[FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??
Steve Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Mon Jan 3 14:28:02 EST 2022
I am coming late to this thread/discussion which is probably for the
best, not diving in prematurely.
I appreciate your (NST) bringing the thread back to your original
question, not that the myriad braided channels of the thread are not
useful and interesting.
I think it is an interesting question for many reasons.
1. What makes 2040 Auspicious to you (or any of us?)
2. What scope (geographic, political, social, specieal) of community?
3. Where does scaling come in (referencing 1 and 2)?
2040... I'm used to people invoking 2030 and 2050 and 2100 variously...
I don't think I've encountered a 2040 invocation before. It is
auspcious for me in that I will be mid-80s by then which may be the age
of some of our eldest here already, and an age which I don't necessarily
expect to reach personally. My father and grandfathers only made it
into their late 70s and early 80s(my father) while my mother recently
passed just shy of 91.
Many Climate Predictors/Planners are talking about not getting our
carbon gluttony under control before 2050, others are saying 2030 is a
critical goal and yet other say we are already farooked and now it is
deck-chair-on-titanic time. I suppose I believe all of them. We
missed a window in 1900 or maybe 1975 or maybe 2000 for nipping our
gluttony for portable, inexpensive, ubiquitous, very dense energy in the
bud, and the worst of the greenhouse gas-induced climato-ecological
tumble that is finally becoming something many people experience in real
time. It took ME getting a bad sunburn at sea-level in 10 minutes (in
NZ in 2000) to actually *believe* in the Ozone hole (as it shrunk but
precessed around the south pole, making sun-exposure MUCH more acute
(fickle) than I've been used to living in dry, high elevation conditions
most of my life). Los Alamos tried to burn down *twice* in 10 years
and I, along with many others tried to treat it as a
transient/coincidental phenomena, not a consequence of widespread
heat/drought/etc. Now cities like Portland and Denver (where my
daughters each live) are trying to burn down. As little as 2 years ago I
remember a discussion on this list where at least one member seemed
adamant that a 2C rise in average temperature of the globe was nothing
to worry about. That member (and others who lurk on such topics) may
well still hold that the wild and growing variations in weather, forced
by a small but meaningful climate shift, is not a problem and/or is also
nothing we have brought upon ourselves with our ignorantly willful
gluttony (which I have shared in my life, and continue to experience
albeit somewhat reduced).
Scope of Community... I think your original question was pretty much
using the vernacular use of "community"... me and all my friends,
associates, neighbors, colleagues, etc. How do we live together.
What does a "day in the life" look like? I think this is a good choice
of focus/question even though (or especially because) it is the tip of
the iceberg of what is important/relevant. It IS what we experience.
It is (for the most part) our fitness function, which we optimize for.
I ask scope because of the intertwinedness of Economy, Ecology, and
??? earth/human systems which I think we have somewhat ignored. We
here are practiced and trained somewhat in systems thinking but I would
claim that we are not that good at it, at least not outside of our
specialized domains where we have peers and tools and systems to keep us
honest. Huge failings of this type range from the manic
hypercapitalistic modality that does not recognize that it *can* shit
it's own nest with both earth-systems (ecology) and human systems
(economic class/warfare), to the current pandemic (best I can tell
anti-mask/anti-vaxx folks are thinking only/at-best about infectous
disease and entirely oblivious of epidemiology and how it is different
if related). I also believe that the anti-democracy activities afoot
around the world are predicated on something like a majority (or at
least a large enough mob) believing that as long as they are the ones
getting their way, there really isn't any value in a system that
supports something like fairness/justice/plurality. I myself have a
lot of misgivings about direct and representative democracy, but not
(just) because I keep not-getting-my-way in the one I ostensibly
inhabit, but because I don't think it either optimizes nor satisfices
what we *really want/need* which is part of Nick's original challenge
(healthy community). In my emergent pan-consciousness perspective, I
accept the technical accuracy of Marcus' position about "natural
consequences"... but I also continue to hold onto principals of mutual
respect (and even love) among/between loci of consciousness (individual
humans, other sentient creatures, not-quite-sentient creatures, trees,
forests, mountains, glaciers, ice-caps, etc.)
Scaling... this thread has included discussions (dismissals?) of
"intermediate scale" in our systems, yet most of us are familiar with
the emergence/maintenance of power-law distributions in natural
systems. Engineering (including of Societies and Economies) tends to
focus on (false?) efficiencies which tend to (require?) eliminate or at
least severely reduce intermediate scales. "Cut out the middleman". I
find the specifics of Nudge Theory a little bit trite but I do very much
appreciate the attempt to re-introduce some of the mechanisms of
natural/evolutionary systems into our engineering processes. "Nudging"
very likely re-introduces some of the intermediate scale structures that
hyper-optimization of sub-dimensional fitness-functions tend to
eliminate. "Think Global, Act Local" seems to have become at least
dated if not somewhat deprecated... and it certainly can seem trite. I
take it to be a bumper-sticker sized, generally accessible proxy for
"power law distribution of scales".
- Steve
On 1/3/22 10:28 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
>
> Marcus and EricS,
>
> I am uncertain about the degree to which your answers deny the premise
> of my question: What does a healthy 2040 COMMUNITY look like. Marcus
> seems committed to a naturalist morality, all natural selection is
> good, but I can’t believe that Eric is, given other things he has said
> in these pages. The citation of the aphorism,
>
> “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”
>
> …suggests a hankering to out think the market, to head off the future,
> not just to plan to profit form it, but perhaps I am inserting my own
> Silent Generation Deweyan hankering.
>
> It’s freezing effing cold in this room and I have to go to the sunny
> side of the house.
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *David Eric Smith
> *Sent:* Monday, January 3, 2022 5:15 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??
>
> This is an interesting direction.
>
> How small a minority does one have to be in, for it to count as an
> arbitrage opportunity? In the El Farol and Minority Game
> abstractions, any minority is enough.
>
> If we think about the dichotomy in public health, or in reason vs.
> hormonal aggression, the split in the US (at least by political
> commitments) is not so far from 50/50. But as far as “profiting from
> the committed wrong”, that market seems to be cornered already by a
> very tiny percent, who have priced in much of the available surplus.
> The difference between the dupes and the honest but powerless seems
> unimportant compared to the difference between both of those and the
> insiders with power, access, and control. Somehow these richly
> structured extensive-form games with coalitional solution concepts
> seem very far from the market model in which we often think about
> arbitrage.
>
> I am also reminded of the aphorism in that other realm “The market can
> stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” Or in the case of
> climate, agricultural, and social instability, alive.
>
> I wonder what makes an adequate toolbox of concepts and analogies with
> which to think about this (at least somewhat) systematically.
>
> Eric
>
>
>
> On Jan 2, 2022, at 2:58 PM, Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com>
> wrote:
>
> Nick writes:
>
> < So, what does a healthy 2040 community look like. What are we
> working TOWARD, here. Once of the things that the Mcnamee podcast
> highlighted for me was my feeling that, in a chaotic world, people
> like me, /planners, /are just out of tune with the world. >
>
> I don't think it really matters how people interact in social
> media or what they think. What will matter is how people adapt
> to climate change and the exhaustion of food and energy, and the
> migrations resulting from climate change. That's where the
> opportunities will be. If there are millions of people that deny
> it is happening like they deny pandemics, then things simply must
> be arranged so that the natural accounting occurs. The planners
> will look past the chaos and make their investments.. and wait.
>
> Marcus
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:*Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com
> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> on behalf
> ofthompnickson2 at gmail.com
> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com><thompnickson2 at gmail.com
> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>>
> *Sent:*Sunday, January 2, 2022 1:32 PM
> *To:*'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
> <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
> *Subject:*Re: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??
>
> So, what does a healthy 2040 community look like. What are we
> working TOWARD, here. Once of the things that the Mcnamee podcast
> highlighted for me was my feeling that, in a chaotic world, people
> like me,/planners,/are just out of tune with the world.
>
> By the way, I think “surfing the web” , as it has been used, is a
> terrible metaphor. What most of us do is like water skiing the
> web. Bouncing over the wake, never actually getting into the
> water. Gives surfing a bad name. A surfer finds the few
> survivable paths through an immense concentration of hostile
> forces. Surfing is more like martial arts. In fact we must begin
> to surf the web. To realize the manners in which its hostile
> forces constrain us and find the few paths that allow us to master
> those forces and come out of the curl safely. We thought it was a
> playground; now we see it’s a minefield.
>
> n
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,-Fd2M0MU4wX5y1N6mhhnNrFlsG64cdcJ8jOErlxB0hvFzR4dcEnKSSt2EqX5s2fb-wPOBqSH4X2Ap1mYP24zv3_muYGYijRLpnFKTxxN3dQyGtSp1B6x&typo=1>
>
> *From:*Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com
> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>>*On Behalf Of*Marcus Daniels
> *Sent:*Sunday, January 2, 2022 2:18 PM
> *To:*The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
> *Subject:*Re: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??
>
> Nick writes:
>
> < Imagined a world in which we all worked at home, everything was
> on zoom, and everything was delivered by Amazon by drone. I
> realize this is a reductio, but hum along with me for a few bars.
> There would be no intermediate social landscape between the home
> and the distribution center. No intermediate human scales.
>
> I can’t say immediately why this would be a bad thing, but my gut
> doesn’t like it.>
>
> I can't think of many examples where the intermediate scales are
> anything but wasteful or intrusive. Maybe to see a tailor
> coupled to the purchase of certain clothes? I still drive to
> services (dentist, doctor, hair stylist), just not to
> redistributors, because they don't really add anything. There's
> still a farmer's market that seems as popular as ever -- but they
> DO offer something unique. I can drive five minutes to Home
> Depot but honestly half the time their inventory is exhausted for
> what I want, and I end up ordering it online.
>
> Marcus
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:*Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com
> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> on behalf
> ofthompnickson2 at gmail.com
> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com><thompnickson2 at gmail.com
> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>>
> *Sent:*Sunday, January 2, 2022 1:03 PM
> *To:*'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
> <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
> *Subject:*Re: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??
>
> Marcus,
>
> I would like to be convinced …. But
>
> Imagined a world in which we all worked at home, everything was on
> zoom, and everything was delivered by Amazon by drone. I realize
> this is a reductio, but hum along with me for a few bars. There
> would be no intermediate social landscape between the home and the
> distribution center. No intermediate human scales.
>
> I can’t say immediately why this would be a bad thing, but my gut
> doesn’t like it.
>
> Nick
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,p4rsPfl7qCnkvPDXzYT5M-1fZBZKaCDIB1z2Osc-CfFDLgw598S0mD13_Sppk4ua_2uMIZVWNAECmtZ8s2kblHg2quJex4YawfboMGbRTDU_u15bu8836eLAHQ,,&typo=1>
>
> *From:*Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com
> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>>*On Behalf Of*Marcus Daniels
> *Sent:*Sunday, January 2, 2022 1:38 PM
> *To:*'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
> <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
> *Subject:*Re: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??
>
> I can see living without Facebook (I do), but why can't we live
> with Amazon? It seems like they did a pretty good job of
> displacing the likes of Walmart. It could happen again. What
> added inherent value do stores have, other than as a mechanism to
> prevent he consolidation of market influence w.r.t. to prices?
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:*Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com
> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> on behalf
> ofthompnickson2 at gmail.com
> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com><thompnickson2 at gmail.com
> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>>
> *Sent:*Sunday, January 2, 2022 12:03 PM
> *To:*'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
> <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
> *Subject:*[FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??
>
> I just listened to this podcast
>
> https://feeds.megaphone.fm/VMP5489734702
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2ffeeds.megaphone.fm%2fVMP5489734702&c=E,1,G87ToIzgI5DT4ZpiKuXcRc2EHcS4lpVgIftU98yiNor7PFNa9lCoDMtpA2GT4_2eudXeeatF6BgR-Peqwvf8pBQOnsbOiuYBI693rGSZCjDA8-JbvEUZ&typo=1>
>
> a conversation between the former prosecutor, Joyce Vance, and the
> musician, financier, turncoat Facebook investor Roger Mcnamee, who
> likens this moment with big tech to the moment before the food
> industry regulations of the early 1900’s and anti-pollution
> legislation of the 60’s, moments when Da People reasserted control
> over over-weening industry interests. He is author of the
> book,/Zucked/.
>
> An hour-long pod cast is a terribly inefficient way to learn about
> something, so I hope that one you, for whom none of this is news,
> can offer a more condensed source.
>
> We are basically talking about the Amazon paradox, here: can’t
> live with it; can’t live without it. How much ARE we willing to
> pay to have the trains run on time?
>
> As usual, I am in need of instruction.
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,AekdfP2MBl31iUxGjknOMPY6CLKTWZ0Uy_4dTUwGKgNke6kg7BN0qwu3VC8xzay12y6vtDYGszhL0ussBgpgtjOzZjJu9AWkUutwzgaFOibLSYQ0DDICSZg,&typo=1>
>
>
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