Globalism in the age of populism? .. & Open Source Software

[Owen Densmore]

I like the analysis lifting the lid on elite relating to global. I'm not sure it goes both ways .. lots of plain folks are global without noticing it.

I don't think this sort of elite/global can be turned back. Look at your day and surely you will collect a whole basket full of global interaction. I'm not talking chinese underwear here, but human interactions.

Simple things like co-workers from Iran (Behfar Razavi for me), a mail list like friam with folks from many cultures, travel and learning the language, cooking Italian/French/Japanese food (did all that over the last two weeks), and so on.

The point I'm making is that it's too late to put the toothpaste back in the tube. No matter what occurs with the populists, globalism is past its tipping point.

Me? Elite? Well maybe. Techie sure. But also a blue-collar background, and a southerner who's lost his twang in the peace corps in africa. Oh, and a buddheo/christian. Categories are never easy. :)

I can't be elite, come to think of it. I listened to Hillary and kept asking "What's she *saying*?". It was way too abstract. Are elites abstract? And yes, I voted for her, reluctantly.

   -- Owen 

On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 9:09 AM, ┣glen┫ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Heh, your juxtaposition and question are ill-formed, which is why I tried to reach some clarity on what that article in the OP meant.

Open source is at least in part a political movement with its own conception of "elites", spawning the various license types and long-running legal battles.  To consider any sort of globalist implications solely from the myopic tools and tools communities mentality isn't useful.  That would be like assuming the existence of worldwide sports like soccer or the Olympics will obviate war.

Open source (and data and the larger "openly sourced" information) are just as susceptible to provincialism as democracies.  And the mechanisms are the same, inflammatory accusations based on ill-defined classification systems (including the ones Marcus mentions about "munitions").  I've argued here on the list that with some open source tools, it literally does not matter whether they are open source or not because only a tiny handful of people on the planet are capable of reading them.  E.g. cryptographic software used to be more "elite" than it is today.  But it's still pretty obscure.  And these elites stay elite (through their own work, social privilege, and gene-given attributes) because tech advances.

You, Owen, are so extraordinarily privileged that you may not adequately realize the extent of it.  Yes, for people like you, with your intellect, your hard work, etc., you will never be at risk for back-sliding into provincialism.  Even if/when the US slides into a dark age, you can simply leave or get a job with the new dictator divining truth from the stars.  But what about the huge swaths of us that live under things like poverty or opiate addiction?  (Just to be clear, I'm in the same boat ... at least until I get brain damage from a motorcycle crash or my cancer transforms into a more aggressive kind.)

We are global because we are elite.  Just because we will be able to except ourselves from much of the back slide doesn't mean it can't happen.  And the more vulnerable amongst us elite will definitely "go back".


On 01/30/2017 07:32 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:
> Does anyone have an opinion on the OP:
>   Globalism in the age of populism? .. & Open Source Software
>
> .. which really is about that it's too late for populism, nationalism, isolationism to overcome what is already around us? We are far more global than we think we are.
>
> ​How many of us are bilingual at least? Look at your "digital day" and ask yourself just how, in so many ways, you've gone past ever going back.
>
> My original example surprised me when I discovered just how many global, non-US dominant open source software movements I'm involved in. My interest was in how many similar cases of globalism occur outside of my domain.
>
> So even though there are 10 (OP) huge forces against globalism, they simply cannot overcome where we are, we're past the tipping point. Certainly in software.
>
> And you?

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

< The point I'm making is that it's too late to put the toothpaste back in the tube. No matter what occurs with the populists, globalism is past its tipping point. >

 

Replace the `populists’ with `fascists’ and reconsider.   Populism is just a means to an end here.  Imagine systematically-organized enemy lists, where sending that e-mail to your friend in Iran, or signing a petition gets you questioned or fired or put in jail.   It has been happening in Turkey.   Now look at the administration’s response to the state department dissent.    Blunt force trauma can quiet most people.   The volatility we’re seeing now is just a way to disorient people so they don’t see how their own expectations are changing. 

 

Marcus

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[David Eric Smith]

That sounds to me like a conditional:

> We are global because we are elite.

If not-elite then not-global.

or:

elite or not-global

or:

not (global and not-elite)

If that is meant to be true as an expression in propositional calculus then there is no conversation to be had.  A mean, small-minded provincialism is entailed by anything not-to-be-rejected or attacked.  But that is the logic of thugs, which is no logic but just the betrayal of the good faith of those for whom the form of logic stands for something real and valuable.  I see no reason to treat that as meaningful.  It is just a dominance behavior, and the appropriate response to it is to stay focused on throwing it off.

Eric


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[Owen Densmore]

Right, poorly stated. 

I believe the conversation was tending towards saying elites tend towards globalism. I don't think the reverse was intended. I actually didn't bring it up but did comment on it. I suspect "elites" as used would mean the ruling class, or more loosely, those well educated and middle class. I dunno.

I'm still much more interested in the possibility that we are so global, culturally (i.e. taken for granted, daily events, open research and software) that populism, any of the 10 examples cited, can reverse it, It tipped.

   -- Owen

On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 2:16 PM, Eric Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

That sounds to me like a conditional:

> We are global because we are elite.

If not-elite then not-global.

or:

elite or not-global

or:

not (global and not-elite)

If that is meant to be true as an expression in propositional calculus then there is no conversation to be had.  A mean, small-minded provincialism is entailed by anything not-to-be-rejected or attacked.  But that is the logic of thugs, which is no logic but just the betrayal of the good faith of those for whom the form of logic stands for something real and valuable.  I see no reason to treat that as meaningful.  It is just a dominance behavior, and the appropriate response to it is to stay focused on throwing it off.

Eric

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[gepr]

My intention was to try to assert that all globalism is fundamentally based in technology (from planes to batteries to P2P nets).  All the global, human interactions you're describing exist because of the various technologies we have facility with.  Techies are the elitest of the elite.  And until/if the singularity, people who show facility with tech will be in a very powerful position.  (After the apocalypse, I'm hoping my beer-making skills will keep me alive.)

Hence, yes, _techies_ may survive any pressures away from globalism.  But that's only because of our elite skillset and predilections.  To deny that privileged position would be strange.  Every other category that might be called "elite" will be subject to social volatility.

On 01/31/2017 02:01 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:
> I'm still much more interested in the possibility that we are so global,
> culturally (i.e. taken for granted, daily events, open research and
> software) that populism, any of the 10 examples cited, can reverse it, It
> tipped.

--
☣ glen

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[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

The elites can not be accurately defined as a coherent group since the accusers are shooting in so many divergent directions.

No more than a young child’s fear of the closet ghost, which  can ever be used in a forensic investigation.

There may not be elites but certainly there are many fearful people unable to do any more than hurl accusations. Shit hitting the Fan.

 

As Glen and others tried to do by narrowing down the types of “elites” we all must have noticed something amiss.

People are clearly afraid and thus vulnerable; as also are those who have never given another human a cause.

The victim becomes the villain.

 

Six upright men were slaughtered in a mosque in Quebec City on Sunday.

Canadians are mourning this slaughter across the country in marches.

Some are blaming Trump some blame the rightwing racists but everyone seems to blame someone else.

The news is full of insinuations today.

 

Everyone seems to be unanimous in finding fault that can be ultimately attributable to the mysterious elites of the imagination.

The best I can guess is that 40+ years of fear mongering in politics has left most of mankind so fearful they have crapped their pants.

So they blame a fast fry cook for using too much chili on their burger. Blame rarely makes sense. Nor do accusations which are just another

version of the scapegoat preliminaries.

 

We indulged all kinds of fear mongering in the past Y2K viral plagues terrorists anarchists communists, orchid smugglers. Take your pick salt, sugar, cornsyrup…

 

A society run almost exclusively on fear, just yesterday my Microsoft update tried to instil fear when I tried deleting BING.

 

Certainly some of us might partially fit the description of elites. But only when we ignore or deny the many other characteristics we possess.

Hey I like Boxing, Flying Kites building boats and Shakespeare as well as Cycling and writing code. I also have Multiple Sclerosis seizures and  paralysis along with 4 degrees.

 

I probably have little in common with any of you but what I do share is the desire to communicate freely. So the elites are a figment of popular culture and flexible enough to justifying murder for any sort of Alpha male wannabe like Dylan Rouff in  the US or Bisonette in Quebec or Anders Brevik in Norway… The E list of Assholes.

 

I admit that each of them looked to me like people with no visible talent but a weird desire to be famous for leaving behind a mountain of stinking shit. I once had a male wolfhound that choose pinnacle of fire hydrants for his monuments of shit.

 

Reasonable people used to live on this planet and then the fearful arrived always calling for some kind of extraordinary protection from closet fantasies. It took 40 or 50 years to ferment into this unholy quagmire. I say, Keep your genitals in your pants and never share your childish fears and expect gratitude. Economics is also a fear based system  rather than being rational and fear prompted fast traders to get even faster. Feminism exploited fear, they even suggested castration as more merciful than circumcision, for decades. Then Climate change/carbon tax proponents exploited fear for about a decade, so now the masses are frightened of the living dead, Zombies and they arm themselves as Crusaders.  These holy warriors manage to attract enough  temporary mates to repopulate ravaged nations and  continue their degenerate ideology.  When they finally execute Dylan Rouffe look at the crowds that attend his prison, I am sure he will get marriage proposals in the mail.

 

I am sorry for my outrage but the only way to stop such atrocities is to mock/shame  these vermin that stalk innocents. If they like killing so much then get them jobs in a slaughterhouse. God how I have come to despise these wannabe Alpha males and their girl friend’s  insidious fears.

 

The terrorists seem less of a threat than these racist rednecks , our prime minister conflated these two categories today and that really ramps up fear again, but most politicians jump to use fear at any opportunity. I suppose if you can’t think then make a scary face. Most dogs will chase anything that smells of a bitch in heat.

 

So my take is that Globalism is also a convenient disparaging alias for Civilization which threatens every primitive tribal or national social structure.

At any point in time any natural accidental idiot could become a member of the so-called elite/terrorist category , no credentials, proof of competency, nor affiliations are required.

 

I guess what makes this explanation  appear nuts is because it is.

 

Every villain depends on a belief that he has been a victim in fiction/fact to justify some atrocity upon innocents because the truly guilty are invisible, unknown or fantastically protected. So the death of the innocent becomes a symbolic necessity to prove their guilt, since only the living can plead for justice, and thus venerate the villain/hero. No mere wounding will suffice. The symbolic logic of madness.

 

I am starting to sound like that lunatic, Jacques Lacan and that freaks me out.

An entire generation of the fearful trying to export their version and derive profit .

 

Time to open my stash of Cuban Rum.

 

vib

 

 

 

 

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: January-31-17 4:02 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Globalism in the age of populism? .. & Open Source Software

 

Right, poorly stated. 

 

I believe the conversation was tending towards saying elites tend towards globalism. I don't think the reverse was intended. I actually didn't bring it up but did comment on it. I suspect "elites" as used would mean the ruling class, or more loosely, those well educated and middle class. I dunno.

 

I'm still much more interested in the possibility that we are so global, culturally (i.e. taken for granted, daily events, open research and software) that populism, any of the 10 examples cited, can reverse it, It tipped.

 

   -- Owen

 

On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 2:16 PM, Eric Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

That sounds to me like a conditional:

> We are global because we are elite.

If not-elite then not-global.

or:

elite or not-global

or:

not (global and not-elite)

If that is meant to be true as an expression in propositional calculus then there is no conversation to be had.  A mean, small-minded provincialism is entailed by anything not-to-be-rejected or attacked.  But that is the logic of thugs, which is no logic but just the betrayal of the good faith of those for whom the form of logic stands for something real and valuable.  I see no reason to treat that as meaningful.  It is just a dominance behavior, and the appropriate response to it is to stay focused on throwing it off.

Eric

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[Pamela McCorduck]

You sound much more reasonable than Jacques Lacan ever did, Vladimir. But then I’m told you had to be there.

I am sorry for your pain. It shows in your post. It’s righteous pain, altogether justified pain, for we have all been deeply wounded in that place where justice and righteousness abide.


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[Vladimyr Burachynsky]

Pamela.
Thank-you,

but I rarely ever use the word pain and did not use it in my post.
Some of us can endure more than others. The fear of pain seems to have also become more prevalent
in the recent past. Now the fear of inconvenience or waiting in a line.
Our fears have been trivialized or commoditized. Now stained teeth, white hair, or body odor. My how we have been held for ransom by wimpy ghosts.
Where are the Three Stooges when we need them. We used to laugh at their comedy now we quiver and faint in a  politically correct swoon demanding military intervention.

So I do not expect sympathy or empathy or a meeting with a social councillor. Nor an appointment with a young med. grad. unless I Have a video camera to present to the world abominable stupidity.

I do not wish to be isolated from this congregation of struggling reasonableness, simply because you intuit that I might have pain.  Is there anyone living free of it.. No then lets resume being civil and keep the unpleasant truth under wraps.

Let's talk about mockery and a return to satire to dispel the demons of ignorance.
Did Swift or Dickens or Conrad or Tolstoy  strike harder at injustice.  Whose pen was the mightiest.
vib

So today I learned that the KKK were handing out flyers in Canada.
I don't believe they can take the cold, so it is probably nonsense. Maybe they dress-up as Jehova Witnesses just to cross the border.
How do you tell the difference?


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Pamela McCorduck
Sent: January-31-17 11:35 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Globalism in the age of populism? .. & Open Source Software

You sound much more reasonable than Jacques Lacan ever did, Vladimir. But then I’m told you had to be there.

I am sorry for your pain. It shows in your post. It’s righteous pain, altogether justified pain, for we have all been deeply wounded in that place where justice and righteousness abide.


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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Vladimyr writes:

"So today I learned that the KKK were handing out flyers in Canada.
I don't believe they can take the cold, so it is probably nonsense. "

I've heard this reasoning before!

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-minnesota-too-cold-for-syrian-refugees/article/2576501

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[Pamela McCorduck]

No, you didn’t use the word pain. It was my inference, and I’m sorry you felt it was intrusive. Pain in this situation isn’t pathology needing some kind of medical attention. It’s a reasonable response to the events of the first few days of this president’s administration. Speaking for myself, my sleep is deeply and nightly disturbed by these events.

We have comedians here who mock Donald Trump with precision. They are mostly on television. They have not yet been arrested. They reach through their medium more people than the 19th century authors you cite, though their lasting power remains to be seen.

> On Feb 1, 2017, at 1:31 AM, Vladimyr Burachynsky <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Pamela.
> Thank-you,
>
> but I rarely ever use the word pain and did not use it in my post.
> Some of us can endure more than others. The fear of pain seems to have also become more prevalent
> in the recent past. Now the fear of inconvenience or waiting in a line.
> Our fears have been trivialized or commoditized. Now stained teeth, white hair, or body odor. My how we have been held for ransom by wimpy ghosts.
> Where are the Three Stooges when we need them. We used to laugh at their comedy now we quiver and faint in a  politically correct swoon demanding military intervention.
>
> So I do not expect sympathy or empathy or a meeting with a social councillor. Nor an appointment with a young med. grad. unless I Have a video camera to present to the world abominable stupidity.
>
> I do not wish to be isolated from this congregation of struggling reasonableness, simply because you intuit that I might have pain.  Is there anyone living free of it.. No then lets resume being civil and keep the unpleasant truth under wraps.
>
> Let's talk about mockery and a return to satire to dispel the demons of ignorance.
> Did Swift or Dickens or Conrad or Tolstoy  strike harder at injustice.  Whose pen was the mightiest.
> vib
>
> So today I learned that the KKK were handing out flyers in Canada.
> I don't believe they can take the cold, so it is probably nonsense. Maybe they dress-up as Jehova Witnesses just to cross the border.
> How do you tell the difference?
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Pamela McCorduck
> Sent: January-31-17 11:35 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Globalism in the age of populism? .. & Open Source Software
>
> You sound much more reasonable than Jacques Lacan ever did, Vladimir. But then I’m told you had to be there.
>
> I am sorry for your pain. It shows in your post. It’s righteous pain, altogether justified pain, for we have all been deeply wounded in that place where justice and righteousness abide.
>
>
> ============================================================
> 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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>
>
> ============================================================
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