speaking of Ezra Klein

[thompnickson2]

Glen's posting of an Ezra Klein episode reminded me of one of his that I listened to a few weeks which I found so horrifying that I thought to post it to the list at the time.  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/should-we-edit-our-childrens-genes-would-it-be-cruel-not-to/id1548604447?i=1000515459029
The burden of it that I remember was the agreement between the host and the interviewee that OF COURSE we were going to edit for nose shape and "intelligence".  Get over it!  The hidden assumptions in their discourse were straight out of the 19th century.  OF COURSE we all know what intelligence is and OF COURSE we can select for it and OF COURSE there will be no unforeseen consequences of such selection.  

Now I should quickly admit that my actual memory of any of the content is pretty damned dim, and that I may be slandering Klein etc. etc.  But it was one of those situations I get into with ECONOMIST podcasts, where I listen intently to all these lulling high-toned British voices only to realize that I have been delivered into a neo-con sewer.  

Nick Thompson
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2021 11:23 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] water, again (was murder offsets)

This was a nice read, Glen, thank you.

> On Apr 20, 2021, at 12:11 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> I should have linked this:
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/podcasts/ezra-klein-podcast-ted-chi
> ang-transcript.html
>

Several of Chiang’s observations have a ring of insight to me.

On just one, for the accident that it overlaps with another factoid.  His comment that superheroes:
1. Are magic == special
2. Preserve the status quo

I think it was in Jane Smiley’s introduction to the volume of the Icelandic Sagas that she edited and compiled, that she says the Sagas are considered a premonition of the modern novel far ahead of its normal place in literature (the Quixote is I think usually credited as the first) because (for the Sagas), they realized that the old heroic tales of gods and trolls (e.g. the Eddas), didn’t have the depth to remain interesting under the retelling.  The Sagas brought the focus “down” to the real troubles and accommodations and inventions of real people, which were richer, more complex, and more satisfying over time than the old tropes.  I have come back to her comment many times, in thinking about what is the cultural role, whether of Eddas, epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata in India, Gilgamesh, etc.  I think for all of these, Chiang’s characterization works in both its dimensions, though perhaps in different degrees for different cases.  

So the political right in the US turn to an encompassing paranoia +/= cynicism and Qanon, and the movie industry (whoever that serves) is dominated by Marvel Comics franchises.  Having had the modern novel, we are throwing it away for not even epics, but dumb cartoons of epics, but keeping the magic and preservation of the status quo.  After all, the real heroics have supernatural up-enders as well as restorers (Loki or Enkidu), and in the more advanced versions (the Eddas) the trickster is not dominated or overcome, but a persistent force.  (c.f. also the Kosare in Tewa and Keres, and the mudheads in Hopi, in NM).  

There was another observation of a similar kind I recall, from perhaps two sources.

Some historian came through SFI (for weeks or so), and gave a talk commenting on the iconography of scientists following the second world war.  The public wanted old-age Darwin, tired, patriarchal, apparently gentle (one never saw the picture of the young man starting out to find his way in the world, and the imperious, contemptuous Newton image was long gone), and old-age Einstein, again the tired benevolent grandfather.  From some other source, years earlier (I think coming from agriculture), there was the comment that sterility in the US came in the 1950s from the front-and-center nuclear terror.  Television was Ward Cleaver and Andy Griffith.  In the Cleaver home Ward wore a tie sitting in the living room chair in the evening.  In Mayberry there was nobody non-white to consider the circumstances of, and nothing seriously bad ever happened.  That was also when food in the grocery all went under plastic, and the ability to smell food walking into a store disappeared.  

So I guess we already know people admit they are scared, because that is commented on everywhere, but the reworking of their lives betrays a much more inclusive fear even than what they state.


I did wonder, too, in reading the Klein transcript, whether Chiang’s brief characterization of the alchemists would be more congenial to DaveW’s use of the word, since he always makes it a point to reject the common reference as a misunderstanding.

Eric

> "It’s capitalism that wants to reduce costs and reduce costs by laying people off. It’s not that like all technology suddenly becomes benign in this world. But it’s like, in a world where we have really strong social safety nets, then you could maybe actually evaluate sort of the pros and cons of technology as a technology, as opposed to seeing it through how capitalism is going to use it against us. How are giant corporations going to use this to increase their profits at our expense?"
>
> On 4/19/21 8:01 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
>> Ha! Sure. ... it still looks like SteveS called it with the Red Queen's Race. Even if such tech solves more problems than it creates, it'll still be distributed according to the power structures in place (e.g. rich people) when the tech's ready to scale.
>>
>> On 4/19/21 7:54 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>> Again technology to the rescue...   Nanotechnology for desalinization.  
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
>>> Sent: Monday, April 19, 2021 7:45 AM
>>> To: [hidden email]
>>> Subject: [FRIAM] water, again (was murder offsets)
>>>
>>> Copper? Natural gas? Pffft! Water's the interesting one.
>>>
>>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2ftheconversation.
>>> com%2finterstate-water-wars-are-heating-up-along-with-the-climate-15
>>> 9092&c=E,1,Ewpqbk1K7YvvWaN9Wq82biEau11JE47_9tv9w77esjTa5t6HYRzAKlQ2w
>>> -qi_xGNkEoqhkVKJuvI9hoKZ1q58ZXHgk_APFIJbNOqB5FmfTBe3-Djst8,&typo=1
>>>
>>> And another one:
>>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theolympian.
>>> com%2fnews%2fbusiness%2farticle250595449.html&c=E,1,NvMnnmssGuhqpYLB
>>> wvA3sYGLQlpI4LtssXofxpMUZv79UtcRK8Tqe9uBjxn8-AxuqoH2Ah-11_RcM_IlTW-T
>>> GgAXXpjbp6RfGPzrix6us3-O6w6BrA,,&typo=1
>>>
>>> On 4/15/21 7:59 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
>>>> Another good example is water rights across states given
>>>> watersheds, flood irrigation, etc.
>>>> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardia
>>>> n.com%2fus-news%2f2021%2fapr%2f05%2farizona-water-one-per&c=E,1,CH_
>>>> fKbSUirJq0d8JFH7BJbRnp3VoLW_l2ZsofeB8tXplQqNrJKiPCkdY2T3Ze0zf1SFcRC
>>>> sXjtq_OHxVwg0cuwInTDLJULErLjTj6DMWH-ln0w,,&typo=1
>>>> centers>
>>>>
>>>> So, the question you're asking (how might "storage" in BTC be less preferable to other assets?) isn't really answerable *without* first discussing what that reservoir is *for*, what end does it serve?
>>
>
> --
> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
>
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