Re: [FRIAM] DEBATE about Religion and Atheism
On 9/26/2012 7:02 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote: But start at 1:54:00 and listen to the last three minutes and fourteen seconds, and give me your interpretation. Around 1:47:30 Dawkins makes remark about finding out the fact of the matter. And how passionate he was about it. This leads to Hitchens asserting that all religions are equally wrong, and that the menace of religion coming from the surrender of the mind I think an unstated psychological distinction is between `getting to truth Z' vs. `denying yourself truths A-Y'. To see anything like the truth in the natural world one must attempt to mask every bias and only to realize the truth will still be, even after extensive falsification, ambiguous. Having nothing nailed down is just more difficult and stressful. (Constrained views of the world apparently do make people happy -- http://pewresearch.org/assets/social/pdf/AreWeHappyYet.pdf .) But having the drive to some arbitrary Z has a psychological property seen in religion: belief without evidence. In this view, the surrender of the mind is also a sort of character weakness. Meanwhile, scientific culture even advocates pigheaded sloppiness known as the hypothesis. Hitchens goes on to talk about the distinction of offending one Muslim vs. a billion of them -- or rather why anyone would see the former as equivalent to the latter. It would be weakness to decide the merit of an idea based on the implied threats of an unthinking group; it's important to be prepared to go it alone. Just to prove he means it, he takes shots at more religions. (Mostly for dramatic effect, I'd say, but fair enough anyway.) Toward the end, what I think he's worrying about is the possibility that the greater (world) population just can't do without having some stupid fairy tale to stick to (and especially to stick to each other). Since he equates religious thinking to disease contagion, he clearly envisions a future where the fervent outnumber the sober. He only suggests one scenario, though. Part of what makes the U.S. government act is defense of secularism, the Constitution, and all that. Another part is that unleashed fervor is bad for business -- like when it involves valuable natural resources. Hitchens mentions the U.S. military as a likely appeal, but not other powerful secular actors of Asia that have their own interests to protect, and could be pretty nasty about it if they were so inclined. Recess is over -- now put down that book of holy words and get your lazy *ss down to the factory, would you? (I just knew globalization must have some benefit!) Marcus 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
Re: [FRIAM] WAS faith; IS NOW: Societal degeneracy?
Nick, Longer answer required than I have time for today - extremely busy at work. I'll send something out this evening. --Doug On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 11:02 PM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: Doug, ** ** At the risk of going all relativistic on you, WTF do you mean by Societal degeneracy? I take it you are NOT a pacifist. So, it’s not that gang members kill one another in defense of honor, or territory, or to control economic resources.After all, governments do that all the time, right? One of the things that is terrifying about gangs is how truly evolved they are. From the point of view of society at large, their flourishing is a DE-volution, but that’s a matter of yours (and my) affection for hierarchical integration. As social organizations go, they are pretty “evolved.” If the united states government were willing to spend the same sort of control to suppress gangs in your neighbor hood as it is to suppress gangs in Afganistan, I imagine they could clean things up pretty quick. Crikers, for what it costs to run the Afganistan war for a minute, they could have two soldiers with M-1’s standing outside every house in Espanola indefinitely, right? The problem is not THEIR degeneracy, but OURS. We are unwilling to assert our control over them. ** ** Nick ** ** *From:* friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Douglas Roberts *Sent:* Thursday, September 27, 2012 12:20 AM *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] faith ** ** The common theme, however, just to tie a bow on it, is societal degeneracy. On Sep 26, 2012 10:15 PM, Douglas Roberts d...@parrot-farm.net wrote:* *** I suspect that the more sensitive members of this list will think that my last message was unnecessarily pejorative with respect to gangs, and gang members. It would probably therefore be foolish of me to suggest including child-abusing priests, scientologists, and more than a few of the military industrial profiteers in the better off dead list. So I won't. Best to quietly just resume the scholarly discussions about faith. Don't you think? On Sep 26, 2012 10:03 PM, Douglas Roberts d...@parrot-farm.net wrote:* *** Still, irrespective of whomever coined that old fittest rubric, dead gang members are far more productive members of society than live ones, I suspect. On Sep 26, 2012 9:48 PM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: Darwinism only says that the least prolific will be eliminated. It says nothing about degeneracy, unless, of course profligacy is defined as “advanced.” Spencer was the social Darwinist, not Darwin. In fact, it was SPENCER, who coined “the survival of the fittest”, I believe. N *From:* friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Douglas Roberts *Sent:* Wednesday, September 26, 2012 9:03 PM *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] faith Well, speaking from my own (apparent) semi-unique perspective: Darwin's proposition of Survival of the Fittest would seem to scream out for the elimination of degenerate components of society which threaten to bring the entire species to total extinction. And, being an engineer, I cannot but cheer and encourage any activity that speeds the destruction of those destructive elements of society. Like gang conflicts, for example. And religion, for another. Not that there is much difference, really. --Doug On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 6:33 PM, Roger Critchlow r...@elf.org wrote: On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote: Tory - Why is the idea of two differing but synergistic approaches so challenging to so many on this list? Or are you arguing for the fun of the game? I'm pretty sure both the Monkey and the Weasel are in it for the endorphins released. I don't think I'm talking about two differing approaches. Some beliefs are so common that no one even thinks about them. Many people deny that they're beliefs at all. Other beliefs extend and explain and modify the common ones in different ways. But I say we're all believers on this bus, some are just more conscious of it. -- rec -- 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 -- Doug Roberts drobe...@rti.org d...@parrot-farm.net http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell FRIAM Applied Complexity Group
Re: [FRIAM] WAS faith; IS NOW: Societal degeneracy?
If the united states government were willing to spend the same
sort of control to suppress gangs in your neighbor hood as it is to
suppress gfngs in Afganistan, I imagine they could clean things
up pretty quick.
{Alien View]
The US Govt is exporting its neighborhood gangs to Afghanistan,
and importing back enough narcotics to sustain and perpetuate
those gangs
But you guys didn't invent it. The East India Company did it
for years with the opium trade to China.
Sarbajit
On 9/27/12, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote:
Doug,
At the risk of going all relativistic on you, WTF do you mean by Societal
degeneracy? I take it you are NOT a pacifist. So, it's not that gang
members kill one another in defense of honor, or territory, or to control
economic resources.After all, governments do that all the time, right?
One of the things that is terrifying about gangs is how truly evolved they
are. From the point of view of society at large, their flourishing is a
DE-volution, but that's a matter of yours (and my) affection for
hierarchical integration. As social organizations go, they are pretty
evolved. If the united states government were willing to spend the same
sort of control to suppress gangs in your neighbor hood as it is to
suppress
gangs in Afganistan, I imagine they could clean things up pretty quick.
Crikers, for what it costs to run the Afganistan war for a minute, they
could have two soldiers with M-1's standing outside every house in Espanola
indefinitely, right? The problem is not THEIR degeneracy, but OURS. We
are
unwilling to assert our control over them.
Nick
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On
Behalf
Of Douglas Roberts
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2012 12:20 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] faith
The common theme, however, just to tie a bow on it, is societal degeneracy.
On Sep 26, 2012 10:15 PM, Douglas Roberts d...@parrot-farm.net wrote:
I suspect that the more sensitive members of this list will think that my
last message was unnecessarily pejorative with respect to gangs, and gang
members. It would probably therefore be foolish of me to suggest including
child-abusing priests, scientologists, and more than a few of the military
industrial profiteers in the better off dead list.
So I won't.
Best to quietly just resume the scholarly discussions about faith.
Don't you think?
On Sep 26, 2012 10:03 PM, Douglas Roberts d...@parrot-farm.net wrote:
Still, irrespective of whomever coined that old fittest rubric, dead gang
members are far more productive members of society than live ones, I
suspect.
On Sep 26, 2012 9:48 PM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net
wrote:
Darwinism only says that the least prolific will be eliminated. It says
nothing about degeneracy, unless, of course profligacy is defined as
advanced. Spencer was the social Darwinist, not Darwin. In fact, it was
SPENCER, who coined the survival of the fittest, I believe.
N
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On
Behalf
Of Douglas Roberts
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2012 9:03 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] faith
Well, speaking from my own (apparent) semi-unique perspective: Darwin's
proposition of Survival of the Fittest would seem to scream out for the
elimination of degenerate components of society which threaten to bring the
entire species to total extinction.
And, being an engineer, I cannot but cheer and encourage any activity that
speeds the destruction of those destructive elements of society. Like gang
conflicts, for example. And religion, for another. Not that there is much
difference, really.
--Doug
On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 6:33 PM, Roger Critchlow r...@elf.org wrote:
On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote:
Tory -
Why is the idea of two differing but synergistic approaches so challenging
to so many on this list? Or are you arguing for the fun of the game?
I'm pretty sure both the Monkey and the Weasel are in it for the endorphins
released.
I don't think I'm talking about two differing approaches.
Some beliefs are so common that no one even thinks about them. Many people
deny that they're beliefs at all. Other beliefs extend and explain and
modify the common ones in different ways. But I say we're all believers on
this bus, some are just more conscious of it.
-- rec --
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
--
Doug Roberts
drobe...@rti.org
d...@parrot-farm.net
http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins
505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell
Re: [FRIAM] faith
Douglas Roberts wrote at 09/26/2012 09:03 PM: dead gang members are far more productive members of society than live ones, I suspect. And here I was worried I wouldn't get enough _hate_ in my diet today. -- glen 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
Re: [FRIAM] DEBATE about Religion and Atheism
Marcus - Very thoughtful summary and analysis. I *am* hopeful that the intelligentsia of the world (of the West?) can somehow reason their way through the world's problems to some solutions. We here (FRAIM-at-large) might be in some way a microcosm of that. My snide remark in response to Roger's (also thoughtful and insightful) analysis of the Dawkins/Hitchens/et alia thingy was in reaction to my fear that (as Roger puts it) appearing to all be reasonable men in fact they might actually be as fervently unthinking as those they are trying to fix. One theme of my chiding here (usually of Doug) revolves around a form of hypocrisy that I, at least, find somewhere between difficult and impossible to avoid. The epitome of this is intolerance of intolerance. It seems to be an example of Godel's Incompleteness. If there any intuitively obvious allowance for intolerance it would seem to be intolerance *of* intolerance, yet opening that door risks scope creep on our subjects of intolerance. The Irony of Hitchens and company declaring Jihad on Islam itself was too rich to skip over. I find your (Marcus') analysis here an antidote to my knee-jerk reasoning on the topic. Thanks for talking me off that ledge (if only incidentally). - Steve On 9/26/2012 7:02 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote: But start at 1:54:00 and listen to the last three minutes and fourteen seconds, and give me your interpretation. Around 1:47:30 Dawkins makes remark about finding out the fact of the matter. And how passionate he was about it. This leads to Hitchens asserting that all religions are equally wrong, and that the menace of religion coming from the surrender of the mind I think an unstated psychological distinction is between `getting to truth Z' vs. `denying yourself truths A-Y'. To see anything like the truth in the natural world one must attempt to mask every bias and only to realize the truth will still be, even after extensive falsification, ambiguous. Having nothing nailed down is just more difficult and stressful. (Constrained views of the world apparently do make people happy -- http://pewresearch.org/assets/social/pdf/AreWeHappyYet.pdf .) But having the drive to some arbitrary Z has a psychological property seen in religion: belief without evidence. In this view, the surrender of the mind is also a sort of character weakness. Meanwhile, scientific culture even advocates pigheaded sloppiness known as the hypothesis. Hitchens goes on to talk about the distinction of offending one Muslim vs. a billion of them -- or rather why anyone would see the former as equivalent to the latter. It would be weakness to decide the merit of an idea based on the implied threats of an unthinking group; it's important to be prepared to go it alone. Just to prove he means it, he takes shots at more religions. (Mostly for dramatic effect, I'd say, but fair enough anyway.) Toward the end, what I think he's worrying about is the possibility that the greater (world) population just can't do without having some stupid fairy tale to stick to (and especially to stick to each other). Since he equates religious thinking to disease contagion, he clearly envisions a future where the fervent outnumber the sober. He only suggests one scenario, though. Part of what makes the U.S. government act is defense of secularism, the Constitution, and all that. Another part is that unleashed fervor is bad for business -- like when it involves valuable natural resources. Hitchens mentions the U.S. military as a likely appeal, but not other powerful secular actors of Asia that have their own interests to protect, and could be pretty nasty about it if they were so inclined. Recess is over -- now put down that book of holy words and get your lazy *ss down to the factory, would you? (I just knew globalization must have some benefit!) Marcus 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
Re: [FRIAM] faith/Social Darwinism
Well, of course, the ultimate arrogance of the Social Darwinist/Eugenics movements was the belief that they knew who was fit, without ever investigating it. So far as I can tell, gang members are, in general, more fit than people in the same immediate environment who are not members of gangs. If you are trying to change the environment, so that some other set of phenotypes is more fit, you might well get annoyed that the gangs don't want their world changed, but that doesn't mean they are not well adapted to their circumstances. Think of any old western with a gang in it... prior to the wandering protagonist... who is doing better, the townspeople or the gang? Eric On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 11:53 AM, glen g...@ropella.name wrote: Douglas Roberts wrote at 09/26/2012 09:03 PM: dead gang members are far more productive members of society than live ones, I suspect. And here I was worried I wouldn't get enough _hate_ in my diet today. -- glen 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 Eric Charles Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 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
Re: [FRIAM] DEBATE about Religion and Atheism - modeling
Steve, This is, of course, the inherent weakness of the socially liberal position*, right? Either you become a hypocrite, or you must agree with your antagonist's right to passionately hate your ideas. The person arguing against you has no such handicap. The cards are thus stacked from the beginning against the maintenance of a tolerant society, and some decent amount of planning and effort is needed to keep things stable. Hey... that almost looks like something we could make a really good model of. You could certainly add several layers of real-world, empirically valid complexity on top of standard altruism models. Eric *The extra adjective is there because this is irrelevant to the financially liberal position. On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 12:37 PM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote: Marcus - Very thoughtful summary and analysis. I *am* hopeful that the intelligentsia of the world (of the West?) can somehow reason their way through the world's problems to some solutions. We here (FRAIM-at-large) might be in some way a microcosm of that. My snide remark in response to Roger's (also thoughtful and insightful) analysis of the Dawkins/Hitchens/et alia thingy was in reaction to my fear that (as Roger puts it) appearing to all be reasonable men in fact they might actually be as fervently unthinking as those they are trying to fix. One theme of my chiding here (usually of Doug) revolves around a form of hypocrisy that I, at least, find somewhere between difficult and impossible to avoid. The epitome of this is intolerance of intolerance. It seems to be an example of Godel's Incompleteness. If there any intuitively obvious allowance for intolerance it would seem to be intolerance *of* intolerance, yet opening that door risks scope creep on our subjects of intolerance. The Irony of Hitchens and company declaring Jihad on Islam itself was too rich to skip over. I find your (Marcus') analysis here an antidote to my knee-jerk reasoning on the topic. Thanks for talking me off that ledge (if only incidentally). - Steve On 9/26/2012 7:02 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote: But start at 1:54:00 and listen to the last three minutes and fourteen seconds, and give me your interpretation. Around 1:47:30 Dawkins makes remark about finding out the fact of the matter. And how passionate he was about it. This leads to Hitchens asserting that all religions are equally wrong, and that the menace of religion coming from the surrender of the mind I think an unstated psychological distinction is between `getting to truth Z' vs. `denying yourself truths A-Y'. To see anything like the truth in the natural world one must attempt to mask every bias and only to realize the truth will still be, even after extensive falsification, ambiguous. Having nothing nailed down is just more difficult and stressful. (Constrained views of the world apparently do make people happy -- http://pewresearch.org/assets/social/pdf/AreWeHappyYet.pdf .) But having the drive to some arbitrary Z has a psychological property seen in religion: belief without evidence. In this view, the surrender of the mind is also a sort of character weakness. Meanwhile, scientific culture even advocates pigheaded sloppiness known as the hypothesis. Hitchens goes on to talk about the distinction of offending one Muslim vs. a billion of them -- or rather why anyone would see the former as equivalent to the latter. It would be weakness to decide the merit of an idea based on the implied threats of an unthinking group; it's important to be prepared to go it alone. Just to prove he means it, he takes shots at more religions. (Mostly for dramatic effect, I'd say, but fair enough anyway.) Toward the end, what I think he's worrying about is the possibility that the greater (world) population just can't do without having some stupid fairy tale to stick to (and especially to stick to each other). Since he equates religious thinking to disease contagion, he clearly envisions a future where the fervent outnumber the sober. He only suggests one scenario, though. Part of what makes the U.S. government act is defense of secularism, the Constitution, and all that. Another part is that unleashed fervor is bad for business -- like when it involves valuable natural resources. Hitchens mentions the U.S. military as a likely appeal, but not other powerful secular actors of Asia that have their own interests to protect, and could be pretty nasty about it if they were so inclined. Recess is over -- now put down that book of holy words and get your lazy *ss down to the factory, would you? (I just knew globalization must have some benefit!) Marcus 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
Re: [FRIAM] DEBATE about Religion and Atheism - modeling
ERIC P. CHARLES wrote at 09/27/2012 09:56 AM: *The extra adjective is there because this is irrelevant to the financially liberal position. I'm not so sure that it is irrelevant. I tend to view the merchant, who just wants to do business and doesn't care about your other social positions, as the very foundation of social liberalism. The best way to maintain a speaking relationship with someone you otherwise might hate is to continue doing business with them. That bottom line is very similar to the realists' ultimate Truth and provides a horizon for a continual moral compass. Ultimately, the ability to make a buck is a compression of all the other things that keep us alive ... food, shelter, procreation, etc. When doctrinal delusions like promises of 72 virgins, our own planets, or Star Trek social equality interfere with our ability to make a buck ... well _that's_ when all hell breaks loose and we riot in the streets. Financial liberalism is the _trunk_ and social liberalism is the leaves. -- glen 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
Re: [FRIAM] DEBATE about Religion and Atheism - modeling
Glen - I'm not sure I have a conclusive position on this topic. But I do (surprise) have a few observations. I agree that commerce (especially in it's larger sense, embracing community and barter and things other than bucks) can be a valuable ingredient in stable society... What I personally am most worried about is the implications of the (true, but maybe unfortunate?) statement to make a buck is a compression of I believe that our reduction of the value of *everything* to currency is a lossy compression, and that what is lost may not be missed until it is too late. My touchstone for this is the difference between a buck as an I Owe You vs a You Owe Me. I believe that currency started as a normalized form of I Owe You's but that somewhere soon after the formation of that device, it became conflated with You Owe Me's. This is a subtle but crucial difference. Whenever I might purchase something (good or service), I don't presume that I have a *right* to that good or service simply because I have the price of it in my wallet. I take the signs in many establishments as sacred: We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. This might be a thinly veiled reference to the racial/cultural prejudices of yesterday, or to the individualist shop owner's assertion of their right to not have to deal with jerks... but it is a reminder to ME that any transaction is *more* than the exchange of $$ value. I think this observation supports your point. When you buy or sell something from/to someone, you also exchange something else much less tangible... it can be a building of trust... of understanding even perhaps? In this model, $$ are the needle pulling very ephemeral threads which ultimately weave a fine and strong fabric of community. Or so I like to think. - Steve ERIC P. CHARLES wrote at 09/27/2012 09:56 AM: *The extra adjective is there because this is irrelevant to the financially liberal position. I'm not so sure that it is irrelevant. I tend to view the merchant, who just wants to do business and doesn't care about your other social positions, as the very foundation of social liberalism. The best way to maintain a speaking relationship with someone you otherwise might hate is to continue doing business with them. That bottom line is very similar to the realists' ultimate Truth and provides a horizon for a continual moral compass. Ultimately, the ability to make a buck is a compression of all the other things that keep us alive ... food, shelter, procreation, etc. When doctrinal delusions like promises of 72 virgins, our own planets, or Star Trek social equality interfere with our ability to make a buck ... well _that's_ when all hell breaks loose and we riot in the streets. Financial liberalism is the _trunk_ and social liberalism is the leaves. 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
Re: [FRIAM] faith/Social Darwinism
It was a myth fostered by Hollywood that western towns were terrorized by criminal gangs. The townspeople were armed and as tough as the punks. Here is a notice that was posted widely in nearby Las Vegas, New Mexico: NOTICE! To thieves, thugs, fakirs and Bunko-Steerers, among whom are J. J. Harlin, alias “Off Wheeler;” SAW DUST CHARLIE, Wm Hedges, BILLY THE KID, Billy Mullin, Little Jack, The Cuter, Pock-Marked Kid, and about Twenty Others: If found within the Limits of this City after TEN O’CLOCK P.M., this Night, you will be Invited to attend a GRAND NECK-TIE PARTY, the Expense of which will be borne by 100 Substantial Citizens. Las Vegas, March 24th, 1882. Note that the “Billy the Kid” mentioned was not the famous William Bonney (alias Antrim) as he was killed in 1881. Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz Santa Fe, NM 87505 mailto:wimber...@gmail.com wimber...@gmail.com mailto:wimbe...@cal.berkeley.edu wimbe...@cal.berkeley.edu Phone: (505) 995-8715 Cell: (505) 670-9918 From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of ERIC P. CHARLES Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2012 10:46 AM To: glen Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] faith/Social Darwinism Well, of course, the ultimate arrogance of the Social Darwinist/Eugenics movements was the belief that they knew who was fit, without ever investigating it. So far as I can tell, gang members are, in general, more fit than people in the same immediate environment who are not members of gangs. If you are trying to change the environment, so that some other set of phenotypes is more fit, you might well get annoyed that the gangs don't want their world changed, but that doesn't mean they are not well adapted to their circumstances. Think of any old western with a gang in it... prior to the wandering protagonist... who is doing better, the townspeople or the gang? Eric On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 11:53 AM, glen g...@ropella.name wrote: Douglas Roberts wrote at 09/26/2012 09:03 PM: dead gang members are far more productive members of society than live ones, I suspect. And here I was worried I wouldn't get enough _hate_ in my diet today. -- glen 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 Eric Charles Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 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] dead fish wins igNobel
Like a smell in your refrigerator that won't go away, the fMRI study of empathy in dead salmon, http://www.jsur.org/v1n1p1, has resurfaced again to claim the 2012 igNobel prize for neuroscience. -- rec -- 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
Re: [FRIAM] DEBATE about Religion and Atheism - modeling
I agree that the compression is lossy. But it all depends on _what_ is lost. If the compression extracts the (an?) essence of basic human needs, then it's a good thing. It loses all the nonsense (e.g. delusional ideas of social equality kumbaya) and hones in on things like bread and water. I'm not sure the problems with it boil down nicely to a conflation of I owe you and You owe me. But they might. Some layers out, the problem I see with it is the difference between making a buck for basic needs vs. making bunches of bucks that will accrue to meet the basic needs of my descendants for millenia to come. I.e. the problems aren't with the compression so much as the misplaced value. And that point makes me think the problem is at a coarser layer than IOU vs YOM. Either of those notes seem benign. It's the lifetime of the note that is the problem. A good mnemonic for this is the word currency ... descended from current. I've often thought investments, assets, liabilities, etc. should be measured by a metric separate, orthogonal to the currency with which they were traded. I.e. perhaps we shouldn't be able to _own_ cash, at least not for very long. Most checks have a not valid after 90 days qualifier on them. That seems reasonable to me. As for your basic point, I agree completely that concrete exchanges, face 2 face, facilitate the exchange of intangibles, trust, understanding ... like boxers touching gloves before pounding each other into meat ... or an agreement not to shoot someone in the back ... nobility, honor, respect, etc. And the more abstract the currency, the less it facilitates this exchange of intangibles. Steve Smith wrote at 09/27/2012 10:55 AM: I agree that commerce (especially in it's larger sense, embracing community and barter and things other than bucks) can be a valuable ingredient in stable society... What I personally am most worried about is the implications of the (true, but maybe unfortunate?) statement to make a buck is a compression of I believe that our reduction of the value of *everything* to currency is a lossy compression, and that what is lost may not be missed until it is too late. My touchstone for this is the difference between a buck as an I Owe You vs a You Owe Me. I believe that currency started as a normalized form of I Owe You's but that somewhere soon after the formation of that device, it became conflated with You Owe Me's. This is a subtle but crucial difference. Whenever I might purchase something (good or service), I don't presume that I have a *right* to that good or service simply because I have the price of it in my wallet. I take the signs in many establishments as sacred: We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. This might be a thinly veiled reference to the racial/cultural prejudices of yesterday, or to the individualist shop owner's assertion of their right to not have to deal with jerks... but it is a reminder to ME that any transaction is *more* than the exchange of $$ value. I think this observation supports your point. When you buy or sell something from/to someone, you also exchange something else much less tangible... it can be a building of trust... of understanding even perhaps? In this model, $$ are the needle pulling very ephemeral threads which ultimately weave a fine and strong fabric of community. Or so I like to think. -- glen 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
Re: [FRIAM] dead fish wins igNobel
I don't get why this is an igNobel. The researchers are showing that the standard statistical tests used in fMRI studies give nonsensical results (namely, the dead salmon showed active voxel clusters in the salmon’s brain cavity and spinal column). In contrast, when they use their proposed correction, it didn't. Showing that the statistical methodology of an entire field is fundamentally flawed is a big deal. And given that this field is making its appearance in courtrooms ( http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100317/full/464340a.html) it is a *very* big deal. —R On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 12:30 PM, Roger Critchlow r...@elf.org wrote: Like a smell in your refrigerator that won't go away, the fMRI study of empathy in dead salmon, http://www.jsur.org/v1n1p1, has resurfaced again to claim the 2012 igNobel prize for neuroscience. -- rec -- 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
Re: [FRIAM] DEBATE about Religion and Atheism - modeling
Glen - I agree that the compression is lossy. But it all depends on _what_ is lost. If the compression extracts the (an?) essence of basic human needs, then it's a good thing. It loses all the nonsense (e.g. delusional ideas of social equality kumbaya) and hones in on things like bread and water. I don't find the golden rule (one variant of social equality?) exactly a delusional idea, though that is probably a thread unto itself. BTW, I'm not sure I think of this as a lossy compression as a dimension-reducing projection. Multiple transactions can be like multiple points of view projected from said high dimension, recovering some of what was lost (obscured) in any given transaction/POV. I'm not sure the problems with it boil down nicely to a conflation of I owe you and You owe me. But they might. I agree that they are not that simple... it was merely an illustration of what I consider to be one *obvious* problem with abstraction of value. Some layers out, the problem I see with it is the difference between making a buck for basic needs vs. making bunches of bucks that will accrue to meet the basic needs of my descendants for millenia to come. I.e. the problems aren't with the compression so much as the misplaced value. Agreed. In a true community, I would not sell my last egg during a famine to someone who was hoarding or scalping them to my neighbors, but rather to someone whose survival through the famine increased my own chance of survival (ideally through the increased health/survival of the whole network/community). In fact it is likely that I would not sell but gift such a precious nugget of protein/sustenance to the right member of a community as an ultimately selfish act. And that point makes me think the problem is at a coarser layer than IOU vs YOM. Either of those notes seem benign. If you have ever suffered the attentions (presence) of someone with too much money, you might not call the last one benign. There is nothing more offensive than someone whose spare change exceeds your net worth, tossing it around as if they can buy you, or your firstborn, or your soul with the flick of a pen... It is one of the worst things I find about first world tourists in third world countries, even without realizing it, dropping a months wages for someone in service class on a single meal for themselves. It is dehumanizing, even if it supports the tall pyramid of an extreme trickle-down economy. It's the lifetime of the note that is the problem. A good mnemonic for this is the word currency ... descended from current. I've often thought investments, assets, liabilities, etc. should be measured by a metric separate, orthogonal to the currency with which they were traded. I.e. perhaps we shouldn't be able to _own_ cash, at least not for very long. Most checks have a not valid after 90 days qualifier on them. That seems reasonable to me. Yes, the time-constant of abstracted IOU/YOM is an interesting feature... I suppose (hyper)inflation is a good antidote to this, though it moves one from being a saver to being a borrower or a lender, or worse yet, to adding absolutely nothing to the economy except the management/manipulation/speculation of loans. As for your basic point, I agree completely that concrete exchanges, face 2 face, facilitate the exchange of intangibles, trust, understanding ... like boxers touching gloves before pounding each other into meat ... or an agreement not to shoot someone in the back ... nobility, honor, respect, etc. And the more abstract the currency, the less it facilitates this exchange of intangibles. Yes, this is probably the most risky part of abstraction of value... the abstraction. - Steve 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
Re: [FRIAM] DEBATE about Religion and Atheism - modeling
In Stephen Pinker's recent book on the remarkable decline of violence, The Better Angels of our Nature, he makes a similar observation about the role of merchants, that they necessarily must practice empathy with respect to an ever-widening circle of people who go far beyond the emhathy one more easily feels for close kin. The merchant needs to practice the skill of being inside another's skin and understanding the Other. Pinker points out that we rarely give merchants and commerce the acknowledgement due their expansion of empathy. Bruce On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 11:14 AM, glen g...@ropella.name wrote: I'm not so sure that it is irrelevant. I tend to view the merchant, who just wants to do business and doesn't care about your other social positions, as the very foundation of social liberalism. The best way to maintain a speaking relationship with someone you otherwise might hate is to continue doing business with them. That bottom line is very similar to the realists' ultimate Truth and provides a horizon for a continual moral compass. Ultimately, the ability to make a buck is a compression of all the other things that keep us alive ... food, shelter, procreation, etc. When doctrinal delusions like promises of 72 virgins, our own planets, or Star Trek social equality interfere with our ability to make a buck ... well _that's_ when all hell breaks loose and we riot in the streets. Financial liberalism is the _trunk_ and social liberalism is the leaves. -- glen 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
Re: [FRIAM] faith
I, OTOH, was fairly certain I was going to encounter approximately the same amount as usual of, what do we call it? Pollyanna-like behavior: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollyanna_principle No, that's not quite right. Academic ivory tower elitism? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_elitism Well no, that doesn't quite capture all of it either. Although this one sentence comes fairly close to capturing the dietary element that abounds here on FRIAM: *Another criticism is that universities [substitute academics here for the purpose of my point] tend more to pseudo-intellectualism than intellectualism per se; for example, to protect their positions and prestige, academicians may over-complicate problems and express them in obscure language.* * * The Osterich Effect, but as applied to societal problems rather than economic ones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrich_effect Some combination of the above, perhaps. --Doug On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 9:53 AM, glen g...@ropella.name wrote: Douglas Roberts wrote at 09/26/2012 09:03 PM: dead gang members are far more productive members of society than live ones, I suspect. And here I was worried I wouldn't get enough _hate_ in my diet today. -- glen 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 -- Doug Roberts drobe...@rti.org d...@parrot-farm.net http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell 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
Re: [FRIAM] faith
It's a shame I stopped reading when I did on the wikipedia academic elitism link when I got to the nugget I was looking for, because *this* nugget is a real gem: Some observers argue that, while academicians often perceive themselves as members of an elite, their influence is mostly imaginary: Professors of humanities, with all their leftist fantasies, have little direct knowledge of American life and no impact whatever on public policy.[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_elitism#cite_note-2 Academic elitism suggests that in highly competitive academic environments only those individuals who have engaged in scholarshiphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholarly_method are deemed to have anything worthwhile to say, or do. It suggests that individuals who have not engaged in such scholarship are crankshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crank_(person). Steven Zhang of the Cornell Daily Sunhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Daily_Sun has described the graduates of elite schools, especially those in the Ivy Leaguehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League, of having a smug sense of success because they believe gaining entrance into the Ivy League is an accomplishment unto itself.[*citation neededhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed *] On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Douglas Roberts d...@parrot-farm.netwrote: I, OTOH, was fairly certain I was going to encounter approximately the same amount as usual of, what do we call it? Pollyanna-like behavior: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollyanna_principle No, that's not quite right. Academic ivory tower elitism? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_elitism Well no, that doesn't quite capture all of it either. Although this one sentence comes fairly close to capturing the dietary element that abounds here on FRIAM: *Another criticism is that universities [substitute academics here for the purpose of my point] tend more to pseudo-intellectualism than intellectualism per se; for example, to protect their positions and prestige, academicians may over-complicate problems and express them in obscure language.* * * The Osterich Effect, but as applied to societal problems rather than economic ones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrich_effect Some combination of the above, perhaps. --Doug On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 9:53 AM, glen g...@ropella.name wrote: Douglas Roberts wrote at 09/26/2012 09:03 PM: dead gang members are far more productive members of society than live ones, I suspect. And here I was worried I wouldn't get enough _hate_ in my diet today. -- glen 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 -- Doug Roberts drobe...@rti.org d...@parrot-farm.net http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -- Doug Roberts drobe...@rti.org d...@parrot-farm.net http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell 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
Re: [FRIAM] faith
Nice! That was, truly, a bizarre little screed. And although you don't get credit for writing any of it, there is plenty of value in the synthesis of others' ideas into something new. Congrats! Definitely worthy of your troll status. ;-) Douglas Roberts wrote at 09/27/2012 01:56 PM: It's a shame I stopped reading when I did on the wikipedia academic elitism link when I got to the nugget I was looking for, because *this* nugget is a real gem: Some observers argue that, while academicians often perceive themselves as members of an elite, their influence is mostly imaginary: Professors of humanities, with all their leftist fantasies, have little direct knowledge of American life and no impact whatever on public policy.[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_elitism#cite_note-2 Academic elitism suggests that in highly competitive academic environments only those individuals who have engaged in scholarshiphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholarly_method are deemed to have anything worthwhile to say, or do. It suggests that individuals who have not engaged in such scholarship are crankshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crank_(person). Steven Zhang of the Cornell Daily Sunhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Daily_Sun has described the graduates of elite schools, especially those in the Ivy Leaguehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League, of having a smug sense of success because they believe gaining entrance into the Ivy League is an accomplishment unto itself.[*citation neededhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed *] -- glen 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
Re: [FRIAM] faith
You're welcome. On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 3:52 PM, glen g...@ropella.name wrote: Nice! That was, truly, a bizarre little screed. And although you don't get credit for writing any of it, there is plenty of value in the synthesis of others' ideas into something new. Congrats! Definitely worthy of your troll status. ;-) Douglas Roberts wrote at 09/27/2012 01:56 PM: It's a shame I stopped reading when I did on the wikipedia academic elitism link when I got to the nugget I was looking for, because *this* nugget is a real gem: Some observers argue that, while academicians often perceive themselves as members of an elite, their influence is mostly imaginary: Professors of humanities, with all their leftist fantasies, have little direct knowledge of American life and no impact whatever on public policy.[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_elitism#cite_note-2 Academic elitism suggests that in highly competitive academic environments only those individuals who have engaged in scholarshiphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholarly_method are deemed to have anything worthwhile to say, or do. It suggests that individuals who have not engaged in such scholarship are crankshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crank_(person). Steven Zhang of the Cornell Daily Sunhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Daily_Sun has described the graduates of elite schools, especially those in the Ivy Leaguehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League, of having a smug sense of success because they believe gaining entrance into the Ivy League is an accomplishment unto itself.[*citation neededhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed *] -- glen 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 -- Doug Roberts drobe...@rti.org d...@parrot-farm.net http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell 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
Re: [FRIAM] DEBATE about Religion and Atheism - modeling
Steve Smith wrote at 09/27/2012 12:55 PM: I don't find the golden rule (one variant of social equality?) exactly a delusional idea, though that is probably a thread unto itself. Well, it's on topic. The search for a biological mechanism for the golden rule seems to target the disagreement between religion and atheism. Personally, I think the golden rule is a largely useless abstraction. It lacks any operational detail. Sometimes I might well want to be punched in the face ... sometimes I don't. Sometimes I'd like Renee' to offer me some of her candy bar. Sometimes I don't. I'm currently ~20 lbs overweight. 8^) BTW, I'm not sure I think of this as a lossy compression as a dimension-reducing projection. Multiple transactions can be like multiple points of view projected from said high dimension, recovering some of what was lost (obscured) in any given transaction/POV. That's a great point. The compression algorithm is just as important as its inputs and outputs. In fact it is likely that I would not sell but gift such a precious nugget of protein/sustenance to the right member of a community as an ultimately selfish act. This is also an interesting point. The dichotomy between selfishness and altruism is false. I think it says something important when a gift giver (loudly) claims they don't want/expect anything in return. I like to play with people who fail to come to my parties after I sent them an invitation. They often will say things like Don't stop inviting me, which opens the door for Eris! My last victim, a neighbor, said something like I really wanted to come but blahblahblah. I responded: That's OK. We only invited you so that you wouldn't call the cops on us when we got too loud. I still don't know whether he knows I'm joking. If you have ever suffered the attentions (presence) of someone with too much money, you might not call the last one benign. There is nothing more offensive than someone whose spare change exceeds your net worth, tossing it around as if they can buy you, or your firstborn, or your soul with the flick of a pen... I don't find that offensive at all ... ignorant, yes, but not offensive. It is one of the worst things I find about first world tourists in third world countries, even without realizing it, dropping a months wages for someone in service class on a single meal for themselves. It is dehumanizing, even if it supports the tall pyramid of an extreme trickle-down economy. I guess I have to disagree there, too. I don't think that act, in isolation, is dehumanizing. I think it depends more on the cloud of attitude surrounding the act. If you treat the locals with respect, look them in the eye, engage their customs, listen when they talk, etc. ... i.e. treat them like humans, then it doesn't matter one whit how much you spend on your food. The trouble is that wealth engenders abstraction. So, the wealthy tend to view everyone around them as tools. to adding absolutely nothing to the economy except the management/manipulation/speculation of loans. I'm still torn on this. I do think financial instruments, in general, are good. I just can't predict which ones will yield good things versus bad things ... until _after_ we've used them and seen their effects. -- glen 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
Re: [FRIAM] DEBATE about Religion and Atheism - modeling
Well... so much for discussing modeling... Personally, I am not a big fan of the Golden Rule because it implies that everyone should be happy with the same things. It also implies the very arrogant position that what you-in-particular want can be the should for everyone else. How about if we try to do unto others as they would have us do? As an example I am sure many on the list are familiar with: My mother does all sorts of things for me that she wishes I would do for her. We reach an impasse when I try to explain (usually for the 20th time) that I actually dislike the thing she is doing. We can get into a similar place if, for example, we think of all the weird kinky things that some people might like us to do unto them, but we would really prefer they didn't do unto us. And yes, there is nobody on this list that someone, somewhere, wouldn't want to do some really, really nasty things with. (See Rule 34)* Eric *This is where there is a small chorus says speak for yourself; for you people, imagine those desiring very boring and mundane things. P.S. Having many times been in the presence of people with too much money, even by middle-income US standards, I find the types of behaviors Steve mentioned annoying, but in no way offensive. Of course, I have been raised to have a strong belief in personal property, and (despite my hippy parents) have strong Libertarian leanings. I have never seen anybody dump a month's worth of my wages on a single meal, but I have seen a month of my salary go to a table of meals, and I have attended private events that probably cost a year of my salary. I think such spending is dumb, I wish they would give a bit to me, but ultimately it is their money. And, since it is on topic, There, but for the grace of God, go I. Grace is funny some times ;- ) On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 08:28 PM, glen g...@ropella.name wrote: Steve Smith wrote at 09/27/2012 12:55 PM: I don't find the golden rule (one variant of social equality?) exactly a delusional idea, though that is probably a thread unto itself. Well, it's on topic. The search for a biological mechanism for the golden rule seems to target the disagreement between religion and atheism. Personally, I think the golden rule is a largely useless abstraction. It lacks any operational detail. Sometimes I might well want to be punched in the face ... sometimes I don't. Sometimes I'd like Renee' to offer me some of her candy bar. Sometimes I don't. I'm currently ~20 lbs overweight. 8^) BTW, I'm not sure I think of this as a lossy compression as a dimension-reducing projection. Multiple transactions can be like multiple points of view projected from said high dimension, recovering some of what was lost (obscured) in any given transaction/POV. That's a great point. The compression algorithm is just as important as its inputs and outputs. In fact it is likely that I would not sell but gift such a precious nugget of protein/sustenance to the right member of a community as an ultimately selfish act. This is also an interesting point. The dichotomy between selfishness and altruism is false. I think it says something important when a gift giver (loudly) claims they don't want/expect anything in return. I like to play with people who fail to come to my parties after I sent them an invitation. They often will say things like Don't stop inviting me, which opens the door for Eris! My last victim, a neighbor, said something like I really wanted to come but blahblahblah. I responded: That's OK. We only invited you so that you wouldn't call the cops on us when we got too loud. I still don't know whether he knows I'm joking. If you have ever suffered the attentions (presence) of someone with too much money, you might not call the last one benign. There is nothing more offensive than someone whose spare change exceeds your net worth, tossing it around as if they can buy you, or your firstborn, or your soul with the flick of a pen... I don't find that offensive at all ... ignorant, yes, but not offensive. It is one of the worst things I find about first world tourists in third world countries, even without realizing it, dropping a months wages for someone in service class on a single meal for themselves. It is dehumanizing, even if it supports the tall pyramid of an extreme trickle-down economy. I guess I have to disagree there, too. I don't think that act, in isolation, is dehumanizing. I think it depends more on the cloud of attitude surrounding the act. If you treat the locals with respect, look them in the eye, engage their customs, listen when they talk, etc. ... i.e. treat them like humans, then it doesn't matter one whit how much you spend on your food. The trouble is that wealth engenders abstraction. So, the wealthy tend to view everyone around them as tools. to adding absolutely nothing to the economy except the management/manipulation/speculation of loans. I'm still torn on this. I do
Re: [FRIAM] DEBATE about Religion and Atheism - modeling
I think the GR just says you might want to value context over doctrine. On 9/27/12 7:53 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: Well... so much for discussing modeling... Personally, I am not a big fan of the Golden Rule because it implies that everyone /should /be happy with the same things. It also implies the very arrogant position that what you-in-particular want can be the should for everyone else. How about if we try to do unto others as /they /would have us do? As an example I am sure many on the list are familiar with: My mother does all sorts of things for me that she wishes I would do for her. We reach an impasse when I try to explain (usually for the 20th time) that I actually dislike the thing she is doing. We can get into a similar place if, for example, we think of all the weird kinky things that some people might like us to do unto them, but we would really prefer they didn't do unto us. And yes, there is nobody on this list that someone, somewhere, wouldn't want to do some really, really nasty things with. (See Rule 34)* Eric *This is where there is a small chorus says speak for yourself; for you people, imagine those desiring very boring and mundane things. P.S. Having many times been in the presence of people with too much money, even by middle-income US standards, I find the types of behaviors Steve mentioned annoying, but in no way offensive. Of course, I have been raised to have a strong belief in personal property, and (despite my hippy parents) have strong Libertarian leanings. I have never seen anybody dump a month's worth of my wages on a single meal, but I have seen a month of my salary go to a table of meals, and I have attended private events that probably cost a year of my salary. I think such spending is dumb, I wish they would give a bit to me, but ultimately it is their money. And, since it is on topic, There, but for the grace of God, go I. Grace is funny some times ;- ) On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 08:28 PM, *glen g...@ropella.name* wrote: Steve Smith wrote at 09/27/2012 12:55 PM: I don't find the golden rule (one variant of social equality?) exactly a delusional idea, though that is probably a thread unto itself. Well, it's on topic. The search for a biological mechanism for the golden rule seems to target the disagreement between religion and atheism. Personally, I think the golden rule is a largely useless abstraction. It lacks any operational detail. Sometimes I might well want to be punched in the face ... sometimes I don't. Sometimes I'd like Renee' to offer me some of her candy bar. Sometimes I don't. I'm currently ~20 lbs overweight. 8^) BTW, I'm not sure I think of this as a lossy compression as a dimension-reducing projection. Multiple transactions can be like multiple points of view projected from said high dimension, recovering some of what was lost (obscured) in any given transaction/POV. That's a great point. The compression algorithm is just as important as its inputs and outputs. In fact it is likely that I would not sell but gift such a precious nugget of protein/sustenance to the right member of a community as an ultimately selfish act. This is also an interesting point. The dichotomy between selfishness and altruism is false. I think it says something important when a gift giver (loudly) claims they don't want/expect anything in return. I like to play with people who fail to come to my parties after I sent them an invitation. They often will say things like Don't stop inviting me, which opens the door for Eris! My last victim, a neighbor, said something like I really wanted to come but blahblahblah. I responded: That's OK. We only invited you so that you wouldn't call the cops on us when we got too loud. I still don't know whether he knows I'm joking. If you have ever suffered the attentions (presence) of someone with too much money, you might not call the last one benign. There is nothing more offensive than someone whose spare change exceeds your net worth, tossing it around as if they can buy you, or your firstborn, or your soul with the flick of a pen... I don't find that offensive at all ... ignorant, yes, but not offensive. It is one of the worst things I find about first world tourists in third world countries, even without realizing it, dropping a months wages for someone in service class on a single meal for themselves. It is dehumanizing, even if it supports the tall pyramid of an extreme trickle-down economy. I guess I have to disagree there, too. I don't think that act, in isolation, is dehumanizing. I think it depends more on the cloud of attitude surrounding the act. If you treat the locals with respect, look them in the eye, engage their customs, listen when they talk, etc.
[FRIAM] Craig's List ad for 2001 Suzuki Esteem GL small station wagon, 76200 miles, $ 3200: Rich Murray 2012.09.27
2001 Suzuki Esteem GL small station wagon, 76200 miles, $ 3200, silver, automatic transmission, mint condition inside and out, original owner, now 70, moving to beach in California, all repair receipts, May 2011 4 $90 tires and 4 shock absorbers, just garaged 9 months, roof rack, long minor crack in windshield from R to L below line of sight, good radio, AC, no CD player, manual locks and mirrors, brakes always squeaky, brakes fine, regular maintenance, home use only, no long trips, little driving above 65 mph, 24-28 mpg, price set by Internet search -- nice, durable, robust, reliable practical working small station wagon, rear seats lie flat for large loads, dealer in Albuquerque, not Santa Fe, takes hills fine, handles rough roads well, candid owner, all offers considered -- 3 photos here that show whole car. http://santafe.craigslist.org/cto/3301663021.html Rich Murray rmfor...@gmail.com 505-819-7388 cell Sondra Spies 505-983-8250 cell 1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, NM 97505 until Tuesday October 9 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
