[FRIAM] Murdoch and Trump

Wed Jan 22 15:59:58 EST 2020

Oh, Pieter, 

I allow no rivals in my ability to not understand complex ideas, particularly those deployed on this forum.

I think my logic went as follows:  

All success (by definition) must be self sustaining. (Temporary success is an oxymoron)

P S declares, “The Enlightenment requires defense.” 

Any movement that requires defense is not self sustaining

Therefore, the Enlightenment is not successful.

You could, of course be questioning my first premise.  If, by definition, some success is temporary, then, of course the success of the enlightenment could be merely temporary, and therefore need a contemporary defense.  Or, you could be asserting that I misunderstood you and you never voiced the second premise.  

I confess that drives me stark raving nuts.  It’s the way that he confidently tosses his long curly locks.  He could been reciting from the Great Quotations of Charles Peirce, and I would still find him obnoxious.  

So, my resistance to your argument may be based entirely on Pinker’s hair.  

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Pieter Steenekamp
Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2020 11:06 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Murdoch and Trump

Nick,

About your "if the Enlightenment has worked, it should not need defense, right?"

If people do not recognize that it has worked, is it wrong to point out that it has worked?

I'm not claiming there are no global problems - there certainly are. But things are getting better, not? I've recently read that during the last decade humanity has for the first time ever progressed to the point where less than 10% of the global population lives in absolute poverty. 
Using this example - there are still massive problems; 10 % lives in absolute poverty.

>From wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty

I quote from the same wikipedia page:

"In public opinion surveys around the world, people surveyed tend to incorrectly think that extreme poverty has not decreased."

Then about your "A system that “works” does not sow the seeds or its own destruction, right?"

I totally agree, it does not sow the seeds of its own destruction. Or does it? I don't observe it sowing the seeds of its own destruction.

Pieter

On Wed, 22 Jan 2020 at 19:25, <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

I ==>so<== want to agree with you Pieter.  But there is a contradiction here:  if the Enlightenment has worked, it should not need defense, right?  A system that “works” does not sow the seeds or its own destruction, right?  

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of Pieter Steenekamp
Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2020 8:56 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Murdoch and Trump

So much trouble?

I'm an enthusiastic supporter of Steven Pinker's, I quote from  https://www.amazon.com/Enlightenment-Now-Science-Humanism-Progress/dp/0525427570  :
"If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science.
Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.
Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.
With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress." 

You might argue that it's not going to hold in the future, but I think you're on shaky ground to argue we are in trouble now.

Pieter 

On Wed, 22 Jan 2020 at 17:32, Merle Lefkoff <merlelefkoff at gmail.com <mailto:merlelefkoff at gmail.com> > wrote:

This is the hubris that has got us into so much trouble!

On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 1:00 AM Pieter Steenekamp <pieters at randcontrols.co.za <mailto:pieters at randcontrols.co.za> > wrote:

Yep, I would go for this one. IMO we are involved in a collective process where communication, reason, and action are indeed possible and flourishing. Sure there are risks, climate change being one but not the only one. Humanity is still very fragile and vulnerable to existential risks like climate change, a big meteor or comet hitting the earth, a big sun flare causing major damage to our electricity distribution networks, new very dangerous, and others. The end could come before I finish this sentence. But on the positive side if you observe the progress that has happened, I am very optimistic that we are on the path towards a better future.  
I am a big fan of David Deutsch. Apart from him being part of having developed the first quantum computer algorithm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsch%E2%80%93Jozsa_algorithm) , his views on infinite progress as per his book The Beginning of Infinity resonates very well with me.
I quote about the book from wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_of_Infinity)
“Deutsch views the Enlightenment of the 18th century as near the beginning of an infinite sequence of purposeful knowledge creation. Knowledge here consists of information with good explanatory function that has proven resistant to falsification. Any real process is physically possible to perform provided the knowledge to do so has been acquired. The Enlightenment set up the conditions for knowledge creation which disrupted the static societies that previously existed. These conditions are the valuing of creativity and the free and open debate that exposed ideas to criticism to reveal those good explanatory ideas that naturally resist being falsified due to their having basis in reality. Deutsch points to previous moments in history, such as Renaissance Florence and Plato's Academy in Golden Age Athens, where this process almost got underway before succumbing to their static societies' resistance to change.”

Pieter

On Wed, 22 Jan 2020 at 01:05, Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com> > wrote:

Nick writes:

"So, in these sorts of situations, people tend to sort themselves out into Dionysians and Apollonians, the former declaring that we're probably  fucked and we might as well stay warm, run around in our cars, and burn all the coal we can, and the later declaring that we have a chance to get it right and we should take our best shot."

How about one step back:  Are we involved in a collective process where communication, reason, and action are possible?   If we are not, then democracy is nothing more than a temporary way to keep the peace and to diffuse a need many have for (a feeling of) agency.  It is a rearrangement of deck chairs because soon the real shit will be coming down.   If all living creatures are just riding a wave, a process unfolding and going wherever it must go, some may recognize they have no control and rationally opt for the Dionysian approach.  Other living things like koalas and kangeroos and polar bears die by the millions, helpless and afraid.   At least the Dionysian gets the luxury of recognizing, "Yep, this is it."  It just depends on what kind of influence *can* work.  At one point the British Empire ruled over a quarter of the world.   Now it isn't even possible to get people to dispose of their plastic bottles properly.  I think the Apollonians better take charge ASAP, if that's what they are going to do.  

Marcus

  _____  

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > on behalf of uǝlƃ ☣ <gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com> >
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2020 2:49 PM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Murdoch and Trump 

Nah. I reject the dichotomy. I consider myself both D and an A, but in different domains. And I think it might be reasonable to time slice between A & D. My sister's ex used to say "We play hard and we work hard" ... indicating that they were both D & A, maybe even simultaneously, depending on how you interpret that.

The more interesting thing about AGW is whether or not one *must* be a believer or a "skeptic" [†], and nothing in between. As a dyed in the wool agnostic, I neither believe nor am I a "skeptic", from gun control to abortion to AGW. I also don't like Britney Spears' music. But if she showed up at my door and asked me to ... oh, I don't know ... create a visualization package for her music, I would definitely do it, which would mean listening to her music a LOT for days on end. You don't have to agree with a mission in order to contribute to the mission.

So, it seems to me to be *unreasonable* to run around complaining about how so many people are AGW believers. So what? If you don't want to work on the problem, go work on something else. It's just weird how the "skeptics" are so obsessed. E.g.

  https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg

[†] In quotes to indicate that many people abuse the term. I am a skeptic, but not a "skeptic" ... if you grok the gist.

On 1/21/20 12:17 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>  wrote:
> While I am "in", it seems to me that a distinction is beginning to evolve here between whether a reasonable person CAN doubt Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) and whether such a person SHOULD doubt AGW.   I think reasonable people could argue whether we are in a period of AGW (400yrs), a period of global cooling (11,000 yrs) or a spectacularly fragile and geologically unprecedented period of climate stability (also about 11kyrs).  So, in these sorts of situations, people tend to sort themselves out into Dionysians and Apollonians, the former declaring that we're probably  fucked and we might as well stay warm, run around in our cars, and burn all the coal we can, and the later declaring that we have a chance to get it right and we should take our best shot.  I am, as you all know, with the Apollonians.  We are, after all, the choosing species, the species that can knowingly chart it's own path.  So we “should” choose; in fact, we /will/ chose, even if we only do so by
> choosing not to choose. 
> 
>  
> 
> But it's clear, now why the debate is so intractable.  The debate between Dionysians and Apollonians has been in progress for centuries, so it's no surprise that we are struggling with it now. 
> 
>  
> 
> I hear some of you formulating an argument that whether we are D’s or A’s should be determined by the shape of the hazard space.  As a collective, I think we FRIAMMERS are particularly well positioned and qualified to have that discussion, and I hope it will continue. 

-- 
☣ uǝlƃ
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-- 

Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org

Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

merlelefkoff at gmail.com <mailto:merlelefoff at gmail.com> 
mobile:  (303) 859-5609
skype:  merle.lelfkoff2

twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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