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Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

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thompnickson2

Re: Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

Hi, Merle,

I have do doubt that there were (are) a lot of War Heads up at Lanl. But your characterization just seems too …sweeping. LANL will follow the money, so it’s up to us to determine what they are given money for. So let’s say we change the constitution and elect Greta Thuneberg president. Is there any particular reason that LANL-SF could not become C-CIR – The Center for Climate Impacts Remediation?

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Merle Lefkoff
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2020 7:43 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

Sorry, George. There's a bigger picture here. I went to CNLS because I could work with complex systems scientists who were not doing weapons work, and I had access to post-docs from all over the world (not true any more). But Lanl is what it is, and it's stupidly but not unexpectedly, building parts for new nuclear weapons.

On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 11:01 PM George Duncan <[hidden email]> wrote:

Based on my experience at LANL, Marcus’s assessments are correct. Indeed much of LANL activity involves basic science that most of us would find quite laudable. And many in its technical staff are our neighbors.

On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 8:33 PM Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:
< There are many powerful people in Washington who know LANL specializes in taxpayer ripoffs. >

I am confident the use of such a property would be for science, administration, and outreach & training functions, not secure national work. It would probably make a lot of LANL employees happy, as many of them live in Santa Fe. Anyway, get real, if it wasn't for all the federal money, cities in New Mexico would collapse, there would be no SFI, etc.

Marcus
From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Merle Lefkoff <[hidden email]>
Sent: Monday, January 13, 2020 2:41 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Leslie Lakind <[hidden email]>
Date: Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 2:23 PM
Subject: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12;00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends
To:

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Greg Mello <[hidden email]>

Permalink for this letter. Please forward! Other Letters
Home page; Press Releases; Bulletins;
To subscribe to our Friends listserve (formerly by invitation only) [hidden email] To unsubscribe [hidden email]
To subscribe to our Main listserve (less content, less frequent) [hidden email] To unsubscribe [hidden email]
Our blog (makeover coming!): Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ.
Contribute. Volunteer. Contact us (Greg and Trish in our main office, [hidden email])
This letter: Press conference outside Santa Fe City Hall at noon on Wednesday Jan. 15 (map) -- please come, and please recruit others
Dear New Mexico friends –
As we have explained in previous letters, Wednesday is the day on which the City will announce the finalists for "Master Developer" of the former College of Santa Fe site (and possibly surrounding properties as well, a 64- to ~100-acre project). The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has applied for this role. NNSA and/or Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are present in some (not all) other proposals, as tenant(s).
The situation is opaque, fluid, and developing. So far, Mayor Webber has disdainfully rebuffed our requests to meet or discuss the momentous social, cultural, and economic development impacts of placing a nuclear weapons campus in Santa Fe. (Don't be deceived -- that is exactly what LANL is and what this would be.)
People power may be the only force stronger than LANL's money and corruption. We really need you to help us expand our numbers.
If you live anywhere nearby please come to this joint press conference, and please ask as many friends to come as possible. Sheer attendance matters. A strong showing Wednesday will save countless hours of work later, and will give wings to efforts to push back on LANL's entirely unjustified expansion. There are many powerful people in Washington who know LANL specializes in taxpayer ripoffs. Some of them need to see some spine from us out here to take to their bosses.
New Mexico is being selected to be a nuclear weapons support and sacrifice area. That now includes the Santa Fe metro area.
We may not know know the outcome of this first Midtown Campus decision by noon Wednesday but regardless of that we must seize the day.
While it seems absurd that NNSA could be a possible "master developer," we can't be sure that Mayor Webber and the people around him wouldn't want that -- or want, say, a training facility for plutonium workers. We just don't know.
This event will also give us a chance for us to network with each other and with representatives of any other groups present, as well as speak to any City officials willing to do so.
Getting people to come on Wednesday is the sole action item we are recommending right now. It is very, very important!
Thank you!
Greg, Trish, Lydia, Ernie, Michelle, and the rest of the Study Group
--
Greg Mello
Los Alamos Study Group
2901 Summit Place NE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
505-265-1200 office
505-577-8563 cell
To subscribe to our Friends listserve [hidden email] To unsubscribe [hidden email]
To subscribe to our Main listserve (less frequent) [hidden email] To unsubscribe [hidden email]
Our blog: Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ. We have shut down our Facebook page.
---
To unsubscribe: <mailto:[hidden email]>
List help: <https://riseup.net/lists>

--
America is waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that
1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches.
Werner Herzog

--
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
[hidden email]
mobile: (303) 859-5609
skype: merle.lelfkoff2
twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
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--
George Duncan
Emeritus Professor of Statistics, Carnegie Mellon University
georgeduncanart.com
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My art theme: Dynamic exposition of the tension between matrix order and luminous chaos.

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"It's that knife-edge of uncertainty where we come alive to our truest power." Joanna Macy.
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
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Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org

Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

[hidden email]
mobile: (303) 859-5609
skype: merle.lelfkoff2

twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

In reply to this post by Edward Angel

Ed writes:

“In area in which I’ve worked, there have been large expensive projects at the labs, the quality has been mediocre and the labs are almost totally unrepresented in open conferences and journals. A related issue is that the cost of doing science at the labs is ridiculously high, another consequence of their welfare status. Under the present management, many of the scientists have to seek external funding but the cost of a lab scientist is usually two to three times higher than for a university researcher. Not a good argument for bringing a lab to SF.”

Generally, it is not practical to be funded at LANL without the DOE (or DOD) funding structure. That leads to a tendency for staff to attach themselves to large block-funded projects (or money drained from block-funded projects) which may have dubious technical leadership. Even some senior scientists have to do this.

For physicists and computational people that work 30 or 40 years at the lab, and like that lifestyle – recognizing they will have to cooperate with some projects they don’t care about – LANL is a decent place to do that. A long career has opportunities that come and go and come back. The whole system has been built to raise a family on a single income and, unlike LLNL, there’s a recognition it is the only real game in town. Santa Fe, Los Alamos, and Albuquerque will probably continue to be how they are for decades, and it won’t be like Seattle or San Francisco. There’s a fix for that: Moving.

Marcus

Angel Edward

Re: Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

I agree with your observations. The problem is that your fix is exactly what is happening with our best students. They leave.

For those of us concerned with economic development is a state which leads in childhood poverty, the labs are not an asset, largely because of precisely the points we agree on. And that’s not commenting on the ethical issues or on whether society at large should support the labs through our taxes.

One helpful fix for the state/city is not to consider the labs as a source of expertise on economic development.

__________

Ed Angel

Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab)
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico

1017 Sierra Pinon
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-984-0136 (home) [hidden email]
505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel

On Jan 14, 2020, at 10:24 AM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Ed writes:

“In area in which I’ve worked, there have been large expensive projects at the labs, the quality has been mediocre and the labs are almost totally unrepresented in open conferences and journals. A related issue is that the cost of doing science at the labs is ridiculously high, another consequence of their welfare status. Under the present management, many of the scientists have to seek external funding but the cost of a lab scientist is usually two to three times higher than for a university researcher. Not a good argument for bringing a lab to SF.”

Generally, it is not practical to be funded at LANL without the DOE (or DOD) funding structure. That leads to a tendency for staff to attach themselves to large block-funded projects (or money drained from block-funded projects) which may have dubious technical leadership. Even some senior scientists have to do this.

For physicists and computational people that work 30 or 40 years at the lab, and like that lifestyle – recognizing they will have to cooperate with some projects they don’t care about – LANL is a decent place to do that. A long career has opportunities that come and go and come back. The whole system has been built to raise a family on a single income and, unlike LLNL, there’s a recognition it is the only real game in town. Santa Fe, Los Alamos, and Albuquerque will probably continue to be how they are for decades, and it won’t be like Seattle or San Francisco. There’s a fix for that: Moving.

Marcus
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

Ed writes:

“For those of us concerned with economic development is a state which leads in childhood poverty, the labs are not an asset, largely because of precisely the points we agree on.”

Why people have kids when then have no means to support them continues to baffle me.

Los Alamos was chosen for Manhattan project because it remote and inaccessible.

Marcus

Steve Smith

Re: Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

In reply to this post by Merle Lefkoff-2

Merle, et al -

Though I reject most of the extreme arguments I hear on both sides of this issue, my instinct is that it would be better if Santa Fe did NOT invite LANL/NNSA into the development of this critical/central/prime location in the heart of *greater* Santa Fe.

I've been living in a variant of this high-dimensional, nonlinear, sometimes subtle and nuanced question all of my (adult) life. I came to LANL at 24 as a technophilic peacenik who believed MAD made sense (1980) and was happy to ensure that WE had the BIG STICK. I raised two children In Los Alamos and finally left in 2008 (27 years later) after Bechtel took over, remaining in the region and in high-tech work. Along the way I was confronted with *many* changes in the international political, cultural and scientific landscape. The end of the Cold War and nuclear testing, a nuclear arms-race between India/Pakistan, two Gulf Wars, a deep and abiding awareness of the reality and threat of Climate Change (and other parallel Endogenous Existential Threats).

I went through a few personal transformations as well, including shepherding my two daughters into maturity along the way. My opinions have become much stronger, broader and more nuanced over the years and I am thankful to have had the perspective offered through the rich gradients formed by our "tri-cultural heritage". LANL is much more/less than a traditional "Anglo" company town and the work that goes on there is much more/less than virtually any other facility. Adding Pu Pit production has expanded that yet more, while the unfathomably deep explorations into what may very well represent an array of other technological *existential threats*. Possibly equally important sociopolitically, is the role of Santa Fe (and San Juan Pueblo before it) as a locus of European Conquest, including the Pueblo Revolt (I can see Black Mesa from my window as I type).

I agree with most of Ed's assertions about the variability of quality of the work at LANL, and certainly question the average "value received" with such outrageous overheads and oft isolated efforts. I also agree with his summary of the net socioeconomic impact on the region/state. While I was (am via legacy savings and local available services) a beneficiary of the very large amount of money pumped into the region, I see the deleterious effects of it.

With my renewed interest and awareness in the "Endogenous Existential Threats" of our time, I am more sensitive to the callousness of many of the people and programs at LANL toward the local and global environment. The bulk of the memoir Frank urged me to write (to save the list from my TMI/TL;DR posts?) would be armatured around this braid of interesting (in every sense of the word) paradoxes and contradictions.

I think New Mexico's legacy around Science and Technology is real and meaningful, but has also been highly distorted by the influence of government (and specifically Defense-related) money.

Carry On,

- Steve

On 1/13/20 2:41 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Leslie Lakind <[hidden email]>
Date: Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 2:23 PM
Subject: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12;00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends
To:

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Greg Mello <[hidden email]>

Permalink for this letter. Please forward! Other Letters
Home page; Press Releases; Bulletins;
To subscribe to our Friends listserve (formerly by invitation only) [hidden email] To unsubscribe [hidden email]
To subscribe to our Main listserve (less content, less frequent) [hidden email] To unsubscribe [hidden email]
Our blog (makeover coming!): Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ.
Contribute. Volunteer. Contact us (Greg and Trish in our main office, [hidden email])

This letter: Press conference outside Santa Fe City Hall at noon on Wednesday Jan. 15 (map) -- please come, and please recruit others

Dear New Mexico friends –

As we have explained in previous letters, Wednesday is the day on which the City will announce the finalists for "Master Developer" of the former College of Santa Fe site (and possibly surrounding properties as well, a 64- to ~100-acre project). The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has applied for this role. NNSA and/or Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are present in some (not all) other proposals, as tenant(s).

The situation is opaque, fluid, and developing. So far, Mayor Webber has disdainfully rebuffed our requests to meet or discuss the momentous social, cultural, and economic development impacts of placing a nuclear weapons campus in Santa Fe. (Don't be deceived -- that is exactly what LANL is and what this would be.)

People power may be the only force stronger than LANL's money and corruption. We really need you to help us expand our numbers.

If you live anywhere nearby please come to this joint press conference, and please ask as many friends to come as possible. Sheer attendance matters. A strong showing Wednesday will save countless hours of work later, and will give wings to efforts to push back on LANL's entirely unjustified expansion. There are many powerful people in Washington who know LANL specializes in taxpayer ripoffs. Some of them need to see some spine from us out here to take to their bosses.

New Mexico is being selected to be a nuclear weapons support and sacrifice area. That now includes the Santa Fe metro area.

We may not know know the outcome of this first Midtown Campus decision by noon Wednesday but regardless of that we must seize the day.

While it seems absurd that NNSA could be a possible "master developer," we can't be sure that Mayor Webber and the people around him wouldn't want that -- or want, say, a training facility for plutonium workers. We just don't know.

This event will also give us a chance for us to network with each other and with representatives of any other groups present, as well as speak to any City officials willing to do so.

Getting people to come on Wednesday is the sole action item we are recommending right now. It is very, very important!

Thank you!

Greg, Trish, Lydia, Ernie, Michelle, and the rest of the Study Group

--

Greg Mello
Los Alamos Study Group
2901 Summit Place NE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
505-265-1200 office
505-577-8563 cell

To subscribe to our Friends listserve [hidden email] To unsubscribe [hidden email]

To subscribe to our Main listserve (less frequent) [hidden email] To unsubscribe [hidden email]

Our blog: Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ. We have shut down our Facebook page.

---
To unsubscribe: <mailto:[hidden email]>
List help: <https://riseup.net/lists>

--

America is waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that

1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches.

Werner Herzog

--

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

Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

[hidden email]
mobile: (303) 859-5609
skype: merle.lelfkoff2

twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

thompnickson2

Re: Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels

Marcus,

People have kids because they have hopes; people with more fears than hopes, probably don’t have kids.

On the other hand, there’s what my father said when, I, at the age of 40, observed that I appeared to have been … a “caboose”. “Son,” he said, as if he had been planning what to say for 40 years. “I never planned to have a child; I never had a child I didn’t love.”

I suppose you might say that people have kids because … you know…. sex, and they love kids because they have them.

Not sure reason has a lot do with it. But if you want to be entirely rational, the shadow-of-the-future argument dictates that nobody should ever have children because sometime in the future there will be a generation in which everybody dies. Are you sure you want to be THAT rational?

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2020 11:09 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

Ed writes:

“For those of us concerned with economic development is a state which leads in childhood poverty, the labs are not an asset, largely because of precisely the points we agree on.”

Why people have kids when then have no means to support them continues to baffle me.

Los Alamos was chosen for Manhattan project because it remote and inaccessible.

Marcus

Edward Angel

Re: Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

The issue in NM and other poor places around the world is not the debate about whether people should or should not have children but what to do about the children who exist. Do we really want to hold the children responsible for the” sins" of their parents? It seems we who have benefited either directly or indirectly from the welfare that has supported the labs in NM should feel some responsibility to help the 75% of children in the SF schools who are on food aid, if for no other reason to break the cycle of poverty.

_______________________

Ed Angel

Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab)
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico

1017 Sierra Pinon

Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-984-0136 (home) [hidden email]

505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel

On Jan 14, 2020, at 11:54 AM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

Marcus,

People have kids because they have hopes; people with more fears than hopes, probably don’t have kids.

On the other hand, there’s what my father said when, I, at the age of 40, observed that I appeared to have been … a “caboose”. “Son,” he said, as if he had been planning what to say for 40 years. “I never planned to have a child; I never had a child I didn’t love.”

I suppose you might say that people have kids because … you know…. sex, and they love kids because they have them.

Not sure reason has a lot do with it. But if you want to be entirely rational, the shadow-of-the-future argument dictates that nobody should ever have children because sometime in the future there will be a generation in which everybody dies. Are you sure you want to be THAT rational?

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2020 11:09 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

Ed writes:

“For those of us concerned with economic development is a state which leads in childhood poverty, the labs are not an asset, largely because of precisely the points we agree on.”

Why people have kids when then have no means to support them continues to baffle me.
Los Alamos was chosen for Manhattan project because it remote and inaccessible.

Marcus
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

thompnickson2

Re: Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

Ach!

I glad we are talking about this. It is the kind of issue that we, in particular, ought to think up and speak out about. My own impulse would be to entertain the possibility of a LANL-SF, but negotiate some sort of arrangement, say, perhaps, that no classified work could be done in here.

But now I have heard from several voices that I respect deeply, each speaking from very different kinds of experience, and all appearing to agree that even in the absence of War Heads, hosting a national laboratory would not benefit Santa Fe. But what are the alternatives? In other words, are the ills you identify inherent to all human institutions, or really only inherent to government ones. Would it be better if CMU put a campus here? I have heard many of you express the same doubts about universities. Would it be better if Google or Amazon put a campus here? Why? Why are large for-profit institutions more to be trusted than government and academic ones? At least with government institutions there is the possibility of regulating them by popular will. Amazon, not so much. Is your position that EVERY institution should be so small we can drown it in a bathtub? So, set the threshold for anti trust action VERY low. How bout this: every corporation with more than a billion dollars in assets must place 5 percent of its annual income in a trust fund to encourage competing start ups. Well, OK, split the College of Santa Fe campus up. Give it to ten different real estate firms with instructions that they must work independently. Treat it as a hazard, rather than an opportunity.

I heard a similar proposal for a solution to the truth problem on the internet. Every retweet over ten-thousand contributes funds a conterarian tweet on the same stream. In fact, how about a retweet limit on all messages. No message can be retweeted more than ten-thousand times.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2020 11:48 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

Merle, et al -

I think New Mexico's legacy around Science and Technology is real and meaningful, but has also been highly distorted by the influence of government (and specifically Defense-related) money.

Carry On,

- Steve

On 1/13/20 2:41 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Leslie Lakind <[hidden email]>
Date: Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 2:23 PM
Subject: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12;00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends
To:

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Greg Mello <[hidden email]>

Permalink for this letter. Please forward! Other Letters
Home page; Press Releases; Bulletins;
To subscribe to our Friends listserve (formerly by invitation only) [hidden email] To unsubscribe [hidden email]
To subscribe to our Main listserve (less content, less frequent) [hidden email] To unsubscribe [hidden email]
Our blog (makeover coming!): Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ.
Contribute. Volunteer. Contact us (Greg and Trish in our main office, [hidden email])
This letter: Press conference outside Santa Fe City Hall at noon on Wednesday Jan. 15 (map) -- please come, and please recruit others
Dear New Mexico friends –
As we have explained in previous letters, Wednesday is the day on which the City will announce the finalists for "Master Developer" of the former College of Santa Fe site (and possibly surrounding properties as well, a 64- to ~100-acre project). The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has applied for this role. NNSA and/or Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are present in some (not all) other proposals, as tenant(s).
The situation is opaque, fluid, and developing. So far, Mayor Webber has disdainfully rebuffed our requests to meet or discuss the momentous social, cultural, and economic development impacts of placing a nuclear weapons campus in Santa Fe. (Don't be deceived -- that is exactly what LANL is and what this would be.)
People power may be the only force stronger than LANL's money and corruption. We really need you to help us expand our numbers.
If you live anywhere nearby please come to this joint press conference, and please ask as many friends to come as possible. Sheer attendance matters. A strong showing Wednesday will save countless hours of work later, and will give wings to efforts to push back on LANL's entirely unjustified expansion. There are many powerful people in Washington who know LANL specializes in taxpayer ripoffs. Some of them need to see some spine from us out here to take to their bosses.
New Mexico is being selected to be a nuclear weapons support and sacrifice area. That now includes the Santa Fe metro area.
We may not know know the outcome of this first Midtown Campus decision by noon Wednesday but regardless of that we must seize the day.
While it seems absurd that NNSA could be a possible "master developer," we can't be sure that Mayor Webber and the people around him wouldn't want that -- or want, say, a training facility for plutonium workers. We just don't know.
This event will also give us a chance for us to network with each other and with representatives of any other groups present, as well as speak to any City officials willing to do so.
Getting people to come on Wednesday is the sole action item we are recommending right now. It is very, very important!
Thank you!
Greg, Trish, Lydia, Ernie, Michelle, and the rest of the Study Group
--
Greg Mello
Los Alamos Study Group
2901 Summit Place NE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
505-265-1200 office
505-577-8563 cell
To subscribe to our Friends listserve [hidden email] To unsubscribe [hidden email]
To subscribe to our Main listserve (less frequent) [hidden email] To unsubscribe [hidden email]
Our blog: Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ. We have shut down our Facebook page.
---
To unsubscribe: <mailto:[hidden email]>
List help: <https://riseup.net/lists>

--
America is waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that
1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches.
Werner Herzog

--
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
[hidden email]
mobile: (303) 859-5609
skype: merle.lelfkoff2
twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
============================================================
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Steve Smith

BohmDialog was: NO LANL IN SANTA FE!

Ach!

I glad we are talking about this. It is the kind of issue that we, in particular, ought to think up and speak out about. My own impulse would be to entertain the possibility of a LANL-SF, but negotiate some sort of arrangement, say, perhaps, that no classified work could be done in here.

Nick -

Guerin brought up the idea of trying to engage (some from?) this group, or the larger Complexity Community with the folks that a *small* group of us met in Stockholm last month under the thoughtful shepherding of Merle and Lars (Larsson).

He specifically mentioned the idea of Bohm Dialogue, after the example/prescription of the late David Bohm who introduced the idea of a particular style of Dialogue which is neither Debate nor Discussion in the normal colloquial sense.

There is a group with a website: BohmDialogue.org which tries to represent his ideas and this style. I encountered his ideas first in his book "Wholeness and the Implicate Order" as "the Rheomode" which roughly describes his conception of a language which is "verb centric" which subsumes the Subject and Object in importance to the Action. The website above is not well developed but seems to represent the idea and promote it's broad application.

Bohm's lecture in 1992 to a "Transpersonal Conference" captures a lot of important ideas in the relevance and role of "Science" in the larger project of "Being Human". Much of Bohm's perspective in this area seems to derive from his long association with philospher/spiritual-leader Jiddu Krishnamurti. Many of Krishnamurti's fans (and by extension Bohm's) are perhaps a bit "woo" for this crowd and I understand/share that. On the other hand, the very discussion at hand suggests that there is a crisis in the some of our seperations between Science and Morality, etc.

I mentioned, after Guerin's post, your own pursuit of a more creative/building/collaborative mode of (online) conversation than the existing modes at the time when you tried to implement "noodling" on top of the Wikimedia platform we had at SFx at the time.

Much of our current (all?) discussion on this list takes the form of debate... each one of us trying to convince the others of something in particular. It gets better (for me) when the discussion takes more of the texture of a Discussion, even though THAT is often really the superposition of a suite of Rants and Raves. I'm not sure I *know* what a true Dialogue (Bohm Style) would really be like, though I do think I've experienced it often within the realm of Science/Technology. The way Merle and Lars' team in Stockholm shepherded us in December in Stockholm began to approach that.

I understand that our own Benny Lichnter (active in SFx, now living in Berkeley/Oakland) may be working with/using this style of commun(icat)ion.

- Steve

PS. Specific in response to your question about institutions and blunt-force-trauma methods for controlling/managing/mitigating them... I do find that large institutions are risky propositions, and not just at the scale Elizabeth Warren is going after or Big Gov or Big Academe or ... but I'm equally suspicious of "simple solutions" to such... this kind of problem (in scale, quality, importance) might require "Dialog" to begin to work into/through.

But now I have heard from several voices that I respect deeply, each speaking from very different kinds of experience, and all appearing to agree that even in the absence of War Heads, hosting a national laboratory would not benefit Santa Fe. But what are the alternatives? In other words, are the ills you identify inherent to all human institutions, or really only inherent to government ones. Would it be better if CMU put a campus here? I have heard many of you express the same doubts about universities. Would it be better if Google or Amazon put a campus here? Why? Why are large for-profit institutions more to be trusted than government and academic ones? At least with government institutions there is the possibility of regulating them by popular will. Amazon, not so much. Is your position that EVERY institution should be so small we can drown it in a bathtub? So, set the threshold for anti trust action VERY low. How bout this: every corporation with more than a billion dollars in assets must place 5 percent of its annual income in a trust fund to encourage competing start ups. Well, OK, split the College of Santa Fe campus up. Give it to ten different real estate firms with instructions that they must work independently. Treat it as a hazard, rather than an opportunity.

I heard a similar proposal for a solution to the truth problem on the internet. Every retweet over ten-thousand contributes funds a conterarian tweet on the same stream. In fact, how about a retweet limit on all messages. No message can be retweeted more than ten-thousand times.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2020 11:48 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

Merle, et al -

Though I reject most of the extreme arguments I hear on both sides of this issue, my instinct is that it would be better if Santa Fe did NOT invite LANL/NNSA into the development of this critical/central/prime location in the heart of *greater* Santa Fe.

I've been living in a variant of this high-dimensional, nonlinear, sometimes subtle and nuanced question all of my (adult) life.   I came to LANL at 24 as a technophilic peacenik who believed MAD made sense (1980) and was happy to ensure that WE had the BIG STICK. I raised two children In Los Alamos and finally left in 2008 (27 years later) after Bechtel took over, remaining in the region and in high-tech work.   Along the way I was confronted with *many* changes in the international political, cultural and scientific landscape.   The end of the Cold War and nuclear testing, a nuclear arms-race between India/Pakistan, two Gulf Wars, a deep and abiding awareness of the reality and threat of Climate Change (and other parallel Endogenous Existential Threats).

I went through a few personal transformations as well, including shepherding my two daughters into maturity along the way. My opinions have become much stronger, broader and more nuanced over the years and I am thankful to have had the perspective offered through the rich gradients formed by our "tri-cultural heritage".   LANL is much more/less than a traditional "Anglo" company town and the work that goes on there is much more/less than virtually any other facility. Adding Pu Pit production has expanded that yet more, while the unfathomably deep explorations into what may very well represent an array of other technological *existential threats*. Possibly equally important sociopolitically, is the role of Santa Fe (and San Juan Pueblo before it) as a locus of European Conquest, including the Pueblo Revolt (I can see Black Mesa from my window as I type).

I agree with most of Ed's assertions about the variability of quality of the work at LANL, and certainly question the average "value received" with such outrageous overheads and oft isolated efforts. I also agree with his summary of the net socioeconomic impact on the region/state.   While I was (am via legacy savings and local available services) a beneficiary of the very large amount of money pumped into the region, I see the deleterious effects of it.

With my renewed interest and awareness in the "Endogenous Existential Threats" of our time, I am more sensitive to the callousness of many of the people and programs at LANL toward the local and global environment.   The bulk of the memoir Frank urged me to write (to save the list from my TMI/TL;DR posts?) would be armatured around this braid of interesting (in every sense of the word) paradoxes and contradictions.

I think New Mexico's legacy around Science and Technology is real and meaningful, but has also been highly distorted by the influence of government (and specifically Defense-related) money.

Carry On,

- Steve

On 1/13/20 2:41 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Leslie Lakind <[hidden email]>
Date: Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 2:23 PM
Subject: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12;00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends
To:

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Greg Mello <[hidden email]>

Permalink for this letter. Please forward! Other Letters
Home page; Press Releases; Bulletins;
To subscribe to our Friends listserve (formerly by invitation only) [hidden email] To unsubscribe [hidden email]
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This letter: Press conference outside Santa Fe City Hall at noon on Wednesday Jan. 15 (map) -- please come, and please recruit others

Dear New Mexico friends –

As we have explained in previous letters, Wednesday is the day on which the City will announce the finalists for "Master Developer" of the former College of Santa Fe site (and possibly surrounding properties as well, a 64- to ~100-acre project). The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has applied for this role. NNSA and/or Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are present in some (not all) other proposals, as tenant(s).

The situation is opaque, fluid, and developing. So far, Mayor Webber has disdainfully rebuffed our requests to meet or discuss the momentous social, cultural, and economic development impacts of placing a nuclear weapons campus in Santa Fe. (Don't be deceived -- that is exactly what LANL is and what this would be.)

People power may be the only force stronger than LANL's money and corruption. We really need you to help us expand our numbers.

If you live anywhere nearby please come to this joint press conference, and please ask as many friends to come as possible. Sheer attendance matters. A strong showing Wednesday will save countless hours of work later, and will give wings to efforts to push back on LANL's entirely unjustified expansion. There are many powerful people in Washington who know LANL specializes in taxpayer ripoffs. Some of them need to see some spine from us out here to take to their bosses.

New Mexico is being selected to be a nuclear weapons support and sacrifice area. That now includes the Santa Fe metro area.

We may not know know the outcome of this first Midtown Campus decision by noon Wednesday but regardless of that we must seize the day.

While it seems absurd that NNSA could be a possible "master developer," we can't be sure that Mayor Webber and the people around him wouldn't want that -- or want, say, a training facility for plutonium workers. We just don't know.

This event will also give us a chance for us to network with each other and with representatives of any other groups present, as well as speak to any City officials willing to do so.

Getting people to come on Wednesday is the sole action item we are recommending right now. It is very, very important!

Thank you!

Greg, Trish, Lydia, Ernie, Michelle, and the rest of the Study Group

--

Greg Mello
Los Alamos Study Group
2901 Summit Place NE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
505-265-1200 office
505-577-8563 cell

To subscribe to our Friends listserve [hidden email] To unsubscribe [hidden email]

To subscribe to our Main listserve (less frequent) [hidden email] To unsubscribe [hidden email]

Our blog: Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ. We have shut down our Facebook page.

---
To unsubscribe: <mailto:[hidden email]>
List help: <https://riseup.net/lists>

--

America is waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that

1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches.

Werner Herzog

--

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

Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

[hidden email]
mobile: (303) 859-5609
skype: merle.lelfkoff2

twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

Nick writes:

< In other words, are the ills you identify inherent to all human institutions, or really only inherent to government ones. Would it be better if CMU put a campus here? >

Why would CMU do that unless it was to 1) have a pool of experienced people to hire, or 2) attach to government (defense) contracts in the area, or 3) a reasonable expectation there would be lots of people paying tuition (directly or indirectly)?

Marcus

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

Nick writes:

“People have kids because they have hopes; people with more fears than hopes, probably don’t have kids.”

Ed writes:

“It seems we who have benefited either directly or indirectly from the welfare that has supported the labs in NM should feel some responsibility to help the 75% of children in the SF schools who are on food aid, if for no other reason to break the cycle of poverty.”

How about removing tax credits for dependents. And do more to indoctrinate people to have more fears than hopes, because judging from Ed’s remark, they are badly calibrated to reality. And raise taxes across the board to fund schools so that the kids do in fact leave and don’t make the same mistake. Depopulate parts of this country where it is just not going to work out. Canada is doing it. Or conversely, pay them to come.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/blogs/how-do-you-deal-with-dwindling-tiny-towns-newfoundland-and-labrador-will-pay-you-to-leave-1.4466157

https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/31/pf/jobs/vermont-pay-remote-workers/index.html

Marcus

David Eric Smith

Re: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

I think I have been influenced on preferred frames for this question by two sources in particular.

One was the writing Krugman did in the 1970s-90s on economic geography, which translating into my own current language is very much a perspective of institutional ecology with an emphasis on critical mass effects and what have become popular to call tipping points. If you don’t have something like a protected bay, a waterway, or other geographic feature to nucleate a distributed growth dynamic, critical mass is often achieved by the actions of large atomic (in the sense of indivisible, not meaning related to nuclear physics) actors, who can act on large scale in inidivual moves. The examples he always trotted out at the beginnings of essays were Burlington NC for textiles, or coastal Washington for aircraft (we’ll see how long that persists given current management, but for the last half of the previous century…)

The second source came through Martin Shubik, and was the work of the Swedish development economist Gunnar Eliasson. Eliasson’s work was specifically on the long-term design and strategy problem of where a government would allocate resources if it understood from the start that much of the output would need to be handed off to distributed or private developers, but (in the sense of the economic idea of “mechanism design”) it wanted that distributed development to achieve a specific social goal, not just to be whatever-happens-next. The point in this work is that only looking at the large action by one actor at the beginning doesn’t solve a problem; it’s embedding that action in follow-through and having a longer-term plan. I think this is to Ed Angel’s point that LANL as a stand-alone achieves a large distortion, but doesn’t change the opportunities of the region around it in self-sustaining ways.

I know the members on this list mostly don’t have powers of implementation, but as idle intellectual exercise, if you/we were portfolio managers, or really avant-garde regional planners, what would your design look like to get through critical mass thresholds to tip an interior, water-limited, relatively low-population region into some kind of self-maintaining decent standard of life and opportunity for whoever lived there stably for a long time. (And how many can that be, in water-limited regions?) Intel made a significant impact in ABQ, but putting a semiconductor fab in a desert is about as unsustainable a business decision as I can imagine. What resources exist currently? If you were designing the institutional ecosystem, and knew you needed some economic social function but couldn’t find an actor to fit it, could you define in somewhat operational terms what that function would need to be, and how much of the remainder of the context could you populate with specific actors and a plan to get them into place?

I know this is much too loose and long-term to deal with immediate practicalities of interacting wtih the SF city council, but we often speak as if long-term future visioning efforts could in principle yield something useful.

Eric

> On Jan 15, 2020, at 4:30 AM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Ach!
>
> I glad we are talking about this. It is the kind of issue that we, in particular, ought to think up and speak out about. My own impulse would be to entertain the possibility of a LANL-SF, but negotiate some sort of arrangement, say, perhaps, that no classified work could be done in here.
>
> But now I have heard from several voices that I respect deeply, each speaking from very different kinds of experience, and all appearing to agree that even in the absence of War Heads, hosting a national laboratory would not benefit Santa Fe. But what are the alternatives? In other words, are the ills you identify inherent to all human institutions, or really only inherent to government ones. Would it be better if CMU put a campus here? I have heard many of you express the same doubts about universities. Would it be better if Google or Amazon put a campus here? Why? Why are large for-profit institutions more to be trusted than government and academic ones? At least with government institutions there is the possibility of regulating them by popular will. Amazon, not so much. Is your position that EVERY institution should be so small we can drown it in a bathtub? So, set the threshold for anti trust action VERY low. How bout this: every corporation with more than a billion dollars in assets must place 5 percent of its annual income in a trust fund to encourage competing start ups. Well, OK, split the College of Santa Fe campus up. Give it to ten different real estate firms with instructions that they must work independently. Treat it as a hazard, rather than an opportunity.
>
> I heard a similar proposal for a solution to the truth problem on the internet. Every retweet over ten-thousand contributes funds a conterarian tweet on the same stream. In fact, how about a retweet limit on all messages. No message can be retweeted more than ten-thousand times.
>
> Nick
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> [hidden email]
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
> Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2020 11:48 AM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends
>
> Merle, et al -
> Though I reject most of the extreme arguments I hear on both sides of this issue, my instinct is that it would be better if Santa Fe did NOT invite LANL/NNSA into the development of this critical/central/prime location in the heart of *greater* Santa Fe.
> I've been living in a variant of this high-dimensional, nonlinear, sometimes subtle and nuanced question all of my (adult) life. I came to LANL at 24 as a technophilic peacenik who believed MAD made sense (1980) and was happy to ensure that WE had the BIG STICK. I raised two children In Los Alamos and finally left in 2008 (27 years later) after Bechtel took over, remaining in the region and in high-tech work. Along the way I was confronted with *many* changes in the international political, cultural and scientific landscape. The end of the Cold War and nuclear testing, a nuclear arms-race between India/Pakistan, two Gulf Wars, a deep and abiding awareness of the reality and threat of Climate Change (and other parallel Endogenous Existential Threats).
> I went through a few personal transformations as well, including shepherding my two daughters into maturity along the way. My opinions have become much stronger, broader and more nuanced over the years and I am thankful to have had the perspective offered through the rich gradients formed by our "tri-cultural heritage". LANL is much more/less than a traditional "Anglo" company town and the work that goes on there is much more/less than virtually any other facility. Adding Pu Pit production has expanded that yet more, while the unfathomably deep explorations into what may very well represent an array of other technological *existential threats*. Possibly equally important sociopolitically, is the role of Santa Fe (and San Juan Pueblo before it) as a locus of European Conquest, including the Pueblo Revolt (I can see Black Mesa from my window as I type).
> I agree with most of Ed's assertions about the variability of quality of the work at LANL, and certainly question the average "value received" with such outrageous overheads and oft isolated efforts. I also agree with his summary of the net socioeconomic impact on the region/state. While I was (am via legacy savings and local available services) a beneficiary of the very large amount of money pumped into the region, I see the deleterious effects of it.
> With my renewed interest and awareness in the "Endogenous Existential Threats" of our time, I am more sensitive to the callousness of many of the people and programs at LANL toward the local and global environment. The bulk of the memoir Frank urged me to write (to save the list from my TMI/TL;DR posts?) would be armatured around this braid of interesting (in every sense of the word) paradoxes and contradictions.
> I think New Mexico's legacy around Science and Technology is real and meaningful, but has also been highly distorted by the influence of government (and specifically Defense-related) money.
> Carry On,
> - Steve
> On 1/13/20 2:41 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>> From: Leslie Lakind <[hidden email]>
>> Date: Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 2:23 PM
>> Subject: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12;00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends
>> To:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>> From: Greg Mello <[hidden email]>
>>
>>
>>
>> Permalink for this letter. Please forward! Other Letters
>> Home page; Press Releases; Bulletins;
>> To subscribe to our Friends listserve (formerly by invitation only) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
>> To subscribe to our Main listserve (less content, less frequent) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
>> Our blog (makeover coming!): Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ.
>> Contribute. Volunteer. Contact us (Greg and Trish in our main office, Lydia Clark in our Santa Fe office)
>> This letter: Press conference outside Santa Fe City Hall at noon on Wednesday Jan. 15 (map) -- please come, and please recruit others
>> Dear New Mexico friends –
>> As we have explained in previous letters, Wednesday is the day on which the City will announce the finalists for "Master Developer" of the former College of Santa Fe site (and possibly surrounding properties as well, a 64- to ~100-acre project). The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has applied for this role. NNSA and/or Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are present in some (not all) other proposals, as tenant(s).
>> The situation is opaque, fluid, and developing. So far, Mayor Webber has disdainfully rebuffed our requests to meet or discuss the momentous social, cultural, and economic development impacts of placing a nuclear weapons campus in Santa Fe. (Don't be deceived -- that is exactly what LANL is and what this would be.)
>> People power may be the only force stronger than LANL's money and corruption. We really need you to help us expand our numbers.
>> If you live anywhere nearby please come to this joint press conference, and please ask as many friends to come as possible. Sheer attendance matters. A strong showing Wednesday will save countless hours of work later, and will give wings to efforts to push back on LANL's entirely unjustified expansion. There are many powerful people in Washington who know LANL specializes in taxpayer ripoffs. Some of them need to see some spine from us out here to take to their bosses.
>> New Mexico is being selected to be a nuclear weapons support and sacrifice area. That now includes the Santa Fe metro area.
>> We may not know know the outcome of this first Midtown Campus decision by noon Wednesday but regardless of that we must seize the day.
>> While it seems absurd that NNSA could be a possible "master developer," we can't be sure that Mayor Webber and the people around him wouldn't want that -- or want, say, a training facility for plutonium workers. We just don't know.
>> This event will also give us a chance for us to network with each other and with representatives of any other groups present, as well as speak to any City officials willing to do so.
>> Getting people to come on Wednesday is the sole action item we are recommending right now. It is very, very important!
>> Thank you!
>> Greg, Trish, Lydia, Ernie, Michelle, and the rest of the Study Group
>> --
>> Greg Mello
>> Los Alamos Study Group
>> 2901 Summit Place NE
>> Albuquerque, NM 87106
>> 505-265-1200 office
>> 505-577-8563 cell
>> To subscribe to our Friends listserve send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
>> To subscribe to our Main listserve (less frequent) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
>> Our blog: Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ. We have shut down our Facebook page.
>> ---
>> To unsubscribe: <mailto:[hidden email]>
>> List help: <https://riseup.net/lists>
>>
>>
>> --
>> America is waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that
>> 1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches.
>> Werner Herzog
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
>> President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
>> emergentdiplomacy.org
>> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>> [hidden email]
>> mobile: (303) 859-5609
>> skype: merle.lelfkoff2
>> twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels

I worked at CMU for 20 years. When I moved to Santa Fe it occurred to me that a branch campus in Santa Fe might be a possibility. CMU's strongest programs and in engineering and science (not surprisingly) and fine arts (perhaps surprising to some) but with growing excellence in humanities and social sciences. I thought this would be synergistic with Santa Fe given the national labs and the arts culture. I went into much more detail than that as I consulted with several senior faculty there, including George Duncan and Mark Kamlet, then provost. Mark said it was an interesting idea that he would like to investigate. Eventually Mark sent me and others a long letter (multiple pages) with a cost-benefit analysis focusing on finances (he's an economist). To summarize greatly, the project was not economically viable partly because they had opened campuses in Qatar, Silicon Valley, and were in the process of opening one in Singapore. He included analyses of cost per student, and related issues such as cost of faculty. The point is that it was a serious consideration but eventually rejected. There were many more details that I have left out.

Frank

-----------------------------------
Frank Wimberly

My memoir:
https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 1:43 PM Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick writes:

< In other words, are the ills you identify inherent to all human institutions, or really only inherent to government ones. Would it be better if CMU put a campus here? >

Why would CMU do that unless it was to 1) have a pool of experienced people to hire, or 2) attach to government (defense) contracts in the area, or 3) a reasonable expectation there would be lots of people paying tuition (directly or indirectly)?

Marcus

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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Prof David West

Re: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

In reply to this post by David Eric Smith

Eric,

How about establishing a Galactic Library?

Inspiration comes from a myriad of science fiction novels.

Would subsume Wikipedia, the WWW, Project Gutenberg and Google's book digitization project, all the knowledge bases currently behind pay walls. the government document storage center currently in Pueblo Colorado, etc. etc.

Would employ the best and brightest from library and information science, knowledge visualization, cognitive theorists, etc. etc. — not to mention knowledge creators like artists and authors.

Knowledge rescue missions led by anthropologists would recover languages, folk knowledge, etc that has not been recorded and will be lost.

Local universities might specialize in producing people capable of new disciplines of ordinology and synthesis, polymaths, and reference librarians.

You could include computer folk, if and only if, they took some kind of "Engelbart Pledge" that their work would enhance and augment human abilities instead of demeaning/replacing them.

Biggest obstacle would be power. Highly probably that it would have to come from nuclear -—maybe those refrigerator size reactors that a company in Albuquerque and Oregon have been working on.

Entirely new ways of thinking about knowledge and wisdom would need to be developed. (The computer science notions of data, databases, and information must be discarded as harmful.)

Could incorporate myriad Bohm Dialogues..

Could be a massive source of innovative ideas for development outside the Library.

davew

On Tue, Jan 14, 2020, at 10:03 PM, David Eric Smith wrote:

> I think I have been influenced on preferred frames for this question by
> two sources in particular.
>
> One was the writing Krugman did in the 1970s-90s on economic geography,
> which translating into my own current language is very much a
> perspective of institutional ecology with an emphasis on critical mass
> effects and what have become popular to call tipping points. If you
> don’t have something like a protected bay, a waterway, or other
> geographic feature to nucleate a distributed growth dynamic, critical
> mass is often achieved by the actions of large atomic (in the sense of
> indivisible, not meaning related to nuclear physics) actors, who can
> act on large scale in inidivual moves. The examples he always trotted
> out at the beginnings of essays were Burlington NC for textiles, or
> coastal Washington for aircraft (we’ll see how long that persists given
> current management, but for the last half of the previous century…)
>
> The second source came through Martin Shubik, and was the work of the
> Swedish development economist Gunnar Eliasson. Eliasson’s work was
> specifically on the long-term design and strategy problem of where a
> government would allocate resources if it understood from the start
> that much of the output would need to be handed off to distributed or
> private developers, but (in the sense of the economic idea of
> “mechanism design”) it wanted that distributed development to achieve a
> specific social goal, not just to be whatever-happens-next. The point
> in this work is that only looking at the large action by one actor at
> the beginning doesn’t solve a problem; it’s embedding that action in
> follow-through and having a longer-term plan. I think this is to Ed
> Angel’s point that LANL as a stand-alone achieves a large distortion,
> but doesn’t change the opportunities of the region around it in
> self-sustaining ways.
>
> I know the members on this list mostly don’t have powers of
> implementation, but as idle intellectual exercise, if you/we were
> portfolio managers, or really avant-garde regional planners, what would
> your design look like to get through critical mass thresholds to tip an
> interior, water-limited, relatively low-population region into some
> kind of self-maintaining decent standard of life and opportunity for
> whoever lived there stably for a long time. (And how many can that be,
> in water-limited regions?) Intel made a significant impact in ABQ, but
> putting a semiconductor fab in a desert is about as unsustainable a
> business decision as I can imagine. What resources exist currently?
> If you were designing the institutional ecosystem, and knew you needed
> some economic social function but couldn’t find an actor to fit it,
> could you define in somewhat operational terms what that function would
> need to be, and how much of the remainder of the context could you
> populate with specific actors and a plan to get them into place?
>
> I know this is much too loose and long-term to deal with immediate
> practicalities of interacting wtih the SF city council, but we often
> speak as if long-term future visioning efforts could in principle yield
> something useful.
>
> Eric
>
>
> > On Jan 15, 2020, at 4:30 AM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:
> >
> > Ach!
> >
> > I glad we are talking about this. It is the kind of issue that we, in particular, ought to think up and speak out about. My own impulse would be to entertain the possibility of a LANL-SF, but negotiate some sort of arrangement, say, perhaps, that no classified work could be done in here.
> >
> > But now I have heard from several voices that I respect deeply, each speaking from very different kinds of experience, and all appearing to agree that even in the absence of War Heads, hosting a national laboratory would not benefit Santa Fe. But what are the alternatives? In other words, are the ills you identify inherent to all human institutions, or really only inherent to government ones. Would it be better if CMU put a campus here? I have heard many of you express the same doubts about universities. Would it be better if Google or Amazon put a campus here? Why? Why are large for-profit institutions more to be trusted than government and academic ones? At least with government institutions there is the possibility of regulating them by popular will. Amazon, not so much. Is your position that EVERY institution should be so small we can drown it in a bathtub? So, set the threshold for anti trust action VERY low. How bout this: every corporation with more than a billion dollars in assets must place 5 percent of its annual income in a trust fund to encourage competing start ups. Well, OK, split the College of Santa Fe campus up. Give it to ten different real estate firms with instructions that they must work independently. Treat it as a hazard, rather than an opportunity.
> >
> > I heard a similar proposal for a solution to the truth problem on the internet. Every retweet over ten-thousand contributes funds a conterarian tweet on the same stream. In fact, how about a retweet limit on all messages. No message can be retweeted more than ten-thousand times.
> >
> > Nick
> > Nicholas Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> > Clark University
> > [hidden email]
> > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> >
> >
> > From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2020 11:48 AM
> > To: [hidden email]
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends
> >
> > Merle, et al -
> > Though I reject most of the extreme arguments I hear on both sides of this issue, my instinct is that it would be better if Santa Fe did NOT invite LANL/NNSA into the development of this critical/central/prime location in the heart of *greater* Santa Fe.
> > I've been living in a variant of this high-dimensional, nonlinear, sometimes subtle and nuanced question all of my (adult) life. I came to LANL at 24 as a technophilic peacenik who believed MAD made sense (1980) and was happy to ensure that WE had the BIG STICK. I raised two children In Los Alamos and finally left in 2008 (27 years later) after Bechtel took over, remaining in the region and in high-tech work. Along the way I was confronted with *many* changes in the international political, cultural and scientific landscape. The end of the Cold War and nuclear testing, a nuclear arms-race between India/Pakistan, two Gulf Wars, a deep and abiding awareness of the reality and threat of Climate Change (and other parallel Endogenous Existential Threats).
> > I went through a few personal transformations as well, including shepherding my two daughters into maturity along the way. My opinions have become much stronger, broader and more nuanced over the years and I am thankful to have had the perspective offered through the rich gradients formed by our "tri-cultural heritage". LANL is much more/less than a traditional "Anglo" company town and the work that goes on there is much more/less than virtually any other facility. Adding Pu Pit production has expanded that yet more, while the unfathomably deep explorations into what may very well represent an array of other technological *existential threats*. Possibly equally important sociopolitically, is the role of Santa Fe (and San Juan Pueblo before it) as a locus of European Conquest, including the Pueblo Revolt (I can see Black Mesa from my window as I type).
> > I agree with most of Ed's assertions about the variability of quality of the work at LANL, and certainly question the average "value received" with such outrageous overheads and oft isolated efforts. I also agree with his summary of the net socioeconomic impact on the region/state. While I was (am via legacy savings and local available services) a beneficiary of the very large amount of money pumped into the region, I see the deleterious effects of it.
> > With my renewed interest and awareness in the "Endogenous Existential Threats" of our time, I am more sensitive to the callousness of many of the people and programs at LANL toward the local and global environment. The bulk of the memoir Frank urged me to write (to save the list from my TMI/TL;DR posts?) would be armatured around this braid of interesting (in every sense of the word) paradoxes and contradictions.
> > I think New Mexico's legacy around Science and Technology is real and meaningful, but has also been highly distorted by the influence of government (and specifically Defense-related) money.
> > Carry On,
> > - Steve
> > On 1/13/20 2:41 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> >> From: Leslie Lakind <[hidden email]>
> >> Date: Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 2:23 PM
> >> Subject: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12;00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends
> >> To:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> >> From: Greg Mello <[hidden email]>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Permalink for this letter. Please forward! Other Letters
> >> Home page; Press Releases; Bulletins;
> >> To subscribe to our Friends listserve (formerly by invitation only) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
> >> To subscribe to our Main listserve (less content, less frequent) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
> >> Our blog (makeover coming!): Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ.
> >> Contribute. Volunteer. Contact us (Greg and Trish in our main office, Lydia Clark in our Santa Fe office)
> >> This letter: Press conference outside Santa Fe City Hall at noon on Wednesday Jan. 15 (map) -- please come, and please recruit others
> >> Dear New Mexico friends –
> >> As we have explained in previous letters, Wednesday is the day on which the City will announce the finalists for "Master Developer" of the former College of Santa Fe site (and possibly surrounding properties as well, a 64- to ~100-acre project). The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has applied for this role. NNSA and/or Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are present in some (not all) other proposals, as tenant(s).
> >> The situation is opaque, fluid, and developing. So far, Mayor Webber has disdainfully rebuffed our requests to meet or discuss the momentous social, cultural, and economic development impacts of placing a nuclear weapons campus in Santa Fe. (Don't be deceived -- that is exactly what LANL is and what this would be.)
> >> People power may be the only force stronger than LANL's money and corruption. We really need you to help us expand our numbers.
> >> If you live anywhere nearby please come to this joint press conference, and please ask as many friends to come as possible. Sheer attendance matters. A strong showing Wednesday will save countless hours of work later, and will give wings to efforts to push back on LANL's entirely unjustified expansion. There are many powerful people in Washington who know LANL specializes in taxpayer ripoffs. Some of them need to see some spine from us out here to take to their bosses.
> >> New Mexico is being selected to be a nuclear weapons support and sacrifice area. That now includes the Santa Fe metro area.
> >> We may not know know the outcome of this first Midtown Campus decision by noon Wednesday but regardless of that we must seize the day.
> >> While it seems absurd that NNSA could be a possible "master developer," we can't be sure that Mayor Webber and the people around him wouldn't want that -- or want, say, a training facility for plutonium workers. We just don't know.
> >> This event will also give us a chance for us to network with each other and with representatives of any other groups present, as well as speak to any City officials willing to do so.
> >> Getting people to come on Wednesday is the sole action item we are recommending right now. It is very, very important!
> >> Thank you!
> >> Greg, Trish, Lydia, Ernie, Michelle, and the rest of the Study Group
> >> --
> >> Greg Mello
> >> Los Alamos Study Group
> >> 2901 Summit Place NE
> >> Albuquerque, NM 87106
> >> 505-265-1200 office
> >> 505-577-8563 cell
> >> To subscribe to our Friends listserve send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
> >> To subscribe to our Main listserve (less frequent) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
> >> Our blog: Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ. We have shut down our Facebook page.
> >> ---
> >> To unsubscribe: <mailto:[hidden email]>
> >> List help: <https://riseup.net/lists>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> America is waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that
> >> 1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches.
> >> Werner Herzog
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
> >> President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
> >> emergentdiplomacy.org
> >> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
> >> [hidden email]
> >> mobile: (303) 859-5609
> >> skype: merle.lelfkoff2
> >> twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
> >>
> >>
> >> ============================================================
> >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> >> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> >> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> >> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

I wonder how the Study Group would feel about nuclear reactors, however small, near the intersection of St Michaels and Cerrillos.

On Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 5:53 AM Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

Eric,

How about establishing a Galactic Library?

Inspiration comes from a myriad of science fiction novels.

Would subsume Wikipedia, the WWW, Project Gutenberg and Google's book digitization project, all the knowledge bases currently behind pay walls. the government document storage center currently in Pueblo Colorado, etc. etc.

Would employ the best and brightest from library and information science, knowledge visualization, cognitive theorists, etc. etc. — not to mention knowledge creators like artists and authors.

Knowledge rescue missions led by anthropologists would recover languages, folk knowledge, etc that has not been recorded and will be lost.

Local universities might specialize in producing people capable of new disciplines of ordinology and synthesis, polymaths, and reference librarians.

You could include computer folk, if and only if, they took some kind of "Engelbart Pledge" that their work would enhance and augment human abilities instead of demeaning/replacing them.

Biggest obstacle would be power. Highly probably that it would have to come from nuclear -—maybe those refrigerator size reactors that a company in Albuquerque and Oregon have been working on.

Entirely new ways of thinking about knowledge and wisdom would need to be developed. (The computer science notions of data, databases, and information must be discarded as harmful.)

Could incorporate myriad Bohm Dialogues..

Could be a massive source of innovative ideas for development outside the Library.

davew

On Tue, Jan 14, 2020, at 10:03 PM, David Eric Smith wrote:
> I think I have been influenced on preferred frames for this question by
> two sources in particular.
>
> One was the writing Krugman did in the 1970s-90s on economic geography,
> which translating into my own current language is very much a
> perspective of institutional ecology with an emphasis on critical mass
> effects and what have become popular to call tipping points. If you
> don’t have something like a protected bay, a waterway, or other
> geographic feature to nucleate a distributed growth dynamic, critical
> mass is often achieved by the actions of large atomic (in the sense of
> indivisible, not meaning related to nuclear physics) actors, who can
> act on large scale in inidivual moves. The examples he always trotted
> out at the beginnings of essays were Burlington NC for textiles, or
> coastal Washington for aircraft (we’ll see how long that persists given
> current management, but for the last half of the previous century…)
>
> The second source came through Martin Shubik, and was the work of the
> Swedish development economist Gunnar Eliasson. Eliasson’s work was
> specifically on the long-term design and strategy problem of where a
> government would allocate resources if it understood from the start
> that much of the output would need to be handed off to distributed or
> private developers, but (in the sense of the economic idea of
> “mechanism design”) it wanted that distributed development to achieve a
> specific social goal, not just to be whatever-happens-next. The point
> in this work is that only looking at the large action by one actor at
> the beginning doesn’t solve a problem; it’s embedding that action in
> follow-through and having a longer-term plan. I think this is to Ed
> Angel’s point that LANL as a stand-alone achieves a large distortion,
> but doesn’t change the opportunities of the region around it in
> self-sustaining ways.
>
> I know the members on this list mostly don’t have powers of
> implementation, but as idle intellectual exercise, if you/we were
> portfolio managers, or really avant-garde regional planners, what would
> your design look like to get through critical mass thresholds to tip an
> interior, water-limited, relatively low-population region into some
> kind of self-maintaining decent standard of life and opportunity for
> whoever lived there stably for a long time. (And how many can that be,
> in water-limited regions?) Intel made a significant impact in ABQ, but
> putting a semiconductor fab in a desert is about as unsustainable a
> business decision as I can imagine. What resources exist currently?
> If you were designing the institutional ecosystem, and knew you needed
> some economic social function but couldn’t find an actor to fit it,
> could you define in somewhat operational terms what that function would
> need to be, and how much of the remainder of the context could you
> populate with specific actors and a plan to get them into place?
>
> I know this is much too loose and long-term to deal with immediate
> practicalities of interacting wtih the SF city council, but we often
> speak as if long-term future visioning efforts could in principle yield
> something useful.
>
> Eric
>
>
> > On Jan 15, 2020, at 4:30 AM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:
> >
> > Ach!
> >
> > I glad we are talking about this. It is the kind of issue that we, in particular, ought to think up and speak out about. My own impulse would be to entertain the possibility of a LANL-SF, but negotiate some sort of arrangement, say, perhaps, that no classified work could be done in here.
> >
> > But now I have heard from several voices that I respect deeply, each speaking from very different kinds of experience, and all appearing to agree that even in the absence of War Heads, hosting a national laboratory would not benefit Santa Fe. But what are the alternatives? In other words, are the ills you identify inherent to all human institutions, or really only inherent to government ones. Would it be better if CMU put a campus here? I have heard many of you express the same doubts about universities. Would it be better if Google or Amazon put a campus here? Why? Why are large for-profit institutions more to be trusted than government and academic ones? At least with government institutions there is the possibility of regulating them by popular will. Amazon, not so much. Is your position that EVERY institution should be so small we can drown it in a bathtub? So, set the threshold for anti trust action VERY low. How bout this: every corporation with more than a billion dollars in assets must place 5 percent of its annual income in a trust fund to encourage competing start ups. Well, OK, split the College of Santa Fe campus up. Give it to ten different real estate firms with instructions that they must work independently. Treat it as a hazard, rather than an opportunity.
> >
> > I heard a similar proposal for a solution to the truth problem on the internet. Every retweet over ten-thousand contributes funds a conterarian tweet on the same stream. In fact, how about a retweet limit on all messages. No message can be retweeted more than ten-thousand times.
> >
> > Nick
> > Nicholas Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> > Clark University
> > [hidden email]
> > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> >
> >
> > From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2020 11:48 AM
> > To: [hidden email]
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends
> >
> > Merle, et al -
> > Though I reject most of the extreme arguments I hear on both sides of this issue, my instinct is that it would be better if Santa Fe did NOT invite LANL/NNSA into the development of this critical/central/prime location in the heart of *greater* Santa Fe.
> > I've been living in a variant of this high-dimensional, nonlinear, sometimes subtle and nuanced question all of my (adult) life. I came to LANL at 24 as a technophilic peacenik who believed MAD made sense (1980) and was happy to ensure that WE had the BIG STICK. I raised two children In Los Alamos and finally left in 2008 (27 years later) after Bechtel took over, remaining in the region and in high-tech work. Along the way I was confronted with *many* changes in the international political, cultural and scientific landscape. The end of the Cold War and nuclear testing, a nuclear arms-race between India/Pakistan, two Gulf Wars, a deep and abiding awareness of the reality and threat of Climate Change (and other parallel Endogenous Existential Threats).
> > I went through a few personal transformations as well, including shepherding my two daughters into maturity along the way. My opinions have become much stronger, broader and more nuanced over the years and I am thankful to have had the perspective offered through the rich gradients formed by our "tri-cultural heritage". LANL is much more/less than a traditional "Anglo" company town and the work that goes on there is much more/less than virtually any other facility. Adding Pu Pit production has expanded that yet more, while the unfathomably deep explorations into what may very well represent an array of other technological *existential threats*. Possibly equally important sociopolitically, is the role of Santa Fe (and San Juan Pueblo before it) as a locus of European Conquest, including the Pueblo Revolt (I can see Black Mesa from my window as I type).
> > I agree with most of Ed's assertions about the variability of quality of the work at LANL, and certainly question the average "value received" with such outrageous overheads and oft isolated efforts. I also agree with his summary of the net socioeconomic impact on the region/state. While I was (am via legacy savings and local available services) a beneficiary of the very large amount of money pumped into the region, I see the deleterious effects of it.
> > With my renewed interest and awareness in the "Endogenous Existential Threats" of our time, I am more sensitive to the callousness of many of the people and programs at LANL toward the local and global environment. The bulk of the memoir Frank urged me to write (to save the list from my TMI/TL;DR posts?) would be armatured around this braid of interesting (in every sense of the word) paradoxes and contradictions.
> > I think New Mexico's legacy around Science and Technology is real and meaningful, but has also been highly distorted by the influence of government (and specifically Defense-related) money.
> > Carry On,
> > - Steve
> > On 1/13/20 2:41 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> >> From: Leslie Lakind <[hidden email]>
> >> Date: Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 2:23 PM
> >> Subject: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12;00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends
> >> To:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> >> From: Greg Mello <[hidden email]>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Permalink for this letter. Please forward! Other Letters
> >> Home page; Press Releases; Bulletins;
> >> To subscribe to our Friends listserve (formerly by invitation only) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
> >> To subscribe to our Main listserve (less content, less frequent) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
> >> Our blog (makeover coming!): Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ.
> >> Contribute. Volunteer. Contact us (Greg and Trish in our main office, Lydia Clark in our Santa Fe office)
> >> This letter: Press conference outside Santa Fe City Hall at noon on Wednesday Jan. 15 (map) -- please come, and please recruit others
> >> Dear New Mexico friends –
> >> As we have explained in previous letters, Wednesday is the day on which the City will announce the finalists for "Master Developer" of the former College of Santa Fe site (and possibly surrounding properties as well, a 64- to ~100-acre project). The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has applied for this role. NNSA and/or Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are present in some (not all) other proposals, as tenant(s).
> >> The situation is opaque, fluid, and developing. So far, Mayor Webber has disdainfully rebuffed our requests to meet or discuss the momentous social, cultural, and economic development impacts of placing a nuclear weapons campus in Santa Fe. (Don't be deceived -- that is exactly what LANL is and what this would be.)
> >> People power may be the only force stronger than LANL's money and corruption. We really need you to help us expand our numbers.
> >> If you live anywhere nearby please come to this joint press conference, and please ask as many friends to come as possible. Sheer attendance matters. A strong showing Wednesday will save countless hours of work later, and will give wings to efforts to push back on LANL's entirely unjustified expansion. There are many powerful people in Washington who know LANL specializes in taxpayer ripoffs. Some of them need to see some spine from us out here to take to their bosses.
> >> New Mexico is being selected to be a nuclear weapons support and sacrifice area. That now includes the Santa Fe metro area.
> >> We may not know know the outcome of this first Midtown Campus decision by noon Wednesday but regardless of that we must seize the day.
> >> While it seems absurd that NNSA could be a possible "master developer," we can't be sure that Mayor Webber and the people around him wouldn't want that -- or want, say, a training facility for plutonium workers. We just don't know.
> >> This event will also give us a chance for us to network with each other and with representatives of any other groups present, as well as speak to any City officials willing to do so.
> >> Getting people to come on Wednesday is the sole action item we are recommending right now. It is very, very important!
> >> Thank you!
> >> Greg, Trish, Lydia, Ernie, Michelle, and the rest of the Study Group
> >> --
> >> Greg Mello
> >> Los Alamos Study Group
> >> 2901 Summit Place NE
> >> Albuquerque, NM 87106
> >> 505-265-1200 office
> >> 505-577-8563 cell
> >> To subscribe to our Friends listserve send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
> >> To subscribe to our Main listserve (less frequent) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
> >> Our blog: Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ. We have shut down our Facebook page.
> >> ---
> >> To unsubscribe: <mailto:[hidden email]>
> >> List help: <https://riseup.net/lists>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> America is waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that
> >> 1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches.
> >> Werner Herzog
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
> >> President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
> >> emergentdiplomacy.org
> >> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
> >> [hidden email]
> >> mobile: (303) 859-5609
> >> skype: merle.lelfkoff2
> >> twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
> >>
> >>
> >> ============================================================
> >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> >> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> >> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> >> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

New cultural event: Pits on the plaza!

On Jan 15, 2020, at 6:14 AM, Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:

I wonder how the Study Group would feel about nuclear reactors, however small, near the intersection of St Michaels and Cerrillos.

-----------------------------------
Frank Wimberly

My memoir:
https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 5:53 AM Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

Eric,

How about establishing a Galactic Library?

Inspiration comes from a myriad of science fiction novels.

Would subsume Wikipedia, the WWW, Project Gutenberg and Google's book digitization project, all the knowledge bases currently behind pay walls. the government document storage center currently in Pueblo Colorado, etc. etc.

Would employ the best and brightest from library and information science, knowledge visualization, cognitive theorists, etc. etc. — not to mention knowledge creators like artists and authors.

Knowledge rescue missions led by anthropologists would recover languages, folk knowledge, etc that has not been recorded and will be lost.

Local universities might specialize in producing people capable of new disciplines of ordinology and synthesis, polymaths, and reference librarians.

You could include computer folk, if and only if, they took some kind of "Engelbart Pledge" that their work would enhance and augment human abilities instead of demeaning/replacing them.

Biggest obstacle would be power. Highly probably that it would have to come from nuclear -—maybe those refrigerator size reactors that a company in Albuquerque and Oregon have been working on.

Entirely new ways of thinking about knowledge and wisdom would need to be developed. (The computer science notions of data, databases, and information must be discarded as harmful.)

Could incorporate myriad Bohm Dialogues..

Could be a massive source of innovative ideas for development outside the Library.

davew

On Tue, Jan 14, 2020, at 10:03 PM, David Eric Smith wrote:
> I think I have been influenced on preferred frames for this question by
> two sources in particular.
>
> One was the writing Krugman did in the 1970s-90s on economic geography,
> which translating into my own current language is very much a
> perspective of institutional ecology with an emphasis on critical mass
> effects and what have become popular to call tipping points. If you
> don’t have something like a protected bay, a waterway, or other
> geographic feature to nucleate a distributed growth dynamic, critical
> mass is often achieved by the actions of large atomic (in the sense of
> indivisible, not meaning related to nuclear physics) actors, who can
> act on large scale in inidivual moves. The examples he always trotted
> out at the beginnings of essays were Burlington NC for textiles, or
> coastal Washington for aircraft (we’ll see how long that persists given
> current management, but for the last half of the previous century…)
>
> The second source came through Martin Shubik, and was the work of the
> Swedish development economist Gunnar Eliasson. Eliasson’s work was
> specifically on the long-term design and strategy problem of where a
> government would allocate resources if it understood from the start
> that much of the output would need to be handed off to distributed or
> private developers, but (in the sense of the economic idea of
> “mechanism design”) it wanted that distributed development to achieve a
> specific social goal, not just to be whatever-happens-next. The point
> in this work is that only looking at the large action by one actor at
> the beginning doesn’t solve a problem; it’s embedding that action in
> follow-through and having a longer-term plan. I think this is to Ed
> Angel’s point that LANL as a stand-alone achieves a large distortion,
> but doesn’t change the opportunities of the region around it in
> self-sustaining ways.
>
> I know the members on this list mostly don’t have powers of
> implementation, but as idle intellectual exercise, if you/we were
> portfolio managers, or really avant-garde regional planners, what would
> your design look like to get through critical mass thresholds to tip an
> interior, water-limited, relatively low-population region into some
> kind of self-maintaining decent standard of life and opportunity for
> whoever lived there stably for a long time. (And how many can that be,
> in water-limited regions?) Intel made a significant impact in ABQ, but
> putting a semiconductor fab in a desert is about as unsustainable a
> business decision as I can imagine. What resources exist currently?
> If you were designing the institutional ecosystem, and knew you needed
> some economic social function but couldn’t find an actor to fit it,
> could you define in somewhat operational terms what that function would
> need to be, and how much of the remainder of the context could you
> populate with specific actors and a plan to get them into place?
>
> I know this is much too loose and long-term to deal with immediate
> practicalities of interacting wtih the SF city council, but we often
> speak as if long-term future visioning efforts could in principle yield
> something useful.
>
> Eric
>
>
> > On Jan 15, 2020, at 4:30 AM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:
> >
> > Ach!
> >
> > I glad we are talking about this. It is the kind of issue that we, in particular, ought to think up and speak out about. My own impulse would be to entertain the possibility of a LANL-SF, but negotiate some sort of arrangement, say, perhaps, that no classified work could be done in here.
> >
> > But now I have heard from several voices that I respect deeply, each speaking from very different kinds of experience, and all appearing to agree that even in the absence of War Heads, hosting a national laboratory would not benefit Santa Fe. But what are the alternatives? In other words, are the ills you identify inherent to all human institutions, or really only inherent to government ones. Would it be better if CMU put a campus here? I have heard many of you express the same doubts about universities. Would it be better if Google or Amazon put a campus here? Why? Why are large for-profit institutions more to be trusted than government and academic ones? At least with government institutions there is the possibility of regulating them by popular will. Amazon, not so much. Is your position that EVERY institution should be so small we can drown it in a bathtub? So, set the threshold for anti trust action VERY low. How bout this: every corporation with more than a billion dollars in assets must place 5 percent of its annual income in a trust fund to encourage competing start ups. Well, OK, split the College of Santa Fe campus up. Give it to ten different real estate firms with instructions that they must work independently. Treat it as a hazard, rather than an opportunity.
> >
> > I heard a similar proposal for a solution to the truth problem on the internet. Every retweet over ten-thousand contributes funds a conterarian tweet on the same stream. In fact, how about a retweet limit on all messages. No message can be retweeted more than ten-thousand times.
> >
> > Nick
> > Nicholas Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> > Clark University
> > [hidden email]
> > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> >
> >
> > From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2020 11:48 AM
> > To: [hidden email]
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends
> >
> > Merle, et al -
> > Though I reject most of the extreme arguments I hear on both sides of this issue, my instinct is that it would be better if Santa Fe did NOT invite LANL/NNSA into the development of this critical/central/prime location in the heart of *greater* Santa Fe.
> > I've been living in a variant of this high-dimensional, nonlinear, sometimes subtle and nuanced question all of my (adult) life. I came to LANL at 24 as a technophilic peacenik who believed MAD made sense (1980) and was happy to ensure that WE had the BIG STICK. I raised two children In Los Alamos and finally left in 2008 (27 years later) after Bechtel took over, remaining in the region and in high-tech work. Along the way I was confronted with *many* changes in the international political, cultural and scientific landscape. The end of the Cold War and nuclear testing, a nuclear arms-race between India/Pakistan, two Gulf Wars, a deep and abiding awareness of the reality and threat of Climate Change (and other parallel Endogenous Existential Threats).
> > I went through a few personal transformations as well, including shepherding my two daughters into maturity along the way. My opinions have become much stronger, broader and more nuanced over the years and I am thankful to have had the perspective offered through the rich gradients formed by our "tri-cultural heritage". LANL is much more/less than a traditional "Anglo" company town and the work that goes on there is much more/less than virtually any other facility. Adding Pu Pit production has expanded that yet more, while the unfathomably deep explorations into what may very well represent an array of other technological *existential threats*. Possibly equally important sociopolitically, is the role of Santa Fe (and San Juan Pueblo before it) as a locus of European Conquest, including the Pueblo Revolt (I can see Black Mesa from my window as I type).
> > I agree with most of Ed's assertions about the variability of quality of the work at LANL, and certainly question the average "value received" with such outrageous overheads and oft isolated efforts. I also agree with his summary of the net socioeconomic impact on the region/state. While I was (am via legacy savings and local available services) a beneficiary of the very large amount of money pumped into the region, I see the deleterious effects of it.
> > With my renewed interest and awareness in the "Endogenous Existential Threats" of our time, I am more sensitive to the callousness of many of the people and programs at LANL toward the local and global environment. The bulk of the memoir Frank urged me to write (to save the list from my TMI/TL;DR posts?) would be armatured around this braid of interesting (in every sense of the word) paradoxes and contradictions.
> > I think New Mexico's legacy around Science and Technology is real and meaningful, but has also been highly distorted by the influence of government (and specifically Defense-related) money.
> > Carry On,
> > - Steve
> > On 1/13/20 2:41 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> >> From: Leslie Lakind <[hidden email]>
> >> Date: Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 2:23 PM
> >> Subject: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12;00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends
> >> To:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> >> From: Greg Mello <[hidden email]>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Permalink for this letter. Please forward! Other Letters
> >> Home page; Press Releases; Bulletins;
> >> To subscribe to our Friends listserve (formerly by invitation only) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
> >> To subscribe to our Main listserve (less content, less frequent) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
> >> Our blog (makeover coming!): Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ.
> >> Contribute. Volunteer. Contact us (Greg and Trish in our main office, Lydia Clark in our Santa Fe office)
> >> This letter: Press conference outside Santa Fe City Hall at noon on Wednesday Jan. 15 (map) -- please come, and please recruit others
> >> Dear New Mexico friends –
> >> As we have explained in previous letters, Wednesday is the day on which the City will announce the finalists for "Master Developer" of the former College of Santa Fe site (and possibly surrounding properties as well, a 64- to ~100-acre project). The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has applied for this role. NNSA and/or Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are present in some (not all) other proposals, as tenant(s).
> >> The situation is opaque, fluid, and developing. So far, Mayor Webber has disdainfully rebuffed our requests to meet or discuss the momentous social, cultural, and economic development impacts of placing a nuclear weapons campus in Santa Fe. (Don't be deceived -- that is exactly what LANL is and what this would be.)
> >> People power may be the only force stronger than LANL's money and corruption. We really need you to help us expand our numbers.
> >> If you live anywhere nearby please come to this joint press conference, and please ask as many friends to come as possible. Sheer attendance matters. A strong showing Wednesday will save countless hours of work later, and will give wings to efforts to push back on LANL's entirely unjustified expansion. There are many powerful people in Washington who know LANL specializes in taxpayer ripoffs. Some of them need to see some spine from us out here to take to their bosses.
> >> New Mexico is being selected to be a nuclear weapons support and sacrifice area. That now includes the Santa Fe metro area.
> >> We may not know know the outcome of this first Midtown Campus decision by noon Wednesday but regardless of that we must seize the day.
> >> While it seems absurd that NNSA could be a possible "master developer," we can't be sure that Mayor Webber and the people around him wouldn't want that -- or want, say, a training facility for plutonium workers. We just don't know.
> >> This event will also give us a chance for us to network with each other and with representatives of any other groups present, as well as speak to any City officials willing to do so.
> >> Getting people to come on Wednesday is the sole action item we are recommending right now. It is very, very important!
> >> Thank you!
> >> Greg, Trish, Lydia, Ernie, Michelle, and the rest of the Study Group
> >> --
> >> Greg Mello
> >> Los Alamos Study Group
> >> 2901 Summit Place NE
> >> Albuquerque, NM 87106
> >> 505-265-1200 office
> >> 505-577-8563 cell
> >> To subscribe to our Friends listserve send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
> >> To subscribe to our Main listserve (less frequent) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.
> >> Our blog: Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ. We have shut down our Facebook page.
> >> ---
> >> To unsubscribe: <mailto:[hidden email]>
> >> List help: <https://riseup.net/lists>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> America is waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that
> >> 1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches.
> >> Werner Herzog
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
> >> President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
> >> emergentdiplomacy.org
> >> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
> >> [hidden email]
> >> mobile: (303) 859-5609
> >> skype: merle.lelfkoff2
> >> twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
> >>
> >>
> >> ============================================================
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>
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gepr

Re: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

In reply to this post by David Eric Smith

Just a preamble: I remember moving to Santa Fe and hating Cerrillos Rd with all it's little businesses, the trashy look, sections of ill- and un-used properties, peppered with upscale stuff in some spots. I'd moved there from Dallas, TX, where they'd rather tear down an old building than repurpose it. I recognized the "planned" look of Dallas because I grew up in Houston, where zoning laws are relatively loose.

But Cerrillos is what taught me the meaning of "organic". So, as an (also vague) attempt to answer the question, the only way one can "design" an ecosystem is by first studying the already extant ecosystem and nudging it in multifarious ways. The primary problem with organically grown systems is the lack of executive function ... a high-order feedback (like a cerebral cortex) ... to establish and maintain constraints like water limits, geographical sprawl, pollution, etc. So, the FIRST part of the plan would be to constructively aggregate the extant businesses into some sort of scaffolded hierarchy starting with tiny businesses (businesses run by people with ZERO spare time, of course), up through boutique businesses (coffee shops, breweries, fashion, etc.), up through larger scale businesses, etc. ... all the way up to behemoths like LANL or the State of NM.

The second part of the plan would be to adopt some trial (non-local) constraints like water limitations and experiment with feeding that back down the hierarchy (layer by layer *or* cross-trophically, jumping over layers) and then following the effects back up the hierarchy. As trials, there must be challenge tests, ways to decide whether to abandon or iteratively modify the constraints and their up- and down-ward signaling. So, this second part of the plan might *start* by formalizing those tests (in an "agile" style).

Any interference/manipulation by a behemoth like Amazon or CMU would require them to *facilitate* the hierarchy, as opposed to *disrupting* it. (As I think someone in this thread has already mentioned, but I don't have the bandwidth to farm the posts for who said/implied it.) Following co-evolution and multi-objective optimization, the constraints have to be at least partially *endogenous*. The executive has to be pretty tightly coupled to the rest of the system. Any attempts at decoupled, directed evolution of the ecosystem will be fragile to disrupting enterprises. But if the disruptions are small/local, then the network of feedbacks can adjust, limiting any species collapse in response to that disruption.

That's how I would "define the function" of the behemoth.

On 1/14/20 1:03 PM, David Eric Smith wrote:
> I know the members on this list mostly don’t have powers of implementation, but as idle intellectual exercise, if you/we were portfolio managers, or really avant-garde regional planners, what would your design look like to get through critical mass thresholds to tip an interior, water-limited, relatively low-population region into some kind of self-maintaining decent standard of life and opportunity for whoever lived there stably for a long time. (And how many can that be, in water-limited regions?) Intel made a significant impact in ABQ, but putting a semiconductor fab in a desert is about as unsustainable a business decision as I can imagine. What resources exist currently? If you were designing the institutional ecosystem, and knew you needed some economic social function but couldn’t find an actor to fit it, could you define in somewhat operational terms what that function would need to be, and how much of the remainder of the context could you populate with specific actors and a plan to get them into place?
>
> I know this is much too loose and long-term to deal with immediate practicalities of interacting wtih the SF city council, but we often speak as if long-term future visioning efforts could in principle yield something useful.

--
☣ uǝlƃ
============================================================
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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

Glen writes:

< I remember moving to Santa Fe and hating Cerrillos Rd with all it's little businesses, the trashy look, sections of ill- and un-used properties, peppered with upscale stuff in some spots. >

Before brainstorming about how to integrate LANL, etc. into the St. Michael / Cerrillos area, it might be worth asking why the town of Los Alamos is so abysmal. Los Alamos county has one of the highest per capita incomes in the country, and yet there is not a thing to spend money on up there besides real estate. One reason I've heard is that the folks that own the lots in the town find it more profitable to hold on to them and rent to the lab when the need arises. Thus there is no way to build anything. Another is that it is a family town, and oddly enough not a town that facilitates workism -- people more-or-less work 9 to 5 and then hang out at home, and want to. Or on the weekends they ski or hike. Its always been astonishing to me that there aren't more restaurants. The only conventional sign of progress is the big Smiths facility.

Marcus

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2020 8:14 AM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

gepr

Re: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

One example of the fine-grained downward feedbacks that can be installed is mixed-income residential requirements. Many people where we used to live complained that the people on the "other end of the street" didn't "show pride of ownership". To translate from Modern Suburban, they didn't have well-manicured grass lawns, the paint on their house is peeling, or they have too many cars ... whatever made that property look bad to them, basically.

But what I saw was different socio-economic strata. I *enjoyed* living near that 90 year old who decorated his yard with old broken tile (I could stare at his designs for hours [†]) and the 20 year old high school dropout who's trying to make a living playing in a death metal band while he works 2 jobs as barista and bartender. My other neighbors did not *enjoy* living next to those people. It's not clear to me _why_.

I don't think it's a matter of getting out of the house after your day job ... because I almost never do anything after I quit for the day, either. There's something else going on ... something aesthetic. My persnickety neighbors have some need for regularity that the rest of us don't have ... like they want their "jigsaw" puzzles to have all square pieces or something.

[†] He died about a year ago and the property's now occupied by people who "fit in" much better. [sigh] All the tile is gone. There's a new shed, new driveway occupied by a Prius and a Toyota pickup, ... Ugh. Homogeneity reigns.

On 1/15/20 9:30 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Before brainstorming about how to integrate LANL, etc. into the St. Michael / Cerrillos area, it might be worth asking why the town of Los Alamos is so abysmal. Los Alamos county has one of the highest per capita incomes in the country, and yet there is not a thing to spend money on up there besides real estate. One reason I've heard is that the folks that own the lots in the town find it more profitable to hold on to them and rent to the lab when the need arises. Thus there is no way to build anything. Another is that it is a family town, and oddly enough not a town that facilitates workism -- people more-or-less work 9 to 5 and then hang out at home, and want to. Or on the weekends they ski or hike. Its always been astonishing to me that there aren't more restaurants. The only conventional sign of progress is the big Smiths facility.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

Interesting, Glen. In Pittsburgh we lived in a neighborhood that appealed to me more than any other I have ever lived in.

One block to the east of our house was the frick mansion and The Frick museum the former was a 22 room four story Victorian monstrosity which was nonetheless interesting to your. The museum was a beautiful Italian Renaissance with exhibitions of world class paintings. The two buildings were on an entire city block (5 acres).

Between our house and the Frick were a row of expensive homes of various styles built in the forties(?). Our street was a cul-de-sac which had been the driveway of Andrew Carnegie's grand house but currently with mid-priced homes. One block to the west was a street with a mixture ranging from old homes used as apartments for students and young professionals to million dollar contemporary homes. At the end of our street were a small grocery store that had been there forever, a barber shop, an independent auto repair shop, and an old school which had been an elementary school but was used for a charter school.

On Wed, Jan 15, 2020, 11:02 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

One example of the fine-grained downward feedbacks that can be installed is mixed-income residential requirements. Many people where we used to live complained that the people on the "other end of the street" didn't "show pride of ownership". To translate from Modern Suburban, they didn't have well-manicured grass lawns, the paint on their house is peeling, or they have too many cars ... whatever made that property look bad to them, basically.

But what I saw was different socio-economic strata. I *enjoyed* living near that 90 year old who decorated his yard with old broken tile (I could stare at his designs for hours [†]) and the 20 year old high school dropout who's trying to make a living playing in a death metal band while he works 2 jobs as barista and bartender. My other neighbors did not *enjoy* living next to those people. It's not clear to me _why_.

I don't think it's a matter of getting out of the house after your day job ... because I almost never do anything after I quit for the day, either. There's something else going on ... something aesthetic. My persnickety neighbors have some need for regularity that the rest of us don't have ... like they want their "jigsaw" puzzles to have all square pieces or something.

[†] He died about a year ago and the property's now occupied by people who "fit in" much better. [sigh] All the tile is gone. There's a new shed, new driveway occupied by a Prius and a Toyota pickup, ... Ugh. Homogeneity reigns.

On 1/15/20 9:30 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Before brainstorming about how to integrate LANL, etc. into the St. Michael / Cerrillos area, it might be worth asking why the town of Los Alamos is so abysmal. Los Alamos county has one of the highest per capita incomes in the country, and yet there is not a thing to spend money on up there besides real estate. One reason I've heard is that the folks that own the lots in the town find it more profitable to hold on to them and rent to the lab when the need arises. Thus there is no way to build anything. Another is that it is a family town, and oddly enough not a town that facilitates workism -- people more-or-less work 9 to 5 and then hang out at home, and want to. Or on the weekends they ski or hike. Its always been astonishing to me that there aren't more restaurants. The only conventional sign of progress is the big Smiths facility.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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