More "race is stupid" notes...

My high school is number one in the US News and World Report index...not surprising at all. The surprising part to me is that the minority student enrollment percentage is reported as 4.5%. Hmmm...what do they mean by minority? Only "black and Hispanic". What about the other minorities (Native American, Romany, Blondes)? Minority is now a euphemism for only some minorities that...what? If you think about it, this label is making the truly racist assumption that "blacks and Hispanics" need to be tracked separately from other people. Why would that be?

I think people assume that because the average scores for some defined group of people are lower, there needs to some separate tracking of that group... This enables the racist assumption- that any one individual is going to be more like the median member of some group they belong to, than the median of the population as a whole. For example, since the median test scores of students in the US that have Chinese ancestry score are higher than the median for the population as a whole, one might falsely presume that any random Chines person is smarter than average. Of course, this would be wrong. The converse applies to groups whose median test scores fall below the median.

In any case, schools should stop reporting their "racial percentages". It doesn't really help anyone but racists who are looking to avoid specific races. We're all miscellaneous now.

Book idea from search hit...

Someone out there is looking for nice introductory philosophy book, instead they found this stupid blog. ...and I'm still addicted to Google Analytics.

Ronald Reagan, "Limited Mental Capacity"

What's up with Republicans not liking people that are smart? You have to admit they have become the anti-intellectual party...Bush Sr. not included (although you have to wonder why everyone kept calling the former head of the CIA a wimp).

Recent transcript excerpt:
President Nixon: What's your evaluation or Reagan after meeting him several times now.

Kissinger: Well, I think he's a--actually I think he's a pretty decent guy.

President Nixon: Oh, decent, no question, but his brains

Kissinger: Well, his brains, are negligible. I--

President Nixon: He's really pretty shallow, Henry.

Kissinger: He's shallow. He’s got no...he's an actor. He--When he gets a line he does it very well. He said, "Hell, people are remembered not for what they do, but for what they say. Can't you find a few good lines?" [Chuckles.] That's really an actor's approach to foreign policy--to substantive....


President Nixon: Back to Reagan though. It shows you how a man of limited mental capacity simply doesn't know what the Christ is going on in the foreign area.

Don't think too much!

Tom Peters is with me!

Stop saying "Asian" campaign hits the international management consultant level:
Tom says: "Implication: Eliminate the use of terms such as 'Asia'—as in 'the Asian management style.' Eliminate: as in zero, none, never, naught, zip."

Now how long before we can get the ban extended to any "racist classification"? How long before multiracial is everyone?

John Maeda @ TED

Amazing John Maeda video from the TED conference. I've been pro-simplicity for a while, but I've been overly simplistic in my advocation.

Poverty is a relatively minor problem in the USA

While most sensible people agree that poverty is a matter of relativity- how well off you are compared to others, this brings it into high contrast. The number of the impoverished in India is something that sticks in my mind... This isn't to say that we shouldn't strive to make the lives of all people better, even ones that have TVs, but rather that the measure of success should not be equality. That said I took real a $10 flight in Pakistan (included one cup of imitation Kool-Aid!), this seems expensive!

via Marginal Revolution

An Indian entrepreneur has given a new twist to the concept of low-cost airlines. The passengers boarding his Airbus 300 in Delhi do not expect to go anywhere because it never takes off.

All they want is the chance to know what it is like to sit on a plane, listen to announcements and be waited on by stewardesses bustling up and down the aisle.

In a country where 99% of the population have never experienced air travel, the “virtual journeys” of Bahadur Chand Gupta, a retired Indian Airlines engineer, have proved a roaring success.

If Texas can...

How to drive down health care costs, the Texas way (courtesy NY Times):
Four years after Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment limiting awards in medical malpractice lawsuits, doctors are responding as supporters predicted, arriving from all parts of the country to swell the ranks of specialists at Texas hospitals and bring professional health care to some long-underserved rural areas.

The influx, raising the state’s abysmally low ranking in physicians per capita, has flooded the medical board’s offices in Austin with applications for licenses, close to 2,500 at last count.

Now, have the applications for the bar decreased? :-)

Why does this drive down costs? 1. Supply and Demand: More doctors = More supply, demand is somewhat inelastic (doesn't increase too much as a result of cost) 2. Lower costs (malpractice insurance) for doctors passed on to customers via market competition.

Now how do we get more doctors in total? How do we increase supply? Maybe if there is less money to be made in the lawsuit industry there are some smart people that will want to be doctors....

Now, if we combine this with lower drug costs via negotiation and a reduction in prescriptions- maybe there is enough money to start extending health care to more people across the world.

WHY WHY WHY...

did this just become my favorite song?

"It's a Rave Dave" by Trash Fashion
I prefer the JE 2 Grade 8 Remix, but this will do...



(Almost hesitating to use the music tag here...)

I'll follow you

...into the dark. Happy to be alive. Sad life is short. Is death the best part of life? Is it what gives it the urgency an endless life would lack?

Race is Racist : Everything is Miscellaneous

Listened to David Weinberger's talk @Google. (see below)

It really connects with some thoughts I've been having about how the whole concept of race is racist. There are no biological meanings to it, it's just a human way of trying to bring groups of people together against others. Tribal status is dependent on identifying tribes is how Ray Immelman would describe it.

Weinberger relates a fascinating anecdote of a South African whose "Race" changed 4 times over his life, as the laws of apartheid labeling black and white changed, forcing him to end his marriage as it violated the law when his race changed.

How can Asian be a race? It seems incredibly racist to label Asians as one race in the US. Are people from Lebanon, China, and India related somehow? It's a useless label.

What about the "mixed race" people? What bubble do they fill in? The whole thing makes me sick.