-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Marcus G. Daniels wrote: > Examples I was thinking of: churches, community watch groups, school > boards, that sort of thing. People that want those in their peer group > to present themselves in a low risk, low dimensionality, low variability > fashion. Think-tank type people may or may not be among them depending > on what think-tank you have in mind.
I believe I understand what you're getting at; so I'll paraphrase and check to see if I do. You're saying that the members of churches, neighborhood watch groups, schools, etc. purposefully engage in the attempt to encourage (impose, coax, coerce, etc.) others around them to act and think like them. This social engineering is perfectly akin to an individual engineering her physical environment to make her use of resources more efficient. If that's what you're saying, then I disagree. I don't disagree that this is the _effect_ of these groups. I disagree that they do it _purposefully_... i.e. they don't intend to do it. They do it because we are all creatures of habit. Our faculties are mostly built upon generations of genetic memory and a lifetime of ontogenic memory. These histories usually swamp any novelty that might pop out. In environments dominated by people more intelligent than they _need_ to be (e.g. cities, universities, think-tanks, large government funded laboratories, upper white middle class suburbs, etc.), this sort of behavior may actually be purposeful because these people have plenty of thought cycles to burn on such things. But, in an environment where you have to use all your resources, you don't waste good conscious attention on things like that. You spend it on finding food, sheltering your family and friends, etc. Your _attention_ is not on social engineering. It's on physical engineering. Social engineering, rhetorical circle jerks, convincing others that God has 3 mysterious aspects, etc. are for rich people. Poor people just hang on and fight for their small pleasures. >> saying: "Discussants who are normally so pathological that they can't >> interact with their peers find solace in the abstraction provided by >> certain devices." >> > The American Heritage dictionary defines pathological this way: > > ADJECTIVE:*1.* Of or relating to pathology. *2.* Relating to or caused > by disease. *3.* Of, relating to, or manifesting behavior that is > habitual, maladaptive, and compulsive: /a pathological liar./ > > You don't have a maladaptive behavior until you define the peer group, > because you need that before you have norms and expectations. Social > networks open up the set of peer groups. The square peg can find a > square hole instead of being limited to a round one. Thus, less > maladaptive behavior. Thanks for using a good dictionary. The set-up you presented was sub-group neutral. You said: "Discussants who might not even be able to tolerate one another in person can find common ground." And normal people can and usually _do_ look for and discover common ground within 5 minutes of conversation. Only a pathological person cannot find common ground within the span of a normal conversation. And this is regardless of what peer group is under consideration. Granted, there are extremes like a black person at a KKK meeting. (Of course, most of us would consider KKK members as pathological -- caused by one or more diseases of the mind.) But, by and large, normal non-pathological people can easily find common ground quickly, regardless of the peer group. Hence, the discussants you're talking about (those who can't tolerate one another in person) are pathological. And the extra layers of abstraction _merely_ serve to help us relate and empathize with these pathological people. >> It's also true that the vast majority of us have small, tight networks >> and large, loose networks. > > Heh, it makes me think of that bumper sticker "It takes village to elect > an idiot." > Maybe you are on to something, but I don't think you are. ;-) [grin] It doesn't really matter whether I'm on to something. I'm simply criticizing the hyperbolic advocacy of social networking technology. Hopefully, my criticism helps someone (perhaps just me) arrive at the truth. Luckily, we don't live in a village controlled by an idiot, otherwise, that idiot might dictate that criticism is treasonous... Hmmm. >> We don't try near as hard to understand the >> individuals in those large loose networks. And anyone who thinks this >> can be overcome by arbitrary changes in the _technique_ that supports >> the network is delusional. In the end, it's all about attention and >> where you choose to place yours, regardless of the technique. >> > I agree there is no `right' technique. I do think it is possible to not > be limited by the slogan "think globally, act locally". Thanks to the > internet (and even social networking services -- gack) it can be just as > feasible to act globally. For example, by working on open source > software projects, developing independent internet-based news outlets, etc. Well, you've smudged the definition of "action"... but I suppose you're not smudging it any more than "activists" have smudged it. [grin] You literally cannot act globally. It's either impossible or infeasible. (Since quantum entanglement seems to be true perhaps it's merely infeasible.) You cannot act at a distance. You can only act locally. Anything else is "advocacy". You can _argue_ globally (at least to the extent that the language in which you're arguing stays roughly the same across time and space) because argument is not actual. It sits on top of a logical abstraction layer. The true separation between action and advocacy lies in the two-fold interpretive processes involved. The actor must act upon some local medium (e.g. the air or the state of a digital computer) and those acts are semantically grounded in the thoughts of the actor. The effects of those actions propagate outward until they come upon another actor, who is physically impacted by the effects and interprets (semantically re-grounds to her personal, private reality) the effects. Arguing globally requires the two interpretive processes to be approximate inversions: ToPosit : Sender -> Reality ToInterpret : Reality -> Receiver Let s be in Sender and r be in Receiver. If ToInterpret^-1(r) ~= ToPosit(s), then one can argue globally. - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com Of the tyrant, spies and informers are the principal instruments. War is his favorite occupation, for the sake of engrossing the attention of the people, and making himself necessary to them as their leader. -- Aristotle -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGy1KWZeB+vOTnLkoRAsurAJ0VVfOB/+m1P01uXeSimI/5SBFc4gCfdujw 0e2/kiUbCMQThg9GSfBz0HA= =bPbA -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
