Re: [FRIAM] "What Work Means"

[glen]

That's a great article! But I have a bit of a bone to pick with it. (I know, right? What a boor I am.) I just can't 
help but read this as inherently Presty. I work with a handful of GenZ at my minimum wage side gig. They are hustlers, 
through and through. So a theme of the Presty article does ring, that of "financially stable" (never ever 
ever mind "well-off"; that's not even in the lexicon). But in that pursuit, my decidedly non-Presty friends 
work more than one job. One of them has a job at 2 breweries, working as an assistant brewer in one and as a 
"cellar person" at the other because Assistant Brewer doesn't provide quite enough income to pay the rents 
sought by our Land Lords. Another has 2 jobs, one as a bartender and the other as a ... what? ... "accounting 
logistics" (?) person at a car dealership.

So the perspective and focus presented by Aden in the Presty article seems VERY 
privileged to me ... but no more so than the privilege expressed by, say, Steve's story 
about a state school graduate's perspective on the grant submission/evaluation process. 
Is it any wonder we see more graffiti like "Eat the Rich" these days? Is it any 
wonder my non-Presty friends don't vote?

Another theme implicit in the article is Sam Bankman-Fried's huckster rhetoric of Effective Altrusim. When 
Presties talk of "service", "mission", and "meaning", I get this icky feeling 
deep down. An article from Harvard talking about work-life balance makes me a bit sick to my stomach in the 
same way as listening to Peter Thiel talk about the Straussian Moment (or Robin Hanson arguing we should have 
more babies). Yuck. I need a shower to wash off this Presty filth.

But similar to Eric's local deconstruction of Elliott's bullshit about bimodal 
distributions, what's a hyper-privileged Presty to do? What options are there other than 
going with the flow? What? Should Aden quit college and ... walk the earth? 
https://youtu.be/dLdRsofkCVs?si=quzxQt7wOUZT375g Nah. He should stay in the game and 
propel the criminal enterprise until he finds his golden parachute. If he can't suppress 
his appetite for "meaning", he can snack on some Greenwashing and, say, support 
the paper straw initiative at the local county commissioner meetings.

On 10/26/23 13:19, Tom Johnson wrote:

FRIAM-ers:
Many of us, probably a majority, have spent a lot of years in or around college 
campuses.  We dealt with students for decades.  The latest issue of Harvard 
Magazine has an interesting essay by a graduating senior describing his and his 
classmates' outlook on their future and the world.  All I can say is I'm glad I 
am retired.
See "What Work Means 
."


--
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Re: [FRIAM] agonism and policing the community with a keisaku?

[glen]

I intended to reply to Eric's local ("lower-level") criticism of Elliott's 
bullshit with this article:

https://theconversation.com/how-to-deal-with-visual-misinformation-circulating-in-the-israel-hamas-war-and-other-conflicts-216059

In particular: "... or merely continuing to watch images of war and atrocities tends to lead to additional encounters with such 
content." It makes some progress on agonism (perhaps against agonism?) because it raises Brandolini's Law to the foreground. 
ChatGPT was made "safe" by destroying the mental health of some very non-Presty people in the Global South. When is very 
local, tightly bound, debunking a good thing and when is it a bad thing? When I get an "image of war" in my inbox ... or on 
the front page of my favorite news medium, how much time do I spend on it? It strikes me that the "research" done by Flat 
Earthers and QAnon ... or even, say, Bellingcat , is too local. And that tightly bound locality is 
what makes them vulnerable to the Ur-narrative. Granted, *some* of us may be more robust to "mind viruses". But *how*? What's 
the mechanism for such robustness?

I'd argue that those of us who are narrative agonize between un-integrated 
narratives. But with that mechanism, you eventually get old and tired. You're 
finally overcome by the suction of 1 or a handful of narratives and either die 
that way, or have to get some shrooms from your drug dealer ... uh ... 
therapist to reach escape velocity. Those of us who have trouble maintaining 
*any* narratives, are privileged, lucky to be so stupid.

And FWIW, I suspect members of this list (and any other that suffers my presence) 
 my posts waay more than they do yours. My guess is some of yours, by 
virtue of their verbosity or targeted salutation, may languish unread. But I suspect 
mine are sent to /dev/null as soon as procmail hits the From: line. Don't forget to 
Like and Subscribe! https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/smash-the-like


On 10/25/23 15:16, Steve Smith wrote:

Glen -

As always I'm at least as intrigued as confounded by the layered language puzzles you lay here for us.  I was drawn through the looking 
glass (down the rabbit hole?) with your reference both to "Presty" and "Legibility" and "Zetetic" realizing I 
could not read your post for more than "emotional content" without reading at least the one main link/reference you offered up 
and I was nicely rewarded (kicking myself) with realizing "Presty" refers to "those who honor or defer to the prestige of an 
institution (such as an alma mater".   Zetetic were more technical and more familiar but useful to have to dig down into.

I feel also "honored" to be a participant in your "Associative Memory by Internet Forum" 
technique I feel as if getting to overhear your maunderings I am absorbing useful (to me, or my affinity group 
of some sort) perspective as well as maybe information.  I don't know if you get the  as much as I 
probably do, but I for one appreciate the depth and breadth of your reflections... maybe I have too much time and 
would be more well served if did duck out with a "TLDR" response... or not.

  I am not particularly a "Presty" although I think I *am* proud of my BS from 
a state (Northern AZ) university as opposed perhaps to a 4 year private diploma mill of 
some kind.  But only because I know that at least some of my professors were of high 
quality and dedication and their courses and the overal curricula showed it in many 
cases.  Perhaps a presumed third rate college would have equal or greater examples.

My daughter who pulled a PhD from UNM (Molecular Biology) struggles cyclically with the feeling 
that her proposals to various funding agencies are sorted by "Presties" and hers thereby 
get shuffled down the stack from ones submitted by Stanford or Berkeley (or many other prestigious 
universities) grads... I don't know how real that is or if it is a phigment of her imagination or 
something else.  In any case it interferes with her professional progression (either enforced from 
the outside or from the phantasm of her imagination)... she probably doesn't put as much effort 
into her proposals because of this real or imagined fact?  I think she would defer to your 
"legibility" argument.

I *do* agree with your/Dorst's "Legibility" argument and your anecdotal reflection on voting.  I helped Reagan run over 
the top of Carter "back in the day" and was so ashamed once I realized what I'd done (starting a few months into his 
term, but continuing well through the next two decades).   The shame of having been such a "tool" lead me to choose not 
to vote again for nearly 2 decades under the cynical cover "I don't want to encourage the bastards!" and the more 
rational "I should not vote unless I am (much) more informed on my candidates". I finally took my own challenge and 
began to inform myself as much as I could on my candidates, especially the local ones who were so close I couldn't see 

Re: [FRIAM] "What Work Means"

[Marcus Daniels]

Organizations are like waves.  Every now and then someone (or a small group) 
finds a way to do some surfing.

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2023 3:34 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "What Work Means"

I spent my career at universities (2) except for a few years at Bell Labs and 
Bios group.  I always felt that the organization I worked for was altruistic.
---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, Oct 27, 2023, 11:45 AM glen 
mailto:geprope...@gmail.com>> wrote:
That's a great article! But I have a bit of a bone to pick with it. (I know, 
right? What a boor I am.) I just can't help but read this as inherently Presty. 
I work with a handful of GenZ at my minimum wage side gig. They are hustlers, 
through and through. So a theme of the Presty article does ring, that of 
"financially stable" (never ever ever mind "well-off"; that's not even in the 
lexicon). But in that pursuit, my decidedly non-Presty friends work more than 
one job. One of them has a job at 2 breweries, working as an assistant brewer 
in one and as a "cellar person" at the other because Assistant Brewer doesn't 
provide quite enough income to pay the rents sought by our Land Lords. Another 
has 2 jobs, one as a bartender and the other as a ... what? ... "accounting 
logistics" (?) person at a car dealership.

So the perspective and focus presented by Aden in the Presty article seems VERY 
privileged to me ... but no more so than the privilege expressed by, say, 
Steve's story about a state school graduate's perspective on the grant 
submission/evaluation process. Is it any wonder we see more graffiti like "Eat 
the Rich" these days? Is it any wonder my non-Presty friends don't vote?

Another theme implicit in the article is Sam Bankman-Fried's huckster rhetoric 
of Effective Altrusim. When Presties talk of "service", "mission", and 
"meaning", I get this icky feeling deep down. An article from Harvard talking 
about work-life balance makes me a bit sick to my stomach in the same way as 
listening to Peter Thiel talk about the Straussian Moment (or Robin Hanson 
arguing we should have more babies). Yuck. I need a shower to wash off this 
Presty filth.

But similar to Eric's local deconstruction of Elliott's bullshit about bimodal 
distributions, what's a hyper-privileged Presty to do? What options are there 
other than going with the flow? What? Should Aden quit college and ... walk the 
earth? https://youtu.be/dLdRsofkCVs?si=quzxQt7wOUZT375g Nah. He should stay in 
the game and propel the criminal enterprise until he finds his golden 
parachute. If he can't suppress his appetite for "meaning", he can snack on 
some Greenwashing and, say, support the paper straw initiative at the local 
county commissioner meetings.

On 10/26/23 13:19, Tom Johnson wrote:
> FRIAM-ers:
> Many of us, probably a majority, have spent a lot of years in or around 
> college campuses.  We dealt with students for decades.  The latest issue of 
> Harvard Magazine has an interesting essay by a graduating senior describing 
> his and his classmates' outlook on their future and the world.  All I can say 
> is I'm glad I am retired.
> See "What Work Means 
> ."

--
ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ

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Re: [FRIAM] "What Work Means"

[Frank Wimberly]

I spent my career at universities (2) except for a few years at Bell Labs
and Bios group.  I always felt that the organization I worked for was
altruistic.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, Oct 27, 2023, 11:45 AM glen  wrote:

> That's a great article! But I have a bit of a bone to pick with it. (I
> know, right? What a boor I am.) I just can't help but read this as
> inherently Presty. I work with a handful of GenZ at my minimum wage side
> gig. They are hustlers, through and through. So a theme of the Presty
> article does ring, that of "financially stable" (never ever ever mind
> "well-off"; that's not even in the lexicon). But in that pursuit, my
> decidedly non-Presty friends work more than one job. One of them has a job
> at 2 breweries, working as an assistant brewer in one and as a "cellar
> person" at the other because Assistant Brewer doesn't provide quite enough
> income to pay the rents sought by our Land Lords. Another has 2 jobs, one
> as a bartender and the other as a ... what? ... "accounting logistics" (?)
> person at a car dealership.
>
> So the perspective and focus presented by Aden in the Presty article seems
> VERY privileged to me ... but no more so than the privilege expressed by,
> say, Steve's story about a state school graduate's perspective on the grant
> submission/evaluation process. Is it any wonder we see more graffiti like
> "Eat the Rich" these days? Is it any wonder my non-Presty friends don't
> vote?
>
> Another theme implicit in the article is Sam Bankman-Fried's huckster
> rhetoric of Effective Altrusim. When Presties talk of "service", "mission",
> and "meaning", I get this icky feeling deep down. An article from Harvard
> talking about work-life balance makes me a bit sick to my stomach in the
> same way as listening to Peter Thiel talk about the Straussian Moment (or
> Robin Hanson arguing we should have more babies). Yuck. I need a shower to
> wash off this Presty filth.
>
> But similar to Eric's local deconstruction of Elliott's bullshit about
> bimodal distributions, what's a hyper-privileged Presty to do? What options
> are there other than going with the flow? What? Should Aden quit college
> and ... walk the earth? https://youtu.be/dLdRsofkCVs?si=quzxQt7wOUZT375g
> Nah. He should stay in the game and propel the criminal enterprise until he
> finds his golden parachute. If he can't suppress his appetite for
> "meaning", he can snack on some Greenwashing and, say, support the paper
> straw initiative at the local county commissioner meetings.
>
> On 10/26/23 13:19, Tom Johnson wrote:
> > FRIAM-ers:
> > Many of us, probably a majority, have spent a lot of years in or around
> college campuses.  We dealt with students for decades.  The latest issue of
> Harvard Magazine has an interesting essay by a graduating senior describing
> his and his classmates' outlook on their future and the world.  All I can
> say is I'm glad I am retired.
> > See "What Work Means <
> https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2023/11/university-people-undergraduate-what-work-means
> >."
>
> --
> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
>
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>
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