[[Narcissism Again]again]

[Marcus G. Daniels]

It is worth noting he’s living in Spain. 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of "Robert J. Cordingley" <[hidden email]>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Date: Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:34 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

The Washington Post has an interesting essay from a Venezuelan on what to do and mostly what not to do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did

Robert C

 

 

On 1/28/17 11:21 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Ok Steve,

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone. 

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do?

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.  

- Candide

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)

To: Friam <[hidden email]>

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================

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

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

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

-- 

Cirrillian 

Web Design & Development

Santa Fe, NM

http://cirrillian.com

281-989-6272 (cell)

Member Design Corps of Santa Fe

============================================================
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
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Steve Smith]

Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once resembled sharp tools and useful fasteners?  

I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a month (and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately and the cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate would (eventually) drop below a certain threshold. 

Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  we might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with something more human (maybe still a form of populism, but not nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).

If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to hurt *our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt (or in some twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then only consider how our personal context would be effected in turn by the larger context (is a happier, healthier, more informed society good or bad for you and your family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get more government services and be afforded less expensive access to other resources nominally part of the commons?) 

et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,
 - Steve

Ok Steve,

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone. 

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do?

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.  

- Candide

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)

To: Friam <[hidden email]>

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================

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

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
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
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Gary Schiltz-4]

I agree that we shouldn't have to feign interest in others' interests. I'm not ready to pretend to like country music, go to church, praise military adventures that I don't agree with, tell gays they are going to hell and that god will heal them. At the same time, I don't see how it is productive to make fun of peoples' faith and cultural tastes, although I've been plenty guilty of that myself, feeding my own ego. Liberals can be just as intolerant as conservatives, and we will only make progress when we start to respect other peoples' views. Sometimes that just means sitting quietly and not responding.

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Well, I find this article depressing but plausible.  Specifically,

 

Andrés Miguel Rondón writes:

 

“But it took opposition leaders 10 years to figure out that they needed to actually go to the slums and the countryside. Not for a speech or a rally, but for a game of dominoes or to dance salsa — to show they were Venezuelans, too, that they weren’t just dour scolds and could hit a baseball, could tell a joke that landed. That they could break the tribal divide, come down off the billboards and show that they were real. This is not populism by other means. It is the only way of establishing your standing. It’s deciding not to live in an echo chamber. To press pause on the siren song of polarization.”

 

Figuratively, I don’t want to play dominoes, dance salsa, or play baseball.  I have different interests.   I shouldn’t have to pretend.  They won’t pretend to me, that’s for sure.  This is not about polarization; this is about not wanting to get pulled into that attractor.   We have different lives.  That should be fine.  This is the United States and individualism is kind of a big thing here.

 

Now what politicians and opposition leaders do to manage this problem is a different matter. That is about appearances not reality.

 

Marcus

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of "Robert J. Cordingley" <[hidden email]>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Date: Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:34 AM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

The Washington Post has an interesting essay from a Venezuelan on what to do and mostly what not to do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did

Robert C

 

 

On 1/28/17 11:21 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Ok Steve,

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone. 

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do?

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.  

- Candide

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)

To: Friam <[hidden email]>

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================

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

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

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

-- 

Cirrillian 

Web Design & Development

Santa Fe, NM

http://cirrillian.com

281-989-6272 (cell)

Member Design Corps of Santa Fe

============================================================
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
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
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Steve Smith]

Gary -

I don't know if this is my own narcissistic self-indulgence, but as a one-time conservative (libertarian?) I am now so very aligned with the left *by* the rise of the right  such that I feel deeply and passionately offended by this right-wing populism that is sweeping us.   I feel more self-rightous about it than I ever have.  Having them take power so roughly and rudely and against their own self-interest has triggered me in a way that reminds me of the way so many former smokers become virulently intolerant of smoking.  

I am trying to heed the warning of not losing to my enemy by becoming him... by falling into the trap of thinking the only way to defend against hate is with hate, the seduction of fighting fire with fire.

But I do feel a certain sanctimonious pleasure in stepping up nose to nose with virtually every Trumpian in my circle and daring them to try to do a victory dance on my head or the heads of those I care about or identify with.    I have never enjoyed the role of the underdog quite so acutely before... it has a certain deliciousness to it.  I am responding with a very calm but firm NO to virtually every aspect of their agenda, most especially xenophobia, misogyny, misecology, and extractive/extortive capitalism.  

I believe *we* can be an overwhelmingly powerful "silent majority" in these times if we stand firm behind our beliefs (as varied in quality and degree as they may be).  

- Steve

PS.  have you looked at the world of Mesh Potato for 3rd world networking?  I am vaguely set to bring that class of technology to my colleagues in Panama and in Kenya when the time is ripe.

On 1/28/17 1:18 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote:

I agree that we shouldn't have to feign interest in others' interests. I'm not ready to pretend to like country music, go to church, praise military adventures that I don't agree with, tell gays they are going to hell and that god will heal them. At the same time, I don't see how it is productive to make fun of peoples' faith and cultural tastes, although I've been plenty guilty of that myself, feeding my own ego. Liberals can be just as intolerant as conservatives, and we will only make progress when we start to respect other peoples' views. Sometimes that just means sitting quietly and not responding.

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Well, I find this article depressing but plausible.  Specifically,

 

Andrés Miguel Rondón writes:

 

“But it took opposition leaders 10 years to figure out that they needed to actually go to the slums and the countryside. Not for a speech or a rally, but for a game of dominoes or to dance salsa — to show they were Venezuelans, too, that they weren’t just dour scolds and could hit a baseball, could tell a joke that landed. That they could break the tribal divide, come down off the billboards and show that they were real. This is not populism by other means. It is the only way of establishing your standing. It’s deciding not to live in an echo chamber. To press pause on the siren song of polarization.”

 

Figuratively, I don’t want to play dominoes, dance salsa, or play baseball.  I have different interests.   I shouldn’t have to pretend.  They won’t pretend to me, that’s for sure.  This is not about polarization; this is about not wanting to get pulled into that attractor.   We have different lives.  That should be fine.  This is the United States and individualism is kind of a big thing here.

 

Now what politicians and opposition leaders do to manage this problem is a different matter. That is about appearances not reality.

 

Marcus

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of "Robert J. Cordingley" <[hidden email]>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Date: Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:34 AM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

The Washington Post has an interesting essay from a Venezuelan on what to do and mostly what not to do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did

Robert C

 

 

On 1/28/17 11:21 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Ok Steve,

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone. 

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do?

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.  

- Candide

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)

To: Friam <[hidden email]>

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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Cirrillian 

Web Design & Development

Santa Fe, NM

http://cirrillian.com

281-989-6272 (cell)

Member Design Corps of Santa Fe

============================================================ 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

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[Nick Thompson]

Well, Marcus,

 

So, the question is , “Should we do what we can do, no matter how lame or ineffectual it might seem?”  Or, should we pull back, “move to Spain’, and leave it to others, “the politicians”, to lower themselves to do what needs to be done.  Isn’t this one of the things the Quakers get right:  You don’t worry about what others are doing.  You do it right, yourself.  You act as you would have others act? 

 

The answer would seem to depend on whether each one of us thinks that he or she is going to be touched by this thing.  This is where, I think, my libertarian friends (Hi, Guys!) get it wrong.  They think it’s possible to step aside, to lift one’s skirts about the flood of muck that is  about to descend upon us -- survive it all, listening to jazz (say) and eating canned food in the green painted walls of their condo in the depths of their converted missile silo, with flat-screen “windows” looking out on the surrounding countryside.

 

“When they came for the immigrants, I didn’t do anything because I was not an immigrant”  etc.

 

I think we have to figure out what we can do, and begin to do it. 

 

Nick

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 12:12 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

It is worth noting he’s living in Spain. 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of "Robert J. Cordingley" <[hidden email]>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Date: Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:34 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

The Washington Post has an interesting essay from a Venezuelan on what to do and mostly what not to do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did

Robert C

 

 

On 1/28/17 11:21 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Ok Steve,

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone. 

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do?

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.  

- Candide

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)

To: Friam <[hidden email]>

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================

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

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

============================================================

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

-- 

Cirrillian 

Web Design & Development

Santa Fe, NM

http://cirrillian.com

281-989-6272 (cell)

Member Design Corps of Santa Fe

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Gary Schiltz-4]

There is a lot of gray area between standing up for principles (openness to new ideas, value of science and education, respect for rights of those with whom you disagree) and holier-than-thou self-righteousness, which is what I believe the "country folk" see as "elite". Step too far into that gray area and you get shot down, perhaps justifiably so.

Steve, I haven't looked much at mesh networking, but it looks like nodes need to be within hundreds of meters of each other, which is definitely not my use case. And the Mesh Potato stuff seems to be mostly for voice, not IP. If we want to discuss this more, it would probably be better suited for a new topic on WedTech.

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 3:53 PM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Gary -

I don't know if this is my own narcissistic self-indulgence, but as a one-time conservative (libertarian?) I am now so very aligned with the left *by* the rise of the right  such that I feel deeply and passionately offended by this right-wing populism that is sweeping us.   I feel more self-rightous about it than I ever have.  Having them take power so roughly and rudely and against their own self-interest has triggered me in a way that reminds me of the way so many former smokers become virulently intolerant of smoking.  

I am trying to heed the warning of not losing to my enemy by becoming him... by falling into the trap of thinking the only way to defend against hate is with hate, the seduction of fighting fire with fire.

But I do feel a certain sanctimonious pleasure in stepping up nose to nose with virtually every Trumpian in my circle and daring them to try to do a victory dance on my head or the heads of those I care about or identify with.    I have never enjoyed the role of the underdog quite so acutely before... it has a certain deliciousness to it.  I am responding with a very calm but firm NO to virtually every aspect of their agenda, most especially xenophobia, misogyny, misecology, and extractive/extortive capitalism.  

I believe *we* can be an overwhelmingly powerful "silent majority" in these times if we stand firm behind our beliefs (as varied in quality and degree as they may be).  

- Steve

PS.  have you looked at the world of Mesh Potato for 3rd world networking?  I am vaguely set to bring that class of technology to my colleagues in Panama and in Kenya when the time is ripe.

On 1/28/17 1:18 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote:

I agree that we shouldn't have to feign interest in others' interests. I'm not ready to pretend to like country music, go to church, praise military adventures that I don't agree with, tell gays they are going to hell and that god will heal them. At the same time, I don't see how it is productive to make fun of peoples' faith and cultural tastes, although I've been plenty guilty of that myself, feeding my own ego. Liberals can be just as intolerant as conservatives, and we will only make progress when we start to respect other peoples' views. Sometimes that just means sitting quietly and not responding.

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Well, I find this article depressing but plausible.  Specifically,

 

Andrés Miguel Rondón writes:

 

“But it took opposition leaders 10 years to figure out that they needed to actually go to the slums and the countryside. Not for a speech or a rally, but for a game of dominoes or to dance salsa — to show they were Venezuelans, too, that they weren’t just dour scolds and could hit a baseball, could tell a joke that landed. That they could break the tribal divide, come down off the billboards and show that they were real. This is not populism by other means. It is the only way of establishing your standing. It’s deciding not to live in an echo chamber. To press pause on the siren song of polarization.”

 

Figuratively, I don’t want to play dominoes, dance salsa, or play baseball.  I have different interests.   I shouldn’t have to pretend.  They won’t pretend to me, that’s for sure.  This is not about polarization; this is about not wanting to get pulled into that attractor.   We have different lives.  That should be fine.  This is the United States and individualism is kind of a big thing here.

 

Now what politicians and opposition leaders do to manage this problem is a different matter. That is about appearances not reality.

 

Marcus

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of "Robert J. Cordingley" <[hidden email]>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Date: Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:34 AM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

The Washington Post has an interesting essay from a Venezuelan on what to do and mostly what not to do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did

Robert C

 

 

On 1/28/17 11:21 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Ok Steve,

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone. 

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do?

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.  

- Candide

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)

To: Friam <[hidden email]>

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

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-- 

Cirrillian 

Web Design & Development

Santa Fe, NM

http://cirrillian.com

281-989-6272 (cell)

Member Design Corps of Santa Fe

============================================================ 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
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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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to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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[Nick Thompson]

Steve –

 

Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to the narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there anything that participants in the computer industry could do tip the world back toward a fact-based attractor? 

 

If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting that barfight might be your highest and best use.  Let me know which bar you are going to, so I can come and watch. 

 

But I think the question is yes.

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once resembled sharp tools and useful fasteners?  

I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a month (and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately and the cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate would (eventually) drop below a certain threshold. 

Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  we might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with something more human (maybe still a form of populism, but not nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).

If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to hurt *our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt (or in some twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then only consider how our personal context would be effected in turn by the larger context (is a happier, healthier, more informed society good or bad for you and your family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get more government services and be afforded less expensive access to other resources nominally part of the commons?) 

et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,
 - Steve

Ok Steve,

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone. 

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do?

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.  

- Candide

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)

To: Friam <[hidden email]>

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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[Pamela McCorduck]

Before we blame any particular technology for what seems like an epidemic of narcissism, we ought to remember that the 80s—or was it the 70s?—were widely known as the Me Decade. Either way, long before social media.

I’m always deeply amused by the libertarians who tell us how wicked government interference is at exactly the time they’re making their plush livings off a technology that wouldn’t have existed without decades (the fifties, the sixties, the seventies) of government investment. Would the Internet have happened anyway? Hard to imagine private investors sitting still for an investment that wouldn’t pay off for almost half a century.

So, drifting afar from a reality base isn’t unknown in Silly Valley.

On Jan 28, 2017, at 2:31 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Steve –

 

Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to the narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there anything that participants in the computer industry could do tip the world back toward a fact-based attractor?  

 

If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting that barfight might be your highest and best use.  Let me know which bar you are going to, so I can come and watch.  

 

But I think the question is yes. 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once resembled sharp tools and useful fasteners?   

I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a month (and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately and the cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate would (eventually) drop below a certain threshold.  

Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  we might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with something more human (maybe still a form of populism, but not nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).

If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to hurt *our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt (or in some twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then only consider how our personal context would be effected in turn by the larger context (is a happier, healthier, more informed society good or bad for you and your family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get more government services and be afforded less expensive access to other resources nominally part of the commons?)  

et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,
 - Steve

Ok Steve, 

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge. 

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone.  

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do? 

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.   

- Candide

 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> 

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00) 

To: Friam <[hidden email]> 

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]> 

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again] 

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================

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

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

============================================================

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.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
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Marcus G. Daniels]

< So, the question is , “Should we do what we can do, no matter how lame or ineffectual it might seem?”  Or, should we pull back, “move to Spain’, and leave it to others, “the politicians”, to lower themselves to do what needs to be done.  >

 

Andrés asserts it is not populism by another means.  It seems to me to be that.  I am not advocating leaving the country.  I am questioning him based on the fact he did leave just how sincere is he about living with his fellow man.   It sounds to me like he may have, or at least want to present, a romantic view of his Venezuelan homeland, and that it is easier to maintain from a safe distance in Europe.  That said, I don’t judge him for leaving nor U.S. citizens for leaving. 

 

I don’t think this is solved by creating solidarity with witting vandals of this country.  That is BS.  This is solved by showing that BS doesn’t work.   To me, that means create a cost for the vandals.   Polarize sufficiently to create a clear political identity and purpose – identify the enemy and identify the cause.   To you, it may mean counsel the vandals and lead them to contrition.  Or it could mean to incentivize them to do other things than vandalism. 

 

“When they came for the immigrants, I didn’t do anything because I was not an immigrant”  etc.

 

If there is a better organization to support than the ACLU for litigating these insane executive orders, please let me know.

 

Another idea is to map out the Trump-friendly churches and reach them through soft techniques.  For example, if church A is more conservative to church B, but they are similar, a political action organization could financially support people (e.g. pastors) at church B to give talks to congregation A that are fact-based and show the reality of Trump’s policies on children or other sympathetic victims.   Pastors at small churches are not paid very well, so having a travel budget and training opportunities could help them professionally.

 

Marcus

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[Grant Holland]

Pamela,

Good points. The arrangement in the US is apparently that the government (NSF-sponsored funding, universities, labs. etc.) performs basic research so that industry does not have to foot that bill or take that risk. Then private industry does the lower risk "applied research" to put products into the market.

For those who see this ploy as not exactly "capitalism as advertised", but rather a highly subsidized machine - I would say that you are connecting the dots properly.

Grant

On 1/28/17 4:53 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:

Before we blame any particular technology for what seems like an epidemic of narcissism, we ought to remember that the 80s—or was it the 70s?—were widely known as the Me Decade. Either way, long before social media.

I’m always deeply amused by the libertarians who tell us how wicked government interference is at exactly the time they’re making their plush livings off a technology that wouldn’t have existed without decades (the fifties, the sixties, the seventies) of government investment. Would the Internet have happened anyway? Hard to imagine private investors sitting still for an investment that wouldn’t pay off for almost half a century.

So, drifting afar from a reality base isn’t unknown in Silly Valley.

On Jan 28, 2017, at 2:31 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Steve –

 

Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to the narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there anything that participants in the computer industry could do tip the world back toward a fact-based attractor?  

 

If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting that barfight might be your highest and best use.  Let me know which bar you are going to, so I can come and watch.  

 

But I think the question is yes. 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once resembled sharp tools and useful fasteners?   

I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a month (and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately and the cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate would (eventually) drop below a certain threshold.  

Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  we might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with something more human (maybe still a form of populism, but not nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).

If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to hurt *our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt (or in some twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then only consider how our personal context would be effected in turn by the larger context (is a happier, healthier, more informed society good or bad for you and your family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get more government services and be afforded less expensive access to other resources nominally part of the commons?)  

et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,
 - Steve

Ok Steve, 

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge. 

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone.  

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do? 

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.   

- Candide

 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> 

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00) 

To: Friam <[hidden email]> 

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]> 

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again] 

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================

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

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

============================================================

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Steve Smith]

Gary -

There is a lot of gray area between standing up for principles (openness to new ideas, value of science and education, respect for rights of those with whom you disagree) and holier-than-thou self-righteousness, which is what I believe the "country folk" see as "elite". Step too far into that gray area and you get shot down, perhaps justifiably so.

I suppose the key for me is that I feel a lot less responsible for worrying about these yokels "feelings" when I feel like part of the underclass than I do when I feel like part of the overclass (elites?).  Not all ARE yokels in the colloquial sense and by many measures *I* am a big yokel myself... but you get the drift.  Oddly the (not so) loyal opposition doesn't seem to have any such principles, they seem too often to be "kick em while they are down" types, which allows me a bit of satisfaction in "kicking THEM while *I* am down" or perhaps more aptly, "kicking back".   The satisfaction, I suppose, of standing up to a bully. 

But the risk of this is always "becoming the bully".  In my former life as a libertarian/conservative, I felt that "liberal elites" WERE being bullies themselves, and by golly I still often feel that way.  I think for example, that Hillary and the DNC bullied their way over the top of Bernie and Jill, both of whom ARE pretty aligned with the DNC's espoused principles.   But compared to their opposition, they are pretty mild, is the point. 

Steve, I haven't looked much at mesh networking, but it looks like nodes need to be within hundreds of meters of each other, which is definitely not my use case. And the Mesh Potato stuff seems to be mostly for voice, not IP. If we want to discuss this more, it would probably be better suited for a new topic on WedTech.

Sure, or we can take it offline.   I think I brought it up on WedTech over a year ago when I was working it actively and didn't hear any interest.   This class of mesh *does* require fairly close proximity, but rather than hang, for example, a dozen Ubiquiti links on a dozen households in an "island", one would backbone in with one or two and then mesh out from there.   It is also about community building and being good neighbors.  The fundamental tech IS IP, with VOIP on top, they just make the VOIP very easy and very transparent and in some contexts that is the main thing needed by the folks using it.

- Steve

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 3:53 PM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Gary -

I don't know if this is my own narcissistic self-indulgence, but as a one-time conservative (libertarian?) I am now so very aligned with the left *by* the rise of the right  such that I feel deeply and passionately offended by this right-wing populism that is sweeping us.   I feel more self-rightous about it than I ever have.  Having them take power so roughly and rudely and against their own self-interest has triggered me in a way that reminds me of the way so many former smokers become virulently intolerant of smoking.  

I am trying to heed the warning of not losing to my enemy by becoming him... by falling into the trap of thinking the only way to defend against hate is with hate, the seduction of fighting fire with fire.

But I do feel a certain sanctimonious pleasure in stepping up nose to nose with virtually every Trumpian in my circle and daring them to try to do a victory dance on my head or the heads of those I care about or identify with.    I have never enjoyed the role of the underdog quite so acutely before... it has a certain deliciousness to it.  I am responding with a very calm but firm NO to virtually every aspect of their agenda, most especially xenophobia, misogyny, misecology, and extractive/extortive capitalism.  

I believe *we* can be an overwhelmingly powerful "silent majority" in these times if we stand firm behind our beliefs (as varied in quality and degree as they may be).  

- Steve

PS.  have you looked at the world of Mesh Potato for 3rd world networking?  I am vaguely set to bring that class of technology to my colleagues in Panama and in Kenya when the time is ripe.

On 1/28/17 1:18 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote:

I agree that we shouldn't have to feign interest in others' interests. I'm not ready to pretend to like country music, go to church, praise military adventures that I don't agree with, tell gays they are going to hell and that god will heal them. At the same time, I don't see how it is productive to make fun of peoples' faith and cultural tastes, although I've been plenty guilty of that myself, feeding my own ego. Liberals can be just as intolerant as conservatives, and we will only make progress when we start to respect other peoples' views. Sometimes that just means sitting quietly and not responding.

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Well, I find this article depressing but plausible.  Specifically,

 

Andrés Miguel Rondón writes:

 

“But it took opposition leaders 10 years to figure out that they needed to actually go to the slums and the countryside. Not for a speech or a rally, but for a game of dominoes or to dance salsa — to show they were Venezuelans, too, that they weren’t just dour scolds and could hit a baseball, could tell a joke that landed. That they could break the tribal divide, come down off the billboards and show that they were real. This is not populism by other means. It is the only way of establishing your standing. It’s deciding not to live in an echo chamber. To press pause on the siren song of polarization.”

 

Figuratively, I don’t want to play dominoes, dance salsa, or play baseball.  I have different interests.   I shouldn’t have to pretend.  They won’t pretend to me, that’s for sure.  This is not about polarization; this is about not wanting to get pulled into that attractor.   We have different lives.  That should be fine.  This is the United States and individualism is kind of a big thing here.

 

Now what politicians and opposition leaders do to manage this problem is a different matter. That is about appearances not reality.

 

Marcus

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of "Robert J. Cordingley" <[hidden email]>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Date: Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 11:34 AM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

The Washington Post has an interesting essay from a Venezuelan on what to do and mostly what not to do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did

Robert C

 

 

On 1/28/17 11:21 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Ok Steve,

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone. 

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do?

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.  

- Candide

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)

To: Friam <[hidden email]>

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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-- 

Cirrillian 

Web Design & Development

Santa Fe, NM

http://cirrillian.com

281-989-6272 (cell)

Member Design Corps of Santa Fe

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[Steve Smith]

Nick -

I know I don't always seem to take your questions seriously, but I generally do. 

I DO think the computer industry HAS effectively contributed to a certain kind of isolation.  On the other hand, here we are, most of us able to participate in a complex discussion, halfway around the world from one another (or not), many of us unable/unwilling to actually *attend* the Mother Church as it were (FriAM coffee klatch) because of computer technology.  But  again on the first hand, we sit around in coffee shops ignoring one another while chatting with friends or colleagues 7 time zones away?!

I believe that every form of technological "leverage" follows the metaphor at least far enough to include the "loss of sensitivity" on the strong-end of the lever.  Sure, with the right lever, you can heave a 1 ton boulder, but can you gently tweak the last 12 ounces of force to *gently* move it off equilibrium?   So I'm not sure HOW to maintain sensitivity in the context of such high leverage.  The age of Transportation, Communications, etc.  Brought huge societal problems which have either leveled out, or sadly, more likely, normalized.

As for the barfight, I'll let you know... and just fair warning, if you take wagers, put your money on *the other guy*, I might be scrappy, but about all I have going for me any more is mass, the ability to take a beating, and a willingness to gouge eyes when required.

- Steve

On 1/28/17 2:31 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Steve –

 

Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to the narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there anything that participants in the computer industry could do tip the world back toward a fact-based attractor? 

 

If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting that barfight might be your highest and best use.  Let me know which bar you are going to, so I can come and watch. 

 

But I think the question is yes.

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once resembled sharp tools and useful fasteners?  

I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a month (and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately and the cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate would (eventually) drop below a certain threshold. 

Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  we might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with something more human (maybe still a form of populism, but not nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).

If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to hurt *our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt (or in some twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then only consider how our personal context would be effected in turn by the larger context (is a happier, healthier, more informed society good or bad for you and your family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get more government services and be afforded less expensive access to other resources nominally part of the commons?) 

et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,
 - Steve

Ok Steve,

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone. 

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do?

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.  

- Candide

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)

To: Friam <[hidden email]>

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

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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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[Steve Smith]

Pamela -

Not to be (overly) ornery, but I *do* think that *an* Internet (global digital communications network) was inevitable without Gov't investment directly in *the Internet*...  There were a plethora of online communities managed roughly as bulletin board services, the Whole Earth 'Lectronic LInk (WELL)being one of the more notable ones at the time.  Some had begun to cross link... a sea of "star" networks beginning to link up.  The academic (mostly) Unix-to-Unix (UUNET) network was another self-organizing, multi-scale network which could have blossomed more on it's own had it not been subsumed into "Al Gore's Internet".   ARPA and NSF nets (as I remember it anecdotally) provided a lot of the more robust backboning, one end of the power-law distribution of services which DID accelerate full connectivity and high performance to a broader audience.

But I *do* think your point about (many) Libertarians and others *taking* from the commons without acknowledging their debt to it in word OR deed, is well taken.   I don't know if anyone has developed answers for "the Tragedy of the Commons", but it seems like a pattern to inspect and address in any case.  

I also agree that the SHAPE of our computer technology may REFLECT our narcissism as much as DRIVE it.  As much as I love and respect the political and social progress of the 60's, there came a second wave of Narcissism on top of that which started (I think) with the boom of post WWII industry and a consumer economy.   It took 50+ years to reach the untenable state we are in today.

- Steve

On 1/28/17 4:53 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:

Before we blame any particular technology for what seems like an epidemic of narcissism, we ought to remember that the 80s—or was it the 70s?—were widely known as the Me Decade. Either way, long before social media.

I’m always deeply amused by the libertarians who tell us how wicked government interference is at exactly the time they’re making their plush livings off a technology that wouldn’t have existed without decades (the fifties, the sixties, the seventies) of government investment. Would the Internet have happened anyway? Hard to imagine private investors sitting still for an investment that wouldn’t pay off for almost half a century.

So, drifting afar from a reality base isn’t unknown in Silly Valley.

On Jan 28, 2017, at 2:31 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Steve –

 

Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to the narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there anything that participants in the computer industry could do tip the world back toward a fact-based attractor?  

 

If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting that barfight might be your highest and best use.  Let me know which bar you are going to, so I can come and watch.  

 

But I think the question is yes. 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once resembled sharp tools and useful fasteners?   

I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a month (and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately and the cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate would (eventually) drop below a certain threshold.  

Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  we might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with something more human (maybe still a form of populism, but not nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).

If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to hurt *our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt (or in some twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then only consider how our personal context would be effected in turn by the larger context (is a happier, healthier, more informed society good or bad for you and your family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get more government services and be afforded less expensive access to other resources nominally part of the commons?)  

et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,
 - Steve

Ok Steve, 

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge. 

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone.  

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do? 

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.   

- Candide

 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> 

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00) 

To: Friam <[hidden email]> 

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]> 

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again] 

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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[Eric Charles-2]

"2. But I read Nick as saying that The Problem, and the central accomplishment of the Right, has been to install this shift in position as a feature of the population....  That is what worries me, and drives a sense of urgency to fix a problem I do not know how to fix because I don’t understand how it can exist, much less be ascendent or robust.  It’s not the same as losing piety or losing god (loss of mere cultural luxuries), to lose the sense of factual truth as something larger than one’s own petit ambitions or the scope of the tribe. "

Ah, but here is the rub, isn't it? It is not the central accomplishment of the Right. Tough men have always had a place, and "might makes right" is hardly new. The assault on Truth over the past 70 years or so has been lead primarily by people who describe themselves as liberals, in the name of reducing "cultural hegemony" and "colonialism". In that context, the WWII rhetoric about "Jewish science" vs. "German science", is not easy to distinguish in effect from modern rhetoric about "feminist politics" vs "the patriarchy." In both cases it is asserted that Truth is not primary, but rather that Ways of Knowing are primary. What Dewey had was a method of working towards the truth, and as soon as we cannot agree upon a method, we're in trouble.

Though they have some trouble with consistency, it is the Right that has been fighting for "truth" as a central concept much more reliably than the Left. They may seek it in bibles or successful businessmen, but their boots-on-the-ground believe Truth is out there. It would be hard to say the same for those on the left. Even the things they claim to most strongly believe, they will typically drop in an instant if faced with an assertion from another culture, or from someone with multiple "victim" traits. The "your place is to listen" rhetoric, in which claims regarding individual experience trump data, but only when those claims are made by individuals from a "marginalized" group, cannot possibly be compatible with Dewey's approach.

On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 11:28 PM, Eric Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Thank you for forwarding this Owen,

I didn’t receive the original.

> So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”
>
> So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win.

Nick, with the little clipping (done above) of what felt to me like a digression within this gem, it seems to me perfect.  It is the return to a clear focus on the center of the problem that I have been looking for and not been able to express.

The thing is (acknowledging Marcus’s replies also, and the ensuing discussion of the scoping of the claim):

1. Regarding trump itself, I don’t care about it except as I would care if someone told me a vial of Marburg virus had been spilled on the kitchen floor.  I would feel a sense of urgency to get a strong disinfectant to try somehow to scrub it out.  If I felt I couldn’t get rid of it short of cutting out and replacing a part of the floor, that would be within bounds of the discussion.  etc. at that level. I care a little more about several of the craven rats in the congress, enough to be angry at them, but again they can go into the autoclave with my blessing, and not much more interest than that.   (I believe this is what the NYT editorial called the dehumanizing motive of contempt, and argued is a bad choice; it feels to me like they have more than earned the category on their own.)

2. But I read Nick as saying that The Problem, and the central accomplishment of the Right, has been to install this shift in position as a feature of the population and whatever one calls the “culture” of this (and probably several other) nation(s).  That is what worries me, and drives a sense of urgency to fix a problem I do not know how to fix because I don’t understand how it can exist, much less be ascendent or robust.  It’s not the same as losing piety or losing god (loss of mere cultural luxuries), to lose the sense of factual truth as something larger than one’s own petit ambitions or the scope of the tribe.  In a big and complicated world where people have the impact they do, losing the factual sense of truth is commitment to an undignified form of suicide (emphasis on undignified, otherwise do as you like), alongside a lot of other -cides that are not morally defensible in any terms.  To have arrived at a large number of people who have managed to somehow get on the wrong side of this point requires a kind of blindness that it is hard to see how to break through.  The “demonstration that liars don’t win” is to be a demonstration to them (as I read Nick), to somehow flush out the narcotic that has them in this bizarre non-mental state, and make room for the common sense they routinely use when (for instance) not sticking their hands into the kitchen broiler or diving head-first onto the back patio, to again become the driver of decisions.

Any animal (that has a brain) has a part of its brain that is subservient to the consistency of nature that we call fact (filtered and processed, of course, but I claim still the point stands).  The heavily social animals start to develop bigger veneers in which power starts to become a major motivator, and partitions tasks with those motivated by an awareness of fact.  But even as socialized as people are, as long as they are not self-mutilators in a clinical sense, that part still seems no bigger than a veneer.  Somehow it seems that cultures can, over decades, perform enough decadance that the scope of control of the veneer balloons and that pattern gets both frozen in to behavior and reified in a lot of constructed cultural supports.  What is the manual for the needed task of jointly tearing out what needs it, and re-building what has been built wrongly?

Eric

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[Nick Thompson]

Steve,

 

For me, there are only two questions I want you to ask yourself:

 

Is the Trump administration likely to do things that will irrevocably decrease the quality of life of people you care about? (How widely you cast that net is your business.)

 

And,

 

Is there anything we can do to alter that probability in any small degree?

 

That’s all I am asking.

 

Nick

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:50 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Nick -

I know I don't always seem to take your questions seriously, but I generally do. 

I DO think the computer industry HAS effectively contributed to a certain kind of isolation.  On the other hand, here we are, most of us able to participate in a complex discussion, halfway around the world from one another (or not), many of us unable/unwilling to actually *attend* the Mother Church as it were (FriAM coffee klatch) because of computer technology.  But  again on the first hand, we sit around in coffee shops ignoring one another while chatting with friends or colleagues 7 time zones away?!

I believe that every form of technological "leverage" follows the metaphor at least far enough to include the "loss of sensitivity" on the strong-end of the lever.  Sure, with the right lever, you can heave a 1 ton boulder, but can you gently tweak the last 12 ounces of force to *gently* move it off equilibrium?   So I'm not sure HOW to maintain sensitivity in the context of such high leverage.  The age of Transportation, Communications, etc.  Brought huge societal problems which have either leveled out, or sadly, more likely, normalized.

As for the barfight, I'll let you know... and just fair warning, if you take wagers, put your money on *the other guy*, I might be scrappy, but about all I have going for me any more is mass, the ability to take a beating, and a willingness to gouge eyes when required.

- Steve

 

On 1/28/17 2:31 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Steve –

 

Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to the narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there anything that participants in the computer industry could do tip the world back toward a fact-based attractor? 

 

If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting that barfight might be your highest and best use.  Let me know which bar you are going to, so I can come and watch. 

 

But I think the question is yes.

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once resembled sharp tools and useful fasteners?  

I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a month (and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately and the cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate would (eventually) drop below a certain threshold. 

Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  we might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with something more human (maybe still a form of populism, but not nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).

If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to hurt *our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt (or in some twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then only consider how our personal context would be effected in turn by the larger context (is a happier, healthier, more informed society good or bad for you and your family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get more government services and be afforded less expensive access to other resources nominally part of the commons?) 

et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,
 - Steve

Ok Steve,

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone. 

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do?

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.  

- Candide

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)

To: Friam <[hidden email]>

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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[Nick Thompson]

Hi, Eric,

 

It looks like your post got accidently sent in mid thought.  Still, enough came through that I can say that I accept that “We Started It”.   “Don’t trust anybody over 30” was the first shot fired, and “we” fired it.   But don’t you agree that the right has gone lot’s further with it?

 

Maybe not. 

 

Anyway.  I don’t care who’s doing it.  It still sucks.  And if you agree that the assault on a convergent understanding of the truth is a bad thing, I hope you will help me think about how we might resist it. 

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2017 12:00 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [SPAM] Re: [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

"2. But I read Nick as saying that The Problem, and the central accomplishment of the Right, has been to install this shift in position as a feature of the population....  That is what worries me, and drives a sense of urgency to fix a problem I do not know how to fix because I don’t understand how it can exist, much less be ascendent or robust.  It’s not the same as losing piety or losing god (loss of mere cultural luxuries), to lose the sense of factual truth as something larger than one’s own petit ambitions or the scope of the tribe. "

Ah, but here is the rub, isn't it? It is not the central accomplishment of the Right. Tough men have always had a place, and "might makes right" is hardly new. The assault on Truth over the past 70 years or so has been lead primarily by people who describe themselves as liberals, in the name of reducing "cultural hegemony" and "colonialism". In that context, the WWII rhetoric about "Jewish science" vs. "German science", is not easy to distinguish in effect from modern rhetoric about "feminist politics" vs "the patriarchy." In both cases it is asserted that Truth is not primary, but rather that Ways of Knowing are primary. What Dewey had was a method of working towards the truth, and as soon as we cannot agree upon a method, we're in trouble.

Though they have some trouble with consistency, it is the Right that has been fighting for "truth" as a central concept much more reliably than the Left. They may seek it in bibles or successful businessmen, but their boots-on-the-ground believe Truth is out there. It would be hard to say the same for those on the left. Even the things they claim to most strongly believe, they will typically drop in an instant if faced with an assertion from another culture, or from someone with multiple "victim" traits. The "your place is to listen" rhetoric, in which claims regarding individual experience trump data, but only when those claims are made by individuals from a "marginalized" group, cannot possibly be compatible with Dewey's approach.

 

 

-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician

U.S. Marine Corps

 

On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 11:28 PM, Eric Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Thank you for forwarding this Owen,

I didn’t receive the original.

> So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”
>
> So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win.

Nick, with the little clipping (done above) of what felt to me like a digression within this gem, it seems to me perfect.  It is the return to a clear focus on the center of the problem that I have been looking for and not been able to express.

The thing is (acknowledging Marcus’s replies also, and the ensuing discussion of the scoping of the claim):

1. Regarding trump itself, I don’t care about it except as I would care if someone told me a vial of Marburg virus had been spilled on the kitchen floor.  I would feel a sense of urgency to get a strong disinfectant to try somehow to scrub it out.  If I felt I couldn’t get rid of it short of cutting out and replacing a part of the floor, that would be within bounds of the discussion.  etc. at that level. I care a little more about several of the craven rats in the congress, enough to be angry at them, but again they can go into the autoclave with my blessing, and not much more interest than that.   (I believe this is what the NYT editorial called the dehumanizing motive of contempt, and argued is a bad choice; it feels to me like they have more than earned the category on their own.)

2. But I read Nick as saying that The Problem, and the central accomplishment of the Right, has been to install this shift in position as a feature of the population and whatever one calls the “culture” of this (and probably several other) nation(s).  That is what worries me, and drives a sense of urgency to fix a problem I do not know how to fix because I don’t understand how it can exist, much less be ascendent or robust.  It’s not the same as losing piety or losing god (loss of mere cultural luxuries), to lose the sense of factual truth as something larger than one’s own petit ambitions or the scope of the tribe.  In a big and complicated world where people have the impact they do, losing the factual sense of truth is commitment to an undignified form of suicide (emphasis on undignified, otherwise do as you like), alongside a lot of other -cides that are not morally defensible in any terms.  To have arrived at a large number of people who have managed to somehow get on the wrong side of this point requires a kind of blindness that it is hard to see how to break through.  The “demonstration that liars don’t win” is to be a demonstration to them (as I read Nick), to somehow flush out the narcotic that has them in this bizarre non-mental state, and make room for the common sense they routinely use when (for instance) not sticking their hands into the kitchen broiler or diving head-first onto the back patio, to again become the driver of decisions.

Any animal (that has a brain) has a part of its brain that is subservient to the consistency of nature that we call fact (filtered and processed, of course, but I claim still the point stands).  The heavily social animals start to develop bigger veneers in which power starts to become a major motivator, and partitions tasks with those motivated by an awareness of fact.  But even as socialized as people are, as long as they are not self-mutilators in a clinical sense, that part still seems no bigger than a veneer.  Somehow it seems that cultures can, over decades, perform enough decadance that the scope of control of the veneer balloons and that pattern gets both frozen in to behavior and reified in a lot of constructed cultural supports.  What is the manual for the needed task of jointly tearing out what needs it, and re-building what has been built wrongly?

Eric

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[Nick Thompson]

So we’re stuck, right, Pamela?  There’s nothing we can do?  Just sit and take it? 

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Pamela McCorduck
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 4:53 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Before we blame any particular technology for what seems like an epidemic of narcissism, we ought to remember that the 80s—or was it the 70s?—were widely known as the Me Decade. Either way, long before social media.

 

I’m always deeply amused by the libertarians who tell us how wicked government interference is at exactly the time they’re making their plush livings off a technology that wouldn’t have existed without decades (the fifties, the sixties, the seventies) of government investment. Would the Internet have happened anyway? Hard to imagine private investors sitting still for an investment that wouldn’t pay off for almost half a century.

 

So, drifting afar from a reality base isn’t unknown in Silly Valley.

 

 

On Jan 28, 2017, at 2:31 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Steve –

 

Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to the narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there anything that participants in the computer industry could do tip the world back toward a fact-based attractor?  

 

If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting that barfight might be your highest and best use.  Let me know which bar you are going to, so I can come and watch.  

 

But I think the question is yes. 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once resembled sharp tools and useful fasteners?   

I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a month (and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately and the cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate would (eventually) drop below a certain threshold.  

Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  we might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with something more human (maybe still a form of populism, but not nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).

If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to hurt *our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt (or in some twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then only consider how our personal context would be effected in turn by the larger context (is a happier, healthier, more informed society good or bad for you and your family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get more government services and be afforded less expensive access to other resources nominally part of the commons?)  

et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,
 - Steve

Ok Steve, 

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge. 

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone.  

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do? 

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.   

- Candide

 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> 

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00) 

To: Friam <[hidden email]> 

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]> 

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again] 

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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[Nick Thompson]

Yes.  My little bit of money went to the ACLU.  But asking for money is all they do, and I feel the need for something more.  We may need to become grunts ourselves, rather than paying for mercenaries.   But until something better comes along, the ACLU seems the right thing.

 

Yes, we have to find a way to make narcissism hurt and make facts seem like beautiful things again.  It seems to me something could be done in the social media domain, but I haven’t thought of what that might be.  “Here are some viewpoints you might disagree with.”  “We note that Joe Blow has expressed believes opposite to yours, would you like to talk to Joe?” 

 

I think your suggestion about churches is a very interesting one.  AS the months wear on, I can imagine an ecumenical response to Trump. 

 

Here in Santa Fe, I think we need to be ready to make those who want to violate our “sanctuary city” status, to pay a price, perhaps to stand between ice officials and perspective departees, to surround and demonstrate at local ICE offices.  Anything to make it inconvenient. 

 

Yes.  Pay a price.  I like it.

 

Nick   

 

 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 4:02 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

< So, the question is , “Should we do what we can do, no matter how lame or ineffectual it might seem?”  Or, should we pull back, “move to Spain’, and leave it to others, “the politicians”, to lower themselves to do what needs to be done.  >

 

Andrés asserts it is not populism by another means.  It seems to me to be that.  I am not advocating leaving the country.  I am questioning him based on the fact he did leave just how sincere is he about living with his fellow man.   It sounds to me like he may have, or at least want to present, a romantic view of his Venezuelan homeland, and that it is easier to maintain from a safe distance in Europe.  That said, I don’t judge him for leaving nor U.S. citizens for leaving. 

 

I don’t think this is solved by creating solidarity with witting vandals of this country.  That is BS.  This is solved by showing that BS doesn’t work.   To me, that means create a cost for the vandals.   Polarize sufficiently to create a clear political identity and purpose – identify the enemy and identify the cause.   To you, it may mean counsel the vandals and lead them to contrition.  Or it could mean to incentivize them to do other things than vandalism. 

 

“When they came for the immigrants, I didn’t do anything because I was not an immigrant”  etc.

 

If there is a better organization to support than the ACLU for litigating these insane executive orders, please let me know.

 

Another idea is to map out the Trump-friendly churches and reach them through soft techniques.  For example, if church A is more conservative to church B, but they are similar, a political action organization could financially support people (e.g. pastors) at church B to give talks to congregation A that are fact-based and show the reality of Trump’s policies on children or other sympathetic victims.   Pastors at small churches are not paid very well, so having a travel budget and training opportunities could help them professionally.

 

Marcus

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[Pamela McCorduck]

I see you’re mostly agreeing with me, Steve, especially about the a-historic nature of much of the computer world, but as an early member of the WELL (and still there in good standing), I can tell you that it wouldn’t have existed without the ARPANet decades before it. Who would have stuck out that long investment period? I see by my journal entries that I had email in 1974 (we didn’t even know what to call it then—we called it receiving a “net message”) or another few odd terms.

The invention of the World Wide Web, which suddenly allowed graphics to be displayed and switched as easily as text, was the invention of one man, Tim Berners Lee, when he was employed by a multi-governmental organization called CERN. 

So, many of the boys in Silicon Valley are like the rooster who believes he’s waking the sun with his morning call.

On Jan 28, 2017, at 10:03 PM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Pamela -

Not to be (overly) ornery, but I *do* think that *an* Internet (global digital communications network) was inevitable without Gov't investment directly in *the Internet*...  There were a plethora of online communities managed roughly as bulletin board services, the Whole Earth 'Lectronic LInk (WELL)being one of the more notable ones at the time.  Some had begun to cross link... a sea of "star" networks beginning to link up.  The academic (mostly) Unix-to-Unix (UUNET) network was another self-organizing, multi-scale network which could have blossomed more on it's own had it not been subsumed into "Al Gore's Internet".   ARPA and NSF nets (as I remember it anecdotally) provided a lot of the more robust backboning, one end of the power-law distribution of services which DID accelerate full connectivity and high performance to a broader audience.

But I *do* think your point about (many) Libertarians and others *taking* from the commons without acknowledging their debt to it in word OR deed, is well taken.   I don't know if anyone has developed answers for "the Tragedy of the Commons", but it seems like a pattern to inspect and address in any case.  

I also agree that the SHAPE of our computer technology may REFLECT our narcissism as much as DRIVE it.  As much as I love and respect the political and social progress of the 60's, there came a second wave of Narcissism on top of that which started (I think) with the boom of post WWII industry and a consumer economy.   It took 50+ years to reach the untenable state we are in today.

- Steve

On 1/28/17 4:53 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:

Before we blame any particular technology for what seems like an epidemic of narcissism, we ought to remember that the 80s—or was it the 70s?—were widely known as the Me Decade. Either way, long before social media.

I’m always deeply amused by the libertarians who tell us how wicked government interference is at exactly the time they’re making their plush livings off a technology that wouldn’t have existed without decades (the fifties, the sixties, the seventies) of government investment. Would the Internet have happened anyway? Hard to imagine private investors sitting still for an investment that wouldn’t pay off for almost half a century.

So, drifting afar from a reality base isn’t unknown in Silly Valley.

On Jan 28, 2017, at 2:31 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Steve –

 

Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to the narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there anything that participants in the computer industry could do tip the world back toward a fact-based attractor?  

 

If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting that barfight might be your highest and best use.  Let me know which bar you are going to, so I can come and watch.  

 

But I think the question is yes. 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once resembled sharp tools and useful fasteners?   

I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a month (and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately and the cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate would (eventually) drop below a certain threshold.  

Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  we might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with something more human (maybe still a form of populism, but not nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).

If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to hurt *our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt (or in some twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then only consider how our personal context would be effected in turn by the larger context (is a happier, healthier, more informed society good or bad for you and your family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get more government services and be afforded less expensive access to other resources nominally part of the commons?)  

et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,
 - Steve

Ok Steve, 

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge. 

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone.  

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do? 

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.   

- Candide

 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> 

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00) 

To: Friam <[hidden email]> 

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]> 

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again] 

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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[Steve Smith]

Nick-

Steve,

 

For me, there are only two questions I want you to ask yourself:

 

Is the Trump administration likely to do things that will irrevocably decrease the quality of life of people you care about?

yes

(How widely you cast that net is your business.)

It is ultimately my business, but the narrower I (or you, or Donald Trump) casts it, the more likely that our "self" interest is going to lead to small and unenlightened consequences.   I believe that Marcus coined (or a least introduced it into this conversation) the idea that a significant property of our (dis)loyal opposition is that they live in a small world and do many things to seek to keep it that way.  Misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, are all acutely specific examples of this.

 

And,

 

Is there anything we can do to alter that probability in any small degree?

There are myriad things we can do and I think the problem is one of finding focus and traction.  If I throw MY measly cash at the ACLU but fail to show up at the processes required to get my local demigog (think Susanna Martinez) out of office, then I may have made a less than optimal decision.

I *think* your handwringing is merited, we DO have a BIG problem, but *I* think that doing anything and everything you can think of is a good start whilst seeking more optimal solutions that don't make us all feel as helpless and without traction as many of us do?

- Steve

 

That’s all I am asking.

 

Nick

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:50 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Nick -

I know I don't always seem to take your questions seriously, but I generally do. 

I DO think the computer industry HAS effectively contributed to a certain kind of isolation.  On the other hand, here we are, most of us able to participate in a complex discussion, halfway around the world from one another (or not), many of us unable/unwilling to actually *attend* the Mother Church as it were (FriAM coffee klatch) because of computer technology.  But  again on the first hand, we sit around in coffee shops ignoring one another while chatting with friends or colleagues 7 time zones away?!

I believe that every form of technological "leverage" follows the metaphor at least far enough to include the "loss of sensitivity" on the strong-end of the lever.  Sure, with the right lever, you can heave a 1 ton boulder, but can you gently tweak the last 12 ounces of force to *gently* move it off equilibrium?   So I'm not sure HOW to maintain sensitivity in the context of such high leverage.  The age of Transportation, Communications, etc.  Brought huge societal problems which have either leveled out, or sadly, more likely, normalized.

As for the barfight, I'll let you know... and just fair warning, if you take wagers, put your money on *the other guy*, I might be scrappy, but about all I have going for me any more is mass, the ability to take a beating, and a willingness to gouge eyes when required.

- Steve

 

On 1/28/17 2:31 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Steve –

 

Is there any way in which the computer industry has contributed to the narcissistic pandemic that is sweeping the world.  Is there anything that participants in the computer industry could do tip the world back toward a fact-based attractor? 

 

If the answer to that question is no, then I suppose that starting that barfight might be your highest and best use.  Let me know which bar you are going to, so I can come and watch. 

 

But I think the question is yes.

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Toolkit?  This rusty old box filled with rusty things that once resembled sharp tools and useful fasteners?  

I was thinking that if we *all* burned one gallon of petrol *less* a month (and everyone "like us") the demand would drop commensurately and the cost/value proposition for the pipelines we all love to hate would (eventually) drop below a certain threshold. 

Similarly, if we *all* made it a point to have one *more* thoughtful conversation (not just a rant) with those not already in the choir,  we might reverse the tide of *ugly* populism and replace it with something more human (maybe still a form of populism, but not nationalistic/xenophobic/misogynistic?).

If we *all* quit worrying about how the Trump Ascension was going to hurt *our* personal context and recognized how it was going to hurt (or in some twisted or strange way help) the larger context and then only consider how our personal context would be effected in turn by the larger context (is a happier, healthier, more informed society good or bad for you and your family?  vs can I pay lower taxes, get more government services and be afforded less expensive access to other resources nominally part of the commons?) 

et cetera, ad nauseum

I know I'm preaching (somewhat) to the choir here, time to take my own advice and go start a barfight with a Trumpian or something,
 - Steve

Ok Steve,

 

The only reason to accept responsibility is to Take Charge.

 

I have been able to think of only one concrete thing that I can do with my limited set of skills:  Write Apple and tell them to stop calling new products “I-this” and “I-that.”  When are they going to release the WE-phone. 

 

You must have something in your tool kit more effective than that!

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 9:38 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

What can WE hobbits do?

Scratch our hairy knuckles and indulge in second dinnerses?

Fun aside, I DO appreciate your sentiment here and agree that the Narcissist in Chief is at least partly a (focused) reflection of our own worst qualities, and *perhaps* if we tend our own garden even a little, it will help with the greater picture.  

- Candide

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 1:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]; Friam [hidden email]
Cc: penny thompson [hidden email]; 'Bruce Simon' [hidden email]; 'Dix McComas' [hidden email]; 'Grant Franks' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Yes, agree. Trump’s point of view is “Whatever I can win with is true.”  And if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true for him. Exactly.

 

If you ask how we can counter and resist him, then I would say peaceful protests are the right way. The women's march was impressive, and the rebellion of the social media managers from the national parks is really refreshing. Who would have thought that the national parks would strike back? Like Treebeard who becomes alive.

 

In JK Rowling's novels it is the little creatures like the house elves that beat the evil in the end. In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it is the Hobbits that beat the evil enemy. I think in this case people like Ken Bone are the Hobbits of the 21st century. The modern Hobbits are adverage midwestern guys who support Mr. T-Rump and his "party" on Twitter and hope to get a bit rich and famous along the way.

 

People like Ken Bone are like Frodo the Hobbit, Mr. T-Rump is Sauron and Jack Dorsey is the ringwraith. Will Ken Bone throw the ring into Mt. Doom, i.e. will he stop following Trump on Twitter and/or quit Twitter completely? If we all stop following and listening him he loses his power. This includes the senior Republican politicians who do not speak up against him because they hope for a job in his administration.

 

Cheers,

 

Jochen

 

 

Sent from my Tricorder

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Nick Thompson <[hidden email]>

Date: 1/28/17 01:57 (GMT+01:00)

To: Friam <[hidden email]>

Cc: penny thompson <[hidden email]>, 'Bruce Simon' <[hidden email]>, 'Dix McComas' <[hidden email]>, 'Grant Franks' <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] [[Narcissism Again]again]

 

Hi everybody,

I kind of got buried by the list last week, but we seem to keep coming back to this topic, even when we are  talking about globalism. 

So.  Let me just share one thought.  I have said a hundred times that I think the great achievement of the Right in my life time has been to problematize (Ugh!) the Deweyan consensus of the 1950’s  One of the elements of that consensus was that there is a truth of most matters and if we gather inclusively, talk calmly, reason closely, study carefully, investigate rigorously,  we will, together , come to it.  What was, at the time of my coming of age, the shared foundation of argument, became over last 50 years, a position in the argument.  The alternative to this Deweyan position seems to be something like, “There is no truth of the matter; there is only the exercise of power.  He who wins the argument, by whatever means, wins the truth.  Truth is not something that is arrived at; it is won.”

So.  My sense of trump is that in fact, he is not lying.  On the contrary, he does not share the view of discourse that makes lying a possibility.  From Trump’s point of view, “Whatever I can win with is true.”  Hence, if he wins with what we call “a lie”, it is true. 

I feel we are straying along the edge of some Nietzschean chasm here.  Unfortunately  I haven’t read any Nietzsche .  A brief rummage in Wikipedia, led me to The Parable of the Madman. And THAT led me to wonder if the TV Series, Madmen, about marketing execs in the 60’s, was written with Nietzsche in mind.  In any case, if there is ever a domain in which the truth is that which wins, it would be marketing. 

So, if we are going to counter Trump, it cannot be by demonstrating that he lies.  It has to be by demonstrating that liars don’t win. 

Heavy lift.

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

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============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.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
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove