Glen, I am not at all sure what it means to have my rhetoric rejected. My facts, yes; my logic, sure. But my RHETORIC?
Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe] > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella <g...@agent-based-modeling.com> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> > Date: 11/24/2009 1:16:53 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Dunbar numbers and distributions > > > Well, my post was supposed to be a joke. Obviously, I have to work on > my delivery. ;-) > > But, also fwiw, I totally reject this rhetoric. I don't think there's > confusion between "village" and "world" trust at all, at least not in > healthy people (which is, by definition, _most_ people). I DO think > that trust relationships are occluded behind an impenetrable > observational wall. And I also think that the fundamental ways trust is > formed in the 1st world countries are rapidly changing... changing much > faster than they ever have in the past. So, our antiquated methods for > measuring trust relationships are at least partially, if not completely, > invalid, nowadays. > > In fact, I'd even go so far as to speculate that trust is now _complex_ > rather than simple. (Perhaps it was complex in the past, too; but our > measurement tools were too coarse to respond to that complexity.) It's > probably fractured into many different types of trust, probably > dependent on the particular medium facilitating that particular trust > relationship. > > > Quoting Nicholas Thompson circa 09-11-24 10:17 AM: > > FWIW, the evolutionary psychological take on this is that we are designed > > to live in groiups of 40 to 60 or so. But human beings, in their more > > recent evolutionary history, last milllion years or so, have been forced > > into larger associations. But, as MacLuhan (?) pointed out, this has been > > accomplished by granting to total strangers the same sorts of trust that we > > properly grant to our village mates, creating situations in which poor > > rural southerners defended slave owning with their lives and the > > trailer-living tea-baggers defend the rights of the rich to make > > unreasonable amounts of money . The concept of celebrity is just this > > confusion between village and mass culture. The next step is to make > > everybody a celebrity, and that, of course, is what facebook is about. > > Whoopee! We can all have the experience of having strangers think they know > > us. > > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > 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 ============================================================ 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
