Re: The X Files (deus ex machina excuses)
So who decides on who are to be the elite ones? Everyone with a phd? But I know a few really stupid professors... Why do you think such an "arrangement" could be worked out, but democracy cannot be made effective? You watched/read too much sci-fi, they seem to come up forever with wierd aristocratic hierarchies, like if in a well functioning future the social relations must relapse into some sort of medieval setup. I see no reason for this. The trend must be towards real democracy, now that we have enough experience about all the possible hindrances so far. You have contempt for Joe Sixpack, but he/she is as intelligent as you are, if allowed to be. We should use our collective creativity without categorising and exploiting the majority. You are definitely into this "deceiving the thick masses by the clever and good hearted elite" idea. Don't be so sure it works forever. Eva So who decides who takes the role of the gamekeeper and the role of animals? This is really an interesting problem and I have been thinking about it for years. I haven't found anyone willing to discuss it calmly because most people become hysterical at the very thought. Here is a very short outline of my present thinking: The problem is how to construct a global political "system" that can remain virtuous to its stated goals? My first cut at the problem is to separate what might work from what would be politically acceptable to Joe Sixpack. In other words, I assume there would be "internal" politics and an "external" politics. (We probably have this kind of system now with Ivy League elites pulling the levers in the back room.) My next cut is to divide the new "internal" system into two more parts: "administration" and "policy making". Policy-making would be done by an elite group of scientists and religious and cultural leaders. Administration would be done by computers. Obviously, working all this stuff out would take an enormous amount of effort. I haven't taken the time because I haven't seen any willingness to junk the present system. Jay [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Decline in Civic Association
Well, I was teaching a wonderful black dramatic soprano today and her answer to this particular question was that there was something in the Caucasian gene that didn't allow for serious long term cooperation.The statement sounds racist but somehow you all seem to be coming up with the same answer except you include her culture in your cynicism. REH Jay Hanson wrote: From: Hugh McGuire [EMAIL PROTECTED] teh following is an article in today's Christian Science Monitor. It describes how people are not participating in community organizations any longer. Robert Putnam of Harvard thinks it is because people prefer their television sets and computers to actual human interaction. I think it is because people are afraid of interacting with other people. The politics, the conformity, cliqueishness, and the fear of rejection all combine to influence our profound isolation from each other. You missed the obvious answer: cynicism. Why should people donate time and money to hold their community together so some asshole CEO can buy himself another Lear Jet? Seen in this light, "participating in community organizations" looks like another form of corporate welfare. Jay -- www.dieoff.com
Re: Decline in Civic Association
Well, I was teaching a wonderful black dramatic soprano today and her answer to this particular question was that there was something in the Caucasian gene that didn't allow for serious long term cooperation.The statement sounds racist but somehow you all seem to be coming up with the same answer except you include her culture in your cynicism. REH Homo sapiens is one species. The gene variation between "white" and "black" individuals may be less than between "same colour" people. What a load of nonsense. I haven't heard of any cultures having a particularily peaceful past. We'll only get peace and cooperation when we discontinue the class-system and everyone has the same access to wealth. health, power, education, creativity, etc., not the least arm control. (Jay's "gamekeeping" would just continue the old tradition of violent power-struggle.) Eva
MINI-AIR evolutionary results
[from the August MINI-AIR] 1998-08-10 Evolution and Alabama Last month's Scientific Correctness Survey asked: Some people, including Alabama Governor Fob James, claim that Darwin's theory of evolution is dead wrong. This month's question is: Did human beings evolve from ape-like creatures? __Yes __No __Not in Alabama __Other (please specify) The votes poured in, especially from Alabama. The final result: 59% said yes 03% said No 62% said Not in Alabama 54% said Other, sometimes quite emphatically. Many respondents cast votes for multiple categories. One respondent mailed us a photograph of his brother. Several respondents from Alabama described an "educational ape imitation" that Governor James once performed in front of the state legislature. All in all, many things were made clear. Here are some of them. Investigator Sherry McDonald: "Yes...Darwin was right and the governor is in denial." Investigator Hershl Hartman: "Where in the Bible does it say that? Certainly not in Gen. 1:27 'A male and female He created them' or in Gen 2:22 'And Yave Elohim fashioned the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman.' With such clear evidence before us, how can Darwin possibly be right?" Investigator John Wilson: "Since the question is inspired, if we can use that word, by a government official, the answer "yes" is close enough for government work." Investigator Richard Platel: "I cannot understand the continuing controversy over this issue. It is obvious to any rational person that if two groups of people hold strong, opposing viewpoints, then the truth must lie precisely between them (this is a well known mathematical theorem.) Obviously then, dumb animals evolved up to a certain point, at which time, a divine being created humans." Investigator Anthony Kinney: "The correct answer is some human beings (Homo sapiens) evolved from apes. Fob James and others (Homo amoebo) evolved directly from unicellular organisms and they are now using that cell for brains." Investigator Raymond Craig Thompson: "No! Human beings were created as was all life on earth. There has been no proof found supporting the theory of evolution, but to the contrary all things point towards creation being the only feasible answer to where life came from." Oddly named investigator Alan B: "We still are ape like creatures. Evolution would be a good idea right now." - End of forwarded message from Jack Kolb -
Re: Impact of ICTs on organisational culture (fwd)
For those who are anticipating the possibility of ICT leading to a decentralization of work, the paper referred to below should be rather sobering. Prochnik's findings for transnational firms in Brazil corresponds to my more anecdotal experience, that rather than facilitating decentralization, ICT is likely to lead to the recentralization of corporate activities. (The pipe runs two ways... Those activities, such as finance and accounting, marketing, advertising, personnel management and so on which in many cases have been decentralized to local hubs because of cost and the need for a degree of "localization", may with the expansion of ICT bandwidth be recentralized by putting more information up the pipe to HQ--including CSCW/audio/video and so on... Comments M Michael Gurstein, Ph.D. ECBC/NSERC/SSHRC Associate Chair in the Management of Technological Change Director: Centre for Community and Enterprise Networking (C\CEN) University College of Cape Breton, POBox 5300, Sydney, NS, CANADA B1P 6L2 Tel. 902-563-1369 (o) 902-562-1055 (h)902-563-1336 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Http://ccen.uccb.ns.ca ICQ: 7388855 -- Forwarded message -- Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 08:40:25 -0300 From: Victor Prochnik [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Impact of ICTs on organisational culture Hi Luiz, I have written a paper on the impact of international telecom networks on the internal organization of transnational enterprises. It can be downloaded from http://www.ie.ufrj.br/nuca-wp/victorpr1.htm I hope it helps you. Victor Prochnik Institute of Economics Federal University of Rio de Janeiro -Original Message- From: Luiz Ojima Sakuda [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Quinta-feira, 9 de Julho de 1998 23:33 Subject: Impact of ICTs on organisational culture I'm researching telework, and I'm looking for references on the impact of the substitution of face-to-face communication for ICTs-mediated communication on organisational culture and other related aspects. Thanks, Luiz Ojima Sakuda Graduate Student FGV/SP - Brazil
Re: chimpanzeehood and human nature
I think this must be the exception, in tribes where the idea of surplus/private property of the means of production such as land and the separation of of work did not occur. I don't remember any such matriarchal structures mentioned in the inca and other city-dwelling or nomadic ancient americans. Westerners yearn so much for an idyll of back to nature, that they tend to re-create some of the "ancient" customs that were disrupted by their very arrival... Eva Eva, how do you justify your opinion about all women everywhere as property with the fact that in most Native American communities the women owned the property and could put the husband out of the marriage by simply putting his shoes in the door? Power was vested in the clans and in the clan mothers who chose and still choose the members of the council. Only they can depose a leader and in my nation only the "beloved woman" can declare war. In my two divorces the wife got all of the property and left me only with what they didn't want. It is not easy being in a traditional marital arrangement. That is why we so rarely leave them. You seem a bit Eurocentric here. REH Durant wrote: (David Burman:) On the contrary. The evidence strongly suggests that our original foreparents were egalitarian in their practices, with agricultural surpluses and advanced cultural development, but with no signs of fortification that would suggests the need for defence from others. This contradicts the commonly held patriarchal assumptions that agricultural surplus was the necessary and sufficient condition for domination and war. These societies valued the feminine power to create life over the masculine power to take it. I wonder on what sort of evidence such assuptions are based. There is some evidence that climatic changes in central Asia precipitated a gradual change to sky god worshipping, male dominant and dominating modes of social organization. These changes are thought to have been associated with loss of agricultural productivity which resulted mass migrations and ultimate overrunning of the peaceful populations they encountered, while taking on a modifyied form of the cultures they conquered. The most recent of such invasions, and hence the only one in recorded history, was Mycenian invasion of Crete. From this material, it seems that the history of conquest and domination that we assume to be human nature, is really an historical blip of a mere 5,000 years. It makes more sense to me to assume, that women had more power while gathering was a more guaranteed "income" then the other activities. In flood plains where agriculture was "easy", it developed, where it was not, nomad animal-rearing, thus wondering was the norm. Both activities lead to surplus, private property, which required heirs, thus women became part of the property ever since. Conquest and domination was part of human life - as it was part of animal life. However, I agree, it is not necesserily "human nature", as human behaviour changes much more rapidly as to be possible to define it. Eva [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The X Files (deus ex machina excuses)
Eva Durant: So who decides who takes the role of the gamekeeper and the role of animals? Jay Hanson: Policy-making would be done by an elite group of scientists and religious and cultural leaders. Administration would be done by computers. Obviously, working all this stuff out would take an enormous amount of effort. I haven't taken the time because I haven't seen any willingness to junk the present system. There have been serious attempts to work it out. I recall many years ago seeing a book written by scientists of the day working for the Nazis. In it there were pictures of how you could tell the difference between Aryans and Jews by the way they sat on the toilet. Just a little later, their colleague engineers, inspired, aided and abbeted by their cultural and religious leaders, designed gas chambers and developed Cyclone B.I also recall seeing publications on eugenics, honest proposals to improve the human species by selective sterilization and breeding, some of which were actually carried out by computers - human ones because we were still some distance from the microchip. Some of the things that the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is finding out also suggest that cultural and religious leaders and scientists have given considerable thought to how the human race might be improved. Jay, I take your postings very seriously because they contain important messages, but, sorry, I can't buy this one. While you appear to be a cynic, you are really the highest of idealists. You expect far too much of us poor human animals, and want to save us from ourselves. And for what? Simply to be administered, bred and culled on a scientifically managed game farm? Thank you, but I'm going to go have a beer with Joe Sixpack. Ed Weick
