[FRIAM] NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends

Tue Jan 14 16:03:34 EST 2020

I think I have been influenced on preferred frames for this question by two sources in particular.

One was the writing Krugman did in the 1970s-90s on economic geography, which translating into my own current language is very much a perspective of institutional ecology with an emphasis on critical mass effects and what have become popular to call tipping points. If you don’t have something like a protected bay, a waterway, or other geographic feature to nucleate a distributed growth dynamic, critical mass is often achieved by the actions of large atomic (in the sense of indivisible, not meaning related to nuclear physics) actors, who can act on large scale in inidivual moves.  The examples he always trotted out at the beginnings of essays were Burlington NC for textiles, or coastal Washington for aircraft (we’ll see how long that persists given current management, but for the last half of the previous century…)  

The second source came through Martin Shubik, and was the work of the Swedish development economist Gunnar Eliasson.  Eliasson’s work was specifically on the long-term design and strategy problem of where a government would allocate resources if it understood from the start that much of the output would need to be handed off to distributed or private developers, but (in the sense of the economic idea of “mechanism design”) it wanted that distributed development to achieve a specific social goal, not just to be whatever-happens-next.  The point in this work is that only looking at the large action by one actor at the beginning doesn’t solve a problem; it’s embedding that action in follow-through and having a longer-term plan.  I think this is to Ed Angel’s point that LANL as a stand-alone achieves a large distortion, but doesn’t change the opportunities of the region around it in self-sustaining ways.

I know the members on this list mostly don’t have powers of implementation, but as idle intellectual exercise, if you/we were portfolio managers, or really avant-garde regional planners, what would your design look like to get through critical mass thresholds to tip an interior, water-limited, relatively low-population region into some kind of self-maintaining decent standard of life and opportunity for whoever lived there stably for a long time.  (And how many can that be, in water-limited regions?)  Intel made a significant impact in ABQ, but putting a semiconductor fab in a desert is about as unsustainable a business decision as I can imagine.  What resources exist currently?  If you were designing the institutional ecosystem, and knew you needed some economic social function but couldn’t find an actor to fit it, could you define in somewhat operational terms what that function would need to be, and how much of the remainder of the context could you populate with specific actors and a plan to get them into place?

I know this is much too loose and long-term to deal with immediate practicalities of interacting wtih the SF city council, but we often speak as if long-term future visioning efforts could in principle yield something useful.

Eric

> On Jan 15, 2020, at 4:30 AM, <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Ach!
>  
> I glad we are talking about this.  It is the kind of issue that we, in particular, ought to think up and speak out about.  My own impulse would be to entertain the possibility of a LANL-SF, but negotiate some sort of arrangement, say, perhaps, that no classified work could be done in here.    
>  
> But now I have heard from several voices that I respect deeply, each speaking from very different kinds of experience, and all appearing to agree that even in the absence of War Heads, hosting a national laboratory would not benefit Santa Fe.  But what are the alternatives?  In other words, are the ills you identify inherent to all human institutions, or really only inherent to government ones.  Would it be better if CMU put a campus here?  I have heard many of you express the same doubts about universities.  Would it be better if Google or Amazon put a campus here?  Why?  Why are large for-profit institutions more to be trusted than government and academic ones?  At least with government institutions there is the possibility of regulating them by popular will.  Amazon, not so much.   Is your position that EVERY institution should be so small we can drown it in a bathtub?  So, set the threshold for anti trust action VERY low.  How bout this:  every corporation with more than a billion dollars in assets must place 5 percent of its annual income in a trust fund to encourage competing start ups.   Well, OK, split the College of Santa Fe campus up. Give it to ten different real estate firms with instructions that they must work independently.   Treat it as a hazard, rather than an opportunity.  
>  
> I heard a similar proposal for a solution to the truth problem on the internet.  Every retweet over ten-thousand contributes funds a conterarian tweet on the same stream.  In fact, how about a retweet limit on all messages.  No message can be retweeted more than ten-thousand times.   
>  
> Nick
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>  
>  
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
> Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2020 11:48 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12; 00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends
>  
> Merle, et al -
> Though I reject most of the extreme arguments I hear on both sides of this issue, my instinct is that it would be better if Santa Fe did NOT invite LANL/NNSA into the development of this critical/central/prime location in the heart of *greater* Santa Fe.   
> I've been living in a variant of this  high-dimensional, nonlinear, sometimes subtle and nuanced question all of my (adult) life.   I came to LANL at 24 as a technophilic peacenik who believed MAD made sense (1980) and was happy to ensure that WE had the BIG STICK.  I raised two children In Los Alamos and finally left in 2008 (27 years later) after Bechtel took over, remaining in the region and in high-tech work.   Along the way I was confronted with *many* changes in the international political, cultural and scientific landscape.   The end of the Cold War and nuclear testing, a nuclear arms-race between India/Pakistan, two Gulf Wars, a deep and abiding awareness of the reality and threat of Climate Change (and other parallel Endogenous Existential Threats).
> I went through a few personal transformations as well, including shepherding my two daughters into maturity along the way.  My opinions have become much stronger, broader and more nuanced over the years and I am thankful to have had the perspective offered through the rich gradients formed by our "tri-cultural heritage".   LANL is much more/less than a traditional "Anglo" company town and the work that goes on there is much more/less than virtually any other facility.  Adding Pu Pit production has expanded that yet more, while the unfathomably deep explorations into what may very well represent an array of  other technological *existential threats*.  Possibly equally important sociopolitically, is the role of Santa Fe (and San Juan Pueblo before it) as a locus of European Conquest, including the Pueblo Revolt (I can see Black Mesa from my window as I type).  
> I agree with most of Ed's assertions about the variability of quality of the work at LANL, and certainly question the average "value received" with such outrageous overheads and oft isolated efforts.  I also agree with his summary of the net socioeconomic impact on the region/state.   While I was (am via legacy savings and local available services) a beneficiary of the very large amount of money pumped into the region, I see the deleterious effects of it.   
> With my renewed interest and awareness in the "Endogenous Existential Threats" of our time, I am more sensitive to the callousness of many of the people and programs at LANL toward the local and global environment.   The bulk of the memoir Frank urged me to write (to save the list from my TMI/TL;DR posts?) would be armatured around this braid of interesting (in every sense of the word) paradoxes and contradictions.   
> I think New Mexico's legacy around Science and Technology is real and meaningful, but has also been highly distorted by the influence of government (and specifically Defense-related) money.
> Carry On,
>  - Steve
> On 1/13/20 2:41 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
>>  
>>  
>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>> From: Leslie Lakind <leftielakind at gmail.com>
>> Date: Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 2:23 PM
>> Subject: NO LANL IN SANTA FE! Wednesday, 12;00 outside SF City Hall; bring friends
>> To: 
>>  
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>> From: Greg Mello <gmello at lasg.org>
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Permalink for this letter. Please forward! Other Letters
>> Home page; Press Releases; Bulletins;
>> To subscribe to our Friends listserve (formerly by invitation only) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here.  
>> To subscribe to our Main listserve (less content, less frequent) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here. 
>> Our blog (makeover coming!): Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ. 
>> Contribute. Volunteer. Contact us (Greg and Trish in our main office, Lydia Clark in our Santa Fe office)
>> This letter: Press conference outside Santa Fe City Hall at noon on Wednesday Jan. 15 (map) -- please come, and please recruit others
>> Dear New Mexico friends – 
>> As we have explained in previous letters, Wednesday is the day on which the City will announce the finalists for "Master Developer" of the former College of Santa Fe site (and possibly surrounding properties as well, a 64- to ~100-acre project). The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has applied for this role. NNSA and/or Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are present in some (not all) other proposals, as tenant(s). 
>> The situation is opaque, fluid, and developing. So far, Mayor Webber has disdainfully rebuffed our requests to meet or discuss the momentous social, cultural, and economic development impacts of placing a nuclear weapons campus in Santa Fe. (Don't be deceived -- that is exactly what LANL is and what this would be.)
>> People power may be the only force stronger than LANL's money and corruption. We really need you to help us expand our numbers. 
>> If you live anywhere nearby please come to this joint press conference, and please ask as many friends to come as possible. Sheer attendance matters. A strong showing Wednesday will save countless hours of work later, and will give wings to efforts to push back on LANL's entirely unjustified expansion. There are many powerful people in Washington who know LANL specializes in taxpayer ripoffs. Some of them need to see some spine from us out here to take to their bosses. 
>> New Mexico is being selected to be a nuclear weapons support and sacrifice area. That now includes the Santa Fe metro area. 
>> We may not know know the outcome of this first Midtown Campus decision by noon Wednesday but regardless of that we must seize the day. 
>> While it seems absurd that NNSA could be a possible "master developer," we can't be sure that Mayor Webber and the people around him wouldn't want that -- or want, say, a training facility for plutonium workers. We just don't know. 
>> This event will also give us a chance for us to network with each other and with representatives of any other groups present, as well as speak to any City officials willing to do so. 
>> Getting people to come on Wednesday is the sole action item we are recommending right now. It is very, very important!  
>> Thank you!
>> Greg, Trish, Lydia, Ernie, Michelle, and the rest of the Study Group
>> -- 
>> Greg Mello
>> Los Alamos Study Group
>> 2901 Summit Place NE
>> Albuquerque, NM 87106
>> 505-265-1200 office
>> 505-577-8563 cell
>> To subscribe to our Friends listserve send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here. 
>> To subscribe to our Main listserve (less frequent) send a blank email here. To unsubscribe send a blank email here. 
>> Our blog: Remember your Humanity. Twitter: @TrishABQ. We have shut down our Facebook page.
>> ---
>> To unsubscribe: <mailto:lasg_friends-unsubscribe at lists.riseup.net>
>> List help: <https://riseup.net/lists>
>> 
>>  
>> -- 
>> America is waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that 
>> 1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches. 
>> Werner Herzog
>>  
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>  
>> -- 
>> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
>> President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
>> emergentdiplomacy.org
>> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>> merlelefkoff at gmail.com
>> mobile:  (303) 859-5609
>> skype:  merle.lelfkoff2
>> twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
>> 
>> 
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove