[FRIAM] City University of Santa Fe
Steven A Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Sat Jan 6 20:12:12 EST 2018
Eric-
Thanks for the throwdown on this one. I was also not aware of this
effort specifically but it underscores the point I was (still probably
am) so poorly failing to make. There is a plenitude of new modes of
interaction, research, and scholarship emerging (primarily) because of
increased access to global communication (including travel). TED talks
and Kahn Academy and MOOCs galore, for example. Of course none of this
replaces in-person, visceral, face-to-face interaction, nor the unique
experiences that *place* offers to shape the arc of the discussion, the
collaboration, the perspective.
I didn't look hard, but I didn't see an obvious way for this Institute
to instantiate en-situ groups as I *think* Nick (and many of us?) would
like to see. Perhaps this is an example of what I have been ranting
on... maybe we have to let that go? It seems hard to consider becoming
entirely delocalized.
Specific to the Ronin Institute, I applaud their somewhat
anti-establishmentarian rhetoric, focused unsurprisingly by the idea of
the Japanese fuedal period Ronin... a trained/practiced Samurai without
a master. At SFx, we talked more than a little about the
Master/Journeyman/Apprentice roles and the clear value of the
traditional goals of the Journeyman... as we talked about it I think, a
"Journeyman" was required to "take his show on the road" for a number of
years... to go forth with virtually no resources... and not allowed to
remain "close to home", requiring him (or her one would wish) to expand
one's experiences, to avoid "academic inbreeding" as it were, to make
new connections, to cross fertilize, to interbreed, etc. All this a
pre-requisite to becoming a master. Not the same as a Ronin, of course,
but sharing the ideal of being "a wanderer".
LANL's extensive technical library *used to* offer as a perq to the
public, full access to their (unclassified) stacks as well as their
online access (in place) to anyone brave (or dedicated) enough do drive
up there and go into their facility and ask for access. It may still be
the case, but with Bechtel in charge, maybe not so much? When I let my
own "visiting scientist" role lapse at LANL, implicit access to
(virtually?) any journal was the one thing I suspected I was going to
miss. For those who have never had much if any institutional
affiliation, what might seem like a fundamental "right" to those with
the access that comes with an institutional "master" kinda looks like a
dirty trick to the rest of us.
I assume your (Nick's) reference to journal access is to the
http://unpaywall.org/ links? LANL (Paul Ginsparg) pioneered the use of
WWW for open access to journal articles via the xxx.lanl.gov "physics
preprint" server (with an FTP and Gopher server predating that by a
couple of years). I don't know the full implication or utility of the
subsequent arXiv.org system but in principle it feels like the "perfect"
workaround for the Journal system. I think Grigori Perleman's example
(publishing two deeply pivotal papers in mathematics *without* a
peer-review journal/process) is significant. I'm surprised it didn't
revolutionize academia and publication more than it did. Is it inertia
or something more fundamental?
I sometimes believe that fundamental change in human institutions (and
experience) is roughly bound to the scale of a generation... how many
paradigms can a single generation shift through? What is the current
fundamental time-scale of techno-social change in our culture today? Is
the disruption in our culture somehow part of an (important) annealing
process?
mumble,
- Steve
On 1/6/18 3:00 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>
> No, Eric, I did NOT know about this. My ignorance is always the best
> default assumption. Now I have spent ten minutes noodling around on
> the site and it is very impressive. I was particularly moved by their
> page on getting access to journals, etc. Thank you V E R Y much.
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>
>
>
> *From:*Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *David
> Eric Smith
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 06, 2018 2:18 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] City University of Santa Fe
>
>
>
> Hi you guys,
>
>
>
> You are already familiar with this, right?
>
>
>
> http://ronininstitute.org/
>
>
>
> I understand it as trying to solve a concrete and particular problem
> that lives within the overlaps of both Steve’s and Nick’s points (as I
> read the two). In gig humanity, everything can be used more
> efficiently in the short term, at the price that there is no
> protection for anything from being carved up and sold off for the
> shortest-term profit. To make progress, if one does not have a
> strategy for overcoming that, then one must acknowledge its reality
> and impact, and figure out how to deal with them. On the other hand,
> there are things that a structured community can make possible which
> would be unreachable if each individual had to re-discover and
> re-implement them on his own, and there are critical mass effects for
> which services can be offered.
>
>
>
> All best,
>
>
>
> Eric
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Jan 7, 2018, at 5:55 AM, Steven A Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com
> <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
> Nick -
>
> I did not mean the term oldSkool to be perjorative as such, just
> acknowledging that the world keeps precessing around a complex
> (nonlinear) sociodynamic axis, calling for new and different
> variants of old things again and again. The coffee house of 17c
> London was intended as an example of how an (somewhat)
> unprecedented thing emerged "out of nowhere". The linked article
> refers to the differences between a coffee house and a public
> house of that era. Both excluded women (by the way).
>
> /Coffee houses caught on very quickly, so by 1663 there were
> more than 83 coffee houses in London. By the beginning of the
> eighteenth century there were as many as five or six hundred.2
> The Prussian nobleman Baron Charles Louis von Pollnitz, who
> visited London in 1728, described them as one of the great
> pleasures of the city. He describes how it is “a Sort of Rule
> with the English, to go once a Day at least” to coffee-houses
> “where they talk of Business and News, read the Papers, and
> often look at one another.” Some very famous companies even
> started as coffee houses. Lloyds of London, an insurance
> brokerage company, began as Edward Lloyd’s coffee house on
> Tower Street around 1688./
>
> /.../
>
> /Some men spent so much time there that their mail was
> delivered directly to the coffee house! An interesting fact is
> that almost every coffee house allowed only male patrons,
> women being relegated to the home or elsewhere for coffee. Not
> allowing women into these coffee houses did cause a few
> problems, which were outlined in the “Women’s Petition Against
> Coffee” published in 1674. Really a mock petition, but rumors
> and claims against coffee drinking could have been taken
> serious whether or not they were true. And as stated in the
> previous quote, they charged only a penny for a cup of black
> coffee! This gave rise to their nickname, “Penny Universities.”/
>
> /.../
>
> /Soon there emerged a distinct difference between the pub and
> the coffee house, “Rumors of the health benefits of coffee
> were abundant, and coffee-houses encouraged sobriety, rational
> thought, and articulate political discussion, whereas taverns
> merely provided a haven for irreverence and intoxication.”
> This wasn’t a place to escape the world and dull the senses,
> but rather a place to debate current events and create new
> ideas for how life should be. Until this time there did not
> exist a forum for the merchant or trading class to have such
> discussions./
>
> Yes, my Taoist perspective on this is not unlike Economic's
> "efficient market hypothesis" in which suggests that if there were
> a true need, a true opportunity, it would be filled already. I
> know this sounds terribly fatalistic and even pessimistic but also
> points to our looking around (as you have and are and do) at the
> plethora of unique opportunities that Santa Fe already
> has/enjoys/provides in this regard. Of course, YOU (and the rest
> of us) are part of the ecology that co-creates said milieu and if
> there is to be a "City University of Santa Fe" to add to the mix,
> then this is an obvious place for it to fester into fruition.
>
> My (intended to be gentle) chiding about oldSkool is the (partial)
> implication that what is needed is to return to something some (or
> many) of us knew from the past... that there once was something
> (an institutional paradigm, a mold, a pattern) which has been
> broken and needs to be reconstituted, rather than (I would
> suggest), the more critical essences recognized in their
> distillate form and recombined in a (possibly) new way.
>
> Your creating the non-profit vehicle and obtaining a domain name,
> etc. is suggestive of the classic "stone" or "nail" soup paradigm
> which I very much approve of. If I had me an onion or a turnip, I
> would in fact scrub the dirt from it, peel it gently and toss it
> in the pot labeled "CUSF". The resulting stew may very well not
> be at all what you intended, or it may match it very well. Anyone
> have a pinch of salt? Some Green Chile? A not-too-long-dead Rabbit?
>
> On the coming crisis of "gainful underemployment", I think it is
> an important, even critical thing to consider. For those who
> have fully or partially retired, or have endured periods of
> "gainful underemployment" (like the post Bios implosion around the
> time of the larger dot.com <http://dot.com> bomb), I think we are
> hyper aware of the value of "having good work", even if the
> economy has shifted out from under us to a situation where there
> is less and less *need* to work, either in terms of gross domestic
> productivity or in terms of providing sustenance for oneself and
> one's people.
>
> The powers that be tend toward offering "bread and circuses"
> (Netflix and Twitter?) on one end, and "mind-numbing poverty" on
> the other. I think it is meritable to work toward finding a way
> to keep the populace engaged and motivated in more ahem... engaged
> and motivating pursuits.
>
> - Steve
>
>
> On 1/6/18 1:25 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>
> Steve,
>
>
>
> Ok. Let it be that the notion of the "academy", the quiet place, where a specialized group of people, designated by society, get together to think, is "old skool". But, let it be the case, that those same people are being forced to waste their time doing other things ... like brewing coffee, doing body work for people, doing fiddly computing jobs for other people, etc., etc. Is that not a waste, of sorts? How can we organize things so that these people can do what they are best at and love? How can restore general society's respect for that sort of activity ... for "noodling." How are we going to head off the jobs crisis that is upon us that happens when automation finally decouples "having a job" from "being a useful person". Surely your Taotic position is not, "Whatever is is for the best" or even "Que sera sera?" Or is it?
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
>
> Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2018 12:19 PM
>
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com> <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] City University of Santa Fe
>
>
>
> Nick -
>
>
>
> My sympathies are with you in aching to see the potential of such a rich milieu as is implied by this city/region (more) fulfilled (elaborated?). At the same time, my inner Taoist believes it is "precisely as it should be".
>
>
>
> Your appeal reminded me of my reading on the origin of "Coffee Houses"
>
> in England in the 17th century and their role as "Penny Universities". Of course, that is roughly how THIS forum began and continues as "the Mother Church", holding services weekly.
>
>
>
> It was this very vision which caused/allowed me to "stay the course"
>
> with the SF Complex from beginning to (beyond the) end, in spite of innumerable tangents and setbacks.
>
>
>
> I fear that the image of a "University" in any sense other than the above "Penny University" might be ultimately too nostalgic and oldSkool for our "modern times". The likes of SFx or even MeowWolf may be closer to what is likely (or needed?) today. The sum of SFAI/CCA/SFI/SITE/Lannan/??? sponsored talks and exhibitions is a rich tapestry which perhaps makes up for the lack of something more focused, with it's own (adobe) bricks and (mud) mortar?
>
>
>
> I don't offer this as a wet blanket, but maybe more an urging to (continue to) think broadly and maybe even a bit inside-out.
>
>
>
> The following is a reasonable (contemporary) description of the "Coffee House" phenomenon of the 17th/18th century which itself had a limited lifespan...
>
>
>
> https://ineedcoffee.com/the-coffee-house-a-history/
>
>
>
> - Steve
>
>
>
> On 1/6/18 12:03 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>
> Hi Glen and other interested parties,
>
>
>
> I went by the Secretary of State's office on Thursday and we found The City University of Santa Fe without difficulty and all I have to do is pay past filing fees to get myself back in good standing with the State of New Mexico. When you search it, be sure to start with leading "The" . I tried to find my old web page on the way back machine and I think I found some reference to it, but not the page itself. The url was something like www.cusf.org <http://www.cusf.org/>. If anybody finds it, save it for me, would you. I quite liked it. I mean for citizen work.
>
>
>
> Some of you seem to raise the question where do we go from here. I had thought, since I am getting so friggin old, that I would just shut it down. The only things it has going for it are the name and the fact that Santa Fe is in many ways a university town without a university. It has all these institutions doing quasi graduate work, and a gazillion retired PhD's doing various proects, and even a couple of advanced degree granting places. But no desire to coalesce and cooperate, that I could detect. I am not much of a culture vulture, but on a whim, went out to hear a TGIF concert of Schubert Leider in the Presbyterian church, this evening . There were something like 500 people there. Not sure you could get a crowd like that on a cold winter's night to hear a local singer in Berkeley. Santa Fe is an extraordinary town. It deserves a University.
>
>
>
> At today's meeting of the mother church I was banging on about the battering that the Liberal Arts ideal has received during my lifetime and my blief that we need to restore the country's faith in LEARNING. I believe with all my heart that good things happen when you get smart diverse people together and make them think and argue about stuff. I also thing there are a tremendous amount of young people in Santa Fe, working as baristas, and programmers, and piano tuners who by their devotion to the life of the mind deserve to pursue their interests.
>
>
>
> Speaking of battering, it's my understanding that the small liberal arts colleges are in for a terrible few years under the new tax bill and the Relatively Wealthy People of Santa Fe may need to be thinking about how to defend St. Johns, not to mention what every might be left of the poor old College of Santa Fe.
>
>
>
> Take care,
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of ? u???
>
> Sent: Friday, January 05, 2018 8:53 AM
>
> To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com> <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] City University of Santa Fe
>
>
>
> I don't know how long they keep their records. But there's no corporation with that name in the online database:
>
>
>
> https://portal.sos.state.nm.us/BFS/online/CorporationBusinessSearch
>
>
>
> There are some non-profits with a Nick Thompson as an officer. But that Nick seems to live in Albuquerque.
>
>
>
> On 01/05/2018 07:35 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>
>
>
> On Jan 4, 2018 11:05 PM, "Nick Thompson" <nickthompson at earthlink.net
> <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net> <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net>
> <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net>> wrote:
>
> YEARS ago, when the College of Santa Fe was failing, I
>
> started a nonprofit called the City University of Santa Fe which was
>
> designed to pull all the educational resources of Santa Fe into one
>
> semi-formal organization, which, at the very minimum, would keep
>
> everybody informed about what everybody else was doing and maximally,
>
> might have provided temporary, volunteer, faculty to the College of Santa Fe
>
> during its time of stress. It turns out that you can set up a New
>
> Mexico non-profit for 25 dollars and ten bucks a year thereafter.
>
> Frank, and tom, and Mike Agar signed on as board members, I set up a
>
> website, and then, essentially, nothing happened. SFAUD took over
>
> from CofSF and other organizations I contacted about the possible
>
> communication function dismissed the idea out of hand. AND I lost my
>
> website and url,
>
> --
>
> ∄ uǝʃƃ
>
>
>
> ============================================================
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