[FRIAM] tolerance of intolerance

[steve smith]

BTW if my intro sounded sarcastic, the sarcasm was directed at myself, 
not at Glen or his submission... I truly do get a strong hit of occult 
or arcane, more likely the latter which I want to suss out, but (as my 
sarcasm indicates) I know I often lose the plot (the scent) to stay 
en-metaphor...

On 9/30/24 12:20 PM, steve smith wrote:
>
> As usual, I am finding a strong hint of a whiff of something profound 
> in Glen's references here, but I will probably biff my 
> response/elaboration with my heady excitement:
>
> I had to /find/ Vico and refresh myself on Rawls:
>
>     *Giambattista Vico*, an 18th-century philosopher best known for
>     his work on the *cyclical nature of history* and the importance of
>     *human culture in shaping social laws*. Vico believed that history
>     and society are not purely subject to rational, mechanistic laws
>     like those found in nature but are instead shaped by human
>     creativity, language, and culture. His work emphasizes that
>     *humans create their own social realities* and that knowledge of
>     society comes from within the context of lived human experience,
>     rather than abstract, external analysis.
>
> and
>
>     *John Rawls*, a 20th-century political philosopher known for his
>     theory of *justice as fairness*. In rapidly changing social
>     contexts, a Rawlsian perspective might emphasize *fairness,
>     equality, and social justice*, particularly through the use of the
>     *original position* and the *veil of ignorance*. These are thought
>     experiments where individuals design societal rules without
>     knowing their future position in society, ensuring fairness for
>     all, especially the most disadvantaged. Such ideas could shape
>     debates on how to manage fairness in dynamic social transformations.
>
> I definitely appreciate the (re)normalization of the more familiar 
> contemporary use of "elite" as some kind of slur or dismissal.  And 
> the differentiation into "which elites to trust" or perhaps more 
> explicitely which *kind* of elites?  And "why am I susceptible to 
> their influence, practical or emotional?"
>
> I'd say that Musk (aka elno) present's multiple elite facets, perhaps 
> beginning with his "White South African youth during Apartheid while 
> reading too much old-fashioned SF and being driven by strong-willed 
> parents and subculture" to his serendipitous entry into the growing 
> .COM bubble of the late 90s and even more serendipitous jump from that 
> bubble to the one forming behind it (Tech 2.0 ?) which seems to have 
> become more of a (geologic style) vesicle or even a biological style 
> (where the robustness is transitory and utilitarian?).
>
> Since his abject wealth kicked in (late 2010s?) he seems to have begun 
> to approach that limit of "absolute wealth ==> absolute corruption".  
> Is the wealthiest jerkball on the planet by definiition the absolutely 
> wealthiest?   I forget the rumors about Putin that he is likely 
> "abjectly" more wealthy than elno skum hisself?  Maybe by 1 or 2 digit 
> factors?  His disruption of at least EVs and (recoverable) Orbital 
> Launch (soon to include Moon Landings and Mars Missions?) is another 
> type of eliteism which is a combination of tech and risk management?   
> His parlay of these dimensions of eliteism into social manipulation 
> with Twitter/X and now ffFFing presidential RealPolitik is an entirely 
> new level which I would claim rivals (mimics?) Trump's own ability to 
> twist (contemporary intersubjective) reality off it's existing axis 
> pretty effectively.
>
> The variety of "elites" of interest might range from the likes of 
> well-known politicians of any stripe (from Cheneys to Clintons) to 
> well known Bureacratic figures (notably Anthony Fauci or Jerome Powell 
> or Ban ki-Moon) to social commentarians (Jon Stewart or Michael Moore 
> to Alex Jones and Anne Coulter) to (myriad) tech commentators like 
> Hossenfelder or Fridman or Rutt or Doctorow or Levin or 
> fictional/proxy movements like Antifa/Anonymous/Q ...  I probably 
> missed wide swaths like Enviro/Climateers (Thunberg, McKibben) or 
> popFutureFictioneers (Stephenson, KSR, King, Atwood, etc.) or PopSci 
> influencers like Kurzweil or Chomsky or Wilson or Gould or Dennett or 
> Pollan or Dyson or Pinker or Diamond or Gladwell or Harari or or or 
> (ad nauseum)...
>
> And as for Truth (or delusional belief?), the distinction between 
> physical reality (blurred as some would like it to be) and 
> intersubjective reality is significant (even if an acute illusion as 
> simulationists or interfaceinists (Hoffman) or quantum-reality-ists or 
> panpsychists (like DaveW and I?) or ...).     The rhetorical world of 
> (especially national?) Politics seems to enhance this to the point 
> that it sometimes feels as if "nothing is real"  even if most of us 
> most of the time don't step in front of busses nor eat wild-foraged 
> fungi we haven't identified carefully.
>
> I also identify as an "almost dead privied white man" to perhaps of a 
> somewhat different stripe than Glen and I am starting to *fear* that 
> the "almost dead" horizon is moving away from me at a pace that hasn't 
> overtaken my own aging but might.   Having just had my first major 
> bionic implant (excluding a good dozen dental fillings/caps in my 
> youth) and experiencing the ultra-high-tech capability of modern 
> surgical and diagnostic and imaging and hospitalization Medicine, I am 
> askeered that I will, as one of my parent's generation quipped "have 
> all the acute problems of previous generations resolved until I find 
> myself 'very old and dying of nothing in particular'"  which in fact 
> is how my own parents lived roughly 20 years past their expiry dates 
> (as projected in their youth to be 70 and 72).
>
> No matter what my Whitelash Male-Rights friends might suggest, I do 
> feel much more "privied" than I ever realized as I was experiencing 
> the most acute experiences of it (in my testosterone-driven ambitious 
> years).
>
> The biggest privilege seems to be to be "still alive" after one or two 
> digit percentage of my cohort no longer is (starting with car crashes 
> in our teens followed by military mishaps to drug-related misdeeds, 
> followed by any number of early health challenges)...   beyond that I 
> feel privileged to live in "a horrible country" (both Left and Right 
> tell me this) under "the worst form of government" and with a very bad 
> record of first-world disregard for third-world and non-human, non 
> mammalian, non-vertebrate, non-animal life and maybe even more 
> spectacular "the biosphere itself".   Pretty soon, if ElnoSkum (and 
> JiffBozos and others) have their way we will begin the same abuses 
> beyond earth orbit (where it is already pretty trashy?)...
>
> I also feel "privied" that I "got in" on the Capitalist and Homeowner 
> game early/well enough in life to not worry about access to basics 
> (Bed, Bread, and Bath) with a small reserve to do things like buy 
> (well used, but not used up) automobiles that can drive across the 
> continent at the drop of a credit card and new (or nearly) electronics 
> only one generation behind the new and novel and maintain good 
> internet connectivity (though orders of magnitude below that which I 
> hear folks here claiming the have and/or need?)...   and now that 
> Uncle Joe has blessed me with Medicare (after 65) it appears I can 
> trade some of the luxury end of these other things for some basic 
> medical care...   and some advanced as well (replace a joint or two 
> at-will?).
>
> While some of my public presentation might make me a good target for 
> Trump's second line Internment and Ejection camps in 2025, I know I'll 
> more likely die of old age (i.e. nothing in particular) or a minor 
> mistake in the hyper-cautious, high-tech world of Medicine (or self 
> driving Cars, or exploding electronic devices) or bad judgement when 
> dealing with my mains power or some jury rigged Solar addition I make 
> to it.
>
> Re: Procreation.   I'm glad to be living in these "interesting times" 
> and by extension am glad for my children (yet more privied despite 
> being "girlz" ) and grandchildren (probably both end up a-gendered 
> over time) to be living in "yet more" interesting times?   My parents 
> were avid ZPG fans in the 50s and I carried it forward with my own 
> progeny opting for NPG (replacement rate <.5).   I don't know if I 
> infected them with enough of my "morbid fascination meme" to be 
> enjoying the ride as we precess into  a wild tech-driven vortex of 
> theTechnoSingularity that seems now inevitable in their (if not my 
> own) lifespan.  Irony would suggest that it is all going truly 
> /HellInAHamburgerBasket/ the millisecond after Ray Kurzweil dies...  
> The "fall line" of an exponential curve is wherever you are standing 
> at the moment methinks?
>
> As my peers all seek to flee TrumpAMurrica if he slips-slides-slimes 
> his way back into office I am thinking it is my "civic duty" to stay 
> put and "fight the good fight" even if it is to be fodder for his 
> cannons (or deportment Trebuchets?) or inertial/viscous mass to slow 
> down (stuck to the bottom of) the tread of his JackBoots (with inserts 
> to help with the bone spurs)...   I missed my chance in 1974 to 
> expatriate myself and as tempting as it sounds now, I also find 
> pleasure in being the gum in his gears if it comes to that.   Or maybe 
> after the Dems manage to squeeze him back into the BrylCream tube he 
> squirted out of I can be the fodder/gum for *their* worst instincts?
>
> /Gramble/,
>
>  - Sieve
>
>
>
> On 9/30/24 7:29 AM, glen wrote:
>> Yeah, but the composition of physical laws up into the composites 
>> that make up social laws isn't straightforward. Maybe I could stomach 
>> the assumption of transitivity from, say, "biological laws" to 
>> "social laws", but not physical laws to social laws. The transitivity 
>> fails.
>>
>> I can't tell where I actually land in the spectrum between Eric and 
>> Dave's positions. I really like the idea that those who have their 
>> hands inside the goo, inside the machine, close to the metal, are the 
>> ones who decide how best to interact with the machine. As Dave once 
>> accused, it's a bit Vico-ist. On the other hand, our collective 
>> respect for (delusional belief in?) the Truth fades faster each day. 
>> The elites are exhibiting faster rates of churn. (E.g. Elno and 
>> SpaceX overturning tried and true, "modernist", methods for 
>> engineering space machines. E.g. a top-notch Data Science postdoc 
>> might cost a university ~$1M/yr, which means they all abandon the 
>> academy and go to work for Google or somesuch. Etc.)
>>
>> And with such a turbulent churn of the elite production system, it's 
>> completely reasonable to be confused about which elites to trust - or 
>> which side of their mouth to trust. Luckily, I hold Diogenes in high 
>> esteem, which allows me to doubt everything ... regardless of EricC 
>> and Nick's claim that's impossible. So it's no crisis for this 
>> almost-dead privied white man. But the kids? What will they see on 
>> the other side of this Rawlsian Veil? I'm so thankful I have no 
>> children. 
>
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