[FRIAM] "certain codes of conduct"

Tue Jul 28 17:12:03 EDT 2020

Merle, 

Merle,

I meant only that Freshman writing courses are a place where we are likely to encounter institutional racism, and I am looking for ideas about what to do about that, given that I am inclined to hang onto some notion that expository writing can, and should, be taught.  

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Merle Lefkoff
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2020 1:55 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "certain codes of conduct"

Nick, I didn't "assume" anything.  It's this article that does much more than "assume" --and virtually all old white people (who are all privileged merely by being white) are absolutely tone deaf about the underbelly of what's happening in America.  I am old and white but not tone deaf (because of my profession), and I have always known--and acknowledged--that I am racist because I grew up in the U.S. surrounded by institutions continuously perpetuating the original racism of the creators, although an occasional few "woke" white people tried their best to turn things around. 

I can't believe you suggest that participants in "higher education" are a microcosm of the wider world. Did you mean that?

On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 12:27 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Merle:

Your generation may not be able to tackle the article with an open mind, but I suggest that we need to pay close attention.

I take it you mean “our” generation, right?  

I assume that you mean by racist that these “codes of conduct” unfairly advantage some racial/ethnic group at the expense of others.  I assume that that is what  you mean by racist.  I assume you don’t mean that there will be no “codes of conduct” in a post-racist world.  But any code of conduct is a constraint, and thus disadvantages somebody for whom that constraint is, well, a constraint.   

When I was young, I used to write books.  Now I am old, I just write book titles.  I am thinking of a book entitled, Who is this old White guy, and why should I pay attention to him?  It’s a book about Strunk and White’s Elements of Style.  Now there’s a code of conduct if ever I saw one!  What does Strunk and White look like in a post racial world?  You cannot imagine a world without style guides anymore than you can imagine a highway without rules of the road, right?  So what does Strunk and Brown look like?  Trust me.  Those aren’t rhetorical questions.  I really want to know. 

But yes, I will read the article.

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of Merle Lefkoff
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2020 1:01 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] gelotophilia

Sorry, Steve, to be a bit off topic here, but your reference to "certain codes of personal conduct" emerging from institutions of "higher education" are now considered racist.  And I suggest that the list take a look at this amazing piece in a recent NYTimes titled "Whiteness Lessons".  Your generation may not be able to tackle the article with an open mind, but I suggest that we need to pay close attention.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/magazine/white-fragility-robin-diangelo.html

On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 9:58 AM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com> > wrote:

As I read the interchange about GPT-3 and the Chinese room, I was drawn off into side-musings which were finally polyped off to a pure tangent (in my head) when DougC and NickT exchanged:

NLT> Dog do joy; why not computers? 

DC> dog is highly interconnected - hormones, nerves, senses, and environment. neurons are not binary . every synapse is an infinite state variable.

While Joy and humor are not identical, there is some positive correlation.   Poking around, I was only mildly surprised to find that there was a body of literature and in fact international organizations and conferences on humor (not mimes or clowns or  stand up comedians, but real scholars studying the former as well as regular people).   I was looking for the physiological complexes implied by humor or joy.   I haven't (yet) found as much on the topic as I would like, maybe because I got sidelined reading about 2 neologisms (ca 2007) and a related ancient (Greek) term:   Gelotophobia, Gelotophilia, and Katagelasticism.   My limited Italian and Spanish had me reading it as "Gelato" or "Helado" which translates roughly into our own "Ice Cream", though the ingredients differ toward less rich technically.

Their meanings, however are roughly:  Fear of being laughed at; Love of being laughed at; and the Pleasure of laughing at others.     These are apparently more than the usual discomfort or warm feelings we might get from being laughed at, or from laughing at others, but a more deep and acute sense of it.

https://www.wired.com/2011/07/international-humor-conference/

https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/14037/1/Ruch_Proyer_PhoPhiKat_V.pdf

Part of why I bring it up on this list is because as I study myself and others as we exchange our ideas, observations, and occasional (un)pleasantries, I am fascinated by the intersection between (convolution amongsT?) personal styles and perhaps more formal "training" each of us might have learned from our parents, among our peers, by our teachers, our workplaces, possibly professional organizations, etc.   

It appears to me that institutions of higher education enforce/impose a certain code of personal conduct first on their participants (undergrads, grads, postdocs, staff, faculty) which is a microcosm of the larger world.  White Collar and Blue Collar contexts are also similarly dissimilar, and within those, a cube-farm of programmer-geeks and a bullpen of writers, and a trading floor of traders (all white collar, taking their showers at the beginning of the day) have a wide spectrum while blue collar workers (taking their showers at the end of the day) do as well.   Construction crews,  oilfield roughnecks, cowboys, farmhands, etc.   each have their own myriad ways of interacting... sometimes *requiring* a level of mocking to feel connected, etc.  There may also be a strong generational component... as we cross roughly 3 generations.  Greatest/Boomers/X/Millenials/Zoomers/??? and all the cusps between.

But what I was most interested in is related to the original discussion which is what is the extended physiological response to humor, joy, mockery that a human (or animal?) may have which a synthetic being would need to be designed to include.   Perhaps a properly broadly conceived General Artificial Intelligence would ultimately include all of this as well, and as deep learning evolves, it seems that there is no reason that a GI couldn't simulate the physiological feedback loops that drive and regulate some aspects of humore?

- Steve

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-- 

Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org <http://emergentdiplomacy.org> 

Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

mobile:  (303) 859-5609
skype:  merle.lelfkoff2

twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff

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Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam <http://bit.ly/virtualfriam> 
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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-- 

Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org <http://emergentdiplomacy.org> 

Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

mobile:  (303) 859-5609
skype:  merle.lelfkoff2

twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff

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