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hot time in town tonight

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Prof David West

hot time in town tonight

Epoch Times Big Data Report August 2020

Gun sales up 133% over same three month time frame of 2019.

12 % of registered Democrats bought guns this period

19% of Republicans

22% of those ages 18-29

21% Black

32% Union Members

19% Urbanites

19% of those earning over $200K/yr

1.8 million guns sold in July alone

more than 423 million fire arms owned by civilians

18 million AR-15 in circulation (personal comment — probably just as many illegal full auto kits)

gun to people ration 5/3

That's the gasoline. RGB replacement will be the spark.

davew

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thompnickson2

Re: hot time in town tonight

And why does this give you pleasure?

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2020 4:41 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] hot time in town tonight

Epoch Times Big Data Report August 2020

Gun sales up 133% over same three month time frame of 2019.

12 % of registered Democrats bought guns this period

19% of Republicans

22% of those ages 18-29

21% Black

32% Union Members

19% Urbanites

19% of those earning over $200K/yr

1.8 million guns sold in July alone

more than 423 million fire arms owned by civilians

18 million AR-15 in circulation (personal comment — probably just as many illegal full auto kits)

gun to people ration 5/3

That's the gasoline. RGB replacement will be the spark.

davew

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: hot time in town tonight

In reply to this post by Prof David West

I would rather by that 49” monitor I have my eye on, etc. but whatever. I know how to buy stuff.

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2020 3:41 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] hot time in town tonight

Epoch Times Big Data Report August 2020

Gun sales up 133% over same three month time frame of 2019.

12 % of registered Democrats bought guns this period

19% of Republicans

22% of those ages 18-29

21% Black

32% Union Members

19% Urbanites

19% of those earning over $200K/yr

1.8 million guns sold in July alone

more than 423 million fire arms owned by civilians

18 million AR-15 in circulation (personal comment — probably just as many illegal full auto kits)

gun to people ration 5/3

That's the gasoline. RGB replacement will be the spark.

davew

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: hot time in town tonight

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

In the U.S., WWII deaths were about 400k, civil war deaths about 750k and the 1918 influenza was about 675k deaths.

Current COVID-19 January 1 estimate from IHME is 378k deaths, and there’s no reason to think that’s the end yet.

All of a sudden people are going to shoot each other at this kind of scale and we’ll have a problem bigger than COVID-19 or that millions of acres have gone up in smoke or that the Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers are coming apart at their seams? People will do what they do.

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of [hidden email]
Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2020 4:20 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] hot time in town tonight

And why does this give you pleasure?

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2020 4:41 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] hot time in town tonight

Epoch Times Big Data Report August 2020

Gun sales up 133% over same three month time frame of 2019.

12 % of registered Democrats bought guns this period

19% of Republicans

22% of those ages 18-29

21% Black

32% Union Members

19% Urbanites

19% of those earning over $200K/yr

1.8 million guns sold in July alone

more than 423 million fire arms owned by civilians

18 million AR-15 in circulation (personal comment — probably just as many illegal full auto kits)

gun to people ration 5/3

That's the gasoline. RGB replacement will be the spark.

davew

Prof David West

Re: hot time in town tonight

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

It does not.

The data "came to me" in that it was in something else I was reading for purpose; I did not seek it out. At the same time, I was reading headlines about "burn it down before they can vote," or "Hell no! By any means possible," or "the time for talk and politics is past." This , in turn, generates scenarios that would have been inconceivable yesterday.

I often feel like the character Benny Noakes in a John Brunner novel> He is out of his mind on hallucinogens, sits in front of a TV watching the news and constantly utters the phrase, "Christ, what an imagination I've got." All this "stuff" is so weird, so extreme, it beggars explanation or sense making — it must be my imagination.

A bit of Marcus's fatalism, 'people gonna do what they do', some vestige of I told you so, no pleasure.

davew

On Sat, Sep 19, 2020, at 5:20 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

And why does this give you pleasure?

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2020 4:41 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] hot time in town tonight

Epoch Times Big Data Report August 2020

Gun sales up 133% over same three month time frame of 2019.

12 % of registered Democrats bought guns this period
19% of Republicans
22% of those ages 18-29
21% Black
32% Union Members
19% Urbanites
19% of those earning over $200K/yr
1.8 million guns sold in July alone
more than 423 million fire arms owned by civilians
18 million AR-15 in circulation (personal comment — probably just as many illegal full auto kits)
gun to people ration 5/3

That's the gasoline. RGB replacement will be the spark.

davew
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
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Steve Smith

Re: hot time in town tonight

Dave -

I will take your claim that you do not enjoy this at face value, yet your voice is not dissimilar to the many who seem to be enjoying Schaden/Cassandra-Freude. I take you to be a "fellow traveler" amongst travelers here, albeit along your own particular (perhaps peculiar to many) winding path.

and yet, like Noakes, it does seem to be the collective destination we have/are chosen/choosing? Either by our actions or by our inaction.

As a former member of a strong gun and self-reliant culture (the former an extension of the latter?) I am quite familiar with the feeling that somehow the collective is not to be trusted or is failing me in spite of my implicit trust in it, and the instinct to pour all my resources into scoping down my survival unit to something that seems manageable (e.g. nuclear family, individual). I believe that most refugees, for example, have made that decision by the time they flee their homeland for a "promised land" or at least one where their survival does not seem unlikely.

And yet, as Glen alludes and I *try* to gesture toward, we are also social animals who need other social animals. Our modern technology gives us the illusion that we can survive alone, and perhaps even neolithic hunter-gatherers could do so with their "advanced technology" for obtaining meet, processing animal parts into more tools, weapons, and clothing, shelter. But this siren call to hyper-individualism needs to be just one voice in a self-similar symphony at many scales.

It feels as if humanity is convulsing toward a pseudo manifest destiny of having a role in the universe trying (replace the teliologic "trying" with a more apt term "self-organizing") to become self-aware. Whatever the negEntropy path we seem to be a part of, it feels as if we are in an acutely near-chaos moment. What we are up to feels to be an epitome of Lewin's "Life at the edge of Chaos".

Are we on the verge of a Kurzweilian Singularity or perhaps one of the many Utopian/Dystopian futures lined out by the speculative fiction writers of the past century or two? A cultural efflorescence or an apocalyptic collapse?

And more to the point, does our opinion, our ideas, our will have anything to do with our path into that future?

- Steve

It does not.

The data "came to me" in that it was in something else I was reading for purpose; I did not seek it out. At the same time, I was reading headlines about "burn it down before they can vote," or "Hell no! By any means possible," or "the time for talk and politics is past." This , in turn, generates scenarios that would have been inconceivable yesterday.

I often feel like the character Benny Noakes in a John Brunner novel> He is out of his mind on hallucinogens, sits in front of a TV watching the news and constantly utters the phrase, "Christ, what an imagination I've got." All this "stuff" is so weird, so extreme, it beggars explanation or sense making — it must be my imagination.

A bit of Marcus's fatalism, 'people gonna do what they do', some vestige of I told you so, no pleasure.

davew

On Sat, Sep 19, 2020, at 5:20 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

And why does this give you pleasure?

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Prof David West

Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2020 4:41 PM

To: [hidden email]

Subject: [FRIAM] hot time in town tonight

Epoch Times Big Data Report August 2020

Gun sales up 133% over same three month time frame of 2019.

12 % of registered Democrats bought guns this period

19% of Republicans

22% of those ages 18-29

21% Black

32% Union Members

19% Urbanites

19% of those earning over $200K/yr

1.8 million guns sold in July alone

more than 423 million fire arms owned by civilians

18 million AR-15 in circulation (personal comment — probably just as many illegal full auto kits)

gun to people ration 5/3

That's the gasoline. RGB replacement will be the spark.

davew

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam

un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: hot time in town tonight

Steve writes:

“A cultural efflorescence or an apocalyptic collapse?”

It is not clear to me these options need to be mutually exclusive.

Marcus

Prof David West

Re: hot time in town tonight

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

Steve,

You are probably the only person on the list who has read the Brunner novel and knows Benny. He definitely "enjoys" his time tripping and watching the news. I definitely enjoy reading dystopian novels or watching dystopian movies (BladeRunner) and there is an analog when I watch the world fall apart, but it is a very "distant" / "disassociated" kind of enjoyment. I like and enjoy interesting complex things I would hate a heaven that consisted of endless bliss and singing hosannas.

Wouldst that things be different? Yes. Intervention possible? Yes, but of a specific kind. Is the important question individual vesus social? No.

I would agree with Marcus, if I read his response correctly, that cultural efflorescence and apocalyptic collapse are not mutually exclusive. In fact, in my opinion, the last is the only means for achieving the first.

I am reminded of an Erma Bombeck title: "The Grass is Always Greener Above the Septic Tank." Life flourishes in near chaos, the decadent, the near chaotic. The Los Angeles of Bladerunner or the budayeen of George Alex Effinger's novels.

I hear people around me referring to the Burning of California, COVID, Trumpism, etc. etc. as "signs of the endtimes." To me they are necessary, if unfortunate, preconditions for rebirth, for efflorescence. And that rebirth will be what it will, not something that can be planned and managed, however smart and well intentioned we might, collectively, be.

dave west

On Sun, Sep 20, 2020, at 8:58 AM, Steve Smith wrote:

Dave -
I will take your claim that you do not enjoy this at face value, yet your voice is not dissimilar to the many who seem to be enjoying Schaden/Cassandra-Freude.   I take you to be a "fellow traveler" amongst travelers here, albeit along your own particular (perhaps peculiar to many) winding path.
and yet, like Noakes, it does seem to be the collective destination we have/are chosen/choosing? Either by our actions or by our inaction.
As a former member of a strong gun and self-reliant culture (the former an extension of the latter?) I am quite familiar with the feeling that somehow the collective is not to be trusted or is failing me in spite of my implicit trust in it, and the instinct to pour all my resources into scoping down my survival unit to something that seems manageable (e.g. nuclear family, individual). I believe that most refugees, for example, have made that decision by the time they flee their homeland for a "promised land" or at least one where their survival does not seem unlikely.
And yet, as Glen alludes and I *try* to gesture toward, we are also social animals who need other social animals.   Our modern technology gives us the illusion that we can survive alone, and perhaps even neolithic hunter-gatherers could do so with their "advanced technology" for obtaining meet, processing animal parts into more tools, weapons, and clothing, shelter.   But this siren call to hyper-individualism needs to be just one voice in a self-similar symphony at many scales.
It feels as if humanity is convulsing toward a pseudo manifest destiny of having a role in the universe trying (replace the teliologic "trying" with a more apt term "self-organizing") to become self-aware.    Whatever the negEntropy path we seem to be a part of, it feels as if we are in an acutely near-chaos moment. What we are up to feels to be an epitome of Lewin's "Life at the edge of Chaos".
Are we on the verge of a Kurzweilian Singularity or perhaps one of the many Utopian/Dystopian futures lined out by the speculative fiction writers of the past century or two?   A cultural efflorescence or an apocalyptic collapse?
And more to the point, does our opinion, our ideas, our will have anything to do with our path into that future?
- Steve
It does not.

The data "came to me" in that it was in something else I was reading for purpose; I did not seek it out. At the same time, I was reading headlines about "burn it down before they can vote," or "Hell no! By any means possible," or "the time for talk and politics is past." This , in turn, generates scenarios that would have been inconceivable yesterday.

I often feel like the character Benny Noakes in a John Brunner novel> He is out of his mind on hallucinogens, sits in front of a TV watching the news and constantly utters the phrase, "Christ, what an imagination I've got." All this "stuff" is so weird, so extreme, it beggars explanation or sense making — it must be my imagination.

A bit of Marcus's fatalism, 'people gonna do what they do', some vestige of I told you so, no pleasure.

davew

On Sat, Sep 19, 2020, at 5:20 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
And why does this give you pleasure?

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

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2020 4:41 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] hot time in town tonight

Epoch Times Big Data Report August 2020

Gun sales up 133% over same three month time frame of 2019.

12 % of registered Democrats bought guns this period
19% of Republicans
22% of those ages 18-29
21% Black
32% Union Members
19% Urbanites
19% of those earning over $200K/yr
1.8 million guns sold in July alone
more than 423 million fire arms owned by civilians
18 million AR-15 in circulation (personal comment — probably just as many illegal full auto kits)
gun to people ration 5/3

That's the gasoline. RGB replacement will be the spark.

davew
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: hot time in town tonight

Ha, I wasn’t thinking of the septic tank I thought of earthworms: Earthworms are not the cause of healthy soil, but they can be found where there is healthy soil. Trump is like the mustard powder that makes ‘em come to the surface.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/01/jumping-worms-are-taking-over-north-american-forests/605257/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2020 10:53 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] hot time in town tonight

Steve,

Wouldst that things be different? Yes. Intervention possible? Yes, but of a specific kind. Is the important question individual vesus social? No.

dave west

On Sun, Sep 20, 2020, at 8:58 AM, Steve Smith wrote:

Dave -

I will take your claim that you do not enjoy this at face value, yet your voice is not dissimilar to the many who seem to be enjoying Schaden/Cassandra-Freude.   I take you to be a "fellow traveler" amongst travelers here, albeit along your own particular (perhaps peculiar to many) winding path.

and yet, like Noakes, it does seem to be the collective destination we have/are chosen/choosing? Either by our actions or by our inaction.

As a former member of a strong gun and self-reliant culture (the former an extension of the latter?) I am quite familiar with the feeling that somehow the collective is not to be trusted or is failing me in spite of my implicit trust in it, and the instinct to pour all my resources into scoping down my survival unit to something that seems manageable (e.g. nuclear family, individual). I believe that most refugees, for example, have made that decision by the time they flee their homeland for a "promised land" or at least one where their survival does not seem unlikely.

And yet, as Glen alludes and I *try* to gesture toward, we are also social animals who need other social animals.   Our modern technology gives us the illusion that we can survive alone, and perhaps even neolithic hunter-gatherers could do so with their "advanced technology" for obtaining meet, processing animal parts into more tools, weapons, and clothing, shelter.   But this siren call to hyper-individualism needs to be just one voice in a self-similar symphony at many scales.

It feels as if humanity is convulsing toward a pseudo manifest destiny of having a role in the universe trying (replace the teliologic "trying" with a more apt term "self-organizing") to become self-aware.    Whatever the negEntropy path we seem to be a part of, it feels as if we are in an acutely near-chaos moment. What we are up to feels to be an epitome of Lewin's "Life at the edge of Chaos".

Are we on the verge of a Kurzweilian Singularity or perhaps one of the many Utopian/Dystopian futures lined out by the speculative fiction writers of the past century or two?   A cultural efflorescence or an apocalyptic collapse?

And more to the point, does our opinion, our ideas, our will have anything to do with our path into that future?

- Steve
It does not.

The data "came to me" in that it was in something else I was reading for purpose; I did not seek it out. At the same time, I was reading headlines about "burn it down before they can vote," or "Hell no! By any means possible," or "the time for talk and politics is past." This , in turn, generates scenarios that would have been inconceivable yesterday.

I often feel like the character Benny Noakes in a John Brunner novel> He is out of his mind on hallucinogens, sits in front of a TV watching the news and constantly utters the phrase, "Christ, what an imagination I've got." All this "stuff" is so weird, so extreme, it beggars explanation or sense making — it must be my imagination.

A bit of Marcus's fatalism, 'people gonna do what they do', some vestige of I told you so, no pleasure.

davew

On Sat, Sep 19, 2020, at 5:20 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

And why does this give you pleasure?

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Prof David West

Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2020 4:41 PM

To: [hidden email]

Subject: [FRIAM] hot time in town tonight

Epoch Times Big Data Report August 2020

Gun sales up 133% over same three month time frame of 2019.

12 % of registered Democrats bought guns this period

19% of Republicans

22% of those ages 18-29

21% Black

32% Union Members

19% Urbanites

19% of those earning over $200K/yr

1.8 million guns sold in July alone

more than 423 million fire arms owned by civilians

18 million AR-15 in circulation (personal comment — probably just as many illegal full auto kits)

gun to people ration 5/3

That's the gasoline. RGB replacement will be the spark.

davew

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam

un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 
 
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam

un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

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Steve Smith

Re: hot time in town tonight

In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels

“A cultural efflorescence or an apocalyptic collapse?”

It is not clear to me these options need to be mutually exclusive.

Marcus

I agree heartily... there are many paths... in the very weak ensemble study (10,000 scenarios) we did before Stockholm last year, using the World2 SD model, we found a strong positive correlation between a high per-capita GDP in the year 2100 and a peak in human population sooner rather than later. Not terribly surprising I suppose?

Per Capita GDP is in no way a progressive measure of life, liberty, or the pursuit of slap-happiness but the most obvious one in World2 and the population peak (soon) could alternatively represent a thoughtful and significantly pervasive global negative population growth, or an apocalyptic collapse following a sharp increase in population (or some other manner of overrun of resources).

I'm sure buried in that 10,000 high-dimensional points, are some trajectories where an efflorescence magically *precedes* an apocalyptic collapse, but I'm guessing that the bulk are ordered just the opposite.

And of course, from the point of view of the bulk of the biosphere, a human collapse (all the way to zero population?) might represent a "best case scenario" as many species *did* seem to enjoy the quietude of human activity in April-May 2020.

gepr

Re: hot time in town tonight

It seems to me that both 'states' are delusional. What if the distinction between apocalyptic state and an efflorescent state is illusory and simply a function of one's perspective? I.e. every single happy thing faces apocalypse every time the shit hits the SteveS ... I mean, the fan 8^D ... and every stressed thing faces the efflorescent every time the shit hits the fan? One person's collapse is another's maximal opportunity? And further, the shit is always hitting the fan. But the privileged don't *notice* because the transition is from one efflorescent state to another, for them. That implies a 2nd order apocalypse/efflorescence ... patterns within patterns.

On September 20, 2020 3:23:43 PM PDT, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

>a
>>
>> “A cultural efflorescence or an apocalyptic collapse?”
>>
>> It is not clear to me these options need to be mutually exclusive.
>>
>> Marcus
>>
>I agree heartily... there are many paths... in the very weak ensemble
>study (10,000 scenarios) we did before Stockholm last year, using the
>World2 SD model, we found a strong positive correlation between a high
>per-capita GDP in the year 2100 and a peak in human population sooner
>rather than later. Not terribly surprising I suppose?
>
>Per Capita GDP is in no way a progressive measure of life, liberty, or
>the pursuit of slap-happiness but the most obvious one in World2 and
>the
>population peak (soon) could alternatively represent a thoughtful and
>significantly pervasive global negative population growth, or an
>apocalyptic collapse following a sharp increase in population (or some
>other manner of overrun of resources).
>
>I'm sure buried in that 10,000 high-dimensional points, are some
>trajectories where an efflorescence magically *precedes* an apocalyptic
>collapse, but I'm guessing that the bulk are ordered just the opposite.
>
>And of course, from the point of view of the bulk of the biosphere, a
>human collapse (all the way to zero population?) might represent a
>"best
>case scenario" as many species *did* seem to enjoy the quietude of
>human
>activity in April-May 2020.

uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Steve Smith

Re: hot time in town tonight

> It seems to me that both 'states' are delusional.
Both do seem to be *projections* of *value* onto "is what is"...
> What if the distinction between apocalyptic state and an efflorescent state is illusory and simply a function of one's perspective? I.e. every single happy thing faces apocalypse every time the shit hits the SteveS ... I mean, the fan 8^D ... and every stressed thing faces the efflorescent every time the shit hits the fan? One person's collapse is another's maximal opportunity? And further, the shit is always hitting the fan. But the privileged don't *notice* because the transition is from one efflorescent state to another, for them. That implies a 2nd order apocalypse/efflorescence ... patterns within patterns.

Every Utopia is also a Dystopia...

I don't know that I've engaged much in the larger discussions of
"meaning" here (except in my head and maybe even deleted missives),
being out of my Pearcean Depth and all, but what *can* we say about
values (or the quality and sense of what we concern ourselves with?),
relative or otherwise?   I personally try to scope the subject of my
"concern" as wide as I know how to, but I also recognize that when
stressed that tends to shrink back toward a point centered somewhere in
the dark heart of my ego, and I tend to assume the same happens to
others as well, with different contexts, inputs, assumptions, etc.

Here we are, being "Life at the Edge of Chaos" which is, of course a
ragged, structure-at-all-scales, etc. (fractal) "edge" and as we think
that we have pushed ourselves right up to that edge, we discover there
are other dimensions and hair-splittings that let us get closer to, or
more to the point, resolve a finer edge.

- Steve

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: hot time in town tonight

In reply to this post by gepr

Up until all human life is gone, I think there are still reasonable definitions for apocalyptic even though there will be opportunities for someone all the way down. We could disagree, I suppose, if some transhuman is created during this period.. was that the apocalypse or the birth?

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of ? glen
Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2020 4:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] hot time in town tonight

It seems to me that both 'states' are delusional. What if the distinction between apocalyptic state and an efflorescent state is illusory and simply a function of one's perspective? I.e. every single happy thing faces apocalypse every time the shit hits the SteveS ... I mean, the fan 8^D ... and every stressed thing faces the efflorescent every time the shit hits the fan? One person's collapse is another's maximal opportunity? And further, the shit is always hitting the fan. But the privileged don't *notice* because the transition is from one efflorescent state to another, for them. That implies a 2nd order apocalypse/efflorescence ... patterns within patterns.

On September 20, 2020 3:23:43 PM PDT, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

>a
>>
>> “A cultural efflorescence or an apocalyptic collapse?”
>>
>> It is not clear to me these options need to be mutually exclusive.
>>
>> Marcus
>>
>I agree heartily... there are many paths... in the very weak ensemble
>study (10,000 scenarios) we did before Stockholm last year, using the
>World2 SD model, we found a strong positive correlation between a high
>per-capita GDP in the year 2100 and a peak in human population sooner
>rather than later. Not terribly surprising I suppose?
>
>Per Capita GDP is in no way a progressive measure of life, liberty, or
>the pursuit of slap-happiness but the most obvious one in World2 and
>the population peak (soon) could alternatively represent a thoughtful
>and significantly pervasive global negative population growth, or an
>apocalyptic collapse following a sharp increase in population (or some
>other manner of overrun of resources).
>
>I'm sure buried in that 10,000 high-dimensional points, are some
>trajectories where an efflorescence magically *precedes* an apocalyptic
>collapse, but I'm guessing that the bulk are ordered just the opposite.
>
>And of course, from the point of view of the bulk of the biosphere, a
>human collapse (all the way to zero population?) might represent a
>"best case scenario" as many species *did* seem to enjoy the quietude
>of human activity in April-May 2020.

--
glen ⛧

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gepr

Re: hot time in town tonight

Steve's comment about dynamic scoping is relevant. A reasonable objective meaning for "apocalypse" will need to specify some sort of scope. We have a steady stream of apocalypses, insects, honey bees, species overall, indigenous people, monoculture collapses, dramatic increases of homeless camps, etc. Shrink the scope to the individual and we get closer to episodic personalities, the new age self-help celebrity culture that leads directly to Trump, run amok. We see people cathartically apocalypsing on camera every day and they've been on camera since (at least) Big Brother launched 2 decades ago. Such melodrama isn't new. To be "presentist" and/or "localist" and assert that *our* melodrama *here* is somehow more apocalyptic than the melodrama of yesteryear or elsewhere seems too self-centered to be credible.

I suppose one could make an argument in the form of renormalizing an infinite number of variables. Let's imagine society is describable by an infinitely long math expression (a right hand side only, not implying an equation), where each term has a coefficient, modifying its contribution to whatever set of composition functions the expression uses (+,⨂,⊙, …). But at any given time or locale only a finite number of the coefficients have non-zero value. Then we can think of an apocalypse (or efflorescence) might be a shift in which coefficients have zero values. Maybe the number of non-zero coefficients shrinks (or grows, respectively). Maybe a discrete event might happen to zero out all the non-zero terms and non-zero another set of zeroed terms. Or maybe non-zero-ness smoothly flows around the coefficients. IDK. But if you think this way, words like "apocalypse" kinda lose their intensity.

On 9/20/20 7:03 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Up until all human life is gone, I think there are still reasonable definitions for apocalyptic even though there will be opportunities for someone all the way down. We could disagree, I suppose, if some transhuman is created during this period.. was that the apocalypse or the birth?

On 9/20/20 5:16 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

>
> Every Utopia is also a Dystopia...
>
> I don't know that I've engaged much in the larger discussions of
> "meaning" here (except in my head and maybe even deleted missives),
> being out of my Pearcean Depth and all, but what *can* we say about
> values (or the quality and sense of what we concern ourselves with?),
> relative or otherwise? I personally try to scope the subject of my
> "concern" as wide as I know how to, but I also recognize that when
> stressed that tends to shrink back toward a point centered somewhere in
> the dark heart of my ego, and I tend to assume the same happens to
> others as well, with different contexts, inputs, assumptions, etc.
>
> Here we are, being "Life at the Edge of Chaos" which is, of course a
> ragged, structure-at-all-scales, etc. (fractal) "edge" and as we think
> that we have pushed ourselves right up to that edge, we discover there
> are other dimensions and hair-splittings that let us get closer to, or
> more to the point, resolve a finer edge.

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: hot time in town tonight

Glen writes:

< I suppose one could make an argument in the form of renormalizing an infinite number of variables. Let's imagine society is describable by an infinitely long math expression (a right hand side only, not implying an equation), where each term has a coefficient, modifying its contribution to whatever set of composition functions the expression uses (+,⨂,⊙, …). But at any given time or locale only a finite number of the coefficients have non-zero value. Then we can think of an apocalypse (or efflorescence) might be a shift in which coefficients have zero values. Maybe the number of non-zero coefficients shrinks (or grows, respectively). Maybe a discrete event might happen to zero out all the non-zero terms and non-zero another set of zeroed terms. Or maybe non-zero-ness smoothly flows around the coefficients. IDK. But if you think this way, words like "apocalypse" kinda lose their intensity. >

The relatively high-level composition functions might involve, say, actions of the government, and the relatively low-level the functioning of a calcium pump. Counting those functions that involve humans as distinct from other material or forms of life is arbitrary but if all those functions became un-callable due to typing considerations, then that's one way to define an apocalypse: Everyone is dead. If the economy collapses completely, or it becomes impossible to feed most people, that might also reasonably be labeled an apocalypse. (Simply tabulating what is human-involved means tracking the dynamics of things: Unwinding the stack of those compositions and doing attribution, that is hard by itself.) One could do broader attribution to count other species, like with the Chicxulub impactor. I was thinking more on the boundary of extinction when those that have the awareness to fight or flight do so, and that is an indicator of their general fitness.

On the other hand, if there are variations in the number of highly-correlated deep compositions versus less-correlated deep compositions, that seems more in the realm of politics. Serious but not apocalyptic.

Marcus
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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: hot time in town tonight

"In The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt argues that totalitarian rule is truly possible only in countries that are large enough to be able to afford depopulation."

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/09/02/dying-russians/

I can think of one.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2020 1:31 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] hot time in town tonight

Glen writes:

< I suppose one could make an argument in the form of renormalizing an infinite number of variables. Let's imagine society is describable by an infinitely long math expression (a right hand side only, not implying an equation), where each term has a coefficient, modifying its contribution to whatever set of composition functions the expression uses (+,⨂,⊙, …). But at any given time or locale only a finite number of the coefficients have non-zero value. Then we can think of an apocalypse (or efflorescence) might be a shift in which coefficients have zero values. Maybe the number of non-zero coefficients shrinks (or grows, respectively). Maybe a discrete event might happen to zero out all the non-zero terms and non-zero another set of zeroed terms. Or maybe non-zero-ness smoothly flows around the coefficients. IDK. But if you think this way, words like "apocalypse" kinda lose their intensity. >

The relatively high-level composition functions might involve, say, actions of the government, and the relatively low-level the functioning of a calcium pump. Counting those functions that involve humans as distinct from other material or forms of life is arbitrary but if all those functions became un-callable due to typing considerations, then that's one way to define an apocalypse: Everyone is dead. If the economy collapses completely, or it becomes impossible to feed most people, that might also reasonably be labeled an apocalypse. (Simply tabulating what is human-involved means tracking the dynamics of things: Unwinding the stack of those compositions and doing attribution, that is hard by itself.) One could do broader attribution to count other species, like with the Chicxulub impactor. I was thinking more on the boundary of extinction when those that have the awareness to fight or flight do so, and that is an indicator of their general fitness.

On the other hand, if there are variations in the number of highly-correlated deep compositions versus less-correlated deep compositions, that seems more in the realm of politics. Serious but not apocalyptic.

Marcus
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gepr

Re: hot time in town tonight

In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels

Excellent points! I was thinking mostly about the coefficients. But of course there's no reason the functions can't also evolve. I suppose classifying apocalypsing into categories begs us to ask what society does, what it's for, what its consequences are. Going back to the idea that some non-human animals form [proto]societies, it seems to me like the social animals have mechanisms to modulate their rate of evolution ... like a software solution to a hardware limitation. If we imagine we're living in a simulation, then society might simply be a way to *sample* the space of possible organizations faster, to try out more ways of doing things. You set things up, run it forward, if it sucks, wipe and start over. But there are different *kinds* of wipe, different distributions to sample, and different run-up/boosting methods to use to target a sub-region. A type violation sounds like an edge case. If the functions do have fungible or *-order Markovian dynamic signatures, then society could do a semi-wipe to eliminate dead-end ephemerides like neoliberalism without eliminating more structured forms. While an apocalypse for Wall Street and rent-seeking would percolate out a LOT of pain and death, it may leave a kind of cauterized lesion from which other forms might grow.

On 9/22/20 1:30 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> The relatively high-level composition functions might involve, say, actions of the government, and the relatively low-level the functioning of a calcium pump. Counting those functions that involve humans as distinct from other material or forms of life is arbitrary but if all those functions became un-callable due to typing considerations, then that's one way to define an apocalypse: Everyone is dead. If the economy collapses completely, or it becomes impossible to feed most people, that might also reasonably be labeled an apocalypse. (Simply tabulating what is human-involved means tracking the dynamics of things: Unwinding the stack of those compositions and doing attribution, that is hard by itself.) One could do broader attribution to count other species, like with the Chicxulub impactor. I was thinking more on the boundary of extinction when those that have the awareness to fight or flight do so, and that is an indicator of their general fitness.
>
> On the other hand, if there are variations in the number of highly-correlated deep compositions versus less-correlated deep compositions, that seems more in the realm of politics. Serious but not apocalyptic.

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gepr

Re: hot time in town tonight

In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels

That's the quote you pulled? I much prefer this one: "She theorizes that drinking is, for what its worth, an instrument of adapting to the harsh reality and sense of worthlessness that would otherwise make one want to curl up and die." >8^D I'll mention that to my Oncologist the next time she gives me a hard time about my drinking.

On 9/22/20 2:42 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>
> "In The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt argues that totalitarian rule is truly possible only in countries that are large enough to be able to afford depopulation."
>
> https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/09/02/dying-russians/
>
> I can think of one.

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: hot time in town tonight

It seems to me totalitarianism could be a cause or an effect of the constituency of a society. If we run the population through GZIP we arrive at an effective type count. The redundant could seek out a totalitarian to get a `fix' of hope, and they may become so addicted they will accept any lie to keep it.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2020 3:14 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] hot time in town tonight

That's the quote you pulled? I much prefer this one: "She theorizes that drinking is, for what its worth, an instrument of adapting to the harsh reality and sense of worthlessness that would otherwise make one want to curl up and die." >8^D I'll mention that to my Oncologist the next time she gives me a hard time about my drinking.

On 9/22/20 2:42 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>
> "In The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt argues that totalitarian rule is truly possible only in countries that are large enough to be able to afford depopulation."
>
> https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/09/02/dying-russians/
>
> I can think of one.

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gepr

Re: hot time in town tonight

Speaking of GZIP, I learned about PIGZ just the other day while failing to set up a rust-driven wasm-capable docker container: https://zlib.net/pigz/

On 9/22/20 3:28 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> It seems to me totalitarianism could be a cause or an effect of the constituency of a society. If we run the population through GZIP we arrive at an effective type count. The redundant could seek out a totalitarian to get a `fix' of hope, and they may become so addicted they will accept any lie to keep it.

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