[FRIAM] hot time in town tonight

[Prof David West]

Steve,

You are probably the only person on the list who has read the Brunner novel and knows Benny. He definitely "enjoys" his time tripping and watching the news. I definitely enjoy reading dystopian novels or watching dystopian movies (BladeRunner) and there is an analog when I watch the world fall apart, but it is a very "distant" / "disassociated" kind of enjoyment. I like and enjoy interesting complex things  I would hate a heaven that consisted of endless bliss and singing hosannas.

Wouldst that things be different? Yes. Intervention possible? Yes, but of a specific kind. Is the important question individual vesus social? No.

I would agree with Marcus, if I read his response correctly, that cultural efflorescence and apocalyptic collapse are not mutually exclusive. In fact, in my opinion, the last is the only means for achieving the first.

I am reminded of an Erma Bombeck title: "The Grass is Always Greener Above the Septic Tank." Life flourishes in near chaos, the decadent, the near chaotic. The Los Angeles of Bladerunner or the budayeen of George Alex Effinger's novels.

I hear people around me referring to the Burning of California, COVID, Trumpism, etc. etc. as "signs of the endtimes." To me they are necessary, if unfortunate, preconditions for rebirth, for efflorescence. And that rebirth will be what it will, not something that can be planned and managed, however smart and well intentioned we might, collectively, be.

dave west


On Sun, Sep 20, 2020, at 8:58 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> 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 wrote:
>>> And why does this give you pleasure?

>>>  

>>> 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 *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

>>> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
>>> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 
>> 
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 
> 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20200920/f6c02e99/attachment.html>