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Orlando Leibovitz

Re: Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

QUOTES

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
George Bernard Shaw

If all the rich people in the world divided up their money among themselves there wouldn't be enough to go around.
Christina Stead (1903 - 1983), House of All Nations (1938) "Credo"

My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income.
Errol Flynn (1909 - 1959)

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity: and I am not sure about the universe.
Albert Einstein

Orlando

glen e. p. ropella wrote:

Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 10/05/2008 12:07 PM:

glen e. p. ropella wrote:

Thus spake Douglas Roberts circa 10/05/2008 11:07 AM:

You want to talk about willful ignorance?  Take a good look around you.

Exactly.  The trick is:  What can we do about it?

Hmm, Chelsea Clinton went to work for a hedge fund instead of going in
to politics.   Drastic measures?


Sorry for being dense; but how does that relate to taking action (or
knowing what actions could be taken) to mitigate against willful ignorance?

Orlando Leibovitz

[hidden email]

www.orlandoleibovitz.com

Studio Telephone: 505-820-6183

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Russ Abbott

Re: Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

In reply to this post by glen ep ropella

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> wrote:

So the first step is for each individual to accept their responsibility
to think/speak critically at every opportunity. The next step is to
package such critical thinking inside an infectious wrapper so that
it spreads across all humanity.

Yes, if it worked it would be wonderful. I'm cynical enough to doubt that it would succeed. (1) I doubt that we can find a wrapper infectious enough and (2) even if we did, I doubt that the population as a whole is capable of the level of critical thinking that we need. (That's elitism, isn't it.)

Demagoguery almost always seems to succeed. Can anything be done about that? More discouraging is that advertising is cleaned up demagoguery. And advertising will always be with us.

Just to be sure I knew what I was talking about (critical thinking?) I just looked up "demagoguery": "impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the populace."

Prejudice and emotion will always be with us -- even the least prejudiced and least a prisoner of their emotions. Besides, without emotion, we can't even make decisions. (That's clearly another discussion, but it's worth noting.)

So can we really complain about superficial prejudice and emotion when we are all subject to it at some level?

Perhaps the need is for self-awareness -- and even more for having a high regard for self-awareness -- so that one can learn about one's prejudices and emotions and stand back from them when appropriate. Can we teach that? (It helps to have good role models. Obviously we have had exactly the opposite in our current president.)

Actually, though, a high regard for self-awareness might be easier to teach than critical thinking. So perhaps there is hope. But the danger there is to fall prey to melodrama. It's not easy. I'll nominate Glen as a good role model, though. How can we make your persona more widely visible?

-- Russ

Jack Leibowitz

Re: Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

In reply to this post by Orlando Leibovitz

Good..

Jack

----- Original Message -----

From: [hidden email]

To: [hidden email]

Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 5:07 PM

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

QUOTES

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
George Bernard Shaw

If all the rich people in the world divided up their money among themselves there wouldn't be enough to go around.
Christina Stead (1903 - 1983), House of All Nations (1938) "Credo"

My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income.
Errol Flynn (1909 - 1959)

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity: and I am not sure about the universe.
Albert Einstein

Orlando

glen e. p. ropella wrote:
Thus spake Marcus G. Daniels circa 10/05/2008 12:07 PM:
  
glen e. p. ropella wrote:
    
Thus spake Douglas Roberts circa 10/05/2008 11:07 AM:
 
      
You want to talk about willful ignorance?  Take a good look around you.
    
        
Exactly.  The trick is:  What can we do about it?
  
      
Hmm, Chelsea Clinton went to work for a hedge fund instead of going in
to politics.   Drastic measures?
    
Sorry for being dense; but how does that relate to taking action (or
knowing what actions could be taken) to mitigate against willful ignorance?

  
--

Orlando Leibovitz

[hidden email]

www.orlandoleibovitz.com

Studio Telephone: 505-820-6183

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Phil Henshaw-2

Re: Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels

To add to that, there seems to be a large institutional push for business
and political funded mercenary scientific research to create uncertainty
about legitimate science. A comment on David Michaels' in book "Doubt is
their product" is in the 9/27 Science News sums it up. It's 1100 references
and other resources are on the SKPP website www.defendingscience.org. I
also got a note from regarding the equally suspicious bloging of 'peer
reviewed' papers reported on in The Economist "User-generated science" Sep
18th 2008 print edition on Web 2.0 tools for it as a new horizon for of
speedy (and maybe thoughtless) research.

Phil

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
> Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
> Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 1:50 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E
>
> Steve Smith wrote:
> > The point of my talk of ignorance (willful and otherwise) is that to
> > the extent we are complicit in our own problems, we *do* have the
> > ability to retrieve some of our power from those we have given it to
> > out of our own *willful ignorance*.
> Good rant. :-)
>
> I''ll only add that power is not claimed by not being snowed by the
> misrepresentations of those having power. It's also necessary to
> organize resources to influence those in power. Folks like Sarah Palin
> recognize that information is a weapon (e.g. see her recent incredible
> remarks about Bill Ayers), but don't otherwise need to be limited by
> whether information is true in context. Similarly corporate lobbyists
> are effective at influencing government, but that too is about action
> first and truth second.
>
> Marcus
> --
> "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight
> in the dog." -- Mark Twain
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Phil Henshaw-2

Re: Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

Well, where do you put inherited ‘willful ignorance’? That kind is sort of ‘built in’.

There are two of these that my work repeatedly runs into and I fail to find a way around. One is the evident fact that the active parts of nature develop locally and have their own local reactions to intruding impacts from other active parts of nature, and that that just does not correspond with the concept of everything being determined by its environment. Yet most scientists still remain focused on the inherited fascination with explaining what the determinants are. The other is how everyone who has it pointed out seems to acknowledge that a system for endless multiplication of wealth is a threat to everything people need and care about, but then say they’re trying to ignore it to try to get along….

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 10:52 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

Dale -

I think you're being too generous.  I'm afraid that many fall into a

category I'll call "Maliciously aware".

"Willful Ignorance", in my vernacular is a dual of "Malicious Awareness". Just as most good physical comedians and rodeo clowns have to be "really, really good, to be that bad", Willful Ignorance is grounded in Malicious Awareness.

Greenspan *had* to know that he was presiding at a series of dedications of

a house of cards (Willfully pretending ignorance).

Here you seem to agree that true ignorance may not be the issue.

Again, I use Willful Ignorance in the same sense (mod subtleties) as you use Maliciously Aware. The difference is that it is the *affectation of ignorance* that makes it work.

We

have a system where certain players can reap short-term gains without

being held accountable for long-term losses.  I'm sure there are

individuals on this list with more game-theory or behavioral-incentive

knowledge that could elucidate the mechanisms better than I.

Yes, and it is not surprising that we would "evolve" personality types to fill this niche. I think we've had such in our midst at least as long as we've not been nomadic. My personal belief is that survival units of "wandering tribe" are at least selected for "enlightened self interest" at the band level. At the scale we currently operate, I think it is at least (very) very hard for us to recognize enlightened self interest, much less be motivated to act on it.

The most frustrating part is that I simply don't know what can be done

about it and how I can help.  I can choose to act in what I believe is

a more moral way, guided by "enlightened self-interest", but that

doesn't have much effect on the system as a whole.

I (and many here I am sure) share this frustration. I certainly don't have any answers but I do have a few caveats: I believe that much of the power of the worst offenders in our ruling class (political, economic, religious) comes directly from an abuse of this very frustration in the rest of us.   I believe that we have two basic operating modes, Willfull Ignorance and Enlightened Awareness. We ourselves, can be willfully ignorant.   We willfully seek out "leaders" who will promise us what we want to hear, what feeds our greed and salves our fears, even when we know better.

Willful Ignorance, IMHO, is driven by the two great motivators of "Greed" and "Fear".   We constantly allow ourselves to be stampeded from one unsustainable/untenable position to another because it suits the interest of those who can extract profit from the massive movements (bull markets, bear markets, war, etc.) This is why our "two party system" doesn't really work. They can play "good cop/bad cop" with us over and over again and we never notice.   All the while, if something turns out badly they claim "how could we have known?" but if it turns out well, they scream "See! I told you so!" And until it all falls down on our heads, we lap it up like cream from a saucer.

I was at a lecture by Noam Chomsky several years ago. He was speaking on some topic related to NAFTA and the packed house hung on his every word. It was held at UNM and the audience was about 30% students and 70% yuppies.   During the question and answer session, some poor schmuck stood up and asked. "Can you recommend any 'Socially Responsible' Investments?"   Chomsky paused for maybe 5 seconds which was an eternity as the audience all leaned forward in their seats, held their breath, cocked their ears.

When he finally spoke, a loud gasp went up. "Socially Responsible Investment is a contradiction in terms".   I took his point to mean that wielding and hoarding resources in an abstract form (stocks, bonds, commodity futures, currencies, etc) is always fundamentally irresponsible. The point of an investment is to increase in value relative to the market... to "get ahead", and it is quite possible that this type of "getting ahead" is always "irresponsible".    Within the capitalistic framework, capital *still* has to be applied with "enlightened self interest".

Handing over your "wealth" to someone else to "maximize it's value" is fundamentally wrong. We might take our pet pig to the butcher because the butcher is better at making bacon, chops, ham, sausage from her, OR we might do it because we really don't want to know what it takes to turn a living, breathing, nuzzling friend into "dinner".   Similarly, we don't want to operate third world sweat-shops, mines and plantations, but we do want the commodities they produce at the prices we pay (or lower if possible). Then we want our money managers to invest in the companies who oversee that because they are highly *profitable*.   Worst yet, we can do all of the above, while whining and crying about global economic policy and foreign policy. In short, Willful Ignorance.

The closest thing I have to an answer (for myself) is to realize that anyone in power is by definition a salesman... they will say and do what it takes to get us to buy their product (themselves, their policies) but we should not mistake this for them truly knowing what is best for us, and offering it to us out of the goodness of their heart.   The myth of the "public servant" is an empty one, as much as we want to believe in it.   The second part of this answer is to acknowledge that we, ourselves, might be our own worst enemy (ala Pogo). We live in such abstractions and so disconnected from the source of our sustenance, that we *cannot* know the consequences of our simplest actions.

I may be exhibiting willful ignorance myself by wanting to believe in emergence in human behaviour, but your point that your own "enlightened self-interest" doesn't have much effect on the system as a whole, answers it's own implied question. Perhaps that is exactly the amount of effect it can (and should) have. If it has more than it's share of effect, then something else is happening and we are on the road to being part of the problem.

I should know better than to write this early on a Sunday when I'm supposed to be getting ready for my daughter's wedding. Hmmm... could be a correlation.

- Steve

Phil Henshaw-2

Re: Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2

The Matt Taibbi quote is an amazingly clear description of the dilemma of minds that “make sense” of things by plugging in stereotypes of the real world and so creating an imaginary one lacking internal conflicts. The error common to all such “confusions” seems to be discussing things in terms of pictures in our heads without a reliable way of referring to any independent reality people might consider.

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Douglas Roberts
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 2:08 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

It was a good rant, wasn't it...

Since Steve saw fit to bring up "willful ignorance", and Marcus, Sarah Palin: what do you want to bet that McCain's creationist-the-world-is-6,000-years-old gun-toting-I-can-see-Russia-from-my-window sidekick garners approximately 50% of the vote next month?

As Matt Taibbi said in his 'The Lies of Sarah Palin' interview with Rolling Stone Magazine earlier this week:

Here's the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.

And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket.

And if she's a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed Middle American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant sized bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the sizzlin' picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her.

You want to talk about willful ignorance? Take a good look around you.

--
Doug Roberts, RTI International
[hidden email]
[hidden email]
505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 11:49 AM, Marcus G. Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Steve Smith wrote:

The point of my talk of ignorance (willful and otherwise) is that to the extent we are complicit in our own problems, we *do* have the ability to retrieve some of our power from those we have given it to out of our own *willful ignorance*.

Good rant. :-)

I''ll only add that power is not claimed by not being snowed by the misrepresentations of those having power. It's also necessary to organize resources to influence those in power. Folks like Sarah Palin recognize that information is a weapon (e.g. see her recent incredible remarks about Bill Ayers), but don't otherwise need to be limited by whether information is true in context. Similarly corporate lobbyists are effective at influencing government, but that too is about action first and truth second.

Marcus
--
"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." -- Mark Twain

Phil Henshaw-2

Re: Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

In reply to this post by glen ep ropella

Glen says:
> Without fail, they get annoyed... even if my new body of evidence shows
> that the position I took in the original argument was wrong.
>...My question is: Why doesn't everyone do this sort of thing? Why is it
that
> people get in arguments, disagree with one another, and then don't follow
up
> on it? Why do people just get all heated up about stuff and then later
don't
> give enough of a crap to spend some serious alone-time working on it?"

That's an excellent observation. What it brings to my mind is that people
often argue to 'settle scores', the pecking order and personal allegiance
things, and once you "agree to disagree" the scores are all settled. That
dynamic reminds me a lot of the reaction of all the environmentalists to my
pointing out how the money problem isn't being solved by any of the popular
environmental solutions, and everyone acts as if it is. They act like they
know just what I'm talking about, but as if "that score was already settled"
with some social decision to "agree to disagree" and try to ignore it.

The social relationship demands leaving old scores alone, and prohibit new
evidence?

Phil

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
> Behalf Of glen e. p. ropella
> Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 2:26 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E
>
> Thus spake Douglas Roberts circa 10/05/2008 11:07 AM:
> > You want to talk about willful ignorance? Take a good look around
> you.
>
> Exactly. The trick is: What can we do about it?
>
> I have this problem with many of my friends. They're all quite bright
> (in my opinion). But there's an emergent pattern. We'll get in an
> argument face-to-face about some issue... let's say whether or not a
> shaft, belt, or chain final drive on a motorcycle is more or less
> efficient than the other two types. The argument will bifurcate the
> group with some coming down on one side and others coming down on the
> others (and there's usually at least one guy who's pissed that we're
> even arguing about something so stupid ;-). We'll eventually "agree to
> disagree".
>
> Now, me being the jerk that I am, I'll go home and do a little research
> that usually includes asking local yokels their opinions as well as
> sticking my dilettante nose in a few books and querying search engines.
> I eventually, prematurely, converge on a conclusion as to whether or
> not my opinion during the face-to-face was right or wrong. I then
> (maybe weeks later) bring the body of evidence back to my friends.
>
> Without fail, they get annoyed... even if my new body of evidence shows
> that the position I took in the original argument was wrong.
>
> My question is: Why doesn't everyone do this sort of thing? Why is it
> that people get in arguments, disagree with one another, and then don't
> follow up on it? Why do people just get all heated up about stuff and
> then later don't give enough of a crap to spend some serious alone-time
> working on it?
>
> How can we encourage the people around us to think critically...
> continually critically? ... even if/when doing so makes them look like
> a jerk?
>
> --
> glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Phil Henshaw-2

Re: Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

In reply to this post by Russ Abbott

Well Russ, what if a group of scientists were to acknowledge that science actually just seems to be descriptive after all..., and looking through the holes one seems able to actually see signs of a physical world after all! Than sort of ‘emperor’s new clothes’ moment might be enough to turn everyone’s attention to value of self-critical thinking wouldn’t it?! ;-)

Phil

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 10:06 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> wrote:

So the first step is for each individual to accept their responsibility
to think/speak critically at every opportunity. The next step is to
package such critical thinking inside an infectious wrapper so that
it spreads across all humanity.

123