[FRIAM] Everything she knows...

[Prof David West]

Glen,

Your comments about your Swedish friend's kids reminded me of a ethnographic expedition I once led. Four undergraduate cultural anthropology students followed me to San Francisco to do a study of "cyber culture." We started in Silicon Valley with Jared Lanier and multiple VR pioneers, which led to the electronic music culture, which led to the Castro district leather gay community, which led to Raves, and eventually to the Church of All Worlds convention north of The City.

Quite an eye opener for affluent Catholic suburbanites that attended the University of St. Thomas. Molly was on the horizon then, but Acid and Mushrooms and Cacti were in abundance.

For those not SciFi fans, CAW is the second American religion deriving from a science fiction novel; after Dianetics which orginated in Hubbard's "Battleship Earth." CAW was founded by Michael Valentine Smith in Robert Heinlein's novel "Stranger in a Strange Land." CAW remains a small but vibrant religion.

davew


On Wed, Apr 17, 2019, at 3:54 PM, glen∈ℂ wrote:
> On 4/16/19 11:52 PM, David West wrote:
> > I am currently in Amsterdam - probably moving here for several years as two colleagues and I are starting a software development business.
> 
> I'm jealous! A friend of mine in Utrecht suggested we start an 
> organization together.  But until Renee' finished school we were rooted 
> here.
> 
> > While abandoning the institution of religion, the Dutch (who I am coming to know) remain religious in the sense that they still have a belief system. It is a syncretic 'religion' that seamlessly blends humanism, (mostly) Protestantism, and "sciencism." This religion has no dogma, no dictats, no fatwas. An anthropomorphized/personified God is far closer to metaphor than literal assertion. What remains is a shared 'sense' of how to interpret all that is about you and how to interact with each other.
> 
> This sounds similar to the way my Swedish client's 20-something kids 
> and their crowd believe(d).  It felt much more like an ethical system 
> than a religion. As usual, I spent more time with the kids than with 
> the adults ... maybe because I'm so immature ... or maybe I'm a social 
> vampire. But by the nature of my skeptical questioning, some of the 
> kids reacted (defensively) as if some of the ideas were religious 
> belief. But not very different from some of the near-religious beliefs 
> in some technical circles (e.g. the Singularity and strong AI).  I also 
> can't help but associate their blended philosophy with the free flow of 
> Molly in their crowd.  That group flowed smoothly between art and tech, 
> equally enthusiastic about microcontrollers and VR as they were about 
> music and art installations. The drug seemed to facilitate the blending.
> 
> As I've watched them age and settle into life paths, the frenetic 
> activity has waned, but the philosophy remains.
> 
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