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<div style="font-family:Arial;">I do not agree with the motives
for attacking accreditors, and will admit that there might be a
tiny baby in an ocean of bathwater, but I will not mourn their
demise.</div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">davew</div>
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<br>
<p>I'd like to see a larger discussion here of the abstractions
involved in all forms of "governance" and "regulation". </p>
<p>We all have beaucoup personal anecdotal experiences of the myriad
ways those designed-in feedback loops seem to go entirely awry or
seem to work against their own stated purpose. This can exhibit as
an acute (or even mild but chronic) inconvenience any one of us
experiences as we rub up against said "regulations". It can also
exhibit as what feels like a fundamental opposition of values
(e.g. when I feel that it should be my personal choice whether I
wear a seatbelt while driving vs feeling entirely comfortable with
deferring to a rule declaring which side of an undivided highway I
should be driving on).</p>
<p>To the extent that the universe is ordered by stacks of
self-organizing systems (quarks, elementary particles, atoms,
molecules, bio-molecules and cellular life, multicellular life,
.... ) it would seem inevitable that there is a liminal range
between these levels of organization where what multicellular
creatures experience as *cancer* cells are to the cells
themselves, just exercising their own (?latent?) sovereignty.<br>
</p>
<p>It is easy for me to identify with the peasants with their
torches and pitchforks at the castle gates, but with a little
self-awareness of my larger context also recognize that there is a
logic to the higher-level organization of society that I am
engaged in which it behooves me to understand and engage in (even
if as a dissident or freedom-fighting revolutionary). A hallmark
of life, and perhaps this stacked levels of reality I'm trying to
gesture toward, seems to be to maintain a multi-scale
loyalty/identity with upward/downward coupling... a cell needs
to nurture it's own organelles while participating in being a good
member of a tissue which in turn is organized into a good organ
which collectively comprises an organism which fits into it's own
familial/ecosystem/cultural context. <br>
</p>
<p>In the spirit of "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't
say anything at all", I tend to withdraw my participation from
systems where I feel that my participation is more disruptive than
not. I (like many) harbor all types of anti-social sentiments
which have me *wanting* to disrupt systems which happen to be
inconvenient or confounding to my sensibilities, but I also
recognize that I actually don't want to participate in a
"revolution" which I have no concept of what I will replace the
existing organizational structure with. My outrage and energy
are better directed to systems I *can* contribute to? </p>
<p>I don't mean to dismiss all "creative destruction" just recognize
that perhaps there is always a bias against glancing up and down
the stack of self-organization and noticing one's actual role in
that continuum? Many little kids (esp. boys?) seem to find it
more interesting to kick down someone else's sand castle than to
build their own. Maybe a meta-rule of entropy at work?<br>
</p>
<p>Maybe this will trigger a return to Glen's rants about the
implicit use of "levels" which is also welcome as I don't think my
references here to "stacks" and "levels" are completely righteous
by any means. I'd like to find a better language.<br>
</p>
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<div>On Sat, Apr 12, 2025, at 10:44 AM, Tom Johnson wrote:</div>
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<div>
<div>=======================</div>
<div>Tom Johnson</div>
<div>Inst. for Analytic Journalism</div>
<div>Santa Fe, New Mexico</div>
<div>505-577-6482</div>
<div>=======================</div>
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