[FRIAM] the arc of ai (was Re: Whew!)

[glen ☣]

Well, I did get a chance to listen to CArne Ross' TED talk after Marcus pointed him out.  (Nothing further, yet.)  And he made one comment in that talk that I like, yet completely disagree with ... something like "it's up to each and every person to implement policy" ... or diplomacy  or something like that.  The point is great.  The steady, progressive, dissolution of "the state" has been exploited, especially by corporations, but also by well- and ill-intentioned individuals and groups for awhile, now.

But what I didn't get from his talk (yet it's mirrored in Marcus' post about open source communities) is the tight coupling that's needed.  Both rhetoric and action are tempered (both ill- and good effects) by their embedding.  It's the distance and abstraction that causes the problem.  (As Lakoff pointed out with Trump's speaking style.)  If your rhetoric is like poetry, ambiguous, parsimonious, or elegant, so that it can be re-interpreted, re-applied regardless of your situation, then it's EVIL.  Likewise, if your actions affect not only your immediate neighbors in some topological space, but _everyone_ (like spitting carbon into the air or launching a nuclear missile), then it's evil.

What's not evil, regardless of the content, is anything spoken or done _small_ and close.  I can tell off color jokes and not be misinterpreted as long as I'm amongst my friends.  I can brag about pussy-grabbing as long as it's on a bus with one other guy and I'm not being recorded ... or never plan to represent a large population of diverse people.  Etc.  Where such things become evil is when you, your words or actions, are being used as a "model", an abstraction.  Language and actions for distal audiences are different (in kind) from language and actions for proximal audiences.

Your quote from Rumi applies, but again with my own private interpretation.  Being _in_ the world means being tightly coupled to it so that you feel the immediate consequences of your words and hear your own words repeated from others' mouths.  If you're not tightly coupled, then you're at risk.


On 05/05/2017 08:31 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> I know what you are saying here is intended to be more pointed, but doesn't it come down to the simple definition of rhetoric? Persuasive speech (including writing, posturing, gesturing in public) is intended to *persuade* and if one is effective in their rhetoric (persuasion), then they are responsible for the consequences of their persuasion.
> 
> I have a strong identification with the ideals of anarchism, as I do with libertarianism, and to a lesser extent conservative and progressive ideals.   I am not eager, however, to proseletyze on any of those subjects overmuch *lest* I persuade someone to act on those ideals,  Action, also by it's very nature, is intrinsically irresponsible.   We can never know the full consequences of our actions, so we take them based on a lick and a promise that they won't go totally and unexpectedly bad.
> 
> Talking and acting are a risky business it seems.   But it is the stuff of being in the world.  I believe it was Rumi who suggested we "be IN but not OF the world".   Subtle business.
> 
> I appreciate your use of the term "elite sophists" here.   It is the place I retreat to and feel that is what most of the discussion here (about religion, politics, social, economic theory) is... the use of sophist(icated) language to try to understand complex and subtle phenomena but from a somewhat distanced perspective allowed by our various circumstance.

-- 
☣ glen