Hi Nick, Yes, I imagine this explanation probably wins on entropic grounds (which is maybe nothing other than a restatement of what you said): there are more detailed ways the random stupidity and arrogance explanation can be right, than most alternatives.
I wonder if they believe they are stratizing? E > On Nov 21, 2017, at 12:16 PM, Nick Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> > wrote: > > Hi, Eric, > > There is deep comfort in any conspiracy theory – the solace that somebody, > ANYBODY, even the Devil, is in charge! Alas, as my friend Charles Peirce is > wont to point out, most events are random. So, this white mote that you > point to in the black milk of our time, is probably random, also, -- a stupid > mistake made by some arrogant staffer and the republicans too dumb to see the > risk they are running. > > Nick > > > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > Clark University > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Eric Smith > Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2017 5:38 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> > Subject: [FRIAM] Fwd: Grad Students Would Be Hit By Massive Tax Hike Under > House GOP Plan : NPR > > Piece in NPR that somebody else forwarded to me: > > >> https://www.npr.org/2017/11/14/563879136/house-gop-tax-plan-would-hit-grad-students-with-massive-tax-hike > > I have to wonder, contra my own screed a couple of days ago (which on one > hand I still believe), whether this was put into the house bill as a poison > pill to help mobilize a sector of resistance. The NPR article says that > 145.000 people received tuition waivers in 2011-2012 (I don’t know if that > means, in aggregate, or per year). TImes 50k/year times 15%, that would be a > billion dollars. If it were 25%, that would be larger, but not everybody’s > tuition waiver is an MIT 50k. Against deficit changes on the order of > trillions, I’m not sure that number is large enough to even make a difference > in procedural rules for passage of any final 2-house bill. That’s not to > mention that, since most grad students couldn’t pay the extra tax at all, > they would drop out and only a part of the accounted amount would ever be > collected. > > In poking a beehive of higher education (sadly, too low-budget to qualify as > a hornet’s nest), though, they would be sure to provoke a set of people who > have a certain amount of discretionary time and enough of a habit of > organizing to be willing to put some of that time into communication. Many > of them can also spell, more or less, and compose a grammatical sentence. If > it were mainly about the money, surely the house could have found some other > group to steal a billion dollars from who are too overworked, underpaid, and > isolated to have time or community structure to organize against them. > > I wonder if the relevant committees, too cowardly to fight t in the open, are > looking for small proxy wars that would absolve them of the responsibility > for being associated with a tax plan even they don’t think they could get > away with indefinitely through the next several election cycles. After all, > they are mean, and in many fundamental things profoundly stupid, but in terms > of infighting tactics and evading responsibility they are quite > sophisticated. > > I guess that question turns on whether the elimintation of this one item > would have any significant effect on the form or passage of the rest of the > package. > > Shame I have no professional knowledge in this sphere. I don’t even know > enough about the ones drafting the bill to have a sense of whether meanness, > or cowardly shrewdness, are more plausible motives for their choices. > > Eric > > ============================================================ > 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
