[FRIAM] hot time in town tonight

[Steve Smith]

Dave -

I will take your claim that you do not enjoy this at face value, yet
your voice is not dissimilar to the many who seem to be enjoying
Schaden/Cassandra-Freude.   I take you to be a "fellow traveler" amongst
travelers here, albeit along your own particular (perhaps peculiar to
many) winding path.

and yet, like Noakes, it does seem to be the collective destination we
have/are chosen/choosing?  Either by our actions or by our inaction.

As a former member of a strong gun and self-reliant culture (the former
an extension of the latter?) I am quite familiar with the feeling that
somehow the collective is not to be trusted or is failing me in spite of
my implicit trust in it, and the instinct to pour all my resources into
scoping down my survival unit to something that seems manageable (e.g.
nuclear family, individual).  I believe that most refugees, for example,
have made that decision by the time they flee their homeland for a
"promised land" or at least one where their survival does not seem unlikely.

And yet, as Glen alludes and I *try* to gesture toward, we are also
social animals who need other social animals.   Our modern technology
gives us the illusion that we can survive alone, and perhaps even
neolithic hunter-gatherers could do so with their "advanced technology"
for obtaining meet, processing animal parts into more tools, weapons,
and clothing, shelter.   But this siren call to hyper-individualism
needs to be just one voice in a self-similar symphony at many scales.

It feels as if humanity is convulsing toward a pseudo manifest destiny
of having a role in the universe trying (replace the teliologic "trying"
with a more apt term "self-organizing") to become self-aware.   
Whatever the negEntropy path we seem to be a part of, it feels as if we
are in an acutely near-chaos moment.   What we are up to feels to be an
epitome of Lewin's "Life at the edge of Chaos".  

Are we on the verge of a Kurzweilian Singularity or perhaps one of the
many Utopian/Dystopian futures lined out by the speculative fiction
writers of the past century or two?   A cultural efflorescence or an
apocalyptic collapse?

And more to the point, does our opinion, our ideas, our will have
anything to do with our path into that future?

- Steve

> It does not.
>
> The data "came to me" in that it was in something else I was reading
> for purpose; I did not seek it out. At the same time, I was reading
> headlines about "burn it down before they can vote," or "Hell no! By
> any means possible," or "the time for talk and politics is past." This
> , in turn, generates scenarios that would have been inconceivable
> yesterday. 
>
> I often feel like the character Benny Noakes in a John Brunner novel>
> He is out of his mind on hallucinogens, sits in front of a TV watching
> the news and constantly utters the phrase, "Christ, what an
> imagination I've got."  All this "stuff" is so weird, so extreme, it
> beggars explanation or sense making — it must be my imagination.
>
> A bit of Marcus's fatalism, 'people gonna do what they do', some
> vestige of I told you so,  no pleasure.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 19, 2020, at 5:20 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com
> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> And why does this give you pleasure?
>>
>>  
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>  
>>
>>  
>>
>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
>> *Sent:* Saturday, September 19, 2020 4:41 PM
>> *To:* friam at redfish.com
>> *Subject:* [FRIAM] hot time in town tonight
>>
>>  
>>
>> Epoch Times Big Data Report August 2020
>>
>>  
>>
>> Gun sales up 133% over same three month time frame of 2019.
>>
>>  
>>
>> 12 % of registered Democrats bought guns this period
>>
>> 19% of Republicans
>>
>> 22% of those ages 18-29
>>
>> 21% Black
>>
>> 32% Union Members
>>
>> 19% Urbanites
>>
>> 19% of those earning over $200K/yr
>>
>> 1.8 million guns sold in July alone
>>
>> more than 423 million fire arms owned by civilians
>>
>> 18 million AR-15 in circulation /(personal comment — probably just as
>> many illegal full auto kits)/
>>
>> gun to people ration 5/3
>>
>>  
>>
>> That's the gasoline. RGB replacement will be the spark.
>>
>>  
>>
>> davew
>>
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>
>
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