Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Nick Thompson
Yes.  My little bit of money went to the ACLU.  But asking for money is all 
they do, and I feel the need for something more.  We may need to become grunts 
ourselves, rather than paying for mercenaries.   But until something better 
comes along, the ACLU seems the right thing. 

 

Yes, we have to find a way to make narcissism hurt and make facts seem like 
beautiful things again.  It seems to me something could be done in the social 
media domain, but I haven’t thought of what that might be.  “Here are some 
viewpoints you might disagree with.”  “We note that Joe Blow has expressed 
believes opposite to yours, would you like to talk to Joe?”  

 

I think your suggestion about churches is a very interesting one.  AS the 
months wear on, I can imagine an ecumenical response to Trump.  

 

Here in Santa Fe, I think we need to be ready to make those who want to violate 
our “sanctuary city” status, to pay a price, perhaps to stand between ice 
officials and perspective departees, to surround and demonstrate at local ICE 
offices.  Anything to make it inconvenient.  

 

Yes.  Pay a price.  I like it. 

 

Nick   

 

 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

  
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 4:02 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

< So, the question is , “Should we do what we can do, no matter how lame or 
ineffectual it might seem?”  Or, should we pull back, “move to Spain’, and 
leave it to others, “the politicians”, to lower themselves to do what needs to 
be done.  >

 

Andrés asserts it is not populism by another means.  It seems to me to be that. 
 I am not advocating leaving the country.  I am questioning him based on the 
fact he did leave just how sincere is he about living with his fellow man.   It 
sounds to me like he may have, or at least want to present, a romantic view of 
his Venezuelan homeland, and that it is easier to maintain from a safe distance 
in Europe.  That said, I don’t judge him for leaving nor U.S. citizens for 
leaving.  

 

I don’t think this is solved by creating solidarity with witting vandals of 
this country.  That is BS.  This is solved by showing that BS doesn’t work.   
To me, that means create a cost for the vandals.   Polarize sufficiently to 
create a clear political identity and purpose – identify the enemy and identify 
the cause.   To you, it may mean counsel the vandals and lead them to 
contrition.  Or it could mean to incentivize them to do other things than 
vandalism.  

 

“When they came for the immigrants, I didn’t do anything because I was not an 
immigrant”  etc. 

 

If there is a better organization to support than the ACLU for litigating these 
insane executive orders, please let me know.

 

Another idea is to map out the Trump-friendly churches and reach them through 
soft techniques.  For example, if church A is more conservative to church B, 
but they are similar, a political action organization could financially support 
people (e.g. pastors) at church B to give talks to congregation A that are 
fact-based and show the reality of Trump’s policies on children or other 
sympathetic victims.   Pastors at small churches are not paid very well, so 
having a travel budget and training opportunities could help them 
professionally.

 

Marcus


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Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Nick Thompson
So we’re stuck, right, Pamela?  There’s nothing we can do?  Just sit and take 
it?  

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

  
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Pamela McCorduck
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 4:53 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Before we blame any particular technology for what seems like an epidemic of 
narcissism, we ought to remember that the 80s—or was it the 70s?—were widely 
known as the Me Decade. Either way, long before social media.

 

I’m always deeply amused by the libertarians who tell us how wicked government 
interference is at exactly the time they’re making their plush livings off a 
technology that wouldn’t have existed without decades (the fifties, the 
sixties, the seventies) of government investment. Would the Internet have 
happened anyway? Hard to imagine private investors sitting still for an 
investment that wouldn’t pay off for almost half a century.

 

So, drifting afar from a reality base isn’t unknown in Silly Valley.

 

 

On Jan 28, 2017, at 2:31 PM, Nick Thompson mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net> > wrote:

 

Steve –

 

Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to the 
narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there anything that 
participants in the computer industry could do tip the world back toward a 
fact-based attractor?  

 

If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting that 
barfight might be your highest and best use.  Let me know which bar you are 
going to, so I can come and watch.  

 

But I think the question is yes. 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

  
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [  
mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < 
 friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once resembled sharp 
tools and useful fasteners?   

I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a month (and 
everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately and the cost/value 
proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate would (eventually) drop below 
a certain threshold.  

Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful 
conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  we might 
reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with something more human 
(maybe still a form of populism, but not 
nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).

If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to hurt *our* 
personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt (or in some twisted or 
strange way help) the larger context and then only consider how our personal 
context would be effected in turn by the larger context (is a happier, 
healthier, more informed society good or bad for you and your family?  vs can I 
pay lower taxes, get more government services and be afforded less expensive 
access to other resources nominally part of the commons?)  

et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own advice 
and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,
 - Steve




Ok Steve, 

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge. 

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my 
limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products 
“I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone.  

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

  
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [  
mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  
 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 







What can WE hobbits do? 

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in 
Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and 
*perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the 
greater picture

Re: [FRIAM] [SPAM] Re: [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Nick Thompson
Hi, Eric, 

 

It looks like your post got accidently sent in mid thought.  Still, enough came 
through that I can say that I accept that “We Started It”.   “Don’t trust 
anybody over 30” was the first shot fired, and “we” fired it.   But don’t you 
agree that the right has gone lot’s further with it? 

 

Maybe not.  

 

Anyway.  I don’t care who’s doing it.  It still sucks.  And if you agree that 
the assault on a convergent understanding of the truth is a bad thing, I hope 
you will help me think about how we might resist it.  

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

  
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2017 12:00 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [SPAM] Re: [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

"2. But I read Nick as saying that The Problem, and the central accomplishment 
of the Right, has been to install this shift in position as a feature of the 
population  That is what worries me, and drives a sense of urgency to fix a 
problem I do not know how to fix because I don’t understand how it can exist, 
much less be ascendent or robust.  It’s not the same as losing piety or losing 
god (loss of mere cultural luxuries), to lose the sense of factual truth as 
something larger than one’s own petit ambitions or the scope of the tribe. "

Ah, but here is the rub, isn't it? It is not the central accomplishment of the 
Right. Tough men have always had a place, and "might makes right" is hardly 
new. The assault on Truth over the past 70 years or so has been lead primarily 
by people who describe themselves as liberals, in the name of reducing 
"cultural hegemony" and "colonialism". In that context, the WWII rhetoric about 
"Jewish science" vs. "German science", is not easy to distinguish in effect 
from modern rhetoric about "feminist politics" vs "the patriarchy." In both 
cases it is asserted that Truth is not primary, but rather that Ways of Knowing 
are primary. What Dewey had was a method of working towards the truth, and as 
soon as we cannot agree upon a method, we're in trouble. 

Though they have some trouble with consistency, it is the Right that has been 
fighting for "truth" as a central concept much more reliably than the Left. 
They may seek it in bibles or successful businessmen, but their 
boots-on-the-ground believe Truth is out there. It would be hard to say the 
same for those on the left. Even the things they claim to most strongly 
believe, they will typically drop in an instant if faced with an assertion from 
another culture, or from someone with multiple "victim" traits. The "your place 
is to listen" rhetoric, in which claims regarding individual experience trump 
data, but only when those claims are made by individuals from a "marginalized" 
group, cannot possibly be compatible with Dewey's approach. 



 

 





---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 11:28 PM, Eric Smith mailto:desm...@santafe.edu> > wrote:

Thank you for forwarding this Owen,

I didn’t receive the original.

> So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think 
> the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize 
> (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that 
> consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather 
> inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate 
> rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my 
> coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, 
> a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems 
> to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the 
> exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the 
> truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”
>
> So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he 
> lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win.

Nick, with the little clipping (done above) of what felt to me like a 
digression within this gem, it seems to me perfect.  It is the return to a 
clear focus on the center of the problem that I have been looking for and not 
been able to express.

The thing is (acknowledging Marcus’s replies also, and the ensuing discussion 
of the scoping of the claim):

1. Regarding trump itself, I don’t care about it except as I would care if 
someone told me a vial of Marburg virus had been spilled on the kitchen floor.  
I would feel a sense of urgency to get a strong disinfectant to try somehow to 
scrub it out.  If I felt I couldn’t get rid of it short of cutting out and 
replacing a part of the floor, that

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Nick Thompson
Steve, 

 

For me, there are only two questions I want you to ask yourself: 

 

Is the Trump administration likely to do things that will irrevocably
decrease the quality of life of people you care about? (How widely you cast
that net is your business.)

 

And, 

 

Is there anything we can do to alter that probability in any small degree?

 

That's all I am asking. 

 

Nick 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:50 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Nick -

I know I don't always seem to take your questions seriously, but I generally
do.  

I DO think the computer industry HAS effectively contributed to a certain
kind of isolation.  On the other hand, here we are, most of us able to
participate in a complex discussion, halfway around the world from one
another (or not), many of us unable/unwilling to actually *attend* the
Mother Church as it were (FriAM coffee klatch) because of computer
technology.  But  again on the first hand, we sit around in coffee shops
ignoring one another while chatting with friends or colleagues 7 time zones
away?!

I believe that every form of technological "leverage" follows the metaphor
at least far enough to include the "loss of sensitivity" on the strong-end
of the lever.  Sure, with the right lever, you can heave a 1 ton boulder,
but can you gently tweak the last 12 ounces of force to *gently* move it off
equilibrium?   So I'm not sure HOW to maintain sensitivity in the context of
such high leverage.  The age of Transportation, Communications, etc.
Brought huge societal problems which have either leveled out, or sadly, more
likely, normalized.

As for the barfight, I'll let you know... and just fair warning, if you take
wagers, put your money on *the other guy*, I might be scrappy, but about all
I have going for me any more is mass, the ability to take a beating, and a
willingness to gouge eyes when required.

- Steve

 

On 1/28/17 2:31 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Steve -

 

Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to the
narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there anything that
participants in the computer industry could do tip the world back toward a
fact-based attractor?  

 

If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting that
barfight might be your highest and best use.  Let me know which bar you are
going to, so I can come and watch.  

 

But I think the question is yes. 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once resembled
sharp tools and useful fasteners?   

I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a month
(and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately and the
cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate would
(eventually) drop below a certain threshold.  

Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful
conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  we
might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with something more
human (maybe still a form of populism, but not
nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).

If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to hurt
*our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt (or in some
twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then only consider how
our personal context would be effected in turn by the larger context (is a
happier, healthier, more informed society good or bad for you and your
family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get more government services and be
afforded less expensive access to other resources nominally part of the
commons?)  

et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own
advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,
 - Steve




Ok Steve, 

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge. 

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my
limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new
products "I-this" and "I-that."  When are they going to release the
WE-phone.  

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective tha

Re: [FRIAM] [SPAM] Re: [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Eric Charles
"2. But I read Nick as saying that The Problem, and the central
accomplishment of the Right, has been to install this shift in position as
a feature of the population  That is what worries me, and drives a
sense of urgency to fix a problem I do not know how to fix because I don’t
understand how it can exist, much less be ascendent or robust.  It’s not
the same as losing piety or losing god (loss of mere cultural luxuries), to
lose the sense of factual truth as something larger than one’s own petit
ambitions or the scope of the tribe. "

Ah, but here is the rub, isn't it? It is not the central accomplishment of
the Right. Tough men have always had a place, and "might makes right" is
hardly new. The assault on Truth over the past 70 years or so has been lead
primarily by people who describe themselves as liberals, in the name of
reducing "cultural hegemony" and "colonialism". In that context, the WWII
rhetoric about "Jewish science" vs. "German science", is not easy to
distinguish in effect from modern rhetoric about "feminist politics" vs
"the patriarchy." In both cases it is asserted that Truth is not primary,
but rather that Ways of Knowing are primary. What Dewey had was a method of
working towards the truth, and as soon as we cannot agree upon a method,
we're in trouble.

Though they have some trouble with consistency, it is the Right that has
been fighting for "truth" as a central concept much more reliably than the
Left. They may seek it in bibles or successful businessmen, but their
boots-on-the-ground believe Truth is out there. It would be hard to say the
same for those on the left. Even the things they claim to most strongly
believe, they will typically drop in an instant if faced with an assertion
from another culture, or from someone with multiple "victim" traits. The
"your place is to listen" rhetoric, in which claims regarding individual
experience trump data, but only when those claims are made by individuals
from a "marginalized" group, cannot possibly be compatible with Dewey's
approach.






---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician
U.S. Marine Corps


On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 11:28 PM, Eric Smith  wrote:

> Thank you for forwarding this Owen,
>
> I didn’t receive the original.
>
> > So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I
> think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to
> problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the
> elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if
> we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully,
> investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the
> time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over
> last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan
> position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter;
> there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever
> means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is
> won.”
> >
> > So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that
> he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win.
>
> Nick, with the little clipping (done above) of what felt to me like a
> digression within this gem, it seems to me perfect.  It is the return to a
> clear focus on the center of the problem that I have been looking for and
> not been able to express.
>
> The thing is (acknowledging Marcus’s replies also, and the ensuing
> discussion of the scoping of the claim):
>
> 1. Regarding trump itself, I don’t care about it except as I would care if
> someone told me a vial of Marburg virus had been spilled on the kitchen
> floor.  I would feel a sense of urgency to get a strong disinfectant to try
> somehow to scrub it out.  If I felt I couldn’t get rid of it short of
> cutting out and replacing a part of the floor, that would be within bounds
> of the discussion.  etc. at that level. I care a little more about several
> of the craven rats in the congress, enough to be angry at them, but again
> they can go into the autoclave with my blessing, and not much more interest
> than that.   (I believe this is what the NYT editorial called the
> dehumanizing motive of contempt, and argued is a bad choice; it feels to me
> like they have more than earned the category on their own.)
>
> 2. But I read Nick as saying that The Problem, and the central
> accomplishment of the Right, has been to install this shift in position as
> a feature of the population and whatever one calls the “culture” of this
> (and probably several other) nation(s).  That is what worries me, and
> drives a sense of urgency to fix a problem I do not know how to fix because
> I don’t understand how it can exist, much less be ascendent or robust.
> It’s not the same as losing piety or losing god (loss of mere cultural
> luxuries), to lose the sense of factual truth as somet

Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

2017-01-28 Thread Nick Thompson
Gary,

 

I would not like to be the helium drone trying to stay in one spot in a 120 
knot jet stream,

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

  
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 6:47 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

 

I don't have much experience with the GEO providers, e.g. Hughes, but I seem to 
remember that the minimum latency of about a quarter second round trip imposed 
by the speed of light makes them very unpleasant to use for VOIP, otherwise 
they are okay. Still, fiber is so much cheaper up until the "last mile" (in 
urban areas), which more or less equates with the "last ten miles" in rural 
areas. I have the impression that a lot of highways have fiber optic along 
them, as the easements are already in place and they connect urban areas 
capable of using the bandwidth from the fiber. But many rural roads extend for 
many miles or tens of miles, with a few houses widely scattered along them, so 
the cost of fiber is harder to justify there. On flat land, microwave works 
very well with little investment in towers, but the hillier the land is, the 
more towers and repeaters are necessary. So something like Facebook's drone 
idea seems quite attractive: use the drones as if they were extremely high 
towers, capable of relaying signal from fiber optic connections along the 
highways down to those widely scattered rural houses. One of the problems is 
keeping the antennas aligned, since the airfoil-design drones need to keep 
moving to stay in the air. I wonder if they have looked at using helium 
balloons for the lift, and only use drone technology to stabilize them. That 
should work if the wind is minimal at extremely high altitudes.

 

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 7:06 PM, Marcus Daniels mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com> > wrote:

Perhaps a hybrid GEO/LEO could be made?   The bandwidths are not bad for the 
existing satellite internet solutions.

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com 
 ] On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 11:55 AM


To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group mailto:friam@redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

 

That's cool, but this type of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites seem to me more 
sutible for ubiquitous low bandwidth communication, e.g. satellite phones. I 
don't know how well it would scale - for example, I doubt that millions of 
people could simultaneously get their full megabit from a small LEO 
constellation. One alternative that looks intriguing to me is Facebook's Aquila 
drone, that flies at about 20km altitude - still low enough for microwave 
broadband communication, but high enough to avoid commercial air traffic.

 

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 1:32 PM, Marcus Daniels mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com> > wrote:

Space X just launched the first 10 (of 70) of Iridium NEXT low-earth satellites.

 

https://www.iridium.com/company/industryleadership/iridiumcertus

 

It’s not high bandwidth (about a 1MB/sec), but should be lower latency than 
HughesNet, Wildblue, etc.

 

From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> > on 
behalf of Nick Thompson mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net> >
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group mailto:friam@redfish.com> >
Date: Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:13 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' mailto:friam@redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

 

No BroadBand at my farm in Central Massachusetts.  Awaiting Gary’s 
International Assistance.  Remember a few years back when Venezuela was 
supplying cut-rate oil to low income people in New England?  

 

Just Sayin’  

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

  
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com 
 ] On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 10:43 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group mailto:friam@redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

 

I have been working here in Ecuador to provide internet access to poorly served 
areas, and it is a challenge, albiet not an insurmountable one. Wireless 
technology from smallish companies like Ubiquiti, Mikrotik, and Mimosa to name 
a few, is pretty inexpensive, even here where import duties are high. The big 
challenge where I'm working is getting line-of-sight between nodes, where there 
is a lot of dense forest cover over 20 meters high.

 

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Steven A Smith

Pamela -

Not to be (overly) ornery, but I *do* think that *an* Internet (global 
digital communications network) was inevitable without Gov't investment 
directly in *the Internet*...  There were a plethora of online 
communities managed roughly as bulletin board services, the Whole Earth 
'Lectronic LInk (WELL)being one of the more notable ones at the time.  
Some had begun to cross link... a sea of "star" networks beginning to 
link up.  The academic (mostly) Unix-to-Unix (UUNET) network was another 
self-organizing, multi-scale network which could have blossomed more on 
it's own had it not been subsumed into "Al Gore's Internet".   ARPA and 
NSF nets (as I remember it anecdotally) provided a lot of the more 
robust backboning, one end of the power-law distribution of services 
which DID accelerate full connectivity and high performance to a broader 
audience.


But I *do* think your point about (many) Libertarians and others 
*taking* from the commons without acknowledging their debt to it in word 
OR deed, is well taken.   I don't know if anyone has developed answers 
for "the Tragedy of the Commons", but it seems like a pattern to inspect 
and address in any case.


I also agree that the SHAPE of our computer technology may REFLECT our 
narcissism as much as DRIVE it.  As much as I love and respect the 
political and social progress of the 60's, there came a second wave of 
Narcissism on top of that which started (I think) with the boom of post 
WWII industry and a consumer economy.   It took 50+ years to reach the 
untenable state we are in today.


- Steve


On 1/28/17 4:53 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:
Before we blame any particular technology for what seems like an 
epidemic of narcissism, we ought to remember that the 80s—or was it 
the 70s?—were widely known as the Me Decade. Either way, long before 
social media.


I’m always deeply amused by the libertarians who tell us how wicked 
government interference is at exactly the time they’re making their 
plush livings off a technology that wouldn’t have existed without 
decades (the fifties, the sixties, the seventies) of government 
investment. Would the Internet have happened anyway? Hard to imagine 
private investors sitting still for an investment that wouldn’t pay 
off for almost half a century.


So, drifting afar from a reality base isn’t unknown in Silly Valley.


On Jan 28, 2017, at 2:31 PM, Nick Thompson 
mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>> wrote:


Steve –
Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to 
the narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there 
anything that participants in the computer industry could do tip the 
world back toward a fact-based attractor?
If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting 
that barfight might be your highest and best use.  Let me know which 
bar you are going to, so I can come and watch.

But I think the question is yes.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 

*From:*Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com]*On Behalf Of*Steven A 
Smith

*Sent:*Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
*To:*The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
mailto:friam@redfish.com>>

*Subject:*Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]
Toolkit? This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once 
resembled sharp tools and useful fasteners?


I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a 
month (and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately 
and the cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate 
would (eventually) drop below a certain threshold.


Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful 
conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  
we might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with 
something more human (maybe still a form of populism, but not 
nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).


If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to 
hurt *our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt 
(or in some twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then 
only consider how our personal context would be effected in turn by 
the larger context (is a happier, healthier, more informed society 
good or bad for you and your family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get 
more government services and be afforded less expensive access to 
other resources nominally part of the commons?)


et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my 
own advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,

 - Steve


Ok Steve,
The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.
I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do 
with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop 
calling new produc

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Steven A Smith

Nick -

I know I don't always seem to take your questions seriously, but I 
generally do.


I DO think the computer industry HAS effectively contributed to a 
certain kind of isolation.  On the other hand, here we are, most of us 
able to participate in a complex discussion, halfway around the world 
from one another (or not), many of us unable/unwilling to actually 
*attend* the Mother Church as it were (FriAM coffee klatch) because of 
computer technology.  But  again on the first hand, we sit around in 
coffee shops ignoring one another while chatting with friends or 
colleagues 7 time zones away?!


I believe that every form of technological "leverage" follows the 
metaphor at least far enough to include the "loss of sensitivity" on the 
strong-end of the lever.  Sure, with the right lever, you can heave a 1 
ton boulder, but can you gently tweak the last 12 ounces of force to 
*gently* move it off equilibrium?   So I'm not sure HOW to maintain 
sensitivity in the context of such high leverage.  The age of 
Transportation, Communications, etc. Brought huge societal problems 
which have either leveled out, or sadly, more likely, normalized.


As for the barfight, I'll let you know... and just fair warning, if you 
take wagers, put your money on *the other guy*, I might be scrappy, but 
about all I have going for me any more is mass, the ability to take a 
beating, and a willingness to gouge eyes when required.


- Steve


On 1/28/17 2:31 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:


Steve –

Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to the 
narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there anything 
that participants in the computer industry could do tip the world back 
toward a fact-based attractor?


If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting 
that barfight might be your highest and best use. Let me know which 
bar you are going to, so I can come and watch.


But I think the question is yes.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 



*From:*Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Steven 
A Smith

*Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 


*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once 
resembled sharp tools and useful fasteners?


I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a 
month (and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately 
and the cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate 
would (eventually) drop below a certain threshold.


Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful 
conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  
we might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with 
something more human (maybe still a form of populism, but not 
nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).


If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to 
hurt *our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt 
(or in some twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then 
only consider how our personal context would be effected in turn by 
the larger context (is a happier, healthier, more informed society 
good or bad for you and your family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get 
more government services and be afforded less expensive access to 
other resources nominally part of the commons?)


et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own 
advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,

 - Steve

Ok Steve,

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do
with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop
calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going
to release the WE-phone.

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


*From:*Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of
*Steven A Smith
*Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
 
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]




What can WE hobbits do?

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the
Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of
our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Steven A Smith

Gary -
There is a lot of gray area between standing up for principles 
(openness to new ideas, value of science and education, respect for 
rights of those with whom you disagree) and holier-than-thou 
self-righteousness, which is what I believe the "country folk" see as 
"elite". Step too far into that gray area and you get shot down, 
perhaps justifiably so.
I suppose the key for me is that I feel a lot less responsible for 
worrying about these yokels "feelings" when I feel like part of the 
underclass than I do when I feel like part of the overclass (elites?).  
Not all ARE yokels in the colloquial sense and by many measures *I* am a 
big yokel myself... but you get the drift.  Oddly the (not so) loyal 
opposition doesn't seem to have any such principles, they seem too often 
to be "kick em while they are down" types, which allows me a bit of 
satisfaction in "kicking THEM while *I* am down" or perhaps more aptly, 
"kicking back".   The satisfaction, I suppose, of standing up to a bully.


But the risk of this is always "becoming the bully".  In my former life 
as a libertarian/conservative, I felt that "liberal elites" WERE being 
bullies themselves, and by golly I still often feel that way.  I think 
for example, that Hillary and the DNC bullied their way over the top of 
Bernie and Jill, both of whom ARE pretty aligned with the DNC's espoused 
principles.   But compared to their opposition, they are pretty mild, is 
the point.


Steve, I haven't looked much at mesh networking, but it looks like 
nodes need to be within hundreds of meters of each other, which is 
definitely not my use case. And the Mesh Potato stuff seems to be 
mostly for voice, not IP. If we want to discuss this more, it would 
probably be better suited for a new topic on WedTech.
Sure, or we can take it offline.   I think I brought it up on WedTech 
over a year ago when I was working it actively and didn't hear any 
interest.   This class of mesh *does* require fairly close proximity, 
but rather than hang, for example, a dozen Ubiquiti links on a dozen 
households in an "island", one would backbone in with one or two and 
then mesh out from there.   It is also about community building and 
being good neighbors.  The fundamental tech IS IP, with VOIP on top, 
they just make the VOIP very easy and very transparent and in some 
contexts that is the main thing needed by the folks using it.


- Steve


On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 3:53 PM, Steven A Smith > wrote:


Gary -

I don't know if this is my own narcissistic self-indulgence, but
as a one-time conservative (libertarian?) I am now so very aligned
with the left *by* the rise of the right  such that I feel deeply
and passionately offended by this right-wing populism that is
sweeping us.   I feel more self-rightous about it than I ever
have.  Having them take power so roughly and rudely and against
their own self-interest has triggered me in a way that reminds me
of the way so many former smokers become virulently intolerant of
smoking.

I am trying to heed the warning of not losing to my enemy by
becoming him... by falling into the trap of thinking the only way
to defend against hate is with hate, the seduction of fighting
fire with fire.

But I do feel a certain sanctimonious pleasure in stepping up nose
to nose with virtually every Trumpian in my circle and daring them
to try to do a victory dance on my head or the heads of those I
care about or identify with.I have never enjoyed the role of
the underdog quite so acutely before... it has a certain
deliciousness to it.  I am responding with a very calm but firm NO
to virtually every aspect of their agenda, most especially
xenophobia, misogyny, misecology, and extractive/extortive
capitalism.

I believe *we* can be an overwhelmingly powerful "silent majority"
in these times if we stand firm behind our beliefs (as varied in
quality and degree as they may be).

- Steve

PS.  have you looked at the world of Mesh Potato for 3rd world
networking?  I am vaguely set to bring that class of technology to
my colleagues in Panama and in Kenya when the time is ripe.


On 1/28/17 1:18 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote:

I agree that we shouldn't have to feign interest in others'
interests. I'm not ready to pretend to like country music, go to
church, praise military adventures that I don't agree with, tell
gays they are going to hell and that god will heal them. At the
same time, I don't see how it is productive to make fun of
peoples' faith and cultural tastes, although I've been plenty
guilty of that myself, feeding my own ego. Liberals can be just
as intolerant as conservatives, and we will only make progress
when we start to respect other peoples' views. Sometimes that
just means sitting quietly and not responding.

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Marcus Danie

Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

2017-01-28 Thread Roger Critchlow
Ah, here's a way to throw sand in the gears:


http://www.npr.org/2017/01/28/512096744/as-trump-reboots-pipeline-expansion-an-unexpected-delay-emerges

The FERC has to approve interstate pipelines and energy transfer
infrastructure.  It was down to 3 of 5 members when Trump elevated one of
the existing members to be the new chair, so one of the other members
promptly resigned.  (in a snit? can't tell).  The commission no longer has
a quorum to do its business, and it could take months to get a new member
appointed and approved by the senate.  Who knows how long it could take if
someone put their mind to it.

I wonder how many other federal commissions might be similarly poised to
grind to a halt?

-- rec --


On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 9:26 PM, Roger Critchlow  wrote:

> https://x.company/loon/
>
> -- rec --
>
> On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 8:46 PM, Gary Schiltz 
> wrote:
>
>> I don't have much experience with the GEO providers, e.g. Hughes, but I
>> seem to remember that the minimum latency of about a quarter second round
>> trip imposed by the speed of light makes them very unpleasant to use for
>> VOIP, otherwise they are okay. Still, fiber is so much cheaper up until the
>> "last mile" (in urban areas), which more or less equates with the "last ten
>> miles" in rural areas. I have the impression that a lot of highways have
>> fiber optic along them, as the easements are already in place and they
>> connect urban areas capable of using the bandwidth from the fiber. But many
>> rural roads extend for many miles or tens of miles, with a few houses
>> widely scattered along them, so the cost of fiber is harder to justify
>> there. On flat land, microwave works very well with little investment in
>> towers, but the hillier the land is, the more towers and repeaters are
>> necessary. So something like Facebook's drone idea seems quite attractive:
>> use the drones as if they were extremely high towers, capable of relaying
>> signal from fiber optic connections along the highways down to those widely
>> scattered rural houses. One of the problems is keeping the antennas
>> aligned, since the airfoil-design drones need to keep moving to stay in the
>> air. I wonder if they have looked at using helium balloons for the lift,
>> and only use drone technology to stabilize them. That should work if the
>> wind is minimal at extremely high altitudes.
>>
>> On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 7:06 PM, Marcus Daniels 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Perhaps a hybrid GEO/LEO could be made?   The bandwidths are not bad for
>>> the existing satellite internet solutions.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Gary
>>> Schiltz
>>> *Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 11:55 AM
>>>
>>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>>> friam@redfish.com>
>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> That's cool, but this type of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites seem to
>>> me more sutible for ubiquitous low bandwidth communication, e.g. satellite
>>> phones. I don't know how well it would scale - for example, I doubt that
>>> millions of people could simultaneously get their full megabit from a small
>>> LEO constellation. One alternative that looks intriguing to me is
>>> Facebook's Aquila drone, that flies at about 20km altitude - still low
>>> enough for microwave broadband communication, but high enough to avoid
>>> commercial air traffic.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 1:32 PM, Marcus Daniels 
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Space X just launched the first 10 (of 70) of Iridium NEXT low-earth
>>> satellites.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> https://www.iridium.com/company/industryleadership/iridiumcertus
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It’s not high bandwidth (about a 1MB/sec), but should be lower latency
>>> than HughesNet, Wildblue, etc.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From: *Friam  on behalf of Nick Thompson <
>>> nickthomp...@earthlink.net>
>>> *Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>>> friam@redfish.com>
>>> *Date: *Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:13 AM
>>> *To: *'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <
>>> friam@redfish.com>
>>> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> No BroadBand at my farm in Central Massachusetts.  Awaiting Gary’s
>>> International Assistance.  Remember a few years back when Venezuela was
>>> supplying cut-rate oil to low income people in New England?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Just Sayin’
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Nick
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>>
>>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>>>
>>> Clark University
>>>
>>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Gary
>>> Schiltz
>>> *Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 10:43 AM
>>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>>> friam@redfish.com>
>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I have been working here in Ecua

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Grant Holland

Pamela,

Good points. The arrangement in the US is apparently that the government 
(NSF-sponsored funding, universities, labs. etc.) performs basic 
research so that industry does not have to foot that bill or take that 
risk. Then private industry does the lower risk "applied research" to 
put products into the market.


For those who see this ploy as not exactly "capitalism as advertised", 
but rather a highly subsidized machine - I would say that you are 
connecting the dots properly.


Grant


On 1/28/17 4:53 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:
Before we blame any particular technology for what seems like an 
epidemic of narcissism, we ought to remember that the 80s—or was it 
the 70s?—were widely known as the Me Decade. Either way, long before 
social media.


I’m always deeply amused by the libertarians who tell us how wicked 
government interference is at exactly the time they’re making their 
plush livings off a technology that wouldn’t have existed without 
decades (the fifties, the sixties, the seventies) of government 
investment. Would the Internet have happened anyway? Hard to imagine 
private investors sitting still for an investment that wouldn’t pay 
off for almost half a century.


So, drifting afar from a reality base isn’t unknown in Silly Valley.


On Jan 28, 2017, at 2:31 PM, Nick Thompson 
mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>> wrote:


Steve –
Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to 
the narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there 
anything that participants in the computer industry could do tip the 
world back toward a fact-based attractor?
If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting 
that barfight might be your highest and best use.  Let me know which 
bar you are going to, so I can come and watch.

But I think the question is yes.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 

*From:*Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com]*On Behalf Of*Steven A 
Smith

*Sent:*Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
*To:*The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
mailto:friam@redfish.com>>

*Subject:*Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]
Toolkit? This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once 
resembled sharp tools and useful fasteners?


I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a 
month (and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately 
and the cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate 
would (eventually) drop below a certain threshold.


Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful 
conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  
we might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with 
something more human (maybe still a form of populism, but not 
nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).


If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to 
hurt *our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt 
(or in some twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then 
only consider how our personal context would be effected in turn by 
the larger context (is a happier, healthier, more informed society 
good or bad for you and your family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get 
more government services and be afforded less expensive access to 
other resources nominally part of the commons?)


et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my 
own advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,

 - Steve


Ok Steve,
The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.
I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do 
with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop 
calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to 
release the WE-phone.

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 

*From:*Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com]*On Behalf Of*Steven 
A Smith

*Sent:*Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
*To:*The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee 
Group 

*Subject:*Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]




What can WE hobbits do?

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the 
Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our 
own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a 
little, it will help with the greater picture.


- Candide



Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/natura

Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

2017-01-28 Thread Roger Critchlow
https://x.company/loon/

-- rec --

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 8:46 PM, Gary Schiltz 
wrote:

> I don't have much experience with the GEO providers, e.g. Hughes, but I
> seem to remember that the minimum latency of about a quarter second round
> trip imposed by the speed of light makes them very unpleasant to use for
> VOIP, otherwise they are okay. Still, fiber is so much cheaper up until the
> "last mile" (in urban areas), which more or less equates with the "last ten
> miles" in rural areas. I have the impression that a lot of highways have
> fiber optic along them, as the easements are already in place and they
> connect urban areas capable of using the bandwidth from the fiber. But many
> rural roads extend for many miles or tens of miles, with a few houses
> widely scattered along them, so the cost of fiber is harder to justify
> there. On flat land, microwave works very well with little investment in
> towers, but the hillier the land is, the more towers and repeaters are
> necessary. So something like Facebook's drone idea seems quite attractive:
> use the drones as if they were extremely high towers, capable of relaying
> signal from fiber optic connections along the highways down to those widely
> scattered rural houses. One of the problems is keeping the antennas
> aligned, since the airfoil-design drones need to keep moving to stay in the
> air. I wonder if they have looked at using helium balloons for the lift,
> and only use drone technology to stabilize them. That should work if the
> wind is minimal at extremely high altitudes.
>
> On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 7:06 PM, Marcus Daniels 
> wrote:
>
>> Perhaps a hybrid GEO/LEO could be made?   The bandwidths are not bad for
>> the existing satellite internet solutions.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Gary
>> Schiltz
>> *Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 11:55 AM
>>
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam@redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again
>>
>>
>>
>> That's cool, but this type of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites seem to me
>> more sutible for ubiquitous low bandwidth communication, e.g. satellite
>> phones. I don't know how well it would scale - for example, I doubt that
>> millions of people could simultaneously get their full megabit from a small
>> LEO constellation. One alternative that looks intriguing to me is
>> Facebook's Aquila drone, that flies at about 20km altitude - still low
>> enough for microwave broadband communication, but high enough to avoid
>> commercial air traffic.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 1:32 PM, Marcus Daniels 
>> wrote:
>>
>> Space X just launched the first 10 (of 70) of Iridium NEXT low-earth
>> satellites.
>>
>>
>>
>> https://www.iridium.com/company/industryleadership/iridiumcertus
>>
>>
>>
>> It’s not high bandwidth (about a 1MB/sec), but should be lower latency
>> than HughesNet, Wildblue, etc.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From: *Friam  on behalf of Nick Thompson <
>> nickthomp...@earthlink.net>
>> *Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam@redfish.com>
>> *Date: *Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:13 AM
>> *To: *'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <
>> friam@redfish.com>
>> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again
>>
>>
>>
>> No BroadBand at my farm in Central Massachusetts.  Awaiting Gary’s
>> International Assistance.  Remember a few years back when Venezuela was
>> supplying cut-rate oil to low income people in New England?
>>
>>
>>
>> Just Sayin’
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Gary
>> Schiltz
>> *Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 10:43 AM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam@redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again
>>
>>
>>
>> I have been working here in Ecuador to provide internet access to poorly
>> served areas, and it is a challenge, albiet not an insurmountable one.
>> Wireless technology from smallish companies like Ubiquiti, Mikrotik, and
>> Mimosa to name a few, is pretty inexpensive, even here where import duties
>> are high. The big challenge where I'm working is getting line-of-sight
>> between nodes, where there is a lot of dense forest cover over 20 meters
>> high.
>>
>>
>>
>> One thing that I found interesting in the article that Jochen linked to
>> is that the US FCC defines broadband as 25mbps down / 3mbps up. Maybe I'm
>> just used to it, but I find about 2up/1down plenty even for video
>> streaming. More is always better, of course :-)
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Owen Densmore 
>> wrote:
>>
>> Santa Fe, and New Mexico in general, is interesting in that regard.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> But then there is a lot of t

Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

2017-01-28 Thread Gary Schiltz
I don't have much experience with the GEO providers, e.g. Hughes, but I
seem to remember that the minimum latency of about a quarter second round
trip imposed by the speed of light makes them very unpleasant to use for
VOIP, otherwise they are okay. Still, fiber is so much cheaper up until the
"last mile" (in urban areas), which more or less equates with the "last ten
miles" in rural areas. I have the impression that a lot of highways have
fiber optic along them, as the easements are already in place and they
connect urban areas capable of using the bandwidth from the fiber. But many
rural roads extend for many miles or tens of miles, with a few houses
widely scattered along them, so the cost of fiber is harder to justify
there. On flat land, microwave works very well with little investment in
towers, but the hillier the land is, the more towers and repeaters are
necessary. So something like Facebook's drone idea seems quite attractive:
use the drones as if they were extremely high towers, capable of relaying
signal from fiber optic connections along the highways down to those widely
scattered rural houses. One of the problems is keeping the antennas
aligned, since the airfoil-design drones need to keep moving to stay in the
air. I wonder if they have looked at using helium balloons for the lift,
and only use drone technology to stabilize them. That should work if the
wind is minimal at extremely high altitudes.

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 7:06 PM, Marcus Daniels 
wrote:

> Perhaps a hybrid GEO/LEO could be made?   The bandwidths are not bad for
> the existing satellite internet solutions.
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Gary
> Schiltz
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 11:55 AM
>
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again
>
>
>
> That's cool, but this type of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites seem to me
> more sutible for ubiquitous low bandwidth communication, e.g. satellite
> phones. I don't know how well it would scale - for example, I doubt that
> millions of people could simultaneously get their full megabit from a small
> LEO constellation. One alternative that looks intriguing to me is
> Facebook's Aquila drone, that flies at about 20km altitude - still low
> enough for microwave broadband communication, but high enough to avoid
> commercial air traffic.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 1:32 PM, Marcus Daniels 
> wrote:
>
> Space X just launched the first 10 (of 70) of Iridium NEXT low-earth
> satellites.
>
>
>
> https://www.iridium.com/company/industryleadership/iridiumcertus
>
>
>
> It’s not high bandwidth (about a 1MB/sec), but should be lower latency
> than HughesNet, Wildblue, etc.
>
>
>
> *From: *Friam  on behalf of Nick Thompson <
> nickthomp...@earthlink.net>
> *Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Date: *Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:13 AM
> *To: *'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again
>
>
>
> No BroadBand at my farm in Central Massachusetts.  Awaiting Gary’s
> International Assistance.  Remember a few years back when Venezuela was
> supplying cut-rate oil to low income people in New England?
>
>
>
> Just Sayin’
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Gary
> Schiltz
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 10:43 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again
>
>
>
> I have been working here in Ecuador to provide internet access to poorly
> served areas, and it is a challenge, albiet not an insurmountable one.
> Wireless technology from smallish companies like Ubiquiti, Mikrotik, and
> Mimosa to name a few, is pretty inexpensive, even here where import duties
> are high. The big challenge where I'm working is getting line-of-sight
> between nodes, where there is a lot of dense forest cover over 20 meters
> high.
>
>
>
> One thing that I found interesting in the article that Jochen linked to is
> that the US FCC defines broadband as 25mbps down / 3mbps up. Maybe I'm just
> used to it, but I find about 2up/1down plenty even for video streaming.
> More is always better, of course :-)
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Owen Densmore 
> wrote:
>
> Santa Fe, and New Mexico in general, is interesting in that regard.
>
> [...]
>
> But then there is a lot of the countryside that is left out of this. I
> really like the idea of making the Country(side) important. In NM there
> issues with the tribal lands which are poorly served, but it's getting
> better.
>
>
> ===

Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

2017-01-28 Thread Marcus Daniels
Perhaps a hybrid GEO/LEO could be made?   The bandwidths are not bad for the 
existing satellite internet solutions.

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 11:55 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

That's cool, but this type of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites seem to me more 
sutible for ubiquitous low bandwidth communication, e.g. satellite phones. I 
don't know how well it would scale - for example, I doubt that millions of 
people could simultaneously get their full megabit from a small LEO 
constellation. One alternative that looks intriguing to me is Facebook's Aquila 
drone, that flies at about 20km altitude - still low enough for microwave 
broadband communication, but high enough to avoid commercial air traffic.

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 1:32 PM, Marcus Daniels 
mailto:mar...@snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
Space X just launched the first 10 (of 70) of Iridium NEXT low-earth satellites.

https://www.iridium.com/company/industryleadership/iridiumcertus

It’s not high bandwidth (about a 1MB/sec), but should be lower latency than 
HughesNet, Wildblue, etc.

From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> on 
behalf of Nick Thompson 
mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
Date: Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:13 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' 
mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

No BroadBand at my farm in Central Massachusetts.  Awaiting Gary’s 
International Assistance.  Remember a few years back when Venezuela was 
supplying cut-rate oil to low income people in New England?

Just Sayin’

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam 
[mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf 
Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 10:43 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

I have been working here in Ecuador to provide internet access to poorly served 
areas, and it is a challenge, albiet not an insurmountable one. Wireless 
technology from smallish companies like Ubiquiti, Mikrotik, and Mimosa to name 
a few, is pretty inexpensive, even here where import duties are high. The big 
challenge where I'm working is getting line-of-sight between nodes, where there 
is a lot of dense forest cover over 20 meters high.

One thing that I found interesting in the article that Jochen linked to is that 
the US FCC defines broadband as 25mbps down / 3mbps up. Maybe I'm just used to 
it, but I find about 2up/1down plenty even for video streaming. More is always 
better, of course :-)

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Owen Densmore 
mailto:o...@backspaces.net>> wrote:
Santa Fe, and New Mexico in general, is interesting in that regard.
[...]
But then there is a lot of the countryside that is left out of this. I really 
like the idea of making the Country(side) important. In NM there issues with 
the tribal lands which are poorly served, but it's getting better.


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
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Marcus Daniels
< So, the question is , “Should we do what we can do, no matter how lame or 
ineffectual it might seem?”  Or, should we pull back, “move to Spain’, and 
leave it to others, “the politicians”, to lower themselves to do what needs to 
be done.  >

Andrés asserts it is not populism by another means.  It seems to me to be that. 
 I am not advocating leaving the country.  I am questioning him based on the 
fact he did leave just how sincere is he about living with his fellow man.   It 
sounds to me like he may have, or at least want to present, a romantic view of 
his Venezuelan homeland, and that it is easier to maintain from a safe distance 
in Europe.  That said, I don’t judge him for leaving nor U.S. citizens for 
leaving.

I don’t think this is solved by creating solidarity with witting vandals of 
this country.  That is BS.  This is solved by showing that BS doesn’t work.   
To me, that means create a cost for the vandals.   Polarize sufficiently to 
create a clear political identity and purpose – identify the enemy and identify 
the cause.   To you, it may mean counsel the vandals and lead them to 
contrition.  Or it could mean to incentivize them to do other things than 
vandalism.

“When they came for the immigrants, I didn’t do anything because I was not an 
immigrant”  etc.

If there is a better organization to support than the ACLU for litigating these 
insane executive orders, please let me know.

Another idea is to map out the Trump-friendly churches and reach them through 
soft techniques.  For example, if church A is more conservative to church B, 
but they are similar, a political action organization could financially support 
people (e.g. pastors) at church B to give talks to congregation A that are 
fact-based and show the reality of Trump’s policies on children or other 
sympathetic victims.   Pastors at small churches are not paid very well, so 
having a travel budget and training opportunities could help them 
professionally.

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-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Pamela McCorduck
Before we blame any particular technology for what seems like an epidemic of 
narcissism, we ought to remember that the 80s—or was it the 70s?—were widely 
known as the Me Decade. Either way, long before social media.

I’m always deeply amused by the libertarians who tell us how wicked government 
interference is at exactly the time they’re making their plush livings off a 
technology that wouldn’t have existed without decades (the fifties, the 
sixties, the seventies) of government investment. Would the Internet have 
happened anyway? Hard to imagine private investors sitting still for an 
investment that wouldn’t pay off for almost half a century.

So, drifting afar from a reality base isn’t unknown in Silly Valley.


> On Jan 28, 2017, at 2:31 PM, Nick Thompson  wrote:
> 
> Steve –
>  
> Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to the 
> narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there anything that 
> participants in the computer industry could do tip the world back toward a 
> fact-based attractor?  
>  
> If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting that 
> barfight might be your highest and best use.  Let me know which bar you are 
> going to, so I can come and watch.  
>  
> But I think the question is yes. 
>  
> Nick 
>  
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
> Clark University
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 
> 
>  
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com 
> ] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
> Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  >
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]
>  
> Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once resembled 
> sharp tools and useful fasteners?   
> 
> I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a month 
> (and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately and the 
> cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate would 
> (eventually) drop below a certain threshold.  
> 
> Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful 
> conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  we might 
> reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with something more human 
> (maybe still a form of populism, but not 
> nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).
> 
> If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to hurt 
> *our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt (or in some 
> twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then only consider how 
> our personal context would be effected in turn by the larger context (is a 
> happier, healthier, more informed society good or bad for you and your 
> family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get more government services and be 
> afforded less expensive access to other resources nominally part of the 
> commons?)  
> 
> et cetera, ad nauseum
> 
> I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own advice 
> and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,
>  - Steve
> 
>> Ok Steve, 
>>  
>> The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge. 
>>  
>> I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my 
>> limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new 
>> products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the 
>> WE-phone.  
>>  
>> You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!
>>  
>> Nick 
>>  
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>> Clark University
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 
>> 
>>  
>> From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com 
>> ] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
>> Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  
>> 
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]
>>  
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> What can WE hobbits do? 
>> Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?
>> 
>> Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist 
>> in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst 
>> qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will 
>> help with the greater picture.   
>> 
>> - Candide
>> 
>> 
>>>  
>>> Nick 
>>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>>> Clark University
>>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 
>>> 
>>>  
>>> From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com 
>>> ] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
>>> Sent: Saturday, January 28

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Nick Thompson
Steve -

 

Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to the
narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there anything that
participants in the computer industry could do tip the world back toward a
fact-based attractor?  

 

If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting that
barfight might be your highest and best use.  Let me know which bar you are
going to, so I can come and watch.  

 

But I think the question is yes. 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once resembled
sharp tools and useful fasteners?   

I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a month
(and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately and the
cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate would
(eventually) drop below a certain threshold.  

Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful
conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  we
might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with something more
human (maybe still a form of populism, but not
nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).

If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to hurt
*our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt (or in some
twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then only consider how
our personal context would be effected in turn by the larger context (is a
happier, healthier, more informed society good or bad for you and your
family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get more government services and be
afforded less expensive access to other resources nominally part of the
commons?)  

et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own
advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,
 - Steve



Ok Steve, 

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge. 

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my
limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new
products "I-this" and "I-that."  When are they going to release the
WE-phone.  

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 






What can WE hobbits do? 

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist
in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst
qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will
help with the greater picture.   

- Candide




 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
 ; Friam
 
Cc: penny thompson  
; 'Bruce Simon'  
; 'Dix McComas'  
; 'Grant Franks'  

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump's point of view is "Whatever I can win with is true."  And
if he wins with what we call "a lie", it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful
protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the
rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really
refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike
back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that
beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits
that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the
Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys
who suppo

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Gary Schiltz
There is a lot of gray area between standing up for principles (openness to
new ideas, value of science and education, respect for rights of those with
whom you disagree) and holier-than-thou self-righteousness, which is what I
believe the "country folk" see as "elite". Step too far into that gray area
and you get shot down, perhaps justifiably so.

Steve, I haven't looked much at mesh networking, but it looks like nodes
need to be within hundreds of meters of each other, which is definitely not
my use case. And the Mesh Potato stuff seems to be mostly for voice, not
IP. If we want to discuss this more, it would probably be better suited for
a new topic on WedTech.

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 3:53 PM, Steven A Smith  wrote:

> Gary -
>
> I don't know if this is my own narcissistic self-indulgence, but as a
> one-time conservative (libertarian?) I am now so very aligned with the left
> *by* the rise of the right  such that I feel deeply and passionately
> offended by this right-wing populism that is sweeping us.   I feel more
> self-rightous about it than I ever have.  Having them take power so roughly
> and rudely and against their own self-interest has triggered me in a way
> that reminds me of the way so many former smokers become virulently
> intolerant of smoking.
>
> I am trying to heed the warning of not losing to my enemy by becoming
> him... by falling into the trap of thinking the only way to defend against
> hate is with hate, the seduction of fighting fire with fire.
>
> But I do feel a certain sanctimonious pleasure in stepping up nose to nose
> with virtually every Trumpian in my circle and daring them to try to do a
> victory dance on my head or the heads of those I care about or identify
> with.I have never enjoyed the role of the underdog quite so acutely
> before... it has a certain deliciousness to it.  I am responding with a
> very calm but firm NO to virtually every aspect of their agenda, most
> especially xenophobia, misogyny, misecology, and extractive/extortive
> capitalism.
>
> I believe *we* can be an overwhelmingly powerful "silent majority" in
> these times if we stand firm behind our beliefs (as varied in quality and
> degree as they may be).
>
> - Steve
>
> PS.  have you looked at the world of Mesh Potato for 3rd world
> networking?  I am vaguely set to bring that class of technology to my
> colleagues in Panama and in Kenya when the time is ripe.
>
> On 1/28/17 1:18 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote:
>
> I agree that we shouldn't have to feign interest in others' interests. I'm
> not ready to pretend to like country music, go to church, praise military
> adventures that I don't agree with, tell gays they are going to hell and
> that god will heal them. At the same time, I don't see how it is productive
> to make fun of peoples' faith and cultural tastes, although I've been
> plenty guilty of that myself, feeding my own ego. Liberals can be just as
> intolerant as conservatives, and we will only make progress when we start
> to respect other peoples' views. Sometimes that just means sitting quietly
> and not responding.
>
> On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Marcus Daniels 
> wrote:
>
>> Well, I find this article depressing but plausible.  Specifically,
>>
>>
>>
>> Andrés Miguel Rondón writes:
>>
>>
>>
>> “But it took opposition leaders 10 years to figure out that they needed
>> to actually go to the slums and the countryside
>> . Not for a speech
>> or a rally, but for a game of dominoes or to dance salsa — to show they
>> were Venezuelans, too, that they weren’t just dour scolds and could hit a
>> baseball, could tell a joke that landed. That they could break the tribal
>> divide, come down off the billboards and show that they were real. This is
>> not populism by other means. It is the only way of establishing your
>> standing. It’s deciding not to live in an echo chamber. To press pause on
>> the siren song of polarization.”
>>
>>
>>
>> Figuratively, I don’t want to play dominoes, dance salsa, or play
>> baseball.  I have different interests.   I shouldn’t have to pretend.  They
>> won’t pretend to me, that’s for sure.  This is not about polarization; this
>> is about not wanting to get pulled into that attractor.   We have different
>> lives.  That should be fine.  This is the United States and individualism
>> is kind of a big thing here.
>>
>>
>>
>> Now what politicians and opposition leaders do to manage this problem is
>> a different matter. That is about appearances not reality.
>>
>>
>>
>> Marcus
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From: *Friam  on behalf of "Robert J.
>> Cordingley" 
>> *Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam@redfish.com>
>> *Date: *Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:34 AM
>>
>> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam@redfish.com>
>> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]
>>
>>
>>
>> The Washington Post has an interesting essay from a Venezuelan on what 

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Nick Thompson
Well, Marcus, 

 

So, the question is , “Should we do what we can do, no matter how lame or 
ineffectual it might seem?”  Or, should we pull back, “move to Spain’, and 
leave it to others, “the politicians”, to lower themselves to do what needs to 
be done.  Isn’t this one of the things the Quakers get right:  You don’t worry 
about what others are doing.  You do it right, yourself.  You act as you would 
have others act?  

 

The answer would seem to depend on whether each one of us thinks that he or she 
is going to be touched by this thing.  This is where, I think, my libertarian 
friends (Hi, Guys!) get it wrong.  They think it’s possible to step aside, to 
lift one’s skirts about the flood of muck that is  about to descend upon us -- 
survive it all, listening to jazz (say) and eating canned food in the green 
painted walls of their condo in the depths of their converted missile silo, 
with flat-screen “windows” looking out on the surrounding countryside. 

 

“When they came for the immigrants, I didn’t do anything because I was not an 
immigrant”  etc. 

 

I think we have to figure out what we can do, and begin to do it.  

 

Nick 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

  
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 12:12 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

It is worth noting he’s living in Spain.  

 

From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> > on 
behalf of "Robert J. Cordingley" mailto:rob...@cirrillian.com> >
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group mailto:friam@redfish.com> >
Date: Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:34 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group mailto:friam@redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

The Washington Post has an interesting essay from a Venezuelan on what to do 
and mostly what not to do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did

Robert C

 

 

On 1/28/17 11:21 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Ok Steve, 

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge. 

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my 
limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products 
“I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone.  

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

  
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  
 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 





What can WE hobbits do? 

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in 
Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and 
*perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the 
greater picture.   

- Candide



 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

  
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  
 ; Friam  
 
Cc: penny thompson   
; 'Bruce Simon'   
; 'Dix McComas'   
; 'Grant Franks'   

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if 
he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful 
protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion 
of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who 
would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard 
who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that 
beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that 
beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits 
of the 21st century. T

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Steven A Smith

Gary -

I don't know if this is my own narcissistic self-indulgence, but as a 
one-time conservative (libertarian?) I am now so very aligned with the 
left *by* the rise of the right  such that I feel deeply and 
passionately offended by this right-wing populism that is sweeping us.   
I feel more self-rightous about it than I ever have.  Having them take 
power so roughly and rudely and against their own self-interest has 
triggered me in a way that reminds me of the way so many former smokers 
become virulently intolerant of smoking.


I am trying to heed the warning of not losing to my enemy by becoming 
him... by falling into the trap of thinking the only way to defend 
against hate is with hate, the seduction of fighting fire with fire.


But I do feel a certain sanctimonious pleasure in stepping up nose to 
nose with virtually every Trumpian in my circle and daring them to try 
to do a victory dance on my head or the heads of those I care about or 
identify with.I have never enjoyed the role of the underdog quite so 
acutely before... it has a certain deliciousness to it.  I am responding 
with a very calm but firm NO to virtually every aspect of their agenda, 
most especially xenophobia, misogyny, misecology, and 
extractive/extortive capitalism.


I believe *we* can be an overwhelmingly powerful "silent majority" in 
these times if we stand firm behind our beliefs (as varied in quality 
and degree as they may be).


- Steve

PS.  have you looked at the world of Mesh Potato for 3rd world 
networking?  I am vaguely set to bring that class of technology to my 
colleagues in Panama and in Kenya when the time is ripe.



On 1/28/17 1:18 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote:
I agree that we shouldn't have to feign interest in others' interests. 
I'm not ready to pretend to like country music, go to church, praise 
military adventures that I don't agree with, tell gays they are going 
to hell and that god will heal them. At the same time, I don't see how 
it is productive to make fun of peoples' faith and cultural tastes, 
although I've been plenty guilty of that myself, feeding my own ego. 
Liberals can be just as intolerant as conservatives, and we will only 
make progress when we start to respect other peoples' views. Sometimes 
that just means sitting quietly and not responding.


On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Marcus Daniels > wrote:


Well, I find this article depressing but plausible. Specifically,

Andrés Miguel Rondón writes:

“But it took opposition leaders 10 years to figure out that they
needed to actually go to the slums and the countryside
. Not for a
speech or a rally, but for a game of dominoes or to dance salsa —
to show they were Venezuelans, too, that they weren’t just dour
scolds and could hit a baseball, could tell a joke that landed.
That they could break the tribal divide, come down off the
billboards and show that they were real. This is not populism by
other means. It is the only way of establishing your standing.
It’s deciding not to live in an echo chamber. To press pause on
the siren song of polarization.”

Figuratively, I don’t want to play dominoes, dance salsa, or play
baseball.  I have different interests.   I shouldn’t have to
pretend.  They won’t pretend to me, that’s for sure.  This is not
about polarization; this is about not wanting to get pulled into
that attractor.   We have different lives.  That should be fine. 
This is the United States and individualism is kind of a big thing

here.

Now what politicians and opposition leaders do to manage this
problem is a different matter. That is about appearances not reality.

Marcus

*From: *Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> on behalf of "Robert J.
Cordingley" mailto:rob...@cirrillian.com>>
*Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
*Date: *Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:34 AM


*To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
*Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

The Washington Post has an interesting essay from a Venezuelan on
what to do and mostly what not to do.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did



Robert C

On 1/28/17 11:21 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Ok Steve,

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I
can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell
them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When
are they going to release 

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Gary Schiltz
I agree that we shouldn't have to feign interest in others' interests. I'm
not ready to pretend to like country music, go to church, praise military
adventures that I don't agree with, tell gays they are going to hell and
that god will heal them. At the same time, I don't see how it is productive
to make fun of peoples' faith and cultural tastes, although I've been
plenty guilty of that myself, feeding my own ego. Liberals can be just as
intolerant as conservatives, and we will only make progress when we start
to respect other peoples' views. Sometimes that just means sitting quietly
and not responding.

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Marcus Daniels 
wrote:

> Well, I find this article depressing but plausible.  Specifically,
>
>
>
> Andrés Miguel Rondón writes:
>
>
>
> “But it took opposition leaders 10 years to figure out that they needed to
> actually go to the slums and the countryside
> . Not for a speech
> or a rally, but for a game of dominoes or to dance salsa — to show they
> were Venezuelans, too, that they weren’t just dour scolds and could hit a
> baseball, could tell a joke that landed. That they could break the tribal
> divide, come down off the billboards and show that they were real. This is
> not populism by other means. It is the only way of establishing your
> standing. It’s deciding not to live in an echo chamber. To press pause on
> the siren song of polarization.”
>
>
>
> Figuratively, I don’t want to play dominoes, dance salsa, or play
> baseball.  I have different interests.   I shouldn’t have to pretend.  They
> won’t pretend to me, that’s for sure.  This is not about polarization; this
> is about not wanting to get pulled into that attractor.   We have different
> lives.  That should be fine.  This is the United States and individualism
> is kind of a big thing here.
>
>
>
> Now what politicians and opposition leaders do to manage this problem is a
> different matter. That is about appearances not reality.
>
>
>
> Marcus
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *Friam  on behalf of "Robert J.
> Cordingley" 
> *Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Date: *Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:34 AM
>
> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]
>
>
>
> The Washington Post has an interesting essay from a Venezuelan on what to
> do and mostly what not to do.
>
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/
> 27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did
>
> Robert C
>
>
>
>
>
> On 1/28/17 11:21 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>
> Ok Steve,
>
>
>
> The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.
>
>
>
> I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my
> limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new
> products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the
> WE-phone.
>
>
>
> You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com
> ] *On Behalf Of *Steven A Smith
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>  
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]
>
>
>
>
>
>
> What can WE hobbits do?
>
> Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?
>
> Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the
> Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own
> worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it
> will help with the greater picture.
>
> - Candide
>
>
>
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com
> ] *On Behalf Of *Jochen Fromm
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>  ; Friam 
> 
> *Cc:* penny thompson 
> ; 'Bruce Simon' 
> ; 'Dix McComas' 
> ; 'Grant Franks' 
> 
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]
>
>
>
> Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”
>  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.
>
>
>
> If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful
> protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the
> rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really
> refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike
> back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.
>
>
>
> In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves
> that beat the evil in t

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Steven A Smith
Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once 
resembled sharp tools and useful fasteners?


I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a 
month (and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately and 
the cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate would 
(eventually) drop below a certain threshold.


Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful 
conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir, we 
might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with something 
more human (maybe still a form of populism, but not 
nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).


If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to 
hurt *our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt (or 
in some twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then only 
consider how our personal context would be effected in turn by the 
larger context (is a happier, healthier, more informed society good or 
bad for you and your family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get more 
government services and be afforded less expensive access to other 
resources nominally part of the commons?)


et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own 
advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,

 - Steve


Ok Steve,

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do 
with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop 
calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to 
release the WE-phone.


You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 



*From:*Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Steven 
A Smith

*Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 


*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]



What can WE hobbits do?

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the 
Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our 
own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a 
little, it will help with the greater picture.


- Candide

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


*From:*Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of
*Jochen Fromm
*Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
 ; Friam
 
*Cc:* penny thompson 
; 'Bruce Simon'
 ; 'Dix McComas'
 ; 'Grant
Franks'  
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is
true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for
him. Exactly.

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say
peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was
impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from
the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought
that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who
becomes alive.

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house
elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the
Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this
case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The
modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump
and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous
along the way.

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is
Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the
ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter
and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and
listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior
Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because
they hope for a job in his administration.

Cheers,

Jochen

Sent from my Tricorder

 Original message 

From: Nick Thompson mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>>

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)

To: Friam mailto:Friam@redfish.com>>

Cc: penny thompson mailto:penny.thomp...@ear

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Marcus Daniels
It is worth noting he’s living in Spain.

From: Friam  on behalf of "Robert J. Cordingley" 

Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Date: Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:34 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]


The Washington Post has an interesting essay from a Venezuelan on what to do 
and mostly what not to do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did

Robert C



On 1/28/17 11:21 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
Ok Steve,

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my 
limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products 
“I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone.

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]




What can WE hobbits do?
Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in 
Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and 
*perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the 
greater picture.

- Candide



Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
; Friam 

Cc: penny thompson 
; 'Bruce 
Simon' ; 'Dix McComas' 
; 'Grant Franks' 

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if 
he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful 
protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion 
of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who 
would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard 
who becomes alive.

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that 
beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that 
beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits 
of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who 
support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and 
famous along the way.

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack 
Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will 
he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all 
stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior 
Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a 
job in his administration.

Cheers,

Jochen


Sent from my Tricorder

 Original message 
From: Nick Thompson 
mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>>
Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)
To: Friam mailto:Friam@redfish.com>>
Cc: penny thompson 
mailto:penny.thomp...@earthlink.net>>, 'Bruce 
Simon' mailto:bjs...@yahoo.com>>, 'Dix McComas' 
mailto:dixmccom...@gmail.com>>, 'Grant Franks' 
mailto:grantfra...@earthlink.net>>
Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

Hi everybody,
I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to 
this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism.
So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think 
the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize 
(Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that 
consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather 
inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate 
rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my 
coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a 
position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be 
something like, “There is no

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Marcus Daniels
Well, I find this article depressing but plausible.  Specifically,

Andrés Miguel Rondón writes:

“But it took opposition leaders 10 years to figure out that they needed to 
actually go to the slums and the 
countryside. Not for a 
speech or a rally, but for a game of dominoes or to dance salsa — to show they 
were Venezuelans, too, that they weren’t just dour scolds and could hit a 
baseball, could tell a joke that landed. That they could break the tribal 
divide, come down off the billboards and show that they were real. This is not 
populism by other means. It is the only way of establishing your standing. It’s 
deciding not to live in an echo chamber. To press pause on the siren song of 
polarization.”

Figuratively, I don’t want to play dominoes, dance salsa, or play baseball.  I 
have different interests.   I shouldn’t have to pretend.  They won’t pretend to 
me, that’s for sure.  This is not about polarization; this is about not wanting 
to get pulled into that attractor.   We have different lives.  That should be 
fine.  This is the United States and individualism is kind of a big thing here.

Now what politicians and opposition leaders do to manage this problem is a 
different matter. That is about appearances not reality.

Marcus


From: Friam  on behalf of "Robert J. Cordingley" 

Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Date: Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:34 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]


The Washington Post has an interesting essay from a Venezuelan on what to do 
and mostly what not to do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did

Robert C



On 1/28/17 11:21 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
Ok Steve,

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my 
limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products 
“I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone.

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]




What can WE hobbits do?
Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in 
Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and 
*perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the 
greater picture.

- Candide



Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
; Friam 

Cc: penny thompson 
; 'Bruce 
Simon' ; 'Dix McComas' 
; 'Grant Franks' 

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if 
he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful 
protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion 
of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who 
would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard 
who becomes alive.

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that 
beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that 
beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits 
of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who 
support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and 
famous along the way.

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack 
Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will 
he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all 
stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior 
Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because t

Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

2017-01-28 Thread Gary Schiltz
That's cool, but this type of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites seem to me
more sutible for ubiquitous low bandwidth communication, e.g. satellite
phones. I don't know how well it would scale - for example, I doubt that
millions of people could simultaneously get their full megabit from a small
LEO constellation. One alternative that looks intriguing to me is
Facebook's Aquila drone, that flies at about 20km altitude - still low
enough for microwave broadband communication, but high enough to avoid
commercial air traffic.

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 1:32 PM, Marcus Daniels 
wrote:

> Space X just launched the first 10 (of 70) of Iridium NEXT low-earth
> satellites.
>
>
>
> https://www.iridium.com/company/industryleadership/iridiumcertus
>
>
>
> It’s not high bandwidth (about a 1MB/sec), but should be lower latency
> than HughesNet, Wildblue, etc.
>
>
>
> *From: *Friam  on behalf of Nick Thompson <
> nickthomp...@earthlink.net>
> *Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Date: *Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:13 AM
> *To: *'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again
>
>
>
> No BroadBand at my farm in Central Massachusetts.  Awaiting Gary’s
> International Assistance.  Remember a few years back when Venezuela was
> supplying cut-rate oil to low income people in New England?
>
>
>
> Just Sayin’
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Gary
> Schiltz
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 10:43 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again
>
>
>
> I have been working here in Ecuador to provide internet access to poorly
> served areas, and it is a challenge, albiet not an insurmountable one.
> Wireless technology from smallish companies like Ubiquiti, Mikrotik, and
> Mimosa to name a few, is pretty inexpensive, even here where import duties
> are high. The big challenge where I'm working is getting line-of-sight
> between nodes, where there is a lot of dense forest cover over 20 meters
> high.
>
>
>
> One thing that I found interesting in the article that Jochen linked to is
> that the US FCC defines broadband as 25mbps down / 3mbps up. Maybe I'm just
> used to it, but I find about 2up/1down plenty even for video streaming.
> More is always better, of course :-)
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Owen Densmore 
> wrote:
>
> Santa Fe, and New Mexico in general, is interesting in that regard.
>
> [...]
>
> But then there is a lot of the countryside that is left out of this. I
> really like the idea of making the Country(side) important. In NM there
> issues with the tribal lands which are poorly served, but it's getting
> better.
>
>
> 
> 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-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

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-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Gillian Densmore
Glenn really Saromon? Naw not, Saromon, he's more like, plotting and
scheming Sith or Romulan that can't quit get it.Saramon, is giving him a
little bit too much credit from what I've seen. He's more like a Gul
Ducacut from Star Trek. Or the Duras Sisters and going all Evil dude from
the Simpsons LOL!
I'm expecting him to go all Zoom or legends of tomorrow. LOL
he really needs to watch his blood pressure or something because he looks
like he's about to explode from the Tevor Noah show. LOL
Somone

LOL Someone might offer him some Diazapam.

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 1:39 AM, Jochen Fromm  wrote:

> Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”
>  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.
>
> If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful
> protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the
> rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really
> refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike
> back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.
>
> In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves
> that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the
> Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone
> are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage
> midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope
> to get a bit rich and famous along the way.
>
> People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and
> Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom,
> i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter
> completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power.
> This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against
> him because they hope for a job in his administration.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jochen
>
>
> Sent from my Tricorder
>
>  Original message 
> From: Nick Thompson 
> Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)
> To: Friam 
> Cc: penny thompson , 'Bruce Simon' <
> bjs...@yahoo.com>, 'Dix McComas' , 'Grant Franks' <
> grantfra...@earthlink.net>
> Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]
>
> Hi everybody,
>
> I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming
> back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism.
>
> So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I
> think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to
> problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the
> elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if
> we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully,
> investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the
> time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over
> last 50 years, *a position in the argument.  *The alternative to this
> Deweyan position seems to be something like, “*There is no truth of the
> matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by
> whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at;
> it is won.”*
>
> So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary,
> he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.
> From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if
> he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true.
>
> I feel we are straying along the edge of some *Nietzschean *chasm here.
> Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in
> Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman
> . And THAT led
> me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen
> , about marketing execs in the
> 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a
> domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing.
>
> So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that
> he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win.
>
> Heavy lift.
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
> 
> 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-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

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-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Robert J. Cordingley
The Washington Post has an interesting essay from a Venezuelan on what 
to do and mostly what not to do.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did

Robert C



On 1/28/17 11:21 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:


Ok Steve,

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do 
with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop 
calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to 
release the WE-phone.


You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 



*From:*Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Steven 
A Smith

*Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 


*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]



What can WE hobbits do?

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the 
Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our 
own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a 
little, it will help with the greater picture.


- Candide

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


*From:*Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of
*Jochen Fromm
*Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
 ; Friam
 
*Cc:* penny thompson 
; 'Bruce Simon'
 ; 'Dix McComas'
 ; 'Grant
Franks'  
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is
true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for
him. Exactly.

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say
peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was
impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from
the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought
that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who
becomes alive.

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house
elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the
Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this
case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The
modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump
and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous
along the way.

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is
Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the
ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter
and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and
listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior
Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because
they hope for a job in his administration.

Cheers,

Jochen

Sent from my Tricorder

 Original message 

From: Nick Thompson mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>>

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)

To: Friam mailto:Friam@redfish.com>>

Cc: penny thompson mailto:penny.thomp...@earthlink.net>>, 'Bruce Simon'
mailto:bjs...@yahoo.com>>, 'Dix McComas'
mailto:dixmccom...@gmail.com>>, 'Grant
Franks' mailto:grantfra...@earthlink.net>>

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep
coming back to this topic, even when we are talking about globalism.

So. Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times
that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time
has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the
1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a
truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly,
reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will,
together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age,
the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, /a
position in the argument. /The alternative to this Deweyan
position seems to be something like, “/There is no truth of the
matter; there is only the exer

Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

2017-01-28 Thread Marcus Daniels
Space X just launched the first 10 (of 70) of Iridium NEXT low-earth satellites.

https://www.iridium.com/company/industryleadership/iridiumcertus

It’s not high bandwidth (about a 1MB/sec), but should be lower latency than 
HughesNet, Wildblue, etc.

From: Friam  on behalf of Nick Thompson 

Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Date: Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:13 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

No BroadBand at my farm in Central Massachusetts.  Awaiting Gary’s 
International Assistance.  Remember a few years back when Venezuela was 
supplying cut-rate oil to low income people in New England?

Just Sayin’

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 10:43 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

I have been working here in Ecuador to provide internet access to poorly served 
areas, and it is a challenge, albiet not an insurmountable one. Wireless 
technology from smallish companies like Ubiquiti, Mikrotik, and Mimosa to name 
a few, is pretty inexpensive, even here where import duties are high. The big 
challenge where I'm working is getting line-of-sight between nodes, where there 
is a lot of dense forest cover over 20 meters high.

One thing that I found interesting in the article that Jochen linked to is that 
the US FCC defines broadband as 25mbps down / 3mbps up. Maybe I'm just used to 
it, but I find about 2up/1down plenty even for video streaming. More is always 
better, of course :-)

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Owen Densmore 
mailto:o...@backspaces.net>> wrote:
Santa Fe, and New Mexico in general, is interesting in that regard.
[...]
But then there is a lot of the countryside that is left out of this. I really 
like the idea of making the Country(side) important. In NM there issues with 
the tribal lands which are poorly served, but it's getting better.

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-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Nick Thompson
Ok Steve, 

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge. 

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my
limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new
products "I-this" and "I-that."  When are they going to release the
WE-phone.  

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 





What can WE hobbits do? 

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist
in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst
qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will
help with the greater picture.   

- Candide



 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
 ; Friam
 
Cc: penny thompson  
; 'Bruce Simon'  
; 'Dix McComas'  
; 'Grant Franks'  

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump's point of view is "Whatever I can win with is true."  And
if he wins with what we call "a lie", it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful
protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the
rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really
refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike
back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that
beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits
that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the
Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys
who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich
and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and
Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom,
i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely?
If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes
the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because
they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

 Original message 

From: Nick Thompson mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net> > 

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00) 

To: Friam mailto:Friam@redfish.com> > 

Cc: penny thompson mailto:penny.thomp...@earthlink.net> >, 'Bruce Simon' mailto:bjs...@yahoo.com> >, 'Dix McComas' mailto:dixmccom...@gmail.com> >, 'Grant Franks' mailto:grantfra...@earthlink.net> > 

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again] 

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back
to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I
think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to
problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950's  One of the elements
of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather
inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate
rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my
coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years,
a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems
to be something like, "There is no truth of the matter; there is only the
exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the
truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won."

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary,
he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.
>From Trump's point of view, "Whatever I can win with is true."  Hence, if he
wins with what we call "a lie", it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.
Unfortunately  I haven't read any Nietz

Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

2017-01-28 Thread Nick Thompson
No BroadBand at my farm in Central Massachusetts.  Awaiting Gary’s 
International Assistance.  Remember a few years back when Venezuela was 
supplying cut-rate oil to low income people in New England?  

 

Just Sayin’  

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

  
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 10:43 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

 

I have been working here in Ecuador to provide internet access to poorly served 
areas, and it is a challenge, albiet not an insurmountable one. Wireless 
technology from smallish companies like Ubiquiti, Mikrotik, and Mimosa to name 
a few, is pretty inexpensive, even here where import duties are high. The big 
challenge where I'm working is getting line-of-sight between nodes, where there 
is a lot of dense forest cover over 20 meters high.

 

One thing that I found interesting in the article that Jochen linked to is that 
the US FCC defines broadband as 25mbps down / 3mbps up. Maybe I'm just used to 
it, but I find about 2up/1down plenty even for video streaming. More is always 
better, of course :-)

 

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Owen Densmore mailto:o...@backspaces.net> > wrote:

Santa Fe, and New Mexico in general, is interesting in that regard.

[...] 

But then there is a lot of the countryside that is left out of this. I really 
like the idea of making the Country(side) important. In NM there issues with 
the tribal lands which are poorly served, but it's getting better.


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-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

2017-01-28 Thread Gary Schiltz
I have been working here in Ecuador to provide internet access to poorly
served areas, and it is a challenge, albiet not an insurmountable one.
Wireless technology from smallish companies like Ubiquiti, Mikrotik, and
Mimosa to name a few, is pretty inexpensive, even here where import duties
are high. The big challenge where I'm working is getting line-of-sight
between nodes, where there is a lot of dense forest cover over 20 meters
high.

One thing that I found interesting in the article that Jochen linked to is
that the US FCC defines broadband as 25mbps down / 3mbps up. Maybe I'm just
used to it, but I find about 2up/1down plenty even for video streaming.
More is always better, of course :-)

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Owen Densmore  wrote:

> Santa Fe, and New Mexico in general, is interesting in that regard.
> [...]
>
But then there is a lot of the countryside that is left out of this. I
> really like the idea of making the Country(side) important. In NM there
> issues with the tribal lands which are poorly served, but it's getting
> better.
>

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-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] [SPAM] Re: [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Nick Thompson
Thank you, Eric,

Well clipped!

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-Original Message-
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Eric Smith
Sent: Friday, January 27, 2017 9:29 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [SPAM] Re: [[Narcissism Again]again]

Thank you for forwarding this Owen,

I didn’t receive the original.

> So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think 
> the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize 
> (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that 
> consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather 
> inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate 
> rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my 
> coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, 
> a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems 
> to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the 
> exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the 
> truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”
> 
> So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he 
> lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Nick, with the little clipping (done above) of what felt to me like a 
digression within this gem, it seems to me perfect.  It is the return to a 
clear focus on the center of the problem that I have been looking for and not 
been able to express.

The thing is (acknowledging Marcus’s replies also, and the ensuing discussion 
of the scoping of the claim):

1. Regarding trump itself, I don’t care about it except as I would care if 
someone told me a vial of Marburg virus had been spilled on the kitchen floor.  
I would feel a sense of urgency to get a strong disinfectant to try somehow to 
scrub it out.  If I felt I couldn’t get rid of it short of cutting out and 
replacing a part of the floor, that would be within bounds of the discussion.  
etc. at that level. I care a little more about several of the craven rats in 
the congress, enough to be angry at them, but again they can go into the 
autoclave with my blessing, and not much more interest than that.   (I believe 
this is what the NYT editorial called the dehumanizing motive of contempt, and 
argued is a bad choice; it feels to me like they have more than earned the 
category on their own.)

2. But I read Nick as saying that The Problem, and the central accomplishment 
of the Right, has been to install this shift in position as a feature of the 
population and whatever one calls the “culture” of this (and probably several 
other) nation(s).  That is what worries me, and drives a sense of urgency to 
fix a problem I do not know how to fix because I don’t understand how it can 
exist, much less be ascendent or robust.  It’s not the same as losing piety or 
losing god (loss of mere cultural luxuries), to lose the sense of factual truth 
as something larger than one’s own petit ambitions or the scope of the tribe.  
In a big and complicated world where people have the impact they do, losing the 
factual sense of truth is commitment to an undignified form of suicide 
(emphasis on undignified, otherwise do as you like), alongside a lot of other 
-cides that are not morally defensible in any terms.  To have arrived at a 
large number of people who have managed to somehow get on the wrong side of 
this point requires a kind of blindness that it is hard to see how to break 
through.  The “demonstration that liars don’t win” is to be a demonstration to 
them (as I read Nick), to somehow flush out the narcotic that has them in this 
bizarre non-mental state, and make room for the common sense they routinely use 
when (for instance) not sticking their hands into the kitchen broiler or diving 
head-first onto the back patio, to again become the driver of decisions.  

Any animal (that has a brain) has a part of its brain that is subservient to 
the consistency of nature that we call fact (filtered and processed, of course, 
but I claim still the point stands).  The heavily social animals start to 
develop bigger veneers in which power starts to become a major motivator, and 
partitions tasks with those motivated by an awareness of fact.  But even as 
socialized as people are, as long as they are not self-mutilators in a clinical 
sense, that part still seems no bigger than a veneer.  Somehow it seems that 
cultures can, over decades, perform enough decadance that the scope of control 
of the veneer balloons and that pattern gets both frozen in to behavior and 
reified in a lot of constructed cultural supports.  What is the manual for the 
needed task of jointly tearing out what needs it, and re-building what h

Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

2017-01-28 Thread Owen Densmore
This is where we are glad Nick is looking into how to take interesting
Friam threads and putting them in a blog of some sort.

Nick: any progress? Ideas on how to proceed?

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 9:40 AM, Owen Densmore  wrote:

> Santa Fe, and New Mexico in general, is interesting in that regard.
>
> SF is not a large city, and is the state capitol. (Not unusual for the
> capitol cities to be small in the US). Yet it has the Santa Fe Institute
> and quite an active techie crowd (our sister list, wedtech, for example).
>
> NM has a spaceport: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceport_America,
> which is as you mention, an example of a small state having an important
> facility.
>
> And there is LANL, the lab that (shudder) built the bomb. And Sandia Labs.
> And RedFish and Friam :)
>
> But then there is a lot of the countryside that is left out of this. I
> really like the idea of making the Country(side) important. In NM there
> issues with the tribal lands which are poorly served, but it's getting
> better.
>
> Nice meme, let's make it go viral!
>
>-- Owen
>
> On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 2:05 AM, Jochen Fromm  wrote:
>
>> Eric Schmidt posted an interesting article about the digital divide in
>> both urban and rural America on Google+ and Twitter recently (I don't use
>> Facebook).
>> https://goo.gl/GYrBGg
>> 
>> Do the digital divide and the urban-rural divide have something in
>> common? Here in Germany they seem to have a lot in common, all the people
>> want to live in the big cities like Munich, Cologne, Hamburg or Berlin,
>> where the digital startups and agencies are, and the surrounding country
>> often feels as if it were empty, there are no jobs here, and you will have
>> difficulties to get a Taxi because there is simply none.
>>
>> The manufacturing jobs went to China long ago, and the European rust belt
>> from Gelsenkirchen to Gliwice suffered a similar fate as the American one.
>> In the county there is lots of affordable space but no jobs, while in the
>> urban regions there are plenty of jobs but no affordable space to live.
>>
>> How can we make the COUNTRY great again? It would make much more sense if
>> people would move out of the cities back into rural areas, in the moden
>> digital age people can work remotely from everywhere as long as there is a
>> good Internet connection. The cities in turn would gain more space and
>> could get greener.
>>
>> Let us say Google or Apple would move their headquarters to St. Louis,
>> Kansas City or Albuquerque. In the modern digital world it doesn't matter
>> where are you are located as long as you have a good Internet connection.
>> Suddenly San Francisco would have a lot more affordable space to live, and
>> St. Louis or Albuquerque would thrive.
>>
>> If the big IT corporations can not relocate their headquarters, maybe
>> government agencies can. CIA and NSA are both located near Washington, D.C.
>> If their headquarters would move to Kansas City or Albuquerque than these
>> town would prosper and more affordable space to live would become instantly
>> available in the capital.
>>
>> In Germany the CIA counterpart BND moves just now into the opposite
>> direction, from the country to the capital. I think that's wrong. One thing
>> that the NASA space program did well was to consider the whole country and
>> every state, the Kennedy Space Center is in Florida, the control center is
>> in Houston, Texas, the JPL in California, etc.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Jochen
>>
>>
>> 
>> 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-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>
>
>

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: [FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

2017-01-28 Thread Owen Densmore
Santa Fe, and New Mexico in general, is interesting in that regard.

SF is not a large city, and is the state capitol. (Not unusual for the
capitol cities to be small in the US). Yet it has the Santa Fe Institute
and quite an active techie crowd (our sister list, wedtech, for example).

NM has a spaceport: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceport_America, which
is as you mention, an example of a small state having an important facility.

And there is LANL, the lab that (shudder) built the bomb. And Sandia Labs.
And RedFish and Friam :)

But then there is a lot of the countryside that is left out of this. I
really like the idea of making the Country(side) important. In NM there
issues with the tribal lands which are poorly served, but it's getting
better.

Nice meme, let's make it go viral!

   -- Owen

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 2:05 AM, Jochen Fromm  wrote:

> Eric Schmidt posted an interesting article about the digital divide in
> both urban and rural America on Google+ and Twitter recently (I don't use
> Facebook).
> https://goo.gl/GYrBGg
> 
> Do the digital divide and the urban-rural divide have something in common?
> Here in Germany they seem to have a lot in common, all the people want to
> live in the big cities like Munich, Cologne, Hamburg or Berlin, where the
> digital startups and agencies are, and the surrounding country often feels
> as if it were empty, there are no jobs here, and you will have difficulties
> to get a Taxi because there is simply none.
>
> The manufacturing jobs went to China long ago, and the European rust belt
> from Gelsenkirchen to Gliwice suffered a similar fate as the American one.
> In the county there is lots of affordable space but no jobs, while in the
> urban regions there are plenty of jobs but no affordable space to live.
>
> How can we make the COUNTRY great again? It would make much more sense if
> people would move out of the cities back into rural areas, in the moden
> digital age people can work remotely from everywhere as long as there is a
> good Internet connection. The cities in turn would gain more space and
> could get greener.
>
> Let us say Google or Apple would move their headquarters to St. Louis,
> Kansas City or Albuquerque. In the modern digital world it doesn't matter
> where are you are located as long as you have a good Internet connection.
> Suddenly San Francisco would have a lot more affordable space to live, and
> St. Louis or Albuquerque would thrive.
>
> If the big IT corporations can not relocate their headquarters, maybe
> government agencies can. CIA and NSA are both located near Washington, D.C.
> If their headquarters would move to Kansas City or Albuquerque than these
> town would prosper and more affordable space to live would become instantly
> available in the capital.
>
> In Germany the CIA counterpart BND moves just now into the opposite
> direction, from the country to the capital. I think that's wrong. One thing
> that the NASA space program did well was to consider the whole country and
> every state, the Kennedy Space Center is in Florida, the control center is
> in Houston, Texas, the JPL in California, etc.
>
> Regards,
> Jochen
>
>
> 
> 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-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Steven A Smith



What can WE hobbits do?


Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the 
Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own 
worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, 
it will help with the greater picture.


- Candide


Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 



*From:*Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Jochen 
Fromm

*Sent:* Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
; Friam 
*Cc:* penny thompson ; 'Bruce Simon' 
; 'Dix McComas' ; 'Grant 
Franks' 

*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is 
true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. 
Exactly.


If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say 
peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, 
and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks 
is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks 
would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.


In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves 
that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is 
the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like 
Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are 
adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on 
Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.


People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron 
and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into 
Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit 
Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he 
loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who 
do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his 
administration.


Cheers,

Jochen

Sent from my Tricorder

 Original message 

From: Nick Thompson >


Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)

To: Friam mailto:Friam@redfish.com>>

Cc: penny thompson >, 'Bruce Simon' 
mailto:bjs...@yahoo.com>>, 'Dix McComas' 
mailto:dixmccom...@gmail.com>>, 'Grant Franks' 
mailto:grantfra...@earthlink.net>>


Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming 
back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism.


So. Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I 
think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to 
problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the 
elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters 
and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study 
carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it. 
What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of 
argument, became over last 50 years, /a position in the argument. /The 
alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, 
“/There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of 
power. He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  
Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”/


So. My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the 
contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a 
possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is 
true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true.


I feel we are straying along the edge of some *Nietzschean *chasm 
here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage 
in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman 
. And THAT 
led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen 
, about marketing execs in the 
60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is 
ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be 
marketing.


So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating 
that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win.


Heavy lift.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 






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.

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Nick Thompson
Dear All, 

 

I have been teasing the Local Congregation about our role in the Narcissistic 
Revolution of the last 30 years … cable TV, the “personal” computer, the I-mac, 
the I-phone, You-tube, facebook, etc.  What sort of bots and memes could people 
of our power and talent unleash into the world that would break this relentless 
cycle of positive reinforcement for narrowness of mind? Perhaps a video game 
where facts matter?  

 

What can WE hobbits do? 

 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

  
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group ; 
Friam 
Cc: penny thompson ; 'Bruce Simon' 
; 'Dix McComas' ; 'Grant Franks' 

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if 
he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful 
protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion 
of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who 
would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard 
who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that 
beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that 
beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits 
of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who 
support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and 
famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack 
Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will 
he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all 
stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior 
Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a 
job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

 Original message 

From: Nick Thompson mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net> > 

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00) 

To: Friam mailto:Friam@redfish.com> > 

Cc: penny thompson mailto:penny.thomp...@earthlink.net> >, 'Bruce Simon' mailto:bjs...@yahoo.com> >, 'Dix McComas' mailto:dixmccom...@gmail.com> >, 'Grant Franks' mailto:grantfra...@earthlink.net> > 

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again] 

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to 
this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think 
the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize 
(Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that 
consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather 
inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate 
rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my 
coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a 
position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be 
something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of 
power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is 
not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he 
does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From 
Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins 
with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  
Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, 
led me to The Parable of the Madman 
 . And THAT led me to 
wonder if the TV Series, Madmen  , about 
marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, 
if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be 
marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he 
lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's Coll

Re: [FRIAM] AI advance

2017-01-28 Thread Steven A Smith
Fascinating!   I remember the broad discussions at the Cellular Automata 
Conference here in 1984 on the challenges/opportunities of using a CA to 
play GO.


I had an (unpublished of course) variation on Bill Gosper's HashLife 
 which I hoped might be a good 
basis for a  winning GO system back in those Pre Artificial Life days.


MIne used a less optimal subdivision (he did quad-tree, I used N-1 
Patches).  The purpose was to make the memoization translation invariant 
at all scales, not just binary orders of magnitude.   I was interested 
in general in the problem of using the hash to help analyze the 
computational complexity of a problem under solution based on the growth 
of the hash table.


Through my colleague, Susan Stepney (who some of you know) in York, I 
encouraged her grad student Jenny Owen to take this somewhere.  Alas, 
she chose to work with the Gosper version which I still believe has the 
unfortunate artifact of quad-tree/binary subdivision of the space, 
missing *many* repeated patterns at scales and offsets not aligning with 
the quad-tree.


Now we just need to teach it to play a mean game of "Go back to your 
Golden Towers" in DC?


- Steve


On 1/28/17 7:31 AM, Joseph Spinden wrote:

Of interest to some:

https://www.wired.com/2016/01/in-a-huge-breakthrough-googles-ai-beats-a-top-player-at-the-game-of-go 



-JS





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-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove



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-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[FRIAM] AI advance

2017-01-28 Thread Joseph Spinden

Of interest to some:

https://www.wired.com/2016/01/in-a-huge-breakthrough-googles-ai-beats-a-top-player-at-the-game-of-go

-JS





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
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[FRIAM] How we can make the COUNTRY great again

2017-01-28 Thread Jochen Fromm
Eric Schmidt posted an interesting article about the digital divide in both 
urban and rural America on Google+ and Twitter recently (I don't use 
Facebook).https://goo.gl/GYrBGgDo the digital divide and the urban-rural 
divide have something in common? Here in Germany they seem to have a lot in 
common, all the people want to live in the big cities like Munich, Cologne, 
Hamburg or Berlin, where the digital startups and agencies are, and the 
surrounding country often feels as if it were empty, there are no jobs here, 
and you will have difficulties to get a Taxi because there is simply none. 

The manufacturing jobs went to China long ago, and the European rust belt from 
Gelsenkirchen to Gliwice suffered a similar fate as the American one. In the 
county there is lots of affordable space but no jobs, while in the urban 
regions there are plenty of jobs but no affordable space to live.
How can we make the COUNTRY great again? It would make much more sense if 
people would move out of the cities back into rural areas, in the moden digital 
age people can work remotely from everywhere as long as there is a good 
Internet connection. The cities in turn would gain more space and could get 
greener. 
Let us say Google or Apple would move their headquarters to St. Louis, Kansas 
City or Albuquerque. In the modern digital world it doesn't matter where are 
you are located as long as you have a good Internet connection. Suddenly San 
Francisco would have a lot more affordable space to live, and St. Louis or 
Albuquerque would thrive. 
If the big IT corporations can not relocate their headquarters, maybe 
government agencies can. CIA and NSA are both located near Washington, D.C. If 
their headquarters would move to Kansas City or Albuquerque than these town 
would prosper and more affordable space to live would become instantly 
available in the capital. 
In Germany the CIA counterpart BND moves just now into the opposite direction, 
from the country to the capital. I think that's wrong. One thing that the NASA 
space program did well was to consider the whole country and every state, the 
Kennedy Space Center is in Florida, the control center is in Houston, Texas, 
the JPL in California, etc. 
Regards,Jochen 

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-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

2017-01-28 Thread Jochen Fromm
Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if 
he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.
If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful 
protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion 
of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who 
would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard 
who becomes alive.
In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that 
beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that 
beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits 
of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who 
support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and 
famous along the way.
People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack 
Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will 
he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all 
stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior 
Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a 
job in his administration.
Cheers,
Jochen

Sent from my Tricorder
 Original message From: Nick Thompson 
 Date: 1/28/17  01:57  (GMT+01:00) To: Friam 
 Cc: penny thompson , 'Bruce 
Simon' , 'Dix McComas' , 'Grant 
Franks'  Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again] 
Hi everybody,I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep 
coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. So.  Let 
me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great 
achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the 
Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that 
there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, 
reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , 
come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation 
of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The 
alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no 
truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the 
argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is 
arrived at; it is won.”So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying. 
 On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a 
possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  
Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. I feel we are straying 
along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read 
any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the 
Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing 
execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there 
is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 
So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he 
lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. Heavy lift.Nick 
Nicholas S. ThompsonEmeritus Professor of Psychology and BiologyClark 
Universityhttp://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 
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