A System to File Complaints Against Drivers

We should have a system that would allow you to report a driver’s actions, based on license plate number. For normal citizens, it would be a submit-only operation, so you wouldn’t be able to see reports by other citizens (this is of course a privacy measure, and to limit malicious use and intent). But it would certainly be used as a factor in auto insurance rates, by law-enforcement, and perhaps even a review of who should actually be allowed to drive.

Of course a single infraction, or even multiple wouldn’t change anything, but it would make it easier to see if certain drivers are continually causing problems and provide a way to to something about the worst ones. Perhaps there is a threshold above an average number of infractions that would trigger some level of consequence.

It’s one of those systems that could be abused, and I’m sure a large portion of the population would be against it just because of the “big-brotherness” of it. But I think the idea is sound and quite necessary, we would just have to set the rules correctly to keep it from being abused, which doesn’t seem like an impossible task.

More thoughts on the “State Office of Federal Tax Fulfillment”

Previously I started playing with the idea of a “State Office of Federal Tax Fulfillment”. The basic idea is that I would pay my federal taxes, but they would be routed through a state office that holds them temporarily, before forwarding my payment through to the federal government. The purpose is so that if we wanted to, as a state, we could collectively withhold our taxes.

We wouldn’t really even need everyone in the state to do it. It could be a voluntary system, perhaps with a minimum level of adoption before any potential withholding takes place. For instance, here in California, maybe nothing happens unless 16 million people enroll in the system (40% of the state, just to pick a random amount). Once that number is reached, we could collectively vote on whether the 16 million of us want our taxes sent through.

We would of course be assuming some risk, since the federal government could still come after us individually, but in this example, they would have to be coming after 16 million of us.

To extend this idea even further though, what if other states also adopted these measures? We could all work together to withhold our contributions in a unified voice if we desired to do so, increasing the power of the action, and reducing the risk to each individual tax payer.

ChatGPT and AI Luddites

I find some of the resistance to using tools like ChatGPT interesting, and honestly a little sad. Just the idea of closing yourself off to something that could improve your life is an interesting stance to take. For me, it has definitely saved me time, helped me explore things that bounce into my curious mind, and enabled me to take on some projects that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to to do.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve used ChatGPT to play around with prime spirals, just because I find them interesting, used it for domain name ideas, ideas for fonts, and got some pretty helpful insight on the best approaches for a software product I’m working on. I even started having it draft little news items from an imaginary nation where the news is happier than what’s going on in the US currently (reading through those imaginary news clips honestly brings a little smile to my face).

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been using it to help me build a couple of apps, just for personal use and for fun — a city-building game and a drawing app. For work, it does honestly save me quite a few hours every week, especially on some tedious tasks that I would rather not spend time on. I also realize that competitors in my profession are using this technology to be more efficient, and I would be at a major disadvantage if I refused to utilize it as well.

There are of course downsides to this technology, and some pretty big ones at the society level. But it has undoubtedly made the day to day of my life better and more creative. For those that flat-out refuse to use the technology, I feel as though they are only limiting themselves and setting themselves up to be at a major disadvantage.

We Need to Do Better at Prioritizing Important Topics in Primary Education

I was helping with my son’s 6th-grade social studies homework yesterday, where, for this semester, they’re studying India’s history.  It’s mildly interesting, but in the back of my mind, I can’t help but think: “Why the hell is he learning this?”

Don’t get me wrong, I think being exposed to a variety of topics and subjects is good on some level, but that “some level”, is probably at most an hour or two for things that aren’t really relevant to his existence, or help him prepare for the future, or maybe most importantly, aren’t really making for a better future for all of us.

I guess I would be fine with this little diversion into history if we weren’t failing in the education game in so many other ways.  I’m sure he’ll make it through his primary education without touching on formal logical fallacies, or some basic economics principles, or how the US calculates his taxes.  He won’t be exposed to ideas for how to think in ways that perhaps don’t come naturally, or how to push deeper into thoughts, going beyond those initial inhibitions that allow you to arrive in some really interesting places if you can think  beyond them.

Again, I think it’s good to touch on random topics, like the history of India.  Perhaps it will speak to some students, and spur some fascination or passion that will serve them well through life.  But we can undoubtedly do a better job of prioritizing some things that will have a higher chance of creating better people, and a better country.  And we desperately need to do so.

Property Taxes Should Be Progressive

Here in San Diego, housing long ago crossed into the “insanely expensive” category. As much as it’s not good for many, it seems as though we could do more to provide a public benefit from all of that.

In a brief search of how property taxes are calculated, it doesn’t seem as though they are ever progressively taxed. No matter the assessed value of a property, the rate is always the same percentage. The person living in the $600k apartment at the bottom of the building is paying the same 8% (or whatever it is) as the $10.2 million penthouse at the top of the building.

Because of this, I’m sure as a city, and a society in general, we’re leaving a ton of money on the table that could go to fund better schools, education, transit lines, parks, or other things to reduce housing costs (like my super-controversial plan to publicly subsidize parking garages!).

City Pride and Investment

I don’t think any of us are as proud of our cities as we should be. Of course we all probably have some level of pride, especially in our city’s status on the national stage, such as our economic status or cultural influence. And sports teams are an obvious source of pride for many, but I feel as though there is opportunity for more that we could all be proud of.

It seems like pride in one’s city could potentially translate in people’s willingness to provide additional investment to their cities. If a city is widely recognized for its great parks, and those parks are a source of pride in that city, perhaps it follows that the citizens are then more likely to invest in those parks, and new parks.

If there is any truth to that, perhaps there are ways to make people more proud of those things that make a city great, which could spur a feedback loop of investment and pride in things that matter.

Better Representative Democracy

The whole gerrymandering thing is an unnecessary issue that arises from an archaic and ill-conceived idea. Drawing lines on maps for most purposes seems to lead to issues, and especially when determining representation for individual citizens.

In my utopian nation, we still have representatives, but there are two key differences:

• You can choose one of the five closest representatives to you. This means that you can most likely find one that aligns at least remotely close to your views.
• Each representative’s power when voting is directly tied to the amount of people they represent, ensuring that everyone’s voice is equal.

There are likely some issues with this, and opportunity for further refinement (perhaps limiting the total number of people each representative can represent would be good), but these two ideas, if applied to the current US system, would create a far fairer situation.

Policy as a Filter

I once had the brilliant idea of imposing a California state tax whose sole purpose would be to use the funds to help bring smart, promising young individuals from red states to California. It could be used as part of their college tuition, moving costs, or whatever else was needed to get smart people here who would help to make our state better.

The secondary benefit of my tax was that it would increase state taxes, which would help to drive away more tax-hating individuals who are in general more than likely, just a draw on the state’s resources, and whose principles inhibit our ability to push harder into science, technology, education, equity, and better governance.

I of course recognize that there are conservatives that add value to the state, and especially some conservative businesses that provide jobs and tax revenue. But there is a larger discussion that should be had on how much of that is needed, balancing private wealth generation and its actual cost to the public. Perhaps it’s a good thing to court those businesses, perhaps not.

But the idea of using policy to attract those you want, and filter out those you don’t isn’t something I see discussed very often, although it already plays a significant role in shaping individual states. There are some interesting discussions that could be had around this topic, and what types of policies we should have, not only to shape policy within the state, but also in terms of attracting the type of talent that we want and need to progress.

The Office of Community Housing

The Office of Community Housing is a city-run division that works to coordinate individual citizens looking to contribute their own funds towards multiunit real estate developments for the sake of satisfying their own need for housing.

An Essential High School Course: Shit You Should Know

There is a course that needs to exist in high schools across the country, titled: “Shit You Should Know”. Even for me, a moderately intelligent individual, it would have been helpful to have such a course that wades into a variety of highly important topics that seem to be overlooked in our current education system.

Here’s an initial start on the course syllabus for “Shit You Should Know”:

• Week 1 – Introduction, Overview of Course Topics
• Week 2 – Logic Principles, Reasoning Skills
  An introduction to logic and reasoning.
• Week 3 – Logical Fallacies
  Highlighting the most common logical fallacies through the first half of the week, then working through less common fallacies in order of importance.
• Week 4 – Thinking Better – Patterns and Strategies
  Helping to build better thinkers, with emphasis on various ways of looking at topics, pushing past the inclination to limit thought.
• Week 5 – Critical Thinking, Skeptical Thinking, Media Literacy
  How to see through bullshit, think critically, and consume news and opinion in a responsible manner.
• Week 6 – Basic Economic Principles
  A basic economic primer, covering basic topics like supply and demand. Compare and contrast various economic systems.
• Week 7 – Your Government
  How taxes are actually calculated (most people don’t seem to understand), representation. Discussions on how the existing system works, critiques, class discussion on improvements.
• Week 8 – Being a Good, Considerate Citizen
  Basic moral and ethical principles. How to be a good, considerate citizen. Stupid decisions vs good decisions (win/win vs lose/lose). Conversation skills.
• Week 9 – Basic Life Management
  Basic life skills, such as budgeting, the concept of compound interest, strategies for making good decisions.

Optimizing Population Density for Scientific Discovery and Technological Advancement

In a previous post, I started playing with thoughts around there being an ideal amount of population density — certainly more than the density of suburban development, but also perhaps less than some of the maximum densities we see in some very isolated pockets in a few North American cities. But there is obviously varying optimal amounts of density based on what we’re trying to optimize for (and another quick thought — perhaps it makes sense to sacrifice extremely high densities in one area to distribute the positive effects of density into other areas, although we’re probably nowhere near the levels of density where that would need to be a leading consideration).

There seems to be some level of “network effect” in place, where higher density areas are just more productive in terms of innovation, scientific discovery, GDP, etc… It would be interesting to see how that lines up with optimizations in terms of citizen health and happiness. It seems like as optimizing for scientific discovery and technological advancement (along with citizen well-being) would be an interesting aspect of urban design to investigate and design for.

The Danger of “All Men Are Created Equal”

I wonder how much of the lack of empathy in the US is a result of the “all men are created equal” line from the Declaration of Independence. When I was younger, I always felt that this was a positive, uplifting message, but as I’ve grown older, I feel that perhaps while the intent was good, I’m no longer sure that it has a positive impact on society.

Disregarding the obvious (most likely incorrect) assumption about being “created”, I don’t like this line because I think buried in the phrasing is a notion that we all have the same capabilities to overcome setbacks, even those that are unfairly placed on some people and not others. And this makes it easier to blame people for their positions in life, regardless of if it’s truly anything that they have any control over. From the position of many, I get the sense that “I had my setbacks, and since we’re all created equally, you should also be able to meet whatever challenges you face.”

This of course ignores the fact that we aren’t really all equal in terms of ability (whether intellectual, athletic, or any of the other million characteristics that make us all unique), or that we all have to deal with the same level of setbacks in life, or even have the same opportunities. And that’s a pretty dangerous thing. If we recognized that we all have different challenges, and that we aren’t all equipped to handle things equally, perhaps we would be better at helping each other out, and do our best to make life fairer, even though it’s inherently unfair.

The Possibilities of Better Cities With AI and Robotics

I’m nervous about the future of AI and robotics, but I’m also excited about the positive impacts of it on society. I like to think about more ideal cities — cities that are beautiful and better to inhabit. It’s usually a money issue as to why some of those thoughts are unrealistic, but perhaps some of those limitations go away when we have cheaper manual labor.

I think of ambitious public projects, like burying freeways, building more parks and micro-parks, maintaining those parks and microparks, constructing pedestrian and bike paths, small-scale farming within cities, and wonder if we’ll be able to make more of those projects feasible with the reduction in construction and labor costs with a vast supply of human-like bots that can do the work that currently requires humans. Of course, this requires us sharing the benefits of these systems that have reduced expenses, instead of it just going into the pockets of those who own the bots. We should probably be working on frameworks now to accommodate that goal, probably at the state and local levels.

Linear Cities

I think about city design frequently when I’m out running. A while ago I wrote some thoughts on the benefits of longer blocks, or the potential of stringing multiple blocks together to reduce the amount of automobile intersections that pedestrians (and runners) have to deal with.

Sometimes I’ll stretch this out further, and think of cities that are just designed with this as a starting point. Transit lines are an obvious reason for following a more linear development pattern — rail of course works well in a line. In my mind, I like to pair this with green/wild space, perhaps where anything three or four blocks away from the transit line is designated wild space, allowing for wildlife corridors, recreation space, and just place for city inhabitants to peer into. But within those few blocks adjacent to the transit line (and of course the necessary streets that accompany them) is high density housing and commercial space. And perhaps wherever there is a transit stop the city buldges out a bit more to fully utilize adjacency to a transit stop since it’s easy to walk a half mile or so to get there.

But imagine a city built in this way — the citizens always having quick access to nature, or all of the amenities of a city. And it would be extremely connected, since everything would lie along the same transit line. It would of course take amounts of forethought, along with the desire to protect large swaths of valuable real estate for nature and greenspace. Forethought that we don’t seem to have as a society, but a fun thought nonetheless.

No Taxation Without Equal Representation

People a long time ago had the right idea with the notion of “no taxation without representation, ” but they didn’t quite get it fully where it needed to be.

We’re currently in the situation where those who provide most of the funding to the US (primarily those terrible liberal cities, and successful blue states) have less and less say in how the country is run, along with how those funds are spent, and where it gets directed (generally red states). And as conservatives continue to gerrymander the nation to hell, the ratio of taxes sent to Washington vs our voice in the direction of the country continues to skew.

Our new rallying cry should be: “no taxation without EQUAL representation”. Until we all have an equal say in how our tax money is spent, we should do whatever we can to correct the imbalance. In reality, the amount I pay in taxes should factor in the amount of representation that I get.

I like the phrase since it has a bit of a conservative ring to it. I would like to think there are a few sane republicans out there who do value fairness, and perhaps it can appeal to them as well to push our cause forward. Yeah, I’m probably not fully living in reality.

Collectively Not Paying Taxes

I see comments online that we should all stop paying federal taxes (in response to the new military presence in our nation’s cities, a masked and un-uniformed police force rounding people up off the streets, withholding funds to blue states for green energy programs, using the powers of government to go after political enemies, etc..). This isn’t really feasible, since we all have to pay taxes individually, and since there are severe penalties involved, the likelihood of us all acting together on this are pretty slim.

Perhaps it was brilliant design, to limit the power of states (or other jurisdictions) in this way, but I wonder if there are some exploits that could be made to make it possible. (And I’ll admit here that there are probably many problems with this next idea, but a central idea of this blog is to push further into these thoughts that are potentially dead-ends).

A Unified Release of Tax Returns

States could potentially create a mechanism for releasing everyone’s individual tax returns at once. For instance, here in California we could enact a “State Office of Federal Tax Fulfillment”. That office’s responsibility is to basically do your federal taxes for you . This could be outsourced to existing tax professionals, or perhaps we would do taxes as we do now, they just get routed through this office for final release to the federal government. The central idea is just that the taxes are still coming from you, they’re just finally “released” by the state organization, but they are released together at the direction of the state government.

This would give states more power to withhold those funds collectively if residents aren’t feeling as though their money is being used well.

Of course, there are plenty of problems with this — the federal government could still go after individual tax payers, so I’m not sure what protections could be put in place (or loopholes to be exploited) to mitigate that danger, other than for a state like California, there would be 39 million of them. And you’re right, this very well could spell the end of America if all states did this (which they would). And for the record, I’m all for paying taxes, and we (those who make more than most), should probably be paying more, but perhaps taxes could be a larger leveraging tool for making the nation better.

Either/Or Thinking

I’ve always fallen into the same trap that most people do — thinking along the lines of either/or statements. In my two most recent posts I’ve been thinking about this concept in terms of democracy and authoritariansm — Are we a democracy or not? In reality, there is a whole range of in-betweens. Previously I’ve also confronted this with regards to belief in God. It’s common to ask; “Do you believe in God or not?”. For me, over the past twenty-or-so years, it’s not an either/or questions — it’s a percentage of likelihood, based on the properties of the god that we’re describing.

I get the sense that any condition where we automatically inclined to assign an either/or, a yes/no, or some notion of black or white is, in reality, better expressed as some position between the two extremes. I’m trying to do better at spotting these thinking traps, but this seems like something I should have been trained to identify early on in my education. In one of the courses that I think should be taught in middle or high school, “How to Think”, this would definitely be one of the topics covered.

Is the US Now Authoritarian?

Before I had to think about such things, I always just assumed that there was a line — you’re either living in Authoritarianism, or you’re not. But there of course a range of conditions that move you either to the left or right along that line, and we have definitely moved towards the authoritarianism end, especially during (but not limited to) Trump’s second term. And we’ve been doing it with remarkable speed. I keep hearing that “we’re on the road to authoritarianism”, which I guess just also assumes that there is a magic line, or perhaps it’s just how we all tend to think — that there is a point where one thing becomes another. And that line exists at a different point for some all of us. For me, I feel as though we’ve definitely ticked enough checkboxes to land us in that authoritarian zone. There may be plenty of more room on the spectrum to lead us more fully into authoritarianism, but we’ve definitely moved quite a bit further away from the “ideal democracy” side of things.

Democracy Or Not?

I had never really thought about democracy as something that exists along a spectrum (but the more I think about various topics in general, it seems that nothing is ever really an either/or as we generally think of them). I had always assumed that here in the US we live in a democracy, but I’m not really sure at one point along that spectrum you go from “no democracy”, where citizens have zero say in how things are run, to an “ideal democracy”, where everyone’s vote counts, and counts equally. We’ve never had an “ideal democracy” in the US — as a Californian, my vote has always counted less than the votes of people in some other states. But as we gerrymander state representatives to favor some groups of people more than others, we’re moving even further away from that “ideal democracy.” How far can you move before it really isn’t democracy any more?

Pride

I keep thinking on pride — it’s interesting that as the nation circles the drain into populism/nationalism/tribalism, and where those on the right are more proud of whatever the hell this country has become, that my pride has started to become more broadly applied. I’m more interested in what scientific advancements and technological breakthroughs are happening here, but also now more from beyond our borders. I’m taking more pride in the best of what humanity provides, no matter where it’s found. I have a feeling that there is much more of it out there than what I have previously assumed.

Ignorance, Power, and Communication

I believe our current (dreadful) situation as a nation is heavily brought about by the lack of thinking ability for a large swath of the country. It’s not really their fault of course, no one gets to choose their natural abilities or upbringing. But it is a serious issue that we really need to face as a species I feel like we can combat much of our issues by just having better education, and easier access to it, and honestly, this seems like the easiest approach. But we can also come at it from the other end — finding ways to limit power (things like Trump, Fox News, Joe Rogan), and find better ways to communicate, or break through these bubbles that exist, that are currently very difficult to break into. Education in comparison seems easy, but perhaps the needed, more robust approach is to hit the issue from both sides.

News From My Nation

Pride in my nation seems to be running a little slim these days, but I want to be hopeful about the future, and I guess to find my “community” in some respect. Every so often I think about throwing together a website (or an app of some sort) that pulls content in from various places, and compiles them all into a single place. So for instance, I’ll check out my Alma Mater’s news section on research and discoveries, and I’m happy that I was a part of that — I like to see the advancement of human knowledge. In a broader sense, just being part of the university system in general is a community that I’m proud to have been a part of, so also pulling in those same types of news articles from other universities would help to compile all of that news from my community. These are my peeps!

I’m also an urbanite, and generally interested in the culture and challenges (and opportunities and solutions) that are a part of city life, so compiling news about great urbanism from cities would be a great addition to my news feed.

It’s still important to monitor the rest of the news, but I want to focus more on hopeful futures, and feel more connected to the community that I want to be a part of — the one that is continuing to push humanity forward.

Cars on the Street

Cars parked along streets are so ubiquitous, that we don’t even question it. But oftentimes when out running, I sometimes imagine what things would look like if they weren’t there. Perhaps that space gets devoted to small parks, running paths, or patio spaces for businesses. Perhaps we just have smaller streets, which would allow for more density. Of course there are economic reasons and practicality issues with this little thought experiment, but what an incredible cityscape we could have if we could figure that one out (publicly funded parking garages).

Ideal Density

I think a lot of urbanites probably assume that more density is usually better, but I have a feeling that there is an optimal amount density. That optimal density level would balance walkability, housing prices, environmental benefits, and similar factors, but balances with the negative affects of density, like the feelings of crowdedness and noise, access to nature, views, and access to sunlight. Of course, this ignores styles of density, where perhaps you can skew the results one way or another depending on the style of development — you may be able to have more nature sprinkled throughout a “towers in the park” style of development, but that may affect access to sunlight and obstruct views, so perhaps an optimal density would still apply.

Fractal

I found it in a high school math book, amongst equations and dry mathematical theory. If you blurred your eyes, the pages of that book would blur together into a fuzzy gray mass, each page indistinquishable from the next. What caught my eye however …

The Bottom Third

In the US currently, it seems as though there are three segments of the population: a group who is pretty much opposed to the current direction that the US is headed, a group that doesn’t care (or is indifferent, or grudgingly going along with one o…

A Coalition of Cities

I think of great cities. Rome, Florence, Paris, Cairo, Tokyo. Their individual atoms change over time, but the pattern — what we recognize as the city exists, evolving and growing throughout the centuries. Empires and nations rise and fall around t…

Long Blocks

As I was running through downtown San Diego yesterday, I found that I was very appreciative of the minor streets that allowed me to keep running and not require me to stop and wait for a light to change. I could have longer sections of running, whic…

Wide Streets

Many low-traffic neighborhood streets are remarkably wide—far wider than necessary given their usage. On the scale of a single street, it already feels like a misallocation of space. Multiplied across an entire city, the inefficiency becomes strikin…

Simulation Theory

The new Matrix movie comes out soon, and I honestly can’t wait. As a senior in high school when the first Matrix came out, it likely had something to do with my mild interest in philosophy and contemplating big thoughts. Of course the question of re…

Subsidizing Parking Garages

When a new apartment building went up in the neighborhood, it didn’t take long for the complaints to start. At the center of the backlash: the building was approved with no parking included. There are plenty of good reasons to remove parking requ…

Non-Quantifiable

Last night we took our eleven-year old child to listen to a ranger-led presentation while visitingOrgan Pipe Cactus National Monument. Over the years we’ve attended numerous talks like this at various national parks and monuments throughout the west…

Neighborhood Government

I dream of little neighborhood parks and nicely landscaped walking paths. More places to play with my child; throwing a football, frisbee, or shooting hoops. I’d love to see more trails winding through San Diego’s wild canyons, with random benches a…

Furniture

Furniture should play a larger role in homes. It has, for perhap’s it’s entire history, been relegated to being isolated objects to fill our empty living areas, utilized for creating places to sit, store things, to hold other pieces of furniture. It…

Small Ribbons of Wild in the City

In the far northwest corner of Portland lies one of the largest urban parks in the United States—Forest Park. Years ago, I was fortunate enough to live right on the edge of this tree-covered paradise. Out the back door of our apartment, a trail led …

Why Atheism?

This was originally posted, Oct 1, 2017 There are many contributing factors to my atheism, but they have always been a disorganized cloud of thoughts buzzing around my head. I’ve always wanted to take the time to really examine and organize these…

Education Needs to Become Technology-Based

Education is one of the most (if not the most) important features of a strong society. As much as we gripe about our current education system, America does actually have a good system; It produces some of the best thinkers on the planet and does a r…

Self Taxing and the Society Investment Fund

Originally Posted: 3/17/2017 My news feeds are inundated by news of Trump slashing government investment in numerous programs and organizations. Things like 5.8 billion from the National Institues of Health, and cuts to the EPA, education, the sc…

A Blended Economic System

An area of concern I have regarding any given economic system pertains to its ability to foster technological progress. I believe capitalism excels in this regard, while I remain more than a little skeptical about the capacity of alternative systems…

Kettner and Vine – San Diego

A new homeless shelter is in the planning stages here in San Diego, and as expected, the opposition has come out in force with their lawn signs. The new shelter will be constructed at Kettner and Vine. Initially I had assumed this was somewhere i…

This is a Bad Idea

This is a bad idea. I’ve recently been telling myself to only spend time on things that matter (I have such limited time, and so many things I want to do, that I really need to focus). Writing random thoughts that bounce into my brain probably doesn…