Re: [FRIAM] Gentleman's Club

[Steven A Smith]

"clubbable" as in "baby seal"? 

 Frank wrote:
> You are eminently clubbable wrt Friam, Jon.
>

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[FRIAM] Fwd: the role of intuition/inspiration in Science

[Steven A Smith]

In support of one of my earlier rambles about the source and
value/nature of intuition:

I submit this blog-entry on the Pirsig's reflections on the nature of
"Truth" in science and subliminal/subconscious sources of intuition and
inspiration and even analysis.   "Zen and the Art of Science"

written as a tribute to Pirsig after his death in 2017...

/One of the most fruitful sources of hypotheses in science is
mathematics, a discipline which consists of the creation of symbolic
models of quantitative relationships. And yet, the nature of
mathematical discovery is so mysterious that mathematicians
themselves have compared their insights to mysticism. The great
French mathematician Henri Poincare believed that the human mind
worked subliminally on problems, and his work habit was to spend
//no more than two hours at a time

//working
on mathematics. Poincare believed that his subconscious would
continue working on problems while he conducted other activities,
and indeed, many of his great discoveries occurred precisely when he
was away from his desk. John von Neumann, one of the best
mathematicians of the twentieth century, also believed in the
subliminal mind. He would sometimes go to sleep with a mathematical
problem on his mind and //wake up in the middle of the night with a
solution

//.
The Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan was a Hindu
mystic who believed that//solutions were revealed to him in dreams
by the goddess Namagiri.

/

I would like to submit that the above does NOT (IMO) answer the question
of "other ways knowing", just more hidden (to the conscious process)
methods of arriving at knowledge which is verifiable by independent and
repeatable testing of the consequent hypotheses.


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Re: [FRIAM] Wisconsin stay-at-home (safer at home) order overturned

[Steven A Smith]

l remain closed for "all
> inperson services." 
>
> * Declares all "public amusement and activity" places closed
> regardless of whether "indoors or outdoors" except golf
> courses (with restrictions). The order says "Driving ranges
> and miniature golf must remain closed." 
>
> * Continues the ordered closure of all salons and spas. 
>
> * Continues the closure of every restaurant and bar except for
> take-out or delivery service. 
>
> * Orders religious groups to limit gatherings to "fewer than
> 10 people in a room" including weddings and funerals. 
>
> * Imposes a six-foot social distancing requirement for any
> person not "residing in a single living unit or household."
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, May 14, 2020 at 10:55 AM Steven A Smith  <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:
>
> Friammers -
>
> Mary's daughter, who lives in Wisconsin alerted us to the big
> court-decision overturning the governor's stay-at-home order:
>
> 
> https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/wisconsin-supreme-court-strikes-down-stay-at-home-order/article_fd2be344-666f-5437-8955-f5cd9ae17a50.html
>
> /In a concurring opinion, Kelly said the court’s decision
> hinged on determining the extent of Palm’s authority, not
> whether her emergency order was a good idea./
>
> /“The order may be a brilliantly conceived and executed
> response to COVID-19,” Kelly said. “Either way, that is not
> the question before the court.”/
>
> I'm (nicely?) split on issues like this and I think this last
> quote really says a lot.   I understand that 2 or more counties
> immediately issued their own "safer at home" order matching the
> one repealed at the state level.   I'm not clear on whether a
> similar "overreach of authority" will ultimately be decided
> against those.
>
> Anecdotally, in the meantime, many bars have opened and apparently
> many patrons have returned (without masks and not observing social
> distancing guidelines).  
>
> This seems like a good test bed of some of the assumptions behind
> Dave's "prophecy".   Will the (if we believe in the germ theory
> and network transmission) uptick in cases resulting from this lead
> to a continuation of the pandemic (or "pandemic" if we prefer to
> believe the only uncontrolled growth is in hysterical media
> coverage and hypochondria).   The best case (and one I mostly hope
> for) might be if the subset of the WI population who now disregard
> the (former) rules is small enough and insular (only infecting one
> another) enough and/or the herd immunity has grown enough (highest
> estimates in places like NYC I think are still down as low as 20%
> out of the believed 70% required to bring R0 below 1.0 w/o
> masks/social-distance measures?).  
>
> Given that the courts may well be accurate in their interpretation
> of the limits to the governor's powers, I would expect a domino of
> challenges across republican-majority courts in other states, and
> a subsequent surge in the unrestricted opening of businesses and
> events.  
>
> I find a bit of cognitive/emotional/spiritual dissonance in trying
> to hold all three of the following in my head/heart/soul at the
> same time:
>
>  1. The rule of law is important in our society and if a governor
> does not have the right to shut down as hard as some have,
> then that needs to be acknowledged and reversed.
>  2. There is a lot of evidence suggesting that like Kelly above is
> quoted that "the order may be a brilliantly conceived and
> executed response... " and that reversing it in fact as well
> as in law may well yield a significant increase in R0 in those
> states (and among states who have significant mixing *with*
> those states), possibly putting us back close to where we were
> in late March.
>  3. I don't like the idea of telling others what to do
> (wholesale), nor being told what to do (specifically), but I
> also recognize that we do not live isolated, solitary lives,
> and "what we do matters".  My threshold on accepting secondary
> and tertiary consequences may be above "helmet and seatbelt
> laws" but below "measures to suppress epidemic spread of
> deadly disease".   

[FRIAM] Pirsig's reflections on "Mu"

[Steven A Smith]

I just read Pirsig's (in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
reflections on the Japanese concept of "Mu" and thought of at least a
half-dozen of our threads here...  

https://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=583

I'm wondering if Carl (Tollander) is listening here and might offer his
own perspective (as a Japanophile and practicioner on this edge IMO)

- Steve


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[FRIAM] Wisconsin stay-at-home (safer at home) order overturned

[Steven A Smith]

Friammers -

Mary's daughter, who lives in Wisconsin alerted us to the big
court-decision overturning the governor's stay-at-home order:


https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/wisconsin-supreme-court-strikes-down-stay-at-home-order/article_fd2be344-666f-5437-8955-f5cd9ae17a50.html

/In a concurring opinion, Kelly said the court’s decision hinged on
determining the extent of Palm’s authority, not whether her
emergency order was a good idea./

/“The order may be a brilliantly conceived and executed response to
COVID-19,” Kelly said. “Either way, that is not the question before
the court.”/

I'm (nicely?) split on issues like this and I think this last quote
really says a lot.   I understand that 2 or more counties immediately
issued their own "safer at home" order matching the one repealed at the
state level.   I'm not clear on whether a similar "overreach of
authority" will ultimately be decided against those.

Anecdotally, in the meantime, many bars have opened and apparently many
patrons have returned (without masks and not observing social distancing
guidelines).  

This seems like a good test bed of some of the assumptions behind Dave's
"prophecy".   Will the (if we believe in the germ theory and network
transmission) uptick in cases resulting from this lead to a continuation
of the pandemic (or "pandemic" if we prefer to believe the only
uncontrolled growth is in hysterical media coverage and hypochondria).  
The best case (and one I mostly hope for) might be if the subset of the
WI population who now disregard the (former) rules is small enough and
insular (only infecting one another) enough and/or the herd immunity has
grown enough (highest estimates in places like NYC I think are still
down as low as 20% out of the believed 70% required to bring R0 below
1.0 w/o masks/social-distance measures?).  

Given that the courts may well be accurate in their interpretation of
the limits to the governor's powers, I would expect a domino of
challenges across republican-majority courts in other states, and a
subsequent surge in the unrestricted opening of businesses and events.  

I find a bit of cognitive/emotional/spiritual dissonance in trying to
hold all three of the following in my head/heart/soul at the same time:

 1. The rule of law is important in our society and if a governor does
not have the right to shut down as hard as some have, then that
needs to be acknowledged and reversed.
 2. There is a lot of evidence suggesting that like Kelly above is
quoted that "the order may be a brilliantly conceived and executed
response... " and that reversing it in fact as well as in law may
well yield a significant increase in R0 in those states (and among
states who have significant mixing *with* those states), possibly
putting us back close to where we were in late March.
 3. I don't like the idea of telling others what to do (wholesale), nor
being told what to do (specifically), but I also recognize that we
do not live isolated, solitary lives, and "what we do matters".  My
threshold on accepting secondary and tertiary consequences may be
above "helmet and seatbelt laws" but below "measures to suppress
epidemic spread of deadly disease".   But how does that jive with my
threshold for accepting "limits to personal agency and volition"?   

These are indeed, interesting times, and as with the basis of Dave's
prophecy, "only time will tell"...  and with Glen's "put a pin in it", I
just hope we keep track and pay attention to how well our
prophecies/projections/forecasts play out.

- Steve

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Re: [FRIAM] PSC Tornado Visualization (2008) [720p] - YouTube

[Steven A Smith]

On 5/13/20 9:52 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>
> Experiment with a modern implementation of generative adversarial
> networks for a while and I think you’ll begin to feel less smug about
> the superiority of first principles – sort of like a craft of Colonial
> Williamsburg.    Computer, just get me the equations and spare the drama.
>
My mother was the source (vehicle) of many aphorisms, some of which I
found particularly maddening.  

"If you can't tell (the difference), it doesn't matter!"

was perhaps the most notable and I suppose an archetypal example of
vernacular pragmatism (Nick).

I *think* this discussion (or this subthread) has devolved to suggesting
that predictive power is the only use of modeling (and simulation)
whilst explanatory power is not (it is just drama?).  

It is not my feeling or experience or intuition that the explanatory
power (illusion) of deriving things from first principles is unimportant
or irrelevant, but I don't know that I have anything but "a strong
feeling" to back that up.   When I went to college I had a modestly
broad command of math and basic science which I found very satisfying as
a basis for (thinking I did) understand a lot about the world as it
unfolded around me (dust-devils, thunderstorms, motorcycle accidents,
auto mechanics, mechanical constructions) but as I learned calculus, I
somehow felt like I'd been handed a whole new toolkit... a way to peel
back the covers from the myriad equations that had been handed to me
with no real explanatory power. 

Having the equations of motion had seemed like "enough" until I began to
explore their derivations.   Most of my peers were in engineering and
while they also were learning calculus, they did not seem to have the
same fascination... they were much less interested (in my apprehension)
in "understanding things" than they were "predicting things" and even
prediction was in service to the utility of "building a thing".   In
physics, each layer of more fundamental theory, no matter how hard or
obscure it was, was very satisfying.  Again, my engineering peers were
puzzled by why I would care about relativity or quantum mechanics when
they saw so little (if any) application for it.  Of course today, nearly
50 years later, the applications are pervasive in the more advanced
engineering applications  (electrooptics, materials science, etc.)

I'll be interested to see how (if?) this distinction unfolds with others
here.   Maybe my mother was right "if you can't tell the difference, it
doesn't matter".

- Steve


>  
>
> *From: *Friam  on behalf of
> "thompnicks...@gmail.com" 
> *Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> 
> *Date: *Wednesday, May 13, 2020 at 8:40 PM
> *To: *'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
> 
> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] PSC Tornado Visualization (2008) [720p] - YouTube
>
>  
>
> Old Philosophical Joke:
>
>  
>
> Deep in a remote valley lived a tribe that had never been in contact
> with the modern world … except for one monastery which corresponded
> with Greenwich village to get the sunrise tables.  The monks would get
> up 15 minutes early and sound a bell, which the villagers believed was
> the cause of the sun rising.  It was said, “The monks awakened the sun
> from his slumbers.”  Because of this belief, offerings of every kind
> were left by the village on the steps of the monastery, and the monks
> grew fat and happy. 
>
>  
>
> In the course of the annual correspondence to get the new sunrise
> tables from Greenwich, one of the British scientists questioned the
> morality of the scam the monks were running.  The monks responded, “As
> long as they get their sunrise on time, who cares?”
>
>  
>
> I care.
>
>  
>
> Another old Philosophical Joke:
>
>  
>
> A man who claimed to be able to fly, announced on his facebook page
> that he was going to demonstrate his skill by jumping off the top
> balcony of a residential tower.  Psychologists were stationed at each
> balcony below with stop watches and clipboards to document his
> behavior during his “flight”.   As he went by each successive balcony
> he was heard to say, “So far, so good.” 
>
>  
>
> His widow cared.
>
>  
>
> Your query, Marcus, highlights the difference between philosophical
> pragmatism and the vernacular kind. 
>
>  
>
> Nick
>
>  
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Marcus Daniels
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 13, 2020 9:23 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> 
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] PSC Tornado Visualization (2008) [720p] - YouTube
>
>  
>
> Nick writes:
>
>  
>
> “The result looks so much like iconic tornado vids that we wannabee
> tornado chasers idolize that one suspects that the video was back
> constructed from that film, rather than developing 

Re: [FRIAM] PSC Tornado Visualization (2008) [720p] - YouTube

[Steven A Smith]

some quads are not...  think boomarang-like... I think there is a
technical term for that class of quad... also think if a "bowtie", also
technically a quad but potentially having "negative area".


On 5/13/20 9:13 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> And quadralaterals aren’t convex?  I don’t get it.
>
>  
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Angel Edward
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 13, 2020 7:40 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> 
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] PSC Tornado Visualization (2008) [720p] - YouTube
>
>  
>
> Because triangles are convex they are guaranteed to be rendered
> correctly. Every modern graphics system whether hardware or software
> is based on using triangles as the basic element.
>
> __
>
> Ed Angel
>
> Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory
> (ARTS Lab)
> Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico
>
> 1017 Sierra Pinon
> Santa Fe, NM 87501
> 505-984-0136 (home)   
> edward.an...@gmail.com 
> 505-453-4944 (cell)  
> http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel
>
>
>
> On May 13, 2020, at 7:28 PM, Frank Wimberly  > wrote:
>
>  
>
> I'm not Marcus but in finite element analysis the discretization
> of a 2 dimensional region is always done with triangles. It's much
> more flexible than rectangular grids, to oversimplify.
>
>  
>
> Frank
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
>  
>
> On Wed, May 13, 2020, 7:13 PM  > wrote:
>
> Marcus,
>
>  
>
> Can you explain why the basic unit is a triangle?
>
>  
>
> Any Peircean would LOVE it.
>
>  
>
> n
>
>  
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* Friam  > *On Behalf Of *Marcus Daniels
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 13, 2020 6:00 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] PSC Tornado Visualization (2008) [720p]
> - YouTube
>
>  
>
> Check out that WaPost article for the state-of-the-art.   (The
> new Unreal Engine.)
>
>  
>
> *From: *Friam  > on behalf of Angel Edward
> mailto:edward.an...@gmail.com>>
> *Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
> *Date: *Wednesday, May 13, 2020 at 4:58 PM
> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] PSC Tornado Visualization (2008) [720p]
> - YouTube
>
>  
>
> I vaguely remember plot 3d. No one renders today the way it
> did. Cray was less than a PC with a decent graphics card.
>
>  
>
> Ed
>
> __
>
> Ed Angel
>
> Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science
> Laboratory (ARTS Lab)
> Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico
>
> 1017 Sierra Pinon
> Santa Fe, NM 87501
> 505-984-0136 (home)  edward.an...@gmail.com
> 
> 505-453-4944 (cell)  http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel
>
>  
>
> On May 13, 2020, at 5:51 PM, Frank Wimberly
> mailto:wimber...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>  
>
> Let me revise that a little bit.  There was a
> visualization of the rider's view of a roller coaster ride
> that ran on a Cray supercomputer.  The purpose was to
> demonstrate the capability and speed of a Lisp-based 3D
> renderer called Plot-3D or P3D or something similar.  Do
> you know what I'm talking about, Ed?
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
>  
>
> On Wed, May 13, 2020, 5:31 PM  > wrote:
>
> Thanks, Frank. 
>
>  
>
> NIck
>
>  
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> 

Re: [FRIAM] PSC Tornado Visualization (2008) [720p] - YouTube

[Steven A Smith]

Edward Angel wrote:
> Look at Donna Cox’s site at
> NCSA http://avl.ncsa.illinois.edu/who-we-are/team/donna-cox-director
>
> She’s been doing tornado simulations for over 15 years. We worked with
> her to put the simulation in planetarium dome. It’s much more
> impressive when you put the viewer in the middle of the tornado and
> immersed in it in the planetarium.

Or viewing it inside a 3+sided CAVE with Stereo and head tracking!   It
was also (all) a lot more impressive when it was new... it was a
significant early example of marrying fairly serious data/model Viz and
high-quality (at that time) rendering for proper 3D spaces.

That said, I think this is a worthwhile discussion... though it is one
I've been involved in (on both sides of the presumed contention) for
decades ( think the term Scientific Visualization was coined in the
mid/late 80s?) with limited resolution.

One person's eye-candy is anothers' significant "aid to
intuition/perception/analysis".   Somewhere in between are shades of
this with "communication graphics" falling closer to "eye-candy" and
highly technical diagrams, charts and graphs aiding in detailed analysis
on the other end.   In the middle (though I don't really believe it is a
single dimensional spectrum) are techniques and renderings which are
more useful for things  like getting peers up to speed quickly (also
communication but more demanding), to gaining novel (or quick) insight
into obscured mechanisms, or simply conveniences of/for construction
like Gnomonic map projections for navigational charts (so that great
circle routes render as straight lines).

When Hollywood first discovered computer graphics (or when it embraced
it fully by taking over the lion's share of the SIGGRAPH conferences) it
lead to a disservice to it's highly effective use in Eng/Sci.   I have
nothing against high fidelity gaming/FX,  it is tres-cool to drop in to
the alternate realities of Tron or Lawnmower Man or Virtuosity or
Battlezone or Riven or Myst or Toy Story (and infinity and beyond! 
25-40 years stale here) but the magic of getting past the uncanny valley
is more of a "technical trick" than anything fundamental leading toward
better understanding of "life the universe and everything".  

mumble,

 - Steve




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Re: [FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

[Steven A Smith]

Frank Wimberly wrote:

> It's appendages all the way up.

Shades of Kafka...

When this pandemic began to ramp up, I started experiencing that idiom
"waiting for the other shoe to fall", but in this case it was with a
Centipede.

Appendages all the way up/down/sideways for sure!


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Re: [FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

[Steven A Smith]

Frank -
> I was just outside sawing up dead branches.  I noticed a large ant
> struggling to carry a piece of vegetation larger than it was over
> obstacles in a general direction which did not change notwithstanding
> the obstacles.  It was very hard not to feel the ant's intentionality
> and determination.  I was experiencing the ant as the ant.  Extreme
> empathy.

Just reading this made my jaws (mandibles) ache (horizontally)!

But I couldn't really image the third pair of appendages (middle for me,
between my hind/forelimbs) helping me struggle.

But I did have a (likely highly mistargeted) olphactory analog of
pheremone trails/fields in that image.  It came through more as a taste
than a smell.

And as the ant, did you have any apprehension of that *huge* mammal
dragging dead branches around and waving a saw?  

- Steve

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Re: [FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -
> Sorry if my tone seems sarcastic. It's not meant that way.   
I was asking because it seemed to have that tone, but I also know you to
be pretty literal, so appreciate this clarity (as below as well).
>  I literally couldn't care what word is used. And I'd prefer we use a word 
> with fewer implications (connotations?).
I think that is meritable
>  Behavior is a very laden word. Since we're talking in the midst of a 
> conversation about psychology, it's a seriously BAD word to use. And since 
> EricC and Nick have *explicitly* challenged the concept of "inside", that 
> makes "inside" a bad word, too. It would be very cool if we could use neutral 
> terms like X and Y. But then we'll devolve into mathematics, which some 
> people think they don't like. (I'd argue everyone likes math; they just don't 
> know they like math.)
I will try to concede here to you what *I* believe to be one of the
major perils of the broad and free use of metaphor and that is that we
end up applying what I think you call "excess meaning".   And I am
sympathetic with wanting to couch it in entirely arbitrary symbols (even
X and Y often connote a Euclidean Grid and Orientation).
> I'm not trying to imply that dickering over words like "visible" and "hidden" 
> is absurd. 
Excellent... and I in return am sorry for letting that tack distract
me... I *am* trying to align more better with the conversation and this
helps.
> But I AM asking EricC and Nick to treat words as ambiguous, with multiple 
> meanings, wiggle room, and to make some effort to read what I *mean*, not 
> whatever immediate constructs pop into their heads when they first read the 
> words.
Yes, much discussion (especially on e-mail) seems to be at risk to
devolving into a cascade of triggers (in a broad sense, not just the
PTSD sense).   I also agree (if I'm understanding what you *mean*) that
meaning is carried in the white space, between the words, in the total
context/construct of the words and their arrangement and their embedding
in a larger conversation.
>  I've talked about this as "steelmanning" and "listening with empathy" a lot. 
I appreciate your making the connection between these two explicit.   It
enhances my empathy (I think) for what you are trying to do when you
"steelman".   We can discuss that entire idiom separately if I continue
to mis(sub?) understand it.   I think your use of "straw" and "steel" in
the sense of "antipathy" and "empathy" (perhaps) is very helpful to me
at least, as I begin to catch up (more) on how you mean/use those terms.
> I know it's difficult. I fail all the time. The conversation will be 
> permanently *dead* (to me) when/if we lock down a jargonal definition of any 
> word. If you force someone to read 800 page scribbles by old dead guys in 
> order to understand what a single word means, then you've lost the game.

And I *think* this is part of the larger discussion alluded to with your
invocation of "holographic".   A LOT can be inferred in a hologram from
a small subset of the arrangements of silver-halide (or the varying
thickness of a light-propogating substance), but no single atom or even
crystal really tells you much at all, and the MORE of the original
holographic recording that is maintained/referred to, the MORE fidelity
is obtained.    I don't know if this is an acutely useful observation in
this exchange, but I hope so.

>>  thus yielding a
>> different idea of surface or boundary and therefore (I think?)
>> interiority/exteriority...  
> No. I've purposefully stopped implying that the boundary closes a space 
> because I thought that was interfering with my steelmanning EricC's position.
Thanks... again I apologize for asking dumb questions to "come up to speed".
>  The position involves a kind of "projection" from the object's actions 
> (flapping wings or whatever) out to a (possibly imaginary) objective. And 
> that projection is important to the categorization of the *types* of behavior 
> they want to talk about (motivated, intentional, etc.). That projection to 
> the objective is what founds the claim that all (valid) questions about the 
> object's actions can be empirically studied, because the behavior is, 
> ultimately, embedded in the object-objective relationship ... the agent lives 
> in an environment and the environment is a kind of reflection of everything 
> that agent may do.
I DO usually try to read (listen) empathetically but your reference
above was a good reminder and I *think* helps in engaging in these types
of discussoins.   Another tangent you might be able to prune for me
trivially is the question of teleology.   We normally allow things with
agency to have objectives whilst we do not those without.   Drop a
human-scale (weight and dimension) mannequin with loose clothing from an
airplane and it may well "flap it's arms and legs" all the way to impact
which may look like hysterical panic if exhibited by a conscious human
*with agency*.  
> So, I attempted to remove the 

Re: [FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

[Steven A Smith]

Glen, ( Nick, Eric ) -
> EricC introduced the word "visible". I'm fine with it. Y'all can use whatever 
> word you choose. Iggitybiggity would be just as fine. My choice is "hidden".
I'm not sure why you need to suggest (sarcastically?) that the choice of
words don't matter (if that is what you are suggesting and in that
tone?).   Maybe I'm missing something.  HAD you (or Eric) used
IggityBiggity, I think it would have really thrown the conversation
sideways?  Perhaps you are implying that niggling (my new word for the
day) over "visible" and "hidden" is so arbitrary as to be absurd?
> I *also* reject the concept of "interiority", as I infer it. There is only 
> the boundary between the seer and the seen, the measurer and the measured, 
> the beginning of the probe and the thing probed. The peeker and the peeked. 
> The poker and the poked. [sigh] Will I ever toss out enough metaphors so you 
> can parallax toward the thing I actually mean?

Just to continue my niggling.  Interiority would seem to make perfect
sense in the context of your (subject) seer/measurer/prober  and the
object (seen/measured/probed)?   To the subject, there is a boundary
between it and the object when it comes to perceiving (by whatever
mechanism) beyond which nothing (or vanishingly little) can be directly
perceived (with the caveat of a mechanism of intermediate vector
photons/phonons/nerf-balls).   Visible light mostly bounces off the
surface of the skin but XRays penetrate through...  thus yielding a
different idea of surface or boundary and therefore (I think?)
interiority/exteriority...  

This seems to beg the questions (from other threads) about identity and
objectness?  I hope I'm not just stirring the conversation at hand
here... I'm just trying to catch/keep up?

The antenna example is near and dear to my heart as it was perhaps one
of the earliest "physics" constructs that I tried to understand
intuitively.   My parents gifted me a crystal radio kit which was little
more than two coils of wire and a bit of crystalline form iron-sulfide
(galena?).   The "little more" was a magic, industrially produced
diaphragm-coil earphone that pretty much quit working as soon as I
disassembled it (went inside of it) to see how it worked.   To the point
of your example I spent more than a little time in my bedroom "tickling"
the galena crystal with the wire "whisker" designed to make it "easy" to
find the right contact point on the lead-sulfide crystal to create a
rectifying diode, whilst trying to imagine what the hell might be going
on in that antenna and the tuning coil and the diode. 

My father's attempts to explain this "magic" was complicated by his own
hillbilly animistic tendency to think/describe things teleologically.  
It DID help me in a way I later recognized as similar to Einstein's
often lauded explanation of how he came to some of his nascent intuition
about relativity.

"...a paradox upon which I had already hit at the age of sixteen: If
I pursue a beam of light with the velocity c (velocity of light in a
vacuum), I should observe such a beam of light as an electromagnetic
field at rest though spatially oscillating. There seems to be no
such thing, however, neither on the basis of experience nor
according to Maxwell's equations. From the very beginning it
appeared to me intuitively clear that, judged from the standpoint of
such an observer, everything would have to happen according to the
same laws as for an observer who, relative to the earth, was at
rest. For how should the first observer know or be able to
determine, that he is in a state of fast uniform motion? One sees in
this paradox the germ of the special relativity theory is already
contained."

My own introspections/extrospections on this apparatus/phenomenon were
much less articulate and feeble than Einstein's of course... but the key
to it (for me) was to almost seek an *emphathetic* relationship to the
*imagined* behaviour of the elements (antenna, coil, PbS crystal, wire
whisker...) as well as an even-more imagined element being the
transmitter/antenna that was *creating* (inducing?) the signals I was
detecting.   I even remember a  discussion with my father who *assumed*
that a heavier gauge wire-antenna would somehow provide stronger
coupling... (re: the epsilon distance from the surface point).

So I WAS that "arbitrary dork just sitting there wondering..." and that
style of wondering comes back/up to me often.


>
> Stop, for awhile, talking about hard things like consciousness and thought 
> and think, temporarily about celery and antennas. When an antenna is sitting 
> next to your cell phone, *something* happens inside (or more accurately on 
> the surface of) that antenna ... something you cannot see with your naked 
> eye, nor feel when you put your finger on it.
>
> So, if you're just an arbitrary dork sitting there wondering "I wonder if 
> there's anything going on inside that antenna?" 

Re: [FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

[Steven A Smith]

glen -

I try to resist sticking my fat foot (face, keyboard?) into these
discussions.   A few weeks back at the beginning of this (or perhaps a
precursor to this) thread, I felt as if you and Nick (and maybe Eric?)
were having an exchange almost indistinguishable (in form, not detail)
from the one between Vizzini and Dread Pirate Roberts now infamously
known as "the Iocane Powder Battle of  Wits".    I will leave it to the
reader to judge who I imaged as Vizzini and who Roberts, but let me
clarify that I was relieved when both parties emerged from the exchange
alive (or so I impute from your continued textual engagement via this
mail list, which given some of this discussion might actually be worth
questioning as sufficient for that imputation?).

I will niggle at your statement that "there is no behavioral difference
between celery changing color and a paper towel changing color" though I
accept that the (more) interesting distinction is between the mechanisms
in each.   Replace your celery stalk with a giant sequoia and make your
paper towel roll equally tall, and maybe you sense my issue.   By
observing the (behavioural) difference between the sequoia's leaves
taking up fuscia dye at it's crown and the paper towel roll only taking
it up a few meters high (postulate a waterproof and very strong
core-roll to keep it from sagging/breaking with the added weight), we
might *then* impute that their dyed-water uptake is based on differing
mechanisms.   At this scale/context of observation, I think the
*mechanism* (or it's behaviour) is hidden whilst the
macro-(quantitatively and qualitatively?) behaviour is exposed (visible).

As for Nick's use of "black box" and your own niggling with that, I will
*try* to follow your lead on thread hygiene and respond inline to that
response/post (next).

- Steve

> There is no need to distinguish between behavior and non-behavior movement. 
> It's a distraction. That's part of my position in this discussion. To play 
> fair, though, I'll take your example of the live vs. dead duck. I don't care 
> whether the duck is alive or dead. I don't distinguish between dead duck 
> behavior and live duck behavior. There is no such thing as "trying to escape 
> the fox" behavior. There is only "darting this way", "sprinting that way", 
> etc.
>
> *You*, the observer impute the "trying to escape the fox" intention onto the 
> behavior much the same way a mystic might impute a "returning to mother 
> earth" intention onto a dead duck falling from the sky.
>
> There is no behavioral difference between celery changing color and a paper 
> towel changing color. There *is* behavioral difference between the 
> *mechanisms* inside the paper towel and the mechanisms inside the celery. 
> Rocks don't have intention when they fall from a cliff and humans don't have 
> intention when they wink sarcastically. Intention is an illusory imputation. 
> All I care about is the action and the boundary between the measuring device 
> and the thing measured (which Nick targets nicely in the next post, to which 
> I'll reply).
>
> But please remember that I'm trying to steelman what I infer is *your* (and 
> you claim is Nick's) position. It's a testament to my incompetence that I've 
> failed so spectacularly to repeat what I inferred to be your own position 
> back to you.
>
> On 5/12/20 7:55 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
>> Ok so how do we distinguish behavior from non-behavior movements within 
>> the system you are proposing? In what way do we distinguish the dead duck 
>> from the living duck? Or, to stick with the example you prefer, the changing 
>> color of the celery from the changing color of a paper towel placed part-way 
>> into the same solution? 
>>
>> I'm also not sure what you mean to refer to with "holographic principle." My 
>> assertion is that psychologists are not, in their basic activity, trying to 
>> infer about internal processes. That claim is similar to the claim that 
>> chemists are not, in their basic activity, trying to infer about the inside 
>> of atoms. Or that Newton, in formulating his physics, was not trying to 
>> infer about the inside of planets. The phenomenon in question can be taken 
>> apart if you want, but that is a fundamentally different path of inquiry. A 
>> rabbit trying to escape a fox is made up of cells, but the cracking open its 
>> skulls and looking inside won't tell you that it is /trying to escape the 
>> fox/. The /trying-to-escape/ is not inside it's head, it is in the rabbit's 
>> behavior relative to the fox, and can be observed. When someone says "Hey, 
>> come quick! Look, that rabbit is trying to get away from that fox!", they 
>> are not making some mysterious inference about a hidden state within the 
>> rabbit, they are
>> describing what they are observing. 


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Re: [FRIAM] the end of the pandemic

[Steven A Smith]

Dave -

> The COVID-19 pandemic will end, at least in the US, by mid-June, 2020.
Ignoring the "bait" that I (and others) took earlier, I'll try to
respond to the singular prediction above:

What means "end"?   What is a specific statistic that you believe to
indicate that the pandemic has ended?

From Wikipedia:

A *pandemic* (from Greek
 πᾶν, /pan/, "all"
and δῆμος, /demos/, "people") is an epidemic
 of disease
 that has spread across a
large region, for instance multiple continents
 or worldwide, affecting a
substantial number of people. A widespread endemic
 disease with
a stable number of infected people is not a pandemic. Widespread
endemic diseases with a stable number of infected people such as
recurrences of seasonal influenza
 are generally
excluded as they occur simultaneously in large regions of the globe
rather than being spread worldwide.

The WHO published THIS description of phases of a pandemic:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK143061/

/In the //*post-pandemic*// period, influenza disease activity will
have returned to levels normally seen for seasonal influenza. It is
expected that the pandemic virus will behave as a seasonal influenza
A virus. At this stage, it is important to maintain surveillance and
update pandemic preparedness and response plans accordingly. An
intensive phase of recovery and evaluation may be required./


Or maybe some other (measurable) definition?

- Steve


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Re: [FRIAM] the end of the pandemic

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -


> Aha! Excellent point! That viruses are parasites might be a critical issue, 
> though. What do viruses really do for us? It's less a matter of whether they 
> feel pain and more about parasitism. I hesitate to google "ethics of 
> parasitism".

.. and now we tangent to mutualistic, commensal, and parasitic
symbiosis.  Viruses may or may not be strictly parasitic (if such an
absolute is even possible)...  it doesn't seem to be a far stretch to
suggest that humans have adapted to hosting viruses in many ways, some
as beneficial as compensatory.   Following the other lines of thought
here, it has been said that "pneumonia is the old man's friend" (not a
virus, but the same role).  Is not herd-culling of value to a species?  

I nominally borrow my ethics in this context from Albert Schweitzer's
"Reverence for Life" and his oft-quoted (by me mostly) line:

/The most immediate fact of man’s consciousness is the assertion "I
am life that wills to live in the midst of life that wills to live"/

/— /Albert Schweitzer

This question took me nicely back to the Alife II conference in SFe in
1990 when these kinds of questions were still fairly fresh and young.  
I found a great "trip report" by another one of the attendee which
preserved a number of great anecdotes from some of the familiar names. 

http://shinyverse.org/larryy/ALife2.html

I think the most interesting to me (in that moment?) was a panel on the
Ontology of ALife...  probably good preparation for FriAM discussions...

*Ontology of Artificial Life Panel with Peter Cariani, Steen
Rasmussen, Norm Packard, Tom Toffoli, Robert Rosen and Elliot Sober*

The trip-report didn't trigger my memories beyond remembering that the
panel was a lot more lively and interesting than it's title would suggest.

Symbiotically yours,

 - Steve

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Re: [FRIAM] the end of the pandemic

[Steven A Smith]

On 5/12/20 10:10 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> Ha! Well, these analogies do break down. So "precisely the same way" doesn't 
> really work. For example, I think you'd be hard pressed to say that the costs 
> associated with obesity are "precisely the same" as the costs associated with 
> cleaning your smashed body off the road.
  of course it is not "precisely" the same (hyperbole)..  no thing
is precisely the same as any other thing (unless of course there really
is only one electron in the universe and it is everywhere at once).  
Scraping the pixels of the image of my obese body out of people's
wedding and vacation photos might seem nearly as distasteful to the
happy tourists/wedding attendees as watching someone else scrape my
viscera from the pavement (or bridge abutment, or light post)... and to
complete the not-precisely-the-same-as analogy, the happy couple trying
to remove my photo-bombing self are likely not doing the scraping
themselves, but rather paying their photographer or digital lab to do
the same while they look away fastidiously (or gaze on morbidly)
(rubbernekking?).
> I continue to argue for context and it's importance in these issues. The RoI 
> for seat belts is quite clear. I *think* it's quite clear for mandated 
> helmets, too. A quick Google scholar search shows the actual science behind 
> them (contrary to Dave's conclusion).

I don't know the detailed data/science behind helmets.  I happen to be
on the end of the spectrum that says "I'd rather have a quick and
concise death than a long and lingering one" whether it is vehicle
accidents or pandemic health threats.  I haven't owned a motorcycle in
over a decade and have only taken one for a spin a few times in the last
few years, always with a helmet (and boots, and long pants, and
long-sleeves).  If I'm going to have a minor motorcycle accident, I'd
rather stumble away from it with all my skin and hopefully my joints and
bones and cranium intact.  If I were riding hard and fast all the time,
maybe modern body-armour/helmetage is good enough (you may own some, or
at least be aware of the state of the art)  to allow me to dump the bike
on a bad turn or to avoid a bad driver and slide, tumble, thump  my way
down the roadway and not suffer (much) more than a bunch of bruises and
a lot of disorientation and maybe some PTSD dreams.  If that is the
case, I recommend such... there might even be a self-inflating Michelin
man suit that emulates the effects of airbags.   If there are such
things then we should mandate them, maybe even for bicycles and scooters
and skate boards, electric-powered or otherwise.

But that doesn't mean I want to outlaw others who might want to ride
motorcycles, with or without helmets, with or without body armour, with
or without the Michelin Man suit.   I am much more sympathetic with
expecting (demanding of?) people hurtling down the highway at a relative
velocity (to my own) of 120MPH or more to wear eye protection so that
they are MUCH less likely to catch a bug in  the eye and swerve into my
lane and do a face-dive through my windshield (with or without a
helmet).    I'm not sure what the right threshold for these things is,
but I do believe they are and should be negotiable within  various
(sub)cultures... so I (mostly) wear my seatbelt and I don't ride a
motorcycle much anymore (because I'm probably more of risk of being a
burden to society as a motorcycle accident victim with or without  a
helmet than ever before).   But that doesn't make me feel that I should
disallow you from riding yours (with or without a helmet or body armour
or yadda yadda). 

>  Regardless, each issue, from the decibels of one's leaf blower to underage 
> ATV riders, from binary rules (prison) to modest inhibitory policies 
> (taxation) requires context. To ignore the context and make blanket 
> generalities like you're doing or blanket laws for/against them is 
> technically ignorant, in the sense that we're ignoring the details.
Yes, we are prone to ignore details and the paradoxes of stacking rules
about how other people should behave when the consequences (to others)
of such are somewhat  secondary or tertiary...   and we all have our pet
examples of things we think *shouldn't* be (en)forced onto us or we
think *should* be (en)forced onto others.  
> But the main point remains: It's not about the individual. It's about the 
> collection of individuals, including the plants and bacteria.
and Virii?  Don't forget the viruses... THEY are just trying to live a
normal, robust, virus life...  and they DO hole an important role in our
larger ecology.  With that I might endorse the development and
distribution of a vaccine, but antivirals are somewhat questionable
morally.   And that Ice9 stuff?  It has a right to reproduce too...
which of course seems to lead us back around to "what means behaviour?"
is crystalization as a self-reproduction mode above the threshold?  


- Steve



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Re: [FRIAM] the end of the pandemic

[Steven A Smith]

On 5/12/20 7:56 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> The contrary argument was made to me by my dad, who called himself a 
> "Goldwater Conservative", was that when you end up as a blood smear all over 
> the highway or all smashed up against a tree, *someone* has to clean that 
> sh¡t up. Factor in, further, rubbernecking, the possibility of children 
> seeing your dismembered body laying in parts on the road as they drive by, 
> trauma to the poor truck driver who you smashed into who'll have to live with 
> having killed you for the rest of her life, etc. You MIGHT save us *all* a 
> lot of money and psychological trauma if you'd simply wear the seat belt. [†]
>
> So, you *are* harming others by not wearing a seat belt.
In precisely the same way I am harming others when I ride a motorcycle
with or without a helmet (THOSE accidents are almost always more gory
than the ones with cars buffering/hiding/containing the mess) or a
bicycle on the roadways with cars, or fail to optimally care for my body
(and mind and spirit ... just google "people of walmart youtube").   The
messes we all present one another by being human are just so
*intolerable*...  we should set a very high bar for how much any
individual can impose on the psyche/sensitivities of any other
individual by their mere existence and exercise of personal
preferences.  Oh yeh... no more convertibles, no vehicles with a power 
to weight ratio above X, certainly no ATVs... and no parkour... that
shit can just go SO wrong, and *somebody* has to clean it up... splint
the bones... gauze over the gaping eye-socket...  >8^D
>
> In the immortal words of teenagers everywhere, it's not about you. >8^D
>
> [†] Add to that the consideration that human life is *infrastructure*. Sure 
> if you're a do-nothing wastoid, your death costs us only the above and may 
> save us money in the long-term. 
I think the answer to this is to be a functional/useful part of a
community, and in fact participate in and generate a shared sense of
propriety and value with that community.  I believe that is easier to do
in the small (nuclear family, extended family, neighborhood, work group)
at least in principle, and in fact I feel that I try to do that in the
large as well.  
> But if you're competent at something, anything, then WE are all better off if 
> you wear your seat belt. To assert that you're *not* harming us by not 
> wearing your seat belt seems extraordinarily self-indulgent.
I do, by the way, generally wear my seat-belt, and not because I might
get a "ticket if you don't click-it".  My father was a USFS employee
from the late 50s who were one of (as he tells it) first government
agencies to have seat-belts installed in their trucks and required
employees to use them.   We did not have seat-belts in the 1959 VW
pickup truck they bought but in the 1964 ford station wagon, they had
seatbelts installed all around, and we were (usually) expected to wear
them.  I discovered as a young driver (with a car with a bench seat)
that I could take those corners a LOT faster and brake HARDER and still
maintain control if my lap-belt was strapped tight across my hips.  I
even coveted one of those "racing harnesses" for the same reason.   In
some ways, you might say seat-belts made me a *less safe* driver.   But
then I learned most of my road awareness and driving skills on a
motorcycle which made me *hyper-aware* of my vulnerability while
other parents were buying their kids giant land-yachts do drive around
(because they were safer) I was buying my own (mildly underpowered)
motorcycle and possibly becomeing a much more aware/safe driver in the
process and definitely NOT risking other's lives nearly as acutely as
the first-year drivers on testosterone driving a buick with the
muffler's cut out.  
>
> On 5/11/20 10:05 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> To be told I was harming others by not wearing a seatbelt feels patently 
>> incorrect.

>


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Re: [FRIAM] the end of the pandemic

[Steven A Smith]

Dave -

> You noted,/"I simply can't read this as a "simple observation /
> prediction"... I believe it is laced with judgements and
> assumptions... some I agree with and some which I find either
> questionable in substance or in intent, but all worth inspecting."/
>
> Nevertheless, that is exactly what I intend — a prediction that will
> or will not be borne out. If not, everyone gets a chance to jeer at
> the wannabee Nostradamus. If it does, then maybe a discussion of why;
> the reasons behind the prediction.
I understand that was how you wanted it to be interpreted, and I agree
that it can be interpreted strictly that way.   If I didn't know you at
all, I might accept that the "subtext" as you acknowledge it
could/should go unspoken to.  I found (at least) two subtexts.
> I will cede, immediately, that there is a very strong subtext. For the
> last month or more I have seen this list, and a few virtual FRIAMS,
> almost exclusively devoted to "scientific," statistical,
> epidemiological, models and projections of the virus and what the
> future holds based on those models, that math, that science.
>
> As if there was no other data set, no other way of thinking about the
> problem, no other way of making projections and predictions, no other
> way of making sense of the data. No other foundation upon which to
> make decisions.
>
> My prediction is a challenge to a gentleperson's duel with regard that
> "as if ..." And, it is a continuation of a theme I have harped on
> before - there are other ways of knowing and other things to know
> about that are important but neglected because of the dominance of
> Scientism.

I wasn't thinking that much about THAT subtext, though I recognize that
it is a theme here and has been a point of contention.  

I don't feel like I've been able to weigh in effectively in that
particular discussion. I may have submitted a few posts, but more likely
I deleted my feeble attempts.  My life's work began with a pursuit of
science in it's "pure" sense but morphed into a pursuit of supporting
and developing intuition and tools and methods for supporting the
development of intuition in the service of scientific understanding.   
I encountered any number of "newage" and "occultist" and "psychedelic"
and other systems of thought/belief along the way which were also
pursuing the development of intuition (or something seemingly like
it?    This role has put me somewhat in "no-mans land" with many
"serious scientists" resisting the work I was doing, at least until they
had a useful/relevant experience on one hand and many "wishful thinkers"
seeking my support for their methods of seeking of "truth".  

Scientific Visualization, Visual Analytics, Info/Data Visualization are
some of the names that have been attributed to that work, hidden within
that is often a significant amount of modeling and statistical
analysis.   If we take "Science" to be roughly the process of
"hypothesis generation and testing", then there is a (I would suggest
central) place for the intuitive in "hypothesis generation".   If taking
psilocybin mushrooms, or LSD or peyote or ayhuasca or meditation or
fasting or sleep deprivation or chatting with a dead white man, or
anything else vaguely like that helps someone generate novel hypothesis,
then more power to them and their method, whether they or anyone else
understands the mechanisms involved in triggering their intuition.   But
none of that obviates the need for the second part of that working
definition "hypothesis testing".   I don't fault someone who pulls
amazingly intuitive leaps out of their ass (or their peace pipe or sex
with a Gawdess) which are then proven to be accurate by the resulting
data gathered, based on those hypothesis.   If they are particularly
good at it yet insist on obscuring their "methods" behind arcane
explanations, I might find *that* a little offputting, but it doesn't
change the validity of the results.   If, however, they try to parlay a
few "lucky guesses" (or vaguely-stated, goal-post moving revisionism)
into a claim for a "sure fire method" that they can't or won't explain,
then I'm not interested.

I also acknowledge that this is hard, and anecdotally we have many
examples of where an intuitive grasp of a phenomena preceded anything
like "proof" by months, years, even centuries in some cases.   This
means that part of being open-minded means that a lack of demonstrable
"proof" (logical or statistical) does not necessarily make a hypothesis
wrong.   It also means acknowledging that an assumed "fact" (likely
backed up by significant data and applied statistics) may well yield to
A) new data; B) possibly supporting a competing hypothesis; or C) an
as-yet unrevealed hypothesis that fits the existing data better.    And
of course this new "fact" is open to similar revision.   Scientific
ideas like Classical Mechanics had to be give way to Relativistic and
Quantum Mechanics without becoming precisely *wrong*, just
*incomplete*.   

Re: [FRIAM] the end of the pandemic

[Steven A Smith]

Gary -

Thanks for the additional context.   I wonder who else we have here from
significantly non US contexts.   We just heard from Pietro and do hear
from Jochen and the two? Aussies off and on, I'm sure we have lurkers
from many more places (I think Mohammed El-Betagay (Cairo/Stockholm)
left the list a long time ago?) that might provide yet more parallax.  
I'm about to chat with my UK/Spain colleagues for the second time since
Humpty-Dumpty started to slip off his perch.  Their network is quite
wide throughout Europe and the middle East.

> Ok, a little clarification is in order. Quito is about 50 miles away,
> but I'm not allowed to drive there (travel is extremely controlled
> right now). Where I can shop is only about 15 miles away, but I can
> only drive on Fridays, from 5am until 2pm.

That matches my general recollection of your context.   I would hope
that in a country such as Ecuador, that *local* agriculture would be
ramping up (though I realize you are *at the Equator* but also *at
altitude* so not sure how that translates into growing
seasons/contexts.  In any case, the options there *have* to be better
than our short non-freeze growing season and significant drought right
at the beginning of the growing season (mid-may->june).    Eric Smith
mentioned his engagement with local farmers (local to SFe or just
farmers interested in local markets everywhere?) and my own engagement
with a subset of the local sustainable farmers in northern NM suggests
that they will be the next  group of front-line essential (though not so
much at risk as health/emergency) workers.   They may not get
remunerated particularly well, but for the first time in a very long
time, their local market for their produce may be expanding beyond the
elite farmer's markets and expensive restaurants that they had to depend
on in the past.

I didn't realize Ecuador had normalized to US $$ (you have probably
mentioned it before)... it does seem like an incredibly mixed
blessing.    Being a petroleum economy isn't promising if my own
predictions (similar but very different to Dave's?)  unfold.   Bananas
might not fare much better if the destination(s) are first world nations
(US only?) an ocean away (as they must be?).  it seems like trade with
your geographic neighbors (Peru, Brazil, Columbia) don't provide a lot
of opportunity for leverage (they produce similar things and have
similar appetites for consumer goods?).  

I haven't followed Ecuadorian politics closely but a quick check shows
that Moreno is probably getting his low marks due to a combination of
austerity and authoritarianism which it seems he *has to* double down
with during this crisis. 

After my own flirting with moving to a rural part of a third (second?)
world country, my own feeling about such is ambivalent in these
contexts.  If I had managed to get settled, get to know my community,
build some self-reliance (water, power, food), I might feel a lot better
where you are than where I am.   I feel like NM is a bit of an island of
sanity in some ways, having *some of* the benefits of rurality and low
population but with a modestly high index of education and
worldliness.   Mary, whose family-of-origin is in *western* NE and whose
children are in small-cities in TX and the Midwest is getting very
different messages than we experience here.

- Steve




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Re: [FRIAM] the end of the pandemic

[Steven A Smith]

Gary -

I'd find it interesting and informative if not directly actionable to
know more about how things are there in Ecuador.

I'm surprised that you are as far from groceries as 50 miles?  I was
thinking you were living closer to a major city (Quito?) but
nevertheless semi-rural?   Are there no smaller markets open closer to
you, or do you prefer to shop (only) at the larger markets (limiting
yourself to 1 trip)?   What are the infection rates there and do you
have a feeling for where the biggest risks are for the population?

I track a few "instagrammer types" who were traveling in self-contained
van/camper setups around the world when this hit.   One has returned
from their trek from Utah down to Tierra del Fuego (and back), finally
giving up and returning from the Uraguayan border of Argentina by
airline, leaving their van in storage there.   The other couple had
already bought a small piece of land and parked their converted
short-bus there permanently when this hit and have been reporting nearly
daily as they cope with the shutdowns there.   Others were in Morocco
(now one in Canada and the others in Croatia and another back in the
UK).   Each one has their own idiosyncratic view of the whole
experience, but the bottom line I'm sensing is that those countries (and
the ones some had to travel through) are MUCH more draconian in their
rules than the US is, for better or worse. 

Maybe this pandemic is an illusion created and maintained by "the
liberal elite", but if it is their reach is a great deal more expansive
than I could have imagined.

My 22 year old nephew in Tucson was just released from his (self)
quarantine.  His earliest symptoms came on at the end of March but he
was unable to get a doctor's appointment or a (subsequent) test, just
the phone recommendations to "stay home to avoid infecting anyone) and
some general information about what symptoms to treat as worthy of an
emergency hospital visit.   He didn't have overtly corona-exclusive
symptoms until about 2 weeks in, when his smell and taste were severely
compromised.   He is still having mild fatigue and shortness of breath,
but nothing that can't be attributed to being (ever-more) sedentary for
6 weeks.  He's following social-distance and masking when leaving home,
but the doctors (on the phone) gave him the greenlight with those
restrictions.  It is a mildly hypochondriac family, and I know he gets
extra points/dispensation for having been infected, but it does sound
like he probably was.  He says the docs are not offering antigen
testing, ambiguously because A) they don't have access; or B) they don't
think it should change his future behaviour.

Last night, I zoomed with that whole branch of my family (my mother, my
only sister, her husband and their 3 adult children), all excepting the
nephew are hard-core Fox-News watching Trump-train riders.   One niece
is a nurse in Riverside CA, living with a Doctor.. both treating COVID19
patients daily, though their hospital is mid-sized and has not been
overwhelmed, specializing in taking the overflow from the smaller
surrounding towns and running a suite of triage tents in the parking
lot.   There was no discussion of politics including NO rattling on
(like they did 6 weeks ago) about the "Democrat Hoax".  

My sister is in a k-8 Montessori school and half of the staff believes
they do not need masks or PPE (now that they are back) but my sister
(with her son's experience) is not giving over to that idea wears a
mask, sanitizes, and keeps her distance as best she can.  She is worried
that if the students return (today) to that environment, that they are
just asking to be another source of a fresh cluster of infections.   The
timing is such that whoever is (maybe) being exposed today, should be
recovering (if they survive) from this fresh burst of infection about
the time Dave thinks the pandemic (aka hysteria) will subside.  It is a
small school (a few hundred staff/teachers/students) and maybe nobody in
that pool is currently infected, and maybe they will all avoid becoming
infected during that period.

They also acknowledged (in January) that "Climate Change is real, and
going to cause real problems for real people, like US!", when they had
been ardent (if polite) deniers for at least the 20 years I have put
down my own denial/cynicism on the topic.    I have no idea who they are
going to vote for  in November...  maybe they will just stay home (since
AZ is not likely to eagerly embrace vote-by-mail like NM already has
declared for).

ramble,

 - Steve

On 5/11/20 11:13 AM, Gary Schiltz wrote:

> I definitely will try to make it to some FRIAM Zooms. Unfortunately,
> Friday is the one day a week I am permitted to go out on the roads
> with my car here in Ecuador due to the pandemic pandemonium, and I
> have to drive to get to the only supermarket that is open within 50
> miles, and it closes at 1:00 pm.
>
> On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 11:51 AM  > wrote:
>
>

Re: [FRIAM] the end of the pandemic

[Steven A Smith]

Dave -
> The COVID-19 pandemic will end, at least in the US, by mid-June, 2020.
>
> This assertion is premised on making a distinction between the biological and 
> the perceptual.
>
> The virus is not going away, a vaccine may or may not be found and made 
> widely available, and treatments that reduce severity and death rate may or 
> may not be soon at hand. Hot spots will continue to flare. Model-based 
> prognostications will be confirmed.  And none of this will matter.
>
> A radical shift in perception from "we're all going to die" to "I have next 
> to zero chance of severe illness or death" is reaching a tipping point and a 
> catastrophic (mathematical sense of the word) change from one to the other is 
> imminent.
>
> "Science" will quickly confirm (justify / rationalize) this shift  — after 
> all, my individual risk is 150,000 / 300,000,000 or "pretty damned small."
>
> Politicians will quickly cave to this new perceptual reality and 
> socio-economic restrictions will collapse.
>
> The percentage of the population that wear masks (just one example of a 
> behavioral phenomenon) will roughly equal the number that fastidiously fasten 
> their seat belts; but this and similar behaviors will mitigate the the 
> infection/death rate.
>
> Covid will be PERCEIVED to be no worse than the flu, the death rate will 
> become "acceptable," and the current media "hysteria" will fade away.
>
> There will be a segment of the populace — mostly the affluent elderly and 
> individuals who have acquired money/influence/notoriety the past few months — 
> who will argue against these changes but their objections will be quickly 
> countered with, "why should I suffer all kinds of consequences — ones you do 
> not share — to cater to your fears or your ego?"
>
> None of the above should be interpreted as anything except a simple 
> observation / prediction.

/Look away...nothing to see here... move along... nothing up my sleev/e!

Glen (and others here) often use the idiom of "strawman" and "steelman"
as apparatus for argument or maybe more to the point of my interest,
illuminating dialog.  I would like to bring up a related idiom of "the
stalking horse".  I would like to submit your prediction here as such is
significantly meant (and taken) as a "stalking horse"... And the p;oint
of it is "what is it helping us to think about in a different way?"

I simply can't read this as a "simple observation / prediction"... I
believe it is laced with judgements and assumptions... some I agree with
and some which I find either questionable in substance or in intent, but
all worth inspecting. 

I don't want to bash you with this Dave, just put it out on the table in
the same spirit I think you are offering these observations.   What DOES
this observation expose and what does it (perhaps) obscure?   Can it do
both at the same time?  

/A radical shift in perception from "we're all going to die" to "I
have next to zero chance of severe illness or death" is reaching a
tipping point and a catastrophic (mathematical sense of the word)
change from one to the other is imminent. /

I think this phrase (framed by other phrases like "media hysteria")
suggests that whatever this pandemic (virtually?) the entire planet has
been experiencing is predominately a psychological/social experience,
rather than the biological/physiological phenomenon identified as
SARS-Cov-2 and it's biological coupling with it's newly found host
population of modern humans who live, work, and socialize in confined
spaces and travel widely (often in closely confined conveyances).   It
seems to imply that this last 4-8 weeks of radical self/government
incited social-distancing has had NO (or little) effect on the
biological reality of the network spread of a human-human airborne
disease, and that it has been ENTIRELY (or mostly) a tool of social
manipulation and control (and/or self-soothing?).

I don't want to suggest for a moment that we as a people/culture are not
capable of mass hysteria or mass illusions...  and in fact would submit
that ideas like "politics" or "economy" or "society" are constructed on
precisely that.   The part of your observation (without accepting or
rejecting the prediction aspect) that exposes that aspect I think is
very important... but to expose it in a way that is limited to
undermining *one* illusion, whilst supporting *yet another* does not
improve our circumstance, but rather simply stirs the mud in a different
direction.

I think your allusion to seat-belt laws (and my own extension of that to
motorcycle helmet laws) is apt and relevant but wrong.   Both seem to
*only* preserve the sensitivities and sensibilities of the public and/or
emergency-response people who have to scrape up the gore that might have
been mildly less gory with those safety devices in use.   I will also
admit (in this tangent) that seat-belts and helmets usually/mostly also
help to shift the costs of insurance-supported-recovery from/to 

Re: [FRIAM] U.S. Space Force

[Steven A Smith]

> With the decreasing costs of SpaceX launches, how could they not do
> this
> ?
>
Musk probably is and will use it to break up any riots (or strikes?)
outside his PetaFactories..
>
>  
>
> *From: *Friam  on behalf of Jochen Fromm
> 
> *Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> 
> *Date: *Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 9:28 PM
> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> 
> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] U.S. Space Force
>
>  
>
> Yesterday they showed "Moonraker" in German TV. Somehow the X-37B
> reminded me of it because it is an unmanned Space Shuttle. I believe
> that unmanned drones are in fact that best way to explore the Solar
> System.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonraker_(film)
>
>  
>
> As a European I don't see a real purpose in militarizing space. After
> all the World Wars we don't need a "Space War" IMHO. Today we have an
> extra holiday in Berlin by the way, because May 8 is the anniversary
> of the end of WWII for the Germans.
>
> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52574748
>
>  
>
> -J.
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  Original message 
>
> From: Merle Lefkoff 
>
> Date: 5/8/20 05:45 (GMT+01:00)
>
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> 
>
> Subject: [FRIAM] U.S. Space Force
>
>  
>
> I'd love to hear from the list something about this.
>
>  
>
> https://futurism.com/the-byte/space-force-launch-mysterious-spacecraft?mc_eid=56f5f2fa75_cid=9a6e6e9e3d
>
>  
>
> -- 
>
> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
> Center for Emergent Diplomacy
> emergentdiplomacy.org 
>
> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>
> merlelefk...@gmail.com 
> mobile:  (303) 859-5609
> skype:  merle.lelfkoff2
>
> twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] What Is the Real Coronavirus Toll in Each State? - The New York Times

[Steven A Smith]

> Glen,
>
>  
>
> I think your "spam" is very meaty and I hope you will keep it coming.
>
>  
>
> But these words,
>
>  
>
> pornographic evocation of our love for *metaphor* will only mislead us.
>
> … now them’s, fightin’ words!
>
>  
>
> You old troll, you,
>
>  
>
> Nick
>
"Get off my lawn!"  (metaphorically of course)


>  
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>  
>
>  
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam  On Behalf Of u?l? ?
> Sent: Friday, May 8, 2020 9:11 AM
> To: FriAM 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What Is the Real Coronavirus Toll in Each State?
> - The New York Times
>
>  
>
> I disagree, of course. >8^D I think dividing out population and area
> are a misguiding distraction. The simple slopes are better. As we've
> discussed ad nauseum, these "normalizers" are *also* models. And all
> models are always wrong. So, for every derivation, you're stacking
> wrongness upon wrongness. If you're super careful, the stacks of
> wrongness *might* help you see some aspect of the situation better.
> But by "super careful", I mean *professional* modeling ... something
> that costs a lot of time, money, attention, and skill.
>
>  
>
> Our fondness for blinky lights, bells and whistles, pornographic
> evocation of our love for *metaphor* will only mislead us. Data first,
> metaphor second (or better yet, never).
>
>  
>
> On 5/8/20 8:03 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>
> > Very interesting view on these three counties...  numbers normalized
> to population count and population density are a "good start"!
>
>  
>
>  
>
> --
>
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
>  
>
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Re: [FRIAM] What Is the Real Coronavirus Toll in Each State? - The New York Times

[Steven A Smith]

> I disagree, of course. >8^D I think dividing out population and area are a 
> misguiding distraction. The simple slopes are better. As we've discussed ad 
> nauseum, these "normalizers" are *also* models. And all models are always 
> wrong. So, for every derivation, you're stacking wrongness upon wrongness. If 
> you're super careful, the stacks of wrongness *might* help you see some 
> aspect of the situation better. But by "super careful", I mean *professional* 
> modeling ... something that costs a lot of time, money, attention, and skill.
>
> Our fondness for blinky lights, bells and whistles, pornographic evocation of 
> our love for *metaphor* will only mislead us. Data first, metaphor second (or 
> better yet, never).
In that case, perhaps we should just riot then!


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Re: [FRIAM] Tonight We Riot!

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -
> https://tonightweriot.com/
>> tonight we riot is a revolutionary crowd brawler about worker liberation and 
>> lobbing molotovs at mech suits & crazy bosses!

I have always been fascinated (a bit morbidly) with the tension between
"sublimating" angry/reactive/violent/revolutionary behaviour and
"aggravating" it. 

I was fairly (too?) young (14) when I watched "Clockwork Orange" and it
left me VERY disturbed... mainly because I saw myself in the young
"droogs"... not that I was already channeling their negative energy openly.

I *was* feeling it (my oats, general discontent with the establishment,
etc.) and trying to figure out what to do with it. It doesn't help that
this was about the time I was coming to realize what Vietnam meant TO
ME... which on one end of a spectrum (that I could apprehend) was an
opportunity to leave the podunk towns I came from and go do something
important (fix world problems, do something important, be a hero) and on
the other be a part of something deeply horrific and not easy to ever
return from whole (mentally, spiriatually, possibly physically).   It
was 1971 and the appetite for the Vietnam war was waning among the
establishment, not just the youth and the counter-culture, but there was
still plenty of tension and I saw no reason that *I* would not be likely
to be called to go play "kill or be killed".

I haven't heard much about the Antifa movement, nor Anonymous lately.  
I doubt that means they have lost their appetite for "resistance".   I
suspect this game is targeted more at that group than say... the Open
Carry RedHatters?  

A "core feature" is described as:

The unique catharsis that comes from throat-punching a billionaire ghoul
who would rather watch the world and everyone on it burn than lose a tax
break

I am perhaps most disturbed by realizing this could be an MMO,
effectively recruiting a large number of young (mostly men) sheltering
in place in their parents basements, just waiting for the trigger to
boil up and out like so many termites or fire-ants.   

Some of the theoretical work in interreality
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_reality#Interreality_physics) seems
to provide some foreboding around the "alternate realities" that are
emerging with our pan-global mediation OF reality.

As an antidote to this kind of stuff, I'm  just now watching the SFI
discussion on the topic of Pandemic Resilience:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K63Y6uU7j18

- Steve





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Re: [FRIAM] What Is the Real Coronavirus Toll in Each State? - The New York Times

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

Very interesting view on these three counties...  numbers normalized to
population count and population density are a "good start"!

The question of what a good "mixing model" is for different geopolitical
demographics is fascinating.   It seems like McKinley/Gallup is on one
end of the spectrum (very low population density overall, but a strong
concentration in *one* location (or small set of service/shopping
locations IN Gallup)  serving the whole county population) vs Bernalillo
which has dozens of sub-communities where their sub-populations may stay
"close to home" if not always "at home", shopping at one or two of their
own neighborhood supermarkets/hardwares. 

Poverty (and rurality) may also correlate positively with delays in
diagnosis.   More people may be more used to just staying home and
weathering out an illness since going to the doc or urgent care can have
a significant hurdle financially and logistically (a tank of gas,
requiring the only reliable family vehicle, etc).   I'm assuming that
the "diagnosed case" date is not the presumed date of
exposure/contraction/onset-of-symptoms but rather the date of the return
of a test or of a declaration of a health-care worker.

- Steve

> Based on this discussion, I divided by population (per county, not a 
> normalized amount like 100k) and land area (not including water area). The 
> results are interesting. There was a report about a Gallup hospital having 
> problems. So, I used McKinley county (NM) for comparison.
>
> The raw slopes still (I think) do the best to show what's happening. Dividing 
> by population biases the data to magnify the low population county. Dividing 
> by area magnifies the smaller counties (Bernalillo: 3k km^2, Santa Fe: 5k 
> km^2, McKinley: 14k km^2). Dividing by both produces the same "phenotype" as 
> the simple Δ's, but squashes out the profile shapes (e.g. the slight sigmoid 
> in the Bernalillo slope).
>
> My standard mix with DeKalb, King, & Denver (and now Hall as well) shows even 
> more interesting behavior, dividing out both population and area how Hall has 
> caught up with Denver (a really bad sign since Denver County is very dense, 
> mostly just the city of Denver and the airport, an order of magnitude denser 
> than Hall). But i won't spam the list with this stuff anymore.
>
> On 5/6/20 3:13 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
>> I think Δcases/m^2 would be interesting.
>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

[Steven A Smith]

> The folks at SFI did a paper a couple of years ago about how snippets
> of constitutions have propagated into other constitutions around the
> world…
>
> … Bob
>
And one wonders what is "beyond psyops" where "deep staters"
(illuminati?) so deep they transcend states go about like retroviruses,
inserting sequences into the genome (law/policy?) apparatus of
nations?   Wait, I think this very likely multinational corporations and
industry-lobbies (fossil fuels, guns/arms, ??? ) and the wealthy
families/individuals behind/entwined-with them are doing!   

"I love/hate it when a metaphor comes together!" (visualize George
Peppard muttering this around a fat stogie)

>> On May 7, 2020, at 2:23 PM, Steven A Smith > <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Nick -
>>
>> I doubt I can do justice to this for you, but will give a try.
>>
>> The idea(l) behind open-source is two-fold:   
>>
>>  1. develop a "commons" of re-useable resources to be shared by
>> all.   This concept really took off with the introduction of
>> Linus Thorvald's Adaptation of BSD Unix to run on IBM PCs and an
>> explosion of software built on top of and around that one
>> thing.   This movement began a lot earlier and the world of
>> Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) variant of ATT Unix was
>> perhaps the strongest center for that... other efforts I was
>> aware of include things like the Andrew File System (AFS) out of
>> CMU (nod to Frank) and project Athena out of MIT.
>>  2. crowdsource the troubleshooting, debugging, and validation of
>> system's design.   By making the source code available and free
>> to use (with some restrictions), large numbers of system/software
>> designers become motivated to look at, adopt, improve, build-upon
>> that code-base and thereby improve and vet the code well.   There
>> are notable exceptions indicating that big holes/bugs can exist
>> in spite of this scrutiny.  I think there was a hoopla a few
>> years ago around some (obvious?) security holes in the primary
>> open-source router software used in most pro-sumer grade network
>> routers, and maybe even commercial-class ones.   
>>
>> This GitHub thing Roger posted is (as Roger indicated in his
>> subject/post) is clearly trolling on behalf of the anti-lockdown
>> movement... trying to use the open-source community mechanism (open
>> and free view of the software and the process of it's development,
>> and the ability for anyone to pitch in, comment, criticize) against
>> the ideas behind this particular model (and ANY? similar model).
>>
>> I'm not sure this is a first, but from what I know, there haven't
>> been "political" trolls haranguing GitHub mediated open-source
>> efforts...  there have probably been "religious" wars between
>> differing schools of thought on the best way to solve a particular
>> problem, but the preferred way to handle that is to FORK the project
>> and let the alternative subset go pursue their alternative ideas.  
>>
>> To some extent, this is the way the world is responding to the
>> pandemic at a policy level.    Each country roughly has it's own
>> unique/idiosyncratic response to the pandemic... some perhaps taking
>> their lead from others.   Within the USA (and I presume other
>> "federated" governments) we have states/governors following the
>> general guidelines (lame as they may be) of the federal government
>> and modifying/elaborating them to match their regional context, and
>> again each county/city/borough/neighborhood may well do the same.  
>> In principle these policies are open and transparent as are the data
>> that are gathered at each level on the resources expended and the
>> results obtained.   This is the Open-Data aspect that Tom Johnson and
>> others here promote.
>>
>> The US Constitution (and our entire body of law) might be considered
>> open-source and I suspect more than a few states and younger
>> countries have borrowed parts of our constitution and legal system to
>> build their own from (for better and worse)... just as our Foundling
>> Fatheds apparently used some of the features exhibited by the (orally
>> maintained) Iroquois Federation and the ideas of French political
>> thinkers such as Montesquieu.   
>>
>> 
>>
>>  - Steve
>>
>>> Marcus, 
>>>  
>>> Thanks for taking my question seriously.  I understood what I was
>>> talking about even less than I usually do. 
>>&

Re: [FRIAM] Meanwhile, back on the troll farms

[Steven A Smith]

Nick -

I doubt I can do justice to this for you, but will give a try.

The idea(l) behind open-source is two-fold:  

 1. develop a "commons" of re-useable resources to be shared by all.  
This concept really took off with the introduction of Linus
Thorvald's Adaptation of BSD Unix to run on IBM PCs and an explosion
of software built on top of and around that one thing.   This
movement began a lot earlier and the world of Berkeley Software
Distribution (BSD) variant of ATT Unix was perhaps the strongest
center for that... other efforts I was aware of include things like
the Andrew File System (AFS) out of CMU (nod to Frank) and project
Athena out of MIT.
 2. crowdsource the troubleshooting, debugging, and validation of
system's design.   By making the source code available and free to
use (with some restrictions), large numbers of system/software
designers become motivated to look at, adopt, improve, build-upon
that code-base and thereby improve and vet the code well.   There
are notable exceptions indicating that big holes/bugs can exist in
spite of this scrutiny.  I think there was a hoopla a few years ago
around some (obvious?) security holes in the primary open-source
router software used in most pro-sumer grade network routers, and
maybe even commercial-class ones.  

This GitHub thing Roger posted is (as Roger indicated in his
subject/post) is clearly trolling on behalf of the anti-lockdown
movement... trying to use the open-source community mechanism (open and
free view of the software and the process of it's development, and the
ability for anyone to pitch in, comment, criticize) against the ideas
behind this particular model (and ANY? similar model).

I'm not sure this is a first, but from what I know, there haven't been
"political" trolls haranguing GitHub mediated open-source efforts... 
there have probably been "religious" wars between differing schools of
thought on the best way to solve a particular problem, but the preferred
way to handle that is to FORK the project and let the alternative subset
go pursue their alternative ideas. 

To some extent, this is the way the world is responding to the pandemic
at a policy level.    Each country roughly has it's own
unique/idiosyncratic response to the pandemic... some perhaps taking
their lead from others.   Within the USA (and I presume other
"federated" governments) we have states/governors following the general
guidelines (lame as they may be) of the federal government and
modifying/elaborating them to match their regional context, and again
each county/city/borough/neighborhood may well do the same.   In
principle these policies are open and transparent as are the data that
are gathered at each level on the resources expended and the results
obtained.   This is the Open-Data aspect that Tom Johnson and others
here promote.

The US Constitution (and our entire body of law) might be considered
open-source and I suspect more than a few states and younger countries
have borrowed parts of our constitution and legal system to build their
own from (for better and worse)... just as our Foundling Fatheds
apparently used some of the features exhibited by the (orally
maintained) Iroquois Federation and the ideas of French political
thinkers such as Montesquieu.  



 - Steve

> Marcus,
>
>  
>
> Thanks for taking my question seriously.  I understood what I was
> talking about even less than I usually do.
>
>  
>
> Let’s say I was an evil genius and wanted to introduce evil code into
> a project on github.  What would happen?
>
>  
>
> N
>
>  
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Marcus Daniels
> *Sent:* Thursday, May 7, 2020 11:05 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> 
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Meanwhile, back on the troll farms
>
>  
>
> Nick writes:
>
> * *
>
> *< *What exactly IS the policing mechanism in open source.  Darwinian?
> Reputational?  Does this HAVE to provoke a crisis of confidence in the
> general public?  Or could it be seen as a heroic thrown-together first
> step that is now being improved? >
>
>  
>
> They are whining about simple or absent unit tests as a litmus test
> for whether the code is reliable.   It’s like saying you don’t dare
> drive your car if you didn’t take out its alternator and test its
> voltage output last week.   ‘cause someone might have changed the
> alternator!   Eventually there will be consequences if the alternator
> fails, like stalling or the battery dying.   Same thing in a big
> simulation.   All of the parts and pieces of a simulation are there
> for a reason and global things will start to change in noticeable ways
> if something is broken.   I would say getting mechanisms working
> correctly is less 

Re: [FRIAM] What Is the Real Coronavirus Toll in Each State? - The New York Times

[Steven A Smith]

I just found (maybe just added?) the mode setting for this one to change
deaths to deaths/100,000

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/new-mexico

settings menu-icon in the upper-right hand side of each chart.   Seems
to persist across locations.

> FWIW the population density of New Mexico is 17/mile^2 and in India
> 1202/mile^2.
>
> On Wed, May 6, 2020 at 4:13 PM uǝlƃ ☣  <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> I don't think so. Doubling time (under non-ideal lockdown
> conditions) conflates density with the other measures. If a
> sparsely populated area has the same doubling time as a densely
> populated area, the doubling time graph might gloss over how
> *badly* the sparsely populated area is doing in controlling the
> spread. So, in order to really grok the doubling time graphs, you
> have to have a feel for the relative densities. Feel free to
> correct my faulty thinking.
>
> I think the deltas (as in the graphs I've posted) are a good
> compromise. They're still in the same units (# of people) and show
> larger deltas for larger populations. However, I *would* like to
> divide out area (e.g. square meters) of whatever region's being
> plotted. I think Δcases/m^2 would be interesting.
>
> On 5/6/20 2:49 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com
> <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:
>     > Doesn’t doubling time handle that problem? 
>
> > On 5/6/20 12:59 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> >>
> >> This just underscores how hard it is to make sense out of
> absolute numbers, or more to the point, numerators without
> denominators.    At least some of the charts of absolute numbers
> (as long as they are not renormalized from situation to situation)
> provide a visual estimation of "slope".
>
> -- 
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
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Re: [FRIAM] What Is the Real Coronavirus Toll in Each State? - The New York Times

[Steven A Smith]

On 5/6/20 1:54 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> My  brother lives in Dahlonega, Lumpkin County, Georgia.  The map
> Georgia map surprises me Atlanta is not a hotspot.  Atlanta dominates
> the population of the State.  Southwest Georgia has a much higher
> concentration.  Georgia, unlike Pennsylvania, has a large population
> of rural African Americans.
This just underscores how hard it is to make sense out of absolute
numbers, or more to the point, numerators without denominators.    At
least some of the charts of absolute numbers (as long as they are not
renormalized from situation to situation) provide a visual estimation of
"slope".
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 6, 2020 at 1:43 PM Roger Critchlow  > wrote:
>
> Hall County is a county located in the north central portion
> of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the
> population was 179,684. The county seat is Gainesville.
>
>
>
> 
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/
>  provides
> maps of deaths and cases per county, raw numbers and per 10
> population. 
>
> -- rec --
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 6, 2020 at 3:18 PM uǝlƃ ☣  > wrote:
>
> Hall: 20,441
> DeKalb: 759,297
>
> On 5/6/20 12:08 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com
>  wrote:
> > Glen, those Hall/King comparisons are pretty dramatic.  Go
> Kemp! What is the population of the two counties? 
>
> -- 
> ☣ uǝlƃ
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Re: [FRIAM] What Is the Real Coronavirus Toll in Each State? - The New York Times

[Steven A Smith]

Nick -

https://rt.live/ 

helps to illustrate some of Rachel's hair-on-fire.   NOT because the
absolute numbers are (or will be) outrageous, but because the *rates*
are high.    Take a look at the states who have R0 > 1.0 ... all
midwest-plains.  

If you have a small town with 0 cases, it is natural to not be "too
worried" even if there are three or four small towns within 20 miles who
have a case or two...   their relative social distance from the
international airport/high-density urban *hot spots* means they are
*late* to the party AND the relatively small *absolute* numbers means
their perception of the problem is lower.   AND in fact, they might be
able to tolerate higher rates BECAUSE of the perception.   If 5 people
in your community of 100 die of COVID19 maybe that is easier to accept
than if 5000 out of your 100,000 die?

I think these subtleties/subjectives that get lost in the raw statistics
are important but I don't know how to quantify them off the top of my head.

- Steve

On 5/6/20 9:24 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Hi, Everybody
>
> This article greatly puzzled me because it seemed to eviscerate it
> self in the last few paragraphs. 
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-death-toll-us.html
>
>
> My main concern here is the degree to which I am being deluded by my
> addiction to the Rachel Maddow Show.  She is in HairOnFire mode about
> an impending epidemic in the plains states.  She is particularly
> caustic about the bad judgement of plains states governors.  But if
> the times charts are right, one can see (sort of) why those governors
> are not as alarmed as we smarty-pantses think they ought to be.  There
> aren’t that many people dying full stop, even tho people ARE dying of
> covid.  (Not to mention that most of the people who are dying of covid
> are poorish people working in meet packing plants.)  What is this New
> Abnormal we seem to find ourselves in?
>
> N
>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] green swans

[Steven A Smith]

Dave -

Thanks for the reference (and promise of a book report?).

I take the meaning of "black swan" to be something more easily
recognized in hindsight, but once recognized, seeming to be obvious, but
also having a profound effect on the course of events.

I think this is identical to a bifurcation in the phase space of a
dynamical system?   Dynamical systems, whilst (usually?) entirely
deterministic, are also unprestateable.    The most efficient way to
predict the system's behaviour is to execute it.

The point of the Dave's book, as described in various reviews (e.g.
Goodreads) suggests that the topic is primarily a growing awareness from
hard-line capitalists that there are features of the reward space that
are outside of their usual criteria, and many of them are those USUALLY
reserved for bleeding-heart tree-huggers (aka Greens).  

There seems (in reviews) to be *some* cynicism suggesting that "green
swan" technologies or strategies are maybe only
relevant/important/necessary because of public sentiment (being *forced*
by public sentiment/popular support/political correctness) rather than
because (western/American?) capitalism's seemingly necessary exponential
growth is hitting the true limits to growth that make that seeming
exponential a logistic.

A lot of the criticism of the likes of Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg
has been that they "came late to the Green Party" (and many would
rightly say that Bloomberg really isn't even half there).  Both have
defended "better late than never"...

FWIW...  I did watch the "Planet of the Humans" which makes similar
accusations against the likes of Al Gore and Bill McKibben.   Not so
much that they came *late* to the party, but that they came *lite* to
it.  I suspect the film-maker (Moore just bankrolled it and put his name
on it, he didn't seem to contribute much to it's making) would be really
hard on "green swan Capitalists".    Off topic slightly, the movie did
have a lot of half-truths and out-of-context cheap shots, but the bottom
line (IMO) wasn't that far off.   Letting the same economic-industrial
stakeholders that maybe drove our ecology/climate right up to the edge
of a cliff, now take over and drive "Green Technologies"  might be the
definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over again and
expecting different results).   It was *more* than just judging
industrial sustainability movement as greenwashing... 

I'm curious what your (Dave's) stake in this is?  Do you feel that our
current capitalistic-industrial arc is patently unsustainable (and on
what time scale)?  And do you believe that in spite of the differences
you (and many others) might have with
bleeding-heart-liberal-tree-huggers, that maybe there is more common
ground than you recognized?  Something to work across the aisle (gulf)
on?   Or are the fundamental sensibilities of "the opposition" too
distorted?  

- Steve

> Just ordered, hardcover (two weeks before it gets here probably) and kindle 
> (will read later today.) Looks very interesting but will send review later.
>
> https://www.amazon.com/Green-Swans-Coming-Regenerative-Capitalism/dp/1732439125/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8=1588678839=8-1-spons
>
> "If Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "Black Swans" are problems that take us 
> exponentially toward breakdown, then "Green Swans" are solutions that take us 
> exponentially toward breakthrough. The success--and survival--of humanity now 
> depends on how we rein in the first and accelerate the second."
>
> davew
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Re: [FRIAM] Warring Darwinians for Glen, Steve

[Steven A Smith]

On 5/5/20 4:38 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> "We record/observe *all* your behavior down to the minutest level... "
> is impossible.

Some of my work (not so much these days) has been in light-field capture
as well as holography... so my metaphorical target domain comes from a
fairly specific technical perspective.

Of course "recording/observing *all* of your behaviour" is as impossible
as it is impossible to "record all impinging interfering light waves as
silver halide crystals on a photographic plate", so even a high-quality
hologram is just  a "fuzzy facsimile"... the point isn't fidelity as
much as it is that a lot more *qualities* of information are available
to BE recorded than we normally record (e.g. focusing nominally parallel
light rays reflected off an object through a lens onto a similar
photographic plate).   The hologram doesn't necessarily contain more
data (limited by the grain size of the silver-halide film and the
quality of the optical elements moving the light around as well as the
wavelength of the light) than a conventional photograph, it is just
*qualitatively* more interesting/complex than the impingement of a
planar wave onto a plane (or the integrated fusing of hundreds of such
captures from hundreds of lenses or pinholes) (think phased array radar
in the optical spectra). 

I defer to your broader/deeper experience and awareness of conventional
psychology, but I suppose what I was alluding to is the difference
between a "gestalt" and a "diagnosis"?   A good intuitive therapist, NLP
practitioner, car-salesman, "psychic", etc.   (I contend) can "read" a
LOT more than a bureaucrat screening for a particular purpose.   I'm
simply borrowing Glen's reference to "holographically" to elaborate the
nature of that.

Meanwhile, I agree strongly with you that a great deal of your internal
state (second by second) is operationally opaque to me and everyone else
who might try to observe, including Marcus when he wires you up with
Neuralink hardware or locks you into an fMRI while you fantasize about
your next car or reminisce about a favorite meal/libation you enjoyed 37
years ago while apprehending the Aurora Borealis at winter solstice in a
northern Finland resort that overlooks the Russian Landscape across the
border.  I also know from my own musings and reminiscings that *my*
memories can vary from time to time (and from an objective observation
like a microphone or camera capturing those aspects of a situation).



>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Tue, May 5, 2020, 4:13 PM Steven A Smith  <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:
>
>
> On 5/5/20 3:04 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>> Dammit, Nick.  I can and frequently do spend hours planning,
>> remembering, composing emails, fantasizing about my next car,
>> etc  without exhibiting any remarkable behavior beyond
>> eyeblinking, touching my face (don't!), crossing and uncrossing
>> my legs.  We've been through this before but  what is my latest
>> plan about what to do when my auto lease is up?  No one knows but
>> me despite your claim that I don't have private access to these
>> kinds of things.
>
> And following (weakly I am sure) Glen's reference to
> "holographically", I believe that if we record/observe *all* of
> your behaviour down to the minutest detail, we can learn a LOT
> about that inner state.    If we had that data from the *last*
> time you approached buying a new car (maybe years out) we might
> recognize the specific patterns of leg-crossing and eye-blinking
> and chair-leaning that go with fantasizing about that muscle-car
> inspired anti-proton powered 6 wheel-drive hub-motor flying car
> you have been jonesing on!
>
> I'm somewhat with Glen (as I understand him in this conversation)
> on the ideation that inner and outer is somewhat mutable.   
> Sometimes the 6-rotor flying drone-car I fantasize (and blame on
> Frank) flitting around in is *part of* *me* and other times it is
> what I interface *to* and *it* interfaces (mostly) to the air (and
> sometimes to the water, the ground, and unfortunately a tall tree
> here and there).    When I am composing a message *to* this august
> body named FriAM, I often think of youse alls as "external" to me,
> but if I'm talking to one of the philistines in my life who do NOT
> spend all their time talking/thinking about these kinds of things
> (whatever these kinds are), I sometimes think of myself as being
> *of* "the FriAM" rather than "in the FriAM" (or is that FriAM pan?).
>

Re: [FRIAM] Warring Darwinians for Glen, Steve

[Steven A Smith]

On 5/5/20 3:04 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> Dammit, Nick.  I can and frequently do spend hours planning,
> remembering, composing emails, fantasizing about my next car, etc 
> without exhibiting any remarkable behavior beyond eyeblinking,
> touching my face (don't!), crossing and uncrossing my legs.  We've
> been through this before but  what is my latest plan about what to do
> when my auto lease is up?  No one knows but me despite your claim that
> I don't have private access to these kinds of things.

And following (weakly I am sure) Glen's reference to "holographically",
I believe that if we record/observe *all* of your behaviour down to the
minutest detail, we can learn a LOT about that inner state.    If we had
that data from the *last* time you approached buying a new car (maybe
years out) we might recognize the specific patterns of leg-crossing and
eye-blinking and chair-leaning that go with fantasizing about that
muscle-car inspired anti-proton powered 6 wheel-drive hub-motor flying
car you have been jonesing on!

I'm somewhat with Glen (as I understand him in this conversation) on the
ideation that inner and outer is somewhat mutable.    Sometimes the
6-rotor flying drone-car I fantasize (and blame on Frank) flitting
around in is *part of* *me* and other times it is what I interface *to*
and *it* interfaces (mostly) to the air (and sometimes to the water, the
ground, and unfortunately a tall tree here and there).    When I am
composing a message *to* this august body named FriAM, I often think of
youse alls as "external" to me, but if I'm talking to one of the
philistines in my life who do NOT spend all their time talking/thinking
about these kinds of things (whatever these kinds are), I sometimes
think of myself as being *of* "the FriAM" rather than "in the FriAM" (or
is that FriAM pan?).


>
>
>
> On Tue, May 5, 2020 at 1:36 PM  > wrote:
>
> Hi,Glen,
>
> Careful.  Isn't the formulation "inner world" entirely
> contradictory? 
>
> N
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam  > On Behalf Of u?l? ?
> Sent: Tuesday, May 5, 2020 12:50 PM
> To: FriAM mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Warring Darwinians for Glen, Steve
>
> However, I think we can come up with a (maybe someday) testable
> hypothesis based on hidden states. In principle, if EricC's
> principle is taken seriously, the inner world of a black box
> device will be *completely* represented on its surface (ala the
> holographic principle). Any information not exhibited by a black
> box's *behavior* will be lost/random.
>
> This implies something about the compressibility and information
> content of the black box's behavior, right?
>
> On 5/5/20 10:38 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> > This does not advance an argument against the possibility of a
> computer thinking — merely an assertion that "behavior" is not a
> valid basis upon which to argue that they do.
>
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
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>
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>
> -- 
> Frank Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 505 670-9918
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Warring Darwinians for Glen, Steve

[Steven A Smith]

On 5/5/20 9:47 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> You've never seen an EEG?

Or probed around (carefully) with an oscilliscope/logic-analyzer probe
in your phone while it is operating? 

        (no wonder my phones keep fritzing!)

>
> On Tue, May 5, 2020 at 9:45 AM  <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hi, Dave,
>
>  
>
> So the same may be said of brains, right?  Brain’s don’t behave. 
>
>  
>
> Where are you going with this? 
>
>  
>
> N
>
>  
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* Friam  <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
> *Sent:* Tuesday, May 5, 2020 5:27 AM
> *To:* friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Warring Darwinians for Glen, Steve
>
>  
>
> Allow Nick to say "a computer behaves as if it is thinking,
> therefore it is thinking."
>
>  
>
> How does a computer behave? Or, what is a computer's behavior? I
> am looking at my computer - actually four of them (iPhone, tablet,
> laptop, and desktop) and the only behavior I see any of them
> exhibiting is precisely identical to the behavior of the glass
> paperweight that also occupies space on my desk.
>
>  
>
> What is this thinking behavior y'all are ascribing to the
> computer? Am I the only one that cannot see it?
>
>  
>
> davew
>
>  
>
>  
>
> On Mon, May 4, 2020, at 9:34 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com
> <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Yup.  That’s what he would say.  What */persuades/* you that a
> super competent computer can’t think?  Can a dog think?  How
> would a Martian convince you that it (he, she) can think? 
>
>  
>
> Nick
>
>  
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* Friam  <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly
>
> *Sent:* Monday, May 4, 2020 9:08 PM
>
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Warring Darwinians for Glen, Steve
>
>  
>
> Maybe I missed something that makes this redundant but if a
> highschool student asked me what the /hard problem/ is I would
> say:  There appears to be no limit to how competent computers
> can be.  They seem to be able to do just about anything that
> people think requires thought.  But I am persuaded that they
> can't think.  What makes the difference between thinking
> people and hypercompetent computers? 
>
>  
>
> Nick would say if it behaves as if it thinks then it thinks. 
> I think.
>
>  
>
> Frank
>
>  
>
> On Mon, May 4, 2020 at 7:50 PM Steven A Smith
> mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:
>
> I thought this was a support group for recovering (or just
>
> self-indulgent) metaphorists... you mean it's not?   Why
> do I feel like
>
> I'm in a scene from "Fight Club"?   I guess that would
> make me more of
>
> an allegorist?
>
>  
>
> > Is it? You people can't help yourselves. It's
> compulsive. You might want to get some help for that.
>
> > 
>
> > On 5/4/20 10:47 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>
> >> Choosing one's rifle is so concrete.  It makes me want
> to run out and blow away a few cacti.  Oh, it's a metaphor!
>
>  
>
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>
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Re: [FRIAM] Warring Darwinians for Glen, Steve

[Steven A Smith]

> Maybe I missed something that makes this redundant but if a highschool
> student asked me what the /hard problem/ is I would say:  There
> appears to be no limit to how competent computers can be.  They seem
> to be able to do just about anything that people think requires
> thought.  But I am persuaded that they can't think.  What makes the
> difference between thinking people and hypercompetent computers? 
>
> Nick would say if it behaves as if it thinks then it thinks.  I think.

I think I think, therefore I think I am?    A real-world exercise in
terminating tail recursion?  Waddya think?


>
> Frank
>
> On Mon, May 4, 2020 at 7:50 PM Steven A Smith  <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:
>
> I thought this was a support group for recovering (or just
> self-indulgent) metaphorists... you mean it's not?   Why do I feel
> like
> I'm in a scene from "Fight Club"?   I guess that would make me more of
> an allegorist?
>
> > Is it? You people can't help yourselves. It's compulsive. You
> might want to get some help for that.
> >
> > On 5/4/20 10:47 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> >> Choosing one's rifle is so concrete.  It makes me want to run
> out and blow away a few cacti.  Oh, it's a metaphor!
>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> Frank Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 505 670-9918
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Warring Darwinians for Glen, Steve

[Steven A Smith]

Frank-

Given your anecdote, I strongly recommend watching the Spike Jonze's
movie HER which has all the earmarks of a dystopian near-future but not
to be a spoiler, it actually resolves very sweetly.   I believe the
voice of "Her" is Scarlett Johannson.   Alan Watts makes an interesting
Cameo.

- Steve

> My grandson uses his Echo Dot extensively.  A soft female voice
> answers his questions about spelling, arithmetic, geography, etc.  The
> other day he asked, understandably, "Alexa, will you marry me?"  She
> said, "I've decided to wait until Mars is colonized before making that
> commitment."  Good thinking.
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Tue, May 5, 2020, 5:39 AM Prof David West  <mailto:profw...@fastmail.fm>> wrote:
>
> Came across this yesterday afternoon:
>
> /"Psychology is not a science because it is too difficult. The
> scientific mind is  usually orderly, with a natural love for
> order. It resents and tends to ignore fields in which order is not
> readily apparent. It gravitates to fields in which order is easily
> found such as the physical sciences, and leaves more complex
> fields to those who play by ear, as it were. Thus we have a
> rigourous science of thermodynamics but are not like to have a
> science of psychodynamics for many years to come."/
>
> From a Robert A. Heinlein book, /Sixth Column/, I read when I was
> an impressionable child. Not that he is correct, but I see where
> my antipathy to some science comes from.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Tue, May 5, 2020, at 5:27 AM, Prof David West wrote:
>> Allow Nick to say "a computer behaves as if it is thinking,
>> therefore it is thinking."
>>
>> How does a computer behave? Or, what is a computer's behavior? I
>> am looking at my computer - actually four of them (iPhone,
>> tablet, laptop, and desktop) and the only behavior I see any of
>> them exhibiting is precisely identical to the behavior of the
>> glass paperweight that also occupies space on my desk.
>>
>> What is this thinking behavior y'all are ascribing to the
>> computer? Am I the only one that cannot see it?
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>> On Mon, May 4, 2020, at 9:34 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com
>> <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Yup.  That’s what he would say.  What */persuades/* you that a
>>> super competent computer can’t think?  Can a dog think?  How
>>> would a Martian convince you that it (he, she) can think? 
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>> Nick
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>> Nicholas Thompson
>>>
>>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>>
>>> Clark University
>>>
>>> thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>
>>>
>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>>
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* Friam >> <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly
>>> *Sent:* Monday, May 4, 2020 9:08 PM
>>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>>> mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Warring Darwinians for Glen, Steve
>>>
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>> Maybe I missed something that makes this redundant but if a
>>> highschool student asked me what the /hard problem/ is I would
>>> say:  There appears to be no limit to how competent computers
>>> can be.  They seem to be able to do just about anything that
>>> people think requires thought.  But I am persuaded that they
>>> can't think.  What makes the difference between thinking people
>>> and hypercompetent computers? 
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>> Nick would say if it behaves as if it thinks then it thinks.  I
>>> think.
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>> Frank
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>> On Mon, May 4, 2020 at 7:50 PM Steven A Smith >> <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> I thought this was a support group for recovering (or just
>>> self-indulgent) metaphorists... you mean it's not?   Why do
>>> I feel like
>>

Re: [FRIAM] Ranked Choice Voting app

[Steven A Smith]

Cody -
> I think that ranked choice is the best bet to escape from the horrible
> two party system. That being said there is not much insentive for the
> GOP or the DNC to adopt what could be enable competition.  My friend
> Greg once said both parties are basically just advertising firms, and
> I still believe it.

Great line... I have a friend who is loaded with aphorisms he attributed
to his father... a man who *should have been* by some measure a
hard-line Republican who observed:

    "One party wants to take all my money and give it away to other
people...and the other party wants to take and and keep it for themselves"

Who is who is left to the reader.

- Steve



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Re: [FRIAM] Warring Darwinians for Glen, Steve

[Steven A Smith]

I thought this was a support group for recovering (or just
self-indulgent) metaphorists... you mean it's not?   Why do I feel like
I'm in a scene from "Fight Club"?   I guess that would make me more of
an allegorist?

> Is it? You people can't help yourselves. It's compulsive. You might want to 
> get some help for that.
>
> On 5/4/20 10:47 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>> Choosing one's rifle is so concrete.  It makes me want to run out and blow 
>> away a few cacti.  Oh, it's a metaphor!

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Re: [FRIAM] Ranked Choice Voting app

[Steven A Smith]

glen -

> https://rankit.vote/
>
thanks for bringing the topic up again.   I know you have made (mildly?
obliquely?) disparaging comments about ranked-choice voting before.  
Rather than my trying to summarize (or impute) your real intention,
maybe you could comment on how you think ranked choice voting fits into
the bigger picture?

- steve


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Re: [FRIAM] ill-conceived question

[Steven A Smith]

Eric -
> I would put up this one as a constructive reply to your link below,
> not to counter but to add alongside:
> https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/the-power-of-community-how-cuba-survived-peak-oil-2006/
> I am pretty sure I have posted this to the list in the past, but it
> remains a strong reference for me.

I was (only vaguely) aware of the Cuban "special period" and think the
description of the Cuban people's response in the movie was very
inspirational.  It helps a great deal that Cuba has a very good climate
for year round agriculture and that it's people were not terribly
addicted to personal-conveniences as provided by our idea of modern
technology.   I have not really paid attention to what has evolved there
more recently.

I have friends/colleagues in Ukraine who are old enough to have
remembered both Chernobyl, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the
Ukranian independence.   They went through some similar experiences to
Cuba, suddenly not having direct access to the huge false-economies of
the Soviet Empire and having to try to keep a system running on
nominally only what could be produced regionally.

I wondered when Puerto Rico got hit so hard by the hurricane a few years
go if THEY might not follow a pattern closer to Cuba's as described in
the movie.

> Six weeks or two months into a shutdown, with pictures of glittering
> skyscrapers in NYC with nobody maintaining them, and yoga people
> sitting on posh porches overlooking the forest, I get the impression
> that something is being overlooked.  If I saw the same video made by a
> Panamanian immigrant in Brooklyn, living with 6 family members in a
> small apartment, I would feel safer abducting from the anecdotal point
> of view to a generalization.
I agree that Gary's video leaves me waiting for "the other shoe to fall"
when I know the beast in question is more like a centipede than a biped.
>
> I don’t say that to disagree with the intent of the short video you
> circulated, which expresses preferences that I also hold.  But all the
> ways we create damage, from climate to farmland management to
> ecosystem destruction happen partly because it is hard to understand
> long-term trajectories from the early stages of transients, and we are
> particularly bad at recognizing that transients are that.  This little
> bit of inertia, while people consume stocks that were in inventory
> already, does not look to me like a model for an alternative steady
> state in barely any respects (though still a few).  I don’t doubt that
> the maker of the video understands this and would agree, but he
> probably sees the end of making the point as justifying the means of
> omitting these things.
Yes, in spite of our just-in-time logistics system, there has been quite
a bit of product in the pipeline and it is not like *every* factory and
*every* packing plant, etc.  shut down immediately or entirely *IF
EVER*.   Your reference to the style of glossing in the movie is
well-taken and I think I agree it was deliberate and aspirational more
than pretending that (as you point out) that 2 months in we can *know*
that everything is going to be OK even (especially?) if we cut our manic
hypercapitalism by a factor of 2 or 10.
>
> I like the Cuban case because it starts to get into the weeds of just
> how much _work_ is needed, and how many and how diverse are the
> problems that require invention to solve, to significantly re-arrange
> a social system.  I think the documentary makes the case that the move
> they made was entirely in the right direction.
The improvements in health and nutrition they report is a good indicator.
>  The thing that makes it feel real to me is that it was a lot of work
> for a modest and very incomplete improvement.  To make a good world
> will require that kind of work-for-change as a way of life to which we
> remain committed over generational timescales.  It also required that
> the center of mass of the society be going in that direction, and not
> just a committed fringe swimming against a current that is all going
> the wrong way.  The latter nut is one that is seeming particularly
> hard to crack.

But I would claim/suggest that a "catastrophe" like the one we are on
the crest (of the beginning?) of is a good opportunity, not unlike the
"Special Period" of Cuba, for that center of mass to shift perhaps.  
And there are directions to lean that will help that or alternatively
hurt (return to normal) that.

Good video and good thoughts,

 - Steve


>
> Many thanks,
>
> Eric
>
>
>> On May 3, 2020, at 10:05 PM, Gary Schiltz > > wrote:
>>
>> Great rant/stream of consciousness as usual, Steve! Has anyone
>> watched this five minute video yet? A bit utopian, but maybe not...
>> https://vimeo.com/411278238
>>
>> On Sun, May 3, 2020 at 7:23 AM David Eric Smith > > wrote:
>>
>> I can’t weave a grand diorama that has the meaning of everything
>> in it, and anything I try 

Re: [FRIAM] ill-conceived question

[Steven A Smith]

Gary -

Watching now... but THIS rant was Eric's not mine... mine was previous
and more rambly!

- Steve

> Great rant/stream of consciousness as usual, Steve! Has anyone watched
> this five minute video yet? A bit utopian, but maybe not...
> https://vimeo.com/411278238
>
> On Sun, May 3, 2020 at 7:23 AM David Eric Smith  > wrote:
>
> I can’t weave a grand diorama that has the meaning of everything
> in it, and anything I try will come out a mess.  So let me try for
> Less is More.
>
> I think part of this is habit and commitments.  Somehow the
> society has to sort out a predictable way to arrive at who has a
> right to consume how much of what.  A surprising amount of
> structure goes into that, and it has enormous inertia.  Part of
> what we are trying to “restart” is a set of systems that happen to
> be doing an allocation that we don’t have other systems in place
> to do as an alternative.
>
> Take food production.  Fine, what people need to eat is relatively
> inelastic, and not wildly different from one human to another,
> compared to dollar-wealth.  But over the past 80 years, nearly all
> food calories are produced by very few decision makers and
> enormous capital outlays, levered to the hilt with credit, on
> really bad (regular, fast, and inflexible) turnaround times.
>  (This means Corn, Beans, lesser Wheat, to some extent commodity
> meats.). The story is a little more diversified for the nutritive
> value of food (fruits, vegetables, et al.), but different in
> structure where near-slave labor takes the place of capital and a
> different analysis is needed.  For now I will just look at the
> simple one.
>
> We can’t all suddenly move back to the farm and grow calorie
> crops.  We don’t own land, we don’t have skills, and besides there
> is no easy angle to do that in a system that over-produces
> already.  So the production is there.  But if we don’t have a way
> to pay the “farmer” (really a grant/loan/lobby businessman more
> than an expert in soil health etc.), why should he give us
> anything to eat?  You could say “Ah, he only needs enough to live,
> and he is only one man, so he could give the rest away because
> people need it.”  But he isn’t only one man.  He is a vastly
> debt-leveraged operation, with enormous capital replacement and
> maintenance costs, huge loans for fertilizer/seed/pesticide, and
> no way to pay that unless he turns over the crop within certain
> price ranges (or lobbies hard to get Dept of Ag to make up the
> difference; what happens is a lot of both).  So he has no choices
> if we don’t have money, and we have no choices if we have no
> money.  But then what should anyone pay any of us for if the US
> operates on 1000 farmers, but there are 378M mouths that want to
> be fed?  Some system has to work that out.  
>
> During the near-century of technological increases in output
> optimization, the rhetoric was that with less labor used to
> produce consumables, people’s efforts would be liberated to do
> other good things.  But to the extent that those things aren’t
> “necessary” in the Maslov sense like food is (following Steve S.),
> really all those other people are useless.  
>
> One could try UBI, or have some utopian fantasy about centrally
> managed communist economies, but apart from small-scale
> experiments on UBI within much larger conventionally-run
> countries, and Kibbutz-level communes, I don’t see evidence of
> mechanisms to put behind those visions.  So we are left with an
> unsolved problem of distribution.  Not least, just How do we
> coordinate it?  But also how do we do so stably enough that the
> system is perceived as having some kind of legitimacy (close
> enough to “fair”, to being individually negotiated and thus
> allowing people to want different things, all the marginalist Econ
> stuff).
>
> Take any other area.  Gas-powered transportation.  Well, maybe you
> don’t “need” it in the sense that you can conjure a world where
> you live and work close together and have support for
> walk/bike/pubtrans etc.  But where you are now, you and almost
> everybody else in the US, has demographically committed to being
> unable to do much of anything without plugging into that whole
> “unnecessary” system.  So some part of the economic inertia comes
> just from the thick web of these commitments that people have
> made, which leave them unable to withdraw from dependencies on
> lots of complicated services.
>
> Easiest way to get 100,000V if you started with 100V?  Coil some
> wire to make an inductor, plug it into the wall, and then cut the
> wire.  Sudden shifts of anything have a dimension of problem just
> from the timescale, in 

Re: [FRIAM] ill-conceived question

[Steven A Smith]

On 5/2/20 8:39 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> Genghis spread his genes via wives and concubines, not rapine. He also
> installed daughters and wives as regional governors instead of sons.
> Interesting historical figure.

So Genghis stayed back home and procreated while he sent the boys out
into the field?  And nobody got anyone pregnant while on the road?   Or
just Hooker's Legionaires?   

Hmmm curious.



>
> davew
>
>
> On Sat, May 2, 2020, at 8:00 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>
>> Dave -
>>
>>> I once taught an honors course, with Father Smith at St. Thomas on
>>> the Anthropology and Theology of War. One of the prime forces behind
>>> war — since prehistory — had been nothing more than birth control.
>>
>> Do you meant literally *birth* and *control*, or rather *population*
>> and *reduction*?
>>
>> The more literal usage works well too.  Controlling Births.  I think
>> much warfare culminates (or did before modernish times) in the
>> victors killing the men and raping/impregnating and enslaving the
>> women either in-place, inhabiting the conquered lands or taking them
>> back to their homeland.  Children alternatively would have been
>> killed or enslaved.   Thus the genetic heritage of Genghis Khan...
>>
>> One step more sophisticated than the rats?
>>
>> I don't think we have to go there, no matter how much the gun
>> hoarders want their chance at being unequivocally "on top" at least
>> for one round of the grande iterated prisoner's dilemma that is human
>> civilization.
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>>>> Well, in a sense that’s correct.  But their method of “birth
>>>> control”
>>>> <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238356686_A_Utopian_perspective_on_ecology_and_development>
>>>> is not one that I am prepared to take as a model.  Just imagine the
>>>> worst sort of dystopian post apocalyptic novel.  See the
>>>> description of the Calhoun experiment on p 224.
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>> Nick
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>> Nicholas Thompson
>>>>
>>>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>>>
>>>> Clark University
>>>>
>>>> thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>
>>>>
>>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>> *From:* Friam 
>>>> <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Marcus Daniels
>>>> *Sent:* Saturday, May 2, 2020 12:15 PM
>>>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>>>>  <mailto:friam@redfish.com>
>>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] ill-conceived question
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>> < You recall that I invoked as a model that experiment in which 24
>>>> rats were put in a quarter acre enclosure in Baltimore and fed and
>>>> watered and protected to see how the population would develop. 
>>>> They never got above two hundred.  >
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>> Maybe the rats were right?
>>>>
>>>> * *
>>>>
>>>> Marcus
>>>>
>>>> .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -..
>>>> .- ...  . ...
>>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
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>>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] ill-conceived question

[Steven A Smith]

On 5/2/20 8:36 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> Major investors lose little — certainly as a percentage of wealth —
> because they have the super-high speed systems and insider status to
> ameliorate their loses. As always, it is the smaller investor that
> cannot trade in milliseconds, but in minutes and hours, that loses the
> most.

"ameliorate" hell... those who operate at those levels profit even
better from big drops... they can leverage *any* and *all* volatility,
especially that which is counter-intuitive to the average investor.  
Sure they may get up an hour or two earlier and stay up an hour or two
later to parlay around the globe (Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, etc.) but
they are rewarded *handsomely* for that extra vigilance.


>
> davew
>
>
> On Sat, May 2, 2020, at 4:12 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote:
>> Would the rich, with proportionally more in the stock market, be
>> disadvantaged by drops in stock prices? I suppose, on the other hand,
>> they would tend to have enough cash or equivalent to to take
>> advantage of the price drops to buy stocks at reduced prices.
>>
>> On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 5:02 PM > > wrote:
>>
>> Hi, Dave,
>>
>>  
>>
>> Given that the super rich have the resiliency to respond to any
>> crisis, I have a hard time imagining  anything that would
>> disadvantage them EXCEPT taxing the living daylights out of
>> them.  We did pretty well on 90% marginal tax rates.   
>>
>>  
>>
>> I agree about the White Quarantine. 
>>
>>  
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>  
>>
>>  
>>
>>  
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>  
>>
>>  
>>
>> *From:* Friam > > *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
>> *Sent:* Saturday, May 2, 2020 3:02 PM
>> *To:* friam@redfish.com 
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] ill-conceived question
>>
>>  
>>
>> I once taught an honors course, with Father Smith at St. Thomas
>> on the Anthropology and Theology of War. One of the prime forces
>> behind war — since prehistory — had been nothing more than birth
>> control.
>>
>>  
>>
>> davew
>>
>>  
>>
>>  
>>
>> On Sat, May 2, 2020, at 12:37 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com
>>  wrote:
>>
>> Well, in a sense that’s correct.  But their method of “birth
>> control”
>> 
>> 
>> is not one that I am prepared to take as a model.  Just
>> imagine the worst sort of dystopian post apocalyptic novel. 
>> See the description of the Calhoun experiment on p 224.
>>
>>  
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>  
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>  
>>
>>  
>>
>>  
>>
>> *From:* Friam > > *On Behalf Of *Marcus Daniels
>>
>> *Sent:* Saturday, May 2, 2020 12:15 PM
>>
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>> mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
>>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] ill-conceived question
>>
>>  
>>
>> < You recall that I invoked as a model that experiment in
>> which 24 rats were put in a quarter acre enclosure in
>> Baltimore and fed and watered and protected to see how the
>> population would develop.  They never got above two hundred.  >
>>
>>  
>>
>> Maybe the rats were right?
>>
>> * *
>>
>> Marcus
>>
>> .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -..
>> -..-. -.. .- ...  . ...
>>
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>
>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
>> 
>>
>> unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>
>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>>
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 
>>
>>  
>>
>>  
>>
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>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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>>
>> .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .-
>> ... 

Re: [FRIAM] ill-conceived question

[Steven A Smith]

Nick -

I contemplate this question regularly.   "What means 'the economy' ?" 
The way it is bandied about in the public media and among most circles I
listen to, it is this big hairball of exchange of goods and services
facilitated by "money", both in the form of currency and credit.    Yet
it is treated as if it is our psychic  (spiritual?) as well as physical
lifeblood.  

This abrupt interruption of *much* of that activity potentially exposes
a LOT about how much of a "false economy" we live within.  

Among the things that humans really need/want/value, I suspect the
"economy" we have grown creates goods and services that are not of any
particular use/interest/value to most (if any) of the human
population.   Hard-line "invisible hand of the market"-eers will insist
that if it exists in our economy, that it *must* be of
interest/value/use to *many* (or at least some).  Invoking the idiom of
"follow the money", I agree that we *can* follow a chain of implied
value that leads from the most marginal or absurd to the common and mundane.

I defer to Abraham Maslow:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs for an
armature/prioritization of what human needs might *really* be.

During this shutdown, I suspect *many* are discovering (getting hints
of) what truly is important to them and if they are being
self-observant, what their greatest fears (and hopes?) might be.   The
trope "Guns, Germs, and Toilet Paper" erupted soon after the shutdown
and the abrupt/extreme shortage of disinfectants, personal paper
products, and ammunition/guns.

Returning to the core point:   For anyone without the currency/credit to
trade for the goods/services they DO need, this shutdown is already a
huge problem.   For those (like most if not all on this list) *with* a
decent reserve of currency/credit OR the kind of job or enterprise which
has it's own inertia or true value in this context (e.g. Inertial:
random professionals; True Value: Health Care Workers, Critical Retail
Workers, Internet Engineers...) there is not an immediate problem with
cash-flow, and may in fact never be a problem.  

Mangling Maslow:  we all need air to breathe, (fairly clean) water to
drink, enough shelter from the elements to keep avoid hyper (or hypo)
thermia,  and enough nutrients (and calories) to keep the metabolism and
growth/repair going.  

It seems that (so far) the basic infrastructure (power, water, natural
gas, coal, transportation, communications) is all staying solid... that
they are either robust enough to not be hurt by the disruptions or those
who maintain them have the motivation to keep them going in spite of the
challenges to doing so (much of the maintenance repair of such
infrastructure is inherently socially distanced?).   We may whine/worry
about our interwebs but even those seem to be holding up.   The power
grid is probably mildly stressed by shifting most of the use from
commercial to residential, and possibly is diminished (office buildings
under-heated/lit)?

I hear that the food depots around the country (first world?) are in a
multiple of demand of their normal level.  I don't know if the newly
impoverished are taking precedence over the previous or if they are just
joining their ranks, or if these services are coming close to matching
the demand.   I don't know if people are going hungry(ier) than they
were before... perhaps the flexibility built into our social fabric
(nuclear and extended families, friends, neighbors, social services) has
absorbed most of the shock.  Perhaps the congressional (in the US)
stimulus funding is trickling through to enough of the people to take
the ragged edge off for a week or a month.  Perhaps the PPP loans are
allowing *some* of the small (and not so small) businesses to keep
people on payroll.  Perhaps *some* of the unemployment funds in reserve
are getting to those who have formally lost their jobs (temporary or
long term).  

Meanwhile there is produce in the fields, milk in the cow (and storage),
and meat on the hoof that is not being processed and shipped to the
restaurants that are closed or not being processed because the people
who do that work are out sick, or afraid of coming to work where they
likely will get sick (lack of PPE, social distance, trust in co-worker's
health), or afraid of coming to work because they are NOT properly
documented through our foreign worker/immigration system or coming to
work sick (and therefore risking other's exposure) *because* they are
outside the legal system. This is a breakdown of our *heavily
industrialized* food supply system, which probably hasn't hit our
transportation/distribution systems (yet).   Wholesale warehouse workers
and OTR drivers are probably *fairly* able to avoid exposure/infection
in their normal work. 

It seems (deferring again to Maslow) that if we have the (collective)
*will* to keep our food-production/distribution systems going, the basic
infrastructure going, the MAIN (only?) thing we *really* 

Re: [FRIAM] ill-conceived question

[Steven A Smith]

Dave -

> I once taught an honors course, with Father Smith at St. Thomas on the
> Anthropology and Theology of War. One of the prime forces behind war —
> since prehistory — had been nothing more than birth control.

Do you meant literally *birth* and *control*, or rather *population* and
*reduction*?

The more literal usage works well too.  Controlling Births.  I think
much warfare culminates (or did before modernish times) in the victors
killing the men and raping/impregnating and enslaving the women either
in-place, inhabiting the conquered lands or taking them back to their
homeland.  Children alternatively would have been killed or enslaved.  
Thus the genetic heritage of Genghis Khan...

One step more sophisticated than the rats?

I don't think we have to go there, no matter how much the gun hoarders
want their chance at being unequivocally "on top" at least for one round
of the grande iterated prisoner's dilemma that is human civilization.

- Steve

>> Well, in a sense that’s correct.  But their method of “birth control”
>> 
>> is not one that I am prepared to take as a model.  Just imagine the
>> worst sort of dystopian post apocalyptic novel.  See the description
>> of the Calhoun experiment on p 224.
>>
>>  
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>  
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>  
>>
>>  
>>
>> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Marcus Daniels
>> *Sent:* Saturday, May 2, 2020 12:15 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>> 
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] ill-conceived question
>>
>>  
>>
>> < You recall that I invoked as a model that experiment in which 24
>> rats were put in a quarter acre enclosure in Baltimore and fed and
>> watered and protected to see how the population would develop.  They
>> never got above two hundred.  >
>>
>>  
>>
>> Maybe the rats were right?
>>
>> * *
>>
>> Marcus
>>
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>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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>> unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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>>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Warring Darwinians for Glen, Steve

[Steven A Smith]

Nick -


> Nice thought, but I would have to ride on the bumper. 
>
>  
>
> What a time!
>

FWIW... you have referenced your own choice of clique-formation as a
"pod" which I believe exclusively? describes the second level of whale
(at least Orca) social organization.   (matriline -> pod -> clan ->
community).  Other whales (and porpoises?) also form pods I think, but
I'm not so sure if we ascribe (or recognize) larger clans for them?

I'm wondering if from an evolutionary psychologist point of view if
there is a "natural" way ( evidenced in ethnographic/anthropological
precedent) for us to form multi-scale clique structures which can
dissociate quickly as-needed during times such as this pandemic.  
Terrorist or deep-cover spy cell-networks seem to have this sorted
fairly well?

It seems natural (obviously) for a family group living under one roof to
form such a first order grouping...  and in your case if I read your
circumstance right, you have formed a 3 generation "pod" with one of
your children and spouse, and a grandchild who you may or may not live
under the same roof, but have chosen to "share the risk"?  

I've seen any number of opportunities *lost* to form such larger pods
(my sister's family separating into one couple and 3 singletons who do
not mix)...   but I suspect that there are plenty of examples along the
lines of extended families... where for example, a group of siblings
choose to maintain contact and support/allow contact among their
children (first cousins) in groups therefore of 5 or 10 or even as large
as 30 or 40, with some group-pressure to remain isolated *outside* of
that group... possibly even assign as small of a number as 2 or 3 who
are trusted to go out in the world and forage at the grocery or
hardware... possibly those with the best discipline around social
distance, PPE, etc.

I don't know how close the "clan structure" of Orcas is to that of
various (usually matrilineal?) first-nations clans, and if there is any
kind of useful parallel.  From my limited anthropology background, I
seem to remember that clan-structures provide a kind of formula for how
to "weave a community" of individuals without too much risk of creating
bad-blood (socially as well as genetically)?

This is perhaps thinner ice, but my own experience within my social
circles is that "the decider" (regarding style and level of isolation)
in most "pods" I know of is a woman...  not always the eldest, but one
who has significant dominance outside of such a pandemic...  a thought
leader in nuclear or extended family or perhaps neighborhood.  

One of my social-circle groups consists of a modestly isolated
"country-lane" of about 6 households of retirees and empty nesters.   So
roughly 12 individuals with roughly 3 in the high-age-risk (>80)
category and 1 > 70 with acute preexisting conditions.   The 3 high-risk
are men, and are supported in self-isolation by their (younger) partners
(2 women, one man), and there are two significantly dominant women in
the group who alternatively trigger social events among this larger pod
normally but have taken on a "policing" role amongst their neighbors,
making sure everyone has what they need but also shaming anyone who
considers what they believe to be "risky behaviour".   A less assertive
woman is also a practicing (semi-retired) nurse who seems to decline to
try to "manage" the rest of the lane even though she seems to be more
technically competent in this context.   One couple are Native American
(Picuris/Dine) and they have mostly left the pod/lane to rejoin the Dine
family-pod which I believe needs their influence/help in these times.  
They remain friendly but non-contacting with the lane when they are
there ( a few days ever week or two).    We are normally considered part
of their "clan" but have declined virtually all in-person contact,
allowing for a few socially-distanced meetups in the backyard with one
of the couples (BYOEverything).   The "lane" has a good dozen other
orbiters/clan-members like us who seem to have the same relationship to
that "pod"... 

Another of my extended social circle is an organic farm-complex that
consisted of 2 women in their early 60s, each with their own
home/aspect-of-farming and a full time tenant in a casita and a rotating
medley of temporary farm-help who either live for weeks or months *on*
the farm, or are CSA-trade workers who come in for a few hours here and
there to help with acute things like harvest/clean for market-day.   
The primary *farmer* recently took on a young couple (30ish) to whom she
is sharecropping... giving them her house and the fields she has built
over the last 10 years to "make what they will" of it with fresh ideas
and energy.   They were on their way here from Michigan when the
pandemic got hot...  they had "day jobs" on two other organic farms in
the area but after arriving self-isolated on the farm rather than risk
bringing something with them...  once past the two weeks (which was a
good 

Re: [FRIAM] Warring Darwinians for Glen, Steve

[Steven A Smith]

> Acceleration can be a changing, non-constant function of time.  The
> change is necessarily continuous.  Want to go for a ride?

Quick, before anyone else inserts the bad pun...   "what a jerk!"



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Re: [FRIAM] Warring Darwinians for Glen, Steve

[Steven A Smith]

On 4/30/20 1:41 PM, Prof David West wrote:
>
> Steve likes to sign off with "mumble"  I'll stop with
>
> babble

Touche'...

    bumble


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Re: [FRIAM] narcissism

[Steven A Smith]

Glen, et al -
> As for Trump, I've *already* said that his narcissism interferes with his 
> competence. I said that explicitly. I've even said it more than once. But it 
> seems irrelevant to how we compensate for the situation we're in. I don't 
> think I said *independent*. I'm sorry if I did.  Irrelevant and independent 
> are different. My point was to find something we can *act* on. And I don't 
> think we can act on his narcissism. But we can act on his incompetence.

I am conflicted by this. 

I have known people whose very competence seems to be significantly a
product of both their grandiose and their vulnerable narcissism.   They
think they are highly capable, so they take on challenges that a less
confident person may not, and it is this very confidence that seems to
provide a certain amount of momentum to make good progress.   The
vulnerable side/aspect/version of this is often so afraid of being
embarrassed that they work extra hard dot all their i's and cross
all their t's.  For the most part, this combination may still lead an
individual to be grandiose (over-estimate their ability) and vulnerable
(thin-skinned, self-protective of criticism), but overall effective and
not necessarily pathological to others.

On the other hand, I have known individuals whose narcissism (both
grandiosity and hyper-vulnerability) seems to make them highly
*incompetent*.   They ignore all evidence that they are clueless and
they react punishingly to anyone who challenges their grandiosity.

Perhaps one of the distinctions between these two versions is their
level of circumstantial power/privilege.  Perhaps whether it is having a
certain inherent charisma, a powerful family, wealth, or even ability
(physical or intellectual prowess)...   these individuals simply become
bullies, using whatever advantage/leverage they have over others to
suppress negative feedback.

I don't know if this is described in the DSM or in literature or amongst
trained analysts and psychological professionals... it is just my
anecdotal apprehension of yet another "two types of people" .

- Steve

> On 4/29/20 12:21 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>> Have you read Kernberg?  I would do that first and I would claim that he 
>> should dominate me and the others with respect to his/their/my credibility.  
>> My knowledge, such as it is, comes from informal conversations with senior 
>> psychoanalysts in Pittsburgh.  Ragins, Schachter, Ratey, McLaughlin, et al.  
>> And my wife who is not a senior analyst but was a student of all those.  She 
>> is reticent to talk about these issues but clearly knows more than I do.  
>>
>> Do you still deny that Trump's narcissism interferes with his ability to be 
>> president?  You seem to think it's independent of his incompetence.  I don't 
>> think so.
>


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Re: [FRIAM] narcissism

[Steven A Smith]

> Waco
> https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/waco/s01

I declined to respond to Glen's originating post on this topic until I
had more time/background.   We finally watched the limited series the
last two nights and it brought back a lot of memories of that era to
both Mary and myself.   We had the opportunity to discuss both our
contemporary understanding of characters like Koresh and his followers
(and the ATF/FBI characters as-depicted and the families of, and locals
in nearby Waco) as well as our memories of how we responded to it as it
unfolded (through the lens of popular media and discussion).  I felt
that the show (and probably the two books it was derived from, written
by the FBI negotiator and by one of the more sympathetic
characters/members of the Davidians) had some barely hidden agendas...  
while I'm willing to believe that egos and personalities and
incompetence and systemic flaws were key to how the ATF/FBI (mis)handled
the scene right up through it's tragic conclusion and aftermath, I
didn't take every detail to be unbiased and accurate. 

> I don't know much about Koresh or the Branch Davidians. I remember watching 
> it (and the Ruby Ridge coverage) on TV back then. (I was pretty libertarian 
> back then ... but that was back when the word "libertarian" meant something 
> ... it's a useless word these days. So my understanding of these events was 
> heavily biased by that.) This TV show does a good job, I think, of showing 
> Koresh simply edit out his abuse of the flock while maintaining an air of 
> authenticity in other domains. And the supporting character (Paul 
> Sparks/Steve Schneider) states it explicitly when he says something like "I 
> wish God had chosen someone else" or somesuch ... because Koresh was such a 
> jerk.
I don't know much about Koresh (or his Davidians or the Ruby Ridge
family or ... players) either...  and I agree that this depiction showed
well a tension between his "abuse" and "authenticity".   I have NO
embedding in the kinds of belief systems that Koresh and his followers
came from (and went far beyond),  so my first-order response to the lot
of them was not very sympathetic.   Mary was raised Catholic and did not
leave that fold until she divorced in her early 40's.   She still has
some momentum from that embedding which makes it easier for her to be
sympathetic with the underlying tropes of belief in a personal
creator/savior and in scripture, even though I would say all of those
are now vacant in her active current consciousness.
> My conscious attempt to empathize with everyone, in every context, no matter 
> how deplorable it might be, prevents me from accusing someone like Koresh of 
> *rational* manipulation.
I share that conscious attempt, or even instinctual bias.   I don't
*want to believe* people are that fundamentally different/bad/flawed
than I want to believe that I am.   I know myself to have operated with
*rational* manipulation, but it usually grows up out of the fertile soil
of *unconscious* manipulation... simply seeking to optimize some
personal rewards/satisfaction vector with limited awareness of the
results on others (especially those far from me socially/geographically).
>  I tend to think his manipulation of others is the *same* as his manipulation 
> of himself. In programming, we use the term "reflection" or "introspection" 
> to talk about an object manipulating itself in the same way it manipulates 
> other objects (and vice versa). In some circles, it's called "reflexive", 
> which I think is misleading. The idea is that you treat yourself as other or 
> you treat others as yourself.

As I understand your point here, it is perhaps the *only* or *most
fundamental* thing which keeps me in line consciously.  I do have
natural empathy that is rooted in my
vertebrate/mammalian/primate/hominid genetics as well as that which was
nurtured by my family and communities of origin.    But as I became
(trained to be?) more rational, my own narcissistic pursuits transformed
to become more *intentional* and possibly more pathological.   A lot of
what probably comes across as bald "virtue signalling" in my posts here
is me trying to remind myself that I *can* (and should?) work
consciously to balance that out.   If left to my own instincts and
learned habits in this (manic hypercapitalist, ultra-individualistic)
society, I might well behave in a very selfish manner at every
opportunity.   

It also triggered memories of how the well-publicized Jonestown and
Heaven's Gate cult suicides  unfolded... though I *do* believe the Waco
account that says theirs was NOT a mass-suicide.   The nature of
cult-belief/following/extremity was the point.

> When I hear descriptions of narcissism, this self-other mixing seems absent, 
> which makes all the descriptions of narcissists seem cartoonish and wrong. 
> They portray narcissists as hyper-rational, manipulate others to get what you 
> want, sociopaths [†].
I think these are the extrema (edge/corner 

Re: [FRIAM] narcissism

[Steven A Smith]

I believe that this article (or a very similar one) was posted here a
couple of years ago:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/11/14/the-most-narcissistic-u-s-presidents/

/These researchers also found that, on average, presidents are more
narcissistic than the average American. Moreover, the level of
grandiose narcissism in presidents has increased in recent decades./

/First, how do you measure narcissism? Grandiose narcissism is a
distinctive// //type

//
 //of
narcissism characterized by exhibitionism, attention-seeking,
inflated demands of entitlement and denial of weaknesses./

I have a hard time agreeing with Glen's premise (as I understand it)
that the narcissism is not the problem, but rather the incompetence.   
On the other hand, I don't know that the real problem is (in this case,
45s) narcissism in itself, but the fact that we (by commission or
omission or incompetence or personal narcissism) put him (and have kept
him) at the apex of US (free world?) political power.    Perhaps it is
legitimate to say that narcissism and incompetence aggravate one another.

The (2013) Pew study puts LBJ and Teddy Roosevelt (~1.6) at the highest
Narcissism Index and JFK and Bill Clinton about half of that (.8) and
Ronald Reagan just above 0.0 and Adams, Truman, Washington, Carter, and
Eisenhower just below. I was surprised that the list wasn't more
skewed toward narcissism but not that it has increased of late...   as
if the feedback loop of broadcast media reinforces narcissism as a
selection criteria for presidential aspirants and presidential contest
winners.

I DO think that JFK represents a possible support for Glen's implication
that competence can mitigate or operate in spite of narcissism.   Or at
least many consider JFK to have been highly effective at pursuing the
best interest of the people of the USA.

My intuition and anecdotal experience suggests that narcissism is a huge
risk when involved in power, and for it to be mitigated, there needs to
be a balance of competence and goodwill for it not to generally be a
problem for everyone influenced by their power.   Is goodwill compatible
with narcissism... the DSM definition includes "lack of empathy"... on
the surface, it appears that goodwill requires empathy... but perhaps it
is more complex?

Here is an interesting blog-entry that seems to be a little more
thorough/thoughtful about narcissism than average.

https://www.truity.com/blog/are-you-secretly-narcissist

- Steve

On 4/28/20 7:27 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> If he weren't narcissistic he would defer to the experts which would
> mitigate his incompetence.  The BS about being sarcastic is a
> pathetic way to rationalize his failure to defer.
>
> Since narcissism is universal adding "malignant" or "pathological"
> makes a useful distinction.
>
> On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 7:13 PM uǝlƃ ☣  > wrote:
>
> OK. Well, risking too much repetition, if he were competent, he
> wouldn't have said that ... and the policies would not have
> followed ... and he would defer to the experts. Because, as
> Dunning-Kruger and Zajenkowski et al, and Schröder-Abé et al, seem
> to point out, competent people have a good handle on their own
> incompetence, regardless of their narcissism.
>
> On 4/28/20 5:50 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> > My assumed audience is not the American public thank God.  An
> example of how his narcissism makes him dangerous is his saying
> the coronavirus will be gone in five days and the related policy
> positions.  His grandiosity is threatened by the prospect of
> deferring to epidemiologists and virologists.  That causes a
> narcissistic injury.
>
> -- 
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
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>
> -- 
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[FRIAM] Fwd: Freedom: Sarte v Camus

[Steven A Smith]

Interesting contrast between two P(p)hilosophers (and friends) on the
topic of Freedom... a little dated but maybe good background on
contemplating our current paradox of "what means Freedom?"

‘Absolute freedom is the right of the strongest to dominate,’ Camus
wrote, while ‘absolute justice is achieved by the suppression of all
contradiction: therefore it destroys freedom.’ The conflict between
justice and freedom required constant re-balancing, political
moderation, an acceptance and celebration of that which limits the
most: our humanity. ‘To live and let live,’ he said, ‘in order to
create what we are.’

Sartre read /The Rebel /with disgust. As far as he was concerned,
it /was/ possible to achieve perfect justice and freedom – that
described the achievement of communism. Under capitalism, and in
poverty, workers could not be free. Their options were unpalatable
and inhumane: to work a pitiless and alienating job, or to die. But
by removing the oppressors and broadly returning autonomy to the
workers, communism allows each individual to live without material
want, and therefore to choose how best they can realise themselves.
This makes them free, and through this unbending equality, it is
also just.

from


https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-camus-and-sartre-split-up-over-the-question-of-how-to-be-free

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Re: [FRIAM] New information on COVID-19

[Steven A Smith]

I guess the lead might be long enough,  but probably needs a different
calibration.

> Is that a rectal thermometer?
>
> Cody Smith
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 9:16 PM Steven A Smith  <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:
>
> sew one into your mask with an LED readout so everyone can see
> your spO2, heart rate and temperature?
>
> https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11050 (just hold this one under
> your tongue) while masked?
>
> On 4/23/20 8:59 PM, cody dooderson wrote:
>> If anyone needs an idea for a microbit project here is
>> one, https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15271 .
>>
>>
>>
>> Cody Smith
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 8:39 PM Steven A Smith > <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Merle, et al -
>>
>> Interesting article...
>>
>>> We’ve had two life-threatening incidents, one trekking in
>>> Nepal and the other in a remote part of Sri Lanka, where the
>>> availability of a pulse oximeter made all the difference. We
>>> now routinely check our oxygenation with one.
>>>
>>> Ed
>>
>> I have had some experience with a mountaineering spO2 meter
>> and a Withings fitness monitor with built in spO2... the
>> fitness monitor required removing the unit from the band and
>> holding it diligently against the pad of a finger, and that
>> didn't always give a good reading, but once I understood it's
>> idiosyncracies it wasn't bad.  both devices are long-since
>> nonfunctional (not to be worn swimming or in the shower it
>> seems).
>>
>> It seems like IOT wearables (already saturating the market
>> for fitness applications) like my Withings could be getting
>> better.  Maybe even good-enough to be useful in
>> predicting/monitoring/tracking COVID19 symptoms/onset, at
>> least statistically... 
>>
>> There is some precedent with the Kinsa effort to use their
>> IOT thermometer data to predict abnormal levels of 
>> influenza-like symptoms
>> <https://healthweather.us/?mode=Atypical>.
>>
>> There seem to be a number of pulse-oximeter fitness trackers.
>>
>> https://3dinsider.com/pulse-oximeter-fitness-trackers/
>>
>> The Oura ring <https://ouraring.com/ucsf-tempredict-study>'s
>> body temperature sensing has already been pressed into
>> service for a study.  I don't know if the "band" form factor
>> is able to maintain good enough skin-contact to be
>> consistent... 
>>
>> I just did a search on the topic
>> 
>> <https://www.google.com/search?q=fitness+activity+tracker+covid=fitness+activity+tracker+covid=chrome..69i57j33.6879j0j4=chrome=UTF-8>
>> and found a number of speculative popular articles on the
>> topic, but haven't had time to dig through them.
>>
>> This was one of the more promising:
>>
>> 
>> https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/europe/fitbits-new-coronavirus-feature-can-connect-users-telemedicine-services-indoor-work-out
>>
>> Our own Mohammed El-Beltagy (cc;ed here) is CTO for a Swedish
>> company (RaceFox <https://www.racefox.com/en/home>) doing
>> using fitness monitors for athletic performance
>> enhancement.   He may be more up on the possibilities?
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>>> ___
>>>
>>> Ed Angel
>>>
>>> Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science
>>> Laboratory (ARTS Lab)
>>> Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico
>>>
>>> 1017 Sierra Pinon
>>> Santa Fe, NM 87501
>>> 505-984-0136 (home) an...@cs.unm.edu <mailto:an...@cs.unm.edu>
>>> 505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel
>>>
>>>> On Apr 23, 2020, at 6:32 PM, Roger Critchlow >>> <mailto:r...@elf.org>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I found it credible.  We're adding a pulse oximeter to the
>>>> kit.
>>>>
>>>> There was another
>>>> report, 
>>>> https://meaww.com/six-austrian-divers-permanently-damaged-lungs-recovery-mild-coronavirus-covid-19.
&g

Re: [FRIAM] New information on COVID-19

[Steven A Smith]

sew one into your mask with an LED readout so everyone can see your
spO2, heart rate and temperature?

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11050 (just hold this one under your
tongue) while masked?

On 4/23/20 8:59 PM, cody dooderson wrote:
> If anyone needs an idea for a microbit project here is
> one, https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15271 .
>
>
>
> Cody Smith
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 8:39 PM Steven A Smith  <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:
>
> Merle, et al -
>
> Interesting article...
>
>> We’ve had two life-threatening incidents, one trekking in Nepal
>> and the other in a remote part of Sri Lanka, where the
>> availability of a pulse oximeter made all the difference. We now
>> routinely check our oxygenation with one.
>>
>> Ed
>
> I have had some experience with a mountaineering spO2 meter and a
> Withings fitness monitor with built in spO2... the fitness monitor
> required removing the unit from the band and holding it diligently
> against the pad of a finger, and that didn't always give a good
> reading, but once I understood it's idiosyncracies it wasn't bad. 
> both devices are long-since nonfunctional (not to be worn swimming
> or in the shower it seems).
>
> It seems like IOT wearables (already saturating the market for
> fitness applications) like my Withings could be getting better. 
> Maybe even good-enough to be useful in
> predicting/monitoring/tracking COVID19 symptoms/onset, at least
> statistically... 
>
> There is some precedent with the Kinsa effort to use their IOT
> thermometer data to predict abnormal levels of  influenza-like
> symptoms <https://healthweather.us/?mode=Atypical>.
>
> There seem to be a number of pulse-oximeter fitness trackers.
>
> https://3dinsider.com/pulse-oximeter-fitness-trackers/
>
> The Oura ring <https://ouraring.com/ucsf-tempredict-study>'s body
> temperature sensing has already been pressed into service for a
> study.  I don't know if the "band" form factor is able to maintain
> good enough skin-contact to be consistent... 
>
> I just did a search on the topic
> 
> <https://www.google.com/search?q=fitness+activity+tracker+covid=fitness+activity+tracker+covid=chrome..69i57j33.6879j0j4=chrome=UTF-8>
> and found a number of speculative popular articles on the topic,
> but haven't had time to dig through them.
>
> This was one of the more promising:
>
> 
> https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/europe/fitbits-new-coronavirus-feature-can-connect-users-telemedicine-services-indoor-work-out
>
> Our own Mohammed El-Beltagy (cc;ed here) is CTO for a Swedish
> company (RaceFox <https://www.racefox.com/en/home>) doing using
> fitness monitors for athletic performance enhancement.   He may be
> more up on the possibilities?
>
> - Steve
>
>> ___
>>
>> Ed Angel
>>
>> Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science
>> Laboratory (ARTS Lab)
>> Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico
>>
>> 1017 Sierra Pinon
>> Santa Fe, NM 87501
>> 505-984-0136 (home) an...@cs.unm.edu <mailto:an...@cs.unm.edu>
>> 505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel
>>
>>> On Apr 23, 2020, at 6:32 PM, Roger Critchlow >> <mailto:r...@elf.org>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I found it credible.  We're adding a pulse oximeter to the kit.
>>>
>>> There was another
>>> report, 
>>> https://meaww.com/six-austrian-divers-permanently-damaged-lungs-recovery-mild-coronavirus-covid-19.
>>>  scuba
>>> divers recovered from mild covid infection and ended up with
>>> lungs so damaged that it is not safe for them to dive anymore. 
>>> So many people with less demanding pastimes may be in a similar
>>> way but not manifesting the problem, though a dive safety exam
>>> would turn it up, and maybe a pulse oximeter, too.
>>>
>>> I wonder if any of those cell phone pulsimeters could be
>>> upgraded to oximeters with some calibration?
>>>
>>> -- rec --
>>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 5:32 PM Merle Lefkoff
>>> mailto:merlelefk...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Has the list read this article in the NYTimes.  What's your
>>> take?
>>>
>>> 
>>> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-p

Re: [FRIAM] New information on COVID-19

[Steven A Smith]

Merle, et al -

Interesting article...

> We’ve had two life-threatening incidents, one trekking in Nepal and
> the other in a remote part of Sri Lanka, where the availability of a
> pulse oximeter made all the difference. We now routinely check our
> oxygenation with one.
>
> Ed

I have had some experience with a mountaineering spO2 meter and a
Withings fitness monitor with built in spO2... the fitness monitor
required removing the unit from the band and holding it diligently
against the pad of a finger, and that didn't always give a good reading,
but once I understood it's idiosyncracies it wasn't bad.  both devices
are long-since nonfunctional (not to be worn swimming or in the shower
it seems).

It seems like IOT wearables (already saturating the market for fitness
applications) like my Withings could be getting better.  Maybe even
good-enough to be useful in predicting/monitoring/tracking COVID19
symptoms/onset, at least statistically... 

There is some precedent with the Kinsa effort to use their IOT
thermometer data to predict abnormal levels of  influenza-like symptoms
.

There seem to be a number of pulse-oximeter fitness trackers.

https://3dinsider.com/pulse-oximeter-fitness-trackers/

The Oura ring 's body
temperature sensing has already been pressed into service for a study. 
I don't know if the "band" form factor is able to maintain good enough
skin-contact to be consistent... 

I just did a search on the topic

and found a number of speculative popular articles on the topic, but
haven't had time to dig through them.

This was one of the more promising:


https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/europe/fitbits-new-coronavirus-feature-can-connect-users-telemedicine-services-indoor-work-out

Our own Mohammed El-Beltagy (cc;ed here) is CTO for a Swedish company
(RaceFox ) doing using fitness monitors
for athletic performance enhancement.   He may be more up on the
possibilities?

- Steve

> ___
>
> Ed Angel
>
> Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory
> (ARTS Lab)
> Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico
>
> 1017 Sierra Pinon
> Santa Fe, NM 87501
> 505-984-0136 (home) an...@cs.unm.edu 
> 505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel
>
>> On Apr 23, 2020, at 6:32 PM, Roger Critchlow > > wrote:
>>
>> I found it credible.  We're adding a pulse oximeter to the kit.
>>
>> There was another
>> report, 
>> https://meaww.com/six-austrian-divers-permanently-damaged-lungs-recovery-mild-coronavirus-covid-19.
>>  scuba
>> divers recovered from mild covid infection and ended up with lungs so
>> damaged that it is not safe for them to dive anymore.  So many people
>> with less demanding pastimes may be in a similar way but not
>> manifesting the problem, though a dive safety exam would turn it up,
>> and maybe a pulse oximeter, too.
>>
>> I wonder if any of those cell phone pulsimeters could be upgraded to
>> oximeters with some calibration?
>>
>> -- rec --
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 5:32 PM Merle Lefkoff > > wrote:
>>
>> Has the list read this article in the NYTimes.  What's your take?
>>
>> 
>> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html?smid=em-share
>>
>> -- 
>> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
>> President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
>> emergentdiplomacy.org 
>> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>> merlelefk...@gmail.com 
>> mobile:  (303) 859-5609
>> skype:  merle.lelfkoff2
>> twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
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Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

[Steven A Smith]

On 4/22/20 3:29 PM, Edward Angel wrote:
> Nick,
>
> I have no problem with anyone wanting to support their local barista.
> Please remember also that the Food Bank really needs funds.
>
> I do have a problem with your view of the 60’s. Those young folks you
> remember were almost 100% white middle class kids, Almost no blacks,
> hispanics, native americans or asians. At that time poverty was far
> higher than it is today. Medical care was not available to large parts
> of the population. And then there was the rest of the world at that time.
>
> By fixating on the local situation, we tend to forget about the bigger
> world which is suffering far more than us. Countries across Asia and
> Africa are dealing with the virus in addition to refugees, lack of
> medical facilities, the impossibility of social distancing and many
> other factors. Lots of information on the web as to how bad the
> situation is. There are organizations combating these factors that are
> worth paying attention to.

I'm with you on this Ed...  I just heard some of the forecasts/worries
about how the consequences of this pandemic are going to domino into the
worst-poverty situations around the world.    I'm not against helping
there too... just wanting to acknowledge those around me who got caught
worst by this than I did.

My only direct(ish) link into that world is a Kenyan friend who still
has deep roots in his homeland.

The $500 fund I started at my local market to allow checkers/management
to let anyone unable to pay their full grocery bill was my alternative
to the occasional "bailout" I'd offer the cashier/next-person-in-line
when I was there to observe it.  I'm now only at that store once a week
(or less) and the number of people are very limited and I just haven't
found myself in that spot like I used to (often EBT users who
misunderstood what was and wasn't covered by their EBT cards... )...

I doubt this comes up at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's very often...  but
it is common in a market like Pojoaque.

I'm afraid if we don't get this current administration (and probably the
current Senate GOP majority) out in November, our ability/appetite to
help anyone but ourselves (and maybe not the most needy here) will be
negative...  

- Steve



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Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

[Steven A Smith]

glen -

I definitely didn't intend to *invert* your intention... I *did*
understand (roughly) that it is arrogant to believe that *I* can
engineer a better altruism than say Red Cross or Habitat for Humanity or
the Social Welfare apparatus of my city/state/national/UN efforts.
But I think your arguments *also* allow (support) my feeling that I
*want* to make sure that the people who have given good service to me
(and to whom I have been mostly generous with my tips in the past)
survive this mess and are available and motivated (or not) to return to
that service.   

Giving good tips, paying what may feel like inflated prices to local
farmers and artisans, etc. feels like I'm being part of the
emergent/evolved system...   Back when many were part of a local
religious congregation, there was the idea of a "tithe" or sharing
1/10th of one's productive efforts with one's peers, using their
church's (synagog/stupa/whatever) leader/admnistration to help them by
distributing it.   Of course these were always (mostly) Franchises that
gathered up a "tithe" of those tithes to fund the larger
administration/hierarchy (I've seen the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake
and the Vatican... as well as the extravagant architecture of Washington
DC), and some might resent that and would rather just "give their
neighbor a hand during planting, harvest, barn-raising time) or not.

I'm (for the most part) rooting the House Dems who are working hard
(best I can tell) to get whatever money they manage to get printed at
this moment to "the little guy" whether it is through the direct
payments already halfway in/through the mail or to small businesses who
will do their (we hope) damnedest to  do right by their employees...
keep them on payroll long enough to *maybe* pull out of whatever
nosedive their industry is in.

I acknowledge that this surely means higher taxes for me in the (near
and indefinite) future.   My income/savings is pretty modest by
professional  standards but best I can tell notably above many in
service and living (much less minimum) wage workers, and I'm willing to
*share* some of their pain.   I don't know how much, or in what mode, 
but this kind of event makes *me* feel "yet more generous" than
otherwise... 

Untangle me in this one if you might?  I really didn't want to impugne
your guidance in these matters.

- Steve


On 4/22/20 2:36 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> Heh, it's funny how something you say can be perfectly inverted by the 
> audience to mean the opposite of what you intended. The Telephone Game is 
> always relevant.
>
> My point to Steve was about "effective altruism", the idea that the 
> philanthropist has any idea whatsoever of the relative optimality of one 
> charity compared to another. My position is one of ignorance and against the 
> (mostly wealthy, tech-savvy, arrogant) person's most likely *mistaken* belief 
> in their own competence, especially in a domain that is fundamentally 
> different from where they operate "professionally". My point to Steve was 
> that meritocracy is a sham and a sibling effect to the Great Man Theory.
>
> Now, to the extent that my reading of von Hayek (not Friedman) argued for 
> market forces because it is *arrogant* to pretend you can design a system 
> more efficient than the one nature relaxes into, then I would argue for such 
> natural, organic solutions over engineered ones. But that's precisely 
> *because* those who think they can singularly, themselves, engineer a reality 
> better than the one that grew, stigmergically, socially, naturally are most 
> likely wrong.
>
> But I have *never* insisted there is such a thing as a *free* market. 
> Everything that seems to be "natural" is constrained by the engineering of 
> the agents in and around it, even if those agents are termites or bacteria. 
> Whatever the Robin Hood foundation might mean by "free market", their very 
> use of the term means I would not support them in any way. The term "free 
> market" is a trigger phrase for this delicate snowflake. >8^D And I've 
> already blown several cherries at billionaire phlanthropists. Ptouie. E.g. 
> Bill Gates' magnanimity comes at the cost of decades of slimy and 
> exploitative practices. It's reputation laundering in the extreme. If Bill 
> Gates really gave a flying fsck about these things, he should have begun 
> working on them *before* (or instead of) exploiting the world to make siphon 
> off and concentrate billions of dollars.
>
> So, I tend to stick with established charities with proven track records 
> including both the united way and the red cross. My tiny personal donations 
> are doled out at the end of the year to organizations like mozilla, MAPS, 
> software in the public interest, etc. with ZERO regard to how "efficient" or 
> "effective" they are. And my real contributions are paying (and voting for) 
> taxes and buying goods and services from the smallest businesses and co-ops I 
> can find.
>
> On 4/22/20 1:04 PM, 

Re: [FRIAM] Earth School

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

Good find...  I wonder what the Flat-Earthers and the Creationists
version of this would look like?   I have forwarded it to my daughter
who has an 8 year old and a 10 year old step (daughters)...   it feels
like great "bite size" self-directed investigations of merit for that
age-group!

> https://ed.ted.com/earth-school
>> Welcome to Earth School! We’re embarking on a month of daily adventures – or 
>> Quests – that will help you understand and celebrate our natural world, 
>> while learning about how dependent we are on our planet. Now more than ever, 
>> we need to protect, nurture and care for Earth – so join us to learn 
>> something amazing every weekday between Earth Day (April 22nd) and World 
>> Environment Day (June 5th). Within each lesson, you’ll find fascinating 
>> resources compiled by Earth experts and ideas for getting involved in ways 
>> that count. Join us to learn more, create, act and share your journey 
>> (#EarthSchool) towards a cleaner and greener life. 

From the (title) of the first lesson... my mother used to use the phrase
"I'm just going to go out in the garden and eat worms!"...   today Mary
and I were giving our herd of 11 baby chickens (actually beyond toddlers
now to precocious pre-teens I guess)  some "yard time".    They went at
it right away (3rd time they have been out), looking under every leaf
and testing every tiny shoot.   I was tempted to "release" a few of the
red wigglers from my vermicompost for them to "discover" but it
literally felt too much like "blood sport", something Rick deSantis
might approve as an "essential service", and appropriate for Northern NM
where Cock and Dog fighting has only been outlawed in recent history.  
On the other hand I really DO look forward to watching the chickens earn
their keep if I get squash bugs in my garden this year.   They seem like
the perfect predator-prey balance, though I guess I don't feel the same
about the coyotes and the owls...   I suppose it is human to be
hypocritical in these ways?

I've an (ethnically) Ethiopian friend, now well into her 30s, who
immigrated to Australia at age 6.  Her father was a Harrarian leader who
had been on the embassy staff from Ethiopia to Cairo, so she had lived a
pretty comfortable/protected life in the embassy compound.   Their first
home was in a small town outside of Melbourne where the majority of the
students were very white and whose families were suspicious of this
"brown family", but her first-grade peers took her under their wing and
among other things, taught her how to find and eat "witchety grubs" at
the intersection of playground/bush.   At some point, she found/ate one
in front of her (very Muslim) parents who were *appalled*.   She had
already been taught all about Halal (like Kosher in Jewish culture)
foods and eating but there was not clear direction about these grubs,
and it started an ongoing rift in the family as her father was
ethnically Harrarian where eating insects was generally considered OK
while her mother was Arabic with roots in Yemen and Morocco which
apparently was *split* on which bugs were ok, and which ones were not.  
In any case, neither parent thought it was "befitting" for her (or her
classmates) to be eating grubs, but apparently decided to go with
"benign neglect" and when she quit talking about it, they quit asking.  
They moved into a suburb of Melbourne not long later and she had the
culture shock there that *nobody* ate witchety grubs on the
playground!   She is now a computer professional married to a Sufi Sheik
who Surfs and they travel the world widely... I don't know if she ever
eats witchety grubs... I'll have to ask.

- Steve


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Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

[Steven A Smith]

I tipped Ohori's staff, hoping that success there will maybe encourage
lateral transmission to other restaurants.

I also found Sweetwater on goFundMe and gave them a little "taste" even
though I've only been there once.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/50KSWnm

Glen made the point with me at one point before "the time of COVID19"
(on or off line, I'm not sure) that the "independent spirit" of *only*
helping those you know or close to you is a little ??? (Narcissistic is
my word). 

I still feel it is important to NOT *use* global/national/organized
fundraisers as a way to appease guilt (and therefore responsibility).  
The pre-COVID city signs that went up trying to discourage panhandling
on streetcorners were good for illuminating the paradoxes.   I didn't
*want* people to *feel the need to* stand on street corners and know
that supporting local non-profits that help the the homeless and
otherwise marginalized helps *most* of those folks...  yet at the same
time, it felt good in another way to hand out a set of chemical
hand/toe-warmers, a bar of chocolate, and a couple of bucks to those
with the fortitude, or the desperation, (or the entrepreneurial spirit)
to stand on the corners.  

I don't have any answers... and this pandemic has offered the mixed
blessing of forcing me to consider a lot of different questions.   If my
garden this year begins to produce, I think I'll be setting up a
self-serve farm-stand at the top of my drive with three options:  A) if
you need some, takes some; B) if you can afford a few $$, drop it in the
collection box; C) do someone you know in more need than you a solid... 
bring them some food or give *them* the $$ you would have left in the box.

I may also use that "farm stand" as a way to gift away some the 2 cords
of books I still have filling a covered trailer...  like a "little
library" but with a larger selection.  "farm and book stand"?  

Meanwhile, I hope we all find more ways to be kind and "pay it forward,
backward, and sideways".

- Steve

On 4/22/20 12:40 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Ed,
>
>  
>
> Thanks for your kind note.
>
>  
>
> If you’ll dump a little change into “mine”, I will dump a little
> change into “yours”.  I just think it’s way to help these folks feel
> that somebody has noticed what they are doing and is aware of what has
> happened to them. 
>
>  
>
> Thanks,
>
>  
>
> Nick
>
>  
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Steven A Smith
> *Sent:* Wednesday, April 22, 2020 12:29 PM
> *To:* friam@redfish.com
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff
> Relief Fund
>
>  
>
> Nick -
>
> Thanks for the link.  Ohori's is not my goto, but I'm 100% with the
> spirit.  I have had no traction on trying to extend this kind of help
> TO my regular go-tos.   I am of a mind that at the very least, my
> weekly *tip* budget could go straight into the same pockets it used to
> with no harm to me...  and as you point out, my entire luxury
> food/services budget could go that way as well.   
>
> I'll check for other go-fund-me's in SFe and would love to hear from
> others who have discovered similar to yours here.
>
> - Steve
>
> To The Mother Church,
>
> As you know, I am addicted to coffee and particularly to coffee
> houses, and particularly to Ohori’s-next-to-Kaune’s, where I like
> to loll in the sunshine of a late afternoon like the flea-bitten
> old dog that I am.  Over the years I have come to befriend and
> greatly admire the Barista’s of Santa Fe.  They remind me of
> graduate students.  Many of them are using barista work to make
> possible independent scholarship, artistic careers, and musical
> careers, pursued for the sheer love of it.  So when the virus hit
> in March and many of them lost work, I tried to set up some sort
> of a fund to help them. But not being gig-economy type,  I
> couldn’t see how to do it. 
>
> Now, to my delight, one of the workers has set up a gofundme site.
>
> 
> https://www.gofundme.com/f/ohoris-staff-relief-fund?utm_source=customer_medium=copy_link-tip_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet
>
> I am hoping that those of you who have shared my pleasure in
> dealing with these young folks will make some sort of a donation,
> if only as a token of your support. 
>
> I am figuring it this way:  I am saving about 7 – 10 dollars a day
> in latte’s and zucchini bread (AND lost three pounds).  I figure
> 

Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

[Steven A Smith]

Nick -

Thanks for the link.  Ohori's is not my goto, but I'm 100% with the
spirit.  I have had no traction on trying to extend this kind of help TO
my regular go-tos.   I am of a mind that at the very least, my weekly
*tip* budget could go straight into the same pockets it used to with no
harm to me...  and as you point out, my entire luxury food/services
budget could go that way as well.   

I'll check for other go-fund-me's in SFe and would love to hear from
others who have discovered similar to yours here.

- Steve

> To The Mother Church,
>
> As you know, I am addicted to coffee and particularly to coffee
> houses, and particularly to Ohori’s-next-to-Kaune’s, where I like to
> loll in the sunshine of a late afternoon like the flea-bitten old dog
> that I am.  Over the years I have come to befriend and greatly admire
> the Barista’s of Santa Fe.  They remind me of graduate students.  Many
> of them are using barista work to make possible independent
> scholarship, artistic careers, and musical careers, pursued for the
> sheer love of it.  So when the virus hit in March and many of them
> lost work, I tried to set up some sort of a fund to help them. But not
> being gig-economy type,  I couldn’t see how to do it. 
>
> Now, to my delight, one of the workers has set up a gofundme site.
>
> https://www.gofundme.com/f/ohoris-staff-relief-fund?utm_source=customer_medium=copy_link-tip_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet
>
> I am hoping that those of you who have shared my pleasure in dealing
> with these young folks will make some sort of a donation, if only as a
> token of your support. 
>
> I am figuring it this way:  I am saving about 7 – 10 dollars a day in
> latte’s and zucchini bread (AND lost three pounds).  I figure that
> savings ought to go to them. 
>
> It would be a great kindness to me if you would pitch in.
>
> All the best,
>
> Nick
>
>  
>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] COVID19 R(t) for each state over time.

[Steven A Smith]

It seems like estimating/tracking R(t) is key to re-opening (LIBERATE!)
strategies.


> This just in via Josh Thorpe.
>
> I've been wondering if anyone had a methodology for calculating the
> COVID19 R /Replication Number./
>
> https://rt.live/
>
> apparently adapted from our own (LANL) Luis Bettencourt's work on H5N1
> using a Bayesian approach
>
> https://github.com/k-sys/covid-19/blob/master/Realtime%20R0.ipynb
>
> This notebook is pretty big and pretty dense, I'm trying to skim
> through it and get a feel for it.
>
> It appears superficially that they are using nothing more than
> reported new cases smoothed by a Gaussian filter to remove
> reporting/test/delay artifacts.
>
> What I'm not clear on quite yet is how (if) this approach handles the
> intrinsic delay between exposure and onset of symptoms sufficient to
> yield a confirmed case?    If that (variable) delay is not factored in
> then the R(t) would seem to be a smeared reflection of R(t-n...t)
> where "n" is the maximum number of days between exposure and
> confirmation.   I'll keep looking.
>
> I wish the summary view had a time-slider to watch the states R(t)
> evolve... the buttons included for different previous times
> (yesterday, last week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks) give a hint of this.
>
> I'm surprised at how high some of the R values were even over 4.0 for
> some states at some time.
>
> I'm also surprised at how many states seem to have dropped to/below
> 1.0.   And also how many seem to have dipped below 1.0 and bounced
> back up.   This would seem to imply that many states hit a high level
> of social distancing/hygiene and then relaxed it (recently?).
>
> I also haven't sussed out why the different states have such different
> error envelopes...
>
> I look forward to others possibly digging into this and sharing their
> observations.
>
> - STeve
>
>
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[FRIAM] COVID19 R(t) for each state over time.

[Steven A Smith]

This just in via Josh Thorpe.

I've been wondering if anyone had a methodology for calculating the
COVID19 R /Replication Number./

https://rt.live/

apparently adapted from our own (LANL) Luis Bettencourt's work on H5N1
using a Bayesian approach

https://github.com/k-sys/covid-19/blob/master/Realtime%20R0.ipynb

This notebook is pretty big and pretty dense, I'm trying to skim through
it and get a feel for it.

It appears superficially that they are using nothing more than reported
new cases smoothed by a Gaussian filter to remove reporting/test/delay
artifacts.

What I'm not clear on quite yet is how (if) this approach handles the
intrinsic delay between exposure and onset of symptoms sufficient to
yield a confirmed case?    If that (variable) delay is not factored in
then the R(t) would seem to be a smeared reflection of R(t-n...t) where
"n" is the maximum number of days between exposure and confirmation.  
I'll keep looking.

I wish the summary view had a time-slider to watch the states R(t)
evolve... the buttons included for different previous times (yesterday,
last week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks) give a hint of this.

I'm surprised at how high some of the R values were even over 4.0 for
some states at some time.

I'm also surprised at how many states seem to have dropped to/below
1.0.   And also how many seem to have dipped below 1.0 and bounced back
up.   This would seem to imply that many states hit a high level of
social distancing/hygiene and then relaxed it (recently?).

I also haven't sussed out why the different states have such different
error envelopes...

I look forward to others possibly digging into this and sharing their
observations.

- STeve

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Re: [FRIAM] IS: "...useful". WAS:: whackadoodles go mainstream!

[Steven A Smith]

> So, Peirce had many ideas of Peirce and we could be in love with different 
> ones. 
"Pierce is who you think Pierce thinks he is?"
>  
>
> Do you have time to distinguish between your idea of Pierce  and My idea of 
> Peirce as regards the digestion of metal ducks?  
>
> I am realizing the problem might be with my understanding of the metal duck 
> example.  I took at as a kind of cranky, idiosyncratic project, like my 
> desire to take apart a 25 year old fm radio and get it working again.  You 
> might have meant it in a much more profound sense, a sense in which you use 
> your study of the digestion of metal ducks as a part of a systematic inquiry 
> into the nature of life.  In that case, you are right, Peirce would 
> definitely have approved and I have slandered you both. 
>
>
> Nick 
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>  
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam  On Behalf Of u?l? ?
> Sent: Monday, April 20, 2020 3:00 PM
> To: FriAM 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] IS: "...useful". WAS:: whackadoodles go mainstream!
>
> I think your Peirce simulation might deny it. But his very useful work in 
> logic (at the very least) shows he was capable of realizing the same sense of 
> what is useful that I have. You're not in love with Peirce, your in love with 
> your idea of Peirce.
>
> On 4/20/20 1:38 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>> To the Pragmatism chat-site and watch it light up.  But you have taught me 
>> that that would be trolling, and I believe that trolling is an unequivocally 
>> Bad Thing, so I won’t. 
>>
>>  [...]
>> Because it’s inventor, Peirce, would not have tolerated a definition of 
>> “useful” in terms of “making metal ducks that shit,” and William James would 
>> have.
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
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Re: [FRIAM] whackadoodles go mainstream!

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

> You can't *objectively* tell. That's the whole point.
I guess my assumption is that in principle I *can* tell objectively but
this level of propaganda (if that is what it is) is crafted to be
*difficult* but not impossible.
>  But what you can do is check your impressions against those of others. My 
> personal impression is that this "article" is complete bullshit. I feel 
> *certain* that at least some of the people here, if they read the whole 
> article, will conclude the opposite.
Assuming this is actually *crafted propaganda* rather than just
*wrongheaded justification* I would like to believe that the *deliberate
duplicity* would be exposable by inspection and then somewhat obvious in
hindsight.   And yes, this is how the TL;DR aspect would seem to
contribute to it's opacity.
> I won't list my bullshit triggers the article sets off. Bullshit replicates 
> exponentially faster and more efficient than its debunking. So my debunking 
> would be lost in the wind. But I can point to 1 easy step you can take:
>
>   https://smmry.com/https://project-evidence.github.io/#_LENGTH=10
>
> Play around with the length. It's interesting.
Yes, this is a very interesting "lens" into such a large corpus.  Maybe
I'll try pushing one of my long-winded posts in the archive through
SMMRY and see if I recognize my own "harping".


Thanks,

 - Steve



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Re: [FRIAM] whackadoodles go mainstream!

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

Thanks for that link/reference.   I appreciate that there ARE such
things as "influence operations" and Schneier's description is helpful,
but I guess I'm still not clear on how I can tell objectively that
"project evidence" is up to that.   To build my own strawman that maybe
you can bolster up to more of a steelman:

 1. I have a gut reaction to it that says "this feels like the kind of
conspiracy-theory the trolls-I-know-to-hate are likely to be hatching".
 2. The EPSTEIN thing is weird... I guess if they'd just removed the
reference and not referenced it, THAT would have been even more of a
hint that they were up to no good.
 3. The tone of the introduction, etc.  seems a bit "protest too much"
 4. The sheer bulk of the material without obvious additional
organization feels like a "dogpile" technique (ro maybe as you
suggest "baffle-em-with-bullshit" or TL;DR ?

I guess what I was asking for is whether you found any specific elements
or if there is a more specific (than my lame list above) structural
thing to question.   I *didn't* follow the myriad references and
validate them, and I *don't* have a broad enough understanding of the
field to estimate how biased their list of articles is... if they are
blatantly cherry picking or what?

When publication like this was much harder, the volume of material was
small enough that it seems like traditional journalists could possibly
keep up with more in-depth analysis?

I suppose rather than asking YOU if/how you have done its, or if I
should go search for other critical analysis of this "project"...  

- Steve


> Not more elaborate, but it falls directly in line with the "influence 
> operations" refined by Schneier:
>
> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/08/influence_opera.html
>
> On 4/20/20 11:49 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> Do you have a more elaborate analysis of what you think they are up to? 
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Re: [FRIAM] whackadoodles go mainstream!

[Steven A Smith]

> The worst conspiracy theory I've seen is this TL;DR, which uses TL;DR as a 
> *weapon* to blind the audience with "science":
>
>   https://project-evidence.github.io/
>   https://github.com/Project-Evidence/project-evidence.github.io
>
> I'd be curious if anyone in this forum prioritizes that as something to slog 
> through. 8^) It's pretty funny that, when their name "Project E.P.S.T.E.I.N." 
> was too strong of a hint to demonstrate they were bullshitters, they changed 
> their name to seem less conspiratorial.

I definitely made a good run at slogging through but only slogged in
until I was over my head which was pretty quick.  

The E.P.S.T.E.I.N. thing is a strange tangent...   I don't know how to
decode "backronym"...  

I also felt they were bending *way* over backwards to claim absolute
neutrality...  I could measure that as a "doth protest too much" I suppose.

You probably have a lot more practice reading stuff like this.   I feel
blessed that *most* conspiracy-whackadoodle-doodle has grammatical and
style hints (like listening to/watching Alex Jones froth) plastered all
over it.  

This is obviously more refined/subtle than that.

The lengthiness does seem to hint at trying to exhaust the reader with
sheer volume.  

Do you have a more elaborate analysis of what you think they are up to? 

- Steve

>
> On 4/20/20 11:03 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> With HIV there are people that can control the virus and have immunity for 
>> practical purposes. [1]   Whether or not there are co-morbidities, if one 
>> has a strong signal like B*5701 for HIV, it should come out in the 
>> statistical wash.  Not everyone with a particular HLA will have the same 
>> co-morbidity.Anyway, back to the whackadoodle topic:  If that is the 
>> case, and one had a detailed knowledge of the genetics (e.g. ethnicity) of a 
>> target population,  one could design a virus to hurt some more than others.  
>>  But if one is a fascist, it is very easy as you point out:  You make 
>> everyone sick and the people with health care or he means to stay isolated 
>> will tend to survive.I'm not saying that is  the case here, I'm just 
>> saying maybe it isn't actually impossible.  
>


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Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[Steven A Smith]

Thanks for the elaboration, my "worst fears" trumped my "greatest hopes"
when I read the Wikipedia article...

The first rule of Fight Club is "you do not talk about Fight Club"

> Steve,
>
> I mentioned the Bellamy Clubs then and now, solely as an example of
> spontaneous generation of hundreds of local groups to talk about the
> future. I mentioned before I taught a class with Bellamy's grandson
> who was writing a biography and i was told many a story about the
> clubs and their evolution.
>
> First, they were a self-organized, spontaneous, emergent phenomena.
> Not sponsored, not directed, just one neighbor talking to another,
> "say have you read this?"
>
> It seems inevitable, and it was the case that the clubs became
> "organized" and the discussion "formalized" which killed the whole
> thing. Bellamy was appalled by the eventual "findings" of the club and
> distanced himself from them. And of course they dissipated as fast as
> they arose.
>
> If the generative phase of the clubs were to be replicated, it would
> probably have to be on-line somehow and how you would prevent the
> discussion from prematurely settling on a variation of the current
> general political discussion instead of fully exploring alternatives —
> I have no clue.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 9:31 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>
>> Dave -
>>
>> I do remember your reference to the Bellamyists and probably wrote a
>> long-winded (well-over 300) commentary which I then deleted.  
>>
>> What I remember of that (my aborted response) was somewhat
>> reactionary to Utopianism and Nationalism.  In the spirit of
>> productive optimism, I realize(d) my reactionaryisms was maybe not
>> very productive.   I don't want to devolve into the splitting of
>> hairs we are so fond of here in this forum.
>>
>> With that caveat...  I am struggling against those two things I
>> impute to what little I know of "the Bellamyists".  "One (hu)man's
>> Utopia is another's Dystopia".  And.  "Nationalism is (dangerously)
>> out-of-scale Tribalism".
>>
>> I guess I would ask why such a grandiose scale structure would need
>> to be put in place?  Would not an emergence from discussions among
>> small groups (such as the threads on FriAM) not be a more practical
>> and perhaps "safer" route?   Is such a structure/container required,
>> or perhaps it might be inevitable?   But then it would not be
>> Bellamyists, but rather DaveWestist?
>>
>> With that in mind...  perhaps it is worth discussing the Bellamyites
>> primary focus (as claimed in the Wikipedia Article that is my only
>> source) of "nationalizing industry".  That seems to be what the Left
>> is leaning toward... or at least regulating/taxing industry at the
>> federal level to the point that it IS effectively nationalized?  
>> What is the Right's version of that?   In the spirit of NeoLiberalism
>> and free-markets  of which the Right is most fond, nationalization is
>> anathema. 
>>
>> And yet, it seems that the "free market" is best at innovation... and
>> once an industry has been commodified, perhaps the next step IS to
>> nationalization.   There might have been a time when gasoline
>> stations had something significantly different to offer, one from the
>> other, but even the detergents and oxygenators seem to have become
>> pretty standard(?lame assertion?) and the only difference is how big
>> is the big-gulp soda in the convenience store, is it filled from the
>> Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola pantheon and are more triggered by a giant
>> yellow clam-shell logo or a green baby brontosaurus?
>>
>> I'm entirely with you on the diversity of foodstuffs referenced
>> earlier...   but IF/When I'm going to feed from the same trough of
>> the same hybrids as my fellow piggies, why put so many different (or
>> any?) labels on them?  And then why not plant your own garden with
>> seeds exchanged with friends and neighbors, localized to your
>> conditions, and buy/trade what you can't grow from small (tiny) farms
>> within a short drive (walk)?
>>
>> And I agree on the liminal, though I see liminality everywhere at all
>> scales, like the fractality of an estuary and this moment is more
>> acute and offering/demanding more focused/proaction?  If we did live
>> in our everyday liminality more-better, then this would just be an
>> extrema(ish) of scale... but since we (mostly) don't, it feels like a
>> change in quality in it's quantity.  There 

Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Steven A Smith]

> Not directly relevant, but another good sci-fi about genetics — Daniel
> Suarez' Change Agent.
>
> davew

Thanks...

I read that earlier this year in response to your general reference to
Suarez (starting with Delta-V?) and my body and soul *still* ache from
the memories!

and Marcus... yes, GATTACA didn't (apparently) anticipate CRISPR

Trans/Posthumanist Utopias have a strong flavor of  Dystopia for me...  

Eloi & Morlocks


>
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 10:41 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>
>> Marcus -
>>
>>
>>
>> I believe that Andrew Niccol DID imagine something like that:
>>
>>
>> I wish I had a pithy preamble for this dystopian BioPunk reference,
>> but perhaps it speaks for itself?
>>
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca
>>
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>>> Steve writes:
>>>
>>> < The whole world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus
>>> with *roughly* what is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a
>>> myriad of *roughly* the same modes of human organization. >
>>>
>>> There are hundreds of common HLA alleles across humans.   In a
>>> diverse country like the US, with hundreds of thousands of positive
>>> cases and tens of thousands of deaths the hundreds of alleles would
>>> be well sampled.   Too bad our medical surveillance is so bad, and
>>> made worse by the moron.  Imagine if everyone had full genome
>>> sequencing and every viral sample was deep sequenced. 
>>>
>>> Marcus
>>> 
>>>
>>> *From:* Friam 
>>> <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> on behalf of Steven A Smith
>>>  <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>
>>> *Sent:* Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:11 AM
>>> *To:* friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com>
>>>  <mailto:friam@redfish.com>
>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why
>>>  
>>>
>>>> One way to address the N/A issue is to repeatedly perturb the real-world 
>>>> system so as to elicit those correlations.  When that is practical.. 
>>>
>>> We are, in a time of real-world system perturbation, right now.  The
>>> whole world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus with
>>> *roughly* what is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad of
>>> *roughly* the same modes of human organization.   This IS a testbed
>>> of human (-system?) response to a widespread, somewhat invisible
>>> threat.   From Wuhan to Singapore to Italy to Iran to Sweden to
>>> Germany to NYC to WA State to the Navajo Nation to Florida's
>>> beaches, this IS a huge coupled systems dynamics/agent-model
>>> executed in real-time by real-people with real casualties and real
>>> consequences.  
>>>
>>> We are, to varying degrees (collectively) recording the results of
>>> these "experiments" and if we are lucky (or smart, or both) we will
>>> do some post-game analysis intended to understand more-better how
>>> best to (self-)organize around a (nearly) existential world-scale
>>> threat.   And to the extent this is a game that will never end, we
>>> have to begin the analysis while we cope with it's consequences.  
>>> Feels a bit like the models pof Physics Interreality.
>>>
>>>     https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.75.057201
>>> <https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.75.057201>
>>>
>>> Hanging too aggressive of a model on this (or collecting the data 
>>> against too premature of a model) will reduce the utility of such
>>> data gathering and analysis.   Whatever the dual of overfitting a
>>> model is?  Overmodeling?  Premature Modeling?
>>>
>>> What I'm looking (askance) to(ward) Pearl for is a better way of
>>> rapidly constructing, maintaining, revising as generic of a model as
>>> possible in response to "this moment".   Four months ago we should
>>> have been interested in models of how one limits a virus such as
>>> COVID19 getting a foothold in this country.   One month ago we
>>> should have been interested in how one limits COVID19 (with new
>>> understanding of it's virility, it's fatality, it's symptoms, it's
>>> mode of spread) once it HAS a foothold,  now we are faced with
>>> trying to understand how to cope with it once it is pervasive in our
>>> population whilst continuing/returning to "business as usual&

Re: [FRIAM] Tripping on the Rye: She's a Witch! How do you know? . (Re: basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions)

[Steven A Smith]

SG -
> I was completely ignorant of the history/impacts of ergot
>  before this thread. Fascinating!

so now you have added (upped the game of) "ergot" to your argot!

Language of thieves?!

    https://grammarist.com/usage/argot-vs-ergot/

It might be notable that Rye Whiskey (and wild, wild women) is my
preferred (hard) drink of choice...  not sure if there is evidence or
precedent of rye whiskey made from "spoiled Rye".  Also that my
cover/nurse crop of choice is a mix of winter-wheat/winter-rye here on
the "homestead".   I haven't tried actually eating or fermenting any yet.

-SS

>
> In this context, we can think about Dave's different ways of knowing
> when we show cause and evidence that someone is a witch.
>
>  1. Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g 
>  2.  LSD: Ergo the Ergot: LSD, Causation and Evidence
> https://www.vox.com/2015/10/29/9620542/salem-witch-trials-ergotism  
>
>
>
>  
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 7:47 AM Prof David West  > wrote:
>
> addendum:  I was interrupted mid-post
>
> Just as a new strain of ergot might pose a severe challenge to
> hybridized wheat, a new "strain" of problem might pose a severe
> challenge to a hybridized mode of thinking.
>
> I would posit that challenges like Covid-19, global warming, and
> even The Donald are akin to a new strain of ergot vis-a-vis wheat.
> Our ability to address or solve those challenges might be, I am
> certain it would be, enhanced if we could bring to bear some
> "heritage modes of thought."
>
> My expressed antipathy for Science derives from the tendency of
> scientists to simply dismiss any alternative ideas or arguments as
> anti-scientific and therefore invalid.
>
> The reason I said that you and I are in fundamental agreement, is
> that, I think, both of us would accept into our garden of thought"
> any sufficiently viable, and tasty, mode of thinking.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 6:24 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> > Nick,
> >
> > There is truth in what you say, but only a bit.
> >
> > I have certainly spoken as if "Science was a bunch of nasty
> people with
> > vested interests acting in an exclusionary manner."
> >
> > Hyperbole.
> >
> > A better metaphor / analogy would be the way we have hybridized our
> > food supply; e.g. 90 percent of all dairy cows have one of two
> bulls in
> > their ancestry, there are one or two tomato hybrids, one or two
> strains
> > of rice, wheat, corn, etc.
> >
> > This creates a huge vulnerability — a novel pest or disease and
> presto,
> > no food supply.
> >
> > Now imagine that there are multiple species of investigation,
> thinking,
> > knowledge.
> >
> > Since the Age of Enlightenment, the western world has been hell
> bent on
> > hybridizing but one of them — Formalism (aka, roughly, Science).
> >
> > Yes, I believe that Formalism has attained such a privileged status
> > that it tolerates no criticism and critics are "excommunicated"
> with
> > prejudice.
> >
> > I would like to think of myself as someone interested in growing
> > heritage tomatoes in my garden and marveling at the differences in
> > taste and texture and finding very deep value from the use of
> them in
> > culinary creations.
> >
> > davew
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Apr 18, 2020, at 8:58 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com
>  wrote:
> > > Dave,
> > >
> > > No, wait a minute!  Thou slenderest me!   For you, Science is
> a bunch
> > > of nasty people with vested interests. Science, on that
> understanding,
> > > has the power to exclude.  For me, Science is a set of
> practices that
> > > lead to understandings of experience that endure the test of
> time.  It
> > > is not the sort of thing that can exclude.   If pot smoking in
> bubble
> > > baths leads to understandings that endure the test of time,
> then it is
> > > a scientific method.  Something like that seemed to have
> worked for
> > > Archimedes. 
> > >
> > > Nick   
> > >
> > > Nicholas Thompson
> > > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> > > Clark University
> > > thompnicks...@gmail.com 
> > > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> > > 
> > >
> > >
> > > -Original Message-
> > > From: Friam  > On Behalf Of Prof David West
> > > Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2020 6:31 PM
> > > To: friam@redfish.com 
> > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the
> tail end of
> > > anthropological observtions
> > >
> > > Nick,
> > >
> > > 

Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Steven A Smith]

Marcus -



I believe that Andrew Niccol DID imagine something like that:


I wish I had a pithy preamble for this dystopian BioPunk reference, but
perhaps it speaks for itself?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca


- Steve

> Steve writes:
>
> < The whole world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus
> with *roughly* what is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad
> of *roughly* the same modes of human organization. >
>
> There are hundreds of common HLA alleles across humans.   In a diverse
> country like the US, with hundreds of thousands of positive cases and
> tens of thousands of deaths the hundreds of alleles would be well
> sampled.   Too bad our medical surveillance is so bad, and made worse
> by the moron.  Imagine if everyone had full genome sequencing and
> every viral sample was deep sequenced. 
>
> Marcus
> --------
> *From:* Friam  on behalf of Steven A Smith
> 
> *Sent:* Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:11 AM
> *To:* friam@redfish.com 
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why
>  
>
>> One way to address the N/A issue is to repeatedly perturb the real-world 
>> system so as to elicit those correlations.  When that is practical.. 
>
> We are, in a time of real-world system perturbation, right now.  The
> whole world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus with
> *roughly* what is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad of
> *roughly* the same modes of human organization.   This IS a testbed of
> human (-system?) response to a widespread, somewhat invisible
> threat.   From Wuhan to Singapore to Italy to Iran to Sweden to
> Germany to NYC to WA State to the Navajo Nation to Florida's beaches,
> this IS a huge coupled systems dynamics/agent-model executed in
> real-time by real-people with real casualties and real consequences.  
>
> We are, to varying degrees (collectively) recording the results of
> these "experiments" and if we are lucky (or smart, or both) we will do
> some post-game analysis intended to understand more-better how best to
> (self-)organize around a (nearly) existential world-scale threat.  
> And to the extent this is a game that will never end, we have to begin
> the analysis while we cope with it's consequences.   Feels a bit like
> the models pof Physics Interreality.
>
>     https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.75.057201
> <https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.75.057201>
>
> Hanging too aggressive of a model on this (or collecting the data 
> against too premature of a model) will reduce the utility of such data
> gathering and analysis.   Whatever the dual of overfitting a model
> is?  Overmodeling?  Premature Modeling?
>
> What I'm looking (askance) to(ward) Pearl for is a better way of
> rapidly constructing, maintaining, revising as generic of a model as
> possible in response to "this moment".   Four months ago we should
> have been interested in models of how one limits a virus such as
> COVID19 getting a foothold in this country.   One month ago we should
> have been interested in how one limits COVID19 (with new understanding
> of it's virility, it's fatality, it's symptoms, it's mode of spread)
> once it HAS a foothold,  now we are faced with trying to understand
> how to cope with it once it is pervasive in our population whilst
> continuing/returning to "business as usual" and in another thread, I'm
> encouraging that we "try to plan/consider/think-about" what we want to
> do with this somewhat "blank slate" (our ass?) we are having  handed
> to us.  
>
> And how to think about this without premature modeling... what I think
> I was railing (whining/pushing-back) about with Dave on the Bellamyist
> thread earlier this morning.
>
> - Steve
>
>>> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:33 AM, uǝlƃ ☣  
>>> <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Well, the argument I often end up making is that you can do a kind of face 
>>> validation with the fake data. Show it to someone who's used to dealing 
>>> with that sort of data and if the fake data looks a lot like the data they 
>>> normally deal with, then maybe more data-taking isn't necessary. If it 
>>> looks fake to the "expert", then more data-taking is definitely needed.
>>>
>>>> On 4/19/20 8:29 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>>> I have a hard time with this as a way to extend data.   If it is 
>>>> high-dimensional it will be under-sampled.  Seems better to me to  measure 
>>>> or simulate more so that the joint distribution can be realistic.  And

Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[Steven A Smith]

Nick -

>
> The thunder lightening thing is both apt and strange, because of
> course nothing is possible between lightning and thunder EXCEPT that
> it is going to thunder.  CF living in SFO or Seattle.  You've seen the
> lightening, folks!  "One banana, two bananas.three bananas
> ….."  Yet I still like the aphorism. 

I would claim it is a "failure of imagination" to believe that nothing
is possible in that banana-time.   But that would be too blunt.

Unless the the lightning/thunder pair appears simultaneous (and your
horse throws you and you claim later that you were "struck by lightning"
yet have no melted belt-buckle or burn-scars to back it up) then there
is at least a tiny-bit of banana between one and the other. What we do
with that time is the point...

While human reactions are often too slow to do more than cower or fling
up one's arm, I attribute the term/sentiment to the north American
Plains Indians who were as often as not watching/hearing lightning
strike far away with seconds (or bananas) to wait.   And on the plains
one often can be *surrounded* by thunderstorms...  lightning flashing on
every horizon for an hour or more...   *plenty* of time to contemplate
the best/worst cases afoot as the thunder rolls across the plains,
echoing complexly off of this bluff and that.  a contemplation of many
forms of imminent causality?

In this moment (roughly the last month) we have been watching lightning
dance on the horizons (months ago across the Pacific in Wuhan,
Singapore, Korea) and waiting to hear the death toll on our nightly
news... not unlike many here might remember during the 60's and Viet Nam
(I was too young, had no TV but I heard stories).   Now I feel like the
lightning is things like the people up in arms (carrying arms), yelling
at their governors to "let them back to work", and the thunder will be
the rise in infections that will happen a week or three after they do
followed by echoing peals of "I Tole You So!" and "Fake News" and
"Democrat Hoax!" and "Freedom isn't Free" and "Don't Tread on Me!" and
"I wish I wuz in Dixie!"

The metaphor of lightning/thunder is stretched here, and it feels a bit
more like "tickling the tail of the dragon" in slow-motion... watching
one flash of fission trigger another and listening to the Geiger
counter...   (just don't drop one shell onto the other)!    We are
playing with chain reactions here and most of us just aren't tuned to
think that way.  Even a Tsunami or Earthquake or Hurricane is beyond our
ken, and *they* are relatively linear in progression. 


>
> By the way, how many people on this list have heard the expression,
> "Red, Right, Returning" and know to what it refers. 
"Red, Right, Returning" I know of as a mnemonic device used in coastal
navigation, extended from the more general starboard/larboard red/green
navigational lighting standards?   How might that map to this moment of
(presumed) returning (toward) (a new?) normalcy?
>
> Ach!  I don't know how you all tolerate this interface. 

I don't I use Thunderbird.  Gmail is at best a Frienemy.

"Tickling the forked tail end of anthropological observations",

    - Steve




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Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Steven A Smith]

> One way to address the N/A issue is to repeatedly perturb the real-world 
> system so as to elicit those correlations.  When that is practical.. 

We are, in a time of real-world system perturbation, right now.  The
whole world is responding to what is *roughly* the same virus with
*roughly* what is the same human phenotype/metabolism in a myriad of
*roughly* the same modes of human organization.   This IS a testbed of
human (-system?) response to a widespread, somewhat invisible threat.  
From Wuhan to Singapore to Italy to Iran to Sweden to Germany to NYC to
WA State to the Navajo Nation to Florida's beaches, this IS a huge
coupled systems dynamics/agent-model executed in real-time by
real-people with real casualties and real consequences.  

We are, to varying degrees (collectively) recording the results of these
"experiments" and if we are lucky (or smart, or both) we will do some
post-game analysis intended to understand more-better how best to
(self-)organize around a (nearly) existential world-scale threat.   And
to the extent this is a game that will never end, we have to begin the
analysis while we cope with it's consequences.   Feels a bit like the
models pof Physics Interreality.

    https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.75.057201


Hanging too aggressive of a model on this (or collecting the data 
against too premature of a model) will reduce the utility of such data
gathering and analysis.   Whatever the dual of overfitting a model is? 
Overmodeling?  Premature Modeling?

What I'm looking (askance) to(ward) Pearl for is a better way of rapidly
constructing, maintaining, revising as generic of a model as possible in
response to "this moment".   Four months ago we should have been
interested in models of how one limits a virus such as COVID19 getting a
foothold in this country.   One month ago we should have been interested
in how one limits COVID19 (with new understanding of it's virility, it's
fatality, it's symptoms, it's mode of spread) once it HAS a foothold, 
now we are faced with trying to understand how to cope with it once it
is pervasive in our population whilst continuing/returning to "business
as usual" and in another thread, I'm encouraging that we "try to
plan/consider/think-about" what we want to do with this somewhat "blank
slate" (our ass?) we are having  handed to us.  

And how to think about this without premature modeling... what I think I
was railing (whining/pushing-back) about with Dave on the Bellamyist
thread earlier this morning.

- Steve

>
>> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:33 AM, uǝlƃ ☣  wrote:
>>
>> Well, the argument I often end up making is that you can do a kind of face 
>> validation with the fake data. Show it to someone who's used to dealing with 
>> that sort of data and if the fake data looks a lot like the data they 
>> normally deal with, then maybe more data-taking isn't necessary. If it looks 
>> fake to the "expert", then more data-taking is definitely needed.
>>
>>> On 4/19/20 8:29 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>> I have a hard time with this as a way to extend data.   If it is 
>>> high-dimensional it will be under-sampled.  Seems better to me to  measure 
>>> or simulate more so that the joint distribution can be realistic.  And if 
>>> you can do that there is no reason to infer the joint distribution because 
>>> you *have* it. 
>>>
> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:18 AM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
 
 Going back and forth:  If you infer the causal graph from observational 
 data you can use that graph to simulate data with the same joint 
 distribution as the original data.
>> -- 
>> ☣ uǝlƃ
>>
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[FRIAM] TL;DR

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

I very much appreciate your balance in this regard.  I did not (and
likely Marcus did not either) interpret your frustration with parsing my
(overly) layered response to your Necker-Cube post as judgement of TL;DR
unless the "L" was for "Layered" not "Long".  

I also appreciate your *prescription* for citation with pithy preamble,
and your *example* of it which I think has evolved over the years we
have been doing this continuous "salsa rueda".

(too)Much of my rambling here, unfortunately, is little more than
"thinking out loud" and I DO trust that most (though not all) will
delete or skip or skim most of my maunderings.  

I have enough evidence that others find bits and bobs, gems and pearls,
in the swill that is my monolog (channeling Stephen Colbert?), that I
continue.   Yet I am inclined to try to *learn* from my betters (many
here are MUCH better at being concise and precise) by example to
hopefully increase the apparent signal/noise ratio.  I need not demand
of everyone that they have my  public-key  memorized to decrypt my often
crytpographic gibberings.  

Waxing Gibbous,

 - Steve

On 4/19/20 9:29 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> I won't read whatever argument Scott Adams might have made about long 
> narratives, mostly because I doubt he has anything useful to say. But also 
> because I *do* prioritize my time. It's not that my time is valuable. It's 
> that if I didn't prioritize (and triage against people like Adams), I'd never 
> be able to get any work done.
>
> Those that *complain* about TL;DR probably comprise a complicated set of 
> multi-faceted people, that won't be well-categorized by the "incurious, 
> impatient, entitled, part of the problem" predicate. That's OK. I'm willing 
> to allow the over-generalization. But it's those that do NOT complain, but 
> simply ignore TL;DR's are more interesting, I think.
>
> One interesting tactic for avoiding constructing TL;DR's is familiar, here in 
> this forum, and consists of *citation*. E.g. one need not post a long 
> explanation of negative probability when there's already an excellent TL;DR 
> exposition out there. All one need do is post a pithy preamble and link to 
> the extant exposition. But the interesting people are not those that complain 
> the TL;DR exposition is difficult to slog through. The interesting people are 
> those who never say a word about it. Did they click the link at all? Did they 
> read it after seeing Feynman's name atop it? Did they get past the 1st couple 
> of pages? Etc.
>
> It reminds me of this bit of hilarity: https://youtu.be/X-ZFoco_1gQ Where 
> Klepper goes round and round some of them "Read the transcript!" "Did you 
> read the transcript?" "No."
>
> On 4/18/20 6:36 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> The opposite of TLDR is the technique described by Scott Adams.   This leads 
>> me to posit that those that complain things are TLDR are likely just the 
>> incurious, the impatient, and the entitled, and likely to be part of the 
>> problem.  Is  there some particular crisis of their Valuable Attention that 
>> must be conserved at all cost?  Are we running out of disk space?   Are we 
>> running out of network bandwidth?   No.   Netflix is blazing gigabytes of 
>> nothing 24 hours a day to the drooling masses.   Enough.


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Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[Steven A Smith]

Dave -

I do remember your reference to the Bellamyists and probably wrote a
long-winded (well-over 300) commentary which I then deleted.  

What I remember of that (my aborted response) was somewhat reactionary
to Utopianism and Nationalism.  In the spirit of productive optimism, I
realize(d) my reactionaryisms was maybe not very productive.   I don't
want to devolve into the splitting of hairs we are so fond of here in
this forum.

With that caveat...  I am struggling against those two things I impute
to what little I know of "the Bellamyists".  "One (hu)man's Utopia is
another's Dystopia".  And.  "Nationalism is (dangerously) out-of-scale
Tribalism".

I guess I would ask why such a grandiose scale structure would need to
be put in place?  Would not an emergence from discussions among small
groups (such as the threads on FriAM) not be a more practical and
perhaps "safer" route?   Is such a structure/container required, or
perhaps it might be inevitable?   But then it would not be Bellamyists,
but rather DaveWestist?

With that in mind...  perhaps it is worth discussing the Bellamyites
primary focus (as claimed in the Wikipedia Article that is my only
source) of "nationalizing industry".  That seems to be what the Left is
leaning toward... or at least regulating/taxing industry at the federal
level to the point that it IS effectively nationalized?   What is the
Right's version of that?   In the spirit of NeoLiberalism and
free-markets  of which the Right is most fond, nationalization is
anathema. 

And yet, it seems that the "free market" is best at innovation... and
once an industry has been commodified, perhaps the next step IS to
nationalization.   There might have been a time when gasoline stations
had something significantly different to offer, one from the other, but
even the detergents and oxygenators seem to have become pretty
standard(?lame assertion?) and the only difference is how big is the
big-gulp soda in the convenience store, is it filled from the Coca Cola
or Pepsi Cola pantheon and are more triggered by a giant yellow
clam-shell logo or a green baby brontosaurus?

I'm entirely with you on the diversity of foodstuffs referenced
earlier...   but IF/When I'm going to feed from the same trough of the
same hybrids as my fellow piggies, why put so many different (or any?)
labels on them?  And then why not plant your own garden with seeds
exchanged with friends and neighbors, localized to your conditions, and
buy/trade what you can't grow from small (tiny) farms within a short
drive (walk)?

And I agree on the liminal, though I see liminality everywhere at all
scales, like the fractality of an estuary and this moment is more acute
and offering/demanding more focused/proaction?  If we did live in our
everyday liminality more-better, then this would just be an extrema(ish)
of scale... but since we (mostly) don't, it feels like a change in
quality in it's quantity.  There I go, splitting hairs?

- Steve


> Steve,
>
> This *_should_* be a time between lightning and thunder, liminal, a
> time "when all things are possible."
>
> I would love to be optimistic, even guardedly,
>
> Prerequisite, perhaps, is for everyone to accept Hywel's dictum, "Ah,
> but it is more complicated than that" coupled with a heady dose of
> agonizing reappraisal of one's unexamined positions.  Healthy doses,
> of "you have a point," "errors were made," "our ontology should
> incorporate those distinctions," etc.
>
> A while back I spoke of the Bellamy Clubs as a social / civic/
> phenomenon focused on a "constructive way forward." Something of that
> sort would be required to instantiate your optimism.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, at 7:14 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>
>> Dave, et al -
>>
>> These are fecund times.   The time between the lightning and the
>> thunder - "when all things are possible".  Or maybe, if you have a
>> more apocalyptic bent, the beginning of the "end of times".   William
>> Gibson's "Jackpot" perhaps (to be more ambiguous). 
>>
>> I think Churchill tried on (in oratorial style):
>>
>>     "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the
>> end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
>>
>> In closing your "trip report" a dozen posts back you referenced once
>> again, the likelihood of a violent clash between Left and Right or
>> Red and Blue as a next logical/likely step in the path we seem to be
>> stumbling (shambling?) down right now.
>>
>> The recent (armed) protests at state capitals, demanding that the
>> Governors "open up the state" do seem foreboding.  An almost
>> self-abusive desire 

[FRIAM] Phaedrus and Theimania

[Steven A Smith]

FriAM-

As long as I am being arbitrarily prolific (manic?) I feel compelled to
reference the *other* book I'm more than halfway through.  It is likely
to be familiar to many here.  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance" - Robert Pirsig. 

I read this when I was young and it was fresh and hyperpopularized and I
swear I hardly recognize a word of it as I re-read it now.  I was so
unprepared for it...  reading it probably coincides with my recent
anecdote about diving into "Philosophy and Physics", but also a time of
life when my primary (nearly singular) mode of transportation was a
motorcycle not dissimilar (mine an early 70s Honda, his a few years
older) to the one Persig rides on his long journey (in real life, as
well as ultimately in his story).  

I mentioned this to Guerin (that I was reading it) and he dove into the
philosophical ideas related to Phaedrus (the Greek Philosopher as well
as the "former" personality of Persig pre-ECT who he was
channeling/finding/experiencing on his motorcycle trip).  I was too
early in the book to appreciate his references, and it had been too long
(and I was too innocent during) from my first reading to remember.  
Now, most of the way through the book, it is all flooding back to me,
not unlike the way Pirsig's /Phaedrus /comes back to him.

And to add an extra level of indirection, I am not, in fact reading
"Zen", but rather listening to it as Mary reads it aloud.   She also
(with no attachment to either motorcycles nor analytical thought) read
it as a young woman and could hardly remember any of it either.  

In searching for more context on /Phaedrus/ the Greek and /Phaedrus /the
Pirsig alter-ego, I found what might be Pirsig's last (and rare)
interview in 2006.  In many ways it feels as if he is part of these
interwoven thread of FriAM conversation (or is it just me?).  Esp. Re:
metaphysics and the nature of science/knowledge.


*https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/nov/19/fiction*

*Pirsig's pearls*

*·* The Buddha resides as comfortably in the circuits of a digital
computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top
of a mountain.

*·* Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a 30,000 page
menu and no food.

*·* Traditional scientific method has always been, at the very best,
20-20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good
for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell
you where you ought to go.

*·* Why, for example, should a group of simple, stable compounds of
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen struggle for billions of years
to organise themselves into a professor of chemistry? What's the motive?

*·* The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you
bring up there.


- Steve

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Re: [FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Steven A Smith]

Frank -

> Steve,
>
> I'm surprised you didn't find any posts by me in your search for
> "causality" .
Actually I did find you, your voice was in that thread as well, and in
others. 
>   Usually, when someone says "correlation is not causation" it
> triggers me.  In the early 90s/late 80s there were two teams working
> on inference of causal graphs from observational data:  Pearl et al at
> UCLA and Glymour et al at Carnegie Mellon.  They cooperated and
> developed algorithms based on d-separation which was based on
> conditional independence relations (correlation).  Glymour et al's
> book is "Causation, Prediction and Search".  I implemented many
> algorithms in Java for that group over a period of about 10 years and
> I was co-author of several papers.
>
> Sorry for the narcissistic reaction.

I am glad you spoke up immediately.  If I had something actionable to do
with this right now, I would be consulting your grounded experience, but
also welcome your broader perspective.  I saw your references to Glymour
and wish (also) that I had followed that "back then".   I think the
first discussions I saw here were as early as 2003?  I snagged on the
2013 one because of Doug and Tory's "voices" from the other side of the
veil.

I was lead to Pearl's latest by a colleague who has been encouraging me
to look at the Pandemic Modeling challenge in a somewhat different way
than has been traditional.   Essentially a space-time network of causal
implications ( I think) which would be rich in post-hoc elaboration.  
The simplest SIR models are challenged with not knowing nearly enough
about the Infected in particular, and even then after they have been
Infectous for days or even weeks.  The recent hints (Santa Clara
county?) that infection rates may be 10x or higher than believed (a or
sub or crypto -symptomatic)  demonstrate that acutely.   My work of late
(other than SimTable) has been in the realm of trying to analyze
ensembles of predictive simulations.   This is a logical next step
(forward and backward propogating data and constraints as they are
recorded/discovered/postulated) across space (populations) and time.

More offline maybe?

- Steve

>
> Frank
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 6:26 AM Steven A Smith  <mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:
>
> Glen -
>
> I'm in the midst (early part) of Judea Pearl's "Book of Why".  
>
> I had a vague memory of his earlier book: "Causality" having been
> referenced if not discussed on this list.   Searching the
> archives, I discovered what I considered to be quite a Pearl (NPI)
> circa 2013.  In this long chain, you recommended Pearl's
> "Causality" which I now wish I had followed up on then.  
>
> 
> http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/beyond-reductionism-twice-td7582273i20.html#a7582308
>
> Among the many gems in the thread were the voices of two of our
> deceased members, Doug Roberts and Tory Hughes.   Doug coined one
> of his classic lines about (paraphrase) "being violently
> disinterested in the philosophy of causation" (or complexity or
> agent-based-model-design).
>
> After Nick's recent "violent disinterest in the Cult of Feynman"
> and in particular to any quote that might imply that birds are
> (paraphrase) "not first-class-citizens who would in fact be
> interested in ornithology, if they were given access to it", my
> eyes caught on your own quote (in 2013) of S. Ulam:
>
>     "Talking about non-linear mathematics is like talking about
> non-elephant
>     zoology." -- Stanislaw Ulam
>
>     - Steve (176)
>
>>> Unfortunately, after a couple of attempts to read it, I couldn't 
>>> understand anything in your post except this part. My previous post was 
>>> just under 300 words. So, I decided to try to make the next one under that 
>>> mark as well.
>>>
>>> On 4/18/20 1:22 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>>> From whence (or wherest?) did you get your 300 word target? 
>> you might not be alone in that...  perhaps it was just gibberish.  And 
>> likely more than three hundred words of it.
>>
>>
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Re: [FRIAM] basis for prediction — forked from the tail end of anthropological observtions

[Steven A Smith]

Dave, et al -

These are fecund times.   The time between the lightning and the thunder
- "when all things are possible".  Or maybe, if you have a more
apocalyptic bent, the beginning of the "end of times".   William
Gibson's "Jackpot" perhaps (to be more ambiguous). 

I think Churchill tried on (in oratorial style):

    "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.
But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

In closing your "trip report" a dozen posts back you referenced once
again, the likelihood of a violent clash between Left and Right or Red
and Blue as a next logical/likely step in the path we seem to be
stumbling (shambling?) down right now.

The recent (armed) protests at state capitals, demanding that the
Governors "open up the state" do seem foreboding.  An almost
self-abusive desire to trigger a breakdown in social order.

The (""/failing""/ double-scare-quotes) New York Times opinion piece
The America We Need

from 10 days ago (feels much longer in Corona Time) exposes one side of
the challenge (how modern society/America has been failing) and a
hopeful response (how this crisis could help galvanize us to become who
we need to be collectively).   I'd love to hear something from the Right
with an equally constructive perspective.  Maybe I just have my ear on
the wrong rail but I only hear "boom or bust" talk from the Right.

Living with one foot in each camp (Red and Blue) I believe that the
divide we feel is on one hand very real, but on the other deliberately
aggravated as a way to keep us in dynamic tension (or more simply
pitted-against one another) while those with most power keep stirring us
up and raking off the top.   Red/Right sees the threat of
government/wealthy/elite/??? one way while Blue/Left see what I think is
roughly the same threat very differently.   But it might very well be
the very same threat, and the pointy end is designed to keep us divided.

And lest we create a strong "other" to reject/resent/hate/fear:   "We
have met the enemy, and they is us".  

The deficit-hawk, small-government GOP has been building up a State like
none before it, and while they (and the NRA) are encouraging their loyal
followers to arm themselves to the teeth, double down on ammunition, all
the while militarizing the police, loading them up with armored
personnel carriers and fully-automatic weapons (opposite the citizen's
semi-autos), and bullet-proof vests, helmets and shields to maintain
overwhelming force.   Meanwhile,  the Dems might be trying to nurture us
out of our dysfunction and misery, sometimes disabling us more in the
process, and the wealthy on that side are raking their share off of
that, elbow to elbow at the same trough. 

We ship our (two hybrid strains of tomato and two germ-lines of beef)
food halfway across the country (add coffee, avocados and bananas -
world) from agri-industry-chemical soaked feed-lots and (formerly)
fertile valleys and plains, burning fossil fuels (not just in the
machines, but to make the hyper-fertilizer now needed).  Whether we shop
at Trader Joes, or Whole Foods, or Bob's Butcher or just order up Trump
Steaks,  we HAVE built a house of cards which is bending under the
weight of this pandemic.

Why does it feel like a segment of the population just wants to knock it
down?

Is there a constructive route up and out of this mess?  The pandemic has
exposed a LOT more of the weaknesses in our economy/society as this
current administration has exposed the weaknesses in our government.  
It seems like an opportunity to try to rebuild thoughtfully rather than
"tear it down" or "patch it back the way it was".

Guardedly Hopeful,

 - Steve (574)


> Nick,
>
> There is truth in what you say, but only a bit.
>
> I have certainly spoken as if "Science was a bunch of nasty people with 
> vested interests acting in an exclusionary manner."
>
> Hyperbole.
>
> A better metaphor / analogy would be the way we have hybridized our food 
> supply; e.g. 90 percent of all dairy cows have one of two bulls in their 
> ancestry, there are one or two tomato hybrids, one or two strains of rice, 
> wheat, corn, etc.
>
> This creates a huge vulnerability — a novel pest or disease and presto, no 
> food supply.
>
> Now imagine that there are multiple species of investigation, thinking, 
> knowledge.
>
> Since the Age of Enlightenment, the western world has been hell bent on 
> hybridizing but one of them — Formalism (aka, roughly, Science).
>
> Yes, I believe that Formalism has attained such a privileged status that it 
> tolerates no criticism and critics are "excommunicated" with prejudice.
>
> I would like to think of myself as someone interested in growing heritage 
> tomatoes in my garden and marveling at the differences in taste and texture 
> and finding very deep value from the use of them in culinary creations.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020, at 8:58 

[FRIAM] Judea Pearl: Book of Why

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

I'm in the midst (early part) of Judea Pearl's "Book of Why".  

I had a vague memory of his earlier book: "Causality" having been
referenced if not discussed on this list.   Searching the archives, I
discovered what I considered to be quite a Pearl (NPI) circa 2013.  In
this long chain, you recommended Pearl's "Causality" which I now wish I
had followed up on then.  

http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/beyond-reductionism-twice-td7582273i20.html#a7582308

Among the many gems in the thread were the voices of two of our deceased
members, Doug Roberts and Tory Hughes.   Doug coined one of his classic
lines about (paraphrase) "being violently disinterested in the
philosophy of causation" (or complexity or agent-based-model-design).

After Nick's recent "violent disinterest in the Cult of Feynman" and in
particular to any quote that might imply that birds are (paraphrase)
"not first-class-citizens who would in fact be interested in
ornithology, if they were given access to it", my eyes caught on your
own quote (in 2013) of S. Ulam:

    "Talking about non-linear mathematics is like talking about non-elephant
    zoology." -- Stanislaw Ulam

- Steve (176)

>> Unfortunately, after a couple of attempts to read it, I couldn't understand 
>> anything in your post except this part. My previous post was just under 300 
>> words. So, I decided to try to make the next one under that mark as well.
>>
>> On 4/18/20 1:22 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>> From whence (or wherest?) did you get your 300 word target? 
> you might not be alone in that...  perhaps it was just gibberish.  And likely 
> more than three hundred words of it.
>
>
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Re: [FRIAM] anthropological observations

[Steven A Smith]

> Unfortunately, after a couple of attempts to read it, I couldn't understand 
> anything in your post except this part. My previous post was just under 300 
> words. So, I decided to try to make the next one under that mark as well.
>
> On 4/18/20 1:22 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> From whence (or wherest?) did you get your 300 word target? 

you might not be alone in that...  perhaps it was just gibberish.  And likely 
more than three hundred words of it.


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Re: [FRIAM] anthropological observations

[Steven A Smith]

Eric -

> Cranky Nick, you really need to join a church.
I think Nick's church IS this mail-list/congregation... and he
(reluctantly) stands-in as a lay-preacher, though I think he spends more
time trying to recruit others to that role.   It functions a bit like a
UU church in some ways (a lot of "more tolerant than though") and in
others like a Quaker congregation ("speaking from the silence") and very
occasionally a "poetry slam".
> What Nate gave you is a sample estimator for a probability
> distribution (each of those words means something specific; they are
> not an evocative construction within common vernacular). 
An excellent example of very precise language (and a parenthetical
explication and contrast OF that precision vs what is found in
"evocative construction within common vernacular").    The source domain
in your description is very precisely that of mathematical statistics
and therefore has high "utility" if not broad familiarity.  
> He didn’t even give you the “actual” probability distribution for the
> underlying process, because, as Pierce saith both rightly and
> interestingly, the “actual” probability distribution is something we
> don’t have access to.  What we have, and all we ever have, are sample
> estimators to probability distributions. 
key distinction, well reminded.
>  Nate’s estimator includes biases.  Some of these, like method biases
> in polling, are things he can also try to estimate and correct for.
>  Others, like systematic biases in the relation between sampling and
> underlying correlations — as in the really interesting and exactly
> relevant link Marcus sent — are things Nate (et al. of course) haven’t
> identified.  The acknowledgement of those, too, was in the advertising.
>
> So, the sample estimator for a probability distribution, with known
> biases described and correction methods listed, and unknown biases
> acknowledged, is what Nate gave you, and in the only sense that
> “right” can be applied — which is an accurate rendering of methods —
> it was right.
Well said.
>
> If someone gives me a revolver with two filled chambers, and in the
> afterlife I protest that I didn’t pull one of the empty ones, well, we
> know what we think of my judgment, and we don’t spend a lot of time on
> this list putting that out as a philosophical problem.
>
>
> I don’t actually write this note to be nasty -- because of course I
> know you know all this as well as your interlocutors do — but to be
> colorful to make a different point.  It has to do with liking the fact
> that learning is not most interesting when one accretes an
> acquaintance with new facts, but when one realizes new ways of using
> words are necessary as a vehicle to taking on new frames of mind.
I am left to ponder this point... I think it is fundamental and well
stated (but also tightly packed) here.  It matches what I learned
decades ago about Piaget's concrete and formal operational stages of
development.
> And Dave did it in his post of long questions some weeks ago — which
> at the time I didn’t want to respond to because my responses are sort
> fo dull and unhelpful — when he said most physicists are realists but
> quantum physicists are anti-realists.  What the quantum physicists say
> is that the old classical assumption that “observables” and “states”
> are the same kind of thing turned out to be wrong.  They are different
> kinds fo things.  States can be real, and can even evolve
> deterministically, but may not be associated with any definite values
> for observables, because observables, when formalized and fully
> expressed through the formalization, are different kinds of things
> (they are a kind of operator, which one can think of as a rule for
> making a mapping)  than states or than particular numbers that the
> observables can yield as their output from some states.  So to claim
> that the quantum physicists are anti-realists is to scope “real” as
> coextensive with interpreting “observables” not as operators but as
> simple definite numbers.  That is, to adopt the frame of classical
> mechanics.  So Dave’s “anti-realist” actually means
> “anti-classical-mechanics-assumptionist”, which of course is exactly
> right, but never the scope I would use for the word “real”.  Anyone
> who insists that is the only way it is allowed to be used has just
> dictated rules for conversation in which there is no way I can engage
> and still work for sense-making.
Once again, I don't have the capacity or focus to begin to do this
justice but I'm feeling a resonance around the attenuated? discussion of
Wofram's recent announcement...  
> Anyway, the whole tenor of the discussion is fine.  I enjoy all the
> parts of it, including your stubbornness for its own sake.
>  Wittgenstein was reportedly impossible in that way, though I forget
> the reference and source.  Some fellow-philosopher complaining that
> “it was impossible to get Wittgenstein to admit there was not a
> rhinoceros in the room."

The room 

Re: [FRIAM] anthropological observations

[Steven A Smith]

Nick-

Interesting (apt?) choice of poker-hands to attribute to "the Hillary"
and to "the Donald".

- Sieve

On 4/18/20 12:31 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> So, Eric [Charles],
>
>  
>
> What exactly were the /practicial/ consequences of declaring that
> Hillary was “probably” going to win the election or that a full house
> was probably going to win the pot given she lost and the dealer held a
> strait flush? 
>
>  
>
> Nick
>
>  
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Eric Charles
> *Sent:* Saturday, April 18, 2020 12:06 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> 
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] anthropological observations
>
>  
>
>  Nick says - Nate constantly says that making such
> predictions is, strictly speaking, not his job.  As long as what
> happens falls within the error of his prediction, he feels justified
> in having made it.   He will say things like, "actually we were
> right."  I would prefer him to say, "Actually we were wrong, /but I
> would make the same prediction under the same circumstances the next
> time.”  /In other words, the right procedure produced, on this
> occasion, a wrong result. -
>
>  
>
> Well... so this connects a lot with poker, which I am in the process
> of teaching the 10 year old... If I recall, Nate was giving Trump a
> 1/3 chance of victory, which was much higher than most of the other
> models at the time. You can hardly fault someone because something
> happened that they said would happen 2/3 of the time. 
>
>  
>
> If a poker player has a model that predicts a given play to be the
> best option, because it will work 2/3 of the time, and this one time
> it doesn't work, that isn't grounds to say the model failed. 
>
>  
>
>  YOU want the modelers to have models that rarely give anything close
> to even odds. So do I, so I'm sympathetic. But the modeler might
> prefer a more honest model, that includes more uncertainty, for a wide
> variety of reasons. 
>
>
> ---
>
> Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
> Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist
>
> American University - Adjunct Instructor
>
>  
>
>  
>
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 12:17 PM uǝlƃ ☣  <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> I think it's interesting that you seemed to have *flipped* your
> thinking within the same post. You restate my point about
> conceptual metaphors by saying models/computation merely
> *justifies* decisions/rhetoric. Then a few paragraphs later, you
> suggest that's conflating language with thought.
>
> My diatribe to Nick was that he *uses* metaphors/models simply to
> impute his conceptual structure onto Nate. Nick's decision is
> already made and he wants Nate's work to justify it. And the way
> he *imputes* his conceptual structure into Nate's work is through
> the sloppy use of metaphor. Then when Nate tells Nick (indirectly)
> that Nick's wrong about what Nate's done, Nick rejects Nate's
> objection.
>
> I'm picking on Nick, of course. We all do it. I wish we all did it
> much less.
>
> On 4/18/20 6:14 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> > But frankly as often as not, I saw
> > them use our work to *justify* the decision they had already made or
> > were leaning heavily toward, *apparently* based on larger strategic
> > biases.
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > As for your gut-level (and often well articulated) mistrust of
> > "metaphorical thinking",  you may conflate a belief (such as
> mine) that
> > language is metaphorical at it's base with being a "metaphorical
> > thinker".    Metaphor gets a bad rap/rep perhaps because of the
> > "metaphorical license" often taken in creative arts (albeit for a
> > different and possibly higher purpose).  
>
> -- 
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
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Re: [FRIAM] anthropological observations

[Steven A Smith]

This list/thread(s) has been so prolific and pithy of late, I can hardly
begin to respond to one thing before another (dozen shiny objects)
catches my eye.

☣ ƃlǝu (reads like "blau"?) thus wroteth:
> Now Marcus is just being sadistic. >8^D
>
> My own guess at a summary of Eric's stance is that where we see qualities, we 
> can, at will, invert the vision and see quantities. Fontana is a great source 
> for distinguishing construction from evolution. But for me, BC Smith [†] is 
> better for maintaining an agnostic flippability (Necker cube) between objects 
> vs fields, nodes vs edges, nouns vs verbs.

Guerin and I spend more than a little time bantering around the head and
shoulders (I can't resist trolling /uǝlƃ ☣//**/with various (in)apt(ept)
and mixed/mangled metaphors at every turn here)  what he refers to as
(his?) dual-field theory.    This duality (if you are willing to call
the things you flip) seems pervasive.   It is in fact the vernacular
foreground/background I think, only moreso?   We tend to struggle with
the agent-field (turtle-patch in his netlogo vernacular) or perhaps
graph/field, projector-camera, or discrete/continuous aspects.   And I
have to ask (@Stephen)  "is it Turtles or is it Patches
all the way down?"  And why the preference for down... why not up?

>  The conflation Nick began with between expected value (an algorithmic 
> reduction from a distribution to a singular thing/object) and a *quality* ... 
> a qualitative feature of the world, parsed (registered in BC Smith's domain) 
> from the ambience of the world is not inherently a bad thing. That conflation 
> is not inherently bad because they're similar. They're both transformations 
> from a field to a thing. The key is to be able to flip it back again, from a 
> thing to a field.
To crispify the fuzzy and fuzzify the crisp?   Sounds downright quantum
wave-function collapse?  How in the world did something like THAT get
into language?  Did I impute that?
> It is our nature as pattern-recognizers to parse the ambience into things ... 
> at least that *was* our nature before the modern math/physics *field* 
> techniques began to seep into our intuition.
And I wonder at *when* that started.  It seems as if aether and
phlogisten were proto-field-like-things... a struggle of the
post/meta-alchemist to remain in a familar domain of "stuffness" whilst
the abstractions of "fields" were starting to have more traction (what
how can an idea have "traction", what is it a tractor?) ?
>  Some of us who deal with fields/ambience/distributions all the time have 
> begun to relax the harsh and immediate parsing. Engineers tend to simply be a 
> bit lazy about it.
Or self-proclaimedly *pragmatic* about it (engineers)?
>  The parsing happens, but they talk of approximations and epsilon as it goes 
> to ∞ or 0. Mathematicians talk of duals, congruence, bisimulation, 
> isomorphism, comutation, etc.
Nick loves it when you talk dirty. (many of us do).
> But I think it can all be adequately understood in terms of qualities vs 
> quantities. Qualities like "wetness" are precisely the same as things like 
> "frozen pond". Quantities like 32°F are precisely the same as processes like 
> "if I walk on that, I'll slip and fall".
I don't know if they are precisely the same... there is a dualism (in
language?) like your former noun/verb.  We *can* verbize any noun it
seems.   There is the quantification of a quality (how "wet" is the
frozen pond?) and a domain-specific judgement about it ("is it
slippery?"), which I contend is not "precisely the same", as the context
for each is different.   32°F is not "precisely the same as" 0°C, at
least in it's context?  0°C and 100°C were *defined* in the context of
(pure) water's freezing/boiling (under standard atmospheric pressure) 
points.  But °F are only deferential to water in the sense that they
require only 2-3 digits to cover the range of water's phase-changes?  
°K is less deferential to water, and if not not entirely out of the
context of all matter, at least  not registered to any particular
element (what does °K imply for condensed matter or gluons?).
>  The language each of us uses to grok this stuff is a choice. 
A choice (partly) made by our parents, our teachers, our embedded
context.   It has been said (at least in inherited disease) that "it is
important to choose our parents well".   We all got to be the way we are
*somehow*, though I still cling (myself) to the illusion of free-will
(perhaps a precondition to imagining there is a self, a "here here"?)
> Eric provided a nice swath across several domains. Maybe too many. We're 
> faced with the tyranny of choice. I'd treat it like a cafeteria. Pull the 
> thread you understand best.
Or get out your darning egg and needle and try to weave them back into
the stocking, lest your toes or heel or knee pokes through?
> Bah! 316 words ... close enough, I say!
From whence (or wherest?) did you get your 300 word target?  And
mightest-not a 

Re: [FRIAM] anthropological observations

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -
> I think it's interesting that you seemed to have *flipped* your thinking 
> within the same post. You restate my point about conceptual metaphors by 
> saying models/computation merely *justifies* decisions/rhetoric. Then a few 
> paragraphs later, you suggest that's conflating language with thought.

I didn't say  "models/computation merely *justifies*
decisions/rhetoric", I said (meant) that that *particular* audience was
prone to seeking that justification and I didn't want to be (overly)
complicit in that.   Be extension, it is common TO use models (formal or
informal-metaphor) for that post-hoc justification.  In fact, we might
agree that a great deal of what we think of as forward/creative
thinking/judgement is post-hoc.  Perhaps you (some) would claim *all* is
post-hoc?

In the second part, I suggested that your broad criticism (skepticism?)
of metaphorical thinking  may well be justified (especially when
metaphors are used "too loosely") but that a sweeping judgement (if in
fact you are making such a sweeping judgement) that *language* (and by
extension, the mentation and communication) we do with it is rooted
(what root?  Is it a plant?) in.  

I will try to respond separately to Eric's extremely well articulated
description of some of this...   I think the crossing of your two (you
and eric) lines of fire offer some useful parallax, even if it is Nick
who is the victim (ok... I AM prone to over-use figurative speech with
blatantly colorful metaphors (what?  Metaphors have color?  Highly
saturated color?  How can you saturate a color, is a color a sponge or a
a tincture?))


> My diatribe to Nick was that he *uses* metaphors/models simply to impute his 
> conceptual structure onto Nate. Nick's decision is already made and he wants 
> Nate's work to justify it. And the way he *imputes* his conceptual structure 
> into Nate's work is through the sloppy use of metaphor. Then when Nate tells 
> Nick (indirectly) that Nick's wrong about what Nate's done, Nick rejects 
> Nate's objection.
I do acknowledge the risks (propensity for) of imputing one's own
conceptual structure onto another's words/intentions/explanations.  
> I'm picking on Nick, of course. We all do it. I wish we all did it much less.

I appreciate Nick for his willingness and ability to "draw fire"
(returning to the metaphor of cross-fire) to help illuminate the balance
of power on the battlefield (there I go again!  Almost as if I were
trolling?).

- Steve

>
> On 4/18/20 6:14 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> But frankly as often as not, I saw
>> them use our work to *justify* the decision they had already made or
>> were leaning heavily toward, *apparently* based on larger strategic
>> biases. 
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> As for your gut-level (and often well articulated) mistrust of
>> "metaphorical thinking",  you may conflate a belief (such as mine) that
>> language is metaphorical at it's base with being a "metaphorical
>> thinker".    Metaphor gets a bad rap/rep perhaps because of the
>> "metaphorical license" often taken in creative arts (albeit for a
>> different and possibly higher purpose).  


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Re: [FRIAM] anthropological observations

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

Your diatribe reminds me of the way I used to frame my (rare) pitches in
DC back during my time working in the "Decision Support Systems"
division at  LANL.   I started out with "I'm here to help you NOT make a
decision".   This appalled them, becuase "by golly, by gosh, they were
Decision Makers".   About that time, in fact, the "Decider in Chief" was
coined by his own claim: "I am the Decider!".

My point was that they were, by the nature of their roles, and the
self-selection of choosing to work in those roles *decisive people*.  
They were men and women of *action*!  But to act (intentionally) they
had to Decide! and to Decide!  they had to have data and facts and
models to back up their decision.  But frankly as often as not, I saw
them use our work to *justify* the decision they had already made or
were leaning heavily toward, *apparently* based on larger strategic
biases.   Often these "larger strategic biases" are what you and I would
call "political agendas".   The military folks were less "political" in
the usual sense, but they seemed to have *much* larger biases (or maybe
the consequences of their decisions were MUCH more acute and direct?). 

Nobody seemed to truly be interested in "making a better decision" and
as a developer of such tools, I was acutely aware of the risk that some
tool I helped deliver them *might* help them make a *bad decision* with
the wrong perspective/filter/lens on the facts available.   Maybe it was
my own sense of (wanting to avoid) responsibility that had me judging
that they "weren't really using our tools to inform or make their
decision, but rather using it to justify the one they already were set
to make")

Maybe I am Pollyanna, but the work SimTable is doing (and perhaps many
others in this space) is being used by people "closer to the ground".  
Perhaps my problem at LANL was that our "customers" were
Agency/Department program managers and their high-level decision makers
(e.g. Cabinet-level or at least their staff).

As for your gut-level (and often well articulated) mistrust of
"metaphorical thinking",  you may conflate a belief (such as mine) that
language is metaphorical at it's base with being a "metaphorical
thinker".    Metaphor gets a bad rap/rep perhaps because of the
"metaphorical license" often taken in creative arts (albeit for a
different and possibly higher purpose).  

I know we've argued this back and forth (what... like tossing a ball...
or fencing with swords?) here and offline (off line?  what "line"?), so
we might be beating a dead horse (what?  there is no horse, there is no
whip, no stick, no beating going on!).  I will agree that substituting a
clever or familiar metaphor for more strict analysis is always risky,
and if what you mean by "metaphorical thinking" is retreating to trite
and over-used metaphors when something much tighter is called for, then
I agree with your dismissal (dismiss?  Can an argument be dismissed like
an unruly subordinate?)

Life is like a Simile,

 - Steve


On 4/17/20 5:50 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> So, if you're serious about *your* attempt to model Nate Silver, then you 
> would find something in your experience that *means* something similar to 
> what Nate means. And jargonal "expected value" <=> vernacular "I expect" 
> isn't that thing.
>
> Your last paragraph comes closer. But you chose to frame it as something you 
> would prefer him to say, as opposed to using your own words to restate what 
> he's actually saying.
>
> To me, I think what he's actually saying is "It's my job to collect and clean 
> some data, often based on heuristics, then run that data through some 
> (admittedly biased) algorithms, present the result to you, and engage in some 
> light-handed (also biased) interpretation of that data." Then he might go on 
> to say something like "What you infer from that output data is your own 
> business. But don't tell me what I implied simply based on your (mistaken) 
> inference."
>
> That's *my* rewording because it's analogous to experiences I have every 
> single day building and running models for (often computationally 
> incompetent) people. It has nothing to do with prediction and *everything* to 
> do with putting computational power into the hands of people who, without me, 
> wouldn't ordinarily have that power. Nate's a (horizontal) technologist. It's 
> regrettable that he's being thought of as some sort of oracle. (Even if he 
> ends up getting off on the attention.)
>
> Technologists, like scientists, struggle a LOT with packaging what they do 
> and how their produce can be used. And *always* ... always always always, 
> there's some non-tech person somewhere imputing things that are not there (or 
> ignoring things that are there). It would help a lot if you "soft skilled" 
> people would actually use your soft skills and make a real effort to 
> understand what's being said without imputing what you want to hear. (To be 
> clear, I'm not making accusations against you or 

Re: [FRIAM] The Role of Philosophy in Physics

[Steven A Smith]

Nick -

> S, Steve.  What IS the role of philosophy in physics? 
>
> N
Bait taken...

There is plenty to say about that, plenty more than I knew to ask/answer
in that essay which is long gone both on paper and in my mind.

I think I rambled on here for a dozen posts on this topic some nearly
dozen years ago... back and forth with Victoria (Tory) Hughes (RIP)  or
perhaps on the SFx mail list during *it's* short existence.   I don't
have the courage to go through the archives and see what  I had to say then.

The key for me at the time (college) was my relatively new and dawning
awareness that Physics (and Science in general) was embedded in the
larger project of "knowledge" and that there were large domains of study
which were not science.   For example, I was surprised to discover that
Logic and Mathematics were not part of Science, and that the nature of
knowledge and rationality of belief (Epistemology) as experienced within
Science were handed down from outside of Science and that Physics (and
Science) were a (proper) subset of Metaphysics

I mis-stated, or perhaps it was Freud-in-a-Slip since Philosophy has no
role *in* Physics, but only the other way 'round. 

I truly, deeply, madly appreciate Feynman's assertion: "philosophy of
science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds."   But
*most* scientists are also Humans (excluding Cetaceans, Ravens, other
Great Apes, Aliens, Elephants and Artificial Intelligences for the
moment) and to some extent Humanists.  The *context* of science for them
is *also* the meaning and implications *of* Science to them as Humans
who are plagued (blessed?) by Heidegger's "Problem of Knowledge and
Being".   The aforementioned categories, I assume, suffer the same
"Problem" perhaps with the exception of the AI...   at least as long as
AI without embodiment is even sensible?

- Steve


> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>  
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam  On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
> Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2020 9:10 AM
> To: friam@redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] anthropological observations
>
>
> Frank -
>> I may have mentioned this before but physicists, chemists, engineers 
>> etc. rarely talk about philosophy of science.  Social scientists, 
>> particularly.psychologists, do much more.  Some mathematicians do 
>> because they believe they are dealing with God.
> My undergrad career in Physics turned a corner when I took an opportunity in 
> an upper division class to write an essay on the "role of Philosophy in 
> Physics".   The professor had asked for an essay on "the topic of your 
> choice" because he said that it was important for hard scientists to be able 
> to ask critical questions about the topics they were studying and to 
> communicate them clearly, not just derive and solve equations.  
>
> We were a small cadre of upper-class physics majors and a few grad students 
> from other disciplines... perhaps a dozen or less?  There was no graduate 
> program in Physics at my university (though there was in Chemistry, Biology, 
> Geology...) and I think the core professors were frustrated or hungry for 
> more stimulating experiences with students than the usual undergrad context 
> offered. 
>
> I was mildly worried that my subject was going to be dismissed as off-topic, 
> as the other students unrolled their deepish-dives into specific questions in 
> Physics.  My classmates did "roll their eyes" a little when I announced my 
> topic and started in.   The professor, however, who had been rather critical 
> of/hard on me up to that point in this and other classes, interrupted me to 
> ask penetrating questions, and soon the rest of the class was nodding their 
> heads in appreciation or at least understanding.  I can't remember the full 
> arc of my essay but I remember in particular presenting things like Zeno's 
> paradox to  discuss ideas such as atomicity and the different interpretations 
> of quantum theory and the larger implications of relativity.  
>
> This experience melted the ice with that professor who had been critical of 
> my work-style for many semesters.  I rarely wrote down *every* step in my 
> derivations (meaning I would balance more than one element of an equation in 
> a single step) and I rarely did *all* the assigned homework problems (Once I 
> felt I understood a concept, I would skip the remaining problems and go to 
> the next conceptually different problem... and I was running my own business 
> and had a young child by then and had no patience for what felt like 
> "make-work").  My weak "performance" in t

Re: [FRIAM] anthropological observations

[Steven A Smith]

Frank -
> I may have mentioned this before but physicists, chemists, engineers
> etc. rarely talk about philosophy of science.  Social scientists,
> particularly.psychologists, do much more.  Some mathematicians do
> because they believe they are dealing with God.

My undergrad career in Physics turned a corner when I took an
opportunity in an upper division class to write an essay on the "role of
Philosophy in Physics".   The professor had asked for an essay on "the
topic of your choice" because he said that it was important for hard
scientists to be able to ask critical questions about the topics they
were studying and to communicate them clearly, not just derive and solve
equations.  

We were a small cadre of upper-class physics majors and a few grad
students from other disciplines... perhaps a dozen or less?  There was
no graduate program in Physics at my university (though there was in
Chemistry, Biology, Geology...) and I think the core professors were
frustrated or hungry for more stimulating experiences with students than
the usual undergrad context offered. 

I was mildly worried that my subject was going to be dismissed as
off-topic, as the other students unrolled their deepish-dives into
specific questions in Physics.  My classmates did "roll their eyes" a
little when I announced my topic and started in.   The professor,
however, who had been rather critical of/hard on me up to that point in
this and other classes, interrupted me to ask penetrating questions, and
soon the rest of the class was nodding their heads in appreciation or at
least understanding.  I can't remember the full arc of my essay but I
remember in particular presenting things like Zeno's paradox to  discuss
ideas such as atomicity and the different interpretations of quantum
theory and the larger implications of relativity.  

This experience melted the ice with that professor who had been critical
of my work-style for many semesters.  I rarely wrote down *every* step
in my derivations (meaning I would balance more than one element of an
equation in a single step) and I rarely did *all* the assigned homework
problems (Once I felt I understood a concept, I would skip the remaining
problems and go to the next conceptually different problem... and I was
running my own business and had a young child by then and had no
patience for what felt like "make-work").  My weak "performance" in the
mundane tasks of homework balanced against my above-average performance
on tests (where I forced myself to write down every step and do every
problem) made me a pretty solid B student while most of the others in my
cohort were over-achievers trying to nail a 4.0 grade average.  

At the end of that class, the professor (notoriously hard-nosed) offered
me an independent study class the next semester which allowed me to rush
through a medley of advanced topics that were not offered as formal
classes.  I dearly enjoyed his reading assignments and the two hours of
discussion each week, we covered a LOT of ground that last semester.  
It wasn't my first A in a Physics class but it WAS my first in one of
HIS classes!  It was also a great preparation for working at LANL where
I encountered esoteric topics on a very regular basis.

It might be noted that my second-most favorite course of study and other
favorite professor was in Philosophy...  a professor and domain of study
that taught me how to think about ideas, not just about "things" which
seemed to be what *all* of the engineering classes I took and *most* of
the science classes I took were about.  This is where I was first made
aware that a grand unified theory of everything was an oxymoron, why
some physical phenomena could *appear* to move faster than light-speed
(e.g. two quasar-beams crossing in intergalactic space), and an
intuitive framing of Godel's work in incompleteness, etc before I
encountered it in CS.   

- Steve



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Re: [FRIAM] anthropological observations

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -

I appreciate the very clear and positive (albeit blunt) way you framed
Dave's post, hopefully allowing the rest of us (including Dave) to
continue the conversations implied in a positive and coherence-seeking
manner.  I think Dave's rant referenced a number of important issues
worth discussing.

Dave -

I appreciate your checking in and letting us know you had arrived safe
and sound and now "settled".   There was plenty in your trip-report that
resonated with me, even if your conclusions left me somewhat baffled or
in direct opposition.  I'd like to be able to discuss those topics
openly and not risk A) telling you that you are patently wrong(-headed)
in your observations and opinions; nor B) risk appearing to accept some
of the assertions which I patently do not.

All -

Here is my best shot at outlining (succinctly?) the issues I think Dave
raised that I'd like to see discussed further:

 1. I believe there is a value to the amateur-ethnographic approach to
taking the pulse of the people anywhere we might travel.  I also
prefer to travel by secondary highways, listen to local radio, read
local dailies/weeklies, and listen in on local cafe and tavern
conversations along the way.   I am not a trained ethnographer nor
anthropologist.  I believe the more familiar the ethnographic
landscape, the easier the work.  The more unfamiliar, the more
opportunity there may be to learning something new.   In both cases,
there is a big risk of confirmation bias.
 2. I think "the fourth estate" is an important part of society IMO... 
Tom and others can probably speak more eloquently and elaborately to
this, but it is worth noting that it was our very first Amendment to
the Constitution...    what it takes to keep such *healthy* is
another question.   Shrieking "fake news!" back and forth across the
aisle is either a symptom or a cause of what seems to be an ailing
if not failing 4th estate.
 3. I have some experience (working in local Radio in the early 70's and
investigative journalism in the late 70's) and basis to believe that
Local Media is no less biased nor more given to reporting facts than
the National Media.   At *best*, a local bias (aligned with local
ownership and/or local advertisers, real or aspirational) replaces
the national bias.  I believe bias is always nearly invisible to
those who share the bias in place.  At *worst* the local bias is in
lock-step with the national bias which is often not just handed down
from the affiliated network/syndication but in fact through a media
conglomerate consolidation which has gobbled up a huge portion of
the local print and broadcast media.  This often comes without the
change of ownership being made strongly evident to the consumers of
that media.  My personal bias/opinion is that the Right has done a
bang-up job of gathering up local media around the country in the
last decade or three to the purpose of subtly influencing public
opinion, in a similar way to the way they have tried to hijack
social media. 

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/media-consolidation-means-less-local-news-more-right-wing-slant
 4. Cable News' greatest aspiration leads to what might be their deepest
flaw which is that they are a 24/7 operation with what appears to be
a huge budget.   Whether Fox or CNN or MSNBC/CBSN/ABC?? they have
lots of time and lots of budget to fill in between what conventional
commercial TV spills out for us in roughly 3 1 hour time slots
(Breakfast, Dinner, Bedtime?).   So they repeat the same reporting
over and over (in case you missed something) and lace in a LOT of
commentary.
 5. Alternative Media has grown as we have lowered the bar to entry. 
What used to be the province of pamphleteers, limited distribution
periodicals and pirate radio has exploded with the internet.   For
better and worse.   For any opinion you might choose to hold, I
believe you can find an "authoritative" source to back it up
somewhere on the internet. 
 6. Civil War.  Dave was astute or lucky or cynical enough to predict
Trump's ascendancy while many of us were rolling our eyes and trying
to imagine "really?" as "the Clown" (as Dave now calls Trump) rolled
over the top of the rest of the Republican field of presidential
hopefuls, and then blustered his way nose to nose with "the
Hillary", ultimately pulling the electoral college rug out from
under her.   Trump's divisive style and his opposition's
polarization away from his ideas/opinions/policies has only
polarized us more (IMO).   Some (including Dave I think) would
suggest that the popular media is amplifying that polarization.   I
am left wondering how real and how necessary this divide is, and how
much of it can/could be healed with a serious and applied effort?  
Or is Dave's prediction of a continued 

Re: [FRIAM] anthropological observations

[Steven A Smith]

Jochen -

Can you describe more about how your idea of "hidden genes" contrasts
and compares to Dawkin's "memes"?

Glen (I think) has questioned the term (meme) in the past, but I don't
think we ever discussed the point here?  I don't know if his argument
was more against Dawkins, against the use of analogy/metaphor to relate
genes to memes or something yet more fundamental? 

I find the least-common-denominator common-usage of the term "meme" to
be somewhat lame but the original term as presented by Dawkins was
fairly compelling and widely applicable... but like all metaphors, it
has it's limits. 

I'd be interested in a discussion here on that topic, and perhaps how
that relates to this thread.

- Steve

On 4/14/20 3:28 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> Yes, it was not a real publisher, just a self-publishing company where
> you can publish anything. I cancelled the contract because you need to
> pay every year. It was a sort of trial balloon to see if anybody is
> interested in the topic which I believe is quite explosive. Actually
> nobody was interested. I figured that it is not that dangerous to
> publish it in English if nobody is interested anyway.
>
> The basic idea is that there are "hidden genes" which are expressed
> like normal genes. The only difference is that they are not encoded in
> organic molecules and they do not create biological organisms. We know
> them simply as laws, rules & commandments. They are indeed expressed
> by propaganda or whenever someone preaches something, for instance if
> General Patton preaches to his men that they should "do more than is
> required of you". 
>
> It explains everything from the secret of religions to the nature of
> fascism (which is IMHO a form of cancer as old as civilization
> itself). I believe that the deepest secrets hide in plain sight: the
> most intangible mysteries are hidden in the best known daily objects
> most of us have outgrown even noticing. We have stopped wondering
> about things we experience every day or every week, like political
> rallies, campaign speeches, ads and church services.
>
> -J.
>
>
>  Original message 
> From: uǝlƃ ☣ 
> Date: 4/13/20 21:54 (GMT+01:00)
> To: FriAM 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] anthropological observations
>
> I presume it's this one:
>
> Die geheimen Gene: Das Geheimnis der Kirche und die soziale DNA
> https://books.google.com/books?id=lpqUDwAAQBAJ=0=frontcover=inauthor:%22Jochen+Fromm%22=en=newbks_fb
>
> No copies seem to be available. I also assume propaganda plays a
> prominent role in your explanation. I keep wondering why Trump's
> sycophants like Navarro keep claiming the Spanish Flue happened in
> 1917 instead of 1918. E.g. in this clip: https://youtu.be/nSx704KK_Ik
>
> #5 and #6 from this list seem plausible to me:
> https://theweek.com/articles/832990/6-theories-trumps-pointless-lies
>
> When Trump hears Navarro say "1917", it's a signal of loyalty, even if
> everyone knows it's the wrong year, that he uses that year, helps
> confirm his loyalty. Knowing to use "1917" instead will help me
> code-switch if I find myself in a conversation with these people. If
> you use "1918", they'll know you're out-group. Hypothesis #6 is only
> plausible if you think Trump is an idiot. But I buy the argument put
> forth here:
>
> Tony Norman: Who are you going to believe — POTUS or an actual expert?
> https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/tony-norman/2020/04/07/1917-Donald-Trump-truth-George-Orwell-Anthony-Fauci-Peter-Navarro-hydroxychloroquine/stories/202004070017
>
> Maybe it's a perverse mix of the expression of power, loyalty, and
> getting the audience used to fudging the details ... encouraging the
> cult members to impute the nomothetic even though it fails to fit the
> idiographic.
>
>
> On 4/13/20 11:04 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> > Link! I should buy the German version and see if I can read some of
> it. The last time I tried that was with Faust after my German II
> semester in college ... terrible failure.
>
>
> -- 
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
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[FRIAM] Science in the time of COVID19

[Steven A Smith]

More evidence of the "soft assemblage" or "mashup" of complex organisms
from simpler ones?

https://www.jneurosci.org/content/20/11/3993.short


https://getpocket.com/explore/item/all-your-memories-are-stored-by-one-weird-ancient-molecule?utm_source=pocket-newtab

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Re: [FRIAM] Complexity and Climate from IAS/Amsterdam via SFI

[Steven A Smith]

> Roland Kupers of IAS/UofAmsterdam
>
> SFI Presentation
>
> https://youtu.be/uee-9Sd6WMw
> 
>
Sorry for Link Mismatch here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uee-9Sd6WMw

> 
>
> Book
>
> https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674972124
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: [NICAR-L] AP/Johns Hopkins COVID-19 data

[Steven A Smith]

I think there are two issues...  what your risk of becoming infected and
what is your contribution to the larger risk of infecting others.  The
first is linear with the number of people you encounter, the percentage
of the population currently infected and the amount of de-coupling your
various measures provide.
> My guess would be parka, hood, glasses, 6' distance, and limited trips will 
> go first because they have very limited effect. If you doubt masks have an 
> effect, then these should be so doubtful as to be silly. But sanitation and 
> aerosol/spittle measures have clear support. 

I agree that parka and hood are much lower on the list than even glasses
which is lower on the list than 6' distances.  Limited trips are pretty
much linear with the number of trips, dwell time and how congested your
destinations are.  

An observant person will notice that in the right light (my favorite is
early morning and late afternoon sunshine coming through a window into a
dark room) how much we all "Spray it when we Say it".   Just today I
tried working on my laptop on my outdoor deck and as the sun began to
*hit* my screen I realized acutely how many thousand of microdroplets
had hit my screen... *probably* many of them while I was "spraying it"
into my Skype/Zoom chat sessions this last few weeks.  So I *do* think
6' distance (especially while talking animatedly to one another) is a
good idea...   unless the speaker has some kind of mouth covering. 

> The conversation you forwarded seems to reduce the complex vector space of 
> transmission into some kind of coarse, unidimensional forcing function. 
> (Isolation and quarantine are anything but unidimensional. So, the analogy 
> between them and dampening is stretched.) But if we were to do that, then 
> limited trips would be the most salient, I think. My guess is an periodic 
> driver (and measurement) of stay-at-home orders would be reasonably 
> effective. What we've done so far with "essential businesses" is too coarse. 
> E.g. I can go to the liquor store, but my arborist can't come prune my trees 
> ... way more than 6' away from any other human. I can go to a restaurant and 
> order a tossed salad to take home, but can't go play frisbee with a dog in a 
> public park.
Our Governor just closed liquor stores (but you can still buy liquor at
the grocery)...  and I was left wondering if she couldn't have re-opened
drive-through windows.   We shut ours down recently enough (<20 years?)
that many still have the windows, though probably currently stacked over
with cases of liquor. I'm not sure if "coarse" is as relevant as
improper dimension for binning?  
> Many businesses already have particular days of the week they're open. It 
> seems reasonable to relax the closures periodically, say everything's open on 
> Fri and Sat, but closed every other day. That driving signal would surely 
> show up in the number of confirmed cases.
I'm not sure why you imply reducing the number of days would reduce
infections?   I wondered if maybe opening grocery stores 24 hours a day
might reduce the average number of encounters between customers and give
those with a low risk-tolerance better times to shop (e.g. 6AM) I do
know that some big-box stores reserve the first couple of hours of
opening for the elderly++ which makes sense to me...  overnight
sanitizing cleaning and a more homogenous population more likely to be
careful and less likely to be asymptomatic?
>> I walk a mile or so a day in the neighborhood, designating one “clean” hand 
>> (for adjusting my glasses, etc.) and one “dirty” hand for touching anything 
>> outside my own person, on those rare occasions that I have to.  I scrub both 
>> hands when I get back.  I go once to the store a week (at most).  I put on a 
>> parka, hood, glasses, face mask, wear gloves, and I carry alcohol with me 
>> for rubbing down any surface I touch and sterilizing the gloves afterwards.  
>> I back off from any encounter with a human being closer from 6 feet.  Assume 
>> that all members of my pod follow these same rules.  Which of these rules do 
>> you see us relaxing after the bent curve? 

Nick -  I like your use of Pod vs Herd or Pack...  

I think  you will find that as time goes on there will be more
confidence in what to do to fly safely.   Masks and hand hygiene (gloves
and/or washing) would go a long way.

  I think waiting for two things is key:  1) wait until the numbers on
this end go down... until the peak of new infections has passed... but
maybe not until the general restrictions have relaxed...   2) waiting
until your destination is ready to recieve your pod IF you get infected
in the process don't be showing up just as they are trying to figure
out which parking lot or church to put new cases into.  
https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/new-mexico   is
a good resource for seeing when the "estimated peak resource-use" is
which correlates with "acute infection"...   two 

Re: [FRIAM] RedState/BlueState OneState/TwoState

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -
I appreciate the gist of your thinking here...  I suppose the
overarching nature of my own is toward the *diversity* of the federated
subunits yielding a broader search-strategy for optimal (satisficing?)
response-strategies.   The net result is sub-optimal in terms of
minimizing suffering or reducing worse-case scenarios across the board,
but more optimal for finding unique edge/corner case strategies.

The EU is probably a MORE interesting study than the Federated-United
States of 'Murrica in that they have a broader range of cultural/social
norms and more recent habit/ability to shut down borders and enforce
things on their citizens (and guests) more strictly and diversely.   

I've been thinking/studying/even-feeling through a multi-scale network
lens of sorts...   checking in with my friends and relations around the
world (including the folks here who have weighed in from around the
world) (BTW... we have a moderately broad geo-political distribution
here and I would love to hear *more* direct experiences from this
community...  Expat in Ecuador, Native of INdia, Australians,
German(s?), Egyptian, Cuban, ???).  

My own global connections span AU, NZ, Ukraine, UK, SE, NL.  I'm sure
among us, we have a 1st order connection that covers much of the
globe. In my case, I'm watching how my two daughters in OR and CO
are experiencing this, while my mother/sister IN AZ are having
yet-another very different experience (the first two follow Democracy
Now! while the last two watch Fox on TV).

As we try to meta-model (gather/analyze data and build toy models) this
pandemic is exposing a LOT of assumptions about social mixing,
especially under emergency conditions...   and circumstances evolving
over time as awareness/denial evolves over time.    Also the dual of
social/mobility-networks (commutes, shopping, family/friend visiting,
long-distance travel) and geopolitical regions (state/nation borders).

Simultaneously I'm looking at my 1.49 acre homestead and (mildly)
preparing it for "the coming Apocalypse" by being more thoughtful about
what/when/how I plant, adding chickens, building up some off-grid
PV/storage so I can maintian comms and water even if my (end of a long
line) power fails due to (minor) social/infrastructure breakdown.   This
leads to thinking at many scales from the microorganisms in the guts of
the worms in my vermicompost to the vegetable scraps I give them to the
size of the seeds Iplant in the pots, raised beds, and furrows, to the
bushes, saplings and mature trees.   The amount of power my cell-phone
wants to stay connected to the amount my laptop wants to play videos,
the amount my solar heat needs to circulate hot air from collector to
rock-bed, to what my well requires to deliver garden-scale water, to
what my Chevy Volt wants to take me on a round trip to the nearest town.
  These are all orders-of-magnitude apart , while their utility is
roughly inversely scaled for some purposes.

Ramble,
 - Steve


> Aha! Found it:
>
> Why Germany's Coronavirus Death Rate Is Far Lower Than In Other Countries
> https://www.npr.org/2020/03/25/820595489/why-germanys-coronavirus-death-rate-is-far-lower-than-in-other-countries
>
> So, I suppose the (hypothetical) causal flow goes something like: federated 
> system allows for first-past-the-post test development, lots of early testing 
> leads to more accurate estimates of infected, leads to finer grained response 
> (including earlier realization about asymptomatic transmission).
>
> But this sounds a bit like rationalization to me. The causation centers on 
> lots of testing, however that testing arises. A centralized system that ramps 
> up testing quickly would have the same result. In the case of the US, our 
> federation did NOT result in a ramp up of early testing (well, it did here 
> ... UW did the lion's share of early testing here in WA, but not over the 
> entire federation of states). So our federal system will see the *bad* of 
> being a federation, but not the good ... at least until after the poor and 
> frail die and those of us who survive can rationalize about how our diversity 
> makes us so healthy.
>
>
> On 4/8/20 6:31 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
>> However, a story from the radio or somesuch the other day seems to 
>> contradict me. (I was exercising and couldn't pay close enough attention.) I 
>> heard someone *assert* that Germany is fairing, practically, so well against 
>> the virus *because* it's federated. I can't find a link to that or similar 
>> stories. So, I can't tell if they're just post-hoc rationalizing or have 
>> some data to show it's the federated decoupling that's causative.
>


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[FRIAM] Complexity and Climate from IAS/Amsterdam via SFI

[Steven A Smith]

As we stagger under *just one* of our /Endogenous Existential Threats/,
the/Overarching Jackpot of Climate Crisis/ continues...

Roland Kupers of IAS/UofAmsterdam

SFI Presentation

https://youtu.be/uee-9Sd6WMw


Book

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674972124

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Re: [FRIAM] RedState/BlueState OneState/TwoState

[Steven A Smith]

> Steve,
>
>  
>
> I like your long wind. 
>
>  
>
> I am grateful for your attempt to imagine a world in the interim
> between the wave and the vaccine.
>
In the world pre-vaccine (including among wild animal populations), the
only thing keeping a disease from extincting a population IS a
combination of herd-immunity through antibody formation and death
itself.  Highly deadly things like Ebola burn out because they kill
nearly everyone who contracts it, leaving nobody in the village to
re-infect.   Entire populations can get wiped out in the wild...  (early
2000s, the magpies on the Rio Grande were decimated and are only just
now starting to return)

Our modern hyper-mixing (travel at many scales yielding contact graphs
at many scales) really aggravates disease spread cum epidemic cum pandemic.

>  
>
> Has china actually eliminated the virus from the population and the
> are merely putting out sparks that have blown in from other places? 
>
I doubt it... and your reference to a "fire" analogy is apt...  the
sparks are more likely coming from smoldering areas *within*... catching
flame in a wind and tosssing sparks into the next unburned patch...
>
>  
>
> Nick
>
>  
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Steven A Smith
> *Sent:* Tuesday, April 7, 2020 11:38 PM
> *To:* friam@redfish.com
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] RedState/BlueState OneState/TwoState
>
>  
>
>  
>
> Nick -
>
> I wrote (yet) another long-winded answer but am trying to give you the
> most succinct version I can:
>
>  
>
> I think you are nearly correct.
>
>  
>
> First: Yes, "community transmission" is somewhat another name for our
> ignorance... but it is a critical threshold.  As soon as you have one
> case  you don't know where it came from, it is very likely that you
> have more, and for each of those, you will have yet more...  so it
> isn't quite as benign as simple "ignorance" implies...
>
>  
>
> Second:  The virus will spread exponentially until we reduce the
> average number of people to be infected by a given infected person.  
> This is what is called R0.   As people get infected and recover and
> therefore become (very likely) immune, the number of susceptible
> individuals in the population goes down, and the R0 with it.  If you
> encounter 10 people a day on average, and have a 20% chance of
> infecting them but half of them are immune, then your R0 becomes
> 10*.2/2 = 1.0 !    When R0 drops to 1.0, the exponential growth
> flattens to linear and anything below 1.0 leads to an eventual dying
> out.    A widely deployed vaccine allows you to skip the step of
> having to become infected, survive, and recover.  
>
>  
>
> In the meantime (before sufficient herd-immunity is reached naturally,
> augmented by vaccines eventually) we need to practice some amount of
> social distancing to keep R0 down.   As we learn more about the modes
> of transmission, add early detection (through widespread testing, and
> possibly wide-spread citizen-reporting) then our best hope is
> significant social distancing.  Meanwhile, more severe social
> distancing protects our most vulnerable (elderly and those with
> conditions known to go badly with COVID19).   We will see properly
> vetted/tested anti-virals and symptom-reducers (e.g. cytokine storm
> prevention) before a vaccine which will reduce the number of people
> needing hospitalization as well as mortality.  And lastly,
> antibody/plasma transfusions may help some of the  more at-risk or
> critical workers have temporary immunity while they wait for a vaccine.
>
>  
>
> Right now, many of us are isolated at the individual, the couple or
> possibly the nuclear family unit.  In principle, once we believe we
> have isolated sufficiently well to not have much risk of contagion and
> sufficiently long to have either had symptoms or to have been infected
> asymptomatically but recovered.   This might mean, for example, that
> if you and your wife and your children and their children have all
> remained separated but isolated, then you might be safe reuniting with
> them as long as NONE OF YOU are mixing with a larger population.  
>
>  
>
> But like with the STD issue, all it takes is one promiscuous (outside
> the group) person at the orgy to ruin the "safe space".   The larger
> the (extended) group, the more chance someone will defect and bring it
> into the group unexpectedly.
>
>  
>
> So yes, much of what y

Re: [FRIAM] RedState/BlueState OneState/TwoState

[Steven A Smith]

ther activities
> that we think of when we think of “tourism”. 
>
>  
>
> I WANT to think different, and therefore I am interested in the fact
> that you seem to disagree with me on this point. 
>
>  
>
>  
>
> Nick
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Steven A Smith
> *Sent:* Tuesday, April 7, 2020 6:07 PM
> *To:* friam@redfish.com
> *Subject:* [FRIAM] RedState/BlueState OneState/TwoState
>
>  
>
>
>
> Steve,
>
>  
>
> Perhaps we might talk about this on Friday.   I guess the
> questions are,
>
>
>
> “Can we eliminate community transfer?” 
>
> By this, I assume you mean the "crypto" transfer where the *source* of
> infection isn't recognized even in retrospect?
>
> The conventional/modeling wisdom is keeping R0 (the number of people
> each infected person infects... or the *exponent* of the exponential
> growth) below 1.0... 
>
> and, if so, “At what level of social distancing do we have to
> maintain in order to make sure that a program of testing, vigorous
> contact tracing and isolation is assured?”
>
> I would claim that the *quality* of social distancing is very
> important...  but those "qualities" haven't been determined yet.   In
> principle,  keeping
>
>
>  Not clear how to do that in the blue states if the red states are
> still going exponential. 
>
> Re: Balkanization
>
> I speculated in another thread (another forum?) that if the Red States
> continue to be reluctant to self-isolate, they will pay the price in a
> tall curve, mitigated somewhat by the lower population densities and
> "enclave" nature of many small towns...   compared for example to big
> cities connected by a carpet of suburbs mixing commuters from multiple
> urban centers in every neighborhood.
>
> And then that Blue States might manage to flatten their curves more
> quickly but aggravated by the nature of denser urban/suburban landscapes.
>
> In the end, the Red States may have more (percentage) infections and
> deaths, but what goes with that is higher herd-immunity.   So Blue
> States might want to close their borders to Red States during the
> first wave, but then the Red States might want to close them the other
> direction when "infiltrating" Blues are more likely to be crypto-infected?
>
> I didn't like that Zombie Apocalypse series that was so popular a few
> years ago because I felt it promoted xenophobia and rapid
> dehumanization of "the other"...  a "friend" can become a "dangerous
> enemy" at the drop of a splash of blood (or spittle in this case)?  
> Or maybe we can follow @POTUS lead and "vote by tweet"?  then the
> battle will be between Russian, Chinese, and Anonymous Bots stuffing
> the @USElectionBallotBox ;) ?
>
>  
>
> Also, I would like to hear a lot of wisdom about how we arrange
> and conduct an election during this mess.
>
> I think this is not so much a technical problem as a social one. FOX
> and their most famous audience in the White House are already making
> sounds against the idea of voting by mail as A) Unamerican; B) likely
> to be cheated (only Democrats cheat of course).   I don't think it is
> an insurmountable technical problem (vote by mail).   Expanded "early
> voting" can help a lot, as can absentee ballots. 
>
> The scene in Wisconsin today is a good advanced test-case of how
> refactoring the mechanics of an election (timing, absentee, mail,
> etc.) will be politicized immediately.  I'm hoping that the remaining
> Democrat primaries and the Convention will serve as a lightning rod to
> bring some of that out *before* the main elections which will be much
> more controversial.
>
> I am hoping that we collectively have a much better handle on things
> by then and the problem becomes *mostly* moot... though I can imagine
> there will be more demand for early/absentee voting in all venues.
>
> - STeve
>
>  
>
>  
>
> N
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* Friam 
> <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Steven A Smith
> *Sent:* 

Re: [FRIAM] RedState/BlueState OneState/TwoState

[Steven A Smith]

>> and, if so, “At what level of social distancing do we have to
>> maintain in order to make sure that a program of testing, vigorous
>> contact tracing and isolation is assured?”
>>
> I would claim that the *quality* of social distancing is very
> important...  but those "qualities" haven't been determined yet.   In
> principle,  keeping

...   ... keeping strong "cells" or "cliques" or "islands" with
very limited out-group contact is more important than *everyone* keeping
6' distance, washing their hands, covering their face, etc.   I have
several "cliques" in my social circle which I have very limited
in-person contact, and each one has a very different level of
in-group-hygiene.   At least one is a very "leaky" cell... with one
member who simply doesn't take the whole thing seriously.  I avoid
direct contact with her and her space, but I do have very infrequent
(once a week or less) contact (with 6' distance for short periods
without much exchange of objects) with her 80+ year old husband who I
know to be *much* more careful and perhaps much more likely to become
symptomatic more quickly if *she* does bring him some Corona?   


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Re: [FRIAM] SFI virtual workshop: After the Wave

[Steven A Smith]

SG

I found Meyers' talks from the Fall which preceded (presaged?) this and
thought you had just linked those!  I'm glad to see our "big siblings on
the hill" are on this with full attention.

Did anyone else watch this 2 hour presentation?  I'm working my way
through it now in the background.

SS
>
> I mentioned this on the close of Virtual Friam today:
>  
> https://santafe.edu/news-center/news/after-first-wave-virtual-workshop-covid-19-pandemic
>  
>
> The first wave of COVID-19 is well underway, and social distancing
> will hopefully bend the curve downward (after far too high a price is
> paid). But what comes next? Under what circumstances and in what way
> can we lift quarantine? On March 31, five speakers from epidemiology
> and economics discussed strategies for both public health and economic
> recovery and answered questions from the SFI community. This was the
> first of multiple “lightning workshops” that will be convened to
> address this crisis.
>
> Speakers: Lauren Ancel Meyers, Integrative Biology, University of
> Texas, Austin; SFI Sara Del Valle, Los Alamos National Laboratory
> Caroline Buckee, T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard Rajiv
> Sethi, Economics, Barnard College, Columbia University; SFI Glen Weyl,
> Microsoft and RadicalxChange Foundation 
>
> ___
> stephen.gue...@simtable.com 
> CEO, Simtable  http://www.simtable.com 
> 1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505
> office: (505)995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828
> twitter: @simtable
> zoom.com/j/5055775828 
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Coronavirus New Mexico numbers.xlsx

[Steven A Smith]

even though you are set up with the calculating spreadsheet, you might
just surf in on this one?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1m2u81yTLS4aDSVxw0iqa0K59goP10HcAAkRSrNuoJjQ/edit#gid=0

On 4/4/20 5:57 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Phellow Phriammers, particularly the local congregation,
>
>  
>
> Attached please see Saturday’s numbers.  Still not great, but still
> linear.  6 new ones today. 
>
>  
>
> I had hoped to see a decline.
>
>  
>
> Robert Cordingley kindly pointed out errors in the state daily
> increases, which I have corrected.  The state changed the website
> today to make it MORE difficult to extract these numbers.  Not clear
> why they did that. 
>
>  
>
> If any body xl wise could put calculation formula in the two delta
> columns and send the table back to me, I might be less likely to screw
> this up.
>
>  
>
> Nick
>
>
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[FRIAM] SIR+HD model in JavaScript + Herd Immunity question.

[Steven A Smith]

I'm sure many have seen this... if not scroll to the bottom for the JS
model (you can download/inspect/modify the code if you like)...   It
doesn't stop at SIR but adds H(ospitalization) and D(eath)...   and is
parameterized with sliders.

   
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/25/opinion/coronavirus-trump-reopen-america.html

And the JS (warning,huge with lots of device/browser-specific cruft):

   
https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2020/03/16/opinion-coronavirus-model-2/d268775237c095931fe2fae6015c568c0011fd76/build/js/main.js

I don't feel comfortable having a strong opinion about this beyond
echoing what THIS article says about the risk of quick mitigation
followed by return-to-normal *without* establishing significant
herd-immunity.   This author refers to it as "hiding infections in the
future" and makes a good point about staving off infection too well for
too long and getting hit hard next "cold and flu" season IF we haven't
established good treatment, increased health care capacity, and/or
effective vaccines.

   
https://medium.com/@wpegden/a-call-to-honesty-in-pandemic-modeling-5c156686a64b

For better or worse, other countries are trying different mixtures and
styles of mitigation and have different levels of health-care capacity
and ability to location-track and shut down mobility.

While many criticize (or defend) the lax or laggy response of many Red
States, this provides yet another diversity/ensemble study for the
ultimate "model" of all... in this case, the territory IS the territory,
the population IS one big fat analog computer for calculating the
pandemic (the answer to which, is naturally 42).  

Of course, "scofflaw" communities like the spring-break youth, the
evangelical churches, and states like Georgia with governers who say "we
didn't know that people without symptoms could be infectious until 24
hours ago!" represent a reservoir for exposure if they continue to mix,
but might end up being a source of virus resistant.  

https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/04/coronavirus-state-social-distancing-policy/

https://faculty.washington.edu/cadolph/papers/AABFW2020.pdf?fbclid=IwAR09JwtQzEkerOGiRXxaiptbyDqGZZ7_7Ullg7UX9qtVDFWumdKZGF8WOzY


My post-apocalyptic novel might include a study on this:   What if the
Blue States mitigate hard and fast, in spite of losing the battle in a
few states like high-density, early onset new york/new jersey,  and
reduce deaths (including ones avoidable if not for overwhelming
health-care) but also reduce herd-immunity.  And the Red States limit
their mitigation, take a huge hit in infection and death (but moderated
by mostly being less-dense states) but come out the other side with
better herd-immunity.   I can imagine fresh border-checks (remember when
every state border crossing had a weigh station for trucks?) to restrict
Red Staters infecting Blue States early on, then later vice-versa?  
Seems like the ongoing extraction economy in (mostly Red States) is
pretty social-distancy while the more service economy of Blue States is
at risk... though professional and even office work is nominally quite
easily social-disanced.

Mumble,

 - Steve


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