Hi, Dave n all,
"Outlook" has collapsed leaving me in gmail, which I don't understand.. So
forgive me if... etc.
The thunder lightening thing is both apt and strange, because of course
nothing is possible between lightning and thunder EXCEPT that it is going
to thunder. CF living in SFO or Seattle. You've seen the lightening,
folks! "One banana,.... two bananas.....three bananas ….." Yet I still
like the aphorism.
By the way, how many people on this list have heard the expression, "Red,
Right, Returning" and know to what it refers.
Ach! I don't know how you all tolerate this interface.
Nick
On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 9:31 AM Steven A Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote:
> Dave -
>
> I do remember your reference to the Bellamyists and probably wrote a
> long-winded (well-over 300) commentary which I then deleted.
>
> What I remember of that (my aborted response) was somewhat reactionary to
> Utopianism and Nationalism. In the spirit of productive optimism, I
> realize(d) my reactionaryisms was maybe not very productive. I don't want
> to devolve into the splitting of hairs we are so fond of here in this forum.
>
> With that caveat... I am struggling against those two things I impute to
> what little I know of "the Bellamyists". "One (hu)man's Utopia is
> another's Dystopia". And. "Nationalism is (dangerously) out-of-scale
> Tribalism".
>
> I guess I would ask why such a grandiose scale structure would need to be
> put in place? Would not an emergence from discussions among small groups
> (such as the threads on FriAM) not be a more practical and perhaps "safer"
> route? Is such a structure/container required, or perhaps it might be
> inevitable? But then it would not be Bellamyists, but rather DaveWestist?
>
> With that in mind... perhaps it is worth discussing the Bellamyites
> primary focus (as claimed in the Wikipedia Article that is my only source)
> of "nationalizing industry". That seems to be what the Left is leaning
> toward... or at least regulating/taxing industry at the federal level to
> the point that it IS effectively nationalized? What is the Right's
> version of that? In the spirit of NeoLiberalism and free-markets of
> which the Right is most fond, nationalization is anathema.
>
> And yet, it seems that the "free market" is best at innovation... and once
> an industry has been commodified, perhaps the next step IS to
> nationalization. There might have been a time when gasoline stations had
> something significantly different to offer, one from the other, but even
> the detergents and oxygenators seem to have become pretty standard(?lame
> assertion?) and the only difference is how big is the big-gulp soda in the
> convenience store, is it filled from the Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola pantheon
> and are more triggered by a giant yellow clam-shell logo or a green baby
> brontosaurus?
>
> I'm entirely with you on the diversity of foodstuffs referenced
> earlier... but IF/When I'm going to feed from the same trough of the same
> hybrids as my fellow piggies, why put so many different (or any?) labels on
> them? And then why not plant your own garden with seeds exchanged with
> friends and neighbors, localized to your conditions, and buy/trade what you
> can't grow from small (tiny) farms within a short drive (walk)?
>
> And I agree on the liminal, though I see liminality everywhere at all
> scales, like the fractality of an estuary and this moment is more acute and
> offering/demanding more focused/proaction? If we did live in our everyday
> liminality more-better, then this would just be an extrema(ish) of scale...
> but since we (mostly) don't, it feels like a change in quality in it's
> quantity. There I go, splitting hairs?
>
> - Steve
>
>
> Steve,
>
> This *should* be a time between lightning and thunder, liminal, a time
> "when all things are possible."
>
> I would love to be optimistic, even guardedly,
>
> Prerequisite, perhaps, is for everyone to accept Hywel's dictum, "Ah, but
> it is more complicated than that" coupled with a heady dose of agonizing
> reappraisal of one's unexamined positions. Healthy doses, of "you have a
> point," "errors were made," "our ontology should incorporate those
> distinctions," etc.
>
> A while back I spoke of the Bellamy Clubs as a social / civic/ phenomenon
> focused on a "constructive way forward." Something of that sort would be
> required to instantiate your optimism.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 7:14 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>
> Dave, et al -
>
> These are fecund times. The time between the lightning and the thunder -
> "when all things are possible". Or maybe, if you have a more apocalyptic
> bent, the beginning of the "end of times". William Gibson's "Jackpot"
> perhaps (to be more ambiguous).
>
> I think Churchill tried on (in oratorial style):
>
> "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But
> it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
>
> In closing your "trip report" a dozen posts back you referenced once
> again, the likelihood of a violent clash between Left and Right or Red and
> Blue as a next logical/likely step in the path we seem to be stumbling
> (shambling?) down right now.
>
> The recent (armed) protests at state capitals, demanding that the
> Governors "open up the state" do seem foreboding. An almost self-abusive
> desire to trigger a breakdown in social order.
>
> The (""*failing!!!!""* double-scare-quotes) New York Times opinion piece The
> America We Need
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-inequality-america.html>
> from 10 days ago (feels much longer in Corona Time) exposes one side of the
> challenge (how modern society/America has been failing) and a hopeful
> response (how this crisis could help galvanize us to become who we need to
> be collectively). I'd love to hear something from the Right with an
> equally constructive perspective. Maybe I just have my ear on the wrong
> rail but I only hear "boom or bust" talk from the Right.
>
> Living with one foot in each camp (Red and Blue) I believe that the divide
> we feel is on one hand very real, but on the other deliberately aggravated
> as a way to keep us in dynamic tension (or more simply pitted-against one
> another) while those with most power keep stirring us up and raking off the
> top. Red/Right sees the threat of government/wealthy/elite/??? one way
> while Blue/Left see what I think is roughly the same threat very
> differently. But it might very well be the very same threat, and the
> pointy end is designed to keep us divided.
>
> And lest we create a strong "other" to reject/resent/hate/fear: "We have
> met the enemy, and they is us".
>
> The deficit-hawk, small-government GOP has been building up a State like
> none before it, and while they (and the NRA) are encouraging their loyal
> followers to arm themselves to the teeth, double down on ammunition, all
> the while militarizing the police, loading them up with armored personnel
> carriers and fully-automatic weapons (opposite the citizen's semi-autos),
> and bullet-proof vests, helmets and shields to maintain overwhelming
> force. Meanwhile, the Dems might be trying to nurture us out of our
> dysfunction and misery, sometimes disabling us more in the process, and the
> wealthy on that side are raking their share off of that, elbow to elbow at
> the same trough.
>
> We ship our (two hybrid strains of tomato and two germ-lines of beef) food
> halfway across the country (add coffee, avocados and bananas - world) from
> agri-industry-chemical soaked feed-lots and (formerly) fertile valleys and
> plains, burning fossil fuels (not just in the machines, but to make the
> hyper-fertilizer now needed). Whether we shop at Trader Joes, or Whole
> Foods, or Bob's Butcher or just order up Trump Steaks, we HAVE built a
> house of cards which is bending under the weight of this pandemic.
>
> Why does it feel like a segment of the population just wants to knock it
> down?
>
> Is there a constructive route up and out of this mess? The pandemic has
> exposed a LOT more of the weaknesses in our economy/society as this current
> administration has exposed the weaknesses in our government. It seems
> like an opportunity to try to rebuild thoughtfully rather than "tear it
> down" or "patch it back the way it was".
>
> Guardedly Hopeful,
>
> - Steve (574)
>
>
> Nick,
>
> There is truth in what you say, but only a bit.
>
> I have certainly spoken as if "Science was a bunch of nasty people with
> vested interests acting in an exclusionary manner."
>
> Hyperbole.
>
> A better metaphor / analogy would be the way we have hybridized our food
> supply; e.g. 90 percent of all dairy cows have one of two bulls in their
> ancestry, there are one or two tomato hybrids, one or two strains of rice,
> wheat, corn, etc.
>
> This creates a huge vulnerability — a novel pest or disease and presto, no
> food supply.
>
> Now imagine that there are multiple species of investigation, thinking,
> knowledge.
>
> Since the Age of Enlightenment, the western world has been hell bent on
> hybridizing but one of them — Formalism (aka, roughly, Science).
>
> Yes, I believe that Formalism has attained such a privileged status that it
> tolerates no criticism and critics are "excommunicated" with prejudice.
>
> I would like to think of myself as someone interested in growing heritage
> tomatoes in my garden and marveling at the differences in taste and texture
> and finding very deep value from the use of them in culinary creations.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020, at 8:58 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> Dave,
>
> No, wait a minute! Thou slenderest me! For you, Science is a bunch
> of nasty people with vested interests. Science, on that understanding,
> has the power to exclude. For me, Science is a set of practices that
> lead to understandings of experience that endure the test of time. It
> is not the sort of thing that can exclude. If pot smoking in bubble
> baths leads to understandings that endure the test of time, then it is
> a scientific method. Something like that seemed to have worked for
> Archimedes.
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark UniversityThompNickSon2@gmail.comhttps://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf
> Of Prof David West
> Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2020 6:31 PM
> To: friam@redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of
> anthropological observtions
>
> Nick,
>
> I won't lose the argument, because I pre-believe that, IF alternative
> means with some kind of criteria for falsifiability and repeatability
> THEN they should be incorporated into that which is deemed "Science" —
> ergo there is no argument to lose.
>
> If there is an argument — and there is clearly a difference of opinion
> — it centers on the the issue of why Hermetic Alchemy, Acid
> Epistemology, Anthropological Thick Description, Ayurvedic Medicine,
> Adams' "rhetorical analysis" et. al. are, at the moment and for the
> most part, excluded from Science.
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020, at 5:28 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> Dave,
>
> You're going to lose this argument with me eventually, because any
> investigatory practice that works in the long run I am going to
> declare to be part of "the scientific method." So if you declare that
> discovery is enhanced by lying in a warm suds bath smoking pot, and
> you can describe a repeatable practice which includes that as a
> method, and that method produces enduring intellectual and practical
> structures such as the periodic table, then I will simply say, "That's
> science."
>
> I am not sure this works with my falsifiability schtik, but that must
> have been at least 4 hours ago. So "before lunch".
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University
> thompnicks...@gmail.com https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf
> Of Prof David West
> Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2020 5:07 PM
> To: friam@redfish.com
> Subject: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of
> anthropological observtions
>
> Consider three entities making 2016 political predictions and their
> predictions.
>
> 1- "cognoscenti" those citing poll data, Nate Silver (albeit as
> everyone notes, the citation was more interpretation than citation),
> pundits, et. al. — Trump, at various times, has 1/1000 to 1/3 chance of
> winning the election.
>
> 2- Scott Adams - Trump "very likely" will win to "almost certain" he will
> win.
>
> 3- davew - Trump will win.
>
> # 3 is a fool because he made no effort whatsoever to hedge his prediction.
>
> The first group used traditional polling, statistical modelling, etc.
> to come to their conclusions.
>
> Scott Adams used none of those methods/tools but, as described in his
> book — Win Bigly — the language and rhetoric analysis tools/techniques
> he did use.
>
> davew remains coy about how he came to his certainty.
>
> QUESTIONS: Are there different approaches, different avenues,
> different means, for acquiring "knowledge?" I am being vague here
> because I do not know how to make the question precise. But it would
> have something to do with different definitions of what is considered
> data and different techniques/tools for digesting that data to form
> conclusions — in this instance predictions.
>
> If there are different approaches, is a comparative analysis of them
> possible? desirable?
>
> Different approaches — useful in different contexts? How to determine
> appropriate contexts.
>
> Or, is there but one avenue to knowledge — Science — and all else is
> idiosyncratic opinion?
>
> Personally, I think there is use in pursuing this type of question and
> then using the answers / insights to makes sense of the multiple
> conversations concerning COVID and the response thereto.
>
> davew
>
>
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