capitalism vs. individualism
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Re: capitalism vs. individualism
 
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"You hold the child in your arms and you croon, “Everything is going to be all right”. You might do that when “there is a goblin under the bed.” You might also do it when the plane in which are riding is hurtling toward the ground. The fact that you do the same in both sorts of situations doesn’t change how those situations “prove out”. Some interpretations are better than others." You and your denial of William James's "Will to Believe"! I will grant you that the holding and crooning doesn't change the outcome when the plane is hurtling to the ground, no problem there. But of course it is quite possible that the holding and cooning DOES change the outcome for the child afraid of the goblin. More specifically, cuddling the child and telling them that everything is going to be all right is sometimes an essential causal element within the process by which things change from "not all right" to "all right." The fact that the goblin doesn't actually exist is a weird distraction from the fact that the parent's assertion of alright-ness is often essential for alright-ness to actually occur. Some interpretations are better than others... and some interpretations actually create the truth of the interpretations... based on the individual will of the actor/interpreter making it so. ----------- Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist American University - Adjunct Instructor On Fri, Nov 8, 2019 at 2:37 PM Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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In reply to this post by gepr
Escher demonstrated that an equal number (aleph null) of angels
AND devils can dance on the head of a hyperbolic pinhead...
I only argue the point because I personally do not have as clear
of a distinction as I would like to. I merely intuit that there
is a qualitative difference between "owning" that which I can
husband or steward personally and that which requires some kind of
threat or coercion to maintain control of? Ultimately in a utopian communist fantasy scene, if I killed a lizard this morning and you are hungry, it is my duty/role/obligation to give it to you, or at least share it... and if I've already gobbled it down greedily and your need is significant, it is uncumbent on me to barf up a portion like a mother coyote does for her young. And if I have more lizard than I can eat before it spoils (though I hear they can be quite good if properly fermented in a damp hole in a tree) then it is even more important that I share it? can you help me separate "control" from "stewardship"?
On 11/14/19 5:00 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
In response to both MGD and SAS: OK. But again we're arguing about how many angels can dance on a pin, right? It's like distinguishing between objects and processes, nodes and edges. Property implies a kind of control and vice versa. So, whether you "own a means" or "control a thing" is irrelevant. It's the *privacy* that's the distinguisher, not the thing that is private. This goes back to concepts of "closure", I suppose. If you kill just enough lizards to feed your family for a month, that's one thing. But if you somehow finagle your way into preventing others from having enough lizards to feed their family for that month, that's another thing. So, the closure of privacy or, better yet, the closure of control is the leveragable distinction. On 11/14/19 3:45 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:HR often departments act as if the feature space for skills can be represented as a binary vector associated with a given candidate. That resource is a thing they try to acquire and will get rid of when they no longer need it. A rich enough company might even hold on to such resources just so that another company couldn't get it. They aren't as bald-faced as calling their employees property though. They don't hesitate to use terms like "intellectual property", however.On 11/14/19 3:50 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:I think this is a fair question. Perhaps the dead lizard I just killed in the dilly bag around my waist is *mine all mine* but the throwing stick I used to kill it, which gives me the ability to kill lizards before anyone else in my tribe can is perhaps the pragmatic difference? Fundamentally it has to do with whether "the group" can "afford" for some members to have/take significant advantage over "the commons" whether that be by technological leverage (throwing stick, plantation, factory, or national railway system) or force of law (laws and law enforcement contrived to protect "private property" vs "citizens health and well being") or more organic aspects (being bigger, faster, more aggressive than others). I use these extreme examples, only for illustration. I'm not advocating the kind of handicapping parodied in Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron, just suggesting that maintaining an extended phenotype through the principle of private ownership isn't (qualitatively) the same as A) literal hoarding (gathering all the lizards up in a region) or B) potential hoarding (establishing and maintaining the ability to gather them so much more efficiently than others so as to effectively hoard them). ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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On 11/14/19 4:15 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> can you help me separate "control" from "stewardship"? Probably not. But I can tell you how I distinguish. Control carries connotations of things like convexity (you can get there from here) and observability (I can at least infer, if not observe directly, what the controlled is doing). Stewardship is more like influence and constraint. I don't know exactly where I want the system to be/go. But I kinda-sorta know where I do *not* want it to be/go. In the end, it's a matter of egotism. If you think you're that smart, then yeah control it. But if you're doubtful of everything, then all you want to do is tweak it here and there and learn though manipulation. -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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There are several hem-and-haw phrasings you use in the below. 8^) For example, when you say "act as owners", you're relying on some concept of ownership that isn't at all present in what you're talking about. If this type of soft, permeable control you're calling "herding" and "symbiotic" is really all there is, then what does "owner" actually mean? Is it some ideal that never obtains in the real world? And if so, then why use the silly term?
And I didn't mean "egoism". I meant "egotism", conceit, an inflated sense of self that one works to maintain. That qualitative difference between the cheese and the process/things by which the cheese is made bears some reflection. When teaching someone to, say, build a website with JavaScript or somesuch, they begin with some sense that it's magical or difficult or whatever. And by the end of it, they no longer feel that way. To me this happens with *every* thing I learn. So, the question results: Is that qualitative difference you feel between cheese vs. cheese-making simply one of ignorance? Now, I admit there's a scale that matters. Just because I can make a nuclear reactor in my kitchen does *not* mean I can build the LHC. But for all scalable X-making (means of production), the distinction seems purely one of degree, not kind. On 11/14/19 4:35 PM, Steven A Smith wrote: > So I've moved from killing lizards in the wild, one at a time as I am > hungry enough to eat them to domesticating and herding goats that I will > guide to better pastures/water and protect from predators... I am > both "steward of" and "owner of" this herd... the goats might be > better off unherded, allowed to disperse and roam free, but for the sake > of the example, let's imagine that they and I, with the help of a > wolfhound actually do better off as a group than any of us would have > done alone. I and my wolfhound may act as *owners* of this herd and use > controlling techniques (fencing, nipping at heels, etc.) to keep them > close together and within the range of our ability to protect them from > predators. We also use similar techniques and technology to prevent > others from taking control *from* us... be they predators or other > wannabe herders who prefer to just take control of part or all of "our" > herd rather than work their way up by capturing a pregnant wild goat and > hand-raising it's kids so as to habituate/ingratiate them to the herder, > etc. > > And yes, this is a form of "egoism"... the herder thinking they "know > what is best" for the goats (and wolfhound)... but only to some degree > since the operative term is "herd" not "krall" them... if the "herd" > gets it in their head to disperse or run away, chances are they can... > but presumably a good herder establishes a symbiotic relationship. > > But back closer to the original line of thinking, the distinction > between owning a "thing" (a packet of cheese made from the goat's milk > or a hair-shirt spun and woven from their hair) and controlling the > means of production (the herd, the territory within which they are > herded/roam) still seems to be a meaningful one... maybe it is merely > scale or quantity, but it feels like the extra level of indirection is > important -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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I'm not sure if we are in violent agreement or talking past one another
(or perhaps a bit of both) > There are several hem-and-haw phrasings you use in the below. 8^) For example, when you say "act as owners", you're relying on some concept of ownership that isn't at all present in what you're talking about. If this type of soft, permeable control you're calling "herding" and "symbiotic" is really all there is, then what does "owner" actually mean? Is it some ideal that never obtains in the real world? And if so, then why use the silly term? > > And I didn't mean "egoism". I meant "egotism", conceit, an inflated sense of self that one works to maintain. Without an ego, there would me no "self" to do the "owning", but I think that is a different discussion? I used the "hem and haw" words to indicate that *I* am not claiming "ownership" in the strongest senses of "absolute control" and/or "legal rights". Those to me are definitely fictions, although ones which are exercised all of the time, including by myself. Treating some objects as private property that can be maintained for the exclusive use of the "owner" is very convenient in many ways, certainly in our culture of materialistism and private property ownership. I am in Austin where there are several species of free-range electric scooters and at least one species of bicycle. They are definitely rent-seeking beasts, or more to the point, are their ostensible "owners". I don't understand the details of how they arrange to not be "stolen" and I suspect a certain amount of vandalism is built into the business model for those who produce and deploy them. But at a convincing level of abstraction, they seem to be fully autonomous, self-owning, but "Rent Seeking".... they just exist where they are, parked willy-nilly, waiting for a human to come along and make a transaction with them "you motor yourself with me on your back for this time/distance and I will transfer this amount of $$ from my credit account to some account "owned" by you". > That qualitative difference between the cheese and the process/things by which the cheese is made bears some reflection. When teaching someone to, say, build a website with JavaScript or somesuch, they begin with some sense that it's magical or difficult or whatever. And by the end of it, they no longer feel that way. To > me this happens with *every* thing I learn. So, the question results: Is that qualitative difference you feel between cheese vs. cheese-making simply one of ignorance? The distinction I was making was not the difference between the physical material (cheese) vs the knowledge of transforming a related material (milk) into cheese, but rather the distinction between the living but still physical objects (i.e. goat herd) and that which is of value to humans that can be produced *from* the goats. I could have used the example of "sausage" but wanted to have the goats and the plants they browsed upon to be "renewable resources" which warranted "stewardship" to try to distinguish the idea of "ownership" in the strong sense of "control" from a much softer idea of "ownership" which reads more like "taking responsibility for while extracting something of value for the self". > > Now, I admit there's a scale that matters. Just because I can make a nuclear reactor in my kitchen does *not* mean I can build the LHC. But for all scalable X-making (means of production), the distinction seems purely one of degree, not kind. A) I place a 1kW turbine in the stream running past my house and use the electricity to do something I like or feel is important. B) I dam up the stream and place a 1kW (or 1mW) turbine, holding back the water for later use, consequently denying the use/flow of that water to others downstream. C) I do B *and* I set up a storage/transmission network for said electricity which I then offer to sell/rent to others. D) I do B, but with the full agreement/cooperation of everyone downstream of me and we share in the investment of time and other resources and in the benefits. I'm trying to understand (with your help) what the *qualitative* differences might be among these.... are they simply on a quantitative continuum? Do they all require a strong egotist sense of "self"? Are the distinctions I am trying to suggest simply illusions, or projections? As a matter of personal practice, I hold many of the same *practical* habits/perspectives of a strong capitalist/owner, but I do recognize that much of that is either a personal hallucination of my own, or a shared one with others around me. I am traveling in Austin right now and am acutely aware that if I abandon my vehicle in the wrong parts of town for too long, it (or at least many of it's parts) will no longer be "mine"... I will no longer even know where they are, much less have any illusion of control over them. The only difference between that and my "home" where I leave my vehicles unlocked and my keys IN them is that there I have decades of experience to tell me how likely and under what circumstances I will no longer continue to "own" my vehicle (or it's wheels, or catalytic converter or battery, etc.). At "home" I also depend on not being as dependent on that vehicle for my convenience and comfort... and on the collective implicit agreement of my neighbors who will participate in discouraging others from "re-owning" my vehicle (or the clothes drying on my line) and will share *their* owned resources (a spare vehicle, a ride to town, the shirt off their back) in ways that I *don't* feel comfortable with in a strange (to me) city. Keep trying to help me understand what it is you think I am not understanding? > > On 11/14/19 4:35 PM, Steven A Smith wrote: >> So I've moved from killing lizards in the wild, one at a time as I am >> hungry enough to eat them to domesticating and herding goats that I will >> guide to better pastures/water and protect from predators... I am >> both "steward of" and "owner of" this herd... the goats might be >> better off unherded, allowed to disperse and roam free, but for the sake >> of the example, let's imagine that they and I, with the help of a >> wolfhound actually do better off as a group than any of us would have >> done alone. I and my wolfhound may act as *owners* of this herd and use >> controlling techniques (fencing, nipping at heels, etc.) to keep them >> close together and within the range of our ability to protect them from >> predators. We also use similar techniques and technology to prevent >> others from taking control *from* us... be they predators or other >> wannabe herders who prefer to just take control of part or all of "our" >> herd rather than work their way up by capturing a pregnant wild goat and >> hand-raising it's kids so as to habituate/ingratiate them to the herder, >> etc. >> >> And yes, this is a form of "egoism"... the herder thinking they "know >> what is best" for the goats (and wolfhound)... but only to some degree >> since the operative term is "herd" not "krall" them... if the "herd" >> gets it in their head to disperse or run away, chances are they can... >> but presumably a good herder establishes a symbiotic relationship. >> >> But back closer to the original line of thinking, the distinction >> between owning a "thing" (a packet of cheese made from the goat's milk >> or a hair-shirt spun and woven from their hair) and controlling the >> means of production (the herd, the territory within which they are >> herded/roam) still seems to be a meaningful one... maybe it is merely >> scale or quantity, but it feels like the extra level of indirection is >> important ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: capitalism vs. individualism
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles-2
Hi, Eric, Perfect. Both sides laid out to perfection. Now, at any given point, how do we tell which situation we are in? And if we are wanting to speak truth about both situations, what truths an we speak about a reassuring lie? To do “liberal” politics, we need “facts”. No, actually, we need facts. Or even Facts. We cannot commit to common future if we do not agree – or have a means of coming to agree – on present conditions, on how we might improve them, and on collective actions likely to make those improvements. What I see in much relativism is not fallibilism, which I endorse, but nihilistic fatalism**, which I deplore. I am not sure I can argue either for my endorsement OR my condemnation, but them’s my values. Nihilistic fatalism is endorsed opportunistically by people like Putin because, while they themselves are planning for the “inevitable” collapse, they are arguing that there is no future in planning. Nick . Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Eric Charles
You and your denial of William James's "Will to Believe"! I will grant you that the holding and crooning doesn't change the outcome when the plane is hurtling to the ground, no problem there. But of course it is quite possible that the holding and cooning DOES change the outcome for the child afraid of the goblin. More specifically, cuddling the child and telling them that everything is going to be all right is sometimes an essential causal element within the process by which things change from "not all right" to "all right." The fact that the goblin doesn't actually exist is a weird distraction from the fact that the parent's assertion of alright-ness is often essential for alright-ness to actually occur. Some interpretations are better than others... and some interpretations actually create the truth of the interpretations... based on the individual will of the actor/interpreter making it so.
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. American University - Adjunct Instructor On Fri, Nov 8, 2019 at 2:37 PM Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: capitalism vs. individualism
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Nick writes: <
What I see in much relativism is not fallibilism, which I endorse, but nihilistic fatalism**, which I deplore. I am not sure I can argue either for my endorsement OR my condemnation, but them’s my values. Nihilistic fatalism is
endorsed opportunistically by people like Putin because, while they themselves are planning for the “inevitable” collapse, they are arguing that there is no future in planning.
> IThere can be goals without ideology. I think a nihilist would also have to agree there is also no harm in one value system stomping on another value system since they are
both just value systems and so impoverished and arbitrary. In that spirit, a progressive can be a nihilist simply to collect a partial ordering of different kinds of premises that serve one defined purpose or another, without taking those purposes too seriously.
A nihilist might adopt a campaign slogan like Any Functioning Adult 2020, because the truly objectionable things are incompetence and stupidity. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: capitalism vs. individualism
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" A nihilist might adopt a campaign slogan like Any Functioning Adult 2020, because the truly objectionable things are incompetence and stupidity. " But there's the rub in this conversation. "Any Functioning Adult 2020" could be intended as a joke, pointing out that the current president is so incompetent that literally any functional adult would be better. OR, it could be a low-level nihilistic joke, made by someone who knows full well there are no functional adults in the race, and even if there were that person wouldn't be elected, and we are all going to die meaningless deaths no matter who wins. (I imagine that is what it sounds like translated into Russian, based on my deep love of Dostoevsky). BUT, neither of those positions is a relativist. The relativist asserts that competence-incompetence and stupid-smart have no tangible meaning. Who is competent and who isn't? Eh, it depends on your point of view, and no point of view is better than another. The designation of "competence" is a colonialist activity providing illusory justification for the marginalization already oppressed groups, and while it has a valence, it has no basis in "reality" (i.e., it is bad, you should stop doing it, and you should deeply hate yourself for ever having had done it). To label the president as incompetent is to inappropriately invalidate his way of being in the world; ways of being are all equally valid. Who is stupid and who isn't? Eh, it depends on your point of view, and no point of view is better than another..... If you believe that SOME people ARE competent and/or smart, then you can't be a relativist. If you believe there is still some chance that competent and smart people can make a difference, you are not a nihilist. Old Soviet Joke: A man walks into a shop and asks, "You wouldn't happen to have any fish, would you?". The shop assistant replies, "You've got it wrong – ours is a butcher's shop. We don't have any meat. You're looking for the fish shop across the road. There they don't have any fish!" ----------- Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist American University - Adjunct Instructor On Fri, Nov 15, 2019 at 12:13 AM Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: capitalism vs. individualism
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Nick mentioned earlier a concern about relativist talk in this thread. and Eric is using the term in his post. Lest hermeneuticism — a position I have been advocating — be confused/conflated with relativism (perhaps an unfounded fear), I wish to note the following: Hermeneutics (intellectual genealogy in previous post) asserts that all is interpretation. A corollary of that assertion is there are no "facts," no objective truths. A second corollary: there are no grounds to "privilege" one interpretation over another. (The point of deconstruction is, simply, exposure of the chain of interpretations and the reasons that they were adopted over alternatives.) A hermeneuticist would not assert that "competence-incompetence, stupid-smart" lack tangible meaning. Nor would they say that "no point of view (interpretation) is better than another. Of course, "better" is a matter of interpretation. Asserting that all is interpretation is an invitation to engage in a conversation about "meaning" or "reality" from a level playing field — i.e. absent any grant of privilege to one interpretation over another; and, any expectation that somewhere, somehow, even the most consensual and widely shared interpretation can, or will, morph into some kind of "fact" or "truth." davew On Fri, Nov 15, 2019, at 12:47 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
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Where does our resident hermeneuticist fit in the two following ideas?
On 11/15/19 6:53 AM, Prof David West
wrote:
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
Interesting. I'm trying to steel-man an argument I can infer from you. And for that, the best I can determine is similar to Marcus' comment before and seems to be about exploitation of others and, in particular, the boundaries between mutually beneficial versus exploitation. The goat herding, rent-seeking scooter service, dammed stream, and opportunity costs of car "sharing" all seem to target that boundary.
But that doesn't seem to be (directly) about *types* of property. I'd agree that your A-D are qualitatively different. The qualitative differences I see are types of influence, not types of property. A and B both drain energy from the stream, but use radically different manipulations. C and D share the harvested energy, but use radically different methods for the sharing. All 4 seem to deal with the same types of things. I suppose the money implied by C might be in a different category than all the other things (turbines, dams, power lines, tanks, whatever). And I believe most people who talk about "means of production" disinclude money from that. So, from a property perspective, it's reasonable for you to distinguish C from A,B,D. But that's not what you're implying. You're implying there's a qualitative difference between all of them. For that, my best attempt is to distinguish types of manipulation. Submerged turbines are clearly different from dams as ways to manipulate a stream. C vs D seem clearly different as ways to manipulate the ecology surrounding the stream. But the things being owned, called property don't seem different to me at all. So, I still think the difference between "private property" vs. "private means of production" is ill-formed or hiding some underlying paradigm that would be better expressed in another way. On 11/14/19 5:49 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:> A) I place a 1kW turbine in the stream running past my house and use the > electricity to do something I like or feel is important. > > B) I dam up the stream and place a 1kW (or 1mW) turbine, holding back > the water for later use, consequently denying the use/flow of that water > to others downstream. > > C) I do B *and* I set up a storage/transmission network for said > electricity which I then offer to sell/rent to others. > > D) I do B, but with the full agreement/cooperation of everyone > downstream of me and we share in the investment of time and other > resources and in the benefits. > > I'm trying to understand (with your help) what the *qualitative* > differences might be among these.... are they simply on a quantitative > continuum? Do they all require a strong egotist sense of "self"? Are > the distinctions I am trying to suggest simply illusions, or projections? -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Re: capitalism vs. individualism
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles-2
Eric writes: < If you believe there is still some chance that competent and smart people can make a difference, you are not a nihilist. > It depends on what is meant by difference. A moral nihilist can pose the question “What kind of world do you want to live in?” There can be indirect and non-obvious consequences of preferences, and those are worth talking about
to a moral nihilist. That said, it is also just fine if those consequences include cruelty provided that consequence was anticipated and controlled-for. Does the target of the cruelty have goals contrary to the goals of my group, and does employing cruelty
weaken or strengthen the opponent on a horizon I care about? Perhaps for some (Putin?) sadism is part of the fun. It’s just about risks and rewards. Marcus From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Eric Charles <[hidden email]>
But there's the rub in this conversation. "Any Functioning Adult 2020" could be intended as a joke, pointing out that the current president is so incompetent that literally any functional adult would be better. OR, it could be a low-level
nihilistic joke, made by someone who knows full well there are no functional adults in the race, and even if there were that person wouldn't be elected, and we are all going to die meaningless deaths no matter who wins. (I imagine that is what it sounds like
translated into Russian, based on my deep love of Dostoevsky). BUT, neither of those positions is a relativist. The relativist asserts that competence-incompetence and stupid-smart have no tangible meaning. Who is competent and who isn't? Eh, it depends on your point of view, and no point of view is better than another. The designation of "competence" is a colonialist activity providing illusory justification for the marginalization already
oppressed groups, and while it has a valence, it has no basis in "reality" (i.e., it is bad, you should stop doing it, and you should deeply hate yourself for ever having had done it). To label the president as incompetent is to inappropriately invalidate
his way of being in the world; ways of being are all equally valid. Who is stupid and who isn't? Eh, it depends on your point of view, and no point of view is better than another..... If you believe that SOME people ARE competent and/or smart, then you can't be a relativist. If you believe there is still some chance that competent and smart people can make a difference, you are not a nihilist. Old Soviet Joke: A man walks into a shop and asks, "You wouldn't happen to have any fish, would you?". The shop assistant replies, "You've got it wrong – ours is a butcher's shop. We don't have any meat. You're looking for the fish shop
across the road. There they don't have any fish!" ----------- Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. American University - Adjunct Instructor On Fri, Nov 15, 2019 at 12:13 AM Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles-2
One thing the responses to your post haven't mentioned is that you flatten (or "thin" or "reduce") relativism to its most simple form. I find people tend to do this with pluralism, as well. And I think Marcus does a nice job of showing that nihilism isn't as thin as we may think, either.
Since I care most about pluralism, I'll make my argument there. A pluralist isn't required to believe in an infinity of things, only more than 1 thing. E.g., to my mind, those who believe the standard model's particle zoo is a problem may *still* be pluralists. But there's just too many fundamental objects. So, let's unify them down to, say, 3 things. But we don't necessarily have to unify them down to 1 thing. Of course, pluralists need not be discretists, either. So, there's nothing special about 1 vs 2. What fractal dimension *should* have taught us is that there are probably competent ways to model reality that allow for, say, 1.001 fundamental types of thing ... or 13.7 or whatever. Oversimplification is a risk for any -ism unifier. And it seems like you've done that for relativism. On 11/15/19 3:47 AM, Eric Charles wrote: > The relativist asserts that competence-incompetence and stupid-smart have no tangible meaning. > > Who is competent and who isn't? Eh, it depends on your point of view, and no point of view is better than another. The designation of "competence" is a colonialist activity providing illusory justification for the marginalization already oppressed groups, and while it has a valence, it has no basis in "reality" (i.e., it is bad, you should stop doing it, and you should deeply hate yourself for ever having had done it). To label the president as incompetent is to inappropriately invalidate his way of being in the world; ways of being are all equally valid. > > Who is stupid and who isn't? Eh, it depends on your point of view, and no point of view is better than another..... > > If you believe that SOME people ARE competent and/or smart, then you can't be a relativist. If you believe there is still some chance that competent and smart people can make a difference, you are not a nihilist. > > Old Soviet Joke: A man walks into a shop and asks, "You wouldn't happen to have any fish, would you?". The shop assistant replies, "You've got it wrong – ours is a butcher's shop. We don't have any meat. You're looking for the fish shop across the road. There they don't have any fish!" -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Re: flattening -isms (was: capitalism vs. individualism)
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I just bought a book for a Dutch friend - 1001 Beers. On Fri, Nov 15, 2019, at 6:15 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
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Ha! You raise two excellent points:
1) Is "a beer" a portion of a given volume or a massive noun? https://youtu.be/cf0y2pVw6Tk Or perhaps it refers to different batches, distinguished by the process (ingredients, mash, boil, distribution)? But what if you're a macro brewery and your quality control is so tight that there's almost 0 difference between batches? 2) Would a monist object to the idea that we could distinguish a 1.001 pluralist from a 1001 pluralist? After all the only difference between having 1001 types of thing and 1.001 types of thing is scaling. So, the real difference would be spectral pluralist vs. continuum pluralist. So, we'd need to find a pluralist who thought there were an irrational number of thing types. This episode was rather nice: "Does Life Need a Multiverse to Exist?" <https://youtu.be/YmOVoIpaPrc?t=404> Up to that point, he's relying on an intuitive orthogonality between the forces and constants ... a typical misunderstanding of the "fine-tuning" argument. He goes on (from the time I included in the URL) to hint at the unified, *relational* sense of the argument. And he mentions it specifically later, I think in talking about how string theory tries to generate the different properties from the One True Substance. 8^) On 11/15/19 12:31 PM, Prof David West wrote: > I just bought a book for a Dutch friend - 1001 Beers. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Channeling Hywel, I hope accurately: There is no irrational number of things of any type in the Universe ----------------------------------- Frank Wimberly My memoir: https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly My scientific publications: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2 Phone (505) 670-9918 On Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 7:52 AM glen∈ℂ <[hidden email]> wrote: Ha! You raise two excellent points: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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I don't know this Hywel person. But number of things of a type is different from number of types of thing. 8^) Unless types of a thing are also things of a type. Channeling a modern teenager: That's so meta, dude.
On 11/17/19 6:55 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote: > Channeling Hywel, I hope accurately: There is no irrational number of > things of any type in the Universe ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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In reply to this post by Frank Wimberly-2
My ratiocination: "There are two kinds of people. Those who believe there are
an irrational number of types of things, and those who don't."
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In reply to this post by gepr
Yes, I meant to say including the types type. ----------------------------------- Frank Wimberly My memoir: https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly My scientific publications: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2 Phone (505) 670-9918 On Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 8:02 AM glen∈ℂ <[hidden email]> wrote: I don't know this Hywel person. But number of things of a type is different from number of types of thing. 8^) Unless types of a thing are also things of a type. Channeling a modern teenager: That's so meta, dude. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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Hywel was an experimental particle physicist and a regular Friam attendee. He had been a professor at Penn and Cornell and a group leader at Los Alamos. Once he said to me, "the number one does not exist". He meant that there is nothing that is precisely one centimeter long, for example. I asked him, "How many biological mothers did you have?" I don't have enough time to repeat his answer. Frank ----------------------------------- Frank Wimberly My memoir: https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly My scientific publications: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2 Phone (505) 670-9918 On Sun, Nov 17, 2019, 8:31 AM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:
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