Systemic approach to improve quality of food consumption

 A collaboration between physicians, grocery stores, insurance companies and data analytics companies to combat diseases caused by food, diseases which can be controlled or reversed by dietary interventions. 

For knowledgeable and well-meaning physicians, the motivation and benefits are obvious. 

Grocery stores can have a "weekly grocery" program where the items are curated by physicians with some limited flexibility. This may also increase their predictability on demand, and it is likely they will have steady customers even after the program ends. 

Insurance companies can either subsidize the cost or even pay for it for a certain duration. What is a better motivator than "free food"? Considering that they don't have to pay for expensive medication when the medical conditions reverse, they may end up saving a lot of money. 

Data analytics companies can play a role in tracking nutrients, using nudge tactics, and prediction to provide estimates of "correct" times for interventions or doing more tests. (they could possibly do a lot more). 

Will this work? 

Are we really more moral than slave owners?

 I recall saying to this to my friends a few times, "What would be a current day analogy to the practice of human slavery in the past? It would be how we treat animals." 

Certainly, people back then did not think it was moral to do so, but used various excuses to rationalize it and/or suppress those thoughts and go on about their lives. Otherwise decent people who enslaved other people would probably have said "everyone else is doing it", and people who benefited from low cost of goods at the expense of those enslaved would probably have said, "I have to live, and I am not the one enslaving". 

I am guilty of such rationalizing all these years knowing full well how animals I am eating were treated all their life before they were slaughtered, often in-humanely. They are tortured horribly all their life before being converted into nuggets and packages which we buy at the counter, or order from our tables. Pigs and Cows are so emotionally mature that they are social, show love to their off-springs, and even to humans if the effort is made. Yet, I am guilty of suppressing those thoughts. When I am trying to understand people living in bubbles, this rather shameful chapter of my life should serve as a helping tool. 

I am writing this now while attempting to transition to plant based food only, but my guilt is not the main reason I am attempting this transition. Rather, it is for my health. I hope I learn my lesson from this and try to do the right things in the Future (for the right reasons). 

America is has been moving towards the left

1. Gay marriage: Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defined marriage as between a man and a women, and allowed states to discriminate against same sex couples. It was deemed unconstitutional by the supreme court in 2015. Gay people were banned from being in the military. Bill Clinton managed to throw a think veil on the law by enacting the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. That policy was repealed in 2010, and a federal court ruled ban of gay people from a military unconstitutional in 2011. 
2. Climate change: The percentage of Americans who say dealing with global climate change should be a priority for the president and the congress increased from 30% in 2008 to 52% in 2020. 
3. Abortion: in 2019, about 61% of Americans say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. The percentage of people with this view grew from 63% in 2007 to 82% in 2019 among democrats, while it remained about the same among republicans. 
4. Evolution: A growing percentage of high school teachers teach Evolution as a broad consensus among scientists. The proportion grew from 51% in 2007 to 67% in 2019.  
5. Immigration: The percentage of Americans who say legal immigration should be increased went up from 10% in 2001 to 32% in 2018 and the percentage who say it should be decreased went down from 53% in 2001 to 24% in 2018.   74% of Americans support giving a legal status to undocumented people brought to the United States as children. About 10% of eligible voters in 2020 were naturalized citizens. 
6. Health care: About 60% of Americans consistently held the viewpoint that it is the government's responsibility to ensure health care for all and support for a single payer system has grown from 59% in 2019 to 63% in 2020. 

In all of the above cases, republicans are in the minority. 

Social security is an investment, not just a safety net

 No, I don't mean it in the way that individual tax payer is investing/saving a part of their salary so that they he/she can get it back later. 

The money in the social security trust fund is invested in treasury bonds. What this means is the money people pay into the social security fund is "loaned" to the government which is then free to use the money in any way it pleases, as long as it pays the interest. In this way, we are investing in the country when we make social security payments. 

???? does this make sense? 

Trump administrations' systematic attack on immigration

 

H1B

• June 22, 2020: Trump issued an executive order freezing all new H1B (along with many other) visas. 
• The rationale was that this would protect Americans from Covid infections. The government provided this rationale while downplaying the impacts of Covid domestically. This order is still in effect. 
• October 28, 2020: USCIS increased the salary requirements for H1B workers citing this will protect US jobs. 
• December 4, 2020: A US district court vacated this order. If allowed to be enforced, this would have effectively reduced the number of  H1B visas. 

Green cards

• April 22, 2020: Trump issued a executive order freezing issuance of all green cards (with few exceptions) for people outside the United States.  
• The rationale was that this would protect Americans from Covid infections. The government provided this rationale while downplaying the impacts of Covid domestically. This order is still in effect. 

F1 

• July 6, 2020: Government announces F1 visas will not be granted to students taking only online courses. Students who are already in the US and taking only online courses must leave the country. 
• Several states filed a law suite immediately after issuing this rule, and the government reversed its decision. 

DACA 

• September 5, 2017: DOJ announced that it rescinding the DACA program. 
• After lengthy court battles, supreme court reversed this rescission. Acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf refused to follow the courts order. That resulted in another law suit, and a federal judge ruled that Mr. Wolf did not have the authority to refuse the court's order because he was not appointed to that position properly. The constitutionality of the program is still being litigated in courts. 
• DACA is an executive program. The legal battles and uncertainty of millions of people living in the US can be avoided if Congress passes the DREAMS act. 

Asylum

There is so much here, I am just posting links. 

• Suspension of Syrian refugees resettlement program. 
• Family separation 
• Cruel treatment of children
• Asylum seekers forced to wait in Mexico
• Improperly banning certain people from seeking Asylum
• Sending asylum seekers to other countries (Aslylum cooperative agreements). 
• Charging fees for asylum seekers

Travel ban 

• September 24, 2017: Trump administration issued an executive order which banned entry to all non-citizens from several muslim-majority countries. 
• This order was the third in a series of failed attempts to ban people from muslim countries to enter the US. The government was able to move this through the courts finally after adding a few non muslim-majority countries. 

Why are college exams so bad?

 Many college level exams are poorly constructed. Doing good in these exams in no way represents that students actually learnt what they needed to from the course. This is mostly because many of these exams are "hack-able", where students have learnt many strategies on how to do well without having learnt much in the course. 

Three reasons for such a poor state of college exams: 

1. Conflict of interest: For most public Universities, graduation and academic progression rates are key factors which determine how much funding they receive from the government, and to attract new students. The University administrators in turn transfer these incentives to the faculty members who are rewarded for passing more students. This inherently creates a conflict of interest as in almost all cases, the faculty teaching the course also prepares the exams and grades them. This conflict of interest in exacerbated by the fact that students provide good ratings in their course evaluations to easy graders. 
2. GPA used as a screening factor: Many companies use student's GPA as an initial screening factor during interviews. This incentivises students to emphasize grades over learning, and to reward faculty members who give good grades. 
3. Lack of will: For most faculty members, their success in career depends almost entirely on their research accomplishments, and their teaching skills play a very insignificant role in promotions and market value. Creating good exams takes a lot of time and effort, and when you do, you get push-back from students who are used to a particular type of testing. And as noted in the first point, the incentives from the administration are also most often not geared towards adequate testing (it takes a lot of effort for the administration to verify this too). 

There are solutions to all of these. The COI can be easily resolved by having someone other the course instructor prepare and grade the exams. Western Governors  University for example has implemented such practice. If more industries adopt a wholesome screening approach instead of just relying on the GPA, students may be less inclined to overemphasize their grades. I think machine learning has a role to play here in making this process more efficient. For the third point, I think we should start seeing bifurcated faculty roles in Universities where some faculty members have a heavier teaching load (and evaluated accordingly) and others have a heavier research load. We also need innovative tools which help students make informed choices about Universities in terms of teaching quality, likelihood of success and return on investment. If these tools are easily available,  I think students will start holding Universities accountable for their teaching practices. 

Faculty aristocracy

These are some of the attitudes I observe amongst faculty (including me, sometimes) which should change: 

1. It is beneath me to hold their hands and guide them. Students should learn to take responsibility.  
2. I am a genius and I have all this knowledge. If the students don't want to learn from me, it is their problem.