Marcus,

I really like your wave function notion - it is very Buddhist in its essence.

davew


On Thu, Jan 14, 2021, at 9:39 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> I would prefer it be modeled as a wave function and that people resist the 
> urge to take unnecessary observations.   I’m from another generation, though.

>  


> *From:* Friam <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of *Merle Lefkoff
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 14, 2021 7:51 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Talent and Moral Luck - Steelman attempt

>  

> Maybe I missed this earlier, but this thread might be more lively if it 
> considers the latest gender conversation: the fluidity of gender as a form of 
> cultural identity.  I have to practice constantly referring to several of my 
> granddaughter's friends as "they", not "she" or "he" or "her" or "him."   

>  

> On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 10:18 AM <[email protected]> wrote:

>> Steve,

>>  

>> Well, when good threads are bent, you and I will bend them.

>>  

>> Let me complete my thought:  There are two kinds of feminism here, right?  
>> [Merle, please be kind.]  One claims that women are not different, and 
>> therefore should be treated equally.  The other claims that women are or may 
>> be different but that males’ and females’ natures are to be valued equally.  
>> I have always leaned toward this sort of feminism.  But I see now that, 
>> insofar as it captures every woman I meet in a stereotype, this sort of 
>> feminism is itself sexist.  Every time I meet a woman, I engage in the 
>> following abductive-deductive logic:

>>  

>>               This person is wearing a skirt (say) and has long hair (say).

>>               This person is probably a woman.

>>               Women are less likely to be aggressive A-holes than men,

>>               Therefore, I (probably) can relax around this person.

>>  

>> There is no escaping the  sexism of this logic. 

>>  

>> I listen every week to a podcast, *Strict Scrutiny, *which begins with the 
>> aphorism:

>>  

>> I ask no special favor for my sex; I ask only that you take your feet off 
>> our necks

>>  

>> I was raised near the end of a rural road during WWII.  My only chum, from 
>> about 1 year to adolescence was a girl.  After the War, my parents moved to 
>> Boston.  Before we were separated, we had a long chat about gender, she and 
>> I, and agreed, sadly, that I was *lucky* to be a guy.

>>  

>> Nick

>>  

>> Nicholas Thompson

>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

>> Clark University

>> [email protected]

>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

>>  

>>  


>> *From:* Friam <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of *Steve Smith
>> *Sent:* Thursday, January 14, 2021 10:24 AM
>> *To:* [email protected]
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Talent and Moral Luck - Steelman attempt

>>  

>>  

>>> nst> Sorry.  You missed my point.  It was—YPTE—introspective.  I was 
>>> noticing that I could not believe that a world without women was dreary 
>>> without being a sexist. 

>>>  

>>> nst> Probably not that interesting a thought if one is under 50, or 60, or 
>>> 70, or perhaps even 80 

>> and I submit to all that the main point of the storyline is the 
>> sorry/not-sorry (unintended/unexpected/yet-predictable) consequences of 
>> using violence (one of the most egregious types of levers). 

>> The "dreariness" of a world without women would seem to be eclipsed by the 
>> personal grief of *virtually* every male on the planet losing his 
>> wife/mother/daughters/sisters/female-friends overnight (in the personal) and 
>> the abrupt if delayed (by a remaining lifespan) existential grief of the end 
>> of a spectacular (if clearly flawed, as demonstrated by the central theme) 
>> species.   Maybe a (very few?) fully psychotic misogynists found it a 
>> pleasing condition (in which case I "blame the Mother" ;^) )

>> Unlike most post-apocalyptic storytelling, the misery is not (overtly) 
>> miserable health crises (nuclear holocaust) or marauding bands (though they 
>> did feature) or competition for exhausting resources, or retreating from an 
>> angry/disappointed "mother earth", but rather a simple but profound 
>> "absence" and incontrovertable "end of humanity", leaving the men of the 
>> world to contemplate (or not) how they treated women before they all went 
>> away.

>> <blatant Moralizing>

>>   If Marcus' nihilist view that "it is all levers" is more true than not, it 
>> explains why this grand experiment of "civilization" seems to be collapsing 
>> into a cesspool of it's own making, under it's own weight.  Or it's own 
>> hubris.  Or under the self-perpetuating seduction of vengeance and 
>> retribution: (don't click if you hate poetry)  The People of the Other 
>> Village - Thomas Lux 
>> <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48485/the-people-of-the-other-village>

>> My parents taught me (mostly by example) that punishment of children was at 
>> best a necessary last resort, resulting from and reflecting upon a failure 
>> of good parenting leading up to the need for acute correction.  They were at 
>> least a *little* more direct/vocal about the same principle in public life, 
>> that our criminal justice system *only* existed, with it's myriad attempts 
>> at exacting justice without revenge and finding clever forms of "punitive 
>> retribution" to at least appear like "natural consequences" (not a term in 
>> parenting vocabulary at that time quite yet, but practiced by my parents and 
>> a few others I knew).  

>> Our current "Lord of the Flies" scene in DC (and across the country) may 
>> require all kinds of exacted punishment to re-align elements of society to 
>> where we can live together in relative peace, but to not acknowledge that 
>> the mere entertainment of the likes of Donald Trump as a national leader 
>> represents an abject failure of our culture to "make sense".   The calls for 
>> removal/impeachment/censure/disbarment are all reasonable triage actions to 
>> minimize continued damage, even if they are in many ways "too little too 
>> late".   But I am saddened as I hear a great deal of the rhetoric on the 
>> topic armatured around *retribution* and *vengeance*...

>> Self-Righteously yours,

>> - Steve

>>  


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> 

>  

> --


> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
> Center for Emergent Diplomacy
> emergentdiplomacy.org

> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA


> 
> mobile:  (303) 859-5609
> skype:  merle.lelfkoff2

> twitter: @merle110

>  

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