Posted by
Steve Smith on
Dec 19, 2020; 12:32am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/5-agencies-compromised-tp7599853p7599882.html
Glen -
I appreciate this perspective. It feels like a rhyme with our various
formulations of "all models are wrong, some are useful", a conspiracy
theory somehow being a "model" in it's own right. I could wax on
(ineffectually?) about how the two relate but will leave that as an
exercise to the reader or other correspondents here.
I agree-with/appreciate the "extended phenotype" description of
bureaucracy, and wonder if some of the neo-anti-establishmentarianims we
are experiencing today don't represent something like an auto-immune
response, trying to kill off what it considers to be a foreign body. Or
maybe in the conception of those (including myself in some contexts)
said components of the "administrative state" are "tumors" that should
be removed/starved/savaged unto extinction. But as with cancer tumors,
there is a risk in "savaging" a tumor else you accidentally trigger
metastatic emigration. I wonder at how much Trump's "savaging" various
departments might have lead to some of those bureaucrat/functionaries to
move through the system and find another home where they could proceed
to undermine his efforts in *even* more effective ways? I look forward
to hearing some of these stories as he quits having the acute power to
damage them further as they pop their little whack-a-mole heads up.
Regarding the contradictory nature of loving sports cars and rocket
ships while hating the DMV and building codes: I prefer to consider
the latter to be like systems/components which (more superficially)
deserve/seduce/demand some kind of respect in their beautiful
form/function duality while the infrastructural administratium's
"beauty" is more well hidden and in fact *deserving* of semi-regular
pruning/refactoring as the function rots. Of course, technophilic
wonks of the administratium naturally recognize the beauty in the
form/function of such elements and even come to fetishize them the way
citizens fetishize a '53 Vette or a '57 T-bird or a Martha Stewart
Christmas wreath, and might even defend keeping some (seemingly
useless/obstructionist/toxic) subsystem in place long after it's
(perceived) time. In any case, I do agree it is all perspective in
some sense, but I also believe in refactoring, even my stable of unique
(if not particularly fetishizeable) vehicles, tools, hoarded materials,
animals. Which is why we have swap meets and Craigslist?
I also like your description of backing off from any/every given
analytical rabbit hole, seeking a gestalt. It seems as if the existing
functioning (if not always flawlessly on the surface)
infrastructure/institutions/administrivium is what gives us the
security/freedom TO dive down those rabbit holes. It does feel to me
as if the backing off and fuzzing out our vision on these matters is but
one of the features of our required (in a statistical sense)
contributions to "the commons".
This Time of Trump and this Time of COVID and Time of Climate Crisis can
all be reminders for us to back off and refactor our
understanding/perception/apprehension of such things?
- Steve
> All effective conspiracy theories have some merit. I think that's what makes them effective. Like good fiction, the micro expressions of deception, con-man tactics, inference to the best explanation, creation myths, and the positivist/generative component of science, conspiracy theories rely on truth in a fundamental way. My favorite examples are math proofs of things like 1=0. It seems to me they're focused examples of Tarski's (and Gödel's) result, which essentially say you can't prove something's true from *within* the language being used to prove that truth.
>
> There definitely *is* a deep state or, the term I prefer, an "administrative state". And I'm grateful for that *infrastructure*. Just like I'm grateful for the bench scientists at the FDA and the employees at the counter of the DMV. That bureaucracy is not merely good because it achieves good things. It *is* civilization. It's our extended phenotype. It's flat out contradictory to love things like sports cars and space ships but hate things like building codes, DMV queues, and mask mandates. We are the termites and the administrative state is our mound.
>
> The trick lying at the bottom of all critical thinking is to continually back off a bit and see if/when one's little trip down any given logical rabbit hole ... zoom out a bit and see if it's reasonable. That's where we (especially our idealistic/wacko friends) end up failing.
>
> On 12/17/20 12:52 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote:
>> Kind of makes you wonder if the "deep state" conspiracy theories have a bit of merit.
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 17, 2020 at 3:29 PM Marcus Daniels <
[hidden email] <mailto:
[hidden email]>> wrote:
>>
>> I do wonder what work will look like after most of the small businesses fail.
>>
>> "Didn't respond to police presence" -> "Didn't listen to the boss."
>>
>> "Hey where did Jamie go? Last time I saw him was at that meeting.."
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