--- In [email protected], "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > <snip> > > > Gee whiz, it's a substantial decrease. Any police > > > department that could bring about that big a > > > reduction would be elevated to hero status. > > > > Well, for what cost, is the issue. This stuff is not free -- at > least > > in scalable quantities. From the graph II, it looks to me like about > > 250 assualts may have been "avoided". (Lets focus on assualts for > > simplicity, since that is the bulk of the suggested effect.) > > Thats 125 assaults/mo. > > > > Regardless of DC costs, in which particpants may have payed to play, > > recent FF experience indicates that even paying R&B for free course > > does not draw that many. And in urbane setings R&B/incidentals would > > be at least more towards $1000 than $600. And if there was a desire > to > > scale it up, a salary would be necessary to attract 2000-5000+ YF to > > various urbane centers. Maybe $2000/mo min, plus $1000 R&B. Plus > > transportation, health insurance, vacation, retirement and other > > benefits. And administration, monitoring, research costs. But lets > > skip all those for now. > > > > How many YF in DC? I will assume 1000, but I think it was more > > (clarifications). So scalable project costs would be $3 > million/month. > > $36 millon / year. So the cost per avoided assualt would be in the > > range of $24,000 / assault. > > Purportedly the crime rate would continue to > decrease the longer the group was in business.
I would think so -- and have hypothesized such a "cumulative" effect for ME (and CCFE*) impacts on financial markets (as well as lags, and decay factors). However, I have never seen any mention of cumulative effects in ME "theory". > Do you think there may be more > > cost-effective ways of reducing assualts? With more "certainty" -- > > (tried and true)? With less controversy? > > I'd be willing to bet most crime-fighting > programs in big cities cost considerably > more than that per year over and above > normal policing costs. > I checked. There were 4000 YF in DC. So The approximate scalable cost of ME would then be around $100,000 per assault -- per estimates above. It would be much cheaper simply pay each "asaulter" $10,000 not to "do it". If such could be found, reliably, beforehand. :) At this cost/assault avoidance, lots of other programs would claim being cost competitive. And many at quite a lower cost, I speculate: general, education, skill training, anger management, non-violent resolution training, improved diets, increased exercise, more stress reduction programs, yoga, reduced alcoholism, higher employment levels, marijuana legalization, etc. And cost per avoided crime is not the limiting factor in this cost-effectiness calculation. The limiting factor is the "value" of each assault avoided -- the "avoided-cost". What is the collective social and individual harm? $100,000 might be 3-5+ years of take-home pay for many assaultees. Would they pay that to avoid the assault? I doubt it in most cases. Should society? Is the harm to society "that great"? And if $100,000 WERE the recognized avoided cost, a $100,000 / assault avoidance program would simple be a breakeven point. The indifference point. The recognized avoided cost would have to be 50%, 100% perhaps 200% above this ($150,000, $200,000, $300,000 to really get societies attention with benefit/cost (b/c) ratios of cost 1.5, 2 or 3. Especially when other very high-return, high B/C areas are substantially underfunded, such as education. To make ME cost effective, given speculatively that the avoided cost of an assault might be $20,000 (to society and the individual collectively), and the threshold for social investments is a 2.0 B/C ratio, then the ME cost per avoided assault would have to be under $10,000. Recognizing the non-linear scaling effects of ME, per square root hypothesis, and thus assuming a threshold of 4000 YF needed to effect an urban area, then 4000/250 = 16 YFs would need to be sustained each month for each avided assault. At under $10,000 /16 YF = $625. $625 is about the current stipend for the IA experiment, and, at the margin, it is hardly highly scalable at that stipend/compensation rate. the current IA has demonstrated that 4000 cannot be attracted at that rate. So unless there is some much stronger, yet to be uncovered cumulative effect, and/or sizes can be massively expanded to realize the scale of economies from such (aka square root effect), then it appears ME is not even close to being a cost-effective crime prevention modality. And thats assuming that the DC study is air-tight in demonstrating 250/mo reduced assaults with 4000 YF. Certainly the DC study is not without controversy, detractors, and skepticism. It has not inspired one independently funded further ME study, as far as I know or recall. Air-tight, well received studies with strong, compelling, unambiguous results -- promising huge social benefit tend to do that -- to inspire further studies. This study did not. However, on the bright side, if a strong ME impact on financial markets can be demonstrated, then this might justify massive investment in ME. --- *Collective Consciousness Field Effects
