date:20081006

Thus spake Steve Smith circa 10/06/2008 10:46 AM:
 That said, I'm not offering a better plan, though I agree that big campaign 
 contributions are a problem in almost every case.

But big campaigns (and big campaign contributions) are just a symptom of
non-local (big) government.  As long as we have a single government that
governs 3.5 million square miles, we will have complex laws with lots of
loopholes and aggressive special interests who drive campaigns (with money).

The problem, in my view, lies with the way government accumulates upward
to a peak.  Granted, we have a decent system so that government
accumulates upward to 3 (or 4, if you include the free press) peaks.
But, it's still going from 300 million humans and 3.5 million mi^2 up to
3 peaks and 68 mi^2.

I would suggest that the myriad problems with our government don't lie
in any one identifiable cause, but are instead peppered throughout the
accumulation... the way household government accumulates to neighborhood
associations, villages, cities, counties, states, feds, etc.

I'm totally ignorant of political science; but I wonder how much
coherent work is out there on various objective-satisficing methods for
accumulating government?  I'm not talking about silo'ed research like
methods of state government or methods of county government, but
methods for accumulating all the way up from (psychological)
self-government of the individual to President, Congress, and the
courts.  Surely there exists some (by now, half-insane) systems theory
people out there who've been ranting about this sort of accumulation, eh?

-- 
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com



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Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance


glen e. p. ropella wrote:

As long as we have a single government that
governs 3.5 million square miles, we will have complex laws with lots of
loopholes and aggressive special interests who drive campaigns (with money).
  
Special interests with money would then just have to exert less energy 
manipulating any given local government.  Without an encompassing 
government, there's no ready mechanism for enforcing regulation or a way 
to force large companies to break into pieces.

I would suggest that the myriad problems with our government don't lie
in any one identifiable cause, but are instead peppered throughout the
accumulation... 
Likewise for the inefficiencies in any large organization, whether it be 
a company, church, etc.


Marcus




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Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

To add to that, there seems to be a large institutional push for business
and political funded mercenary scientific research to create uncertainty
about legitimate science.   A comment on David Michaels' in book Doubt is
their product is in the 9/27 Science News sums it up.  It's 1100 references
and other resources are on the SKPP website www.defendingscience.org.   I
also got a note from regarding the equally suspicious bloging of 'peer
reviewed' papers reported on in The Economist User-generated science Sep
18th 2008 print edition on Web 2.0 tools for it as a new horizon for of
speedy (and maybe thoughtless) research.

Phil

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
 Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
 Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 1:50 PM
 To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
 Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E
 
 Steve Smith wrote:
  The point of my talk of ignorance (willful and otherwise) is that to
  the extent we are complicit in our own problems, we *do* have the
  ability to retrieve some of our power from those we have given it to
  out of our own *willful ignorance*.
 Good rant.  :-)
 
 I''ll only add that power is not claimed by not being snowed by the
 misrepresentations of those having power.   It's also necessary to
 organize resources to influence those in power.  Folks like Sarah Palin
 recognize that information is a weapon (e.g. see her recent incredible
 remarks about Bill Ayers), but don't otherwise need to be limited by
 whether information is true in context.   Similarly corporate lobbyists
 are effective at influencing government, but that too is about action
 first and truth second.
 
 Marcus
 --
 It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight
 in the dog. -- Mark Twain
 
 
 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




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Re: [FRIAM] Effective government; was: Willful Ignorance

2008-10-06 Thread Russ Abbott

I see this as involving two fundamental issues: governing a commons and
group effectiveness.

- There is a lot of current work on governing a commons. The best known
name is Elinor
Ostromhttp://www.google.com/url?sa=tsource=webct=rescd=1url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cogs.indiana.edu%2Fpeople%2Fhomepages%2Fostrom.htmlei=kl7qSKfcIYKmsAOkmoWTCgusg=AFQjCNEEFEFbt30d32Ibv1TgyvczfMdnlQsig2=8fhZnTEsFKK8xjiMcA-32Q.

- The issue of groups, their effectiveness, how evolution selects on
groups as well as on individuals has been studied (and publicized) most
recently by David Sloan
Wilsonhttp://www.google.com/url?sa=tsource=webct=rescd=1url=http%3A%2F%2Fevolution.binghamton.edu%2Fdswilson%2Fei=3V7qSKWKM4KMsAPe87SZCgusg=AFQjCNEh5yajO931TbTPBmgv0J8AtID1igsig2=5tuzmrB21Zn2jzOw4BBoNw
.

Both of these issues are extraordinarily important. They are both relevant
to effective government. But they don't offer simple one-line solutions.

-- Russ

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 11:04 AM, glen e. p. ropella
[EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote:

Thus spake Steve Smith circa 10/06/2008 10:46 AM:
That said, I'm not offering a better plan, though I agree that big
campaign
contributions are a problem in almost every case.

But big campaigns (and big campaign contributions) are just a symptom of
non-local (big) government. As long as we have a single government that
governs 3.5 million square miles, we will have complex laws with lots of
loopholes and aggressive special interests who drive campaigns (with
money).

The problem, in my view, lies with the way government accumulates upward
to a peak. Granted, we have a decent system so that government
accumulates upward to 3 (or 4, if you include the free press) peaks.
But, it's still going from 300 million humans and 3.5 million mi^2 up to
3 peaks and 68 mi^2.

I would suggest that the myriad problems with our government don't lie
in any one identifiable cause, but are instead peppered throughout the
accumulation... the way household government accumulates to neighborhood
associations, villages, cities, counties, states, feds, etc.

I'm totally ignorant of political science; but I wonder how much
coherent work is out there on various objective-satisficing methods for
accumulating government? I'm not talking about silo'ed research like
methods of state government or methods of county government, but
methods for accumulating all the way up from (psychological)
self-government of the individual to President, Congress, and the
courts. Surely there exists some (by now, half-insane) systems theory
people out there who've been ranting about this sort of accumulation, eh?

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

Well, where do you put inherited 'willful ignorance'?  That kind is sort
of 'built in'.

 

There are two of these that my work repeatedly runs into and I fail to find
a way around.One is the evident fact that the active parts of nature
develop locally and have their own local reactions to intruding impacts from
other active parts of nature, and that that just does not correspond with
the concept of everything being determined by its environment.  Yet most
scientists still remain focused on the inherited fascination with explaining
what the determinants are. The other is how everyone who has it pointed
out seems to acknowledge that a system for endless multiplication of wealth
is a threat to everything people need and care about, but then say they're
trying to ignore it to try to get along..

 

Phil 

 

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf
Of Steve Smith
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 10:52 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

 

Dale -



 
I think you're being too generous.  I'm afraid that many fall into a
category I'll call Maliciously aware. 

Willful Ignorance, in my vernacular is a dual of Malicious Awareness.
Just as most good physical comedians and rodeo clowns have to be really,
really good, to be that bad, Willful Ignorance is grounded in Malicious
Awareness.





Greenspan *had* to know that he was presiding at a series of dedications of
a house of cards (Willfully pretending ignorance).


 
Here you seem to agree that true ignorance may not be the issue.

Again, I use Willful Ignorance in the same sense (mod subtleties) as you use
Maliciously Aware.   The difference is that it is the *affectation of
ignorance* that makes it work.  



  We
have a system where certain players can reap short-term gains without
being held accountable for long-term losses.  I'm sure there are
individuals on this list with more game-theory or behavioral-incentive
knowledge that could elucidate the mechanisms better than I.
  

Yes, and it is not surprising that we would evolve personality types to
fill this niche.  I think we've had such in our midst at least as long as
we've not been nomadic.   My personal belief is that survival units of
wandering tribe are at least selected for enlightened self interest at
the band level.   At the scale we currently operate, I think it is at least
(very) very hard for us to recognize enlightened self interest, much less be
motivated to act on it.



 
The most frustrating part is that I simply don't know what can be done
about it and how I can help.  I can choose to act in what I believe is
a more moral way, guided by enlightened self-interest, but that
doesn't have much effect on the system as a whole.
  

I (and many here I am sure) share this frustration.  I certainly don't have
any answers but I do have a few caveats:  I believe that much of the power
of the worst offenders in our ruling class (political, economic, religious)
comes directly from an abuse of this very frustration in the rest of us.   I
believe that we have two basic operating modes,  Willfull Ignorance and
Enlightened Awareness.  We ourselves, can be willfully ignorant.   We
willfully seek out leaders who will promise us what we want to hear, what
feeds our greed and salves our fears, even when we know better.

Willful Ignorance, IMHO, is driven by the two great motivators of Greed
and Fear.   We constantly allow ourselves to be stampeded from one
unsustainable/untenable position to another because it suits the interest of
those who can extract profit from the massive movements (bull markets, bear
markets, war, etc.)  This is why our two party system doesn't really work.
They can play good cop/bad cop with us over and over again and we never
notice.   All the while, if something turns out badly they claim how could
we have known? but if it turns out well, they scream See! I told you so!
And until it all falls down on our heads, we lap it up like cream from a
saucer.

I was at a lecture by Noam Chomsky several years ago.  He was speaking on
some topic related to NAFTA and the packed house hung on his every word.  It
was held at UNM and the audience was about 30% students and 70% yuppies.
During the question and answer session, some poor schmuck stood up and
asked.  Can you recommend any 'Socially Responsible' Investments?
Chomsky paused for maybe 5 seconds which was an eternity as the audience all
leaned forward in their seats, held their breath, cocked their ears.  

When he finally spoke, a loud gasp went up.  Socially Responsible
Investment is a contradiction in terms.   I took his point to mean that
wielding and hoarding resources in an abstract form (stocks, bonds,
commodity futures, currencies, etc) is always fundamentally irresponsible.
The point of an investment is to increase in value relative to the market...
to get ahead, and it is quite possible that this type of getting

Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

The Matt Taibbi quote is an amazingly clear description of the dilemma of
minds that make sense of things by plugging in stereotypes of the real
world and so creating an imaginary one lacking internal conflicts.  The
error common to all such confusions seems to be discussing things in terms
of pictures in our heads without a reliable way of referring to any
independent reality people might consider. 

 

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf
Of Douglas Roberts
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 2:08 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

 

It was a good rant, wasn't it...

Since Steve saw fit to bring up willful ignorance, and Marcus, Sarah
Palin:  what do you want to bet that McCain's
creationist-the-world-is-6,000-years-old
gun-toting-I-can-see-Russia-from-my-window sidekick garners approximately
50% of the vote next month?

As Matt Taibbi said in his 'The Lies of Sarah Palin' interview with Rolling
Stone Magazine earlier this week:

Here's the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the
thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at
all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while
they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull
the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their
credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China
and Bangalore.

And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election
Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor
episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket.

And if she's a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed Middle American
archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant sized bag
of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the sizzlin' picante dust from his lips and
rush to the booth to vote for her.



You want to talk about willful ignorance?  Take a good look around you.

-- 
Doug Roberts, RTI International
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 11:49 AM, Marcus G. Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:

Steve Smith wrote:

The point of my talk of ignorance (willful and otherwise) is that to the
extent we are complicit in our own problems, we *do* have the ability to
retrieve some of our power from those we have given it to out of our own
*willful ignorance*. 

Good rant.  :-)

I''ll only add that power is not claimed by not being snowed by the
misrepresentations of those having power.   It's also necessary to organize
resources to influence those in power.  Folks like Sarah Palin recognize
that information is a weapon (e.g. see her recent incredible remarks about
Bill Ayers), but don't otherwise need to be limited by whether information
is true in context.   Similarly corporate lobbyists are effective at
influencing government, but that too is about action first and truth second.

Marcus
--
It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in
the dog. -- Mark Twain




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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

2008-10-06 Thread Parks, Raymond

Orlando Leibovitz wrote:
 Of course, the Supreme Court (the name now sounds surrealistic) has
 prohibited the following suggestion citing a violation of free speech
 but here it is anyway.

  Ah, therein lies the beauty of my suggestion.  By limiting
contributions to registered voters, I've eliminated corporate and union
backers from contributing (their members may do so).  This should get
past the Supremes because no-one not a voter can show a compelling
interest in the race.  Effectively, anyone not a voter in a particular
race would have no standing to sue.  Free speech is preserved for those
who should have it - and denied to those without standing.

-- 
Ray Parks   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Consilient Heuristician Voice:505-844-4024
ATA Department  Mobile:505-238-9359
http://www.sandia.gov/scada Fax:505-844-9641
http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:800-690-5288



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Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

2008-10-06 Thread Robert Cordingley

Someone wanted to know what we could do.  Well, to break the connection 
between money and power which I think is a core problem, nationwide, I'd 
start with:


Influence peddling:

   * Ban all Special Interest Groups.  Elected officials will have to
 listen to their electorate for guidance. SIGs limit freedom of
 speech of the person in the street and are non-democratic so can
 be declared unconstitutional.
   * Ban jiggory-pokery with redistricting, use geography and
 population densities
   * Eliminate term limits: find a good guy keep a good guy, vote the
 others out.
   * Require Federal funding of campaigns (as has been suggested) and State
   * Reduce the number of elected officials to those that count for
 political purposes: make the rest civil service career positions
 appointed by non-partisan processes.  You are a Judge because you
 know the law not the power brokers.  You are a Chief of Police
 because you've achieved great crime reduction goals etc.  Side
 benefit: short ballot papers and elections are more relevant to
 the voter.

On voting rights and polling

   * Register everyone to vote when they get a driving license.  You
 drive a lethal weapon: you vote. You vote in the district of your
 current DL address.

OR

   * Register everyone to vote when they submit their tax return.  You
 file taxes: you vote.   You vote in the district of your current
 tax return.

   * Registered party members are not allowed to vote in primaries of
 other parties.  Unregistered party members voting in primaries of
 a party become registered in that party for the next x months.
   * Make it illegal not to vote, punishable with $50 fine or,  give
 everyone $50 when they vote.  The rich can afford not to vote.
   * Use school bus routes and drivers to get everyone that has no
 transport to the polls.  Make polling-day a day-off-school or on a
 weekend.  Use schools as polling stations - give everyone one
 regular school meal for their time and their voting receipt! Side
 benefit: all parents see something about the local schools.
   * Open and close polling stations at the same universal time, for
 one 24 hour period.
   * Make it illegal for polling officials to be party officials.

and it probably goes on ... We might need a national voter registration 
database (o...tricky) and way more cooperation between different 
arms of government than we probably now have (ever more tricky).


Quick questions: What political animal does this make me?  How do I get 
started? Can someone model all this to see if it would make a difference?


Robert C


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Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

Well Russ, what if a group of scientists were to acknowledge that science
actually just seems to be descriptive after all..., and looking through the
holes one seems able to actually see signs of a physical world after all!
Than sort of 'emperor's new clothes' moment might be enough to turn
everyone's attention to value of self-critical thinking wouldn't it?!;-)

 

Phil

 

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf
Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 10:06 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

 

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:

So the first step is for each individual to accept their responsibility 
to think/speak critically at every opportunity.  The next step is to 
package such critical thinking inside an infectious wrapper so that 
it spreads across all humanity.


Yes, if it worked it would be wonderful. I'm  cynical enough to  doubt that
it would succeed. (1) I doubt that we can find a wrapper infectious enough
and (2) even if we did, I doubt that the population as a whole is capable of
the level of critical thinking that we need. (That's elitism, isn't it.) 

Demagoguery almost always seems to succeed. Can anything be done about that?
More discouraging is that advertising is cleaned up demagoguery. And
advertising will always be with us.

Just to be sure I knew what I was talking about (critical thinking?) I just
looked up demagoguery: impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions
of the populace.  

Prejudice and emotion will always be with us -- even the least prejudiced
and least a prisoner of their emotions.  Besides, without emotion, we can't
even make decisions. (That's clearly another discussion, but it's worth
noting.) 

So can we really complain about superficial prejudice and emotion when we
are all subject to it at some level?  

Perhaps the need is for self-awareness -- and even more for having a high
regard for self-awareness -- so that one can learn about one's prejudices
and emotions and stand back from them when appropriate.  Can we teach that?
(It helps to have good role models. Obviously we have had exactly the
opposite in our current president.)

Actually, though, a high regard for self-awareness might be easier to teach
than critical thinking. So perhaps there is hope. But the danger there is to
fall prey to melodrama.  It's not easy. I'll nominate Glen as a good role
model, though.  How can we make your persona more widely visible?

-- Russ


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Re: [FRIAM] Self-awareness

2008-10-06 Thread Russ Abbott

I'm sorry, Phil, I'm missing your point.  How does your comment relate to my
argument that self-awareness is a primary good and a possible way around the
difficulty most people have with critical thinking?

-- Russ

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Phil Henshaw [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  Well Russ, what if a group of scientists were to acknowledge that science
 actually just seems to be descriptive after all..., and looking through the
 holes one seems able to actually see signs of a physical world after all!
 Than sort of 'emperor's new clothes' moment might be enough to turn
 everyone's attention to value of self-critical thinking wouldn't it?!;-)



 Phil



 *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *On
 Behalf Of *Russ Abbott
 *Sent:* Sunday, October 05, 2008 10:06 PM
 *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
 *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E



 On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:

 So the first step is for each individual to accept their responsibility
 to think/speak critically at every opportunity.  The next step is to
 package such critical thinking inside an infectious wrapper so that
 it spreads across all humanity.


 Yes, if it worked it would be wonderful. I'm  cynical enough to  doubt that
 it would succeed. (1) I doubt that we can find a wrapper infectious enough
 and (2) even if we did, I doubt that the population as a whole is capable of
 the level of critical thinking that we need. (That's elitism, isn't it.)

 Demagoguery almost always seems to succeed. Can anything be done about
 that? More discouraging is that advertising is cleaned up demagoguery. And
 advertising will always be with us.

 Just to be sure I knew what I was talking about (critical thinking?) I just
 looked up demagoguery: impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions
 of the populace.

 Prejudice and emotion will always be with us -- even the least prejudiced
 and least a prisoner of their emotions.  Besides, without emotion, we can't
 even make decisions. (That's clearly another discussion, but it's worth
 noting.)

 So can we really complain about superficial prejudice and emotion when we
 are all subject to it at some level?

 Perhaps the need is for self-awareness -- and even more for having a high
 regard for self-awareness -- so that one can learn about one's prejudices
 and emotions and stand back from them when appropriate.  Can we teach that?
 (It helps to have good role models. Obviously we have had exactly the
 opposite in our current president.)

 Actually, though, a high regard for self-awareness might be easier to teach
 than critical thinking. So perhaps there is hope. But the danger there is to
 fall prey to melodrama.  It's not easy. I'll nominate Glen as a good role
 model, though.  How can we make your persona more widely visible?

 -- Russ


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[FRIAM] government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)

Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 10/06/2008 11:46 AM:
 Special interests with money would then just have to exert less energy
 manipulating any given local government.  Without an encompassing
 government, there's no ready mechanism for enforcing regulation or a way
 to force large companies to break into pieces.

Hmmm.  I think I disagree.  My first reaction is that mechanisms for
enforcing regulation don't have to be artificial or explicit.  In
other words, there may be ways of constructing very local government so
that aggregates of local governments have natural or implicit
mechanisms for enforcing regulations.  The same might be true for limits
to certain types of corporate size.

But my second reaction was that your response seems to indicate that you
inferred my suggestion objects to big government.  It doesn't.  My
suggestion is simply that the problems aren't _specific_ to any
particular level of government.  My suggestion is that the problem is
with the way government accumulates (or aggregates).

E.g. perhaps if state government was a direct, natural, cumulative
consequence (and _only_ a direct consequence) of city and county
government, it would still exist as a big government, recognizable and
identifiable, but then perhaps there would be many fewer loopholes,
nooks and crannies in the regulation and law through which its
co-evolutionary population (us humans) could fit.

 I would suggest that the myriad problems with our government don't lie
 in any one identifiable cause, but are instead peppered throughout the
 accumulation... 

 Likewise for the inefficiencies in any large organization, whether it be
 a company, church, etc.

True for any _artificial_ large organization.  But is it true for a
natural organization?  I tend to think no.  It seems to me that the
inefficiencies (loopholes, nooks, and crannies in the organization) of
an organism provide a capability for balancing the fuzzy distinction
between adaptive advantage and graceful failure.  To a large extent, the
more local the government, the more you see a similar balancing act.

The peppering of problems throughout the government stack seems to be
due to our crufty patchwork of explicit and naive applications at any
given level.  Perhaps we could come up with a set of integrative methods
that helped ensure that any given band-aide (a.k.a. legislation) we
applied would analyze downward and synthesize upward in a nice way.  Do
we do that already?  When we pass a law (that's not ramrodded through
like the Patriot Act or this $700b bailout), do we spend any time
analyzing it to see its effect on lower levels of government or
synthesizing it up to higher levels (UN?)?

-- 
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com



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Re: [FRIAM] government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)


glen e. p. ropella wrote:

My suggestion is that the problem is
with the way government accumulates (or aggregates).
  
Ok, like the nature of the legislative process or what is constitutional. 

E.g. perhaps if state government was a direct, natural, cumulative
consequence (and _only_ a direct consequence) of city and county
government, it would still exist as a big government, recognizable and
identifiable, but then perhaps there would be many fewer loopholes,
nooks and crannies in the regulation and law through which its
co-evolutionary population (us humans) could fit.
I expect capable, intelligent managers are a subset of the population. 
If a local government represents too small of a region, there won't be 
competent people available to run things.I've seen plenty of 
incompetence and outright corruption in local governments too.   
Allowing for some expensive mistakes (and expensive successes) may 
encourage people to pay attention and engage -- they have something on 
the line.


Marcus


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Re: [FRIAM] government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)

Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 10/06/2008 01:49 PM:
 I expect capable, intelligent managers are a subset of the population.
 If a local government represents too small of a region, there won't be
 competent people available to run things.

Good point.  However, a complement is that if you have a small enough
region, only those within that region can _possibly_ be competent enough
to run things.  A great example is an individual human.  If _you_ can't
manage your own mind/body, then nobody else has any hopes of doing it
either.

I've seen plenty of
 incompetence and outright corruption in local governments too.  
 Allowing for some expensive mistakes (and expensive successes) may
 encourage people to pay attention and engage -- they have something on
 the line.

Yes.  The beauty of local government is that it's easy to put someone in
charge and it's easy to remove them, too.  Sure, there's plenty of
corruption and incompetence at any level; but the degree of
accountability, installation, and removal scale, too.  Likewise, the
stakes for success and failure scale.

One reason for the nasty politics we see is this very scaling.  If
you've got someone in an aggregated seat of power, then a) it was
difficult for them to get there and b) it will be difficult to get them
out of there.  The trick is to find the critical spot in the hierarchy.
 And that usually turns out to be illegal behavior (based on nefarious
and ridiculous nooks and crannies of the law) or _disgrace_.  So, we
politick by calling people hypocrites, racists, or whatever epithet may
fit the bill because these control points trigger catastrophic collapses
of the inertial systems built up in the government hierarchy.  Of course
politics for heavily inertial aggregated government positions will hinge
on nasty cheap shots and sound bites.

As much as I hate the idea, we _need_ things like President Bush's
immunity from prosecution for decisions he made while doing his job.  We
need it to preserve the stability of the office in correspondence with
the amount of effort it took to put him in that office.

But what this leads one to (I think) is the conclusion that high office
should be pressed upon the unwilling rather than sought out by those who
want to hold that office.  Perhaps we should make it a requirement of
citizenship that you can be drafted into office when a jury of your
peers decides that you're the best person to fill that role?  Of course,
that would lead to an entirely different selection mechanism that would
encourage the occult jockeying for nomination, false modesty, etc.  But
I wonder how different (or how much worse) it could be than what we have
now?  It may even result in a brain drain where all the people at risk
for being drafted move to Canada or something to avoid being forced to
play President. ;-)

-- 
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com



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Re: [FRIAM] government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)


glen e. p. ropella wrote:

If _you_ can't
manage your own mind/body, then nobody else has any hopes of doing it
either.
  
But removing a brain tumor is beyond what I could do for myself.  I'm 
also not the best person to build a space shuttle or for that matter 
solve a city septic system problem. 



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Re: [FRIAM] government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)

Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 10/06/2008 02:36 PM:
 But removing a brain tumor is beyond what I could do for myself.  I'm
 also not the best person to build a space shuttle or for that matter
 solve a city septic system problem.

Cute. [grin]  But you're not talking about management, there.  You're
talking about execution.  You _are_ the best person to determine whether
or not you _need_ a tumor removed from your brain (regardless of how
much an elitist M.D. might tell you otherwise).

As for the much larger issues of space shuttles or septic systems, it is
best to have a citizen of the city solve city septic problems.  And it
is best to have someone from the space shuttle affected regions to
decide the when/where/who of building a space shuttle.  The trick with
those large region affecting decisions, of course, is how does one pick
amongst many candidates from the region?

But I certainly would not recommend drafting a person born, reared, and
living in Milwaukie to make decisions about Los Angeles' septic system,
because that increases the chances that externalities will be ignored
(because the decision maker is out of context, abstracted, ignorant).

-- 
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com



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[FRIAM] Good, Evil and the Persistence and Treatment of Fools

2008-10-06 Thread Peter Lissaman

It is certainly unreasonable to expect people to behave rationally, especially 
when most of them claim to believe in a God who somehow judges and punishes!
Well, one must admit that in the END there is retribution for most BAD acts - 
the clever thing is that it is usually the innocent who are punished. Indeed, 
He doth move in mysterious ways!!!But, but, but, all is not hopeless, it is 
for inspired leaders to fool the fools into doing good things; as exemplified 
by Augustus, Churchill, Roosevelt (III) and Kennedy.
Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures
Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for.
1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505
TEL: (505) 983-7728 FAX: (505) 983-1694
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Re: [FRIAM] government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)


glen e. p. ropella wrote:

But you're not talking about management, there.  You're
talking about execution.  You _are_ the best person to determine whether
or not you _need_ a tumor removed from your brain (regardless of how
much an elitist M.D. might tell you otherwise).
  
If a community doesn't access to people with the skills to effectively 
solve a problem, then the problem won't get solved.  Management is just 
one skill set. 

I could have a brain tumor that's just a lump of harmless gunk, or one 
that was likely to kill me, or one that would be likely to kill me, but 
intervention will only kill me sooner.  The `management' decision I can 
make is basically limited to how many opinions I can get or how much 
research it's feasible for me to do in a short amount of time.   It's 
parameterized by my desire for quality of life over a certain amount of 
time and tolerance for risk.   The medical advice drives the decision 
and in this sense, the decision is made for me.

And it
is best to have someone from the space shuttle affected regions to
decide the when/where/who of building a space shuttle.
Here again, the benefits of developing a space program are intangible to 
many, yet hugely valuable in the end.   The car salesman that didn't 
want his taxes going to (frivolously) a send a man to the moon, doesn't 
connect the fact that 45 years later she is watching DirectTV thanks to 
that leadership and the national aggregation of wealth that facilitated 
it.  

The most real stuff there is comes from sustained developed of theory 
and technology, and that often takes real money, beyond what local 
communities can fund.



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Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

Robert,

You complain about the dominance of money??How about adding a way to cap
the compounding of unearned income somewhere below infinity.? I can only
model the negative image of that, what can't happen if that's not done,
though.   Very few people are exploring the consequences of making money
finite and sustainable that way.

 

Phil

 

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf
Of Robert Cordingley
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 3:26 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

 

Someone wanted to know what we could do.  Well, to break the connection
between money and power which I think is a core problem, nationwide, I'd
start with:

Influence peddling:

*   Ban all Special Interest Groups.  Elected officials will have to
listen to their electorate for guidance. SIGs limit freedom of speech of the
person in the street and are non-democratic so can be declared
unconstitutional.
*   Ban jiggory-pokery with redistricting, use geography and population
densities
*   Eliminate term limits: find a good guy keep a good guy, vote the
others out.
*   Require Federal funding of campaigns (as has been suggested) and
State
*   Reduce the number of elected officials to those that count for
political purposes: make the rest civil service career positions appointed
by non-partisan processes.  You are a Judge because you know the law not the
power brokers.  You are a Chief of Police because you've achieved great
crime reduction goals etc.  Side benefit: short ballot papers and elections
are more relevant to the voter.

On voting rights and polling

*   Register everyone to vote when they get a driving license.  You
drive a lethal weapon: you vote. You vote in the district of your current DL
address.

OR 

*   Register everyone to vote when they submit their tax return.  You
file taxes: you vote.   You vote in the district of your current tax return.


*   Registered party members are not allowed to vote in primaries of
other parties.  Unregistered party members voting in primaries of a party
become registered in that party for the next x months.
*   Make it illegal not to vote, punishable with $50 fine or,  give
everyone $50 when they vote.  The rich can afford not to vote.
*   Use school bus routes and drivers to get everyone that has no
transport to the polls.  Make polling-day a day-off-school or on a weekend.
Use schools as polling stations - give everyone one regular school meal for
their time and their voting receipt! Side benefit: all parents see something
about the local schools.
*   Open and close polling stations at the same universal time, for one
24 hour period.
*   Make it illegal for polling officials to be party officials.

and it probably goes on ... We might need a national voter registration
database (o...tricky) and way more cooperation between different arms of
government than we probably now have (ever more tricky).

Quick questions: What political animal does this make me?  How do I get
started? Can someone model all this to see if it would make a difference?

Robert C


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Re: [FRIAM] Good, Evil and the Persistence and Treatment of Fools

2008-10-06 Thread Douglas Roberts

Oh, good.  First politics, now religion.  *Somebody's* gonna get pissed off.

But hey, it's God's will.

Actually, I think religions (like Scientology, for example -- one of my
personal favorites) are great!  When you discover  what particular flavor of
religion someone subscribes to, you suddenly know a lot more about that
person than you did before, and that knowledge can be quite useful.  Of
course, a second tier of intel is required for full understanding.  Such as,
is the person of interest a true believer or has he joined the religious
group for reasons of personal advancement?

I met a guy at a conference earlier this year who wore Mormon Underwear to a
job interview in Salt Lake City.  He got the job.  He stopped wearing the
underwear.  Claimed religious bias when they tried to fire him.  Walked a
way with a healthy settlement.  Clever.

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 3:56 PM, Peter Lissaman [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote:

   It is certainly unreasonable to expect people to behave rationally,
 especially when most of them claim to believe in a God who somehow judges
 and punishes!Well, one must admit that in the END there is retribution
 for most BAD acts - the clever thing is that it is usually the innocent who
 are punished. Indeed, He doth move in mysterious ways!!!But, but, but,
 all is not hopeless, it is for inspired leaders to fool the fools into doing
 good things; as exemplified by Augustus, Churchill, Roosevelt (III) and
 Kennedy.


What!? Not Bush?


 Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures

 Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for.

 1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

 TEL: (505) 983-7728 FAX: (505) 983-1694


 
 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
 Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)

Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 10/06/2008 03:28 PM:
 If a community doesn't access to people with the skills to effectively
 solve a problem, then the problem won't get solved.  Management is just
 one skill set.

But, this is precisely the problem, not the solution.  This abstraction
away from the fully embedded _human_ to idealistic skill sets is the
problem.  It's what leads us to hire experts and then remove them from
their proper context and place them in positions where they do
unimaginable and unforeseen harm (or good).  E.g. GW Bush, who, in his
context, is probably a great asset.  But taken out of his context, he's
extremely dangerous.

I am not a set of skills. [grin]  (To be spoken in the same tone as I
am not a number!  I am a free man!)

 I could have a brain tumor that's just a lump of harmless gunk, or one
 that was likely to kill me, or one that would be likely to kill me, but
 intervention will only kill me sooner.  The `management' decision I can
 make is basically limited to how many opinions I can get or how much
 research it's feasible for me to do in a short amount of time.   It's
 parameterized by my desire for quality of life over a certain amount of
 time and tolerance for risk.   The medical advice drives the decision
 and in this sense, the decision is made for me.

No.  The decision is _never_ made for you.  If it is ... well, if you
give up that responsibility ... hand it over to someone else,
particularly an algorithm, ... well, then you deserve what you get, I
suppose.

 And it
 is best to have someone from the space shuttle affected regions to
 decide the when/where/who of building a space shuttle.

 Here again, the benefits of developing a space program are intangible to
 many, yet hugely valuable in the end.   The car salesman that didn't
 want his taxes going to (frivolously) a send a man to the moon, doesn't
 connect the fact that 45 years later she is watching DirectTV thanks to
 that leadership and the national aggregation of wealth that facilitated
 it. 

That's true.  However, you seem to be implying that DirectTV is a good
thing.  I agree that unforeseen consequences _can_ be good things.  But,
I don't think they are always good.  There's just as many bad unforeseen
things that come from big government programs like the space shuttle as
there are bad unforeseen things.

The question is, do the good unforeseens outweigh the bad?  And how
would we go about measuring such without the continual hindsight bias
(those who were for it are biased to filter out the bad and those who
were against it are biased to filter out the good)?

 The most real stuff there is comes from sustained developed of theory
 and technology, and that often takes real money, beyond what local
 communities can fund.

No.  The most real stuff comes from real action... embedded action in a
context.  Theory (and all inference, thought, etc.) _can_ guide action
to create more good than bad, in my opinion.  But ultimately, unless and
until we have some relatively objective way to measure good and bad
(ultimately a religious or moral judgement), that's all a wash and
there's no evidence that theory guides action to good or bad outcomes.

The best we can do is measure whether theory leads more effectively and
efficiently to the achievement of some objective (discounting
externalities).  That's what we're doing now (though we could do it
better).  But it doesn't handle the externalities that can be handled by
ensuring every decision-maker is embedded in the context of those
decisions. ... i.e. local government...  i.e. eat your own dog food.

-- 
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com



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Re: [FRIAM] Relaxed selection

Jochen,
That concept of alternating opportunistic and constrained developmental
phases, 'relaxed' then 'fierce' selection regimes, sounds like a statistical
version of the behavioral model that growth begins from minute beginnings in
an environment without constraint except itself.  When that kind of growth
exhausts its initially unlimited opportunities and runs into constraints
then integrating with an environment becomes the selective test.  That
switch from just freely expanding on the past to adapting in relation to
emerging future constraints corresponds to immature growth followed by
maturation at climax (¸¸.´¯¯) and their very different selection regimes.  

The behavioral 'trick' needed to make that statistical idea into a
functional description of a new mode of evolution is letting the system be
active partner and the environment a passive one.  If the system actively
explores its environment, just like you see virtually all living things are
visibly doing whenever they're not sleeping, then the form of the system
doesn't need to be present in the environment before the system develops.
That's always been the real undiscussed problem with the normal Darwinian
model.  It's that individual exploratory habit of a system that makes
opportunistic development such as Deacon describes physically possible.
That's what my plankton paper shows is happening with G. tumida, a series of
progressive evolutionary spurts and collapses on the way to the
stabilization of a new form, clear active individual behavior in a passive
environment.

Phil

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
 Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
 Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 3:34 PM
 To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
 Subject: [FRIAM] Relaxed selection
 
 One of the things I am interested in is how nature
 creatures complex things. The latest New Scientist
 (from 27 Sep. 2008) has an article named As if from
 nowhere about the topic of relaxed selection, a
 concept invented by Terry Deacon. Terry Deacon is
 an anthropology professor at Berkeley.
 
 According to Deacon, relaxed selection is a special
 form of natural selection, where the selection
 pressure and the competition is low (i.e. where
 natural selection itself is nearly absent), and the
 variety of traits which are able to survive and
 reproduce is high. When the selection pressures lift,
 genomes go wandering and new, unexpected traits may
 arise. I think if there is a relaxed selection,
 then one can also speak of a fierce selection:
 a natural selection with fierce competition when
 the climate is harsh and the food is sparse. Under
 this conditions only the best, well adapted individuals
 survive.
 
 Does natural selection occurs in different degrees?
 During relaxed selection, the system enters an
 exploration phase: the chances of finding new
 configurations, traits and features are higher.
 The selection pressure for a species to remain
 in the corresponding niche is lower.
 During fierce selection, the system enters an
 exploitation phase: chances of optimizing existing
 configurations, traits and features are higher.
 The selection pressure for a species to remain
 in the corresponding niche is higher.
 
 What do you think of relaxed selection ?
 Is Deacon onto something?
 
 -J.
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Re: [FRIAM] government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)


glen e. p. ropella wrote:

This abstraction
away from the fully embedded _human_ to idealistic skill sets is the
problem.  It's what leads us to hire experts and then remove them from
their proper context and place them in positions where they do
unimaginable and unforeseen harm (or good). 
If there are no meaningful way to talk about skill-sets then there isn't 
any meaningful way to talk about proper context.   Proper context is 
just a refinement of a skill-set, perhaps down to even 1 or 0 
individuals.   (The cookie and the cookie cutter.)  If that number is 0, 
then might as well start with the next closest apparent person (the one 
with the ill-defined `skill set').


A fully embedded human sounds like it might be important.  But is 
it?   I'd have the most optimism for a person with a track record 
solving similar problems as the one that needs to be solved.   That 
would suggest to me they've been *able* to become embedded.   I'm not 
denying there are situations where having detailed practical, 
historical, psychological context is important for making a productive 
contribution (e.g. some kinds of diplomacy, or human-resources 
problems), but when I hear that I'm immediately suspicious of 
organizational dysfunction.  


That's true.  However, you seem to be implying that DirectTV is a good
thing.  I agree that unforeseen consequences _can_ be good things.  But,
I don't think they are always good.  There's just as many bad unforeseen
things that come from big government programs like the space shuttle as
there are bad unforeseen things.
  
Yes, I would rather live in a world of unforeseen consequences driven by 
(universal) scientific curiosity than one driven only by local needs.  
Out on the farms, the lowest common denominator can get mighty low.

The most real stuff there is comes from sustained developed of theory
and technology, and that often takes real money, beyond what local
communities can fund.



No.  The most real stuff comes from real action... embedded action in a
context.  Theory (and all inference, thought, etc.) _can_ guide action
to create more good than bad, in my opinion.  But ultimately, unless and
until we have some relatively objective way to measure good and bad
(ultimately a religious or moral judgement), that's all a wash and
there's no evidence that theory guides action to good or bad outcomes.
  
I can certainly see that conservative governmental aggregation policies 
could lead to a more *stable* world, but I can't say that I am 
particularly interested in optimizing for that.  Also I said `real', as 
in a sufficiently good model of the world such that, say, an iPod plays 
music, or the DirectTV puts pictures on the screen, or the JDAM kills 
the terrorist.   Other kinds of model of control systems that are less 
interesting to me are those that concern advancing stable social 
configurations, esp. the ones that make claims about `good' and `bad' -- 
they seem to usually have the opposite outcome and destabilize.


Marcus


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Re: [FRIAM] government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)

Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 10/06/2008 04:33 PM:
 glen e. p. ropella wrote:
 This abstraction
 away from the fully embedded _human_ to idealistic skill sets is the
 problem.  It's what leads us to hire experts and then remove them from
 their proper context and place them in positions where they do
 unimaginable and unforeseen harm (or good). 

 If there are no meaningful way to talk about skill-sets then there isn't
 any meaningful way to talk about proper context.   Proper context is
 just a refinement of a skill-set, perhaps down to even 1 or 0
 individuals.   (The cookie and the cookie cutter.)  If that number is 0,
 then might as well start with the next closest apparent person (the one
 with the ill-defined `skill set').

I disagree.  Viewing proper context in terms of skill sets is merely one
way of cutting it up.  One can also view proper context in terms of
stands to gain or lose the most.  I.e. in terms of consequences.  And
I prefer to cut it up that way.  I want the decision to be made by the
person who will pay for a failure or benefit from a success.

This is an accountability based embedding as opposed to a capability
based embedding.

Of course, when I use the word embedding, I _intend_ to imply both
accountability and capability.  Ideally, the person who makes the
decision is _both_ the most capable and the closest to the consequences.
 But it's not an ideal world.  So, when compromise is necessary, I would
compromise on capability.  (I may be ignorant of how my motorcycle
works, but when _I_ try to fix it, at least it's _my_ bike that I break!)

Besides, it's better to focus on getting it right than it is to focus on
being right.  Nobody can _ever_ be perfectly capable.  But it's common
for someone to bear all (or seemingly all) the consequences of a decision.

No.  I reject the whole skills based decision making.  It's that
abstraction that is killing us.  People spending other people's money.
People investing other people's money.  People designing military
equipment that other people depend on for their lives.  Ugh.

 Yes, I would rather live in a world of unforeseen consequences driven by
 (universal) scientific curiosity than one driven only by local needs. 
 Out on the farms, the lowest common denominator can get mighty low.

[grin]  Well, _personally_ I agree.  But we're not talking about
anarchists and borderline anarco-capitalists.  We're talking about the
government for and by normal people who revere safety and convenience
(which they misname freedom).  And in that context, they prefer
predictability and a minimum of unforeseen consequences... even to the
point that they like and want fascism.

 I can certainly see that conservative governmental aggregation policies
 could lead to a more *stable* world, but I can't say that I am
 particularly interested in optimizing for that.  Also I said `real', as
 in a sufficiently good model of the world such that, say, an iPod plays
 music, or the DirectTV puts pictures on the screen, or the JDAM kills
 the terrorist.   Other kinds of model of control systems that are less
 interesting to me are those that concern advancing stable social
 configurations, esp. the ones that make claims about `good' and `bad' --
 they seem to usually have the opposite outcome and destabilize.

Yeah, again I agree, personally.  But that's not what this thread is
about, not really.  The thread is about how to build -- or constructive
criticisms of -- a government to gracefully handle things like
corruption, greed, and stupidity, which are permanent (and beautiful and
necessary, by the way) properties of humans.

And, in that sense, my claim is that the primary problem is the way
government accumulates (aggregates) up from the purely local to the
non-local.  In short, because we _don't_ design government to accumulate
nicely, and instead we patch in silo'ed band-aides at each level with no
regard to other levels, that we have the critical weaknesses we have.

Hence, if I'm right, then no amount of single level patchwork (e.g.
limiting campaign contributions or creating crisp party categorizations
of the population, etc.) will cure the disease.  It will only treat the
symptoms.

-- 
glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com



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Re: [FRIAM] government hierarchy (was Re: Willful Ignorance)