[FRIAM] Curmudgeons Unite!

[glen∉ℂ]

Re mismatched expectations with voting and representation versus liberal use of metaphor: yes, they are strongly related. My impulse is to object slightly and say that I'm a big fan of metaphor. But I'm not a big fan of constant reflection on our (ubiquitous) metaphors. It's analysis paralysis ... or navel gazing. It's human to see *through* the metaphor, as a tool, to it's target and constant focus on the tool is debilitating ... similar to arguing about word definitions.

Re personal vs political position: yes, I feel the same way you do in wondering if/how my individual *can* possibilities help construct the world I *want* to see. This is another form of (forward) map from individual to collective. We see lots of posturing about how some one person thinks they know how that map works (e.g. individualists claiming it doesn't work at all, socialists claiming all their favorite examples demonstrate how it should work, technologists claiming "if you build it they will come", etc.). I tend to push back and ask that we study the map(s) before making such claims.

Re Parscale/Bannon gaming: Exactly. The more our representation depends on first-past-the-post, and the more technology we insert in between the humans being represented and the humans doing the representing, the more *gamable* the system.

Re what are we trying to achieve with our representation?: I don't know. It would be *great* if we could ask that of the people, everyone, homeless and wealthy alike, in such a well-formed way that their answers would parse and compose. But I doubt we can. That question and its forms co-evolves with the answers. And that coevolutionary, wandering, implicit set of objectives argues, again, for a more robust and spread out representation. I.e. a parliamentary system which allows the wings and extremes to participate in the government helps ask good questions and helps provide parsable and compositional answers. A ranked choice voting scheme helps formulate the questions and answers. The electoral college (and Senate/House structure) was a (failed) attempt to do that, too, I think. The reason I think a steady re-org of representation is necessary before digital vote tech is because these questions are not well-formed. If you don't understand the input, you won't understand the output.

I *love* the idea of the paintball gun. But it does sound a bit like suicide ... suicide by gun nut.


On 8/21/20 1:10 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> 
> On 8/21/20 9:58 AM, glen∉ℂ wrote:
>> 
>> The problem is that we expect our representation to be, somehow,
>> faithful/accurate. We can see this in microcosm with the false
>> equivalence between household budgets and national economies (or in
>> comparing the USPS to a corporation, or in approval rates for our
>> representative vs Congress as a whole, or in thousands of other
>> individual vs collective contexts).
> And I take this to be strongly related with your issue with metaphor...
> metaphors can be used thoughtfully to help explain or understand one
> system in terms of another, but they can also be used to *generate* or
> *exploit* conflations for various purposes misaligned with understanding
> or explanation.
>> As I've tried to exhibit re: guns, I am unabashedly two-faced.
>> Personally, I think anyone ought to be able to destroy the world.
>> Politically, socially, that's madness and we ought to ban handguns
>> entirely.
> I appreciate this span.   I experience it more *generally* in the sense
> that my extreme awareness of Libertarian ideals unto Anarchism is that I
> can do anything I *can*.   But as you imply (I think), I *choose* to
> live within the context of a culture where I have to constrain many of
> the things I *could* do, as a participant in shaping the society/world I
> want to live in. [...]
>> Any tool designed to accurately hone in on that tiny little wiggle in
>> the popular vote will continue this false equivalence between
>> individual and collective, increasing the us-vs-them tribalism that
>> produced Trump's win.
> And in some way perhaps magnify it, or make it something the likes of
> Parscale/Bannon could exploit into a (slim/faux but qualitatively
> signifcant) win.
>> 
>> Voting and polling are simply symptoms. I'd welcome tools that target
>> the disease rather than making it worse. In the meantime, I'm with
>> Nick. Transparency means paper ballots and some human connection to
>> the tabulation and aggregation process. If Jon thinks that position
>> helps him understand how Republicans win elections, then it's useful
>> to go into a little more detail about the actual problem like I'm
>> trying to do, here.
> 
> And so, explicitly, can you elaborate yet more on this abstraction?
> What I think you introduce (well) above is the conflation between the
> personal/collective, private/public conceptions.  I could (as I often
> do) riff on *my* apprehension of what that looks like or how it goes
> wrong, but I would welcome your's and other's thoughts on this.  In
> particular I'm interested on "just what is it" we are trying to achieve
> with our representative democracy and how well are we and where might
> there be room for improvement?
> 
> Mary and I have been discussing the details of how (mechanically) we
> will participate in this November 2020 election.  As denizens of a
> fairly strongly blue state, I don't worry that my vote will make or
> break the "Blue Tide", but it feels like there are lots of
> meta-narratives implied in if/when/how/who we vote.   I'm torn between
> wanting to help prove/exercise the mail-in voting system and wanting to
> engage/enjoy the implied spirit of in-person voting and contrasting it
> with my father's admonition of "vote early, vote often" by taking
> advantage of generous early voting here and avoiding being part of "the
> rush".    I think I have settled for simply "voting vert early" and
> paying close attention to the dates/times/location so that I'm not
> scurrying at the last minute like Mary had to for the Democrat Primary
> (I'm "unaffiliated").
> 
> Paralleling your schizm on guns, I'm fantasizing about taking a
> paintball gun to (the perimeter of) my polling place and "marking" any
> poll watchers who think they need to show up exercising *their* open
> carry rights at that perimeter.   I am sure I will not do such a thing
> for myriad reasons, but I enjoy considering the irony of the various
> ragtag "Militias" that have chosen to involve themselves in other things
> in a disruptive/intimidating fashion being confronted with a mock
> shooting.   For the faint of heart here, I re-iterate "I am sure I will
> not",  just like I don't actually go around cutting the truck-nuts off
> of pickups even though I tell my friends who are likely to sport them
> that I *do* carry bolt-cutters for precisely that purpose.  I just can't
> resist the cognitive dissonance of the image.