[ExI] schools, was: RE: Even India and Haiti do it better

Fri May 8 17:41:04 UTC 2020

> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat

Subject: Re: [ExI] schools, was: RE: Even India and Haiti do it better

 >>… the best bet for actual learning is to forget watching their classroom lectures on Zoom and just go to Khan Academy: smarter lecturer, better IT, better everything.  spike

>…So - you are not going to make any headway with superintendents and principals by suggesting that they bypass their teachers and get their students to watch better teachers on videos, even if they cost very little or nothing.  They will support their teachers - or pay a big price.  The unions will jump all over them…

Ja I suspect so.

>…BTW = what was wrong with my post about the invalidity of the population infectios rates and death rates?  I believe those to be useless, as I said.  Maybe it is just something the guys can play around with?

bill w.

Nothing wrong with that at all.  

Here’s a fun exercise: try doing your own statistical analysis using the data available.  Figure out what to compare to what, such as my ill-fated exercise yesterday.  I was trying to compare infection rates to population density.  Problem: infection rates on the Johns Hopkins site are based on counties.  Counties contain huge metropolis areas as well as swampy uninhabited areas, so the population density is misleading.

New York has over a third of the Covid deaths in the US all by itself, but my friend from upstate reminds me that it is all down there next to the city, which is what got me going from the start.  Most educational is to go into Google maps and look at New York City, satellite view.  Bring up a map showing how the city is divided into counties, but all of it is New York City: it includes Queens, Bronx, Long Island and so on, part of New Jersey.  Right there is the hottest hot spot. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2020/may/05/coronavirus-map-of-the-us-latest-cases-state-by-state

This breaks it down by county:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map

The data sets are crazy hard to compare directly, but the overall signal is clear enough: infections per capita are all about population density.  The hardest-hit areas are those dependent on mass transit.

My suggestion is to stop all public mass transit, all buses, taxis, trains, subways, everything.  Then, everyone else goes back to work and business.  I know that still leaves a lot of people out of work and out of luck.  I get that.  I don’t have all the answers.  But I have that one: public transit is the bad guy here, or certainly one of the very worst.  Governors do have the authority to close subways and buses.

That would get most of the US (and probably other countries are like that too) back to work and paying the taxes necessary to help feed those who will remain without jobs, some of whom are sick.

Alternatives?

spike

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