Paul Revere Controversy

OK, I have to chime in on the Sarah Palin Paul Revere controversy because the truth is that everyone is taking away the wrong lesson from this. I would be willing to bet that 99% of the US population doesn’t know the real story of Paul Revere. What we know comes from movies, the famous poem, mythology, and maybe Schoolhouse Rock. We are not War of Independence scholars. So I don’t blame Sarah Palin for being wrong.

But, I am still really bothered by this and her previous gaffes. She seems way too willing to talk about things she doesn’t know about. It’s OK to do this in bars with your friends, but a qualified president (or governor) should have two responses when they aren’t sure of the correct answer in public. They should either keep their mouths shut, or they should consult with experts and their advisers and confirm what the right answer is. It would scare me to have a president who blurts out incorrect things to the press or to foreign dignitaries or even to Congress. This could really hurt our standing in the world and degrade our ability to exert influence around the world. It is this that scares me the most about her and why I would cringe if she ever again held a position of power.

Remodeling the prison system

An interview I heard last night was really though provoking. The interviewee has a very interesting perspective on getting prison costs down. As you probably know, we have an overcrowding problem in most states and we spend a huge amount of money per year per prisoner. This person was an expert in brain tumors and mental health. He told a story about one guy who was totally normal and then all of a sudden became a pedophile. It turned out, he had a brain tumor pushing against his amygdala. Once they removed it, his pedophilia went away and he was back to normal. The problem was that he was convicted of a pedophilia-related crime in between. So what do you do with such a person? 20 years in jail would be a waste of resources once he was cured, but you don’t want him to get off totally scott free either. The interviewee suggested three categories:

1. People who don’t have a mental cause or have an untreatable cause for their crime go to regular jail like we do now.
2. People who have a chronic but treatable mental cause for their crime go to a mental facility where they are required to take their meds. If their criminal tendencies go away when on the meds, this can be a relatively low security, low stress type of place.
3. People who have a surgically treatable or otherwise curable mental cause (like a removable tumor) get the surgery and then get more of a community service type punishment. It would compensate society for his criminal act but would also not ruin the life of someone who, if not for a medical condition, wouldn’t have committed the crime in the first place.

Thoughts? It makes a lot of sense to me.

Possibilian

Religion – possibilian. I heard David Eagleman talk about this on an NPR interview. He has a very logical mind. So he doesn’t want to accept that there is a supernatural deity just on faith. But his incredible knowledge of the universe tells him that there is a good chance that some plane of existence has a G-d of some kind. So it’s possible. He calls himself a possibilian. It’s kind of like an agnostic, except that he is actively seeking evidence. It’s not his main work. He does astrophysics or some really impressive thing like that. But in his physics, he sees G-D. Or at least the possibility thereof. So he took up a hobby of writing novels that are set in planes of existence very different from our own. And in some of them, there are some kinds of G-D. For example he has one about a hypothetical afterlife. This allows his to experiment in his mind about what the existence of a g-d would mean.

Rational response to climate?

I just read a great (but too scientific to post for most people - ask me for citation) on some rainfall research.

It was great because in the heated debate of climate change, it was remarkably neutral and objective and practical. Their research shows that the rise in carbon started between 300 and 1000 years ago. So it was way before humans started emitting carbon. But it has sped up recently, so we are probably making it worse.

The result that they are worried about (and the subject of their research) is that the band of good rainfall is moving north. By the year 2100, the land between the equator and Arizona/Florida/Italy/S. China/etc. will not be suitable for farming.

So we have two choices. We can keep arguing about who is to blame and have to deal with the results rapidly and painfully in 50 years or we can agree that it is both natural and human-caused, start now, do it gradually, and hopefully without much pain.

My favorite option is the urban model. The idea is to create high rises that have shopping on the bottom, then offices above, then housing above that, and then hydroponic farming units at the top. Each building could be totally self-sustaining when necessary, but for variety's sake they can all be different (different shops, different companies, different food growing, different types of condos). And they can be done in low rainfall areas.

The other option is to start moving farms from currently fertile areas in the soon to be dry zone northwards. We have lots of available land in Alaska that will become very fertile when the band gets there (again, by 2100).

Both of these would be rough to shift to in 10 years, but we have 80-90 or so if we start now.

Corporal punishment for felons???

I heard an interview this morning where a former cop and current professor of criminology suggested solving the prison overcrowding and cost escalation problems by allowing convicted criminals to opt for corporal punishment instead of jail time. He said flogging was no more "cruel and unusual" than prison in the long run.

The question I still have is how many lashes equals a year in prison? I've never experienced either one, so how can I know? I suspect I would prefer quite a few lashes to prison time. After a few, it probably gets a bit numbing.

Given the huge cost savings, I would be in favor if we thought the punishments were equal. They (experts I suppose) say the recidivism is high because you learn a lot in prison about crime (great social networking) and can't get a legit job afterwards. So we would be reducing that problem.

The other conundrum is what the purpose is for criminal punishment in the first place. Is it deterrence? Is it rehabilitation? Is it punishment on behalf of society? Each one might equate a different number of lashes to equal a year of prison.

Thoughts???

License to Smoke??

Australia is thinking about implementing a licensing system for smokers. The idea is that you pay for a graduated license where the cost depends on whether you want the license to purchase up to 1 pack, 2 packs, or 3 packs a day. Nobody could buy more than that, to prevent a black market in cigarettes from developing. You get your money back if you give up the license, so in theory its revenue neutral.

The libertarian and behaviorist in me are fighting it out. On one hand, the libertarian in me doesn’t want to see the government get involved in our lives any more than it already does or create new restrictions on our freedom to choose our behaviors. On the other hand, there are several effects of this license idea that would be predicted by behavioral science

One is immediate gratification bias. You can’t start smoking one drunken evening. If you have to wait until the next day, the idea is that the delay will get you to think more about the decision. Second is the idea of default bias. When people want to start smoking, they may be too lazy to go buy a license. Third, they could force a limit on themselves by getting only a one pack a day license. Fourth, there would be an added incentive to quit (you would get your money back).

An add-on idea is to require a smoking test to get the license. You don’t have to know how to smoke, you have to know the health consequences of smoking. Again, this is to take advantage of the laziness bias. Even though the test would be easy, just having to learn a few facts before getting the license might make a few more people never start.

My own add-on idea would be to have a limited number of licenses and auction them, kind of like the carbon emissions market.

So which side wins out, the libertarian or behaviorist? Is this a legitimate Pigouvian tax because of the negative externalities of smoking on health care costs? Or are the behavioral benefits worth the additional government intrusion costs? What do you think?

Protect the Fourth Amendment

Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision regarding the 4^th Amendment concerns me. The case revolves around the concept that the police need a warrant to enter private property unless they have reason to believe that evidence is being destroyed. But where do you set the bar on that “reason”? How much evidence do they need that evidence is being destroyed? And does it matter how serious the crime is that they are investigating? Does a police officer’s suspicion that someone is destroying evidence in a murder case give them more reason to enter without a warrant that an equal amount of suspicion that someone is destroying evidence of petty theft?

The reason the Supreme Court decision concerns me is that the case they were hearing involved the police smelling marijuana through an apartment door. They banged on the door and got no response. They heard “movement” inside. They suspected that the evidence (drugs) was being destroyed and so they entered. A lower court found that they didn’t have enough evidence that evidence was being destroyed. They assumed so because they banged on the door and it’s only natural for a drug suspect to flush the drugs when the cops are outside. The lower court said they shouldn’t have banged on the door. They should have got the warrant first. Then, the people inside wouldn’t have known they were there and wouldn’t have destroyed evidence. And hearing “movement” inside is not much proof. I find it even more worrying when the crime is only smoking marijuana. I can imagine the police being really worried that a murder suspect would get away with his or her crime. But smoking pot? Even if you are in favor of it being illegal, are you willing to give up your 4^th Amendment rights across the board to make sure no one ever gets away with it by flushing the evidence?

It seems to be that we have no more 4^th Amendment rights. All the police have to do is knock on the door or otherwise announce their presence and they can assume that the suspect is destroying the evidence for whatever crime the police are investigating. Or they can assume that the suspect knows the police are coming and would naturally destroy evidence. This is not even close to the probable cause standard. Scary.