Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
Nick writes: I just think that the whole project looks like it is based on the idea that we can analyze, plan, and reform in the societal domain, and I wasn't sure whether that was your cup of tea? It seems to me the job of a politician is to navigate the values of their constituency and their party. Together they form or at least admit goals. The job of a scientist is to learn how systems work, and communicate it in precise language. Put them together and one has a sort of constraint or satisfiability problem.If one wants to optimize for the maximum economic return from fossil fuel use, then one can look at the best estimates of the IPCC for what the side-effects of that would likely be. Are they survivable, for the relevant people, and not too expensive within a relevant time window? Similarly, if one wants to have equal distribution of wealth, one set of social norms or another, social science can offer a set of constraints to put into a calculation. If the constraint problem can't be satisfied, then either the model is inadequate or the goals are not responsible.If completely different goals can be satisfied with different cost structures, then it is no bu siness of social scientists, wearing their scientist hat, which goal to pursue. To say one is a conservative or a leftist suggests which types of goals will be sought, but it is just a preference so long as either class of goal in a constraint system could be satisfied. Like anyone, a scientist can have those preferences and pursue them passionately, ruthlessly, or whatever. But the worst thing is for a person whose profession it is to get to the fact of the matter, not to know if they are lying. Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
[FRIAM] Fun Times in Ecuador
[A long post follows - I hope it is interesting to at least a few on the list (I'm thinking especially of Ivan Ordoñez)] Despite living here in EC for 7 years, I'm still trying to figure the place out. There are so many things I could say about it, but most would be just sort of gut feelings. My Spanish reading skills have only recently reached the point where I can read newspapers with little enough pain to make it worthwhile. First, the good things. The country is extremely varied geographically. It is about the size of NM, with a population of about 13 million. We have Amazonian jungle, mountains over 21,000 feet, Pacific beaches, and then of course the Galapagos. I live at about 6500 feet elevation, so I don't need much heat, and never any cooling. It's amazing living on the west slope of the Andes. I can drive half an hour and get an increase in temperature of about 10 degrees F, another half an hour for another 10 degrees. Or, I can drive half hour up our gravel road for a decrease of 10 degrees. So, up to a 30 degree temperature range in an hour and a half of driving. It's very beautiful where I live, but quite cloudy (that's why it's called cloud forest :-) People are generally very friendly here, but the idea of the truth seems to be a little flexible. Non-prepared food is cheap, especially fruits and vegetables. It is still legal for foreigners to own land here, and land in rural areas can be bought for between the low hundreds of dollars per acre, up to thousands. You can get permanent residency by several means; Karen and I did so by investing more than $25K by buying land (and then building two houses on it). In my opinion, the bad things pretty much begin with the current government. Rafael Correa swept into power in 2007 on a populist platform modeled laregly after Hugo Chavez of Venezuela - many have called him Chavez Light. At first, he was pretty moderate, and spent all of Ecuador's income from oil (I believe we are a member of OPEC), which was high because of the price of crude, on infrastructure projects. I wholeheartedly support investing in infrastructure. So though I was initially a little skeptical, after 8 years of GW Bush, I had convinced myself that leftist governments are a good thing. However, within a couple of years, the entire national assembly was from Correa's party, and the populist rhetoric, replete with rich-vs-poor talk, steadily increased. Then he loaded the courts with his supporters, so with all three branches of government, he has pretty much gotten whatever he wants. He has a huge ego and hates to be criticized. So, he started passing laws restricting legitimate criticism, much like Chavez. After a couple of journalists were fined millions of dollars for libel against Correa, criticism pretty much died, and many people became genuinely fearful to say anything negative about him in public. When the price of crude dropped dramatically, there wasn't enough money to feed his newly created huge bureaucracy. So, he turned to a few countries, especially China, and got high-interest loans. At the moment, I believe EC is in debt to the tune of $35 billion, and even with crude prices going up somewhat, there still isn't enough cash being collected to maintain the bureaucracy. At first, he merely added safeguards (basically import quotas and higher import duties). After all, this only affected the rich. Even that wasn't enough. So, he made a mistake that may (I hope) be his downfall. He proposed large capital gains taxes on real estate (I'm not sure, but my impression is that this may even apply when you don't sell). But the extremely unpopular thing that he did was to propose progressive high inheritance taxes. EC, like most latin countires, is very family oriented. He made the mistake of criticizing the ability to pass property down to heirs with little tax, and that struck a nerve. One remark that he made went like this: if you have property or a business worth, let's say $500K, and you have five children and ten people working for you, you can leave each child $100K, which would put them into the 72% tax bracket, which would mean they would each have to raise $72K just to receive their share. But, why not divide the estate into 15 parts, leaving $33K to each child, as well as to each worker? That would put them all into a much lower bracket, allowing them all to inherit their small amount tax free. That's pretty much when the shit hit the fan. Even communist-leaning folks tend to have a dim view of leaving the same thing to their workers as they do to their kids, especially here in family-oriented Latin America. So Ecuadorians have recently found their voice, especially the middle class. Emboldened by anger over his anti-family stance, people have finally started vociferously criticizing Correa. Starting a couple of weeks ago, people have been peacefully demonstrating in the streets by the tens of thousands in Quito, and even more in Guayaquil. I believe there
Re: [FRIAM] Fun Times in Ecuador
Grid power is fairly reliable here, and ubiquitous. Not enough sun for solar to be cost effective. Micro hydro can be decent. Diesel only $1 per gallon for reliable generator backup. Connections to reliable internet is expensive, about $100 per megabit per month. Fiber in most cities now, nothing in rural areas. I have a good view of a town 20 km away that has fiber, so have wireless connection from my tower to my ISP. Latency in country about 20 ms average, to Europe or NA over 100 ms. On Tuesday, June 30, 2015, Marcus Daniels mar...@snoutfarm.com wrote: I live at about 6500 feet elevation, so I don't need much heat, and never any cooling. It's amazing living on the west slope of the Andes. I can drive half an hour and get an increase in temperature of about 10 degrees F, another half an hour for another 10 degrees How about power and low-latency broadband availability? I had satellite internet when I lived out in Arroyo Hondo, and I about lost it. Looking for a mountain hideaway for a bitcoin mining empire -- something will have to pick up the slack when in the event of a Euro meltdown! Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Fun Times in Ecuador
The owner is a friend, so he let me out an antenna on his tower. It is quite common here, except that the ISP usually provides the equipment. Some friend... On Tuesday, June 30, 2015, Marcus Daniels mar...@snoutfarm.com wrote: Gary writes: Fiber in most cities now, nothing in rural areas. I have a good view of a town 20 km away that has fiber, so have wireless connection from my tower to my ISP. “ Is that common, or something you negotiated with the ISP? Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Fun Times in Ecuador
I live at about 6500 feet elevation, so I don't need much heat, and never any cooling. It's amazing living on the west slope of the Andes. I can drive half an hour and get an increase in temperature of about 10 degrees F, another half an hour for another 10 degrees How about power and low-latency broadband availability? I had satellite internet when I lived out in Arroyo Hondo, and I about lost it. Looking for a mountain hideaway for a bitcoin mining empire -- something will have to pick up the slack when in the event of a Euro meltdown! Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Fun Times in Ecuador
Hmm, seems to me Correa has been on the side of the poor folks all along. Ability to enter the middle class in Ecuador has much to do with your color--how light or dark you are. And rich folks like to pass on their entitlement to their kids to insure that dynasties--political and otherwise--hold through the generations. You can call this family-friendly. I call it anti-democratic, because it depresses opportunity for those not born into that entitlement. Getting rid of term limits, however, is a sign of stupid overreach--happens to the best of men when they get into power--but the rest sounds pretty good to me. On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 8:31 PM, Gary Schiltz g...@naturesvisualarts.com wrote: [A long post follows - I hope it is interesting to at least a few on the list (I'm thinking especially of Ivan Ordoñez)] Despite living here in EC for 7 years, I'm still trying to figure the place out. There are so many things I could say about it, but most would be just sort of gut feelings. My Spanish reading skills have only recently reached the point where I can read newspapers with little enough pain to make it worthwhile. First, the good things. The country is extremely varied geographically. It is about the size of NM, with a population of about 13 million. We have Amazonian jungle, mountains over 21,000 feet, Pacific beaches, and then of course the Galapagos. I live at about 6500 feet elevation, so I don't need much heat, and never any cooling. It's amazing living on the west slope of the Andes. I can drive half an hour and get an increase in temperature of about 10 degrees F, another half an hour for another 10 degrees. Or, I can drive half hour up our gravel road for a decrease of 10 degrees. So, up to a 30 degree temperature range in an hour and a half of driving. It's very beautiful where I live, but quite cloudy (that's why it's called cloud forest :-) People are generally very friendly here, but the idea of the truth seems to be a little flexible. Non-prepared food is cheap, especially fruits and vegetables. It is still legal for foreigners to own land here, and land in rural areas can be bought for between the low hundreds of dollars per acre, up to thousands. You can get permanent residency by several means; Karen and I did so by investing more than $25K by buying land (and then building two houses on it). In my opinion, the bad things pretty much begin with the current government. Rafael Correa swept into power in 2007 on a populist platform modeled laregly after Hugo Chavez of Venezuela - many have called him Chavez Light. At first, he was pretty moderate, and spent all of Ecuador's income from oil (I believe we are a member of OPEC), which was high because of the price of crude, on infrastructure projects. I wholeheartedly support investing in infrastructure. So though I was initially a little skeptical, after 8 years of GW Bush, I had convinced myself that leftist governments are a good thing. However, within a couple of years, the entire national assembly was from Correa's party, and the populist rhetoric, replete with rich-vs-poor talk, steadily increased. Then he loaded the courts with his supporters, so with all three branches of government, he has pretty much gotten whatever he wants. He has a huge ego and hates to be criticized. So, he started passing laws restricting legitimate criticism, much like Chavez. After a couple of journalists were fined millions of dollars for libel against Correa, criticism pretty much died, and many people became genuinely fearful to say anything negative about him in public. When the price of crude dropped dramatically, there wasn't enough money to feed his newly created huge bureaucracy. So, he turned to a few countries, especially China, and got high-interest loans. At the moment, I believe EC is in debt to the tune of $35 billion, and even with crude prices going up somewhat, there still isn't enough cash being collected to maintain the bureaucracy. At first, he merely added safeguards (basically import quotas and higher import duties). After all, this only affected the rich. Even that wasn't enough. So, he made a mistake that may (I hope) be his downfall. He proposed large capital gains taxes on real estate (I'm not sure, but my impression is that this may even apply when you don't sell). But the extremely unpopular thing that he did was to propose progressive high inheritance taxes. EC, like most latin countires, is very family oriented. He made the mistake of criticizing the ability to pass property down to heirs with little tax, and that struck a nerve. One remark that he made went like this: if you have property or a business worth, let's say $500K, and you have five children and ten people working for you, you can leave each child $100K, which would put them into the 72% tax bracket, which would mean they would each have to raise $72K just to receive their share. But, why not
Re: [FRIAM] Fun Times in Ecuador
and is your price for this is $100/Mbit/month? I'm on a similar "first mile" (23miles in my case) and they (cnsp) are about to offer 50Mb/s service off of SF Ski Hill... for not much more than my 1.5Mbit/s runs... I assume the extra cost is a combination of shared total-bandwidth and maybe "scarcity"? The owner is a friend, so he let me out an antenna on his tower. It is quite common here, except that the ISP usually provides the equipment. Some friend... On Tuesday, June 30, 2015, Marcus Daniels mar...@snoutfarm.com wrote: Gary writes: Fiber in most cities now, nothing in rural areas. I have a good view of a town 20 km away that has fiber, so have wireless connection from my tower to my ISP. “ Is that common, or something you negotiated with the ISP? Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Fun Times in Ecuador
Gary writes: Fiber in most cities now, nothing in rural areas. I have a good view of a town 20 km away that has fiber, so have wireless connection from my tower to my ISP. “ Is that common, or something you negotiated with the ISP? Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
I'm an omnivore! 8^) I not only drink tea, but pretty much everything else I find laying around. Seriously though, I don't really believe in (pure) cultural evolution, at all. As I've repeated, ideas are illusory. It's our bodies that are important. Hence, culture reduces to the artifacts and natural structures we swim in. But there are several in the cultural evolution community who take artifacts seriously. So, the domain is interesting to me. As for the yammering (here and elsewhere) about the activism, I can only repeat that objective truth is also illusory. Scientific objectivism is a delusion and those who would separate the rest of motivated human activity (including motivated reasoning) from science are deluded. We all act, whether our thoughts correlate with our actions or not. Ridiculing say, a hamster for acting like a hamster is a kind of psychopathy, though clearly many of us get our kicks that way. I'd guess that snark correlates with the narcissism index. But re: thoughts, I can also say that _embedding_ one's thoughts as deeply in, as tightly coupled to, one's actions, does allow for agility. Taking huge, far-sighted, ideological stances and making huge sweeping plans on _anything_ is well, ideological (which is an insult) and goes directly against everything biology has taught us over these last 156 years. Biological systems are complexes of tightly coupled, small changes that can eventually produce dramatic differences. But action is all very local. So, I try to make my actions small, realizing that 99.99% or more of all my actions are inconsequential. If thought is causative at all, it is at this very small scale. The rest is noise. All that is preamble to my (again repetitive) statement that diversity is good. Hence, yet another organization populated at least by scientifically oriented people is a good thing ... just like both the genetic literacy project and the union of concerned scientists are both good things. Hell, even the Discovery Institute is a good thing to some (small) extent, with their grand assertion buried in all sorts of difficult to tease out pseudoscience. This is us. This is biology. On 06/29/2015 08:40 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: Oh, I don't think that these people are manipulative, particularly. Not at all. There is at least one person on the list I am enthusiastic about. If I were to think anything bad about them (and I don't think I do), it would be that they are naive. I just think that the whole project looks like it is based on the idea that we can analyze, plan, and reform in the societal domain, and I wasn't sure whether that was your cup of tea? I believe that we can do all of those things, but I am beginning to wonder if my commitment to that idea is more a value than a belief. An example of a kind of phenomenon that makes me doubt the possibility of successful social planning is the apparent rush to tear down the confederate battle flag that seems to be surging through the south. Talk about tipping point! Could we have planned for that? -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella If there's something left of my spirit FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
As for the yammering (here and elsewhere) about the activism, I can only repeat that objective truth is also illusory. So long as we see these organizations in evolutionary terms, then there is no problem. But then why object when thieves act like thieves? (Because there's some species of individual that objects to that? It's tautological, or merely the observation there is no free will.) Corruption is just part of our human activity. Let's just let one dog eat the other and get on with it.. Okay.Diversity or no diversity, who cares? Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
[FRIAM] [ SPAM ] Re: A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
Glen sed: ... But re: thoughts, I can also say that _embedding_ one's thoughts as deeply in, as tightly coupled to, one's actions, does allow for agility. Taking huge, far-sighted, ideological stances and making huge sweeping plans on _anything_ is well, ideological (which is an insult) and goes directly against everything biology has taught us over these last 156 years. Biological systems are complexes of tightly coupled, small changes that can eventually produce dramatic differences. I think this point is important or at least interesting: The *point* of ideologies is to set a (more) global fitness function, allowing a different mode of coupling than happens, for example, without shared ideology. But action is all very local. So, I try to make my actions small, realizing that 99.99% or more of all my actions are inconsequential. If thought is causative at all, it is at this very small scale. The rest is noise. At one level, what made the Roman Empire the Roman Empire was the gajillion small actions of a bazillion human beings, yet, it was the fact that they shared an ideology (no matter what the class, the Roman culture had a story with a place in it for you, whether you be Emperor, Soldier, Slave, or Conquered Subject) which went a long way to define what it was to be a Roman... Or when a bunch of Athapascan peoples migrated from the Pacific Northwest to the Southwest and became who we call Navajo and Apache, they shared *something* more than genes and language... they shared a mythology and a world-view that differed enough from the extant peoples living *in* the Southwest that they remained distinct, were not assimilated... but established a complementary (if often conflictatory) presence in and amongst and around the various cultures already en-situ... what it was to be Dine' could possibly be reduced to their genes, their language and the artifacts they carried or knew how to make... but I find it easier/better if I include the stories they told. All that is preamble to my (again repetitive) statement that diversity is good. Diversity is a good antidote/counterpoint to ossification, as structure is a good antidote/complement to randomness. This is the tension between Logos and Chaos... with a narrow regime where truly interesting stuff happens... Class IV Cellular Automata, for example, Universal Computation for example, Life Itself, for example. On the other hand, these distinctions might just be illusions, held by the delusional. But this argument begs the question of who or what is delusional? An individual sentient creature such as a human being? A group of sentients with a shared ideology? Just sayin' - Steve FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [ SPAM ] Re: A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
http://www.brainrules.net/wiring Curt On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 12:00 PM, glen ep ropella g...@tempusdictum.com wrote: On 06/30/2015 09:14 AM, Steve Smith wrote: what it was to be Dine' could possibly be reduced to their genes, their language and the artifacts they carried or knew how to make... but I find it easier/better if I include the stories they told. Yes, compression is real, not ideological. The reason you feel it easier/better is because it helps you with the inverse map from phenomena to mechanism. You have to act on the mechanism. Compression helps you do that. But it doesn't mean that the ideology is shared. It means the compressed analog is shared. The analog is a stand-in for the ephemeral thing you recognize/register. Funny enough, because there are a bunch of animals almost identical to you standing about, they recognize/register that ephemeral thing in much the same way. Their analogs are very similar to your analogs because your body is very similar to theirs. When/if we find communicative life elsewhere (here or other planets), we'll be able to test the hypothesis completely. But we can do it in small bits right here and now. Do amputees understand the world in the same way non-amputees understand the world? Did Helen Keller think the same way sighted and hearing people think? On the other hand, these distinctions might just be illusions, held by the delusional. But this argument begs the question of who or what is delusional? An individual sentient creature such as a human being? A group of sentients with a shared ideology? The delusion is simply in assuming the analog _is_ its referent. It would be like wondering why real airplanes aren't made of balsa wood. This is why I tend to think tele-war (very remotely operated weapons like drones) will cause something like PTSD similar in devastation, but from the opposite circumstance, to the close-up witness of, participation in, violence. That sort of removal from your context can be very difficult, I suspect. You have no choice but to act as if the analog (controller) is the referent (weapon). And it is the same ... yet it's not, because of the very complicated machinery between the controller and the controlled, machinery invisible to the operator. What's doing the assuming? Your body, of course. The better the analog, the more your body is tricked into acting upon the idea as if it's the referent. Ideas are brain processes, analogs for real things to which they refer. E.g. mental manipulation of an image of a 3D object engages many of the same circuits as actual manipulation of the 3D object. The better the ideas, the easier it is to be tricked into thinking those analogs are ultimately accurate, so accurate that the idea is the real thing. The smarter you are, the more likely you are to be tricked ... which means I'm completely safe. -- glen ep ropella -- 971-255-2847 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
There's only 1 reason to interfere/intervene in the milieu around you, that is to participate. Is a search engine a participant in people's web browsing? One can define it that way, but that's not the usual business model.The usual model is to watch and learn, and sell their observations in some way to a third party. Most science is about teasing apart causation in as much detail as possible in a controlled setting. And engineering is about putting it back together in useful ways. Not everything can be understood or controlled that way, but the parts and pieces often can be. That's a fine thing to do, just not the only thing to do. I have no problem with activism. If there's no knowledge about how the parts and pieces of a social system work, nor experience with similar system dynamics behave, then, by all means dive in to the blood and muck, if that sort of thing is fun for you. But if I'm going to spend time debating, say, potential legislation, with people that don't share my particular preferences, then it is a good if we negotiate a protocol for identifying good and bad arguments, so we don't just talk about our preferences all day.The failure to find and maintain such a protocol means the activity becomes political, and is no longer a good faith discussion, but a rivalry.The fewer mutually accepted rules -- the nastier or more pointless the discussion may become. And the faster it gets nasty, the sooner we can found out who the big dog is, because that's all that is at stake. And it is not about objective reality, it's about precision of terminology. What is nailed down sufficiently-well for an analysis about the logical consequences of the nailed-down thing or system of things.It's not clear what this group of people is willing to nail down, even temporarily.Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down. It is bad faith, not skepticism, when people put their monetary or ideological goals ahead of the evidence, and then claim they are interested in the evidence. That's what I mean by corruption. Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [ SPAM ] Re: A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
On 06/30/2015 09:14 AM, Steve Smith wrote: what it was to be Dine' could possibly be reduced to their genes, their language and the artifacts they carried or knew how to make... but I find it easier/better if I include the stories they told. Yes, compression is real, not ideological. The reason you feel it easier/better is because it helps you with the inverse map from phenomena to mechanism. You have to act on the mechanism. Compression helps you do that. But it doesn't mean that the ideology is shared. It means the compressed analog is shared. The analog is a stand-in for the ephemeral thing you recognize/register. Funny enough, because there are a bunch of animals almost identical to you standing about, they recognize/register that ephemeral thing in much the same way. Their analogs are very similar to your analogs because your body is very similar to theirs. When/if we find communicative life elsewhere (here or other planets), we'll be able to test the hypothesis completely. But we can do it in small bits right here and now. Do amputees understand the world in the same way non-amputees understand the world? Did Helen Keller think the same way sighted and hearing people think? On the other hand, these distinctions might just be illusions, held by the delusional. But this argument begs the question of who or what is delusional? An individual sentient creature such as a human being? A group of sentients with a shared ideology? The delusion is simply in assuming the analog _is_ its referent. It would be like wondering why real airplanes aren't made of balsa wood. This is why I tend to think tele-war (very remotely operated weapons like drones) will cause something like PTSD similar in devastation, but from the opposite circumstance, to the close-up witness of, participation in, violence. That sort of removal from your context can be very difficult, I suspect. You have no choice but to act as if the analog (controller) is the referent (weapon). And it is the same ... yet it's not, because of the very complicated machinery between the controller and the controlled, machinery invisible to the operator. What's doing the assuming? Your body, of course. The better the analog, the more your body is tricked into acting upon the idea as if it's the referent. Ideas are brain processes, analogs for real things to which they refer. E.g. mental manipulation of an image of a 3D object engages many of the same circuits as actual manipulation of the 3D object. The better the ideas, the easier it is to be tricked into thinking those analogs are ultimately accurate, so accurate that the idea is the real thing. The smarter you are, the more likely you are to be tricked ... which means I'm completely safe. -- glen ep ropella -- 971-255-2847 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
There's only 1 reason to interfere/intervene in the milieu around you, that is to participate. And we participate according to our bodies predilections. Each body is different. But most of us have gut reactions to some categories of things. (This is why I love horror movies... tropes like maggot infested zombie heads are culturally important because they are physiologically important.) We don't tend to stand by and let dogs eat each other because, well, it grosses us out. Similarly with thieves and other crimes. Corruption is abstract. We say we're against corruption. But when we're deep inside it, very close to when/where it's happening, it's different. Many of us don't see whatever is happening as corruption. And the more tightly coupled you are to it, the less likely you are to see it that way. Those of us less coupled to it, with bodies primed by different stimuli, are exposed to the complex and misunderstand it as corruption. Once we experience it, we're grossed out and work to stop or avoid it. On 06/30/2015 09:11 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: So long as we see these organizations in evolutionary terms, then there is no problem. But then why object when thieves act like thieves? (Because there's some species of individual that objects to that? It's tautological, or merely the observation there is no free will.) Corruption is just part of our human activity. Let's just let one dog eat the other and get on with it.. Okay.Diversity or no diversity, who cares? -- ⇔ glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
[FRIAM] [ SPAM ] Re: A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
Given the personalization algorithms deployed by the major search engines, its hard *not* to see the search engine as a participant in browsing. . . . bob On Jun 30, 2015, at 12:34 PM, Marcus Daniels mar...@snoutfarm.com wrote: There's only 1 reason to interfere/intervene in the milieu around you, that is to participate. Is a search engine a participant in people's web browsing? One can define it that way, but that's not the usual business model.The usual model is to watch and learn, and sell their observations in some way to a third party. Most science is about teasing apart causation in as much detail as possible in a controlled setting. And engineering is about putting it back together in useful ways. Not everything can be understood or controlled that way, but the parts and pieces often can be. That's a fine thing to do, just not the only thing to do. I have no problem with activism. If there's no knowledge about how the parts and pieces of a social system work, nor experience with similar system dynamics behave, then, by all means dive in to the blood and muck, if that sort of thing is fun for you. But if I'm going to spend time debating, say, potential legislation, with people that don't share my particular preferences, then it is a good if we negotiate a protocol for identifying good and bad arguments, so we don't just talk about our preferences all day. The failure to find and maintain such a protocol means the activity becomes political, and is no longer a good faith discussion, but a rivalry.The fewer mutually accepted rules -- the nastier or more pointless the discussion may become. And the faster it gets nasty, the sooner we can found out who the big dog is, because that's all that is at stake. And it is not about objective reality, it's about precision of terminology. What is nailed down sufficiently-well for an analysis about the logical consequences of the nailed-down thing or system of things.It's not clear what this group of people is willing to nail down, even temporarily.Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down. It is bad faith, not skepticism, when people put their monetary or ideological goals ahead of the evidence, and then claim they are interested in the evidence. That's what I mean by corruption. Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [ SPAM ] Re: A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
Given the personalization algorithms deployed by the major search engines, its hard *not* to see the search engine as a participant in browsing. If the search engine could pass a Turing test, then ok. Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
On 06/30/2015 11:34 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: Is a search engine a participant in people's web browsing? No. But the people who wrote the artifact (and maintain the servers, and tweak the algorithms, and use it for advertising) are participants in my web browsing. And it is not about objective reality, it's about precision of terminology. Bah. What can precise terminology mean without any stable referent? Precision _is_ about objective reality at least to some extent. At the very least, there has to be some way to measure the difference between 2 different terms or usages of a single term. So, even if the terms themselves don't map to reality, the metric used to contrast them does. So, your dependence on precise terminology implies a dependence on objective reality. What is nailed down sufficiently-well for an analysis about the logical consequences of the nailed-down thing or system of things.It's not clear what this group of people is willing to nail down, even temporarily. I agree that it's not clear for this new society. Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down. But it is NOT just like ... climate change deniers. Are you seriously making that equivalence? It is bad faith, not skepticism, when people put their monetary or ideological goals ahead of the evidence, and then claim they are interested in the evidence. That's what I mean by corruption. OK. I disagree, _if_ those people are up front that they put their monetary or ideological goals first. It's not bad faith or corruption, then. And you have to admit that by openly stating that activism is one of this new group's objectives, then it's a bit of a leap to accuse them of bad faith or corruption right off the bat. If it were bad faith, their true objectives would not be as obvious as they've made them. -- glen ep ropella -- 971-255-2847 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
OK. Well, I liken it to evidence-based medicine. I don't really consider that sort of thing dilution or lowering the bar. It seems to me they're simply trying to ground policy in science. It's certainly extension of the science into non-scientific domains. And anytime you do that, you run the risk of backflow from the non-science into the science. So, having the same people do both activities is risky. You can't win if you don't play, though. On 06/30/2015 03:23 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote: My objection was to your claim that nothing is for sure so might as well equivalence activism+science vs. science. I see this group of people as lowering the bar for scientific inquiry in their field, and at once diluting the efforts of social workers and other kinds of advocates. In my book that's a far worse offense than whatever benefit they think they'll get from coupling their inquiry to their advocacy. I guess if that's what they want, they can have it.As for the rest, whatever, I was just killing time until my tests came back. -- glen ep ropella -- 971-255-2847 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
So, your claim that it's not about objective reality is simply false. Take away your assumption of objective reality and your precise terminology argument falls apart. The point is it doesn't matter if the scientific method reveals a model that is precisely what nature is. The illusion of objective reality is fine if it works. Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down. But it is NOT just like ... climate change deniers. Are you seriously making that equivalence? People on the left move the goal posts around to serve their argument just like people on the right. Sometimes people remove several words and replace them with ..., gosh, I don't know why! Why? Because removing the distracting text clarifies your analogy. You're claiming that the methods of the SSCE are just like the methods of climate change deniers. They're not just alike. Yes, they probably both move goal posts around, because everyone does that, especially as they grow and evolve, learn from what does and does not work, change membership, etc. Not nailing down exactly what you'll do from now till the year 3015 doesn't imply that you're not nailing things down just like climate change deniers aren't nailing things down. Your just like analogy is so vague it's mind-bending. Collect some like-minded folks, create a distinguished board of directors and start arguing from authority. The premise that there are any particular positive goals has not been demonstrated. It's just some randomwish-it-were-so thing they are throwing around -- it's not a hypothesis it is an assertion.At some point in their inquiry there exists the possibility that their goals can be falsified. So lose the goals and follow the evidence.The voting booth is good place for this kind of activity. OK. What you're doing is _predicting_ what the SSCE will do. That's fine. But it's bad faith of you not to be clear that this is merely your prediction. Or perhaps its (even weaker) your expectation. To some extent, I expect the same. But I'm usually wrong, which means I'm interested in seeing if it happens. -- ⇔ glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
Bah. Was looking at a build problem. Didn't mean to send that, meant to iconify that! My objection was to your claim that nothing is for sure so might as well equivalence activism+science vs. science. I see this group of people as lowering the bar for scientific inquiry in their field, and at once diluting the efforts of social workers and other kinds of advocates. In my book that's a far worse offense than whatever benefit they think they'll get from coupling their inquiry to their advocacy. I guess if that's what they want, they can have it.As for the rest, whatever, I was just killing time until my tests came back. -Original Message- From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2015 4:15 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution So, your claim that it's not about objective reality is simply false. Take away your assumption of objective reality and your precise terminology argument falls apart. The point is it doesn't matter if the scientific method reveals a model that is precisely what nature is. The illusion of objective reality is fine if it works. Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down. But it is NOT just like ... climate change deniers. Are you seriously making that equivalence? People on the left move the goal posts around to serve their argument just like people on the right. Sometimes people remove several words and replace them with ..., gosh, I don't know why! Why? Because removing the distracting text clarifies your analogy. You're claiming that the methods of the SSCE are just like the methods of climate change deniers. They're not just alike. Yes, they probably both move goal posts around, because everyone does that, especially as they grow and evolve, learn from what does and does not work, change membership, etc. Not nailing down exactly what you'll do from now till the year 3015 doesn't imply that you're not nailing things down just like climate change deniers aren't nailing things down. Your just like analogy is so vague it's mind-bending. Collect some like-minded folks, create a distinguished board of directors and start arguing from authority. The premise that there are any particular positive goals has not been demonstrated. It's just some randomwish-it-were-so thing they are throwing around -- it's not a hypothesis it is an assertion.At some point in their inquiry there exists the possibility that their goals can be falsified. So lose the goals and follow the evidence.The voting booth is good place for this kind of activity. OK. What you're doing is _predicting_ what the SSCE will do. That's fine. But it's bad faith of you not to be clear that this is merely your prediction. Or perhaps its (even weaker) your expectation. To some extent, I expect the same. But I'm usually wrong, which means I'm interested in seeing if it happens. -- ⇔ glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
On 06/30/2015 02:09 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote: The referent could be different sorts of things, like waves or particles. The true nature of things forever remains unknown, but self-consistent precise descriptions are essential so that experiments can be conducted by different observers. Perhaps you missed my point. Inter-description measures like self-consistency are assertions about objective reality. The assumption that different observers can conduct similar experiments also depends on an objective reality. So, your claim that it's not about objective reality is simply false. Take away your assumption of objective reality and your precise terminology argument falls apart. Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down. But it is NOT just like ... climate change deniers. Are you seriously making that equivalence? People on the left move the goal posts around to serve their argument just like people on the right. Sometimes people remove several words and replace them with ..., gosh, I don't know why! Why? Because removing the distracting text clarifies your analogy. You're claiming that the methods of the SSCE are just like the methods of climate change deniers. They're not just alike. Yes, they probably both move goal posts around, because everyone does that, especially as they grow and evolve, learn from what does and does not work, change membership, etc. Not nailing down exactly what you'll do from now till the year 3015 doesn't imply that you're not nailing things down just like climate change deniers aren't nailing things down. Your just like analogy is so vague it's mind-bending. Collect some like-minded folks, create a distinguished board of directors and start arguing from authority. The premise that there are any particular positive goals has not been demonstrated. It's just some randomwish-it-were-so thing they are throwing around -- it's not a hypothesis it is an assertion.At some point in their inquiry there exists the possibility that their goals can be falsified. So lose the goals and follow the evidence.The voting booth is good place for this kind of activity. OK. What you're doing is _predicting_ what the SSCE will do. That's fine. But it's bad faith of you not to be clear that this is merely your prediction. Or perhaps its (even weaker) your expectation. To some extent, I expect the same. But I'm usually wrong, which means I'm interested in seeing if it happens. -- ⇔ glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
What can precise terminology mean without any stable referent? Precision _is_ about objective reality at least to some extent. The referent could be different sorts of things, like waves or particles. The true nature of things forever remains unknown, but self-consistent precise descriptions are essential so that experiments can be conducted by different observers. Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down. But it is NOT just like ... climate change deniers. Are you seriously making that equivalence? People on the left move the goal posts around to serve their argument just like people on the right. Sometimes people remove several words and replace them with ..., gosh, I don't know why! It is bad faith, not skepticism, when people put their monetary or ideological goals ahead of the evidence, and then claim they are interested in the evidence. That's what I mean by corruption. OK. I disagree, _if_ those people are up front that they put their monetary or ideological goals first. It's not bad faith or corruption, then. And you have to admit that by openly stating that activism is one of this new group's objectives, then it's a bit of a leap to accuse them of bad faith or corruption right off the bat. If it were bad faith, their true objectives would not be as obvious as they've made them. Collect some like-minded folks, create a distinguished board of directors and start arguing from authority. The premise that there are any particular positive goals has not been demonstrated. It's just some randomwish-it-were-so thing they are throwing around -- it's not a hypothesis it is an assertion.At some point in their inquiry there exists the possibility that their goals can be falsified. So lose the goals and follow the evidence.The voting booth is good place for this kind of activity. Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
