My god, it’s full of…. BULLSHIT! Well, making things and growing food are great, but it would be a lot less interesting world if that’s all we did. Certainly Santa Fe would be.
Gary [husband of an artist] On Sun, Jul 5, 2015 at 8:29 PM, Nick Thompson <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Friammers, > > > > I am late to this conversation but it has just impinged on something I have > been thinking about a LOT. I used to be sure that there was a firm > distinction between productive labor and … to use the technical term … > bullshit. Growing food and making automobile engines were examples of > productive labor; designing this year’s fashions in automobiles and > clothing, that was an example of bull shit. It truly disgusts me that the > automobile industry designs a pretty good car every decade or so, and then, > stops making them because, because, after all, there always must be > something new. (Oh what has Subaru done the Forrester and Volvo to the > Volvo Wagon? Once they comfortable boxes in which to carry people around. > Now they both look like outsized running shoes with gun slits for windows. > That’s the essence of bullshit. LL Beans had a pretty good winter coat a > decade back; can’t get it any more. More bullshit. > > > > Now gambling and gaming in any form (e.g., investment banking) seem to me to > lean pretty heavily on the side of bullshit. But I have begun to worry > that, one of these days, I am going to wake up having realized in a dream > that EVERYTHING is bullshit. Certainly that’s the direction that complexity > thinking leads us. Or, at least, to the realization that because there is > nowhere near enough productive labor to go around, most of us have to paid > to do bullshit to keep us from doing real harm. Anyway, Penny and I > published something about that 35 years back. Perhaps some of you like to > look at it. It’s called, “A Utopian Perspective on Ecology and > Development.” For all I know, you might its first readers! The authors > would love to hear from you. > > > > Nick > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > > Clark University > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels > Sent: Sunday, July 05, 2015 6:21 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] DOH! > > > > Arlo writes: > > > > “It is not some secret mystical human experience, nor does it have to be > some weird pop-culture cult, but just another way to spend some free time.” > > > > I suppose the distinction I’m making is between open vs. closed or leading > vs. following. With so much unknown in the world, why use hours of > wakefulness to enumerate the states of a finite state machine? In what way > is there anything to discover from a game? I appreciate there is a craft > to making a storyline and a craft to in designing the graphics and physics > engines, and of course the graphic arts in designing the visual appearance > of characters. But I appreciate the story like I’d appreciate literature > or art – I am not an expert in those things, and so I am not a participant – > I am merely a consumer. On the technology side, I can acknowledge that > gaming software is sometimes impressive. But why _bother_ writing it > _except_ to sell it? Another way to ask the question is how is it more > significant to be a gamer than, say, a reader of fiction or even a > moviegoer? How is being a gamer a Thing? > > > > Marcus > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
