Steve,
I mentioned the Bellamy Clubs then and now, solely as an example of spontaneous
generation of hundreds of local groups to talk about the future. I mentioned
before I taught a class with Bellamy's grandson who was writing a biography and
i was told many a story about the clubs and their evolution.
First, they were a self-organized, spontaneous, emergent phenomena. Not
sponsored, not directed, just one neighbor talking to another, "say have you
read this?"
It seems inevitable, and it was the case that the clubs became "organized" and
the discussion "formalized" which killed the whole thing. Bellamy was appalled
by the eventual "findings" of the club and distanced himself from them. And of
course they dissipated as fast as they arose.
If the generative phase of the clubs were to be replicated, it would probably
have to be on-line somehow and how you would prevent the discussion from
prematurely settling on a variation of the current general political discussion
instead of fully exploring alternatives — I have no clue.
davew
On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 9:31 AM, Steven A Smith 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 University
>>>>> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>>>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <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> 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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