The outline Steve has provided is very helpful. Much of Eric’s ideas governing a group of agents is what I imagine happens within a single agent. The Narrative then is constructed to eliminate the memory of discord. The winning subagent ( perhaps Hussein’s Dr.Clever) rewrites the experience to mollify other internals (maintaining his rank). I think this can be extended to explain Mohammed’s view of obfuscation.
If my view is correct what we see as atrocious behaviour between people seems also to occur within individuals. These crimes are simply exported to the real world. Threat and fear seem important for internal decisions and so it is natural to assume they would continue to be employed externally. Gullibility is like an open window letting in Narratives that can distort all the internal workings of the individual. So intelligent individuals always need to be unguard against gullibility. Which seems always to appeal to particular emotions. Pamela’s dismay with Chomsky suggests, that she assumes that his criticism of US policy should be reflected by a particular world view. I think Chomsky may be an honest observer but in his dispassionate honesty he is less than a good drinking partner. Honesty and collegiality are not necessarily linked. Vlad, From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith Sent: May-09-11 2:17 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits) Looking all the way back to Mohammed's original question which was nicely concise: Can we model/simulate how in a democracy that is inherently open (as stated in the constitution: for the people, by the people etc..) there emerges "decision masking structures" emerge that actively obfuscate the participatory nature of the democratic decision making for their ends? I challenge us (at Glen's urging) to come up with Use Case Scenarios that would help move us toward even the simplest of toy models. So far, our brainstorming has yield some very interesting ideas/observations: We've already begun discussing possible parts of a model: 1) Hussein has proposed at least part of a model, which I believe is an attempt to model specific agents who are actively seeking to cause Isolation and Localization for their own purposes. 2) Ivan has proposed ( I think?) that we consider modeling simple motivations (emotions) of (at least) two classes of Agents (Prof. Clevers and Gullibles)? He also has proposed (I think?) building on top of models of unconscious narration generation and fitting (like overfitting a model to data?). 3) Eric has outlined an intuitive set of features for an Agent Model: You need 1) agents with different agendas, 2) the ability to assess and usurp rules created by other agents, 3) the ability to force other agents to adopt your rules. Note, also, that in this particular case, the corruption is accomplished by stacking contradictory rules on top of each other. Thus you need 4) an ability to implement contradictory rules, or at least choose between so-called rules. 4) Mohammed contributed (along with the original question) the idea that an intermediate mechanism of "Information Hiding" might be at play. 5) Jan Hauser (lost to the list but included in one of my missives) contributed the possibility that Ken Arrow's Impossibility Theorem may have a play here. From Wikipedia: In social choice theory <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_choice_theory> , Arrow’s impossibility theorem, the General Possibility Theorem, or Arrow’s paradox, states that, when voters have three or more distinct alternatives (options), no voting system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide (complete and transitive) ranking while also meeting a certain set of criteria. These criteria are called unrestricted domain <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_domain> , non-dictatorship <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-dictatorship> , Pareto efficiency <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency> , and independence of irrelevant alternatives <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_of_irrelevant_alternatives> . I'm not sure it is responsive to Mohammed's original question as stated, but may be very important in a more general question implied. I may have missed some other contributions in this discussion so far, but I hope this summary helps if some of us are interested in actually pulling a simple model or partial answer together. I'm all for idle speculation, I spend most of my waking hours (and some of my sleeping ones) in that state, but I heard here what felt like some momentum. Glen seems the most formal of us in his approach to model building, perhaps he can continue to lead us out of the morass we often find ourselves in (I can only think of the mythical character of Sambo (apologies for the use of a possibly inappropriate racial slur from the late 19th century) arranging for Tigers chasing eachother around a tree until they turn to butter). Carry on! - Steve Glen - I think your point is well articulated. And I think if we are trying to build (or even discover) such a model, your arguments for starting with use cases are valid. But I think Hussein's "Story" contains his belief about the mechanisms of how a particular institutional dynamic works. I believe Hussein already *has* a model of this phenomenon and he just (tried to?) explain it to us through the basic requirements: (Isolation and Localization) and an anecdotal explanation of mechanisms that could give rise to them. Unfortunately, I don't hear us proposing to build a model we can use (much less verify) and therefore I don't see us building use cases anytime soon. Who would use this model? I suggest (without negative judgment) that this is why a lot of our (FRIAM) discussions fit this description to a tee: then you'll end up wandering around, mixing things up and forgetting what you're doing. As they say "if you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there." Among those of us who have been roughly discussing this, I'd like to raise your challenge and ask the question... what do we want to do with such a model if we can build it (or discover it)? 1. Provide it to powerful decision makers so they can make better decisions (or make decisions that support their power positions)? 2. Provide it to working bureaucrats in the system so that they can better understand the systems they are charged with tending to and perhaps improve the workings of the systems (or to better protect their positions within the systems)? 3. Provide it to Journalists so that they can more effectively penetrate the information hiding (or what nefarious purpose might *they* use this for)? 4. Provide it to the unwashed masses (people like ourselves included) so that we can understand their plight in the context of the system(s) that are doing this to/with/on them? 5. Use it ourselves to inform and fuel our (often idle?) speculations? My list is pretty "from the hip" but is roughly intended to be the precursor question to building the use case scenarios that Glen is reminding us that we need to focus and avoid common pitfalls. I guess I would propose we at least consider an escalation or elaborating model building exercise, meeting the presumed needs of the above in reverse order. What do *we* want to understand and exercise with this model? What would the average (well informed, educated?) citizen of the world want/need? How would it work for a motivated Journalists? Bureaucrats? Policy Makers? Now it is starting to sound overwhelming. Let's go back to idle speculation <grin>. - Steve -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 As with any M&S project, one must start with the use cases. If you don't start with your use cases, then you'll end up wandering around, mixing things up and forgetting what you're doing. As they say "if you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there." Hussein's "story" implies a use case, except it's got too many mechanistic details. You want the use case to be phenomenal, not mechanistic. So, the second (implied) story works better: "How can we undo it?" What would you _do_ with this model? Can you perform any experiments ("in vitro" upon a room full of participants - or "in vivo" on an actual government) against which to validate? If so, what would those experiments look like and what data would they generate? Those are the questions you have to ask first, before you get all mechanical on each other. ;-) Worst case, if you don't ask these questions _first_, you'll inscribe your conclusions into the model. You'll create a model that's nothing more than a justificationist tautology. You'll probably _still_ commit inscription error even if you do start with the use cases, depending on the complicatedness of the experiments or type of validation; but your inscription be easier to spot and correct as you go along. Hussein Abbass wrote circa 11-05-08 06:36 PM: Let me put this in a simple story. Prof. Clever is the dean of Faculty of Idiots. Prof Clever would like to be a dictator in a democratic society. He appoints 3 other Professors to form a strategy committee. He believes in separating strategy from execution, thanks to all the wonderful literature in management on that topic. Prof. Clever cancelled most Faculty public meetings and created many committees. These committees seek people opinion to have a truly democratic environment. He told the people we are a civilized society. We should not confront each other in public. Issues can be solved smoothly in a better environment and within a small group. Public meetings are now to simply give presentations that no controversial issue is discussed; their information content is 0 to anyone attending them. But they demonstrate democracy and support the members of the Faculty of Idiots’ right for dissemination of information. Prof. Clever promotes good values. Important values that Prof. Clever is promoting are trust and confidentiality. In meetings, people need to trust each other to facilitate exchange of information. But this requires confidentiality; otherwise problems will emerge. Obviously, meetings are called by management, members of the meetings are engineered by management, the whole social network is well-engineered such that different type of information do not get crossed from one sub-graph to another. The faculty of Idiots is the happiest faculty on earth. No public confrontation means no fights, a well-engineered civilized society. Small group meetings are dominated with Prof. Clever or simply take place to tick a box in a report. There is only one person in the Faculty of Idiots who knows everything, Prof. Clever. No one else knows more than anyone else to the extent that everyone simply knows nothing. But everyone is happy, everyone feels important because he/she is trusted and everyone feels they are well-informed of the task they are performing! Prof. Clever eliminated competition, no leader can emerge in this social system that he does not approve. Prof. Clever is the nice guy that everyone loves and respect. He listens, he is socially friendly, and after all is indeed Clever! [...] The harder question for me is, how can we undo it if it is engineered as above? - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iD8DBQFNyCMGpVJZMHoGoM8RAm/ZAJ4icZ3Ylbs2yoQokOs3wOSMWl3RQgCcDsp5 NdUELcufvpKuZKncjbWb4XY= =lr0D -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
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