Wisdom of Crowds vs Kenneth Arrow

[Steve Smith]

I know we try to avoid getting into political discussions here, and that
is not what I'm trying t draw you into.  Out of my infamous morbid
fascination, I *have* been following the presidential campaigns this
past year or more and in particular comparing the many running *polls*
to the *Iowa Electronic Markets*

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5952.html

     https://tippie.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/

It is most interesting to me how much the WTA vs the popular vote prices
in the IEM diverge.  It definitely supports MY (reluctant) preferences
in this context, but it IS disturbing in a democracy that the
representative factor (electoral college in this case) seems to either
magnify a small lead, or even perhaps bias it?

The polls seem to be somewhat "all over the place" which I suspect
reflects the methodology for sampling the population in each case.  
Perhaps someone here has some professional experience with polling
methodologies or theory can illuminate a little?

This has impact on the debates.  At this point, it looks like the Libs
and the Greens will be shut out of the upcoming debates, in spite of the
likely absurdity of a Trump/Clinton debate, given their personal styles
and stances.  3rd party debaters would surely add some signal to what is
likely to be nearly purely noise otherwise?

As a side note, I am disappointed with how little traction either Gary
or Jill are getting this time around.  As UNpopular as both of the
primary candidates are, and as relatively acceptable (both Jill and Gary
seem to have serious intentions, serious campaigns and serious
platforms) candidates are, why don't we see higher/growing polling
numbers?  Is it the ominosity of the elections themselves?  Everyone is
afraid of creating a "spoiler"?

This re-invigorates my interest in Ranked Voting Systems.  Do we have
any Psephologists (pebble counters) in the house with insight into
Ranked Voting Systems?

http://www.fairvote.org/ seems to be the main organization promoting RVS
at the national level but I don't see a roadmap of what it would take to
actually change our system to embrace this?




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[Owen Densmore]

Slightly OT, but: The Brexit signaled the start of truly unexpected events. Italy, btw, is also having a referendum.

But here's the Dallas News endorsing Hilary .. first dem endorsment in over 70 years!

  http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20160907-we-recommend-hillary-clinton-for-u.s.-president.ece

l guess these are the years of Expect the Unexpected!

   -- Owen

On Wed, Sep 7, 2016 at 8:39 AM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

I know we try to avoid getting into political discussions here, and that is not what I'm trying t draw you into.  Out of my infamous morbid fascination, I *have* been following the presidential campaigns this past year or more and in particular comparing the many running *polls* to the *Iowa Electronic Markets*

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5952.html

    https://tippie.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/

It is most interesting to me how much the WTA vs the popular vote prices in the IEM diverge.  It definitely supports MY (reluctant) preferences in this context, but it IS disturbing in a democracy that the representative factor (electoral college in this case) seems to either magnify a small lead, or even perhaps bias it?

The polls seem to be somewhat "all over the place" which I suspect reflects the methodology for sampling the population in each case.   Perhaps someone here has some professional experience with polling methodologies or theory can illuminate a little?

This has impact on the debates.  At this point, it looks like the Libs and the Greens will be shut out of the upcoming debates, in spite of the likely absurdity of a Trump/Clinton debate, given their personal styles and stances.  3rd party debaters would surely add some signal to what is likely to be nearly purely noise otherwise?

As a side note, I am disappointed with how little traction either Gary or Jill are getting this time around.  As UNpopular as both of the primary candidates are, and as relatively acceptable (both Jill and Gary seem to have serious intentions, serious campaigns and serious platforms) candidates are, why don't we see higher/growing polling numbers?  Is it the ominosity of the elections themselves?  Everyone is afraid of creating a "spoiler"?

This re-invigorates my interest in Ranked Voting Systems.  Do we have any Psephologists (pebble counters) in the house with insight into Ranked Voting Systems?

http://www.fairvote.org/ seems to be the main organization promoting RVS at the national level but I don't see a roadmap of what it would take to actually change our system to embrace this?




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[gepr]

On 09/07/2016 07:39 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> It is most interesting to me how much the WTA vs the popular vote prices in the IEM diverge.  It definitely supports MY (reluctant) preferences in this context, but it IS disturbing in a democracy that the representative factor (electoral college in this case) seems to either magnify a small lead, or even perhaps bias it?

I've found this graph the most interesting rendering of the electoral game:

  http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/presidential-polls-forecast.html#explore-paths

I grew up (and still hear repeated to kids) "you can be anything you want to be".  It seems clear that any "outsider" has a steep learning curve w.r.t. the complex game of getting elected.  One could (I won't) argue that Trump would be a good candidate to game this system, given that he seems to have spent his entire life gaming other systems to benefit his brand.  But I suspect the game is too complex.  He's done a great job garnering popular support in our TV-nation.  And, at this point, I'm grateful for the electoral college.  It pits my naive sense of majority rule against my naive sense of an intellectual oligarchy (or perhaps a "gamers oligarchy" -- ruled by the lawyerly -- lawyerish? -- class).

To tie in the 100 years of AI, it seems reasonable to aim our induction tools at this game.

> As a side note, I am disappointed with how little traction either Gary or Jill are getting this time around.  As UNpopular as both of the primary candidates are, and as relatively acceptable (both Jill and Gary seem to have serious intentions, serious campaigns and serious platforms) candidates are, why don't we see higher/growing polling numbers?  Is it the ominosity of the elections themselves?  Everyone is afraid of creating a "spoiler"?

I voted for Stein in 2012 because I didn't see all that much consequential difference between Obama and Romney and it seemed clear Obama would win, anyway.  So, this election, I decided to check out Stein for real, to see if I could really vote for her, regardless of the consequences.  I went to a local meeting of Stein supporters and was presented with (albeit trivial, partial) evidence why her campaign is such a failure.  These people were flat out timid.  Their only strength lies in their willingness to take abuse by police and private security.  This perception was reinforced by this article:

  http://www.newsweek.com/russian-green-activists-brand-us-green-party-accomplice-putin-496359?rx=us

When I compare Stein's positions on several things against the caricatures of her opinions made by others, I like a lot of what she says.  Her positions are "nuanced".  But you can't win the game solely with nuance, timidity, and facts any more than you can (like Trump) solely with bluster and posturing.  It requires a _machine_.  And Clinton seems to have such a machine.  Trump does, too, a bit Rube Goldberg, whereas Clinton's shows evidence of serious engineering (... though that's an insult to Rube Goldberg).

--
␦glen?

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[Steve Smith]

Threadbending aside...

It is interesting to read this conservative newspaper editorialize, not only in support of Hillary in particular, but also to call out what seems to have become (when, this election, 2000, 1962, ???) the (covert?) principles that *bind* the Republican base (" fear — exploiting base instincts of xenophobia, racism and misogyny — to bring out the worst in all of us").  

The endorsement reads very sincerely, but *that* makes me even more uncomfortable.   It almost feels as if Hillary is a closet Republican and these guys are waiting for her to out herself (fully) in her inaugural speech.   I'm not happy with our extreme (faux?) polarity between left/right, and I suppose I just don't trust those in power (political, economic, or public-attention) to not manipulate things to  continue to build their power.  I fear that what to many feels like a "win" by the liberal/progressive might actually be a big lose in disguise? 

I was enough of a idealist in my youth to be caught up in the self-righteousness of the right and help knock Jimmy Carter out of the oval office.  In hindsight I truly, deeply, madly appreciate what Carter was all about, but at the time I was young and impressionable and idealistic (in a libertarian kinda way).

*** for "English Majors", Classic Rock Lovers, and those who prefer Hallucinations over Reality, I offer you the following alternatives to reading on:***

Two of my favorite Philosophers:

    Grace Slick - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl89g2SwMh4

    Lewis Carrol (aka Charles Dodgsen) http://www.textarc.org/Alice.html

***

The Marquis de Condorcet identified an essential paradox in simple Ranked Voting Systems (RVS) which essentially points out that for some combinations of rankings there can be cycles (Scissors beats Paper beats Stone beats Scissors... )  it seems this is a special case of the logical "Fallacy of Composition" which holds when "one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole".  This seems to be a problem which plagues all of our applications of metaphor and analogy to socioeconic/religiopolitical systems and processes.

In looking for solutions to all of that, I tripped over Charles Dodgson's work on the topic which doesn't seem to alter the challenges of the underlying Condorcet paradox, only provides an alternative method of arriving at the Condorcet criteria.  I'm mildly puzzled by the idea that the problem is NP complete to determine if a solution can be obtained in less than K swaps for any given K... it seems for a given number of candidates (say 3 or 4 in an upcoming presidential election with third parties included) that there is a small upper limit for exhaustive evaluation (4! or somesuch)?

<mumble>

On 9/7/16 9:10 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:

Slightly OT, but: The Brexit signaled the start of truly unexpected events. Italy, btw, is also having a referendum.

But here's the Dallas News endorsing Hilary .. first dem endorsment in over 70 years!

  http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20160907-we-recommend-hillary-clinton-for-u.s.-president.ece

l guess these are the years of Expect the Unexpected!

   -- Owen

On Wed, Sep 7, 2016 at 8:39 AM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

I know we try to avoid getting into political discussions here, and that is not what I'm trying t draw you into.  Out of my infamous morbid fascination, I *have* been following the presidential campaigns this past year or more and in particular comparing the many running *polls* to the *Iowa Electronic Markets*

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5952.html

    https://tippie.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/

It is most interesting to me how much the WTA vs the popular vote prices in the IEM diverge.  It definitely supports MY (reluctant) preferences in this context, but it IS disturbing in a democracy that the representative factor (electoral college in this case) seems to either magnify a small lead, or even perhaps bias it?

The polls seem to be somewhat "all over the place" which I suspect reflects the methodology for sampling the population in each case.   Perhaps someone here has some professional experience with polling methodologies or theory can illuminate a little?

This has impact on the debates.  At this point, it looks like the Libs and the Greens will be shut out of the upcoming debates, in spite of the likely absurdity of a Trump/Clinton debate, given their personal styles and stances.  3rd party debaters would surely add some signal to what is likely to be nearly purely noise otherwise?

As a side note, I am disappointed with how little traction either Gary or Jill are getting this time around.  As UNpopular as both of the primary candidates are, and as relatively acceptable (both Jill and Gary seem to have serious intentions, serious campaigns and serious platforms) candidates are, why don't we see higher/growing polling numbers?  Is it the ominosity of the elections themselves?  Everyone is afraid of creating a "spoiler"?

This re-invigorates my interest in Ranked Voting Systems.  Do we have any Psephologists (pebble counters) in the house with insight into Ranked Voting Systems?

http://www.fairvote.org/ seems to be the main organization promoting RVS at the national level but I don't see a roadmap of what it would take to actually change our system to embrace this?




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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Marcus G. Daniels]

“The endorsement reads very sincerely, but *that* makes me even more uncomfortable.   It almost feels as if Hillary is a closet Republican and these guys are waiting for her to out herself (fully) in her inaugural speech.”

I see Hillary has having a set of political operational skills and, completely separately, having her aspirations for the United States and the world.   More than other politicians, she dislikes mixing the two, and people see contradictions that show up in her political behavior as dishonesty.    I think is more likely she just doesn’t take the first seriously in a philosophical sense -- it Is just par for the course to maneuver around polling trends and the positions she just must take and unwind for the sake of getting elected.   It might even be seen as royalism by some.   “What (random idiots) do I have to deal with today in order to advance the greater good in _some_ way?”  Of course, some random idiots will be offended with that kind of thinking.

Marcus

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

I just returned from a trip from the UK.  I think rumors of the demise of their economy have been greatly exaggerated.

Brexit will hurt the people that voted for it, just like Trump would hurt the people that voted for him.    These aren’t the people that keep things running; they are the rear guard for a retreat from globalization that won’t work and can’t happen.   Sure, Brexit will be an administrative nightmare, but decentralized control also has benefits in the long run.

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2016 9:10 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Wisdom of Crowds vs Kenneth Arrow

 

Slightly OT, but: The Brexit signaled the start of truly unexpected events. Italy, btw, is also having a referendum.

 

But here's the Dallas News endorsing Hilary .. first dem endorsment in over 70 years!

  http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20160907-we-recommend-hillary-clinton-for-u.s.-president.ece

 

l guess these are the years of Expect the Unexpected!

 

   -- Owen

 

On Wed, Sep 7, 2016 at 8:39 AM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

I know we try to avoid getting into political discussions here, and that is not what I'm trying t draw you into.  Out of my infamous morbid fascination, I *have* been following the presidential campaigns this past year or more and in particular comparing the many running *polls* to the *Iowa Electronic Markets*

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5952.html

    https://tippie.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/

It is most interesting to me how much the WTA vs the popular vote prices in the IEM diverge.  It definitely supports MY (reluctant) preferences in this context, but it IS disturbing in a democracy that the representative factor (electoral college in this case) seems to either magnify a small lead, or even perhaps bias it?

The polls seem to be somewhat "all over the place" which I suspect reflects the methodology for sampling the population in each case.   Perhaps someone here has some professional experience with polling methodologies or theory can illuminate a little?

This has impact on the debates.  At this point, it looks like the Libs and the Greens will be shut out of the upcoming debates, in spite of the likely absurdity of a Trump/Clinton debate, given their personal styles and stances.  3rd party debaters would surely add some signal to what is likely to be nearly purely noise otherwise?

As a side note, I am disappointed with how little traction either Gary or Jill are getting this time around.  As UNpopular as both of the primary candidates are, and as relatively acceptable (both Jill and Gary seem to have serious intentions, serious campaigns and serious platforms) candidates are, why don't we see higher/growing polling numbers?  Is it the ominosity of the elections themselves?  Everyone is afraid of creating a "spoiler"?

This re-invigorates my interest in Ranked Voting Systems.  Do we have any Psephologists (pebble counters) in the house with insight into Ranked Voting Systems?

http://www.fairvote.org/ seems to be the main organization promoting RVS at the national level but I don't see a roadmap of what it would take to actually change our system to embrace this?




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[gepr]

Re: Clinton's machine:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/hillary-clinton-data-campaign-elan-kriegel-214215

"And overnight, in some of the few hours that headquarters isn’t whirring with activity, the team’s computers run 400,000 simulations of the fall campaign in what amounts to a massive stress-test of the possibilities on Nov. 8."

Compared to Trump's machine:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2016/09/08/inside-the-collapse-of-trumps-d-c-policy-shop/

     "'It’s a complete disaster,” one disgruntled former adviser told me. 'They use and abuse people. The policy office fell apart in August when the promised checks weren’t delivered.' ... 'The New York office realized that their candidate would not be receptive to that level of intense preparation,' one former adviser said."

And:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/donald-trump/article100189937.html

"All the support might come as a shock to Trump: His campaign has no Miami office."


In the end, by failing to exercise the Republican machine (at least in any whole sense), Trump _is_ helping to open the door for 3rd parties by letting the R-machine atrophy.  But such a 3rd partier will have to avoid gaffs like #whatisaleppo and disinfo memes like Stein's wifi, gmo, and vaccination.  In short, this game has absolutely nothing to do with the idealistic system(s) framing Arrow's or Condorcet's propositions.  And that may partially explain why markets would be more robust predictors.

I think I may vote for his squidliness after all: https://cthulhuforamerica.com/


On 09/07/2016 09:54 AM, ┣glen┫ wrote:
>
> On 09/07/2016 07:39 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> As a side note, I am disappointed with how little traction either Gary or Jill are getting this time around.  As UNpopular as both of the primary candidates are, and as relatively acceptable (both Jill and Gary seem to have serious intentions, serious campaigns and serious platforms) candidates are, why don't we see higher/growing polling numbers?  Is it the ominosity of the elections themselves?  Everyone is afraid of creating a "spoiler"?
>
> It requires a _machine_.  And Clinton seems to have such a machine.  Trump does, too, a bit Rube Goldberg, whereas Clinton's shows evidence of serious engineering (... though that's an insult to Rube Goldberg).

--
␦glen?

--
☣ glen

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[Steve Smith]

On 9/7/16 1:51 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

I just returned from a trip from the UK.  I think rumors of the demise of their economy have been greatly exaggerated.

Brexit will hurt the people that voted for it, just like Trump would hurt the people that voted for him.    These aren’t the people that keep things running; they are the rear guard for a retreat from globalization that won’t work and can’t happen.   Sure, Brexit will be an administrative nightmare, but decentralized control also has benefits in the long run.

I heard an interesting analysis from another LANL friend who works in Global Security and by my measure is a pretty well informed and deeply introspective wonk on the topics of international politics and it's practical upshot.

He also recently returned from the UK (pleasure not business) and said something that matches my own experience, such as it is.  He said that he predicts that in spite of the vote, by the time the 2 years are up for exercising the actual Brexit, there will not turn out to be enough will of the people (or bureaucrats) to actually effect it and at that time, it will time out and they will not have actually Brexited, as it were... and business will return to "normal".  I am probably hacking this badly, but that is how I understood what he said.

I have two young colleaugues who live in the UK (many of you know them) who essentially entered their careers under the (new then) EU and it hugely shaped them personally and professionally.   Much of who they have become and what they do would have been radically different if not for the EU and Britain's involvement.   There are huge implications for both of them (they work all over the EU together as freelancers currently, but live primarily in Wales).   One will have to leave the UK and the other won't be (openly) welcome in the EU.  They will probably survive, find  a way to make it around the system as it evolves.  I hope for them that the above scenario is a likely one (a miscarriage of the Brexit in 2 years).

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2016 9:10 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Wisdom of Crowds vs Kenneth Arrow

 

Slightly OT, but: The Brexit signaled the start of truly unexpected events. Italy, btw, is also having a referendum.

 

But here's the Dallas News endorsing Hilary .. first dem endorsment in over 70 years!

  http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20160907-we-recommend-hillary-clinton-for-u.s.-president.ece

 

l guess these are the years of Expect the Unexpected!

 

   -- Owen

 

On Wed, Sep 7, 2016 at 8:39 AM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

I know we try to avoid getting into political discussions here, and that is not what I'm trying t draw you into.  Out of my infamous morbid fascination, I *have* been following the presidential campaigns this past year or more and in particular comparing the many running *polls* to the *Iowa Electronic Markets*

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5952.html

    https://tippie.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/

It is most interesting to me how much the WTA vs the popular vote prices in the IEM diverge.  It definitely supports MY (reluctant) preferences in this context, but it IS disturbing in a democracy that the representative factor (electoral college in this case) seems to either magnify a small lead, or even perhaps bias it?

The polls seem to be somewhat "all over the place" which I suspect reflects the methodology for sampling the population in each case.   Perhaps someone here has some professional experience with polling methodologies or theory can illuminate a little?

This has impact on the debates.  At this point, it looks like the Libs and the Greens will be shut out of the upcoming debates, in spite of the likely absurdity of a Trump/Clinton debate, given their personal styles and stances.  3rd party debaters would surely add some signal to what is likely to be nearly purely noise otherwise?

As a side note, I am disappointed with how little traction either Gary or Jill are getting this time around.  As UNpopular as both of the primary candidates are, and as relatively acceptable (both Jill and Gary seem to have serious intentions, serious campaigns and serious platforms) candidates are, why don't we see higher/growing polling numbers?  Is it the ominosity of the elections themselves?  Everyone is afraid of creating a "spoiler"?

This re-invigorates my interest in Ranked Voting Systems.  Do we have any Psephologists (pebble counters) in the house with insight into Ranked Voting Systems?

http://www.fairvote.org/ seems to be the main organization promoting RVS at the national level but I don't see a roadmap of what it would take to actually change our system to embrace this?




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[Steve Smith]

Glen -


> I've found this graph the most interesting rendering of the electoral game:
>
>    http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/presidential-polls-forecast.html#explore-paths
Interesting fault tree (I wanted to say dendogram, but I'm not sure it
has all of the properties necessary.

I may just print this out and paste it on the wall for my election night
fun (I rarely actually hang by the media outlet waiting for these
things).   I wish they had included Jill and Gary, though their chances
of winning *any* much less many states is vanishingly small.  But so
seems a *tie* in these scenarios.  As much as I want to see theDonald
handed his lunch, I want it to be handed to him by *other* iconoclasts,
not by theHillary.   I have given over to planning my life in the second
Clinton Dynasty and have less of an impulse to bolt for one border or
another (or into one of my self created boltholes (of the mind or the
world)), but that doesn't mean I don't want to see the most
entertainment or hard-knocks education wrung out of the process of
arriving there as possible.
> I grew up (and still hear repeated to kids) "you can be anything you want to be".  It seems clear that any "outsider" has a steep learning curve w.r.t. the complex game of getting elected.  One could (I won't) argue that Trump would be a good candidate to game this system, given that he seems to have spent his entire life gaming other systems to benefit his brand.  But I suspect the game is too complex.  He's done a great job garnering popular support in our TV-nation.  And, at this point, I'm grateful for the electoral college.  It pits my naive sense of majority rule against my naive sense of an intellectual oligarchy (or perhaps a "gamers oligarchy" -- ruled by the lawyerly -- lawyerish? -- class).
Well said.
>
> I voted for Stein in 2012 because I didn't see all that much consequential difference between Obama and Romney and it seemed clear Obama would win, anyway.
In retrospect, I accept your logic.   Though I think gay (LGBTQZedOmega)
and reproduction rights would have been retarded and a few (other)
conservative Xtian rights would have been advanced differently but...
> In the end, by failing to exercise the Republican machine (at least in any whole sense), Trump_is_
>   helping to open the door for 3rd parties by letting the R-machine
> atrophy.  But such a 3rd partier will have to avoid gaffs like
> #whatisaleppo and disinfo memes like Stein's wifi, gmo, and
> vaccination.
Johnson's Aleppo gaffe (could easily have been a Trumpism) definitely
shows his lack of experience/preparation on foreign policy...  Jill and
Ajamu were not very presidential out there with rattlecans writing on
bulldozers  which showed me that they have (mostly?) given over to using
the presidential race as a forum to promote their more active(ist)
ideals.  I don't fault them for it, but it makes it harder to choose
them as president/vice
> In short, this game has absolutely nothing to do with the
> idealistic system(s) framing Arrow's or Condorcet's propositions.  And
> that may partially explain why markets would be more robust predictors.
Excepting, I would contend that "this game" is *shaped* by the lack of
viable paths to successful 3rd party intrusions INTO the game.
>    So, this election, I decided to check out Stein for real, to see if I could really vote for her, regardless of the consequences.  I went to a local meeting of Stein supporters and was presented with (albeit trivial, partial) evidence why her campaign is such a failure.  These people were flat out timid.  Their only strength lies in their willingness to take abuse by police and private security.  This perception was reinforced by this article:
>
>    http://www.newsweek.com/russian-green-activists-brand-us-green-party-accomplice-putin-496359?rx=us
>
> When I compare Stein's positions on several things against the caricatures of her opinions made by others, I like a lot of what she says.  Her positions are "nuanced".  But you can't win the game solely with nuance, timidity, and facts any more than you can (like Trump) solely with bluster and posturing.  It requires a _machine_.  And Clinton seems to have such a machine.  Trump does, too, a bit Rube Goldberg, whereas Clinton's shows evidence of serious engineering (... though that's an insult to Rube Goldberg).
This is my own fundamental point, no matter how poorly made.   I'm
looking for the mechanical changes that might be made in our system to
*allow* third parties to be relevant.  There is a chicken and egg.  For
all the things I like about both Jill and Gary, they are not as serious
of candidates as I think we need in third parties. As long as third
parties are a priori non-viable at this level, we will not see anyone
*build* a machine and put a seasoned driver at it's helm... and of
course, the argument many make against supporting third parties
*because* they are not viable, or that their chosen representatives are
not experienced or serious enough is a little bit self-fulfilling methinks.

Now of course, there is a "meta game" revolving around *WHO* would
champion such changes, who would effect them?  The "powers that be" are
succeeding in the game as it is...  why would they want it to change in
a way that made it harder for them to game the game?   But the unwashed
masses (present company explicitely included) would seem to *want* and
*benefit from* a more complex game, one harder to game by the "usual
suspects".   We flocked to theDonald and theBernie camps in drove
*because* they offered an alternative, but now in  the 11th hour, it
seems we are not willing to carry that spirit further.

Also I hoped that this august body (ok, so we are into September by now)
would have more interest/insight into the game-theoretic/structural
issues implied by our electoral system. Maybe the real world stakes are
too high to even try to think objectively/abstractly for most of us....
I know *I* get a little squeamish when my mental simulations run out to
some of the edges and do things like imagine Trump as our next Demander
in Chief.  And I get (nearly) as sqeamish (well, not really nearly) when
I think of ClintonII and a magnification (even) of many of the
disappointments I feel with theBarack in the rain shadow of a lot of
HopeyChangey.




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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Steve writes:

 

He also recently returned from the UK (pleasure not business) and said something that matches my own experience, such as it is.  He said that he predicts that in spite of the vote, by the time the 2 years are up for exercising the actual Brexit, there will not turn out to be enough will of the people (or bureaucrats) to actually effect it and at that time, it will time out and they will not have actually Brexited, as it were... and business will return to "normal”.

 

More of a Brtantrum?   At last an upside to government inefficiency…

 

Marcus

 

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[gepr]

As usual, I ignore all the places where we agree and emphasize the disagreements ... because life is more fun that way. 8^)

On 09/09/2016 12:01 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> (I rarely actually hang by the media outlet waiting for these things).

I'm not sure when it happened.  But at some point I began to buy the idea that politics is deeply embedded in everything.  I think it started when I moved to the bay area and heard people (constantly) say things like "that's just politics" ... implying that whatever they were talking about was somehow not politics.  This article reinforced my position just this morning:

Enough With This Basic Income Bullshit
https://salon.thefamily.co/enough-with-this-basic-income-bullshit-a6bc92e8286b#.1xcadg3vf

As a result, I began following all the politics I could stomach as closely as my [in]competence would allow.

>Though I think gay (LGBTQZedOmega) and reproduction rights would have been retarded and a few (other) conservative Xtian rights would have been advanced differently but...

Maybe.  I resist our "great person" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory) tendencies wherever I find them, though.  It's reasonable to speculate that Obama had much less to do with those advances than we might think.  But it's also dangerous to argue that some event/process would have happened regardless.  That's a typical flaw of my libertarian friends who'll claim that advances like artificial hearts or whatnot, despite being government funded, would have emerged even without government funding.  Criticalities (like "great people") probably do play some/much role in some/many cases.  I'm simply skeptical that we can tease out which cases.

>> In short, this game has absolutely nothing to do with the
>> idealistic system(s) framing Arrow's or Condorcet's propositions.  And
>> that may partially explain why markets would be more robust predictors.
>
> Excepting, I would contend that "this game" is *shaped* by the lack of viable paths to successful 3rd party intrusions INTO the game.

Well, good games, games that I find _fun_, anyway, are always co-evolutionary with implicit objective functions.  Boring games are those with unambiguous rules, zero-sum outcomes, etc.  Were I to run for a large office (or participate on the campaign of someone running), I'd regard the viable paths as part of the game, not isolable merely as the context of the game.

Perhaps this is why, during near-drunken argumentation, people always accuse me of private definitions and "moving the goal posts". 8^)  Who says I can't move the goal posts?  What game were _you_ playing?

> This is my own fundamental point, no matter how poorly made.   I'm looking for the mechanical changes that might be made in our system to *allow* third parties to be relevant.  There is a chicken and egg.  For all the things I like about both Jill and Gary, they are not as serious of candidates as I think we need in third parties. As long as third parties are a priori non-viable at this level, we will not see anyone *build* a machine and put a seasoned driver at it's helm... and of course, the argument many make against supporting third parties *because* they are not viable, or that their chosen representatives are not experienced or serious enough is a little bit self-fulfilling methinks.

So both Ross Perot and Bernie Sanders are good examples, here.  Bernie tried to seize (or cajole) control of a good machine.  Perot (if I understand correctly ... I was very naive at the time) built/repurposed his own.  I think there's a great chance diverse characters like Jeff Bezos or Nate Silver could change the game enough to do it.  But they'd need to be very Machiavellian and much less ideological or narcissistic than our typical candidates.

In the end, I chalk it up to how we incentivize different types of work.  We tend to reward moronic activities, skills, attributes (like the ability to throw a stick further than everyone else ... or good bone structure) more than the geeky/wonky skills/behaviors needed to change the game.

> Also I hoped that this august body (ok, so we are into September by now) would have more interest/insight into the game-theoretic/structural issues implied by our electoral system. Maybe the real world stakes are too high to even try to think objectively/abstractly for most of us....

Yes, I would have thought this directly in the camp of "applied complexity".  I have a friend working on election security: http://freeandfair.us/  But that work is too "close to the metal" for me, I guess.  I'd prefer a systems engineering project experimenting on geopolitical systems in general.  I imagine there are lots of people doing that work, breathing stale air in faraday cages peppered around the country housed in various nondescript buildings.

--
☣ glen

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[Steve Smith]

glen -


> As usual, I ignore all the places where we agree and emphasize the
> disagreements ... because life is more fun that way. 8^)
I understand that... though it IS my habit to acknowledge the things I
agree on to more starkly expose the ones I don't (or at least I try to
do that).
>
> I'm not sure when it happened.  But at some point I began to buy the
> idea that politics is deeply embedded in everything.  I think it
> started when I moved to the bay area and heard people (constantly) say
> things like "that's just politics" ... implying that whatever they
> were talking about was somehow not politics.
This is very much the Glen I know... a particular subdiscipline of
contrarianism?
> This article reinforced my position just this morning:
>
> Enough With This Basic Income Bullshit
> https://salon.thefamily.co/enough-with-this-basic-income-bullshit-a6bc92e8286b#.1xcadg3vf 
>
I'm reading it now, though the rich hyperlinking to interesting side
topics and references is causing some intellectual ablation!   I've come
to recognize something like a "0th world problem" which are issues that
are even more abstract and relatively empty than "1st world
problems"...   That is what I'd call my experience with this rich
offering you made.  thefamily.co is all new to me BTW... thanks for that
too!

>
> As a result, I began following all the politics I could stomach as
> closely as my [in]competence would allow.
>
>> Though I think gay (LGBTQZedOmega) and reproduction rights would have
>> been retarded and a few (other) conservative Xtian rights would have
>> been advanced differently but...
>
> Maybe.  I resist our "great person"
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory) tendencies wherever I
> find them, though.  It's reasonable to speculate that Obama had much
> less to do with those advances than we might think.

I agree with dismissing the GPT in first order effects, but I think
there are many second order effects which are much more significant.  
Sure jOeBama couldn't pull us out of Iraq/Afghanistan or shutter Gitmo
or ... and ... the way we thought he would/could/should...  and we can
postulate reasons and excuses until the cows come home for that.   My
point about the things that *were* achieved under his watch and the
*different* ones to have likely been achieved under a
Wealthy/Conservative/Mormon Romney relates to the spirit of the
community.  An unfortunate example might be the current focus on police
abuse, particularly in urban african-american communities.   I think the
minimal empowerment of having our first black president may have lead
both to the popular pushback against the abuses and possibly even
generated more abuses?   Under our first female president, I think we
will likely see some significant shifts in gender issues, not
necessarily because Hillary is a "Great Woman" who would single handedly
"lead us forward", but just because of the social tenor set by her rise
to the top of our political game.
>   But it's also dangerous to argue that some event/process would have
> happened regardless.  That's a typical flaw of my libertarian friends
> who'll claim that advances like artificial hearts or whatnot, despite
> being government funded, would have emerged even without government
> funding.  Criticalities (like "great people") probably do play
> some/much role in some/many cases.  I'm simply skeptical that we can
> tease out which cases.
I think this is an acute example of the things dual/hybrid models which
include both discrete (particle, agent, etc) and continuous (field,
patch, etc.).  I am hypothesizing that the individual (great person)
does less in their direct role, exercising their personal/professional
agency than they do by setting a tone, representing an ideal... and that
doesn't just include their sycophantic followers, it includes their
vitriolic opponents as well... those who "rise up against".  I think a
good deal of our gridlock in the government was a reaction to Obama both
as a black man and as a (presumed) liberal, more than anything he
specifically did or did not do.

>
>>> In short, this game has absolutely nothing to do with the
>>> idealistic system(s) framing Arrow's or Condorcet's propositions.  And
>>> that may partially explain why markets would be more robust predictors.
>>
>> Excepting, I would contend that "this game" is *shaped* by the lack
>> of viable paths to successful 3rd party intrusions INTO the game.
>
> Well, good games, games that I find _fun_, anyway, are always
> co-evolutionary with implicit objective functions.  Boring games are
> those with unambiguous rules, zero-sum outcomes, etc.  Were I to run
> for a large office (or participate on the campaign of someone
> running), I'd regard the viable paths as part of the game, not
> isolable merely as the context of the game.

I am not arguing against the strategies of the two major parties or
their candidates.  I understand why they want to keep the game defined
for their own purposes.  I also understand why the wannabes wanna change
the game up.   What is more puzzling to me is why/how "we the people"
can continue to *pretend* we are unhappy with the status quo while all
but *citing* the status quo as the motivation for our behaviour?  "I
HATE our polarized two party system but I won't even LOOK at the third
parties because THEY are not viable in our current context!"  What?  How
will they ever BECOME viable if you won't give them any consideration?  
For me, this moment of clear and extreme disaffection with the party in
the first part and the party in the second part, is the perfect
opportunity to make some inroads into the very change we *claim* we
want.  Oh well.
>
> Perhaps this is why, during near-drunken argumentation, people always
> accuse me of private definitions and "moving the goal posts". 8^)  Who
> says I can't move the goal posts?  What game were _you_ playing?
I have played a variant of battleship where each player is allowed to
move one ship after each salvo from the other player.  It is at least as
interesting as the original.
>
> Yes, I would have thought this directly in the camp of "applied
> complexity".  I have a friend working on election security:
> http://freeandfair.us/  But that work is too "close to the metal" for
> me, I guess.  I'd prefer a systems engineering project experimenting
> on geopolitical systems in general.  I imagine there are lots of
> people doing that work, breathing stale air in faraday cages peppered
> around the country housed in various nondescript buildings.
Oddly, NM is a great place for faraday cages without stale air!  As you
may guess, contemporary adobe structures make pretty fair faraday
cages... at least if they have stucco netting (or better yet expanded
metal plaster-lathe) and metal (rather than nylon) window-screens...
just make sure the two are well connected (stucco net and window
screens) and the embedding in the adobe on a foundation makes a pretty
good ground.   By having lots of thermal mass (adobe, preferably double)
you can leave the windows open and solve the stale air problem.

I haven't done careful analysis or research, so the density of stucco
netting might not be fine enough to handle all frequencies, but it sure
does work well to attentuate/absorb wifi, bluetooth and cellular
signals!   I'm doing a pilot project in a small farmstead in NNM to
deploy/test/prototype a village-telco mesh and I'm *very* thankful that
the window screens are nylon (and NOT electrically connected to the
stucco mesh)... on most of the buildings...

People unfamiliar with NM architecture would call most of our farmhouses
"nondescript".


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[Pamela McCorduck]

I found that article on Enough with this Basic Income Bullshit an interesting read. I had to wonder why he capitalized Entrepreneur, as if it were Realtor, or some other nonsensical social climbing, but I agree that the system will need major overhauls. He is not alone in believing this, given all the “end of capitalism” writings we see.

Pamela

> On Sep 9, 2016, at 3:33 PM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> glen -
>
>
>> As usual, I ignore all the places where we agree and emphasize the disagreements ... because life is more fun that way. 8^)
> I understand that... though it IS my habit to acknowledge the things I agree on to more starkly expose the ones I don't (or at least I try to do that).
>>
>> I'm not sure when it happened.  But at some point I began to buy the idea that politics is deeply embedded in everything.  I think it started when I moved to the bay area and heard people (constantly) say things like "that's just politics" ... implying that whatever they were talking about was somehow not politics.
> This is very much the Glen I know... a particular subdiscipline of contrarianism?
>> This article reinforced my position just this morning:
>>
>> Enough With This Basic Income Bullshit
>> https://salon.thefamily.co/enough-with-this-basic-income-bullshit-a6bc92e8286b#.1xcadg3vf 
> I'm reading it now, though the rich hyperlinking to interesting side topics and references is causing some intellectual ablation!   I've come to recognize something like a "0th world problem" which are issues that are even more abstract and relatively empty than "1st world problems"...   That is what I'd call my experience with this rich offering you made.  thefamily.co is all new to me BTW... thanks for that too!
>>
>> As a result, I began following all the politics I could stomach as closely as my [in]competence would allow.
>>
>>> Though I think gay (LGBTQZedOmega) and reproduction rights would have been retarded and a few (other) conservative Xtian rights would have been advanced differently but...
>>
>> Maybe.  I resist our "great person" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory) tendencies wherever I find them, though.  It's reasonable to speculate that Obama had much less to do with those advances than we might think.
> I agree with dismissing the GPT in first order effects, but I think there are many second order effects which are much more significant.  Sure jOeBama couldn't pull us out of Iraq/Afghanistan or shutter Gitmo or ... and ... the way we thought he would/could/should...  and we can postulate reasons and excuses until the cows come home for that.   My point about the things that *were* achieved under his watch and the *different* ones to have likely been achieved under a Wealthy/Conservative/Mormon Romney relates to the spirit of the community.  An unfortunate example might be the current focus on police abuse, particularly in urban african-american communities.   I think the minimal empowerment of having our first black president may have lead both to the popular pushback against the abuses and possibly even generated more abuses?   Under our first female president, I think we will likely see some significant shifts in gender issues, not necessarily because Hillary is a "Great Woman" who would single handedly "lead us forward", but just because of the social tenor set by her rise to the top of our political game.
>>  But it's also dangerous to argue that some event/process would have happened regardless.  That's a typical flaw of my libertarian friends who'll claim that advances like artificial hearts or whatnot, despite being government funded, would have emerged even without government funding.  Criticalities (like "great people") probably do play some/much role in some/many cases.  I'm simply skeptical that we can tease out which cases.
> I think this is an acute example of the things dual/hybrid models which include both discrete (particle, agent, etc) and continuous (field, patch, etc.).  I am hypothesizing that the individual (great person) does less in their direct role, exercising their personal/professional agency than they do by setting a tone, representing an ideal... and that doesn't just include their sycophantic followers, it includes their vitriolic opponents as well... those who "rise up against".  I think a good deal of our gridlock in the government was a reaction to Obama both as a black man and as a (presumed) liberal, more than anything he specifically did or did not do.
>>
>>>> In short, this game has absolutely nothing to do with the
>>>> idealistic system(s) framing Arrow's or Condorcet's propositions.  And
>>>> that may partially explain why markets would be more robust predictors.
>>>
>>> Excepting, I would contend that "this game" is *shaped* by the lack of viable paths to successful 3rd party intrusions INTO the game.
>>
>> Well, good games, games that I find _fun_, anyway, are always co-evolutionary with implicit objective functions.  Boring games are those with unambiguous rules, zero-sum outcomes, etc.  Were I to run for a large office (or participate on the campaign of someone running), I'd regard the viable paths as part of the game, not isolable merely as the context of the game.
> I am not arguing against the strategies of the two major parties or their candidates.  I understand why they want to keep the game defined for their own purposes.  I also understand why the wannabes wanna change the game up.   What is more puzzling to me is why/how "we the people" can continue to *pretend* we are unhappy with the status quo while all but *citing* the status quo as the motivation for our behaviour?  "I HATE our polarized two party system but I won't even LOOK at the third parties because THEY are not viable in our current context!"  What?  How will they ever BECOME viable if you won't give them any consideration?   For me, this moment of clear and extreme disaffection with the party in the first part and the party in the second part, is the perfect opportunity to make some inroads into the very change we *claim* we want.  Oh well.
>>
>> Perhaps this is why, during near-drunken argumentation, people always accuse me of private definitions and "moving the goal posts". 8^)  Who says I can't move the goal posts?  What game were _you_ playing?
> I have played a variant of battleship where each player is allowed to move one ship after each salvo from the other player.  It is at least as interesting as the original.
>>
>> Yes, I would have thought this directly in the camp of "applied complexity".  I have a friend working on election security: http://freeandfair.us/  But that work is too "close to the metal" for me, I guess.  I'd prefer a systems engineering project experimenting on geopolitical systems in general.  I imagine there are lots of people doing that work, breathing stale air in faraday cages peppered around the country housed in various nondescript buildings.
> Oddly, NM is a great place for faraday cages without stale air!  As you may guess, contemporary adobe structures make pretty fair faraday cages... at least if they have stucco netting (or better yet expanded metal plaster-lathe) and metal (rather than nylon) window-screens... just make sure the two are well connected (stucco net and window screens) and the embedding in the adobe on a foundation makes a pretty good ground.   By having lots of thermal mass (adobe, preferably double) you can leave the windows open and solve the stale air problem.
>
> I haven't done careful analysis or research, so the density of stucco netting might not be fine enough to handle all frequencies, but it sure does work well to attentuate/absorb wifi, bluetooth and cellular signals!   I'm doing a pilot project in a small farmstead in NNM to deploy/test/prototype a village-telco mesh and I'm *very* thankful that the window screens are nylon (and NOT electrically connected to the stucco mesh)... on most of the buildings...
>
> People unfamiliar with NM architecture would call most of our farmhouses "nondescript".
>
>
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[gepr]

On 09/09/2016 02:33 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> I understand that... though it IS my habit to acknowledge the things I agree on to more starkly expose the ones I don't (or at least I try to do that).

With a happy side-effect that more people will like you as a result.  One day, I'll wish I had spent more effort with the soft styles.  I know they're more effective.

>> Enough With This Basic Income Bullshit
>> https://salon.thefamily.co/enough-with-this-basic-income-bullshit-a6bc92e8286b#.1xcadg3vf
> I'm reading it now, though the rich hyperlinking to interesting side topics and references is causing some intellectual ablation!   I've come to recognize something like a "0th world problem" which are issues that are even more abstract and relatively empty than "1st world problems"...   That is what I'd call my experience with this rich offering you made.  thefamily.co is all new to me BTW... thanks for that too!

I agree.  But what is the oligarchist supposed to do?  We can't leave all that abstract sophistry to the peasants.  They'd thoroughly mess it up. >8^)  Seriously, though, whoever sees the problem is responsible for solving the problem.  So, 0th world problems must be solved by those who see them.

>>   But it's also dangerous to argue that some event/process would have happened regardless.  That's a typical flaw of my libertarian friends who'll claim that advances like artificial hearts or whatnot, despite being government funded, would have emerged even without government funding.  Criticalities (like "great people") probably do play some/much role in some/many cases.  I'm simply skeptical that we can tease out which cases.
> I think this is an acute example of the things dual/hybrid models which include both discrete (particle, agent, etc) and continuous (field, patch, etc.).  I am hypothesizing that the individual (great person) does less in their direct role, exercising their personal/professional agency than they do by setting a tone, representing an ideal... and that doesn't just include their sycophantic followers, it includes their vitriolic opponents as well... those who "rise up against".  I think a good deal of our gridlock in the government was a reaction to Obama both as a black man and as a (presumed) liberal, more than anything he specifically did or did not do.

Damnit, I agree again. [sigh]  But I can disagree obliquely by carrying it further.  The individual is merely a phenomenon (well, set of phenomena), an effect of the underlying cause(s).  In that sense, we can toss out free will entirely and say that the individual (great or not) does no tone setting (or anything else) in any generative sense.  They are simply 1 observable feature of the great machine.  And the only reason we perceive that feature as somehow distinguishable from the rest is because of our limited powers of perception.

Hence, Obama did nothing, at least nothing whose sole cause resides within him ... just as neither you nor I ever do anything.  It's (we're) all just patterns in the ambience.


> What is more puzzling to me is why/how "we the people" can continue to *pretend* we are unhappy with the status quo while all but *citing* the status quo as the motivation for our behaviour?  "I HATE our polarized two party system but I won't even LOOK at the third parties because THEY are not viable in our current context!"  What?  How will they ever BECOME viable if you won't give them any consideration?   For me, this moment of clear and extreme disaffection with the party in the first part and the party in the second part, is the perfect opportunity to make some inroads into the very change we *claim* we want.  Oh well.

But this is the same feature that allows us to think up new ideas, invent new machines, tell stories of unicorns and fairies with a straight face.  This is why everyone knows too much sugar is bad, but insists on its presence in every food anyway.  Our drive to have our cake and eat it, too, is what propels us to greater and greater heights.  When/if we admit the game is zero-sum, we either give up or become ruthless sociopaths.  I like Walt Whitman's aphorism the best: "I am large. I contain multitudes."


> Oddly, NM is a great place for faraday cages without stale air!

Heh, it never even hatched across my mind that the mesh could be a good shield.  Very nice.

> People unfamiliar with NM architecture would call most of our farmhouses "nondescript".

When I first moved to Santa Fe, I had a serious navigation problem.  Every building was squat and brown, with rounded edges.  It took maybe 6 months for me to notice the different shades of brown and the various other cues distinguishing one building from another.  ABQ was much easier.

--
␦glen?

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[gepr]

More election system fodder.  I love how both headlines imply (all) democracy(ies) is broken.  Reminds me of the old aphorism: better is the enemy of adequate.

Can “sortition” sort out the problem of political ignorance?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/06/15/can-sortition-sort-out-the-problem-of-political-ignorance/?utm_term=.f32efdfb2fa4

Can epistocracy, or knowledge-based voting, fix democracy?
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-brennan-epistocracy-20160828-snap-story.html

--
☣ glen

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[Merle Lefkoff-2]

Pamela, the present structures cannot be "reformed."  We need a revolution that allows new structures to emerge.  Visit our website and read about the ECOS gathering.

On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 6:25 PM, Pamela McCorduck <[hidden email]> wrote:

I found that article on Enough with this Basic Income Bullshit an interesting read. I had to wonder why he capitalized Entrepreneur, as if it were Realtor, or some other nonsensical social climbing, but I agree that the system will need major overhauls. He is not alone in believing this, given all the “end of capitalism” writings we see.

Pamela


> On Sep 9, 2016, at 3:33 PM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> glen -
>
>
>> As usual, I ignore all the places where we agree and emphasize the disagreements ... because life is more fun that way. 8^)
> I understand that... though it IS my habit to acknowledge the things I agree on to more starkly expose the ones I don't (or at least I try to do that).
>>
>> I'm not sure when it happened.  But at some point I began to buy the idea that politics is deeply embedded in everything.  I think it started when I moved to the bay area and heard people (constantly) say things like "that's just politics" ... implying that whatever they were talking about was somehow not politics.
> This is very much the Glen I know... a particular subdiscipline of contrarianism?
>> This article reinforced my position just this morning:
>>
>> Enough With This Basic Income Bullshit
>> https://salon.thefamily.co/enough-with-this-basic-income-bullshit-a6bc92e8286b#.1xcadg3vf
> I'm reading it now, though the rich hyperlinking to interesting side topics and references is causing some intellectual ablation!   I've come to recognize something like a "0th world problem" which are issues that are even more abstract and relatively empty than "1st world problems"...   That is what I'd call my experience with this rich offering you made.  thefamily.co is all new to me BTW... thanks for that too!
>>
>> As a result, I began following all the politics I could stomach as closely as my [in]competence would allow.
>>
>>> Though I think gay (LGBTQZedOmega) and reproduction rights would have been retarded and a few (other) conservative Xtian rights would have been advanced differently but...
>>
>> Maybe.  I resist our "great person" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory) tendencies wherever I find them, though.  It's reasonable to speculate that Obama had much less to do with those advances than we might think.
> I agree with dismissing the GPT in first order effects, but I think there are many second order effects which are much more significant.  Sure jOeBama couldn't pull us out of Iraq/Afghanistan or shutter Gitmo or ... and ... the way we thought he would/could/should...  and we can postulate reasons and excuses until the cows come home for that.   My point about the things that *were* achieved under his watch and the *different* ones to have likely been achieved under a Wealthy/Conservative/Mormon Romney relates to the spirit of the community.  An unfortunate example might be the current focus on police abuse, particularly in urban african-american communities.   I think the minimal empowerment of having our first black president may have lead both to the popular pushback against the abuses and possibly even generated more abuses?   Under our first female president, I think we will likely see some significant shifts in gender issues, not necessarily because Hillary is a "Great Woman" who would single handedly "lead us forward", but just because of the social tenor set by her rise to the top of our political game.
>>  But it's also dangerous to argue that some event/process would have happened regardless.  That's a typical flaw of my libertarian friends who'll claim that advances like artificial hearts or whatnot, despite being government funded, would have emerged even without government funding.  Criticalities (like "great people") probably do play some/much role in some/many cases.  I'm simply skeptical that we can tease out which cases.
> I think this is an acute example of the things dual/hybrid models which include both discrete (particle, agent, etc) and continuous (field, patch, etc.).  I am hypothesizing that the individual (great person) does less in their direct role, exercising their personal/professional agency than they do by setting a tone, representing an ideal... and that doesn't just include their sycophantic followers, it includes their vitriolic opponents as well... those who "rise up against".  I think a good deal of our gridlock in the government was a reaction to Obama both as a black man and as a (presumed) liberal, more than anything he specifically did or did not do.
>>
>>>> In short, this game has absolutely nothing to do with the
>>>> idealistic system(s) framing Arrow's or Condorcet's propositions.  And
>>>> that may partially explain why markets would be more robust predictors.
>>>
>>> Excepting, I would contend that "this game" is *shaped* by the lack of viable paths to successful 3rd party intrusions INTO the game.
>>
>> Well, good games, games that I find _fun_, anyway, are always co-evolutionary with implicit objective functions.  Boring games are those with unambiguous rules, zero-sum outcomes, etc.  Were I to run for a large office (or participate on the campaign of someone running), I'd regard the viable paths as part of the game, not isolable merely as the context of the game.
> I am not arguing against the strategies of the two major parties or their candidates.  I understand why they want to keep the game defined for their own purposes.  I also understand why the wannabes wanna change the game up.   What is more puzzling to me is why/how "we the people" can continue to *pretend* we are unhappy with the status quo while all but *citing* the status quo as the motivation for our behaviour?  "I HATE our polarized two party system but I won't even LOOK at the third parties because THEY are not viable in our current context!"  What?  How will they ever BECOME viable if you won't give them any consideration?   For me, this moment of clear and extreme disaffection with the party in the first part and the party in the second part, is the perfect opportunity to make some inroads into the very change we *claim* we want.  Oh well.
>>
>> Perhaps this is why, during near-drunken argumentation, people always accuse me of private definitions and "moving the goal posts". 8^)  Who says I can't move the goal posts?  What game were _you_ playing?
> I have played a variant of battleship where each player is allowed to move one ship after each salvo from the other player.  It is at least as interesting as the original.
>>
>> Yes, I would have thought this directly in the camp of "applied complexity".  I have a friend working on election security: http://freeandfair.us/  But that work is too "close to the metal" for me, I guess.  I'd prefer a systems engineering project experimenting on geopolitical systems in general.  I imagine there are lots of people doing that work, breathing stale air in faraday cages peppered around the country housed in various nondescript buildings.
> Oddly, NM is a great place for faraday cages without stale air!  As you may guess, contemporary adobe structures make pretty fair faraday cages... at least if they have stucco netting (or better yet expanded metal plaster-lathe) and metal (rather than nylon) window-screens... just make sure the two are well connected (stucco net and window screens) and the embedding in the adobe on a foundation makes a pretty good ground.   By having lots of thermal mass (adobe, preferably double) you can leave the windows open and solve the stale air problem.
>
> I haven't done careful analysis or research, so the density of stucco netting might not be fine enough to handle all frequencies, but it sure does work well to attentuate/absorb wifi, bluetooth and cellular signals!   I'm doing a pilot project in a small farmstead in NNM to deploy/test/prototype a village-telco mesh and I'm *very* thankful that the window screens are nylon (and NOT electrically connected to the stucco mesh)... on most of the buildings...
>
> People unfamiliar with NM architecture would call most of our farmhouses "nondescript".

>
>
> ============================================================
> 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 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 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

[Pamela McCorduck]

Merle, I posted so long ago I forget what I said. I’m not a revolutionary, never was. I don’t like most revolutions since 1776. But I’m surely open to new ways of approaching the problem.

On Sep 13, 2016, at 3:15 PM, Merle Lefkoff <[hidden email]> wrote:

Pamela, the present structures cannot be "reformed."  We need a revolution that allows new structures to emerge.  Visit our website and read about the ECOS gathering.

On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 6:25 PM, Pamela McCorduck <[hidden email]> wrote:

I found that article on Enough with this Basic Income Bullshit an interesting read. I had to wonder why he capitalized Entrepreneur, as if it were Realtor, or some other nonsensical social climbing, but I agree that the system will need major overhauls. He is not alone in believing this, given all the “end of capitalism” writings we see.

Pamela


> On Sep 9, 2016, at 3:33 PM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> glen -
>
>
>> As usual, I ignore all the places where we agree and emphasize the disagreements ... because life is more fun that way. 8^)
> I understand that... though it IS my habit to acknowledge the things I agree on to more starkly expose the ones I don't (or at least I try to do that).
>>
>> I'm not sure when it happened.  But at some point I began to buy the idea that politics is deeply embedded in everything.  I think it started when I moved to the bay area and heard people (constantly) say things like "that's just politics" ... implying that whatever they were talking about was somehow not politics.
> This is very much the Glen I know... a particular subdiscipline of contrarianism?
>> This article reinforced my position just this morning:
>>
>> Enough With This Basic Income Bullshit
>> https://salon.thefamily.co/enough-with-this-basic-income-bullshit-a6bc92e8286b#.1xcadg3vf
> I'm reading it now, though the rich hyperlinking to interesting side topics and references is causing some intellectual ablation!   I've come to recognize something like a "0th world problem" which are issues that are even more abstract and relatively empty than "1st world problems"...   That is what I'd call my experience with this rich offering you made.  thefamily.co is all new to me BTW... thanks for that too!
>>
>> As a result, I began following all the politics I could stomach as closely as my [in]competence would allow.
>>
>>> Though I think gay (LGBTQZedOmega) and reproduction rights would have been retarded and a few (other) conservative Xtian rights would have been advanced differently but...
>>
>> Maybe.  I resist our "great person" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory) tendencies wherever I find them, though.  It's reasonable to speculate that Obama had much less to do with those advances than we might think.
> I agree with dismissing the GPT in first order effects, but I think there are many second order effects which are much more significant.  Sure jOeBama couldn't pull us out of Iraq/Afghanistan or shutter Gitmo or ... and ... the way we thought he would/could/should...  and we can postulate reasons and excuses until the cows come home for that.   My point about the things that *were* achieved under his watch and the *different* ones to have likely been achieved under a Wealthy/Conservative/Mormon Romney relates to the spirit of the community.  An unfortunate example might be the current focus on police abuse, particularly in urban african-american communities.   I think the minimal empowerment of having our first black president may have lead both to the popular pushback against the abuses and possibly even generated more abuses?   Under our first female president, I think we will likely see some significant shifts in gender issues, not necessarily because Hillary is a "Great Woman" who would single handedly "lead us forward", but just because of the social tenor set by her rise to the top of our political game.
>>  But it's also dangerous to argue that some event/process would have happened regardless.  That's a typical flaw of my libertarian friends who'll claim that advances like artificial hearts or whatnot, despite being government funded, would have emerged even without government funding.  Criticalities (like "great people") probably do play some/much role in some/many cases.  I'm simply skeptical that we can tease out which cases.
> I think this is an acute example of the things dual/hybrid models which include both discrete (particle, agent, etc) and continuous (field, patch, etc.).  I am hypothesizing that the individual (great person) does less in their direct role, exercising their personal/professional agency than they do by setting a tone, representing an ideal... and that doesn't just include their sycophantic followers, it includes their vitriolic opponents as well... those who "rise up against".  I think a good deal of our gridlock in the government was a reaction to Obama both as a black man and as a (presumed) liberal, more than anything he specifically did or did not do.
>>
>>>> In short, this game has absolutely nothing to do with the
>>>> idealistic system(s) framing Arrow's or Condorcet's propositions.  And
>>>> that may partially explain why markets would be more robust predictors.
>>>
>>> Excepting, I would contend that "this game" is *shaped* by the lack of viable paths to successful 3rd party intrusions INTO the game.
>>
>> Well, good games, games that I find _fun_, anyway, are always co-evolutionary with implicit objective functions.  Boring games are those with unambiguous rules, zero-sum outcomes, etc.  Were I to run for a large office (or participate on the campaign of someone running), I'd regard the viable paths as part of the game, not isolable merely as the context of the game.
> I am not arguing against the strategies of the two major parties or their candidates.  I understand why they want to keep the game defined for their own purposes.  I also understand why the wannabes wanna change the game up.   What is more puzzling to me is why/how "we the people" can continue to *pretend* we are unhappy with the status quo while all but *citing* the status quo as the motivation for our behaviour?  "I HATE our polarized two party system but I won't even LOOK at the third parties because THEY are not viable in our current context!"  What?  How will they ever BECOME viable if you won't give them any consideration?   For me, this moment of clear and extreme disaffection with the party in the first part and the party in the second part, is the perfect opportunity to make some inroads into the very change we *claim* we want.  Oh well.
>>
>> Perhaps this is why, during near-drunken argumentation, people always accuse me of private definitions and "moving the goal posts". 8^)  Who says I can't move the goal posts?  What game were _you_ playing?
> I have played a variant of battleship where each player is allowed to move one ship after each salvo from the other player.  It is at least as interesting as the original.
>>
>> Yes, I would have thought this directly in the camp of "applied complexity".  I have a friend working on election security: http://freeandfair.us/  But that work is too "close to the metal" for me, I guess.  I'd prefer a systems engineering project experimenting on geopolitical systems in general.  I imagine there are lots of people doing that work, breathing stale air in faraday cages peppered around the country housed in various nondescript buildings.
> Oddly, NM is a great place for faraday cages without stale air!  As you may guess, contemporary adobe structures make pretty fair faraday cages... at least if they have stucco netting (or better yet expanded metal plaster-lathe) and metal (rather than nylon) window-screens... just make sure the two are well connected (stucco net and window screens) and the embedding in the adobe on a foundation makes a pretty good ground.   By having lots of thermal mass (adobe, preferably double) you can leave the windows open and solve the stale air problem.
>
> I haven't done careful analysis or research, so the density of stucco netting might not be fine enough to handle all frequencies, but it sure does work well to attentuate/absorb wifi, bluetooth and cellular signals!   I'm doing a pilot project in a small farmstead in NNM to deploy/test/prototype a village-telco mesh and I'm *very* thankful that the window screens are nylon (and NOT electrically connected to the stucco mesh)... on most of the buildings...
>
> People unfamiliar with NM architecture would call most of our farmhouses "nondescript".

>
>
> ============================================================
> 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 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 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 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

[Merle Lefkoff-2]

Take a look:  emergentdiplomacy.org, click on ECOS.  I'd especially love your feedback. I've been thinking about this since my TEDx talk a few years ago, and now we're making it happen.

I'm a recent revolutionary since growing inequality, climate change, and forever war are our biggest global challenges, and elites in power have blown it.  My indigenous friends in N. Dakota, who rightly call themselves "protectors", not "protestors" have attracted the President, himself.  That's the only thing that seems to work now.  I have seven grandchildren--sounds cliche, but I'm damned worried about them.  So I've become a Complexity activist!

On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 5:22 PM, Pamela McCorduck <[hidden email]> wrote:

Merle, I posted so long ago I forget what I said. I’m not a revolutionary, never was. I don’t like most revolutions since 1776. But I’m surely open to new ways of approaching the problem.

On Sep 13, 2016, at 3:15 PM, Merle Lefkoff <[hidden email]> wrote:

Pamela, the present structures cannot be "reformed."  We need a revolution that allows new structures to emerge.  Visit our website and read about the ECOS gathering.

On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 6:25 PM, Pamela McCorduck <[hidden email]> wrote:

I found that article on Enough with this Basic Income Bullshit an interesting read. I had to wonder why he capitalized Entrepreneur, as if it were Realtor, or some other nonsensical social climbing, but I agree that the system will need major overhauls. He is not alone in believing this, given all the “end of capitalism” writings we see.

Pamela


> On Sep 9, 2016, at 3:33 PM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> glen -
>
>
>> As usual, I ignore all the places where we agree and emphasize the disagreements ... because life is more fun that way. 8^)
> I understand that... though it IS my habit to acknowledge the things I agree on to more starkly expose the ones I don't (or at least I try to do that).
>>
>> I'm not sure when it happened.  But at some point I began to buy the idea that politics is deeply embedded in everything.  I think it started when I moved to the bay area and heard people (constantly) say things like "that's just politics" ... implying that whatever they were talking about was somehow not politics.
> This is very much the Glen I know... a particular subdiscipline of contrarianism?
>> This article reinforced my position just this morning:
>>
>> Enough With This Basic Income Bullshit
>> https://salon.thefamily.co/enough-with-this-basic-income-bullshit-a6bc92e8286b#.1xcadg3vf
> I'm reading it now, though the rich hyperlinking to interesting side topics and references is causing some intellectual ablation!   I've come to recognize something like a "0th world problem" which are issues that are even more abstract and relatively empty than "1st world problems"...   That is what I'd call my experience with this rich offering you made.  thefamily.co is all new to me BTW... thanks for that too!
>>
>> As a result, I began following all the politics I could stomach as closely as my [in]competence would allow.
>>
>>> Though I think gay (LGBTQZedOmega) and reproduction rights would have been retarded and a few (other) conservative Xtian rights would have been advanced differently but...
>>
>> Maybe.  I resist our "great person" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory) tendencies wherever I find them, though.  It's reasonable to speculate that Obama had much less to do with those advances than we might think.
> I agree with dismissing the GPT in first order effects, but I think there are many second order effects which are much more significant.  Sure jOeBama couldn't pull us out of Iraq/Afghanistan or shutter Gitmo or ... and ... the way we thought he would/could/should...  and we can postulate reasons and excuses until the cows come home for that.   My point about the things that *were* achieved under his watch and the *different* ones to have likely been achieved under a Wealthy/Conservative/Mormon Romney relates to the spirit of the community.  An unfortunate example might be the current focus on police abuse, particularly in urban african-american communities.   I think the minimal empowerment of having our first black president may have lead both to the popular pushback against the abuses and possibly even generated more abuses?   Under our first female president, I think we will likely see some significant shifts in gender issues, not necessarily because Hillary is a "Great Woman" who would single handedly "lead us forward", but just because of the social tenor set by her rise to the top of our political game.
>>  But it's also dangerous to argue that some event/process would have happened regardless.  That's a typical flaw of my libertarian friends who'll claim that advances like artificial hearts or whatnot, despite being government funded, would have emerged even without government funding.  Criticalities (like "great people") probably do play some/much role in some/many cases.  I'm simply skeptical that we can tease out which cases.
> I think this is an acute example of the things dual/hybrid models which include both discrete (particle, agent, etc) and continuous (field, patch, etc.).  I am hypothesizing that the individual (great person) does less in their direct role, exercising their personal/professional agency than they do by setting a tone, representing an ideal... and that doesn't just include their sycophantic followers, it includes their vitriolic opponents as well... those who "rise up against".  I think a good deal of our gridlock in the government was a reaction to Obama both as a black man and as a (presumed) liberal, more than anything he specifically did or did not do.
>>
>>>> In short, this game has absolutely nothing to do with the
>>>> idealistic system(s) framing Arrow's or Condorcet's propositions.  And
>>>> that may partially explain why markets would be more robust predictors.
>>>
>>> Excepting, I would contend that "this game" is *shaped* by the lack of viable paths to successful 3rd party intrusions INTO the game.
>>
>> Well, good games, games that I find _fun_, anyway, are always co-evolutionary with implicit objective functions.  Boring games are those with unambiguous rules, zero-sum outcomes, etc.  Were I to run for a large office (or participate on the campaign of someone running), I'd regard the viable paths as part of the game, not isolable merely as the context of the game.
> I am not arguing against the strategies of the two major parties or their candidates.  I understand why they want to keep the game defined for their own purposes.  I also understand why the wannabes wanna change the game up.   What is more puzzling to me is why/how "we the people" can continue to *pretend* we are unhappy with the status quo while all but *citing* the status quo as the motivation for our behaviour?  "I HATE our polarized two party system but I won't even LOOK at the third parties because THEY are not viable in our current context!"  What?  How will they ever BECOME viable if you won't give them any consideration?   For me, this moment of clear and extreme disaffection with the party in the first part and the party in the second part, is the perfect opportunity to make some inroads into the very change we *claim* we want.  Oh well.
>>
>> Perhaps this is why, during near-drunken argumentation, people always accuse me of private definitions and "moving the goal posts". 8^)  Who says I can't move the goal posts?  What game were _you_ playing?
> I have played a variant of battleship where each player is allowed to move one ship after each salvo from the other player.  It is at least as interesting as the original.
>>
>> Yes, I would have thought this directly in the camp of "applied complexity".  I have a friend working on election security: http://freeandfair.us/  But that work is too "close to the metal" for me, I guess.  I'd prefer a systems engineering project experimenting on geopolitical systems in general.  I imagine there are lots of people doing that work, breathing stale air in faraday cages peppered around the country housed in various nondescript buildings.
> Oddly, NM is a great place for faraday cages without stale air!  As you may guess, contemporary adobe structures make pretty fair faraday cages... at least if they have stucco netting (or better yet expanded metal plaster-lathe) and metal (rather than nylon) window-screens... just make sure the two are well connected (stucco net and window screens) and the embedding in the adobe on a foundation makes a pretty good ground.   By having lots of thermal mass (adobe, preferably double) you can leave the windows open and solve the stale air problem.
>
> I haven't done careful analysis or research, so the density of stucco netting might not be fine enough to handle all frequencies, but it sure does work well to attentuate/absorb wifi, bluetooth and cellular signals!   I'm doing a pilot project in a small farmstead in NNM to deploy/test/prototype a village-telco mesh and I'm *very* thankful that the window screens are nylon (and NOT electrically connected to the stucco mesh)... on most of the buildings...
>
> People unfamiliar with NM architecture would call most of our farmhouses "nondescript".

>
>
> ============================================================
> 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 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 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 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 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

[Marcus G. Daniels]

The late Christopher Hitchens, five years ago:

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/09/simply_evil.html

<< I take this as a part vindication of the superiority of "our" civilization, which is at least so constituted as to be able to learn from past mistakes, rather than remain a prisoner of "faith."  >>

 

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Merle Lefkoff
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2016 3:31 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Wisdom of Crowds vs Kenneth Arrow

 

Take a look:  emergentdiplomacy.org, click on ECOS.  I'd especially love your feedback. I've been thinking about this since my TEDx talk a few years ago, and now we're making it happen.

I'm a recent revolutionary since growing inequality, climate change, and forever war are our biggest global challenges, and elites in power have blown it.  My indigenous friends in N. Dakota, who rightly call themselves "protectors", not "protestors" have attracted the President, himself.  That's the only thing that seems to work now.  I have seven grandchildren--sounds cliche, but I'm damned worried about them.  So I've become a Complexity activist!

 

On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 5:22 PM, Pamela McCorduck <[hidden email]> wrote:

Merle, I posted so long ago I forget what I said. I’m not a revolutionary, never was. I don’t like most revolutions since 1776. But I’m surely open to new ways of approaching the problem.

 

 

On Sep 13, 2016, at 3:15 PM, Merle Lefkoff <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

Pamela, the present structures cannot be "reformed."  We need a revolution that allows new structures to emerge.  Visit our website and read about the ECOS gathering.

 

On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 6:25 PM, Pamela McCorduck <[hidden email]> wrote:

I found that article on Enough with this Basic Income Bullshit an interesting read. I had to wonder why he capitalized Entrepreneur, as if it were Realtor, or some other nonsensical social climbing, but I agree that the system will need major overhauls. He is not alone in believing this, given all the “end of capitalism” writings we see.

Pamela


> On Sep 9, 2016, at 3:33 PM, Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> glen -
>
>
>> As usual, I ignore all the places where we agree and emphasize the disagreements ... because life is more fun that way. 8^)
> I understand that... though it IS my habit to acknowledge the things I agree on to more starkly expose the ones I don't (or at least I try to do that).
>>
>> I'm not sure when it happened.  But at some point I began to buy the idea that politics is deeply embedded in everything.  I think it started when I moved to the bay area and heard people (constantly) say things like "that's just politics" ... implying that whatever they were talking about was somehow not politics.
> This is very much the Glen I know... a particular subdiscipline of contrarianism?
>> This article reinforced my position just this morning:
>>
>> Enough With This Basic Income Bullshit
>> https://salon.thefamily.co/enough-with-this-basic-income-bullshit-a6bc92e8286b#.1xcadg3vf
> I'm reading it now, though the rich hyperlinking to interesting side topics and references is causing some intellectual ablation!   I've come to recognize something like a "0th world problem" which are issues that are even more abstract and relatively empty than "1st world problems"...   That is what I'd call my experience with this rich offering you made.  thefamily.co is all new to me BTW... thanks for that too!
>>
>> As a result, I began following all the politics I could stomach as closely as my [in]competence would allow.
>>
>>> Though I think gay (LGBTQZedOmega) and reproduction rights would have been retarded and a few (other) conservative Xtian rights would have been advanced differently but...
>>
>> Maybe.  I resist our "great person" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory) tendencies wherever I find them, though.  It's reasonable to speculate that Obama had much less to do with those advances than we might think.
> I agree with dismissing the GPT in first order effects, but I think there are many second order effects which are much more significant.  Sure jOeBama couldn't pull us out of Iraq/Afghanistan or shutter Gitmo or ... and ... the way we thought he would/could/should...  and we can postulate reasons and excuses until the cows come home for that.   My point about the things that *were* achieved under his watch and the *different* ones to have likely been achieved under a Wealthy/Conservative/Mormon Romney relates to the spirit of the community.  An unfortunate example might be the current focus on police abuse, particularly in urban african-american communities.   I think the minimal empowerment of having our first black president may have lead both to the popular pushback against the abuses and possibly even generated more abuses?   Under our first female president, I think we will likely see some significant shifts in gender issues, not necessarily because Hillary is a "Great Woman" who would single handedly "lead us forward", but just because of the social tenor set by her rise to the top of our political game.
>>  But it's also dangerous to argue that some event/process would have happened regardless.  That's a typical flaw of my libertarian friends who'll claim that advances like artificial hearts or whatnot, despite being government funded, would have emerged even without government funding.  Criticalities (like "great people") probably do play some/much role in some/many cases.  I'm simply skeptical that we can tease out which cases.
> I think this is an acute example of the things dual/hybrid models which include both discrete (particle, agent, etc) and continuous (field, patch, etc.).  I am hypothesizing that the individual (great person) does less in their direct role, exercising their personal/professional agency than they do by setting a tone, representing an ideal... and that doesn't just include their sycophantic followers, it includes their vitriolic opponents as well... those who "rise up against".  I think a good deal of our gridlock in the government was a reaction to Obama both as a black man and as a (presumed) liberal, more than anything he specifically did or did not do.
>>
>>>> In short, this game has absolutely nothing to do with the
>>>> idealistic system(s) framing Arrow's or Condorcet's propositions.  And
>>>> that may partially explain why markets would be more robust predictors.
>>>
>>> Excepting, I would contend that "this game" is *shaped* by the lack of viable paths to successful 3rd party intrusions INTO the game.
>>
>> Well, good games, games that I find _fun_, anyway, are always co-evolutionary with implicit objective functions.  Boring games are those with unambiguous rules, zero-sum outcomes, etc.  Were I to run for a large office (or participate on the campaign of someone running), I'd regard the viable paths as part of the game, not isolable merely as the context of the game.
> I am not arguing against the strategies of the two major parties or their candidates.  I understand why they want to keep the game defined for their own purposes.  I also understand why the wannabes wanna change the game up.   What is more puzzling to me is why/how "we the people" can continue to *pretend* we are unhappy with the status quo while all but *citing* the status quo as the motivation for our behaviour?  "I HATE our polarized two party system but I won't even LOOK at the third parties because THEY are not viable in our current context!"  What?  How will they ever BECOME viable if you won't give them any consideration?   For me, this moment of clear and extreme disaffection with the party in the first part and the party in the second part, is the perfect opportunity to make some inroads into the very change we *claim* we want.  Oh well.
>>
>> Perhaps this is why, during near-drunken argumentation, people always accuse me of private definitions and "moving the goal posts". 8^)  Who says I can't move the goal posts?  What game were _you_ playing?
> I have played a variant of battleship where each player is allowed to move one ship after each salvo from the other player.  It is at least as interesting as the original.
>>
>> Yes, I would have thought this directly in the camp of "applied complexity".  I have a friend working on election security: http://freeandfair.us/  But that work is too "close to the metal" for me, I guess.  I'd prefer a systems engineering project experimenting on geopolitical systems in general.  I imagine there are lots of people doing that work, breathing stale air in faraday cages peppered around the country housed in various nondescript buildings.
> Oddly, NM is a great place for faraday cages without stale air!  As you may guess, contemporary adobe structures make pretty fair faraday cages... at least if they have stucco netting (or better yet expanded metal plaster-lathe) and metal (rather than nylon) window-screens... just make sure the two are well connected (stucco net and window screens) and the embedding in the adobe on a foundation makes a pretty good ground.   By having lots of thermal mass (adobe, preferably double) you can leave the windows open and solve the stale air problem.
>
> I haven't done careful analysis or research, so the density of stucco netting might not be fine enough to handle all frequencies, but it sure does work well to attentuate/absorb wifi, bluetooth and cellular signals!   I'm doing a pilot project in a small farmstead in NNM to deploy/test/prototype a village-telco mesh and I'm *very* thankful that the window screens are nylon (and NOT electrically connected to the stucco mesh)... on most of the buildings...
>
> People unfamiliar with NM architecture would call most of our farmhouses "nondescript".

>
>
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--

Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
[hidden email]
mobile:  <a href="tel:%28303%29%20859-5609" target="_blank">[phone]
skype:  merle.lelfkoff2

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--

Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
[hidden email]
mobile:  [phone]
skype:  merle.lelfkoff2

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[Steve Smith]

Glen -


>> I understand that... though it IS my habit to acknowledge the things I agree on to more starkly expose the ones I don't (or at least I try to do that).
> With a happy side-effect that more people will like you as a result.  One day, I'll wish I had spent more effort with the soft styles.  I know they're more effective.
This is an interesting discursion.  I am not sure that soft-styles lead
more people to like you, but I do think it raises the threshold to
knee-jerk *dislike*.  A lot of my friends in this world do NOT have
soft-styles and they have plenty of friends/admirers/sycophants... self
included, BUT they *RARELY* can stand one another... harsh meets harsh
and one or both kneejerk response triggers the other kneejerk and well,
you know the rest!
>>> Enough With This Basic Income Bullshit
>>> https://salon.thefamily.co/enough-with-this-basic-income-bullshit-a6bc92e8286b#.1xcadg3vf
>> I'm reading it now, though the rich hyperlinking to interesting side topics and references is causing some intellectual ablation!   I've come to recognize something like a "0th world problem" which are issues that are even more abstract and relatively empty than "1st world problems"...   That is what I'd call my experience with this rich offering you made.  thefamily.co is all new to me BTW... thanks for that too!
> I agree.  But what is the oligarchist supposed to do?  We can't leave all that abstract sophistry to the peasants.  They'd thoroughly mess it up. >8^)  Seriously, though, whoever sees the problem is responsible for solving the problem.  So, 0th world problems must be solved by those who see them.
I don't need to solve 0th world problems, just recognize them like an
impressive wave and catch it just right to surf it all the way in to the
beach...
>
>>>    But it's also dangerous to argue that some event/process would have happened regardless.  That's a typical flaw of my libertarian friends who'll claim that advances like artificial hearts or whatnot, despite being government funded, would have emerged even without government funding.  Criticalities (like "great people") probably do play some/much role in some/many cases.  I'm simply skeptical that we can tease out which cases.
>> I think this is an acute example of the things dual/hybrid models which include both discrete (particle, agent, etc) and continuous (field, patch, etc.).  I am hypothesizing that the individual (great person) does less in their direct role, exercising their personal/professional agency than they do by setting a tone, representing an ideal... and that doesn't just include their sycophantic followers, it includes their vitriolic opponents as well... those who "rise up against".  I think a good deal of our gridlock in the government was a reaction to Obama both as a black man and as a (presumed) liberal, more than anything he specifically did or did not do.
> Damnit, I agree again. [sigh]  But I can disagree obliquely by carrying it further.  The individual is merely a phenomenon (well, set of phenomena), an effect of the underlying cause(s).  In that sense, we can toss out free will entirely and say that the individual (great or not) does no tone setting (or anything else) in any generative sense.  They are simply 1 observable feature of the great machine.  And the only reason we perceive that feature as somehow distinguishable from the rest is because of our limited powers of perception.
Well, that is one perspective...
>
> Hence, Obama did nothing, at least nothing whose sole cause resides within him ... just as neither you nor I ever do anything.  It's (we're) all just patterns in the ambience.
Well... yes...  on a good (or bad) day I can imagine this, right up with
six-impossible-things before breakfast with a double helping of solopsism...
>> What is more puzzling to me is why/how "we the people" can continue to *pretend* we are unhappy with the status quo while all but *citing* the status quo as the motivation for our behaviour?  "I HATE our polarized two party system but I won't even LOOK at the third parties because THEY are not viable in our current context!"  What?  How will they ever BECOME viable if you won't give them any consideration?   For me, this moment of clear and extreme disaffection with the party in the first part and the party in the second part, is the perfect opportunity to make some inroads into the very change we *claim* we want.  Oh well.
> But this is the same feature that allows us to think up new ideas, invent new machines, tell stories of unicorns and fairies with a straight face.  This is why everyone knows too much sugar is bad, but insists on its presence in every food anyway.  Our drive to have our cake and eat it, too, is what propels us to greater and greater heights.  When/if we admit the game is zero-sum, we either give up or become ruthless sociopaths.  I like Walt Whitman's aphorism the best: "I am large. I contain multitudes."
I *hate* to admit that you are right... at least that this is the stuff
of transcending our own context... but sometimes I think it also is what
freezes us in that context.   We tie a heavy chain around our ankle and
then whine that we can hardly keep our head above water treading...   If
this kind of self-handicapping makes us into olympic swimmers, then I
suppose I'm all for it... but it reminds me a bit too much of Vonnegut's
"breakfast of champions" theme!

- steve


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