poli-sci@ucbvax.ARPA (04/04/85)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Poli-Sci Digest Thu 4 Apr 85 Volume 5 Number 12
Contents: Honest Oppression is Good for the Soul
Capable Congressmen
Black Is White?
Terry's Ten-Point Plan
Cars and Related Issues
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From: decvax!watmath!looking!brad@Berkeley
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 85 21:57:29 est
Subject: Could the strain of government be "good" for us?
As a solid free-enterprise, libertarian sort, I've always been opposed
to government intervention in the economy.
But I just had a horrible thought. It's well known that the most advanced
societies seem to emerge in areas of harsh climate (ie. cold) as opposed
to areas of warm climate. Is it possible that this huge government leech
that drains away at us is actually strengthening us by challenging us
and keeping us on our toes? While the good entrepreneur works as hard
as he can, many in society work only so hard as they have to. Could there
be something to this?
I don't like this idea but it is worthy of investigation.
[It is an interesting idea but I doubt it for several reasons:
- The more government a country has, all other things being equal,
the worse off it is in actual experience (eg. Communist ones).
- Temperate climes are actually better to live in than tropical
or polar ones. Try doing any hard work when it's 90 degrees out.
- The worst effects of government economic intervention are
concentrated on those who are least able to bear them. For the
poor, they make it easier to remain poor, and harder to become
self-sufficient.
Still, an interesting idea. Made me think. --JoSH]
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Date: Tue, 2 Apr 85 08:37:14 PST
From: Richard Foy <foy@AEROSPACE.ARPA>
Subject: bias and leadership
I was wondering what sort of comments my message about my Congressman's
town meeting would bring forth. I was not surprised. However this response
that Congressmen are trained not to have opinions etc does not fit the
facts of the meeting. The Congressman in question represents a district
which probably has more people working on the MX than any other district
in the country. However he clearly stated that he was going to vote against
the MX funding and clearly stated that he recognized that many of his
constiutents would be opposed.
We tend to use Conmgresspeople afor the whipping boys in our society.
When we do it distorts the reality. The problems with our system do
not result from the quality of our Congresspeople near as much as from
the quality of the thinking that goes into the electorate when they
enter the voting booth.
[Many, perhaps even most, of out congressmen are individually intelligent,
honest people. The problem is not the material, it's the design.
The political system is a lousy way of making collective decisions.
--JoSH]
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Date: 2 Apr 1985 09:12-EST
From: Dick.King@Kestrel.ARPA
Subject: affirmative action
Why has there never been a court test of affirmative action based on
the fact that this country (to my knowledge) has no definition of
"black"? I'm about three shades darker than our Symbolics salesman;
he's black, I'm white.
Dick
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Date: Wed 3 Apr 85 14:59:54-PST
From: Terry C. Savage <TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA>
Subject: Murphy wins again
It figures. When I've got time on my hands, the list is dead. When it
is revived, I'm busy as hell!
Josh (and others): feel free to defend my positions without waiting
for me! If there is debate, the purpose has been served. I'll be sure to
cover the orphan positions, however!
TCS
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Date: Tue, 2 Apr 85 08:30:28 PST
From: Richard Foy <foy@AEROSPACE.ARPA>
Subject: Transportation
I would be very interested in hearing some of JoSH's ideas on technological
fixes to the transportation problem.
[I received several private letters to the same effect.
"Now here's my plan:"
If we assume that the average car last 100,000 miles, and that
its average speed is 40 mph, and the average hour is worth $5,
the time spent driving it is worth $12,500, and you should be willing
to spend any amount less than that to regain the time.
(Aside: if the government *mandated* car improvements at this
cost for all cars, it would constitute a net gain for those
whose time was worth more than $5/h, and a net loss for those
whose time was worth less--in effect, a massive "value redistribution"
program from poor to rich (as indeed so many such programs are).
In the market, the rich would buy it while it was still new and
expensive (and worth it to them) and everybody else would wait till
later on down the learning curve.)
Public transportation has several disadvantages compared to private
cars which makes it unsuitable for consideration. First, use of
public transportation involves a considerable extra time penalty,
which offsets the fact of not having to drive; second, the atmosphere
on most trains and buses is not very conducive to productive work
(reading a newspaper is about as good as you can expect to do);
third, a public transportation system must necessarily rely on
a secondary system for station-to endpoint connections.
Here are the features of private cars that we should strive to retain:
(a) point-to-point. If you're taking luggage, or even just a briefcase,
coat, and umbrella, the fewer times you have to "change" the better.
and there's no waiting or missed connections. If indeed we want to work
(or even just play chess) on the way, interruptions would be annoying.
(b) Where you want, when you want. Public trans offers service to
a limited number of places at a limited number of times. With my
schedule, forget it.
(c) tailorability. The range of money you can spend on a private
car is wide, depending on how much you're willing to pay. You can
get a station wagon for a large family, a pickup for a farm, a
secondhand econobox if you're a student, a new caddy if you're
an executive type, a european coupe if you're a yuppie.
(d) economy. You may not believe this; look it up: cars are the least
expensive form of transportation per passenger mile outside of buses.
More on buses later.
There are at least three features of cars you'd like not to keep, if
possible:
(1) driving--time lost, as noted above.
(2) accidents--particularly the drunk driving dilemma wherein
in order to stay safe, you have to give up something else
you would rather have been able to do
(3) parking. A large complex such as this Rutgers campus suffers
from having to stick huge parking lots between the buildings;
even so, it can be a hike from the spot you eventually find.
Not to mention the time lost finding it.
The obvious "technological fix" solution to these problems is
robot-driven cars. However, the state of the art isn't up to
producing a robot driver I would trust to drive me--and I'm more
trusting of robots than most.
My best idea on the subject is to make the job easier on the
robot. Rail suggests itself. A car running on rails isn't
very hard to steer--the problem changes from a completely open
AI project to count-the-exits-and-engage-the-turn-mechanism.
The mechanism can be any of several simple mechanical schemes.
The level of instrumentation on a "base" car would have to be
only a distance sensor for the car in front (and unexpected
obstructions) and a bar code reader for "signs".
An alternative suggestion is buried cables. I resist it because
cables are considerably less failsafe/robust than rails. Further,
light rail track and so forth can ultimately be built in modular
units in factories and laid at a cost considerably lower than
roads. My scheme calls for a completely passive road system;
I think that would be the safest and most "robust", especially
considering the level of maintenance some roads tend to get!
Rail would be be considerably more durable than asphalt, also.
In considering a complete system, the advantages are clear-cut.
Everyone can own their own cars, and all the advantages of private
vehicles remain. Virtually everywhere we drive is paved; it
would be as cheap for it to have been "railed" instead. And
remember, pavement needs to be redone every ten years or less...
Let's consider the disadvantages:
(1) time: You are essentially sitting in a private office in
which you are completely free to work or amuse yourself.
You just punch in the destination and look up when you arrive.
(2) safety: Let's divide this point up:
-- No drunk, sleepy, or woolgathering drivers
-- the cars on the road would all move at an exact,
prescribed speed (and who would care?) and in general
use more sensible driving algorithms than most people do.
-- Weather is less of a problem. Visibility isn't critical,
and you don't slide off wet or icy roads. the "driver"
is programmed to overcompensate for increased stopping times.
-- If you wish, the seats can face backwards, a safer configuration.
(3) parking: Here's the really cute one: Your car drops you off
at work *and goes back home*; at a fixed time (or when you call up
with your remote control beeper) it comes and picks you up.
Alternatively (I live too far for the first to be economical),
it bops over to a nearby parking emporium (a mile or two away, say).
Would you trust a bunch of robot cars tooling around by themselves?
Cars like we have now, no way. But when the cars are *physically
constrained* to stay on the rails and that's easy to see, I'd be
a lot readier to accept it. We could require them to be serviced/
inspected more often--but they could do that automatically.
Well, that's a start-- comments welcome. I haven't touched on
"getting there from here" and I never got back to buses. More
in a future issue. --JoSH]
------------------------------
Date: 2 Apr 1985 08:59-EST
From: Dick.King@Kestrel.ARPA
Subject: lost hours equated with lost lives
I have a little problem with arguments of the form "X costs N hours per
day, equivalent to N' lives". The problem is that people's utility
functions don't work like that.
Suppose I offer each of you a drug, one dose of which will eliminate
your need for sleep for the rest of your life, and which allows you to
be as alert at 3AM as at 3PM. There is no side effect but one: one
quarter of the people who take the drug die promptly. If you live for
fifteen minutes you're home free!
In terms of expected number of hours lost, the drug is a big win.
Okay, how many of you are queueing up for this drug?
This is not to be confused with arguments of the form "each life saved
costs so many dollars" because typically the dollar cost is taxpayer
money. This has two consequences: the beneficiary does not necessarily
have a claim on your resources, and if you believe that the government
should be in the safety business you must want them to do what is most
cost effective.
Meanwhile I am sitting in my office pining for the first reports of a
defense against a traffic lawsuit based on the fact that the injured
plaintiff was not wearing a seatbelt. Especially in states that have a
seatbelt law such an act ought to be contributory negligence.
[Josh: is it true that New Jersey purposely passed a seat belt law that
just barely had a small enough fine that New Jersey wouldn't be counted
among the states having a seat belt law for the purpose of determining
whether the country needed airbags?]
[I don't know why they did it the way they did, but (a) the fine is $20
and (b) you can't be stopped for seatbelt violation (ie, you can only
be ticketed if you're stopped for something else).
Re your wager above: since I sleep about 6 hrs a night, your pill
doesn't look like such a hot deal. If you said 1% mortality I'd
take it like a shot. --JoSH]
------------------------------
Date: 2 Apr 85 13:57:49 EST
From: Mike <ZALESKI@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: Teenagers, booze, and the cursed 55 MPH limit
Let me start by quoting a few amusing quotes:
"He uses statistics the way a drunkard uses a lampost - for
support rather than illumination."
"Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive
but what they conceal is vital."
Sorry I don't have the soucres offhand, but will mail them to
anyone who asks.
Let's look at teenagers and drunk driving. While it may be true
that teenagers may have more drunk driving accidents than the public
at large, it is also true that more than 95 percent of all teenagers
have NO alcohol related accidents. The news media loves headlines
like "TEEN DRUNK DRIVING DEATHS DOWN 42% IN NJ", not "TEEN DRUNK
DRIVING DEATHS FALL FROM 24 to 13 LAST YEAR". Given this, I am
uninclined toward supporting either a drinking age of any sort or
even the current drunk driving crackdown. However, my feelings on
this issue are completely emotional and unrelated to any of these
"facts" or "statistics". That is, even if teen drunk driving resulted
in 240 or 2400 deaths per year in New Jersey, I would still think the
whole idea of a drinking age/drunk driving crackdown was more fluff
than substance. I simply don't preceive the risk of my suffering
because of an alcohol and/or teenager related accident to be as
great as the risk of my suffering being delayed at a roadblock or
the general sense of concern I get every time the government gives
itself more power by taking it away from the people. I also believe
that every other submission on this subject (55 limit too) are
looking for intellectual/statistical evidence to support their
emotional desire to drink with their friends or generally do as
they wish without being hassled.
Two side points:
* Teen suicide is supposedly at very high levels - whatever that
means - today. I wonder if some of the teen drinking/accident
scenes, particularly single car accidents, are really suicides
or suicide attempts. Typically men chose this kind of flashy
way to die.
* Another oft-quoted statistic is that after 7 or 8 PM, one in ten
drivers is drunk. Well, if this is true, the only conclusion I
can draw is that drunk driving must not be very dangerous, otherwise
we would surely have slaughter on the highways. Yet, driving
around at all times of day or night I rarely see accidents, but
frequently see police pulling people over for speeding on open
highways.
This second side point brings me to the 55 MPH limit. A recent
submission to Poli-Sci was complaining about a recent report
prepared for the government which concluded that 55 MPH was good
despite the fact that there was no real evidence to support it.
First, it should be realized that this is a motherhood issue -
whenever you mention savings of lives, most people become completely
incapable of thinking. Second, it should be kept in mind that
the report did justify its conclusion. The 55 limit does save
lives (even with a person-years tradeoff for wasted time in the car),
does save gas, does save on wear and tear on the car, and so on.
The issue here is whether it saves enough. And this is where I
again see people trying to use facts and figures to support their
emotional desire to go fast. The fact is that myself, and I suspect
all my fellow speeders out there, precieve ourselves to be good
drivers, unlikely to have an accident, and are unwilling to be
inconvenienced by having to travel more slowly. In short, I don't
care, and I suspect most other hard core anti-55 people don't care,
whether or not raising the limit would result in thousands or tens
of thousands more dead per year. I certainly don't care about
wasting a few more cents per tank on gas, and extra wear and
tear on the car bothers me not. In short, arguing with this report
is rather silly, as the average speeder doesn't care about any of
the things it addresses.
Of course, Poli-Sci wouldn't be much fun if people didn't offer
reasons for their emotionally based political views.
-- Mike^Z Zaleski@Rutgers [allegra!, ihnp4!] pegasus!mzal
PS: If any of you anti-55 people are interested, I'll send you
a copy of a letter which I sent to a number of car magazines,
as well as USENETS's net.auto complaining about the 55 limit,
the way the automotive press has covered it, and suggesting a
serious and legal counterattack against it. Car&Driver published
a small excerpt of this letter a few months ago. -- MZ
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Date: Tue 2 Apr 85 14:46:08-PST
From: Lynn Gazis <SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: drinking age
Actually, it is not as easy for me to argue for an increased drinking
age as you might think. I was under 21 only a few years ago, and I
drank in moderation and never drank and drove at anywhere close to the
same time. And I resented the blanket restriction on the behavior of
young people, including many responsible ones, which a drinking age of
21 imposes. What changed my mind was not my 21st birthday, but the
experience of having someone I loved a great deal killed by a drunk
driver. Rotten and unfair though it is to be forbidden to drink just
because you are under 21, it is more rotten to lose someone you love
to a drunk driver, and I think it is enough more rotten that I had
rather see a nationwide drinking age of 21 than the current situation.
In the first place, having different drinking ages in different states
encourages people to drink in a different state and drive back (of
course, that problem could also be solved by a national drinking age
of 18), and in the second place statistics show fewer fatalities in
car accidents when the drinking age is 21 than when it is 18.
On the comparison between restricting blacks and restricting young
people, I see two differences. One is that young people usually grow
up, and so get to experience both treatments at different times. So
the unfairness seems less than the unfairness of imposing restrictions
on someone for his/her lifetime. The second is that I think the
differences between the behavior of blacks and whites are much more
variable depending on how we treat these groups than the difference
between young and old, which I see as being partly imposed on us by
our biology.
My reason for arguing for an increased drinking age, though, was not
so much to persuade people that it is good as to see if it would
provoke people to come up with a better solution. I think that a
technical solution to this problem would be the ideal fix, and a test
for driving responsibly would be better than an age limit. But I
don't know how either of these would work. I would be happy to hear
of such fixes from people who know of them, and I had rather support
them than an increased drinking age. But I still feel that a drinking
age of 21, obnoxious though it is, is less obnoxious than having more
people killed due to drunk driving.
In response to the comment that it is better to prevent recklessness
and stupidity than to prevent people being killed due to other
people's recklessness and stupidity, I talked only about the people
who were killed due to other people's recklessness mainly to avoid the
response that I should look at deaths of drunk drivers as evolution in
action. But I do think that protecting people from other people
should be a higher priority in making laws than protecting people from
themselves.
Lynn
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Date: Tue 2 Apr 85 23:07:43-PST
From: Lynn Gazis <SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: drinking age
The simplest test I can think of myself is asking the person whether
he or she would drink and drive, but I seriously doubt you could get
an honest answer. Making sure people knew intellectually about the
dangers of drinking and driving might be useful, but they could still
behave irresponsibly. The best I can think of would be either to
have people show that they have been responsible about alcohol
before they are allowed to drive or make them show that they have
driven responsibly before they are allowed to drink.
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End of POLI-SCI Digest
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