[FRIAM] Curmudgeons Unite!

[Steve Smith]

Glen -

> Re mismatched expectations with voting and representation versus
> liberal use of metaphor: yes, they are strongly related. My impulse is
> to object slightly and say that I'm a big fan of metaphor. But I'm not
> a big fan of constant reflection on our (ubiquitous) metaphors. It's
> analysis paralysis ... or navel gazing. It's human to see *through*
> the metaphor, as a tool, to it's target and constant focus on the tool
> is debilitating ... similar to arguing about word definitions.
I do agree on this, even though (because) I resemble that
description...   "when you are a navel gazer, everything looks like lint"?
> Re personal vs political position: yes, I feel the same way you do in
> wondering if/how my individual *can* possibilities help construct the
> world I *want* to see. This is another form of (forward) map from
> individual to collective. We see lots of posturing about how some one
> person thinks they know how that map works (e.g. individualists
> claiming it doesn't work at all, socialists claiming all their
> favorite examples demonstrate how it should work, technologists
> claiming "if you build it they will come", etc.). I tend to push back
> and ask that we study the map(s) before making such claims.
Yes, this seems to be the "Hard Problem" of real-world "collective *",
and in fact I don't think studying the maps is enough in the sense that
I believe we need to *generate* a lot of these maps *in the real world*
which is why I'm a fan of the seeming disorder, for example, in global
(and even national) pandemic response.   It is the real-world
realization of *ensemble studies* crossed with the ideal of  the
"halting problem"?   The only (or reasonably efficient) way to answer
the problem of "Life the Universe and Everything" is to let it play out,
even if we understand in advance that the Eigenvalue is '42'.
> Re Parscale/Bannon gaming: Exactly. The more our representation
> depends on first-past-the-post, and the more technology we insert in
> between the humans being represented and the humans doing the
> representing, the more *gamable* the system.
I agree with the general sentiment.  Patches on top of patches on top of
patches does not yield a more robust system... at best, it circumvents
the last or most egregious breach/abuse.     This is what refactoring is
all about?   In a more general sense, what  paradigm shifts are all
about.  
> Re what are we trying to achieve with our representation?: I don't
> know. It would be *great* if we could ask that of the people,
> everyone, homeless and wealthy alike, in such a well-formed way that
> their answers would parse and compose. 

That is what a "National Conversation" should look like, and what
primaries/debates/elections *might used to have* served.   I felt *I*
had a little bit of that during the short-circuited Democratic
Primaries...  but would like more.  

> But I doubt we can. That question and its forms co-evolves with the
> answers. 
Yup...
> And that coevolutionary, wandering, implicit set of objectives argues,
> again, for a more robust and spread out representation. I.e. a
> parliamentary system which allows the wings and extremes to
> participate in the government helps ask good questions and helps
> provide parsable and compositional answers. A ranked choice voting
> scheme helps formulate the questions and answers. The electoral
> college (and Senate/House structure) was a (failed) attempt to do
> that, too, I think.

Having recently (re)watched Turn; Washington's Spies and John Adams, and
reading "Team of Rivals" (Goodwin's biography of Lincoln starting
decades before his presidency and following his frienemies and
coopetitors through the time) with Mary, I have a new appreciation for
how hard those people worked *and* how flawed many of them were, and how
flawed the processes involved.   It both makes me much more appreciative
of the result and simultaneously understand how "Sacred" it isn't.   My
friends in UK and OZ would all tell me that *their* Parliamentary System
is/has-been gamed badly also.   But I find the accomodation of factions
and "wandering" among various semi-stable (e.g Lagrange) points a step
above.

I believe that Trump's significant contribution has been to show us how
gamed and gameable our current system has become.  He said he was going
to "drain the swamps and eject the alligators", I claim he simply took
control of the levies and gates, thus "managing the swamps", introduced
his own nest of Crocodiles (who he seems not to even recognize when they
get hauled out of the swamp and into court/prison) and then presided
over the ever-more-toxic-miasmic-and-dangerous result as the Lord of the
Flies that he is.

>
> I *love* the idea of the paintball gun. But it does sound a bit like
> suicide ... suicide by gun nut.

Yah... *one* of the many reasons for not doing it, though I suspect a
well practiced paintballer (not me) could run circles around a crowd of
open-carry militia nuts, decorating them lavishly without getting
touched themselves.  For the tech geeks, I recommend *this* alternative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P28LKWTzrI

The gun nuts *I* know (and sometimes call friends) would either A) be
practiced enough to actually hit a (probably not moving) target, but
likely unable emotionally/spiritually to shoot at another human being
under "normal" situations; B) be quite ready to unleash hellfire on a
provoking citizen but not particularly disciplined or well practiced
enough to hit anything except maybe each other.

I was surprised to see (class II?) lasers being deployed against the
Federal Agents in Portland...   I have always expected to see a laser
dot playing on the chests or foreheads of militia types when they are
posturing at the gate to the federal lands they believe are their own,
or at a BLM rally, etc.   I don't think any of this is actually a *good
idea* and apparently most others feel the same, else we *would* see more
of it?  

And as another diversion: http://www.naimark.net/projects/zap/howto.html

- Steve