr olds) would be included. That's ~$9,000/yr per child which sounds like a good deal based on Frank's numbers. Pre-K <> child-care btw. Some 160 teachers+assistants+extended care providers would be needed to run a 5 day program for 40 classes of 20 students each (2 teachers/class + 2 for extended day care).

The Santa Fe Public Schools are expected to expand their free (to parents) Pre-K programs subject to legislative funding but I don't know details of when, probably never 'cos NM State budget is at an impasse.

A possible but unconfirmed motivation for the Mayor's proposal was to get to a point where Pre-K would be indispensable and thus get sustainable funding and not have to depend on hopefully declining soda tax revenues.

According to the New Mexican again, lemonade powder would be taxed on the made up quantity changing the price from something like $7/can to $28/can - bad 'optics'.

Some claimed tourists might be big contributors to the soda-tax revenues anyway.

Some people suggested they would buy sugary drinks in order to support Pre-K.

Others suggested the beverage industry ('Big Soda') could not stand the idea that the soda-tax would be a seen as sin-tax and are trying desperately not to get it labelled as such.

No-one on the for side in the campaign I saw made any suggestions on what folks should switch to to avoid the tax, e.g. flavored water, water, plain teas and coffees. The last being more profitable for businesses.

Based on district voting the people most likely to benefit health wise voted against it. Sound familiar?

It's claimed the for side didn't play up the health benefits enough in their campaign and that Big Soda came over as the local group while the the for side came over as elitist and out of state.

If passed, lookout for Soda stands outside the city limits.

So it all looks a little silly. I support both ideas tho' living in the county I couldn't vote.

The questions remain: how to fund Pre-K and how to cut consumption of unhealthy sugary drinks? The against side said it should be funded from the 'surplus' the city has but there are legal restrictions on those funds apparently. The city has it's own component of Gross Receipts Tax (which is like a Sales Tax but applied more broadly).

So what's the real problem and how do we fix it?  The mayor is still looking for good ideas.

Robert C

 

On 5/3/17 9:43 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

 

< $13-16k per year is a huge number. Does this include "child care" .. i.e. taking care of the child for working parents? That is a lot more expensive than "pre-school". >

 

Doggy day care is about half that.  If a dog has the intelligence of a 2 year old, and pre-K child is 4, then a linear extrapolation to an 18 year freshman’s day care (tuition) is about $63k a year.  Must be the complexity of the control system that is required!

 

Marcus

 

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

-- 

Cirrillian 

Web Design & Development

Santa Fe, NM

http://cirrillian.com

<a href="tel:(281)%20989-6272" target="_blank">281-989-6272 (cell)

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Robert J. Cordingley]

Taxes bypassed? Probably not so. See https://www.abqjournal.com/962831/amazon-to-start-collecting-taxes-in-new-mexico.html

Robert C

On 5/7/17 10:49 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

With Amazon Prime, this is all irrelevant.   Click and ship what you want and such taxes will be bypassed.  Further, Amazon’s distribution costs will be lower than going through a local distributor anyway.    Stupid to build a tax base on an business model that is obsolete.   

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2017 10:37 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Whew!

 

Ya gotta love the City Different:

 

 

The small print:

 

 

On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 11:37 AM, Robert J. Cordingley <[hidden email]> wrote:

Let me throw some things into this mix

Some estimates (SFNewMexican) suggest in total over $3.12 million was spent by both sides on the campaign while the expected cost of the Pre-K to be funded was $7.7million in the first year. Subsequent years ought to be less because facilities would already be in place.

Some roughly 800  Pre-Ks (4 yr olds) would be included. That's ~$9,000/yr per child which sounds like a good deal based on Frank's numbers. Pre-K <> child-care btw. Some 160 teachers+assistants+extended care providers would be needed to run a 5 day program for 40 classes of 20 students each (2 teachers/class + 2 for extended day care).

The Santa Fe Public Schools are expected to expand their free (to parents) Pre-K programs subject to legislative funding but I don't know details of when, probably never 'cos NM State budget is at an impasse.

A possible but unconfirmed motivation for the Mayor's proposal was to get to a point where Pre-K would be indispensable and thus get sustainable funding and not have to depend on hopefully declining soda tax revenues.

According to the New Mexican again, lemonade powder would be taxed on the made up quantity changing the price from something like $7/can to $28/can - bad 'optics'.

Some claimed tourists might be big contributors to the soda-tax revenues anyway.

Some people suggested they would buy sugary drinks in order to support Pre-K.

Others suggested the beverage industry ('Big Soda') could not stand the idea that the soda-tax would be a seen as sin-tax and are trying desperately not to get it labelled as such.

No-one on the for side in the campaign I saw made any suggestions on what folks should switch to to avoid the tax, e.g. flavored water, water, plain teas and coffees. The last being more profitable for businesses.

Based on district voting the people most likely to benefit health wise voted against it. Sound familiar?

It's claimed the for side didn't play up the health benefits enough in their campaign and that Big Soda came over as the local group while the the for side came over as elitist and out of state.

If passed, lookout for Soda stands outside the city limits.

So it all looks a little silly. I support both ideas tho' living in the county I couldn't vote.

The questions remain: how to fund Pre-K and how to cut consumption of unhealthy sugary drinks? The against side said it should be funded from the 'surplus' the city has but there are legal restrictions on those funds apparently. The city has it's own component of Gross Receipts Tax (which is like a Sales Tax but applied more broadly).

So what's the real problem and how do we fix it?  The mayor is still looking for good ideas.

Robert C

 

On 5/3/17 9:43 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

 

< $13-16k per year is a huge number. Does this include "child care" .. i.e. taking care of the child for working parents? That is a lot more expensive than "pre-school". >

 

Doggy day care is about half that.  If a dog has the intelligence of a 2 year old, and pre-K child is 4, then a linear extrapolation to an 18 year freshman’s day care (tuition) is about $63k a year.  Must be the complexity of the control system that is required!

 

Marcus

 

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

-- 

Cirrillian 

Web Design & Development

Santa Fe, NM

http://cirrillian.com

<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="tel:%28281%29%20989-6272" target="_blank">281-989-6272 (cell)

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Robert J. Cordingley]

Hi Owen

I saw this ad too and wondered what initiatives the Better Way folks had in store for Pre-K?

... and where are the gray-haired? Perhaps your point.

Robert C

On 5/7/17 10:36 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:

Ya gotta love the City Different:

The small print:

On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 11:37 AM, Robert J. Cordingley <[hidden email]> wrote:

Let me throw some things into this mix

Some estimates (SFNewMexican) suggest in total over $3.12 million was spent by both sides on the campaign while the expected cost of the Pre-K to be funded was $7.7million in the first year. Subsequent years ought to be less because facilities would already be in place.

Some roughly 800  Pre-Ks (4 yr olds) would be included. That's ~$9,000/yr per child which sounds like a good deal based on Frank's numbers. Pre-K <> child-care btw. Some 160 teachers+assistants+extended care providers would be needed to run a 5 day program for 40 classes of 20 students each (2 teachers/class + 2 for extended day care).

The Santa Fe Public Schools are expected to expand their free (to parents) Pre-K programs subject to legislative funding but I don't know details of when, probably never 'cos NM State budget is at an impasse.

A possible but unconfirmed motivation for the Mayor's proposal was to get to a point where Pre-K would be indispensable and thus get sustainable funding and not have to depend on hopefully declining soda tax revenues.

According to the New Mexican again, lemonade powder would be taxed on the made up quantity changing the price from something like $7/can to $28/can - bad 'optics'.

Some claimed tourists might be big contributors to the soda-tax revenues anyway.

Some people suggested they would buy sugary drinks in order to support Pre-K.

Others suggested the beverage industry ('Big Soda') could not stand the idea that the soda-tax would be a seen as sin-tax and are trying desperately not to get it labelled as such.

No-one on the for side in the campaign I saw made any suggestions on what folks should switch to to avoid the tax, e.g. flavored water, water, plain teas and coffees. The last being more profitable for businesses.

Based on district voting the people most likely to benefit health wise voted against it. Sound familiar?

It's claimed the for side didn't play up the health benefits enough in their campaign and that Big Soda came over as the local group while the the for side came over as elitist and out of state.

If passed, lookout for Soda stands outside the city limits.

So it all looks a little silly. I support both ideas tho' living in the county I couldn't vote.

The questions remain: how to fund Pre-K and how to cut consumption of unhealthy sugary drinks? The against side said it should be funded from the 'surplus' the city has but there are legal restrictions on those funds apparently. The city has it's own component of Gross Receipts Tax (which is like a Sales Tax but applied more broadly).

So what's the real problem and how do we fix it?  The mayor is still looking for good ideas.

Robert C

On 5/3/17 9:43 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

 

< $13-16k per year is a huge number. Does this include "child care" .. i.e. taking care of the child for working parents? That is a lot more expensive than "pre-school". >

 

Doggy day care is about half that.  If a dog has the intelligence of a 2 year old, and pre-K child is 4, then a linear extrapolation to an 18 year freshman’s day care (tuition) is about $63k a year.  Must be the complexity of the control system that is required!

 

Marcus

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Gross receipts is one thing.   Who would build the database of UPC codes that are instances of the taxed class (a small subset of gross receipts)?   Maybe other cities have built those databases?   I am skeptical the city would be able to maintain such a thing.    Compliance and enforcement would seem a challenge. 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Robert J. Cordingley
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2017 1:50 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Whew!

 

Taxes bypassed? Probably not so. See https://www.abqjournal.com/962831/amazon-to-start-collecting-taxes-in-new-mexico.html

Robert C

 

On 5/7/17 10:49 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

With Amazon Prime, this is all irrelevant.   Click and ship what you want and such taxes will be bypassed.  Further, Amazon’s distribution costs will be lower than going through a local distributor anyway.    Stupid to build a tax base on an business model that is obsolete.   

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2017 10:37 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Whew!

 

Ya gotta love the City Different:

 

 

The small print:

 

 

On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 11:37 AM, Robert J. Cordingley <[hidden email]> wrote:

Let me throw some things into this mix

Some estimates (SFNewMexican) suggest in total over $3.12 million was spent by both sides on the campaign while the expected cost of the Pre-K to be funded was $7.7million in the first year. Subsequent years ought to be less because facilities would already be in place.

Some roughly 800  Pre-Ks (4 yr olds) would be included. That's ~$9,000/yr per child which sounds like a good deal based on Frank's numbers. Pre-K <> child-care btw. Some 160 teachers+assistants+extended care providers would be needed to run a 5 day program for 40 classes of 20 students each (2 teachers/class + 2 for extended day care).

The Santa Fe Public Schools are expected to expand their free (to parents) Pre-K programs subject to legislative funding but I don't know details of when, probably never 'cos NM State budget is at an impasse.

A possible but unconfirmed motivation for the Mayor's proposal was to get to a point where Pre-K would be indispensable and thus get sustainable funding and not have to depend on hopefully declining soda tax revenues.

According to the New Mexican again, lemonade powder would be taxed on the made up quantity changing the price from something like $7/can to $28/can - bad 'optics'.

Some claimed tourists might be big contributors to the soda-tax revenues anyway.

Some people suggested they would buy sugary drinks in order to support Pre-K.

Others suggested the beverage industry ('Big Soda') could not stand the idea that the soda-tax would be a seen as sin-tax and are trying desperately not to get it labelled as such.

No-one on the for side in the campaign I saw made any suggestions on what folks should switch to to avoid the tax, e.g. flavored water, water, plain teas and coffees. The last being more profitable for businesses.

Based on district voting the people most likely to benefit health wise voted against it. Sound familiar?

It's claimed the for side didn't play up the health benefits enough in their campaign and that Big Soda came over as the local group while the the for side came over as elitist and out of state.

If passed, lookout for Soda stands outside the city limits.

So it all looks a little silly. I support both ideas tho' living in the county I couldn't vote.

The questions remain: how to fund Pre-K and how to cut consumption of unhealthy sugary drinks? The against side said it should be funded from the 'surplus' the city has but there are legal restrictions on those funds apparently. The city has it's own component of Gross Receipts Tax (which is like a Sales Tax but applied more broadly).

So what's the real problem and how do we fix it?  The mayor is still looking for good ideas.

Robert C

 

On 5/3/17 9:43 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

 

< $13-16k per year is a huge number. Does this include "child care" .. i.e. taking care of the child for working parents? That is a lot more expensive than "pre-school". >

 

Doggy day care is about half that.  If a dog has the intelligence of a 2 year old, and pre-K child is 4, then a linear extrapolation to an 18 year freshman’s day care (tuition) is about $63k a year.  Must be the complexity of the control system that is required!

 

Marcus

 

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

-- 

Cirrillian 

Web Design & Development

Santa Fe, NM

http://cirrillian.com

<a href="tel:%28281%29%20989-6272" target="_blank">281-989-6272 (cell)

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

-- 

Cirrillian 

Web Design & Development

Santa Fe, NM

http://cirrillian.com

281-989-6272 (cell)

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Robert J. Cordingley]

FYI

2017 Personal Income Tax in New Mexico for couples is $768 + 4.9% on taxable income over $32, 650 along with 8.3125% Gross Receipts Tax in Santa Fe City and a Governor sworn to not raise taxes. GRT is applied to goods (not groceries) and some services with a myriad of exemptions and deductions that the legislature would like to clean up. Candy and soda are untaxed groceries for GRT purposes!

Apparently, Amazon has agreed to collect GRT in NM as they do for states where they have a presence. No news on details of the agreement. Just for grins, tried to order a $400 Onkyo Receiver - a $0.61 tax was applied while a $560 diamond pendant necklace was $0.00 estimated tax - so may be it starts gradually depending on the goods. Certainly seems like a revenue opportunity here and/or more to the story.

Robert C

On 5/7/17 2:06 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

Gross receipts is one thing.   Who would build the database of UPC codes that are instances of the taxed class (a small subset of gross receipts)?   Maybe other cities have built those databases?   I am skeptical the city would be able to maintain such a thing.    Compliance and enforcement would seem a challenge. 

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Robert J. Cordingley
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2017 1:50 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Whew!

 

Taxes bypassed? Probably not so. See https://www.abqjournal.com/962831/amazon-to-start-collecting-taxes-in-new-mexico.html

Robert C

 

On 5/7/17 10:49 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

With Amazon Prime, this is all irrelevant.   Click and ship what you want and such taxes will be bypassed.  Further, Amazon’s distribution costs will be lower than going through a local distributor anyway.    Stupid to build a tax base on an business model that is obsolete.   

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2017 10:37 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Whew!

 

Ya gotta love the City Different:

 

 

The small print:

 

 

On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 11:37 AM, Robert J. Cordingley <[hidden email]> wrote:

Let me throw some things into this mix

Some estimates (SFNewMexican) suggest in total over $3.12 million was spent by both sides on the campaign while the expected cost of the Pre-K to be funded was $7.7million in the first year. Subsequent years ought to be less because facilities would already be in place.

Some roughly 800  Pre-Ks (4 yr olds) would be included. That's ~$9,000/yr per child which sounds like a good deal based on Frank's numbers. Pre-K <> child-care btw. Some 160 teachers+assistants+extended care providers would be needed to run a 5 day program for 40 classes of 20 students each (2 teachers/class + 2 for extended day care).

The Santa Fe Public Schools are expected to expand their free (to parents) Pre-K programs subject to legislative funding but I don't know details of when, probably never 'cos NM State budget is at an impasse.

A possible but unconfirmed motivation for the Mayor's proposal was to get to a point where Pre-K would be indispensable and thus get sustainable funding and not have to depend on hopefully declining soda tax revenues.

According to the New Mexican again, lemonade powder would be taxed on the made up quantity changing the price from something like $7/can to $28/can - bad 'optics'.

Some claimed tourists might be big contributors to the soda-tax revenues anyway.

Some people suggested they would buy sugary drinks in order to support Pre-K.

Others suggested the beverage industry ('Big Soda') could not stand the idea that the soda-tax would be a seen as sin-tax and are trying desperately not to get it labelled as such.

No-one on the for side in the campaign I saw made any suggestions on what folks should switch to to avoid the tax, e.g. flavored water, water, plain teas and coffees. The last being more profitable for businesses.

Based on district voting the people most likely to benefit health wise voted against it. Sound familiar?

It's claimed the for side didn't play up the health benefits enough in their campaign and that Big Soda came over as the local group while the the for side came over as elitist and out of state.

If passed, lookout for Soda stands outside the city limits.

So it all looks a little silly. I support both ideas tho' living in the county I couldn't vote.

The questions remain: how to fund Pre-K and how to cut consumption of unhealthy sugary drinks? The against side said it should be funded from the 'surplus' the city has but there are legal restrictions on those funds apparently. The city has it's own component of Gross Receipts Tax (which is like a Sales Tax but applied more broadly).

So what's the real problem and how do we fix it?  The mayor is still looking for good ideas.

Robert C

 

On 5/3/17 9:43 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

 

< $13-16k per year is a huge number. Does this include "child care" .. i.e. taking care of the child for working parents? That is a lot more expensive than "pre-school". >

 

Doggy day care is about half that.  If a dog has the intelligence of a 2 year old, and pre-K child is 4, then a linear extrapolation to an 18 year freshman’s day care (tuition) is about $63k a year.  Must be the complexity of the control system that is required!

 

Marcus

 

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Cirrillian 

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Robert writes:

“Certainly seems like a revenue opportunity here and/or more to the story.”

If there isn’t already such a thing, a mobile app that with a button “Tax it!”.  A set of city-designated panel could review the accumulated list from time to time.

As a tax-and-spend liberal myself, I’d love to have this app and use it to tag relevant products whenever I see them.  J

Marcus  

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[gepr]

Coincidentally, given the topic of [SG]AI and the semantic grounding of rhetorical terms:

The meaning of life in a world without work
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/08/virtual-reality-religion-robots-sapiens-book?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Collections+2017&utm_term=225051&subid=22800997&CMP=GT_US_collection

> What is a religion if not a big virtual reality game played by millions of people together? Religions like Islam and Christianity invent imaginary laws, such as “don’t eat pork”, “repeat the same prayers a set number of times each day”, “don’t have sex with somebody from your own gender”, and so forth. These laws exist only in the human imagination.

I've had several friends suggest they'd like to start their own cult.  I even inducted 2 of them into my Discordian charter.  That wasn't good enough, though, because as Episkopos, I don't care what my priests do.  It also happens that these friends are programmers, even if not professionally.  So, there's more to Harari's analogy than meets the eye, I think.

I've long believed, when managing people, the single critical attribute is "tolerance of ambiguity".  Those of us who get too hung up on definite axiomatic approaches are, I think, at the most risk of losing their jobs to an SAI.  Those of us who tolerate (especially drastic) semantic shifts, on the fly, may survive through any Singularity.

--
␦glen?

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[Roger Critchlow-2]

Harking back to an earlier complaint from Marcus about blatant and lazy appeals to authority, which may have been in another thread altogether, this

  http://andrewgelman.com/2017/05/07/discussion-lee-jussim-simine-vazire-eminence-junk-science-blind-reviewing/

introduced me to the formulation "eminence based reasoning".  There's also a bit in there about the existential terror of blind reviewing.

But it also recalls my earlier life as a random tenant in a house of Harvard seniors living off campus in 1969, the first year Harvard undergraduates were allowed to live off campus.  They were mostly members of the Students for a Democratic Society, but they thought the Weatherman faction was a joke.  So they made up their own faction of SDS, Juiced In It, from the immortal Dylan lyric "Sure you went to the finest schools all right but all you ever used to do was get juiced in it."  Which has forever since echoed in my mind when I find myself scanning for eminent scholarly affiliations.

-- rec --

On Mon, May 8, 2017 at 10:55 AM, ┣glen┫ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Coincidentally, given the topic of [SG]AI and the semantic grounding of rhetorical terms:

The meaning of life in a world without work
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/08/virtual-reality-religion-robots-sapiens-book?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Collections+2017&utm_term=225051&subid=22800997&CMP=GT_US_collection

> What is a religion if not a big virtual reality game played by millions of people together? Religions like Islam and Christianity invent imaginary laws, such as “don’t eat pork”, “repeat the same prayers a set number of times each day”, “don’t have sex with somebody from your own gender”, and so forth. These laws exist only in the human imagination.

I've had several friends suggest they'd like to start their own cult.  I even inducted 2 of them into my Discordian charter.  That wasn't good enough, though, because as Episkopos, I don't care what my priests do.  It also happens that these friends are programmers, even if not professionally.  So, there's more to Harari's analogy than meets the eye, I think.

I've long believed, when managing people, the single critical attribute is "tolerance of ambiguity".  Those of us who get too hung up on definite axiomatic approaches are, I think, at the most risk of losing their jobs to an SAI.  Those of us who tolerate (especially drastic) semantic shifts, on the fly, may survive through any Singularity.

--
␦glen?

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Glen writes:

"Those of us who tolerate (especially drastic) semantic shifts, on the fly, may survive through any Singularity."

A fun fact that I ran across last week:   A superconducting neuron made of Josephson Junctions could be 7 orders of magnitude faster than those in the human central nervous system.  Being superconducting there would be no heat, and the possibility of deep 3d integration.  

Of course, lithography won't be adaptive unless it is way overbuilt and then trimmed-down.    That would be one data point in favor of the adaption being more important than deep skill.

Marcus



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[gepr]

Fantastic pattern recognition, Roger. We can combine anti-emminence-based concept of white privilege with Kazynski's (negative) interpretation of the more tightly integrated social fabric ("will have to be ever more reliable, conforming and docile, because they will be more and more like cells of a giant organism.") and with Merle and Frank's discussion of credentials.

I push (politically) for high-density housing and against the maintenance of roads and the building of parking structures.  Yet, I spent the weekend reorganizing my garage so that I can fit either of my two gas guzzling pickup trucks in there at will.  My intellectual activity says we _should_ be efficacy-based and should not be emminence-based.  Yet my bodily activity says this is my turf and I want to be able to organize it according to my desires.

The good news is that I caught the neighbor kids dancing to the psytrance I'd been blaring all day long ... infecting their vulnerable "minds" with mood-altering waves.


On 05/08/2017 08:25 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> Harking back to an earlier complaint from Marcus about blatant and lazy appeals to authority, which may have been in another thread altogether, this
>
>   http://andrewgelman.com/2017/05/07/discussion-lee-jussim-simine-vazire-eminence-junk-science-blind-reviewing/
>
> introduced me to the formulation "eminence based reasoning".  There's also a bit in there about the existential terror of blind reviewing.
>
> But it also recalls my earlier life as a random tenant in a house of Harvard seniors living off campus in 1969, the first year Harvard undergraduates were allowed to live off campus.  They were mostly members of the Students for a Democratic Society, but they thought the Weatherman faction was a joke.  So they made up their own faction of SDS, Juiced In It, from the immortal Dylan lyric "Sure you went to the finest schools all right but all you ever used to do was get juiced in it."  Which has forever since echoed in my mind when I find myself scanning for eminent scholarly affiliations.

--
☣ glen

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