Re: [FRIAM] Small Nuclear

[Russell Standish]

On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 11:06:23AM -0600, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>  
> 
> The earlier answer on the entropy of renewables answered the question;
> especially when allied with a simple calculation on energy density for solar
> and wind. I strongly recommend https://www.withouthotair.com/ by either buying
> the book or it is available to download for free. The author sadly died in his
> prime but his most important legacy has global implications and is factual. It
> proves that the energy balance cannot be met with natural, non-depleting
> sources. Please be careful with what you read, many exponents of renewables
> equate electricity with energy. In advanced countries electricity is only 
> about
> 20% of the primary energy supply. Heat and transport dominate by far 
> worldwide.
>

Whilst I'm not antinuclear, it is my understanding that solar energy
potential is many orders of magnitude greater than current
consumption. IIUC, we could comfortably fit a photovoltaic array
within our state to supply all the world's needs for the foreseeable
future. We just need to solve storage issues, and electrification of
transport and so on, as well as finding somewhere else to live, or
course. In reality, such a solar array is more likely to be
constructed in the Gobi desert, than in NSW, however :).


-- 


Dr Russell StandishPhone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
  http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[David Eric Smith]

Yes, huge point here.

I don’t feel angry at ticks or V. cholerae.  I would feel very angry at a 
person who injured something innocent.  

I prefer my affect toward trump to be closer to my affect toward ticks, because 
I think he is degraded enough to not qualify much as human.

I hold that position, having considered that I need to be careful, because 
“dehumanizing the enemy”, as it is fashionable to call it in the current 
writing, is the tactic of genocidalists.  

The trumpers?  Big range.  There’s probably a “Universal Basic Humanity” that 
you get, which comes with your genotype, and you have to actively squander it 
to become coeval with a tick.  But to have more humanity than the UBH, you do 
have to make an effort to deserve it.

Eric


> On Nov 12, 2020, at 2:00 PM, Frank Wimberly  wrote:
> 
> If you feel angry at them while not understanding that it's because they're 
> similar to you then you will feel ambivalent about your anger.  If they're 
> not similar to you you probably won't feel anger
> 
> 
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
> 
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 11:55 AM  > wrote:
> Frank wrote
> 
>  
> 
> and feel angry at them
> 
>  
> 
> But you are always free to feel angry at them.  The question is, “What is 
> that doing for you?  Why bother? And why do you NOT feel free to be angry, 
> any time you want?  And does “feeling free to be angry” have anything to do 
> with “being angry”?  Who knows what evil lurks in the depths of the human 
> heart?  The Shadow Knows. 
> 
>  
> 
> Nicholas Thompson
> 
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> 
> Clark University
> 
> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> On 
> Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:47 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  >
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump
> 
>  
> 
> After you are in touch with the empathy and understand it, feel free to 
> reject the Trumpers and feel angry at them.
> 
>  
> 
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 11:42 AM  > wrote:
> 
> If anybody understands what Glen is saying, please explain it to me.  I feel 
> he has tried hard enough.  I sympathise with his frustration, and am taking 
> action.  
> 
> (Private Message : Sorry, Jon I lied. )
> 
> N
> 
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> On 
> Behalf Of u?l? ???
> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:20 PM
> To: friam@redfish.com 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump
> 
> There's so much that's so wrong I can't let it go uncommented. Everything you 
> say (in almost every post) seems to factor out *time*. When you say "As 
> commands to the self, [anger, hate, contempt, etc.] make no sense what so 
> ever", you're speaking as if the Nick of 20 years ago is the exact identical 
> Nick as the present Nick, which is so wrong as to be laughable.
> 
> Your ill-expressed point is that the empathy/sympathy emotions for Trump 
> supporters are not under your intentional control. And you seem to be saying 
> that those of us who claim we shouldn't "spare" any empathy/sympathy are 
> either in denial or self-blinding or somesuch. Again, that ignores *time*. 
> Sure, I feel empathy for some of them, someTIMES. But I don't for others of 
> them, at other times.
> 
> If you've ever extracted yourself from an abusive relationship, you should 
> understand this episodic concept. If you have never had such a relationship, 
> then you are the luckiest person I've ever met. The longer the idiocy goes 
> on, the less empathy I feel, the fewer episodes of empathy I experience. The 
> abuser only has so much time to change his ways before I explode and murder 
> him in his sleep, my tears of sympathy mixing with his blood.
> 
> Maybe the additional premise is that there is such a thing as time and 
> evolution? It's weird that someone who talks about things like MOTH would 
> fail to understand that, though.
> 
> On 11/12/20 9:57 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com  
> wrote:
> > Ok,  but, let’s look at that impulse. Is it the impulse to 

Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[David Eric Smith]

Nick, you just fell into your own tiger trap:

> On Nov 12, 2020, at 12:57 PM,  
>  wrote:
> 
> Frank,
...
> Oughts only work in the context of trying to incite others to a common 
> action.  As commands to the self, they make no sense what so ever. 

Didn’t you write an email a day or so ago saying that the acting self and the 
executive self would not be expected to be the same things?

If I lear a second language as an adult, the only way I will ever speak it with 
the right sound and rhythm is if I have taken it in with the child’s 
language-learning mind.  Unfortunately, I don’t have that any more, or the 
child’s fast-processing language-learning ear.  They aren’t totally gone, just 
degraded and overlayered.  But I have an executive self that can read grammar 
books, schedule recorded speech in segments, and lots more.  In particular, I 
can set up _expectations_ that make the degraded child’s ear ready to hear 
something when it comes by, without having to recognize it and catch it 
spontaneously as the undegraded child’s mind could have done. 

Point being: I don’t make the mistake that the executive me that reads grammars 
has ever learned the language in the right way.  But it has a role in giving 
crutches to the child-me to extend its function a little further than would 
have been.

I feel sure this is why various religions have all sorts of moral practices, 
the same way as soldiers have practices with guns.  Install into the 
hippocampus what you want to be ready to use.

I would have been happy to have Frank’s answer speak for me, also, though it 
overlaps only in part with the answer I did give.

Eric




> So, unless you are standing in front of crowd, trying to get them to lynch 
> somebody, these emotions are self-blinding.  Now, I suppose, self-blinding is 
> useful, when you just don’t want to fuck with subtleties of life, but nothing 
> about them can be claimed as rational.  Right?  What is the additional 
> premise that turns my empathy into something I should not feel. 
>  
> Kim, help me out, here.
> N
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
> 
>  
>  
> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> On 
> Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 10:53 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  >
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump
>  
> "But steeling yourself against WHAT?"
>  
> The impulse to do the same thing.  Being judgemental is so human that Jesus 
> warned against it.  I don't usually quote him but...
>  
> Judge not, that ye be not judged.
> 
> 2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure 
> ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
> 
> 3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but 
> considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>  
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 9:36 AM  > wrote:
>> EricS,
>>  
>> Agreed,  99 and 44/100ths, except where you say, 
>>  
>> That’s where I attach to Marcus’s rebuttal that they can be understood for 
>> being angry and desperate, but they don’t get a pass for wallowing in it.
>>  
>> At this point, any psychologist in the room will ask you (and/or Marcus), 
>> What is your moral judgment of THEM doing for YOU?
>>  
>> That’s NOT a rhetorical question.  It has an answer. Presumably the answer 
>> has something to do with steeling yourself, not in Glen’s sense of that 
>> word. But steeling yourself against WHAT?  If I never thought or felt that 
>> particular WHAT, would I need to steel myself against it?  
>>  
>> n
>>  
>> Nicholas Thompson
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>> Clark University
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
>> 
>>  
>>  
>> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> 
>> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
>> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 6:59 AM
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > >
>> Cc: David Eric Smith mailto:desm...@santafe.edu>>
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump
>>  
>> All this, too, turns on things that are facts of the matter.
>>  
>> Roger’s post is of course both excellent and empathetic, and when I read it 
>> I wanted to just say 

Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[uǝlƃ ↙↙↙]

On 11/12/20 2:47 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> 

Excellent! Nailed it.

-- 
↙↙↙ uǝlƃ

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Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[Eric Charles]

Nick asked if anyone could translate Glen's email... in an effort to do
that... larding below

Eric C


On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 1:20 PM uǝlƃ ↙↙↙  wrote:

> There's so much that's so wrong I can't let it go uncommented.  you set me off!> Everything you say (in almost every post) seems to
> factor out *time*. When you say "As commands to the self, [anger, hate,
> contempt, etc.] make no sense what so ever", you're speaking as if the Nick
> of 20 years ago is the exact identical Nick as the present Nick, which is
> so wrong as to be laughable.  to talk about the things you do in this moment as commanded by you,
> certainly you can issue commands to future you.  They guy hitting who
> said something awkward and lost his chance at the girl hits himself on the
> head a few times saying "Stupid, stupid, why did you say that?" What is he
> doing? He is trying to control his future self, not his past self. 
> Across long swaths of time whatever "command" is, you can probably do it
> yourself as effectively as anyone else can command you.>
>
> Your ill-expressed point is that the empathy/sympathy emotions for Trump
> supporters are not under your intentional control.  are correct that you, personally, cannot stop yourself from attempting
> empathy/sympathy under these conditions> And you seem to be saying that
> those of us who claim we shouldn't "spare" any empathy/sympathy are either
> in denial or self-blinding or somesuch.  me and everyone else is suspect, and the way you phrase it is presumptous
> and pretentious> Again, that ignores *time*. Sure, I feel empathy for
> some of them, someTIMES. But I don't for others of them, at other times.  not saying that I will literally never be empathetic to any person who
> happens to be a Trump supporter, at any time, ever. I am saying that I am
> not going to be empathetic to them as a group, and certainly not empathetic
> to any of them at all times. I've got a lot to do besides sitting around
> being empathetic with 60 million strangers. And I'm not in denial or in a
> soulless trap when I point that out.>
>
> If you've ever extracted yourself from an abusive relationship, you should
> understand this episodic concept.  Supporters, as a group, is equivalent to an abusive relationships in
> important ways> If you have never had such a relationship, then you are
> the luckiest person I've ever met. The longer the idiocy goes on, the less
> empathy I feel, the fewer episodes of empathy I experience.  one of the things an abuser can use to trap you. The way out of that trap
> is to be less empathetic the longer the abuse goes on.> The abuser only
> has so much time to change his ways before I explode and murder him in his
> sleep, my tears of sympathy mixing with his blood.  long enough, it's time to end things one way or another, and any empathy
> you have left is more time spent crying while you do whatever else you need
> to do to sever the relationship.>
>
> Maybe the additional premise is that there is such a thing as time and
> evolution? It's weird that someone who talks about things like MOTH would
> fail to understand that, though.  trumpets the virtues of unconditional altruism with conditional association
> not be willing to walk the hell away from a group of people who are
> continuously defecting against you?!? It is a winning strategy.>



>
> 



-


> On 11/12/20 9:57 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Ok,  but, let’s look at that impulse. Is it the impulse to sympathize?
> Why is that so scary?  Sympathy is informative, not paralyzing.  Can one
> not feel sympathy for the rabid dog just exactly at the moment one kills
> it? Somebody ran over a cat in our yard, once, crushed it’s hindquarters.
> I felt tremendous sympathy for the cat, /and so I killed it. / For sympathy
> to be paralyzing, there has to be one more premise, and I cannot identify
> that additional premise.  Anger, hate, contempt, etc., are assertions of an
> ought.  Oughts only work in the context of trying to incite others to a
> common action.  As commands to the self, they make no sense what so ever.
> So, unless you are standing in front of crowd, trying to get them to lynch
> somebody, these emotions are self-blinding.  Now, I suppose, self-blinding
> is useful, when you just don’t want to fuck with subtleties of life, but
> nothing about them can be claimed as rational.  Right?  What is the
> additional premise that turns my
> > empathy into something I should not feel.
>
> --
> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
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Re: [FRIAM] covid planning tool

[uǝlƃ ↙↙↙]

Rebecca has some criticisms of the map:

Please Stop Sharing the New COVID-19 Risk Map. It's Dangerous.
https://youtu.be/OJQBAhzQbUM

On 11/11/20 10:17 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
> Excellent example of the power of things like R-Shiny, Jupyter, et al. I'm a 
> little concerned with this part, though:
> 
> https://github.com/jsweitz/covid-19-event-risk-planner
> "NOTE: THE REASONABLE UNCERTAINTY IN THIS CALCULATION EXCEEDS THE SCENARIOS 
> SHOWN HERE"
> 
> Matlab? Pffft! What were you thinking polluting this beautiful open source 
> thing-a-majig with your proprietary tool?!?!
> 
> On 11/11/20 9:13 AM, Prof David West wrote:
>> Now this is a tool I can use and have some degree of confidence when using 
>> it.
>>
>> https://covid19risk.biosci.gatech.edu/
> 
> 

-- 
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Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[David Eric Smith]

It’s not a moral judgement of anybody, Nick.

It is rather a sense that the world of human interconnection is a house of 
mirrors.  It wants to be stable, but it can be stable on anything.  
Acknowledging Glen’s takedown of the Medium article on conspiracy theories and 
their adherents, I found the article thought-provoking, because it emphasized 
how humans need to be part of a fabric, but the self-reference in that fabric 
makes it really easy to detach from any particular mooring.

Given only that, there is no remedy for anything.  So at some point, the 
requirement is to remain calm in an emergency, as Wendell Berry says, and ask 
where is the path out of it all.

And to that I say, at the end of the day, trying to solve problems is the path 
out.  It is the only path out.  To really do that is only possible through 
acting in good faith, so staying committed to solving something is also a 
stabilizer for acting in good faith.  Everything else can rage around in 
emotional turmoil and conflict, and if you let go of the goal, you just get 
swept away in it all.  So to keep one’s vision on solving a problem, and to 
test Am I being real?  Is everything.

So in a simple practical sense, that is one standard from which none of us is 
freed.  That’s what I mean by “not getting a pass”.  I know it’s understandable 
that people behave self-destructively; we are familiar with people.  But at the 
Darwinian end of the day, there is the spiral or there is the way out.  That’s 
all.

Best,

Eric


> On Nov 12, 2020, at 11:35 AM,  
>  wrote:
> 
> EricS,
>  
> Agreed,  99 and 44/100ths, except where you say, 
>  
> That’s where I attach to Marcus’s rebuttal that they can be understood for 
> being angry and desperate, but they don’t get a pass for wallowing in it.
>  
> At this point, any psychologist in the room will ask you (and/or Marcus), 
> What is your moral judgment of THEM doing for YOU?
>  
> That’s NOT a rhetorical question.  It has an answer. Presumably the answer 
> has something to do with steeling yourself, not in Glen’s sense of that word. 
> But steeling yourself against WHAT?  If I never thought or felt that 
> particular WHAT, would I need to steel myself against it?  
>  
> n
>  
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> thompnicks...@gmail.com 
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
> 
>  
>  
> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> On 
> Behalf Of David Eric Smith
> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 6:59 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  >
> Cc: David Eric Smith mailto:desm...@santafe.edu>>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump
>  
> All this, too, turns on things that are facts of the matter.
>  
> Roger’s post is of course both excellent and empathetic, and when I read it I 
> wanted to just say thanks for it.
>  
> Marcus’s counterpoint I also agree with.
>  
>  
> But at the end of the day, whether your decision is good or bad turns on what 
> it accomplishes in the actual world of events, relative to other decisions 
> you could make.
>  
> Fighting public health measures because you are bitter does not get you back 
> to work sooner.  Indeed, it does nothing materially good for anybody.  That 
> seems to be a fairly easy fact from which to start.  Taiwan never had a 
> shutdown.  Japan never had a lockdown, and even in metropolitan Tokyo, where 
> infection density was probably one of the worst two areas (the other being up 
> around Sapporo, per million), there was about a month of business shutdown.  
> One time.  I forget or didn’t learn details about S. Korea, but I think they 
> never had a broad or ongoing lockdown; maybe short local ones at most, and 
> some business suspensions.  Those countries will have public health costs, a 
> period of broad-based business costs, and sector-specific longer-term severe 
> business costs in areas like bars or nightclubs or karaoke parlors, etc.  It 
> will be heavy but it need not lead to a depression.  If vaccines work, the 
> duration of the really bad sector impact will be measured in years, but not 
> be permanent.
>  
> The US, by refusing to spend 10G$ in mitigation at the beginning, followed by 
> wallowing in indulgence of wounded vanities, has now spent 2.4T$ in extra 
> unemployment, and probably needs to spend something on that order more.  It 
> will go on, in the best case, for a year from the start.  Plus they need to 
> pay the public health support costs, which are much higher than they were at 
> the start.  The ones with market power can push the exploitation curve harder 
> and harder, so that the stock markets remain high while unemployment and all 
> three of 

Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[thompnickson2]

J

I wonder if one can get the full pleasure out of seeing a Nazi punched
WITHOUT experiencing empathy.  

(Private message: I am almost done with the grocery list)
n

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
thompnicks...@gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
 


-Original Message-
From: Friam  On Behalf Of jon zingale
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 1:26 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

I feel like this came up in vFriam recently when DJT caught the virus. I
mentioned having empathy then and that empathy was rooted in knowing what it
is like to be sick. I am not sure empathy requires wanting something for
another, wanting them to be well for instance. To some extent, this seems
like a difference wrt sympathy where one has a reactive component. To some
extent, I may wish to see a nazi punched and still empathize with the
experience of being punched.



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Re: [FRIAM] Guided Apophenia

[uǝlƃ ↙↙↙]

The weak vs strong versions of constitutive seems useful. Thanks! It targets my 
sense of mechanism nicely in the vaguely stated soft requirement for effective 
procedures: "In principle, it can be done by a human without any aids except 
writing materials."  
Generalizing that is difficult. I forget where I read it, but the analogy 
between doing math in your head versus on paper is useful for pointing it out. 
For me, the steps I use in my head are different from the ones I use on paper. 
But that makes them constitutive_w, I guess. By contrast, I'm completely 
incapable of, say, installing a kitchen faucet "in my head". I have to make a 
billion trips out to the garage to grab a tool I didn't realize I needed. Etc. 
Having the faucet (or an exploded diagram) in front of me is necessary, 
constitutive_s.

I'm wondering if it also impacts my assertion that the fundamental grievance 
the Trumpers hold is a reactionary stance against our progressive loss of 
individuality. In response to John's idea that a coming Civil War doesn't make 
sense unless there is a grievance on at least one side. My (tentative) answer 
is that we're becoming a biofilm (not really collective intelligence, but 
similar). The so far non-violent but still revolutionary overthrowing of the 
mostly white, mostly male, elite [⛧] is getting more intense. In a vacuum, it 
would NOT have to escalate to Frantz Fannon style requirement for blood flowing 
in the streets. But the elites' reaction to that figurative overthrowing (e.g. 
cancel culture, PC, diversity training, etc.) is intensifying, which positively 
reinforces the intensity of the overthrowing. It seems totally reasonable that 
this could escalate out of control and into widespread violence, if not Civil 
War.

The reaction of the Trumpers is constitutive_s of the overthrowing. And the 
left overthrowing is constitutive_s of the Trumpers' reactionary stance. Renee' 
and I discussed the idea that maybe it's a Good Thing Gorsuch and ACB are now 
on the court, to dampen any progress made if both the Executive and Legislative 
branches went D. Dampers on either side of the grievance-tuple might prevent 
the speculative Civil War (even though we may all die in the fires of climate 
change). And, of course, caveat the whole setup by remembering how incompetent 
I am at any of this, history, economics, social interaction, etc.


[⛧] Yes, I'm aware how wrong it sounds to refer to lower middle class Trumpers 
as "elites". It's a statement of these times.


On 11/12/20 9:48 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> Continuing on the arc, I stumbled over this paper ( a more scholarly, less 
> PopSci) on meta-issues of the "Extended Mind Hypothesis"
> 
> https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-015-0799-9
> 
> This is relevant for multiple reasons but the most obvious to me in the 
> moment is the ideas SteveG has promoted around Collective Intelligence and in 
> some ways the "Extended Phenotype" (in Dawkin's sense), the built 
> environment, and direly the latest application of Kauffman's Adjacent 
> Possible to the exponentially growing (in complexity if not material 
> resource) technosphere (on top of/adjacent to the noosphere on top of the 
> biosphere on top of the hydro-cryo-atmo-geosphere).   It is a "technicolor 
> goo" parallel to the "grey goo" scenario.
> 
> My application domain(s) include the realm of distributed collaboration 
> (nominally scientific) and of "becoming collectively intelligent" in the 
> sense of the distributed camera systems (and beyond) in-process at SimTable.
> 
> Your response below is well received and nicely arcs/ties back to the other 
> threads we are all weaving here in our collective co-evolution of ideas.  
> This is my response to Nick's desire to capture all of this and reshape 
> (back-propogate/re-project?) it into scholarly papers.   I sense that such a 
> goal is an OldSkool impulse which I do not mean as dismissive, but possibly 
> mutually exclusive to the process we are collectively engaged in here (what I 
> think of as the Buddhist (westernized version) concept of dependent 
> co-arising).   FriAM, for better and worse, is a "Living Batch", a symbiotic 
> colony of organisms

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Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[uǝlƃ ↙↙↙]

Yes. All 4 of our answers to Nick's question are impacted.

MGD: heuristic classification
DES: testing, validation, & paths forward
FCW: reflective governance
GER: challenging the assumption of similar structure

I *still* haven't read The Myth of Mirror Neurons 
.
 But my guess is that whether or not they exist, there's something *learned* 
about both empathy and sympathy. Not having some trait or organ that another 
has *should* make communication and shared experiences less likely. If someone 
has never been punched in the face, it should be difficult for them to imagine 
being punched in the face.


On 11/12/20 11:25 AM, jon zingale wrote:
> I feel like this came up in vFriam recently when DJT caught the virus. I
> mentioned having empathy then and that empathy was rooted in knowing what it
> is like to be sick. I am not sure empathy requires wanting something for
> another, wanting them to be well for instance. To some extent, this seems
> like a difference wrt sympathy where one has a reactive component. To some
> extent, I may wish to see a nazi punched and still empathize with the
> experience of being punched.


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Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[Steve Smith]

I think I didn't post the massive missive I wrote about how "empathy is
rooted in mirror neurons", and it goes up from there including
self-other models, but maybe this one-liner is the only signal in that
noise anyway.

Also commenting on EricS's "dehumanizing" point, I've come to appreciate
the term "othering" and those who introduced it to me as their *own*
resistance to feeling the need to "other" those who they have patently
been "othered" by.


On 11/12/20 12:25 PM, jon zingale wrote:
> I feel like this came up in vFriam recently when DJT caught the virus. I
> mentioned having empathy then and that empathy was rooted in knowing what it
> is like to be sick. I am not sure empathy requires wanting something for
> another, wanting them to be well for instance. To some extent, this seems
> like a difference wrt sympathy where one has a reactive component. To some
> extent, I may wish to see a nazi punched and still empathize with the
> experience of being punched.
>
>
>
> --
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Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[jon zingale]

I feel like this came up in vFriam recently when DJT caught the virus. I
mentioned having empathy then and that empathy was rooted in knowing what it
is like to be sick. I am not sure empathy requires wanting something for
another, wanting them to be well for instance. To some extent, this seems
like a difference wrt sympathy where one has a reactive component. To some
extent, I may wish to see a nazi punched and still empathize with the
experience of being punched.



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Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[thompnickson2]

I have always had doubts about the notion of an executive intelligence.  It 
always seems like something that is not effective, but grasped after the fact.  
In that earlier message, though, I was trying to push it, see where it would 
lead.  If it is a trap, it is one that I myself am trying to climb out of. 

 

n

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 1:03 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

 

Nick, you just fell into your own tiger trap:





On Nov 12, 2020, at 12:57 PM, mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> > mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> > wrote:

 

Frank,

...



Oughts only work in the context of trying to incite others to a common action.  
As commands to the self, they make no sense what so ever.  

 

Didn’t you write an email a day or so ago saying that the acting self and the 
executive self would not be expected to be the same things?

 

If I lear a second language as an adult, the only way I will ever speak it with 
the right sound and rhythm is if I have taken it in with the child’s 
language-learning mind.  Unfortunately, I don’t have that any more, or the 
child’s fast-processing language-learning ear.  They aren’t totally gone, just 
degraded and overlayered.  But I have an executive self that can read grammar 
books, schedule recorded speech in segments, and lots more.  In particular, I 
can set up _expectations_ that make the degraded child’s ear ready to hear 
something when it comes by, without having to recognize it and catch it 
spontaneously as the undegraded child’s mind could have done. 

 

Point being: I don’t make the mistake that the executive me that reads grammars 
has ever learned the language in the right way.  But it has a role in giving 
crutches to the child-me to extend its function a little further than would 
have been.

 

I feel sure this is why various religions have all sorts of moral practices, 
the same way as soldiers have practices with guns.  Install into the 
hippocampus what you want to be ready to use.

 

I would have been happy to have Frank’s answer speak for me, also, though it 
overlaps only in part with the answer I did give.

 

Eric

 

 

 





So, unless you are standing in front of crowd, trying to get them to lynch 
somebody, these emotions are self-blinding.  Now, I suppose, self-blinding is 
useful, when you just don’t want to fuck with subtleties of life, but nothing 
about them can be claimed as rational.  Right?  What is the additional premise 
that turns my empathy into something I should not feel. 

 

Kim, help me out, here.

N

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

 

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

 

 

From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> > On 
Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 10:53 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group mailto:friam@redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

 

"But steeling yourself against WHAT?"

 

The impulse to do the same thing.  Being judgemental is so human that Jesus 
warned against it.  I don't usually quote him but...

 

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye 
mete, it shall be measured to you again.

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest 
not the beam that is in thine own eye?

 

 

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

 

On Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 9:36 AM mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> > wrote:

EricS,

 

Agreed,  99 and 44/100ths, except where you say, 

 

That’s where I attach to Marcus’s rebuttal that they can be understood for 
being angry and desperate, but they don’t get a pass for wallowing in it.

 

At this point, any psychologist in the room will ask you (and/or Marcus), What 
is your moral judgment of THEM doing for YOU?

 

That’s NOT a rhetorical question.  It has an answer. Presumably the answer has 
something to do with steeling yourself, not in Glen’s sense of that word. But 
steeling yourself against WHAT?  If I never thought or felt that particular 
WHAT, would I need to steel myself against it?  

 

n

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

 

Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[Frank Wimberly]

By the way I'm really oversimplifying here.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 12:00 PM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> If you feel angry at them while not understanding that it's because
> they're similar to you then you will feel ambivalent about your anger.  If
> they're not similar to you you probably won't feel anger
>
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 11:55 AM  wrote:
>
>> Frank wrote
>>
>>
>>
>> and feel angry at them
>>
>>
>>
>> But you are always *free* to feel angry at them.  The question is, “What
>> is that doing for you?  Why bother? And why do you NOT feel free to be
>> angry, any time you want?  And does “feeling free to be angry” have
>> anything to do with “being angry”?  Who knows what evil lurks in the
>> depths of the human heart?  The Shadow Knows.
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly
>> *Sent:* Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:47 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam@redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump
>>
>>
>>
>> After you are in touch with the empathy and understand it, feel free to
>> reject the Trumpers and feel angry at them.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 11:42 AM  wrote:
>>
>> If anybody understands what Glen is saying, please explain it to me.  I
>> feel he has tried hard enough.  I sympathise with his frustration, and am
>> taking action.
>>
>> (Private Message : Sorry, Jon I lied. )
>>
>> N
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>> Clark University
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Friam  On Behalf Of u?l? ???
>> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:20 PM
>> To: friam@redfish.com
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump
>>
>> There's so much that's so wrong I can't let it go uncommented. Everything
>> you say (in almost every post) seems to factor out *time*. When you say "As
>> commands to the self, [anger, hate, contempt, etc.] make no sense what so
>> ever", you're speaking as if the Nick of 20 years ago is the exact
>> identical Nick as the present Nick, which is so wrong as to be laughable.
>>
>> Your ill-expressed point is that the empathy/sympathy emotions for Trump
>> supporters are not under your intentional control. And you seem to be
>> saying that those of us who claim we shouldn't "spare" any empathy/sympathy
>> are either in denial or self-blinding or somesuch. Again, that ignores
>> *time*. Sure, I feel empathy for some of them, someTIMES. But I don't for
>> others of them, at other times.
>>
>> If you've ever extracted yourself from an abusive relationship, you
>> should understand this episodic concept. If you have never had such a
>> relationship, then you are the luckiest person I've ever met. The longer
>> the idiocy goes on, the less empathy I feel, the fewer episodes of empathy
>> I experience. The abuser only has so much time to change his ways before I
>> explode and murder him in his sleep, my tears of sympathy mixing with his
>> blood.
>>
>> Maybe the additional premise is that there is such a thing as time and
>> evolution? It's weird that someone who talks about things like MOTH would
>> fail to understand that, though.
>>
>> On 11/12/20 9:57 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>> > Ok,  but, let’s look at that impulse. Is it the impulse to sympathize?
>> > Why is that so scary?  Sympathy is informative, not paralyzing.  Can
>> one not feel sympathy for the rabid dog just exactly at the moment one
>> kills it? Somebody ran over a cat in our yard, once, crushed it’s
>> hindquarters.  I felt tremendous sympathy for the cat, /and so I killed it.
>> / For sympathy to be paralyzing, there has to be one more premise, and I
>> cannot identify that additional premise.  Anger, hate, contempt, etc., are
>> assertions of an ought.  Oughts only work in the context of trying to
>> incite others to a common action.  As commands to the self, they make no
>> sense what so ever.  So, unless you are standing in front of crowd, trying
>> to get them to lynch somebody, these emotions are self-blinding.  Now, I
>> suppose, self-blinding is useful, when you just don’t want to fuck with
>> subtleties of life, but nothing about them can be claimed as rational.
>> Right?  What is the additional premise that turns my empathy into something
>> I should not feel.
>>
>> --
>> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
>> -  . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-.  . .-. .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe
>> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives: 

Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[Frank Wimberly]

If you feel angry at them while not understanding that it's because they're
similar to you then you will feel ambivalent about your anger.  If they're
not similar to you you probably won't feel anger


---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 11:55 AM  wrote:

> Frank wrote
>
>
>
> and feel angry at them
>
>
>
> But you are always *free* to feel angry at them.  The question is, “What
> is that doing for you?  Why bother? And why do you NOT feel free to be
> angry, any time you want?  And does “feeling free to be angry” have
> anything to do with “being angry”?  Who knows what evil lurks in the
> depths of the human heart?  The Shadow Knows.
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly
> *Sent:* Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:47 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump
>
>
>
> After you are in touch with the empathy and understand it, feel free to
> reject the Trumpers and feel angry at them.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 11:42 AM  wrote:
>
> If anybody understands what Glen is saying, please explain it to me.  I
> feel he has tried hard enough.  I sympathise with his frustration, and am
> taking action.
>
> (Private Message : Sorry, Jon I lied. )
>
> N
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam  On Behalf Of u?l? ???
> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:20 PM
> To: friam@redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump
>
> There's so much that's so wrong I can't let it go uncommented. Everything
> you say (in almost every post) seems to factor out *time*. When you say "As
> commands to the self, [anger, hate, contempt, etc.] make no sense what so
> ever", you're speaking as if the Nick of 20 years ago is the exact
> identical Nick as the present Nick, which is so wrong as to be laughable.
>
> Your ill-expressed point is that the empathy/sympathy emotions for Trump
> supporters are not under your intentional control. And you seem to be
> saying that those of us who claim we shouldn't "spare" any empathy/sympathy
> are either in denial or self-blinding or somesuch. Again, that ignores
> *time*. Sure, I feel empathy for some of them, someTIMES. But I don't for
> others of them, at other times.
>
> If you've ever extracted yourself from an abusive relationship, you should
> understand this episodic concept. If you have never had such a
> relationship, then you are the luckiest person I've ever met. The longer
> the idiocy goes on, the less empathy I feel, the fewer episodes of empathy
> I experience. The abuser only has so much time to change his ways before I
> explode and murder him in his sleep, my tears of sympathy mixing with his
> blood.
>
> Maybe the additional premise is that there is such a thing as time and
> evolution? It's weird that someone who talks about things like MOTH would
> fail to understand that, though.
>
> On 11/12/20 9:57 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Ok,  but, let’s look at that impulse. Is it the impulse to sympathize?
> > Why is that so scary?  Sympathy is informative, not paralyzing.  Can one
> not feel sympathy for the rabid dog just exactly at the moment one kills
> it? Somebody ran over a cat in our yard, once, crushed it’s hindquarters.
> I felt tremendous sympathy for the cat, /and so I killed it. / For sympathy
> to be paralyzing, there has to be one more premise, and I cannot identify
> that additional premise.  Anger, hate, contempt, etc., are assertions of an
> ought.  Oughts only work in the context of trying to incite others to a
> common action.  As commands to the self, they make no sense what so ever.
> So, unless you are standing in front of crowd, trying to get them to lynch
> somebody, these emotions are self-blinding.  Now, I suppose, self-blinding
> is useful, when you just don’t want to fuck with subtleties of life, but
> nothing about them can be claimed as rational.  Right?  What is the
> additional premise that turns my empathy into something I should not feel.
>
> --
> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
> -  . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-.  . .-. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
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>
>
> -  . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-.  . .-. .
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> archives: 

Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[thompnickson2]

Frank wrote

 

and feel angry at them

 

But you are always free to feel angry at them.  The question is, “What is that 
doing for you?  Why bother? And why do you NOT feel free to be angry, any time 
you want?  And does “feeling free to be angry” have anything to do with “being 
angry”?  Who knows what evil lurks in the depths of the human heart?  The 
Shadow Knows.  

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:47 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

 

After you are in touch with the empathy and understand it, feel free to reject 
the Trumpers and feel angry at them.

 

On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 11:42 AM mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> > wrote:

If anybody understands what Glen is saying, please explain it to me.  I feel he 
has tried hard enough.  I sympathise with his frustration, and am taking 
action.  

(Private Message : Sorry, Jon I lied. )

N

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
thompnicks...@gmail.com  
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/



-Original Message-
From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> > On 
Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:20 PM
To: friam@redfish.com  
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

There's so much that's so wrong I can't let it go uncommented. Everything you 
say (in almost every post) seems to factor out *time*. When you say "As 
commands to the self, [anger, hate, contempt, etc.] make no sense what so 
ever", you're speaking as if the Nick of 20 years ago is the exact identical 
Nick as the present Nick, which is so wrong as to be laughable.

Your ill-expressed point is that the empathy/sympathy emotions for Trump 
supporters are not under your intentional control. And you seem to be saying 
that those of us who claim we shouldn't "spare" any empathy/sympathy are either 
in denial or self-blinding or somesuch. Again, that ignores *time*. Sure, I 
feel empathy for some of them, someTIMES. But I don't for others of them, at 
other times.

If you've ever extracted yourself from an abusive relationship, you should 
understand this episodic concept. If you have never had such a relationship, 
then you are the luckiest person I've ever met. The longer the idiocy goes on, 
the less empathy I feel, the fewer episodes of empathy I experience. The abuser 
only has so much time to change his ways before I explode and murder him in his 
sleep, my tears of sympathy mixing with his blood.

Maybe the additional premise is that there is such a thing as time and 
evolution? It's weird that someone who talks about things like MOTH would fail 
to understand that, though.

On 11/12/20 9:57 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com   
wrote:
> Ok,  but, let’s look at that impulse. Is it the impulse to sympathize?  
> Why is that so scary?  Sympathy is informative, not paralyzing.  Can one not 
> feel sympathy for the rabid dog just exactly at the moment one kills it? 
> Somebody ran over a cat in our yard, once, crushed it’s hindquarters.  I felt 
> tremendous sympathy for the cat, /and so I killed it. / For sympathy to be 
> paralyzing, there has to be one more premise, and I cannot identify that 
> additional premise.  Anger, hate, contempt, etc., are assertions of an ought. 
>  Oughts only work in the context of trying to incite others to a common 
> action.  As commands to the self, they make no sense what so ever.  So, 
> unless you are standing in front of crowd, trying to get them to lynch 
> somebody, these emotions are self-blinding.  Now, I suppose, self-blinding is 
> useful, when you just don’t want to fuck with subtleties of life, but nothing 
> about them can be claimed as rational.  Right?  What is the additional 
> premise that turns my empathy into something I should not feel.

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-- 

Frank Wimberly
140 

Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[Frank Wimberly]

After you are in touch with the empathy and understand it, feel free to
reject the Trumpers and feel angry at them.

On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 11:42 AM  wrote:

> If anybody understands what Glen is saying, please explain it to me.  I
> feel he has tried hard enough.  I sympathise with his frustration, and am
> taking action.
>
> (Private Message : Sorry, Jon I lied. )
>
> N
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam  On Behalf Of u?l? ???
> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:20 PM
> To: friam@redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump
>
> There's so much that's so wrong I can't let it go uncommented. Everything
> you say (in almost every post) seems to factor out *time*. When you say "As
> commands to the self, [anger, hate, contempt, etc.] make no sense what so
> ever", you're speaking as if the Nick of 20 years ago is the exact
> identical Nick as the present Nick, which is so wrong as to be laughable.
>
> Your ill-expressed point is that the empathy/sympathy emotions for Trump
> supporters are not under your intentional control. And you seem to be
> saying that those of us who claim we shouldn't "spare" any empathy/sympathy
> are either in denial or self-blinding or somesuch. Again, that ignores
> *time*. Sure, I feel empathy for some of them, someTIMES. But I don't for
> others of them, at other times.
>
> If you've ever extracted yourself from an abusive relationship, you should
> understand this episodic concept. If you have never had such a
> relationship, then you are the luckiest person I've ever met. The longer
> the idiocy goes on, the less empathy I feel, the fewer episodes of empathy
> I experience. The abuser only has so much time to change his ways before I
> explode and murder him in his sleep, my tears of sympathy mixing with his
> blood.
>
> Maybe the additional premise is that there is such a thing as time and
> evolution? It's weird that someone who talks about things like MOTH would
> fail to understand that, though.
>
> On 11/12/20 9:57 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Ok,  but, let’s look at that impulse. Is it the impulse to sympathize?
> > Why is that so scary?  Sympathy is informative, not paralyzing.  Can one
> not feel sympathy for the rabid dog just exactly at the moment one kills
> it? Somebody ran over a cat in our yard, once, crushed it’s hindquarters.
> I felt tremendous sympathy for the cat, /and so I killed it. / For sympathy
> to be paralyzing, there has to be one more premise, and I cannot identify
> that additional premise.  Anger, hate, contempt, etc., are assertions of an
> ought.  Oughts only work in the context of trying to incite others to a
> common action.  As commands to the self, they make no sense what so ever.
> So, unless you are standing in front of crowd, trying to get them to lynch
> somebody, these emotions are self-blinding.  Now, I suppose, self-blinding
> is useful, when you just don’t want to fuck with subtleties of life, but
> nothing about them can be claimed as rational.  Right?  What is the
> additional premise that turns my empathy into something I should not feel.
>
> --
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> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>
>
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>


-- 
Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918

Research:  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
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Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[Frank Wimberly]

Was it Brown of Harvard that wrote about the f factor to explain the rise
of Hitler and Fascism?  Everyone is attracted to an authoritarian figure
(parent imago) to some extent.  When you feel angry at the Trump sycophants
it's partly because you identify with them a little.  You've resisted the
attraction so why can't they.

Again, in my opinion

Frank

On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 11:40 AM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> I think you should feel empathy and if you feel judgemental you should
> understand it's because of your own impulse to behave in the same way as
> the judged person.
>
> In my opinion.
>
> Frank
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 10:58 AM  wrote:
>
>> Frank,
>>
>> Ok,  but, let’s look at that impulse. Is it the impulse to sympathize?
>> Why is that so scary?  Sympathy is informative, not paralyzing.  Can one
>> not feel sympathy for the rabid dog just exactly at the moment one kills
>> it? Somebody ran over a cat in our yard, once, crushed it’s hindquarters.
>> I felt tremendous sympathy for the cat, *and so I killed it. * For
>> sympathy to be paralyzing, there has to be one more premise, and I cannot
>> identify that additional premise.  Anger, hate, contempt, etc., are
>> assertions of an ought.  Oughts only work in the context of trying to
>> incite others to a common action.  As commands to the self, they make no
>> sense what so ever.  So, unless you are standing in front of crowd, trying
>> to get them to lynch somebody, these emotions are self-blinding.  Now, I
>> suppose, self-blinding is useful, when you just don’t want to fuck with
>> subtleties of life, but nothing about them can be claimed as rational.
>> Right?  What is the additional premise that turns my empathy into something
>> I should not feel.
>>
>>
>>
>> Kim, help me out, here.
>>
>> N
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly
>> *Sent:* Thursday, November 12, 2020 10:53 AM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam@redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump
>>
>>
>>
>> "But steeling yourself against WHAT?"
>>
>>
>>
>> The impulse to do the same thing.  Being judgemental is so human that
>> Jesus warned against it.  I don't usually quote him but...
>>
>>
>>
>> Judge not, that ye be not judged.
>>
>> *2 *For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what
>> measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
>>
>> *3 *And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but
>> considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ---
>> Frank C. Wimberly
>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>
>> 505 670-9918
>> Santa Fe, NM
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 9:36 AM  wrote:
>>
>> EricS,
>>
>>
>>
>> Agreed,  99 and 44/100ths, except where you say,
>>
>>
>>
>> That’s where I attach to Marcus’s rebuttal that they can be understood
>> for being angry and desperate, but they don’t get a pass for wallowing in
>> it.
>>
>>
>>
>> At this point, any psychologist in the room will ask you (and/or Marcus),
>> What is your moral judgment of THEM doing for YOU?
>>
>>
>>
>> That’s NOT a rhetorical question.  It has an answer. Presumably the
>> answer has something to do with steeling yourself, not in Glen’s sense of
>> that word. But steeling yourself against WHAT?  If I never thought or felt
>> that particular WHAT, would I need to steel myself against it?
>>
>>
>>
>> n
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *David Eric Smith
>> *Sent:* Thursday, November 12, 2020 6:59 AM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam@redfish.com>
>> *Cc:* David Eric Smith 
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump
>>
>>
>>
>> All this, too, turns on things that are facts of the matter.
>>
>>
>>
>> Roger’s post is of course both excellent and empathetic, and when I read
>> it I wanted to just say thanks for it.
>>
>>
>>
>> Marcus’s counterpoint I also agree with.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> But at the end of the day, whether your decision is good or bad turns on
>> what it accomplishes in the actual world of events, relative to other
>> decisions you could make.
>>
>>
>>
>> Fighting public health measures because you are bitter does not get you
>> back to work sooner.  Indeed, it does nothing materially good for anybody.
>> That seems to be a fairly easy fact from which to start.  Taiwan never had
>> a shutdown.  Japan never had a lockdown, and even in metropolitan Tokyo,
>> where infection density was probably one of the worst two areas (the other
>> being up around Sapporo, per million), there was about a month of business
>> shutdown.  One time.  I forget or didn’t learn 

Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[thompnickson2]

If anybody understands what Glen is saying, please explain it to me.  I feel he 
has tried hard enough.  I sympathise with his frustration, and am taking 
action.  

(Private Message : Sorry, Jon I lied. )

N

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
thompnicks...@gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
 


-Original Message-
From: Friam  On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:20 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

There's so much that's so wrong I can't let it go uncommented. Everything you 
say (in almost every post) seems to factor out *time*. When you say "As 
commands to the self, [anger, hate, contempt, etc.] make no sense what so 
ever", you're speaking as if the Nick of 20 years ago is the exact identical 
Nick as the present Nick, which is so wrong as to be laughable.

Your ill-expressed point is that the empathy/sympathy emotions for Trump 
supporters are not under your intentional control. And you seem to be saying 
that those of us who claim we shouldn't "spare" any empathy/sympathy are either 
in denial or self-blinding or somesuch. Again, that ignores *time*. Sure, I 
feel empathy for some of them, someTIMES. But I don't for others of them, at 
other times.

If you've ever extracted yourself from an abusive relationship, you should 
understand this episodic concept. If you have never had such a relationship, 
then you are the luckiest person I've ever met. The longer the idiocy goes on, 
the less empathy I feel, the fewer episodes of empathy I experience. The abuser 
only has so much time to change his ways before I explode and murder him in his 
sleep, my tears of sympathy mixing with his blood.

Maybe the additional premise is that there is such a thing as time and 
evolution? It's weird that someone who talks about things like MOTH would fail 
to understand that, though.

On 11/12/20 9:57 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> Ok,  but, let’s look at that impulse. Is it the impulse to sympathize?  
> Why is that so scary?  Sympathy is informative, not paralyzing.  Can one not 
> feel sympathy for the rabid dog just exactly at the moment one kills it? 
> Somebody ran over a cat in our yard, once, crushed it’s hindquarters.  I felt 
> tremendous sympathy for the cat, /and so I killed it. / For sympathy to be 
> paralyzing, there has to be one more premise, and I cannot identify that 
> additional premise.  Anger, hate, contempt, etc., are assertions of an ought. 
>  Oughts only work in the context of trying to incite others to a common 
> action.  As commands to the self, they make no sense what so ever.  So, 
> unless you are standing in front of crowd, trying to get them to lynch 
> somebody, these emotions are self-blinding.  Now, I suppose, self-blinding is 
> useful, when you just don’t want to fuck with subtleties of life, but nothing 
> about them can be claimed as rational.  Right?  What is the additional 
> premise that turns my empathy into something I should not feel.

--
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Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[Frank Wimberly]

I think you should feel empathy and if you feel judgemental you should
understand it's because of your own impulse to behave in the same way as
the judged person.

In my opinion.

Frank


On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 10:58 AM  wrote:

> Frank,
>
> Ok,  but, let’s look at that impulse. Is it the impulse to sympathize?
> Why is that so scary?  Sympathy is informative, not paralyzing.  Can one
> not feel sympathy for the rabid dog just exactly at the moment one kills
> it? Somebody ran over a cat in our yard, once, crushed it’s hindquarters.
> I felt tremendous sympathy for the cat, *and so I killed it. * For
> sympathy to be paralyzing, there has to be one more premise, and I cannot
> identify that additional premise.  Anger, hate, contempt, etc., are
> assertions of an ought.  Oughts only work in the context of trying to
> incite others to a common action.  As commands to the self, they make no
> sense what so ever.  So, unless you are standing in front of crowd, trying
> to get them to lynch somebody, these emotions are self-blinding.  Now, I
> suppose, self-blinding is useful, when you just don’t want to fuck with
> subtleties of life, but nothing about them can be claimed as rational.
> Right?  What is the additional premise that turns my empathy into something
> I should not feel.
>
>
>
> Kim, help me out, here.
>
> N
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly
> *Sent:* Thursday, November 12, 2020 10:53 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump
>
>
>
> "But steeling yourself against WHAT?"
>
>
>
> The impulse to do the same thing.  Being judgemental is so human that
> Jesus warned against it.  I don't usually quote him but...
>
>
>
> Judge not, that ye be not judged.
>
> *2 *For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what
> measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
>
> *3 *And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but
> considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
>
>
>
>
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 9:36 AM  wrote:
>
> EricS,
>
>
>
> Agreed,  99 and 44/100ths, except where you say,
>
>
>
> That’s where I attach to Marcus’s rebuttal that they can be understood for
> being angry and desperate, but they don’t get a pass for wallowing in it.
>
>
>
> At this point, any psychologist in the room will ask you (and/or Marcus),
> What is your moral judgment of THEM doing for YOU?
>
>
>
> That’s NOT a rhetorical question.  It has an answer. Presumably the answer
> has something to do with steeling yourself, not in Glen’s sense of that
> word. But steeling yourself against WHAT?  If I never thought or felt that
> particular WHAT, would I need to steel myself against it?
>
>
>
> n
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *David Eric Smith
> *Sent:* Thursday, November 12, 2020 6:59 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Cc:* David Eric Smith 
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump
>
>
>
> All this, too, turns on things that are facts of the matter.
>
>
>
> Roger’s post is of course both excellent and empathetic, and when I read
> it I wanted to just say thanks for it.
>
>
>
> Marcus’s counterpoint I also agree with.
>
>
>
>
>
> But at the end of the day, whether your decision is good or bad turns on
> what it accomplishes in the actual world of events, relative to other
> decisions you could make.
>
>
>
> Fighting public health measures because you are bitter does not get you
> back to work sooner.  Indeed, it does nothing materially good for anybody.
> That seems to be a fairly easy fact from which to start.  Taiwan never had
> a shutdown.  Japan never had a lockdown, and even in metropolitan Tokyo,
> where infection density was probably one of the worst two areas (the other
> being up around Sapporo, per million), there was about a month of business
> shutdown.  One time.  I forget or didn’t learn details about S. Korea, but
> I think they never had a broad or ongoing lockdown; maybe short local ones
> at most, and some business suspensions.  Those countries will have public
> health costs, a period of broad-based business costs, and sector-specific
> longer-term severe business costs in areas like bars or nightclubs or
> karaoke parlors, etc.  It will be heavy but it need not lead to a
> depression.  If vaccines work, the duration of the really bad sector impact
> will be measured in years, but not be permanent.
>
>
>
> The US, by refusing to spend 10G$ in mitigation at the 

[FRIAM] Tropical Storm Eta Tracker | Weather Underground

[thompnickson2]

https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/atlantic/2020/tropical-storm-eta 

This hurricane keeps regenerating (being regenerated?).  Is it a self
organizing system, sensu Guerine

Yes _  No __

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Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[uǝlƃ ↙↙↙]

There's so much that's so wrong I can't let it go uncommented. Everything you 
say (in almost every post) seems to factor out *time*. When you say "As 
commands to the self, [anger, hate, contempt, etc.] make no sense what so 
ever", you're speaking as if the Nick of 20 years ago is the exact identical 
Nick as the present Nick, which is so wrong as to be laughable.

Your ill-expressed point is that the empathy/sympathy emotions for Trump 
supporters are not under your intentional control. And you seem to be saying 
that those of us who claim we shouldn't "spare" any empathy/sympathy are either 
in denial or self-blinding or somesuch. Again, that ignores *time*. Sure, I 
feel empathy for some of them, someTIMES. But I don't for others of them, at 
other times.

If you've ever extracted yourself from an abusive relationship, you should 
understand this episodic concept. If you have never had such a relationship, 
then you are the luckiest person I've ever met. The longer the idiocy goes on, 
the less empathy I feel, the fewer episodes of empathy I experience. The abuser 
only has so much time to change his ways before I explode and murder him in his 
sleep, my tears of sympathy mixing with his blood.

Maybe the additional premise is that there is such a thing as time and 
evolution? It's weird that someone who talks about things like MOTH would fail 
to understand that, though.

On 11/12/20 9:57 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> Ok,  but, let’s look at that impulse. Is it the impulse to sympathize?  Why 
> is that so scary?  Sympathy is informative, not paralyzing.  Can one not feel 
> sympathy for the rabid dog just exactly at the moment one kills it? Somebody 
> ran over a cat in our yard, once, crushed it’s hindquarters.  I felt 
> tremendous sympathy for the cat, /and so I killed it. / For sympathy to be 
> paralyzing, there has to be one more premise, and I cannot identify that 
> additional premise.  Anger, hate, contempt, etc., are assertions of an ought. 
>  Oughts only work in the context of trying to incite others to a common 
> action.  As commands to the self, they make no sense what so ever.  So, 
> unless you are standing in front of crowd, trying to get them to lynch 
> somebody, these emotions are self-blinding.  Now, I suppose, self-blinding is 
> useful, when you just don’t want to fuck with subtleties of life, but nothing 
> about them can be claimed as rational.  Right?  What is the additional 
> premise that turns my
> empathy into something I should not feel.

-- 
↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
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Re: [FRIAM] Guided Apophenia

[thompnickson2]

SteveS wrote,

 

  FriAM, for better and worse, is a "Living Batch", a symbiotic colony of 
organisms

 

So, I guess it’s up to me to eat all the academic cake myself.  Would that I 
were able! As Eric will point out, I can’t even eat my own slice. 

 

Nick 

 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 11:48 AM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Guided Apophenia

 

Continuing on the arc, I stumbled over this paper ( a more scholarly, less 
PopSci) on meta-issues of the "Extended Mind Hypothesis" 

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-015-0799-9

This is relevant for multiple reasons but the most obvious to me in the moment 
is the ideas SteveG has promoted around Collective Intelligence and in some 
ways the "Extended Phenotype" (in Dawkin's sense), the built environment, and 
direly the latest application of Kauffman's Adjacent Possible to the 
exponentially growing (in complexity if not material resource) technosphere (on 
top of/adjacent to the noosphere on top of the biosphere on top of the 
hydro-cryo-atmo-geosphere).   It is a "technicolor goo" parallel to the "grey 
goo" scenario.

My application domain(s) include the realm of distributed collaboration 
(nominally scientific) and of "becoming collectively intelligent" in the sense 
of the distributed camera systems (and beyond) in-process at SimTable.

Your response below is well received and nicely arcs/ties back to the other 
threads we are all weaving here in our collective co-evolution of ideas.  This 
is my response to Nick's desire to capture all of this and reshape 
(back-propogate/re-project?) it into scholarly papers.   I sense that such a 
goal is an OldSkool impulse which I do not mean as dismissive, but possibly 
mutually exclusive to the process we are collectively engaged in here (what I 
think of as the Buddhist (westernized version) concept of dependent 
co-arising).   FriAM, for better and worse, is a "Living Batch", a symbiotic 
colony of organisms

 Mumble/Ramble,

 - Steve

On 11/12/20 10:14 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:

Excellent question! My obviously non-compelling contributions to the recent 
AI-polling thread  

 

 were intended to evoke ideas like those expressed here:
 
A Question of Responsibility by John Collins
https://www.academia.edu/177687/A_Question_of_Responsibility
 
E.g. "Chomsky’s general point in this passage, I take it, is that the empirical 
coverage of any theoretical discourse can be rendered as a commitment to a set 
of the relevant entities ([...]). Such ontological commitment to the sets of 
the relevant entities, however, is not required for the explanatory goals of 
the given sciences, unless, of course, the science is a branch of mathematics 
that is concerned with large sets and their properties, and there the identity 
of the entities is irrelevant."
 
If we imagine the output of an ML inducer as a just-so-story (similar to 
Kepler's laws) and an identified mechanism (similar to Newton's laws), it 
argues for something like inference to the best explanation. Sloppy IttBE can 
easily lead to "conspiracy theory". But well-done IttBE is simply good science. 
The *difference* lies in the well-done. Enter orgs like Pro Publica, contrasted 
with your crazy Aunt poking around Facebook.
 
I *think* EricC was trying to make a point like this in his last response in 
the deductive fidelity thread. I still owe a response to that. But the idea 
that believable rhetoric needs something like *coherence* ... not as formal or 
strong as consistency, but something like it. And the point I made in my 2nd 
AI-polling post is that it not only matters that your argument hang together. 
The mechanics of the logic matter. It's the *method* that makes the difference.
 
On 11/12/20 8:44 AM, Steve Smith wrote:

Your reference to the little evidence, etc. leads me to another new word
I encountered: "Aeteology" in the tongue-in-cheek usage of your own
oft-lobbed "just so stories".   Is there any difference between a "just
so story" and "a conspiracy?".   Intent?  Consequence? 
Convergence/Divergence?

 
 

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Re: [FRIAM] Steve's brother-in-law

[thompnickson2]

Yeah, Tom!

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Tom Johnson
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 10:58 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Steve's brother-in-law

 

I would hire Biden and people like him because he has demonstrated he is 
capable of learning.  So when his plagiarism was reported, he apparently signed 
up for software that is designed to catch it.  (Software I used ~20 years ago.) 
 Trump, on the other hand, fires a half dozen or more Inspector Generals.  
Trump, on a daily basis, rejects anything or anyone that seems to threaten his 
flimsy shield of narcissism. 

 

How does your BiL feel about being termed a loser and a sucker?  Does he really 
think Trump knows more than the generals or admirals?


  

 

TJ

Tom Johnson - t...@jtjohnson.com 

 
Institute for Analytic Journalism   -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h)
 

 NM Foundation for Open Government
Check out It's The People's Data 

  



 

 

On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 12:39 AM Stephen Guerin mailto:stephen.gue...@simtable.com> > wrote:

 

On Wed, Nov 11, 2020 at 5:52 PM Tom Johnson mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com> > wrote:

Steve-

Ask your submarine captain BiL if he would like to go to sea with Trump as his 
executive officer.

 

He said he would not. He prefers being at sea knowing his Commander in Chief is 
President Trump,

 

After I told Danny about your background in academic and professional 
journalism, he asked if you would hire Biden, a known plagiarist, as your 
Executive Editor? 

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Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[thompnickson2]

Frank,

Ok,  but, let’s look at that impulse. Is it the impulse to sympathize?  Why is 
that so scary?  Sympathy is informative, not paralyzing.  Can one not feel 
sympathy for the rabid dog just exactly at the moment one kills it? Somebody 
ran over a cat in our yard, once, crushed it’s hindquarters.  I felt tremendous 
sympathy for the cat, and so I killed it.  For sympathy to be paralyzing, there 
has to be one more premise, and I cannot identify that additional premise.  
Anger, hate, contempt, etc., are assertions of an ought.  Oughts only work in 
the context of trying to incite others to a common action.  As commands to the 
self, they make no sense what so ever.  So, unless you are standing in front of 
crowd, trying to get them to lynch somebody, these emotions are self-blinding.  
Now, I suppose, self-blinding is useful, when you just don’t want to fuck with 
subtleties of life, but nothing about them can be claimed as rational.  Right?  
What is the additional premise that turns my empathy into something I should 
not feel. 

 

Kim, help me out, here.

N

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 10:53 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

 

"But steeling yourself against WHAT?"

 

The impulse to do the same thing.  Being judgemental is so human that Jesus 
warned against it.  I don't usually quote him but...

 

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye 
mete, it shall be measured to you again.

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest 
not the beam that is in thine own eye?

 

 

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

 

On Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 9:36 AM mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> > wrote:

EricS,

 

Agreed,  99 and 44/100ths, except where you say, 

 

That’s where I attach to Marcus’s rebuttal that they can be understood for 
being angry and desperate, but they don’t get a pass for wallowing in it.

 

At this point, any psychologist in the room will ask you (and/or Marcus), What 
is your moral judgment of THEM doing for YOU?

 

That’s NOT a rhetorical question.  It has an answer. Presumably the answer has 
something to do with steeling yourself, not in Glen’s sense of that word. But 
steeling yourself against WHAT?  If I never thought or felt that particular 
WHAT, would I need to steel myself against it?  

 

n

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

 

From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> > On 
Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 6:59 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group mailto:friam@redfish.com> >
Cc: David Eric Smith mailto:desm...@santafe.edu> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

 

All this, too, turns on things that are facts of the matter.

 

Roger’s post is of course both excellent and empathetic, and when I read it I 
wanted to just say thanks for it.

 

Marcus’s counterpoint I also agree with.

 

 

But at the end of the day, whether your decision is good or bad turns on what 
it accomplishes in the actual world of events, relative to other decisions you 
could make.

 

Fighting public health measures because you are bitter does not get you back to 
work sooner.  Indeed, it does nothing materially good for anybody.  That seems 
to be a fairly easy fact from which to start.  Taiwan never had a shutdown.  
Japan never had a lockdown, and even in metropolitan Tokyo, where infection 
density was probably one of the worst two areas (the other being up around 
Sapporo, per million), there was about a month of business shutdown.  One time. 
 I forget or didn’t learn details about S. Korea, but I think they never had a 
broad or ongoing lockdown; maybe short local ones at most, and some business 
suspensions.  Those countries will have public health costs, a period of 
broad-based business costs, and sector-specific longer-term severe business 
costs in areas like bars or nightclubs or karaoke parlors, etc.  It will be 
heavy but it need not lead to a depression.  If vaccines work, the duration of 
the really bad sector impact will be measured in years, but not be permanent.

 

The US, by refusing to spend 10G$ in mitigation at the beginning, followed by 
wallowing in indulgence of wounded vanities, has now spent 2.4T$ in extra 
unemployment, and probably needs to spend something on that order more.  It 
will go on, in the best case, for a 

Re: [FRIAM] Guided Apophenia

[Steve Smith]

Continuing on the arc, I stumbled over this paper ( a more scholarly,
less PopSci) on meta-issues of the "Extended Mind Hypothesis"

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-015-0799-9

This is relevant for multiple reasons but the most obvious to me in the
moment is the ideas SteveG has promoted around Collective Intelligence
and in some ways the "Extended Phenotype" (in Dawkin's sense), the built
environment, and direly the latest application of Kauffman's Adjacent
Possible to the exponentially growing (in complexity if not material
resource) technosphere (on top of/adjacent to the noosphere on top of
the biosphere on top of the hydro-cryo-atmo-geosphere).   It is a
"technicolor goo" parallel to the "grey goo" scenario.

My application domain(s) include the realm of distributed collaboration
(nominally scientific) and of "becoming collectively intelligent" in the
sense of the distributed camera systems (and beyond) in-process at SimTable.

Your response below is well received and nicely arcs/ties back to the
other threads we are all weaving here in our collective co-evolution of
ideas.  This is my response to Nick's desire to capture all of this and
reshape (back-propogate/re-project?) it into scholarly papers.   I sense
that such a goal is an OldSkool impulse which I do not mean as
dismissive, but possibly mutually exclusive to the process we are
collectively engaged in here (what I think of as the Buddhist
(westernized version) concept of dependent co-arising).   FriAM, for
better and worse, is a "Living Batch", a symbiotic colony of organisms

 Mumble/Ramble,

 - Steve

On 11/12/20 10:14 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
> Excellent question! My obviously non-compelling contributions to the recent 
> AI-polling thread 
> 
>  were intended to evoke ideas like those expressed here:
>
> A Question of Responsibility by John Collins
> https://www.academia.edu/177687/A_Question_of_Responsibility
>
> E.g. "Chomsky’s general point in this passage, I take it, is that the 
> empirical coverage of any theoretical discourse can be rendered as a 
> commitment to a set of the relevant entities ([...]). Such ontological 
> commitment to the sets of the relevant entities, however, is not required for 
> the explanatory goals of the given sciences, unless, of course, the science 
> is a branch of mathematics that is concerned with large sets and their 
> properties, and there the identity of the entities is irrelevant."
>
> If we imagine the output of an ML inducer as a just-so-story (similar to 
> Kepler's laws) and an identified mechanism (similar to Newton's laws), it 
> argues for something like inference to the best explanation. Sloppy IttBE can 
> easily lead to "conspiracy theory". But well-done IttBE is simply good 
> science. The *difference* lies in the well-done. Enter orgs like Pro Publica, 
> contrasted with your crazy Aunt poking around Facebook.
>
> I *think* EricC was trying to make a point like this in his last response in 
> the deductive fidelity thread. I still owe a response to that. But the idea 
> that believable rhetoric needs something like *coherence* ... not as formal 
> or strong as consistency, but something like it. And the point I made in my 
> 2nd AI-polling post is that it not only matters that your argument hang 
> together. The mechanics of the logic matter. It's the *method* that makes the 
> difference.
>
> On 11/12/20 8:44 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
>> Your reference to the little evidence, etc. leads me to another new word
>> I encountered: "Aeteology" in the tongue-in-cheek usage of your own
>> oft-lobbed "just so stories".   Is there any difference between a "just
>> so story" and "a conspiracy?".   Intent?  Consequence? 
>> Convergence/Divergence?
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Guided Apophenia

[uǝlƃ ↙↙↙]

Excellent question! My obviously non-compelling contributions to the recent 
AI-polling thread 

 were intended to evoke ideas like those expressed here:

A Question of Responsibility by John Collins
https://www.academia.edu/177687/A_Question_of_Responsibility

E.g. "Chomsky’s general point in this passage, I take it, is that the empirical 
coverage of any theoretical discourse can be rendered as a commitment to a set 
of the relevant entities ([...]). Such ontological commitment to the sets of 
the relevant entities, however, is not required for the explanatory goals of 
the given sciences, unless, of course, the science is a branch of mathematics 
that is concerned with large sets and their properties, and there the identity 
of the entities is irrelevant."

If we imagine the output of an ML inducer as a just-so-story (similar to 
Kepler's laws) and an identified mechanism (similar to Newton's laws), it 
argues for something like inference to the best explanation. Sloppy IttBE can 
easily lead to "conspiracy theory". But well-done IttBE is simply good science. 
The *difference* lies in the well-done. Enter orgs like Pro Publica, contrasted 
with your crazy Aunt poking around Facebook.

I *think* EricC was trying to make a point like this in his last response in 
the deductive fidelity thread. I still owe a response to that. But the idea 
that believable rhetoric needs something like *coherence* ... not as formal or 
strong as consistency, but something like it. And the point I made in my 2nd 
AI-polling post is that it not only matters that your argument hang together. 
The mechanics of the logic matter. It's the *method* that makes the difference.

On 11/12/20 8:44 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> Your reference to the little evidence, etc. leads me to another new word
> I encountered: "Aeteology" in the tongue-in-cheek usage of your own
> oft-lobbed "just so stories".   Is there any difference between a "just
> so story" and "a conspiracy?".   Intent?  Consequence? 
> Convergence/Divergence?


-- 
↙↙↙ uǝlƃ

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Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[David Eric Smith]

All this, too, turns on things that are facts of the matter.

Roger’s post is of course both excellent and empathetic, and when I read it I 
wanted to just say thanks for it.

Marcus’s counterpoint I also agree with.


But at the end of the day, whether your decision is good or bad turns on what 
it accomplishes in the actual world of events, relative to other decisions you 
could make.

Fighting public health measures because you are bitter does not get you back to 
work sooner.  Indeed, it does nothing materially good for anybody.  That seems 
to be a fairly easy fact from which to start.  Taiwan never had a shutdown.  
Japan never had a lockdown, and even in metropolitan Tokyo, where infection 
density was probably one of the worst two areas (the other being up around 
Sapporo, per million), there was about a month of business shutdown.  One time. 
 I forget or didn’t learn details about S. Korea, but I think they never had a 
broad or ongoing lockdown; maybe short local ones at most, and some business 
suspensions.  Those countries will have public health costs, a period of 
broad-based business costs, and sector-specific longer-term severe business 
costs in areas like bars or nightclubs or karaoke parlors, etc.  It will be 
heavy but it need not lead to a depression.  If vaccines work, the duration of 
the really bad sector impact will be measured in years, but not be permanent.

The US, by refusing to spend 10G$ in mitigation at the beginning, followed by 
wallowing in indulgence of wounded vanities, has now spent 2.4T$ in extra 
unemployment, and probably needs to spend something on that order more.  It 
will go on, in the best case, for a year from the start.  Plus they need to pay 
the public health support costs, which are much higher than they were at the 
start.  The ones with market power can push the exploitation curve harder and 
harder, so that the stock markets remain high while unemployment and all three 
of personal, business, and government debt climb and climb, but at some point 
no amount of market power will compensate for the reality that debt service has 
consumed all the income workers can generate, and they are not extended any 
more revolving credit.  For the US government, I guess something like that will 
happen when foreign lenders compute that it will be mechanistically impossible 
for the US to repay any further loans they make to it by buying government 
debt.  I have in mind the picture of core collapse at the end of the red giant 
phase of stellar lifecycles, that leads to supernovae.  I don’t see anything 
that escapes from just these accounting identities, which turn on what has 
already been spent.

To be sure, there are better and worse decisions going forward.  Money on 
testing is nearly money poured down a well when you have as many cases as we 
now do; the return is much less because you are dabbing your eyes with a hanky 
while standing out in a downpour.  So some strategic and focused use, with 
emphasis on very low-cost surveillance tests, combined with heavy public health 
behavior pressure, is probably all that pays.  All other money in public health 
goes into vaccine distribution supply chains, I guess.

The other major area, I take from one of Shubik’s themes.  He always emphasized 
(as I have said on this list before) that the government has two roles in an 
economy.  One is as the setter of rules of the game; the other is as large 
coordinated player in the game.  So, e.g. monetary versus fiscal policy.  
Monetary is setting the rate of interest for central-bank borrowing, which 
doesn’t set the money in the society but affects the rates at which private 
actors can choose to change it.  Fiscal is government spending, “quantitative 
easing” by buying troubled debt, issuing government bonds, and so forth.

Similarly, Shubik used to say repeatedly that there should be a Federal Jobs 
Program, which is not equally activated all the time, but is a source of 
emergency employment stability during down-cycles.  One could pick things like 
discretionary infrastructure repair, which is not the highest priority during 
boom times, when some of that can be done through private companies, but is a 
useful thing to pay people to do during employment crises because it gives 
predictable income and gets something done that was needed anyway.  I would put 
retooling to non-fossil energy storage and distribution systems, with worker 
re-training to do it, in that category too.  Two birds with one stone.

To me, where that fits in is in parallel to the rules/player distinction.  
Supporting re-formation of collective bargaining to try to rein in the 
productivity-pay gap, or minimum wage laws, are regulatory roles.  On the long 
term, they are necessary, but they are too slow to save this administration 
from being swamped again in a backlash midterm, and then getting replaced by 
the true antichrist in the next presidential.  Direct hiring with a federal 
jobs 

Re: [FRIAM] Steve's brother-in-law

[Tom Johnson]

I would hire Biden and people like him because he has demonstrated he is
capable of learning.  So when his plagiarism was reported, he apparently
signed up for software that is designed to catch it.  (Software I used ~20
years ago.)  Trump, on the other hand, fires a half dozen or more
Inspector Generals.  Trump, on a daily basis, rejects anything or anyone
that seems to threaten his flimsy shield of narcissism.

How does your BiL feel about being termed a loser and a sucker?  Does he
really think Trump knows more than the generals or admirals?
TJ

Tom Johnson - t...@jtjohnson.com

Institute for Analytic Journalism   -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)505.473.9646(h)
*NM Foundation for Open Government*

*Check out It's The People's Data
*




On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 12:39 AM Stephen Guerin 
wrote:

>
> On Wed, Nov 11, 2020 at 5:52 PM Tom Johnson  wrote:
>
>> Steve-
>> Ask your submarine captain BiL if he would like to go to sea with Trump
>> as his executive officer.
>>
>
> He said he would not. He prefers being at sea knowing his Commander in
> Chief is President Trump,
>
> After I told Danny about your background in academic and professional
> journalism, he asked if you would hire Biden, a known plagiarist, as your
> Executive Editor?
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>
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Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[Frank Wimberly]

"But steeling yourself against WHAT?"

The impulse to do the same thing.  Being judgemental is so human that Jesus
warned against it.  I don't usually quote him but...

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what
measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but
considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?



---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 9:36 AM  wrote:

> EricS,
>
>
>
> Agreed,  99 and 44/100ths, except where you say,
>
>
>
> That’s where I attach to Marcus’s rebuttal that they can be understood for
> being angry and desperate, but they don’t get a pass for wallowing in it.
>
>
>
> At this point, any psychologist in the room will ask you (and/or Marcus),
> What is your moral judgment of THEM doing for YOU?
>
>
>
> That’s NOT a rhetorical question.  It has an answer. Presumably the answer
> has something to do with steeling yourself, not in Glen’s sense of that
> word. But steeling yourself against WHAT?  If I never thought or felt that
> particular WHAT, would I need to steel myself against it?
>
>
>
> n
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *David Eric Smith
> *Sent:* Thursday, November 12, 2020 6:59 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Cc:* David Eric Smith 
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump
>
>
>
> All this, too, turns on things that are facts of the matter.
>
>
>
> Roger’s post is of course both excellent and empathetic, and when I read
> it I wanted to just say thanks for it.
>
>
>
> Marcus’s counterpoint I also agree with.
>
>
>
>
>
> But at the end of the day, whether your decision is good or bad turns on
> what it accomplishes in the actual world of events, relative to other
> decisions you could make.
>
>
>
> Fighting public health measures because you are bitter does not get you
> back to work sooner.  Indeed, it does nothing materially good for anybody.
> That seems to be a fairly easy fact from which to start.  Taiwan never had
> a shutdown.  Japan never had a lockdown, and even in metropolitan Tokyo,
> where infection density was probably one of the worst two areas (the other
> being up around Sapporo, per million), there was about a month of business
> shutdown.  One time.  I forget or didn’t learn details about S. Korea, but
> I think they never had a broad or ongoing lockdown; maybe short local ones
> at most, and some business suspensions.  Those countries will have public
> health costs, a period of broad-based business costs, and sector-specific
> longer-term severe business costs in areas like bars or nightclubs or
> karaoke parlors, etc.  It will be heavy but it need not lead to a
> depression.  If vaccines work, the duration of the really bad sector impact
> will be measured in years, but not be permanent.
>
>
>
> The US, by refusing to spend 10G$ in mitigation at the beginning, followed
> by wallowing in indulgence of wounded vanities, has now spent 2.4T$ in
> extra unemployment, and probably needs to spend something on that order
> more.  It will go on, in the best case, for a year from the start.  Plus
> they need to pay the public health support costs, which are much higher
> than they were at the start.  The ones with market power can push the
> exploitation curve harder and harder, so that the stock markets remain high
> while unemployment and all three of personal, business, and government debt
> climb and climb, but at some point no amount of market power will
> compensate for the reality that debt service has consumed all the income
> workers can generate, and they are not extended any more revolving credit.
> For the US government, I guess something like that will happen when foreign
> lenders compute that it will be mechanistically impossible for the US to
> repay any further loans they make to it by buying government debt.  I have
> in mind the picture of core collapse at the end of the red giant phase of
> stellar lifecycles, that leads to supernovae.  I don’t see anything that
> escapes from just these accounting identities, which turn on what has
> already been spent.
>
>
>
> To be sure, there are better and worse decisions going forward.  Money on
> testing is nearly money poured down a well when you have as many cases as
> we now do; the return is much less because you are dabbing your eyes with a
> hanky while standing out in a downpour.  So some strategic and focused use,
> with emphasis on very low-cost surveillance tests, combined with heavy
> public health behavior pressure, is probably all that pays.  All other
> money in public health goes into vaccine distribution supply chains, I
> guess.
>
>
>
> The other major 

Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[Marcus Daniels]

"At this point, any psychologist in the room will ask you (and/or Marcus), What 
is your moral judgment of THEM doing for YOU?"

It is important to have a clear categorization of whether a situation is a 
civil disagreement or a zombie apocalypse.

Marcus





From: Friam  on behalf of thompnicks...@gmail.com 

Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 9:35 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump


EricS,



Agreed,  99 and 44/100ths, except where you say,



That’s where I attach to Marcus’s rebuttal that they can be understood for 
being angry and desperate, but they don’t get a pass for wallowing in it.



At this point, any psychologist in the room will ask you (and/or Marcus), What 
is your moral judgment of THEM doing for YOU?



That’s NOT a rhetorical question.  It has an answer. Presumably the answer has 
something to do with steeling yourself, not in Glen’s sense of that word. But 
steeling yourself against WHAT?  If I never thought or felt that particular 
WHAT, would I need to steel myself against it?



n



Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

thompnicks...@gmail.com

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





From: Friam  On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 6:59 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Cc: David Eric Smith 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump



All this, too, turns on things that are facts of the matter.



Roger’s post is of course both excellent and empathetic, and when I read it I 
wanted to just say thanks for it.



Marcus’s counterpoint I also agree with.





But at the end of the day, whether your decision is good or bad turns on what 
it accomplishes in the actual world of events, relative to other decisions you 
could make.



Fighting public health measures because you are bitter does not get you back to 
work sooner.  Indeed, it does nothing materially good for anybody.  That seems 
to be a fairly easy fact from which to start.  Taiwan never had a shutdown.  
Japan never had a lockdown, and even in metropolitan Tokyo, where infection 
density was probably one of the worst two areas (the other being up around 
Sapporo, per million), there was about a month of business shutdown.  One time. 
 I forget or didn’t learn details about S. Korea, but I think they never had a 
broad or ongoing lockdown; maybe short local ones at most, and some business 
suspensions.  Those countries will have public health costs, a period of 
broad-based business costs, and sector-specific longer-term severe business 
costs in areas like bars or nightclubs or karaoke parlors, etc.  It will be 
heavy but it need not lead to a depression.  If vaccines work, the duration of 
the really bad sector impact will be measured in years, but not be permanent.



The US, by refusing to spend 10G$ in mitigation at the beginning, followed by 
wallowing in indulgence of wounded vanities, has now spent 2.4T$ in extra 
unemployment, and probably needs to spend something on that order more.  It 
will go on, in the best case, for a year from the start.  Plus they need to pay 
the public health support costs, which are much higher than they were at the 
start.  The ones with market power can push the exploitation curve harder and 
harder, so that the stock markets remain high while unemployment and all three 
of personal, business, and government debt climb and climb, but at some point 
no amount of market power will compensate for the reality that debt service has 
consumed all the income workers can generate, and they are not extended any 
more revolving credit.  For the US government, I guess something like that will 
happen when foreign lenders compute that it will be mechanistically impossible 
for the US to repay any further loans they make to it by buying government 
debt.  I have in mind the picture of core collapse at the end of the red giant 
phase of stellar lifecycles, that leads to supernovae.  I don’t see anything 
that escapes from just these accounting identities, which turn on what has 
already been spent.



To be sure, there are better and worse decisions going forward.  Money on 
testing is nearly money poured down a well when you have as many cases as we 
now do; the return is much less because you are dabbing your eyes with a hanky 
while standing out in a downpour.  So some strategic and focused use, with 
emphasis on very low-cost surveillance tests, combined with heavy public health 
behavior pressure, is probably all that pays.  All other money in public health 
goes into vaccine distribution supply chains, I guess.



The other major area, I take from one of Shubik’s themes.  He always emphasized 
(as I have said on this list before) that the government has two roles in an 
economy.  One is as the setter of rules of the game; the other is as large 
coordinated player in 

Re: [FRIAM] Guided Apophenia

[Steve Smith]

Yes, it was all very meta-meta and as you say rabbit-turtles all the way
down the turtle hole... I found the self-exemplary style effective in a
disturbing way.  I don't know if that is what you meant by "hard to
read"... keeping track of the extra levels of indirection (with the risk
of infinite recursion)? 

I was left also with the paradox parallel to "good guys with guns" of
wondering at the idea that anyone can (and many do) engage in guided
aphophenia, and in fact that seems to be the basis of all (effective)
rhetorical discourse?   Who do we become if we begin to deliberately
manipulate the belief systems of others "for their own good".   Is
politics anything else but that?   But I can't help wanting to make it
my next mini-career... to set up mini whirlwinds of anti-cyclonic
conspiracies to collide with the cyclonic ones being spun by the likes
of Q (individual or collective).

Your reference to the little evidence, etc. leads me to another new word
I encountered: "Aeteology" in the tongue-in-cheek usage of your own
oft-lobbed "just so stories".   Is there any difference between a "just
so story" and "a conspiracy?".   Intent?  Consequence? 
Convergence/Divergence?


On 11/12/20 7:27 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
> That article was so painful to read! It's a good 'theory': basically that the 
> Q character is an explicit, funded campaign. But we'd need a little evidence, 
> which the author doesn't provide. So, it looks to me like they're looping it 
> around. A conspiracy theory about a conspiracy theory. A 2nd order conspiracy!
>
> The sprinkle of scientific articles was a nice touch ... adds that slight 
> hint of authority ... "You can read those papers yourself. Do your own 
> research!" And the explicit title "Curiouser Institute" provides more 
> evidence that Rabbit Rabbit (the author) *intended* the post to present a 2nd 
> order conspiracy theory ... you know, Lewis Carroll being Lewis Carroll and 
> all (Oh wait! Lewis Carroll WASN'T Lewis Carroll! ... And he was [rumored to 
> be -ed] a pedophile! Damn you Q! He's probably a Democrat and a close friend 
> of Hillary. [he died 50 years before she was born -ed] Now I have to scour 
> all related material for goat heads and pentagrams.).
>
> And my (apophenia-justified) conspiracy theory about Rabbit Rabbit's 
> intentions produces a 3rd order conspiracy! It's turtles all the way down.
>
> But, of course, my eyeballs popped out at the reference to Resnick's book, 
> which hearkens back to my post on 11/2 about the role of ad hominem in 
> critical thinking 
> ,
>  which is very questionable simply because *I* posted it. 8^D I have 
> trustworthy evidence I'm featured prominently at the top of many a killfile.
>
> This examination of vote counts and Benford's law is related: 
> https://youtu.be/etx0k1nLn78. Funny patterns in data are merely abductive 
> triggers, not evidence. It strikes me that the overwhelming majority of 
> investigative journalism is simply methodical ad hominem, as in Rabbit 
> Rabbit's piece, "Follow the money. Don’t let them fool you. This goes all the 
> way to the top." Perhaps we can suggest Rabbit Rabbit's apophenic "evidence" 
> that Q is a moderately funded campaign to Pro Publica?
>
> On November 11, 2020 6:46:28 PM PST, Steve Smith  wrote:
>> wicked good (but frightening) analysis of QAnon
>>
>> https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analysis-of-qanon-580972548be5
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Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

[thompnickson2]

EricS,

 

Agreed,  99 and 44/100ths, except where you say, 

 

That’s where I attach to Marcus’s rebuttal that they can be understood for 
being angry and desperate, but they don’t get a pass for wallowing in it.

 

At this point, any psychologist in the room will ask you (and/or Marcus), What 
is your moral judgment of THEM doing for YOU?

 

That’s NOT a rhetorical question.  It has an answer. Presumably the answer has 
something to do with steeling yourself, not in Glen’s sense of that word. But 
steeling yourself against WHAT?  If I never thought or felt that particular 
WHAT, would I need to steel myself against it?  

 

n

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

  thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2020 6:59 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Cc: David Eric Smith 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Biden beats Trump

 

All this, too, turns on things that are facts of the matter.

 

Roger’s post is of course both excellent and empathetic, and when I read it I 
wanted to just say thanks for it.

 

Marcus’s counterpoint I also agree with.

 

 

But at the end of the day, whether your decision is good or bad turns on what 
it accomplishes in the actual world of events, relative to other decisions you 
could make.

 

Fighting public health measures because you are bitter does not get you back to 
work sooner.  Indeed, it does nothing materially good for anybody.  That seems 
to be a fairly easy fact from which to start.  Taiwan never had a shutdown.  
Japan never had a lockdown, and even in metropolitan Tokyo, where infection 
density was probably one of the worst two areas (the other being up around 
Sapporo, per million), there was about a month of business shutdown.  One time. 
 I forget or didn’t learn details about S. Korea, but I think they never had a 
broad or ongoing lockdown; maybe short local ones at most, and some business 
suspensions.  Those countries will have public health costs, a period of 
broad-based business costs, and sector-specific longer-term severe business 
costs in areas like bars or nightclubs or karaoke parlors, etc.  It will be 
heavy but it need not lead to a depression.  If vaccines work, the duration of 
the really bad sector impact will be measured in years, but not be permanent.

 

The US, by refusing to spend 10G$ in mitigation at the beginning, followed by 
wallowing in indulgence of wounded vanities, has now spent 2.4T$ in extra 
unemployment, and probably needs to spend something on that order more.  It 
will go on, in the best case, for a year from the start.  Plus they need to pay 
the public health support costs, which are much higher than they were at the 
start.  The ones with market power can push the exploitation curve harder and 
harder, so that the stock markets remain high while unemployment and all three 
of personal, business, and government debt climb and climb, but at some point 
no amount of market power will compensate for the reality that debt service has 
consumed all the income workers can generate, and they are not extended any 
more revolving credit.  For the US government, I guess something like that will 
happen when foreign lenders compute that it will be mechanistically impossible 
for the US to repay any further loans they make to it by buying government 
debt.  I have in mind the picture of core collapse at the end of the red giant 
phase of stellar lifecycles, that leads to supernovae.  I don’t see anything 
that escapes from just these accounting identities, which turn on what has 
already been spent.

 

To be sure, there are better and worse decisions going forward.  Money on 
testing is nearly money poured down a well when you have as many cases as we 
now do; the return is much less because you are dabbing your eyes with a hanky 
while standing out in a downpour.  So some strategic and focused use, with 
emphasis on very low-cost surveillance tests, combined with heavy public health 
behavior pressure, is probably all that pays.  All other money in public health 
goes into vaccine distribution supply chains, I guess.

 

The other major area, I take from one of Shubik’s themes.  He always emphasized 
(as I have said on this list before) that the government has two roles in an 
economy.  One is as the setter of rules of the game; the other is as large 
coordinated player in the game.  So, e.g. monetary versus fiscal policy.  
Monetary is setting the rate of interest for central-bank borrowing, which 
doesn’t set the money in the society but affects the rates at which private 
actors can choose to change it.  Fiscal is government spending, “quantitative 
easing” by buying troubled debt, issuing government bonds, and so forth.

 

Similarly, Shubik used to say repeatedly that there should 

Re: [FRIAM] Guided Apophenia

[uǝlƃ ↙↙↙]

That article was so painful to read! It's a good 'theory': basically that the Q 
character is an explicit, funded campaign. But we'd need a little evidence, 
which the author doesn't provide. So, it looks to me like they're looping it 
around. A conspiracy theory about a conspiracy theory. A 2nd order conspiracy!

The sprinkle of scientific articles was a nice touch ... adds that slight hint 
of authority ... "You can read those papers yourself. Do your own research!" 
And the explicit title "Curiouser Institute" provides more evidence that Rabbit 
Rabbit (the author) *intended* the post to present a 2nd order conspiracy 
theory ... you know, Lewis Carroll being Lewis Carroll and all (Oh wait! Lewis 
Carroll WASN'T Lewis Carroll! ... And he was [rumored to be -ed] a pedophile! 
Damn you Q! He's probably a Democrat and a close friend of Hillary. [he died 50 
years before she was born -ed] Now I have to scour all related material for 
goat heads and pentagrams.).

And my (apophenia-justified) conspiracy theory about Rabbit Rabbit's intentions 
produces a 3rd order conspiracy! It's turtles all the way down.

But, of course, my eyeballs popped out at the reference to Resnick's book, 
which hearkens back to my post on 11/2 about the role of ad hominem in critical 
thinking 
,
 which is very questionable simply because *I* posted it. 8^D I have 
trustworthy evidence I'm featured prominently at the top of many a killfile.

This examination of vote counts and Benford's law is related: 
https://youtu.be/etx0k1nLn78. Funny patterns in data are merely abductive 
triggers, not evidence. It strikes me that the overwhelming majority of 
investigative journalism is simply methodical ad hominem, as in Rabbit Rabbit's 
piece, "Follow the money. Don’t let them fool you. This goes all the way to the 
top." Perhaps we can suggest Rabbit Rabbit's apophenic "evidence" that Q is a 
moderately funded campaign to Pro Publica?

On November 11, 2020 6:46:28 PM PST, Steve Smith  wrote:
>wicked good (but frightening) analysis of QAnon
>
>https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analysis-of-qanon-580972548be5

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