Re: Co-stupidity
Thomas: Thanks for your detailed comments. On one point we have agreement Douglas, we have both got our dates set wrong on our computer. I was puzzeled that your message was at the bottom of my date ordered inbox - really, Friday, Feb 27, 1920 is further than I ever dared to err. You wrote: I'm not sure "our system" was ever designed, I think it just grew. Perhaps we could design a better system, but who is to do the designing? We don't work well together, as Mr. Atlee has pointed out, so how can we succeed in designing a better system? Thomas: I'm sorry that you seem to have given up on the best idea I've seen. The "who" of course is problematic if you limit yourself to a one shot try. I would prefer a more plural form, say "whom" of many aspirants can produce the "best" structure rather than system. (System: a complex whole; a set of connected things or parts functioning together) (Structure: a set of interconnecting parts of any complex thing; a framework.) Try the formula "Structure determines the form of the processes" in which structure is a defined state. Hard to get a grip on but perhaps an example. Representative Democracy is in my opinion a structure for political goverance selection. As a structure, it is predisposed to the concepts of political parties and political parties exist like corporations over a long period of time. So you get a model of government in which those selected are focused on the survival of their Party which is often at variance with those who selected them - the governed. You said: The same comment applies to "how good our process is". It isn't. But what process have we for improving our process? Not one that works, I suppose, or we'd notice the process improving. Hands up how many people see things improving. Thomas: I view process as a direct result of structure - the formula - structure determines the form of the process. Therefore, to improve process, then you make changes in structure. If your structure is electing government through the process of political party's and it is assessed by consensus that politcal party's do not give good governance, then it seems to me that a structure is needed that changes the process to something else. Now, at one time, we had as a structure, heriditary monarchy. Over time, it became apparent that we got a lot of stupid monarch's who created a stupid nobility which did really stupid things with the resources of a country. So we invented a new structure for the times - representative democracy. Now, the times have changed - we no longer live in a time constrained agricultural society in which it often took days or weeks for information to travel a few miles to one in which information is instantaneous. We need a new structure and from that will flow new processes which will produce different results. Now, this new structure can come on us willy nilly through historical movements like globalization or can come to use through the design of structures that allow a humane rather than capitalistic globalization in which a structure is being created by those who influence or control the market. Now, I agree, that this does not solve the problem of the "who" or "whom", but I think that they is we - yep, you and me and millions of others over the next 10 years who are going to be creating all this noise on the Internet - the new forum for change. Out of that discontent and collage of ideas will arise political leaders who can articulate the consensus of all this discontent. Much as the American and French Revolutions found leaders to articulate the discontent within the monarchical societies. Perhaps this time we can do it without a war or a gullitine (sp). Respectfully, Thomas Lunde -- -- From: "Douglas P. Wilson" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Co-stupidity Date: Fri, Feb 27, 1920, 11:46 PM Well 'co-stupidity' is certainly an interesting word. It seems somewhat similar to a word or phrase that I often use, 'error-covariance', but I prefer the latter because it carries a remedy along with it. "Co-stupidity" describes the collective inability of groups, communities, organizations and societies to see what's happening in and around them, and to deal effectively with what they find. ... We are not dealing with a universal truth here -- there are a few examples of groups, communities, organizations, and (perhaps) even societies that have functioned well, seeing problems and dealing with them effectively. But yes, it's mostly true, collective intelligence is much less common that collective stupidity. I can also agree with these statements: The know-how exists with which to dramatically improve our collective intelligence. We could build the capacity to be wise together instead of co-stupid. Yes, of course the know-how exists. I am one of those people who clain to have this know-how, so I have to agree it exists. Here you go: To
FW Testing
Testing
Y2K at work...
Thomas Lunde wrote in response to Douglas P. Wilson: Thanks for your detailed comments. On one point we have agreement Douglas, we have both got our dates set wrong on our computer. I was puzzeled that your message was at the bottom of my date ordered inbox - really, Friday, Feb 27, 1920 is further than I ever dared to err. Thomas, your software has a Y2K bug: Douglas' mail was actually dated Sun, 2 Aug 2099, not Fri, 27 Feb 1920. Now that's real FutureWork! ;-) Chris P.S.: Your geo time zone is wrong too: + instead of -0500 (or so).
my very dated remarks
About the date: we have both got our dates set wrong on our computer. I was puzzeled that your message was at the bottom of my date ordered inbox - really, Friday, Feb 27, 1920 is further than I ever dared to err. Oddly enough my sent-messages box clearly shows the date as Aug. 2, 2099, which my computer thinks is correct. I keep setting it back to 1999, but every few months it suddenly decides it is 2099. I am told that the person who owns the company that made this operating system is now the richest man in the world AND that his total worth has DOUBLED in the past year. My favourite Dilbert sequence is where in one cartoon Dilbert's mother vows to kill the person who designed the operating system in her computer. Then in the next cartoon the police arrive at her door and accuse her of making death threats. She says that her computer crashes 5 times a day and the only way she can get it to reboot is to unplug it. The police respond by saying "OK, we're in. Have you got the guy's address?" You know what operating system those cartoons are about, don't you? dpw Douglas P. Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.island.net/~dpwilson/index.html http://www.SocialTechnology.org/index.html
Re: Co-stupidity
I'm not sure I understand what you've been saying, Thomas, but one sentence stands out -- I'm sorry that you seem to have given up on the best idea I've seen. That's not the kind of thing I do. I collect good ideas and also what other people think are good ideas, and I try to find the kernel of truth in them. The reason for my regretably sarcastic comments is that I didn't actually detect any idea at all in Mr. Atlee's prose. What exactly is this "best idea" you think so highly of? Can you state it in plain English? I'm reminded of an episode in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy in which the people living on some planet as the heirs of Hari Seldon and his foundation receive a visit from some very high official from the rest of the former empire. This august personage gives a lengthy speech which impresses everyone. Their current leader is somewhat impressed but suspicious, so he asks an expert in semantics to analyze the speech and report back on what was actually said. After a while the expert returns and gives his report which consists of the single word "nothing". It is indeed quite possible to use a lot of words but say absolutely nothing. It is a skill politicians (or their speechwriters) cultivate, because quite often a special occasion will necessitate a speech but the politician either has nothing to say or is afraid of committing himself to anything. It seems to me that Mr. Atlee, (and perhaps Mr. Lunde as well) are just saying that we need some new ideas, and I don't think that is itself a new idea -- I'm not sure it even counts as an idea at all, a meta-idea, perhaps, at best. It might help if I use (and abuse) a metaphor from the days of logical positivism. Let us imagine our society (and system) as a boat floating in the middle of the ocean. It is not in very good shape and really needs to be rebuilt. Labour and materials are available but there is no dry land in sight. So the task is to somehow rebuild the boat while it floats in the middle of the ocean. The problem is how to do that without causing it to sink. Conservatives are basically people who don't want to rebuild the boat, perhaps in fear of sinking, or perhaps because they currently have the best staterooms and fear ending up in much less luxurious surroundings. Liberals don't want to rebuild it either, but they keep everybody working hard to make what they call "improvements". One rarely hears of nihilists any more, but they proposed to sink the boat so they could rebuild it from scratch. Anarchists would begin their rebuilding program by tossing the captain and officers overboard so that the passengers could work on their own without interference. The communist rebuilding plan begins with a mutiny, reducing the captain and officers to the status of stowaways, followed by ripping out (almost) all the interior walls, to leave one big open hold in which everyone could live and work together (except the actual mutineers, who would keep the captain's and officer's quarters intact for themselves). Well now, the most charitable spin I can put on Mr. Atlee's proposal is that he plans to begin his rebuilding by planning to begin his rebuilding -- that's not as absurd as I make it sound; it is a resolve to begin by making thorough plans, something we should all agree with. Actually requirements analysis should precede designing or planning, (viz. http://www.island.net/~dpwilson/requirements.html) but that's another issue. But what Mr. Atlee has is (apparently) a resolve, or resolution, or firm intention to plan things very well -- it is not itself a plan for anything. That's why I said I couldn't actually detect any idea in Mr. Atlee's prose -- all I saw were good intentions. I could well be wrong about that -- I'm wrong about lots of things, though I never admit it. Perhaps there is some idea there that I've missed. As for the comments of Thomas Lunde, I am sure I have missed something in what he wrote, because I just didn't understand much of it. Try the formula "Structure determines the form of the processes" in which structure is a defined state. ... Have you ever read Process and Reality, by Alfred North Whitehead? Ah, I didn't think so -- I don't think anybody has. To the best of my knowledge he is saying "Process determines the form of the structures", but I've never figured out what that means, either. Representative Democracy is in my opinion a structure for political goverance selection. ... I'd be happy calling it either a system or a process, not a structure. But the words don't really matter. What matter is that Representative Democracy isn't a very good (whatever it is). I think of it as technology, a tool or technique for making government work. Something we invented. A long time ago. Before we really knew what we were doing. I often compare it to the ox-cart or waterwheel -- not hi-tech at all, something that just barely works. But Representative Democracy is
[CPI-UA] The Internet Solution for Workers' Rights (fwd)
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1999 23:26:55 + From: Kerry Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [CPI-UA] The Internet Solution for Workers' Rights Occasionally Tom Friedman gets the picture: http://www.nytimes.com/library/opinion/friedman/073099frie.html July 30, 1999 FOREIGN AFFAIRS / By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN The New Human Rights In this post-totalitarian world, the human rights debate needs an update. While Americans are focusing on issues of free speech, elections and the right to write an op-ed piece, people in the developing world are increasingly focused on workers' rights, jobs, the right to organize and the right to have decent working conditions. Quite simply, for many workers around the world the oppression of the unchecked commissars has been replaced by the oppression of the unregulated capitalists, who move their manufacturing from country to country, constantly in search of those who will work for the lowest wages and lowest standards. To some, the Nike swoosh is now as scary as the hammer and sickle. These workers need practical help from the West, not the usual moral grandstanding. To address their needs, the human rights community needs to retool in this post-cold-war world, every bit as much as the old arms makers have had to learn how to make subway cars and toasters instead of tanks. "In the cold war," says Michael Posner, head of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, "the main issue was how do you hold governments accountable when they violate laws and norms. Today the emerging issue is how do you hold private companies accountable for the treatment of their workers at a time when government control is ebbing all over the world, or governments themselves are going into business and can't be expected to play the watchdog or protection role." The impulse is to call for some global governing body to fix the problem. But there is none and there will be none. The only answer is for activists to learn how to use globalization to their advantage -- to super-empower themselves -- so there can be global governance, even without global government. They have to learn how to compel companies to behave better by mobilizing consumers and the Internet. I'm talking about a network solution for human rights, and it's the future of social advocacy. [...]
