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<p>DaveW-</p>
<p>Very well articulated from start to finish Dave. <br>
</p>
<p>I bailed after my first Anthro class, either because of some bad
chemistry with the prof, or a need by *many* profs to "haze"
aspiring students. In my case, it was because the class (and
prof) was structured around regurgitating rendered factoids from
the text. I'm no worse at rote memorization (more aptly, I was
then) than the next yokel, but that was not my interest. My
interest was in seeking the patterns which you speak of. This
lead me to the harder sciences where there was a more
structured/predictable extant suite of patterns (e.g. Periodic
Table, Newton's Laws, E&M, Relativity, (even) QM) but I had a
hint then that I was wading past a rich and fecund pattern-space
seeking a place where the views felt more spacious (like mucking
through an estuary, across foothills to begin climbing to higher
reaches). <br>
</p>
<p>Your and my shared fascination with Metaphor (though in somewhat
different modes I think) and Christopher Alexander's Pattern and
Form Languages grew out of my latent interest in all that which
cannot be easily/well reduced the way the laws of mechanics seem
to yield. <br>
</p>
<p>I enjoyed a limited friendship with Edward (Ned) Hall during my
30's and his last years (80s). The relevance of his work to
contemporary and first world cultures (everyday to my experience)
was fascinating to me because I didn't need a university host or
big grants to travel to other places to do primary observation. I
could indulge in my own observations and studies the same way I
can throw pebbles off of a cliff or into a pond and observe the
cascade of behaviours. FriAM is an Anthropological/Ethnographic
hotbed.</p>
<p>I never knew Mike Agar well, but his Ethnographer's ear and voice
was always inspirational to me. <br>
</p>
<p>I could rattle on about the value and role of Metaphor, Anecdote,
Narrative in Science (Narrating Complexity, Stepney et al) and
Model Theory, but it would just be more rattling.</p>
<p>Carry On!</p>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/12/21 7:46 AM, Prof David West
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:42cd6f6b-24dd-435f-bcf5-013270f0828e@www.fastmail.com">
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">I find anthropology to be
fascinating because it is complex, interpretative, dynamic,
highly contextual, and, ultimately anecdotal. "The ways of
humans" are not reducible to formulae, rules, laws, or
algorithms. There are 'patterns' and it is possible to establish
cultural 'norms' to which — always with exceptions — individual
behavior conforms.<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">"Thinking Anthropologically" means
constantly juggling hundreds of variables, trying to find the
"familiar in the strange" and the "strange in the familiar" and,
at best, discovering that your "understanding" is just a "thick
description."<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">In contrast, from my point of
view, science cherry picks the easy shit; that which is
reducible to answers, laws, principles, and algorithms. Make no
mistake, I love science, but only at the fringes where it
remains "metaphor and story and philosophy."<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">It is difficult to introduce
anthropological ideas, like the three categories of reciprocity,
into discussions on this list. Readers come up with questions,
framed with too much specificity to be easily answered — like
glen's question of transitivity in balanced reciprocity.<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">The answers to such questions are
almost always: yes ....but ....<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">When Jesus (supposedly) said, "if
you do it to the least among you you have done it to me," that
is transitive as I understand glen was asking.<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">"Balanced" is highly
contextualized. For example the group of workers that had lunch
together every Friday. Restaurants varied in price, everyone
ordered what they wished, and the check was always evenly split.
At the end of a year of study, the anthropologist observing the
group added up the numbers. The total spent by the group and the
amounts spent by each individual. Individual expenditures were
within ten-cents of the amount calculated by dividing total
expenditure by number of people in the group.<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">A Bill Mauldin cartoon: two GIs in
WWII are talking and one says to the other, "I want to thank you
for saving my life today, here's my last pair of dry socks."<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">Both cases exhibit balanced
reciprocity.<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">Most examples of general
reciprocity are situated in small, tight, groups like a family
and few point a path to a "scaled application." Bot others, like
Pieters, "pay it forward" or numerous instances of altruism
benefiting large, "anonymous," groups contain no obvious
constraints on scale.<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">Anyway - just something I wanted
to share.<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">davew<br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"><br>
</div>
<div>On Wed, May 12, 2021, at 1:46 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" id="qt" style="">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>I just want to share two stories with you regarding
reciprocity.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>1 Years ago I had to be in Miami for a couple of months
for business and my family joined me. My one son was ill and
got treatment at the Jackson Memorial Hospital. There was
one nurse in particular that went not the extra mile but
million miles to help us with everything that she possibly
could. When it was time for us to return home we obviously
wanted to express our gratitude. Her reply was to request us
to do to others what she has done to us.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>2 The deputy chief justice of South Africa Raymond Zondo
had a similar experience in his life. His family was very
poor and a local businessman helped so that he could study
law. After completed his studies he wanted to repay the
businessman, but in Zondo's own words:<br>
</div>
<div>“When I asked him what arrangements we could make so I
repay him, he said don’t worry. Do to others what I have
done to you. I thought that was very important and in my own
small way I try to do that,” said the judge.<br>
</div>
<div>Taken from <a
href="https://www.goodthingsguy.com/people/judge-raymond-zondo/"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.goodthingsguy.com/people/judge-raymond-zondo/</a><br>
</div>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div class="qt-gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="qt-gmail_attr">On Tue, 11 May 2021 at
23:56, Steve Smith <<a href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">sasmyth@swcp.com</a>> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="qt-gmail_quote"
style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0.8ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,
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<div>
<p>Lazily composing at least two upshots of this
conversation (and the smart-contract parallel one):<br>
</p>
<p>1) I think Russ brought up what *I* thought was
implicit in Reciprocity (though I understand why it is
not since I borrowed my use of the term from gift
economies, not adhering to the (obvious) mathematical
meaning that most here would jump to): My intended
connotation of Reciprocity included both "spirit of
generosity and gratitude", so it is excellent that those
were called out as possibly essential (or at least
efficient?) in improving the state of our relations.<br>
</p>
<p>2) Glen opened the question of "transitivity" which I
think you (Jon) are addressing here with good
motivation. In my smart-contract considerations, the
point would be that the values one attached to "raw
value" (money/crypto¢) in their transactions would
propogate through. For example, food stamps cannot
(directly) be redeemed for non-food items (specifically
alcohol, tobacco, pet food, sunglasses) and if I paid a
500% surcharge on the few gallons of petrol I run
through my Extended Range EV as a way to decline to
participate in A) blood for oil wars and B) clubbing
baby seals in the arctic, those crypto¢ would *avoid*
the pockets of the warmongers and seal-clubbers and
settle in the pockets of those who went to the effort to
get their oil without that. Of course, just like there
can be black/grey markets in food stamps "hey buddy,
I'll give ya $.50 on the dollar for those food
stamps!", there would surely appear
money-changers/launderers who would *try* to
cross-connect the drinking water with the black water
for their own profits. In principle, pervasive use of
smart contracts *could* make that vanishingly harder and
harder with adoption.<br>
</p>
<p>3) I knew "at least" would come in handy. My
intuitive conception of Reciprocity is that it is as
much about back as forward propogation. SteveG will
love the opportunity for a Dual Field encoding I
think. By taking Renee to dinner for Mother's Day, he
not only acts as a proxy for her own children in some
sense, I would like to believe he did it *because*
Renee's motherhood has already been her gift to him...
whatever benefits he gets from a step-role, from Renee
being a better partner having raised children, etc. and
that dinner is to honor and reciprocate for something he
has *already received* from her (see 1 above,
"gratitude").<br>
</p>
<p>The spectral graph and circuit analysis Jon points to
may well be useful/important for measurement/analysis of
how well a system is working. Ideally the
implementation is entirely local in the sense of agents
on networks of transactions. <br>
</p>
<p>Smart contracts are an implementation of distributed
computation where computation (complex decision making)
is deferred to the last (or most appropriate) place in
the network. For example, the fueling depot that
accepts my anti-war/anti-ANWR crypto¢ for petrol passes
it to his wholesale source which passes it through the
"circuit".... the gas pump owner doesn't need to know
(or share or even have an opinion on) what "values" are
embedded in my crypto¢, he simply takes his "service
cut" on the transaction as does each other middleman
right up to the guy gently scooping teaspoons of
bubbling crude out of an artesian well to run through
his handmade still. His still produces no better
(maybe worse) heptane/octane than BP or ARCO but he
*still* gets paid (ultimately by me) for so gently
milking the dino juice from the earth for me.<br>
</p>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
<div>On 5/11/21 3:21 PM, jon zingale wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>I have failed to follow this discussion very
closely. That said, to what extent could frameworks
like those that underlie <a
href="https://github.com/cdebacco/SpringRank"
rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">spring rank</a> or
gauge-theoretic <a
href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/0908.3043.pdf"
rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">price as curvature</a> give
reasonable characterizations of reciprocity over
circuits? To what extent does <a
href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/002251938090288X"
rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">Levine's</a> (painfully
straightforward) solving for eigenstates? <br>
</div>
<p>* Apologies for any paywalls, I am often stymied to
find better access. <br>
</p>
<div>
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