[FRIAM] Graal VM

[Steven A Smith]

Great discussions as always (or at least often) here.  

What I find missing in both this thread and the Peirce/Pragmatist one
Dave started is the structural aspects of our sociopolitical scene that
creates a low-dimensional (often just one), polarizing landscape where
those with more power (economic, political, rhetorical, ???) are more
able to "herd" the unwashed masses (all of us included) at-will,
possibly to our own (economic/political/personal-liberty?) slaughter.

This game-drive technique is not new, and probably not new in the
sociopoliticaleconomic scene.  

The conceit of Democracy seems to be that people want to be and can be
self-governing and that the "will of the people" can be consolidated
into something manageable through "voting".   Add the layer of
indirection of a *representative* government, and you get some
conveniences and efficiencies in exchange for some lack of sensitivity
and precision.

Parliamentary systems (adopted broadly, compared to our own) mix it up a
little, preventing what I think Glen refers to as a premature
binding...  presumably a little more agile with artifacts such as
"coalition building/dissolving" and the "vote of no-confidence".

So much of our contemporary sociopolitical rhetoric seems to be confined
to this arbitrary? left-right axis which is at best a projection from at
least a *handful* of additional dimensions.   What *of* a more
sophisticated dimensional analysis (as Marcus put the name on it) of our
sociopolitics?   Are we really (individually and collectively) that dumb
that we can only think (or at least argue) in one dimension?  Or is it
in the best interest of "the powers that be" that we remain confined to
that (over)simplification of "life, the universe and everything"?

Trump has tumbled the Republican party off-axis in a certain way and
seems to have found another somewhat stable mode which paradoxically may
have actually created the conditions for Bernie (and Elizabeth to a
lesser extent) to tumble the Democrats into yet-another stable spin.  
Or to extend the metaphor, has he just "tumbled our gyros" in a way that
will never recover?   Maybe it is time to quit watching the artificial
horizon (polling, punditry, ???), look out the window and recover "by
the seat of our pants"?

Ramble,

 - Steve

On 2/20/20 10:24 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> Right. But if I'm right and the *trend* is toward unitarity in the executive, then the trend is *against* breaking up the organizations for which they are vessels. The Oracle (and Google) employees are tilting at windmills in a hopeless quest. They *are* useful idiots because they don't know the tidal wave (of unitary executive) is about to crush them.
>
> I certainly hope I'm wrong. I've spent most of my professional life in nanoscale companies, fighting alongside the anarchists, but in a guise palatable by many of the gigascale organizations who've used me. But is it hopeless? Should I just get a job at a multinational, take some microdoses of nootropics to make my work for The Man more productive, and hope my non-productive elder years are at least blindingly happy? Or should I die on the battlefield, whacking at the tsunami with my broken paddle?
>
> On 2/20/20 9:13 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> < But now, that era is coming to an end. It's more true now that Turkey *is* Erdoğan, the US *is* Trump, Oracle is Ellison, etc.  >
>>
>> My point, putting on my anarchist hat, is that is less bad if the organizations are deeply compromised in the process.   If Oracle doesn't make it in light of Microsoft and Postgres, etc. then life goes on.  Eventually Ellison dies or Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders take his money, etc.
>