On 10/28/2015 02:24 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
[NST==>Well, remember Glen. I am a rank Deweyan. I think that people can and ought to discuss and argue, decide, and act concertedly. One thing that stands in the way of that is the notion that I can’t “do anything about climate change.” I mean isn’t politics just the aggregation of individual opinion in the service of concerted group action? <==nst]
Yes, but while we have some control over how we are integrated, as an individual, we have little/no control over how the whole aggregates ... more importantly, we have little/no knowledge of the implications of the aggregate. Blind action is no better than nefarious nor worse than virtuous action.
[NST==>Ok, you are forcing me to own up to my basic question. Why do people who disagree with one another bother to talk? What is the good in that? I assume it’s because we are striving for the non-zero-sum gains of concerted action. Also, there is some evidence, I gather, that involving more than one person in a decision actually improves the quality of the decision. <==nst]
Well, my opinion isn't very useful, here. I tend to think we talk _mostly_ as a replacement for grooming each other. Or perhaps I should phrase it as: most of the talk we engage in is meaningless jabber that replaces grooming. But perhaps each of us, all of us, does engage in some sort of reprogramming, at least sporadically and rarely. The best I can do is tell you why _I_ talk (including these tl;dr e-mails). It is in the hopes that I will be reprogrammed. Every word I read, every noise I hear, wherever it comes from, whomever it comes from, _might_ reprogram me. There are other ways to be programmed (working in the garden, driving, hiking, etc.). But there is a kind of nuance to talk-talk-based reprogramming that is difficult to get at any other way. -- ⇔ glen ============================================================ 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
