I’m all for requiring health insurance, but how about we require intensive 
exercise too?   Use red blood cell counts or other indicators to prove it was 
done.   Again, an android or iPhone with some suitable sensors could track 
results.   Pose it as tax break instead of a penalty.   Then people can get 
their high.  I know I want mine.  With the productivity boost, we could just 
pay for those kiddies with our income taxes.

From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tom Johnson
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 12:32 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
Cc: Sherry Kelsey <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Santa Fe's Sugar Tax

I'm wondering this morning, if the nation seems to have accepted the fact that 
the federal government can regulate vehicle mileage,  require seat belt 
installation, testing of drugs for public consumption, etc., how come it can't 
regulate sugar (and sodium?) in food and drink?  Could it be the sugar lobby is 
stronger than car manufactures and Big Pharma?

TJ


============================================
Tom Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)                                    505.473.9646(h)
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Check out It's The People's 
Data<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671>
http://www.jtjohnson.com<http://www.jtjohnson.com/>                   
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
============================================

On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 12:02 PM, George Duncan 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Much as I agree with Tom's analysis and wish for a better process for public 
policy decision making (hey that was my career at Carnegie Mellon!), the issue 
here for our own voting is whether we better off if this initiative passes. I 
vote yes. Indeed I have already voted yes.

Also I cannot believe that a win for no will convince people towards quality 
decision making...but rather that major corporate money must win in the public 
arena.

On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 11:42 AM glen ☣ 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

We have a lot of data on whether sin taxes do or don't work.  And that data is 
colored/interpreted by everyone who sees it, like all data.

And that brings me to my problem with Tom's argument.  We can focus on this 
part:

  "Voting on the measure is also a vote for or against good social science 
research, good public policy and administration, and full transparency of the 
people’s data."

We've been over and over in several threads (that I'm sure seemed hijacked by 
the more linear amongst us) about _induction_ and the validity or soundness of 
the predicates it leads to.  Way back when I worked at a healthcare informatics 
company, "evidence-based" was all the rage.  Then a (small) group of debunkers 
finally realized and advocated a move from the concept of "evidence-based" to 
"science-based" 
(https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/about-science-based-medicine/).  Add to that 
that many of my colleagues in the social sciences tout evidence-based or 
science-based policy.

I have some very deep reservations against such, with the same _flavor_ as my 
objection to the idea that government should/can be run like a business.  (Part 
of the rhetoric in favor of Trump.)  Government is not, inherently, a 
scientific enterprise.  It's an _engineering_ enterprise.  And engineers don't 
really care about reality as it is.  They care about reality as they intend it 
to be.  Sure, good engineers take the intitial conditions into account.  But 
whether the initial conditions have us on earth or mars doesn't matter that 
much.  What matters is that we want to _go_ to Proxima Centauri.

So, while I agree with the letter of the sentence above, I may disagree with 
the implication.

FWIW, were I still in Santa Fe, I'd vote "yes".

On 04/26/2017 09:57 AM, Gillian Densmore wrote:
> I agree anecdotally residents of NM need help with education and health.
> I am skeptical a tax on basically fake food,s and treats is a helpful way
> to do that though.
> Postive programs and tools  might help more than yet another tax possibly
> can.


--
☣ glen

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George Duncan
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"Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then 
be a valuable delusion."
From "Notes to myself on beginning a painting" by Richard Diebenkorn.

"It's that knife-edge of uncertainty where we come alive to our truest power." 
Joanna Macy.



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