On Tuesday, March 18, 2014 3:43:58 AM UTC, ghi...@gmail.com wrote: > > > On Monday, March 17, 2014 11:37:36 PM UTC, Liz R wrote: >> >> On 18 March 2014 05:01, <spudb...@aol.com> wrote: >> >>> Well, to get on track, we would need to assert trade offs, fixes, and >>> solutions, rather than promote mere complaint. This goes for myself, but >>> few seem to feel this way. If we want a clean green Earth, then problem >>> solving is essential. In that attempt to problem solve, we may come up with >>> a decent idea, or promote one we have heard of. >>> >> >> That is exactly how I feel about it. However I suspect that your rants >> about how [insert special interest group here] are a bunch of [insert >> despised political group here] planning to create a [insert feared >> political system here] may not have helped people appreciate that this is >> your position. >> > > What's interesting about the way you write this as a fill-the-blanks > template, is the question of how close your template comes to ubiquity in > terms of total-humans/humans-filtering-the-world-through-lizzies-templatee > > At least partially filtering through the template anyway. Keeping > meaningfulness by requiring instances of whole template usage, not partial. > > Staying with that measure, a further question would be how much more > closely does your template define the contemporary era than others in > history? Then, defining each era in terms of how much your template > captures it, what does history look like on those terms? Does it tell a > coherent story? Like, are there lizzie template spikes at the major > milestones, like the French Revolution, or the Bolshevik Takeover of > Russia, or during the Cold War. Would that template alone be enough to > define every historical period sufficiently that each one, say, had its own > distinctive template usage character. > > For example the Cold War might feature massive usage, but with everything > breaking down into two templates in most common use. One for soviet and the > other for American sympathy. Bolshevik could also be largely broken into > two, one involving, say, the bourgeoisie or something. French Revolution > might pair around 'aristocracy'. > > Thinking about it, could not the emergent pattern from history be that > there is generally a reactionary and revolutionary template? A template for > the incumbent and for would-be nemesis. Or in time, of the power that ruled > in time going backwards and power that rules in time going > forwards...around some point. The cold war template would kind of break > into four..two each for East and West, such that both represent both > positions. > > But does the contemporary situation fit the historical pattern? It seems > vastly more complex to me. In all the other instances, there was major > backing for the template...two elites, or one elite and one would-be elite, > would be ultimate backers of one of the two mirroring templates. > > Everyone pretty much knew who the elites were. At least that could be > said. Do we know now? What would the template usage say, keeping with the > idea of that being the only information allowed to define history. Would > the template usage that said knowledge of elites was fairly strong, show a > division about two ways? That'd fit with historical situation. What about > now? > > Fair enough history must have had some outlying daft theories like now, so > let's elimate those. Also control for the information revolution and the > extents, then, of templates becoming more complex due to people being > influenced online. > > One way to do this would be to select a sample of the most mainstream > template. Surely most of us have some experience of the mainstream. Either > we're moving in the direction of it, or moving the other way. But generally > we know something about it. Does the mainsteam template know who our elites > are right now? Do you? Do people even here in this thread agree on this > question? How many different views on this are here alone? > > It's a world of infinite infinities, bocktime multiverses, endless > potentials and exponentially growing optimism...where to say otherwise is > literally bad philosophy by definition. There is even the suggestion that > elites cannot exist at all...not cohersive ones anyway..,that to say > otherwise is bad philosophy too (i.e. Deutsch). > > Maybe that's a reason why no one knows. Because no such thing exists. > Maybe the reason fewer and fewer people talk about such a thing as an > incumbent elite. Fewer news references, fewer political references, fewer > scientific references...maybe as the spread of good philosophy all such > talk fades out of all mainstream template usage. Maybe this era defines a > big template usage divide, a pairing, after all. Mention of Elites. One > side convergent to 'never' the other divergent to cacophonic chaotic > confusion. So in a way both sides amounting to "never". One side literal, > the other side useful information. > As an after thought I was just reminded of an early thread I looked at but didn't comment in. I don't remember everyone that did, but I do remember that you - I think - and John were major contributors, or stuck out for me. It was about George Orwell, his "1984" novel I think I think the agreement was in terms of his genius. I remember this much because the what was most brilliant seemed to be in the 'devices and gadgetry' department, talking/spying television boxes; psychological devices toward the end of believing, really believing, in something you had believed against. And the opposite of that belief too as "doublethink". As "thought-crimes". At the time I was struck two ways. Firstly, that if this is the root of the ingredient of genius, then Orwell was either not a socialist which actually he was. Or Orwell was not talking about the perils of socialism which actually he was. Sort of like a contradiction or a paradox. How can you criticize what you believe in so ferociously without reference to what you don't believe in? So then there's the theory he was talking about Totalitarianism as a solution to that. The way all 'isms' meeting round the back in the middle, in a big all connected circle. Which is a theory, but for me....going back to when I read it.....that didn't work. Because like the 'devices and gadgetries' explanation, on that reading - of totalitarianism - it wasn't particularly new or ingenious what he was saying at all. Yet for sure that was something brilliant and something brand new and unique in Orwell's 1984. For me anyway.....I thought the 'devices and gadgets' and the 'extremes of socialism' and the 'nature of totalitarianism' were all true, but all just layers. In terms of 'genius' anyway all of them discountable. For genius requires something to be said about something much more intrinsic and ubiquitously affecting...more to the heart of human nature, human society, human past human future. I thought it was the nature of Power. I thought he was breaking new ground in defining the Nature of Power for All Times. I thought the genius of the devices and gadgets was that they were all and each metaphors for a specific key dimension of Eternal Power. Another curiousity about that thread was no one asked the question, whether and to what extent any of those devices and gadgets are in play...not affecting other people because your 'template' already puts paid to the usefulness of that (everyone can see how it affects someone else). But affecting us personally. You, John...each of us. Question that would have been, would be "would we know?". Would we know. Would we want to know? Would we prefer double think. Would we be the hero or everyone else? The genius of Orwell - I think - was that he wrote a book about Power as it really is. The measure of his genius was not in the eyes of the beholders that read his book. Or the critic. But more like Art...existential art. The genius of being so right about something, as to be existentially reflective of that thing. That the ability of people to see through the layers to that real thing, was not determined by their intellect or his writing anymore at all. But by the properties of that existential thing he was describing. The properties, in this case, of Power. The prediction then, based on the properties he defined, would be that the extent we get it, this is about power, is inversely proportionate to the extent such power exists right here right now in our day.
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