Trump is coming up frequently in this "abduction" thread, especially with regard communication and rhetoric.A very good, quite enlightening, book about this is Scott Adams' (yes, the Dilbert cartoonist) *_Win Bigly_*. davew
On Wed, Jan 9, 2019, at 9:03 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Steve Smith wrote: > > I sense frustration in many of us when we try to talk about our > various topics of specialty (as amatuers or professionals) with our > significantly educated (but in other (sub)disciplines) lay-colleagues. > It seems that in the attempt to be more precise or to make evident our > own lexicons for a particular subject that we end up tangling our webs > in this tower of Complexity Babel (Babble?) we roam, colliding > occasionally here and there.> Right, Steve. > > I wouldn’t have it any other way. It is one of the few places on > earth where, fwiw, people are struggling with the problem. Fighting > the good fight against semantic hegemony.> > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > Clark University > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Steven > A Smith *Sent:* Wednesday, January 09, 2019 12:20 PM *To:* > friam@redfish.com *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Motives - Was Abduction> > >> Nick writes: >> >> < Ok, Marcus, I am standing my ground as a realist here: ():-[) > >> >> There you go trying to claim semantics for terms in a public >> dictionary again. (That’s an example of taking ground, like in my >> Go example.) Doing so constrains what can even be *said*. It >> puts the skeptic in the position of having to deconstruct every >> single term, and thus be a called terms like smartass[1] when they >> force the terms to be used in other contexts where the definition >> doesn’t work. A culture itself is laden with thousands of de- >> facto definitions that steer meaning back to conventional (e.g. >> racist and sexist) expectations. To even to begin to question >> these expectations requires having some power base, or safe space, >> to work from.> I think this is the "genius" of Trump's campaign and >> tenure... he > operates from his own (and often ad-hoc) Lexicon and that reported 39% > stable base of his seems happy to just rewrite their own dictionary to > match his. That seems to be roughly Kellyanne's and Sarah's only > role (and skill?), helping those who want to keep their dictionaries > up to date with his shifting use of terms and concepts up to date.> It has > been noted that Trump's presidency has been most significant > for helping us understand how much of our government operates on norms > and a shared vocabulary. He de(re?)constructs those with virtually > every tweet. While I find it quite disturbing on many levels, I also > find it fascinating. I've never been one to take the media or > politicians very seriously, but he has demonstrated quite thoroughly > why one not only shouldn't but ultimately *can't*.>> In this case, you assert > that some discussants are software engineers >> and that distinguishes them from your category. A discussant of that >> (accused / implied) type says he is not a member of that set and that >> it is not even a credible set. Another discussant says the activity >> of such a group is a skill and if someone lacks it, they could just >> as well gain it while having other co-equal skills too. So there is >> already reason to doubt the categorization you are suggesting.> I took >> Nick's point to be that the Metaphors that those among us who > spend a significant amount of time writing (or desiging) computer > systems is alien to him, and that despite making an attempt when he > first came here to develop the skills (and therefore the culture), he > feels he has failed and the lingua franca of computer (types, geeks, > ???) is foreign to him. Here on FriAM, I feel we speak a very rough > Pidgen (not quite developed enough to be a proper Creole?) admixture > of computer-geek, physics, sociology, psychology, linguistics, > philosophy, mathematics, hard-science-other-than physics, etc.> I sense > frustration in many of us when we try to talk about our > various topics of specialty (as amatuers or professionals) with our > significantly educated (but in other (sub)disciplines) lay-colleagues. > It seems that in the attempt to be more precise or to make evident our > own lexicons for a particular subject that we end up tangling our webs > in this tower of Complexity Babel (Babble?) we roam, colliding > occasionally here and there.> - Sieve >> >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at >> cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe >> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back >> to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC >> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove> >> ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove Links: 1. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kellyanne-conway-embarrasses-cnns-jim-acosta-during-heated-exchange
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
