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

glen e. p. ropella wrote: We're talking about the government for and by "normal" people who revere safety and convenience (which they misname "freedom"). And in that context, they prefer predictability and a minimum of unforeseen consequences... even to the point that they like and want fascism.

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

Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 10/06/2008 04:33 PM: > glen e. p. ropella wrote: >> This abstraction >> away from the fully embedded _human_ to idealistic "skill sets" is the >> problem. It's what leads us to hire "experts" and then remove them from >> their proper context and place them in pos

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

glen e. p. ropella wrote: This abstraction away from the fully embedded _human_ to idealistic "skill sets" is the problem. It's what leads us to hire "experts" and then remove them from their proper context and place them in positions where they do unimaginable and unforeseen harm (or good). If

Re: [FRIAM] Relaxed selection

Jochen, That concept of alternating opportunistic and constrained developmental phases, 'relaxed' then 'fierce' selection regimes, sounds like a statistical version of the behavioral model that growth begins from minute beginnings in an environment without constraint except itself. When that kind

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

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

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

Oh, good. First politics, now religion. *Somebody's* gonna get pissed off. But hey, it's God's will. Actually, I think religions (like Scientology, for example -- one of my personal favorites) are great! When you discover what particular flavor of religion someone subscribes to, you suddenly

Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

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

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

glen e. p. ropella wrote: But you're not talking about management, there. You're talking about execution. You _are_ the best person to determine whether or not you _need_ a tumor removed from your brain (regardless of how much an elitist M.D. might tell you otherwise). If a community doesn't

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

It is certainly unreasonable to expect people to behave rationally, especially when most of them claim to believe in a God who somehow judges and punishes! Well, one must admit that in the END there is retribution for most BAD acts - the clever thing is that it is usually the innocent who are

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

Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 10/06/2008 02:36 PM: > But removing a brain tumor is beyond what I could do for myself. I'm > also not the best person to build a space shuttle or for that matter > solve a city septic system problem. Cute. [grin] But you're not talking about management, there.

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

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

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

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

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

glen e. p. ropella wrote: My suggestion is that the problem is with the way government accumulates (or aggregates). Ok, like the nature of the legislative process or what is constitutional. E.g. perhaps if state government was a direct, "natural", cumulative consequence (and _only_ a direct

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

OK. I absolutely agree that management of the commons is a central issue and one that has not received enough attention. One reason for that is that we are not comfortable thinking about commons -- and the extreme every-man-for-himself free marketers prefer it that way. But ultimately we are livin

[FRIAM] money is power (was Re: Willful Ignorance)

Thus spake Robert Cordingley circa 10/06/2008 12:25 PM: > Someone wanted to know what we could do. Well, to break the connection > between money and power which I think is a core problem, nationwide, I'd > start with: > [...] > Quick questions: What political animal does this make me? How do I ge

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

Russ, There may not be simple one-line solutions, but there are simple one-line necessities, that any solution needs to include. One is to counteract the problem that investing in the use of a commons to multiply your returns from it will invariably cause it to collapse unless you switch

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

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

Re: [FRIAM] Self-awareness

I'm sorry, Phil, I'm missing your point. How does your comment relate to my argument that self-awareness is a primary good and a possible way around the difficulty most people have with critical thinking? -- Russ On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Phil Henshaw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Well R

Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

Excellent! That goes along with having people who profit from pumping bubbles till their environments collapse to give it back. Another impossibility would be persuade politicians not to sell themselves with tempting empty promises, but by giving people better information for making their o

Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

Lawrence Lessig is promoting his ideas on the topic of unbalanced influence and politics. Sent from my iPhone On Oct 6, 2008, at 12:25, Robert Cordingley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Someone wanted to know what we could do. Well, to break the connection between money and power which I thi

Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

Well Russ, what if a group of scientists were to acknowledge that science actually just seems to be descriptive after all..., and looking through the holes one seems able to actually see signs of a physical world after all! Than sort of 'emperor's new clothes' moment might be enough to turn everyon

[FRIAM] Relaxed selection

One of the things I am interested in is how nature creatures complex things. The latest New Scientist (from 27 Sep. 2008) has an article named "As if from nowhere" about the topic of "relaxed selection", a concept invented by Terry Deacon. Terry Deacon is an anthropology professor at Berkeley.

Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

Glen says: > Without fail, they get annoyed... even if my new body of evidence shows > that the position I took in the original argument was wrong. >...My question is: Why doesn't everyone do this sort of thing? Why is it that > people get in arguments, disagree with one another, and then don't f

Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

Someone wanted to know what we could do. Well, to break the connection between money and power which I think is a core problem, nationwide, I'd start with: Influence peddling: * Ban all Special Interest Groups. Elected officials will have to listen to their electorate for guidance. S

Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

Orlando Leibovitz wrote: > Of course, the Supreme Court (the name now sounds surrealistic) has > prohibited the following suggestion citing a violation of free speech > but here it is anyway. Ah, therein lies the beauty of my suggestion. By limiting contributions to registered voters, I've elim

Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

The Matt Taibbi quote is an amazingly clear description of the dilemma of minds that "make sense" of things by plugging in stereotypes of the real world and so creating an imaginary one lacking internal conflicts. The error common to all such "confusions" seems to be discussing things in terms

Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

Well, where do you put inherited 'willful ignorance'? That kind is sort of 'built in'. There are two of these that my work repeatedly runs into and I fail to find a way around.One is the evident fact that the active parts of nature develop locally and have their own local reactions to

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

I see this as involving two fundamental issues: governing a commons and group effectiveness. - There is a lot of current work on governing a commons. The best known name is Elinor Ostrom

Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

To add to that, there seems to be a large institutional push for business and political funded mercenary scientific research to create uncertainty about legitimate science. A comment on David Michaels' in book "Doubt is their product" is in the 9/27 Science News sums it up. It's 1100 references

Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

glen e. p. ropella wrote: As long as we have a single government that governs 3.5 million square miles, we will have complex laws with lots of loopholes and aggressive special interests who drive campaigns (with money). Special interests with money would then just have to exert less energy ma

Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

Thus spake Steve Smith circa 10/06/2008 10:46 AM: > That said, I'm not offering a better plan, though I agree that big campaign > contributions are a problem in almost every case. But big campaigns (and big campaign contributions) are just a symptom of non-local (big) government. As long as we h

Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

Steve, it seems to me that if money was not an issue more people would be able to enter the political process. Yes there would be a bureaucracy but no larger then the one that currently exists...maybe smaller. You get x signatures and you are in the process. You get more and you begin to get mo

Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

I think we should tax campaign contributions with progressively higher rates as the size of the contribution increases. If you want to give a candidate a million dollars, that's fine, by you'll need to cough up 10 million dollars because the contribution is taxed at 90%. Those who want to influen

[FRIAM] Annenberg scholars evaluate political differences on technology

Annenberg scholars evaluate political differences on technology http://arnic.info/policywatch.php Annenberg Research Network on International Communications Campaign 2008: USC Annenberg Technology and Media Policy Watch Sept. 30 Ernest J. Wilson, Dean, Annenberg School For Communication An inf

Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

Orlando - I appreciated your riff of quotes earlier on this thread good contribution. Of course, the Supreme Court (the name now sounds surrealistic) has prohibited the following suggestion citing a violation of free speech but here it is anyway. All Federal elections should be federal

Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

Of course, the Supreme Court (the name now sounds surrealistic) has prohibited the following suggestion citing a violation of free speech but here it is anyway. All Federal elections should be federally funded and all campaign contributions from any source should be prohibited. Various qualific

Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

peggy miller wrote: > Many have been arguing for a long time that we need strict campaign > finance reform laws. Here's my suggestion - campaign contributions can only be given if one can vote in the election that the campaign is about. I wouldn't limit them if the donor is eligible - but all c

Re: [FRIAM] Willful Ignorance

Many have been arguing for a long time that we need strict campaign finance reform laws. Most forget about it and allow their own representatives to vote against good reform laws propsoed in Congress. Without that, loopholes in any good legislation will be created and campaigning will be something

Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

Good.. Jack - Original Message - From: Orlando Leibovitz To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 5:07 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E QUOTES Few people think more than two or three times