Re: pride and entitlement (was 11 American Nations)

Posted by Arlo Barnes on Nov 11, 2013; 7:40pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/11-American-Nations-tp7584250p7584277.html

I also was happy I spent much of last weekend not on my computer, for once.

Anyway, I can't accept determined attributes as being something worthy
of pride.  Enter the "free will" -- for individuals -- and "stigmergy"
-- for collectives -- debate(s).  What attributes can we really be proud
of and what do we chalk up as hysteretic?

 I do not really know enough about hysteresis to understand this analogy, but I think this might be a conflation of meanings within the English language. This kind of confusion happens pretty often, see my notes on 'expect' below. Pride can either mean a claim to competency ("look at this vase I made, I am proud of it") or general approval associated with identity ("I am proud of the Aerican Empire / Free & Open Source movements / city council although most of the contributions to these efforts were not by me, because they do good things that I am in some small way a part of").

Similarly, what can we _expect_ from those around us without seeming
"spoiled and usurious"?  Even the most John Wayne style individualist
(self sufficient, yet generous, honorable, naively respectful, etc.)
will end up disrespecting her environment (people and things) because
individualism is ... bullsh!t, to put it nicely.

I have only seen a couple of John Wayne movies (sounds like that is representative though, just kidding) but as I recall his characters 1) shoot and punch people 2) sometimes just for fun, and 3) have been injured and relied on help. He does not seem like the epitome of low impact living to me.

So, one not only
should we have expectations, we _must_ in order to fully understand
symbiosis.

 There are many ways that biological symbiosis is different from social symbiosis, but I think in both the usual sense of 'expectation' does not apply ("I expect you'll be leaving on the 12:00 train, then", "You failed to meet expectations, Bob, we will have to let you go", "Welcome welcome welcome, to the land of expectations, to the land of expectations, to the land [...]").

If a clownfish fails to ward off predators and parasites from a sea anemone, the anemone is not going to say "What the heck man, we had a deal" and withdraw it's protection, it is just going to continue what it was doing. Of course, if it dies from parasitism and predation, the clownfish has one less anemone to hide in. This is why not only biological forms can evolve, but also ecosystemic patterns. The point is, symbiosis is not exactly governed by consent, but by mutual opportunism. Each partner takes what it wants/needs (there is really more of a gradient than a strong distinction), and can afford to give a little. It is generalised reciprocity: An individual or species realises that if there are such-and-such defenses and offenses here, and not there in order to save on the cost of specialisation, then on average they tend to do alright.
So I think rather than having social conventions about how much we should trust people (or how much we think people should trust us), trust should be an analytic endeavour: we can use best practices in prediction, such as they are, to try to guess what a more-or-less safe approach to a given interaction would be, based off past patterns of activity, theories about behaviour, and so on.

(That reminds me of the continuing increase in narcissism
scores of college students.  Oddly, as civilization progresses,
entitlement progresses... funny that.)  What should we expect, if not
lives better, richer, more luxurious, more relaxing, than our parents'?

This trend seems unsustainable, as there is no such thing as infinite luxury, wealth, and relaxation. We should instead set some ulterior goal (whatever you want, be it development of a field like technology or art, or observation / replication of the universe) and then remove poverty, discomfort, and stress where they impede completion of this goal to the extent needed. I feel it would be much more beneficial to the species and planet as a whole for someone else to be assured of a source of meals than for me to have access to more technology. If we can do both, great (sometimes these things can leapfrog).

-Arlo James Barnes

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