planetary-surface reaction layers

A useful counterpoint to organism-centricity, and in particular to the media's xenophobic focus on "aliens" from outer space, may be the idea that life (like that on earth) is to first order a fascinating steady-state reaction-layer between a planetary surface and the high-energy photon bath provided to that surface by the nearest star. Moving of that reaction off planet e.g. to a neighboring planet, to space habitats, or even to a star system elsewhere may, in that context, be much easier said than done.

The possibilities are of course certainly worth exploring. If taking care of our own planet is a leap for us, terraforming a nearby one is a bigger leap (that we may never manage unless we recognize the challenge), and the energy requirements of travel between star systems (even though relativity helps with time-elapsed for the traveler) make it hardly cost-effective for transferring organisms like us. Transfer of molecular and/or idea codes, on the other hand, e.g. over 10⁵ year time scales via radiation-pressure ejected nanoparticles or over 10 to 1000 year time scales by electromagnetic communication, may be another story.

AI and income

The question of survival for individuals displaced by automation comes up with increasing frequency these days. Perhaps task layer multiplicity is a concept which can clarify our thinking to these ends.

In particular, if our communities depend on correlation-buffering on all six layers that look in/out from skin, family, and culture, it makes sense that participation in one or more of these layers is a tangible contribution. In fact, a "universal-minimum income", linked explicitly to an individual's participation in such layers, might serve as a healthy complement to the current system which focuses exclusively on what you are doing only for folks who have money.

As with all such programs, development of tools to minimize draining of resources by "defectors" will likely be a long-term and imperfect process. However if implemented in a constuctive way, such a program might enlist the support of participants from a wide range of places in our economy.

What do you think?

e-path to collapse

The electronic media may offer up a means by which our preferentially-ignored fallibility can cause social collapse, especially to the extent that we concentrate only on ourselves and not the processes which make us possible. The key to avoiding this may be humility, i.e. not accepting our own ideas uncritically (particularly when it comes to making irreversible decisions about others).

We are not the sole architect of our situation, but only participants therein. The main architect, "but partly-knowable" nature and the self-assembly of layered complex systems (like stars, planets, life, communities) associated therewith, communicates with us through incoming data whose concepts and categories, as well as whose content, must continually be examined for possible improvement.

bad/good-guy disease

Pooly-used global electronic media is fueling cases of bad-guy/good-guy disease, a well established cause of societal failure, in many places by moving folks to fight one another rather than to focus on processes which are crucial to community health.

What individuals or groups do you think today have relatively bad cases of this disease?

O-centricity II

In August 2008 we remarked on the blindness to important matters that our organism-centric perceptions, inherited from paleolithic times to focus largely on "bad guys" and "good guys" rather than on the key ideas and processes (this includes evolving technology) that are affecting our lives, as a possible Achilles heel. In that context, look at current political narratives these days.

Some candidates are obsessed with bad-guy vs. good-guy explanations. Some delusionally even define themselves as "the best guy" regardless of what the facts say. It's a trap we may want to try and avoid, even if we find the bad-guy/good-guy narrative to be seductive.

fallible man

Humans with traits evolved for adaptation in paleolithic times find themselves today in niches designed to maintain 6 layers of complexity (looking in/out from skin, family & culture) by exploiting traits developed in support of only 4 or 5 such layers. With an increasing population on a finite planet, sustainability of such niches will be a challenge in the days to come.

filter bubbles

How might we help folks do the following: (i) lessen the hold of their electronic-communications "filter-bubbles", (ii) care for all layers of organization that look in/out from skin, family & culture in their communities, and (iii) highlight the incompetent parasitism of people and organizations that use electronic communications to promote uninformed discrimination, runaway nepotism, and indiscriminant violence?

managed by votes

An interesting problem with management "by committee", e.g. using Roberts Rules of Order, is that no one voter is responsible for decisions made by (particularly anonymous) voting. As a result, the incentive for voters to "be informed" is rather weak, and consequences for "just going with your gut" are at worst indirect.

I've seen this problem result in very poorly managed resources, at both the academic department and the university level. The problem may be even worse when it comes to voting in elections. This is especially true in this electronic information age, where individuals' "gut reactions" are so easily affected by whatever "media spectacle" in their filter-bubble a given voter is exposed to.

How might we take advantage of the strengths of "the vote", while lessening the impact of its weaknesses? Is one first step to share awareness of the problem, and encourage voters to take it into account before they go to the polls?

cheap-shot flags

Over the decades we've seen many useful concepts "emerge". Recent examples include the now-established concepts of ecosystem (in mid-20th century schools), black hole (by John Wheeler in 1967), post-traumatic-stress-disorder (in 1980), proper-time (in 21st century intro-physics discussions of relativistic motion), autism-spectrum-disorder (in 2013), etc. The shift of emphasis to alternative concepts, of course, often encounters enthusiastic resistance.

Time may decide what works in the long run. In the short run, however, the resistance sometimes resorts to lower-level attacks e.g. with less emphasis on data and more on cartoonifying the: culture, community, family, friends, and personhood of proponents. Can you think of any examples of this?

Holding accountable those who resort to unbalanced narratives is something we don't seem to be very good at. Is there a way to protect free speech while being more sophisticated in recognizing un-hinged shouts of "fire" in a crowded theatre?

A shout of "fire" for any reason tries to shift the dialog (and our attention-focus) to the ''paleolithic'' level in which "lives are threatened" and we must act to "preserve what's inside our skins". Is it possible that appeals to "character assassination", when someone's policies are at issue, is doing something along the same lines?

When we get the chance, how about flagging such broadcasts objectively in advance e.g. as warnings of a threat to the "numerically-smallest that applies" of this list: (1) self, (2) friends, (3) family, (4) community, (5) belief-system or (6) knowledge? Folks will still have to decide if they want to empathize with the narrative (e.g. to exit the theatre in the case of a level 1 warning), but at least they would be reminded that an appeal to something paleolithic (especially for levels 1 through 4) ''in them'' was afoot.

narrative truth

Narratives may be designed not to mirror reality but to elicit certain behaviors. In other words, "narrative truths" might serve to correct our innate response to the world around in context of acquired information on the individual level, somewhat like the way that our innate and acquired immune systems function on the cellular level.

Like prairie dog barks, thus for example, the idea that we as individuals are responsible for our actions is not so much a mirror of causal connections (e.g. of a homunculus that controls everything we do according to conscious logic), as it is a narrative designed to redirect our innate reactions (e.g. with paleolithic roots) into acquired reactions which work better in a high-population world. What are some other examples of this use of ideas to redirect perceptions and reactions toward more constructive ends?

what ball to watch

Focus on the steering direction (while ignoring the pumped oscillation) of a truck that's pulling a trailer along the highway is like focusing on the individuals (while ignoring self-amplification processes associated with electronic-media attention-slicing itself) during a modern-day election and/or terror campaign. The outcome may not be what you expect, or desire.

the medium's message

Attention begets attention. The more neolithic the content the better. The more electronic the medium, the faster.

A focus on the oscillation, rather than on our gut level response to it, may be the only way to avoid spinning out.

Unfortunately, these may not be things that folks learn to correct for in journalism school.

banality deconstructed

In academic circles, being average (or below) is often given a bad rap. This tendency to map folks onto a linear (ordered) manifold has well-documented shortcomings, not just in academia.

Perhaps a healthier approach is to expect mediocrity, but to go beyond that to embrace its diversity. After all, average behaviors are inevitable by definition, but it takes a wide range of skills and perceptions to support the communities in which we live.

"Jerry Springer" worlds

One way to slow down population-growth may be to get folks to step back from our developing tradition of taking responsibility, as individuals, for all 6 layers of subsystem-correlation that look in/out from skin, family & culture, and instead to focus on unhinged bad-mouthing not just of individuals (thanks to Jerry) but whole subsets of our species (many more deserve thanks here), while distributing among them (to "ensure their safety") as many guns and bombs as our arms manufacturers can produce.

Electronic media, needless to say, helps to this end, but I'm hoping that there is a better path toward sustainability. What do you think?

no payout gambling

Folks buy a lottery ticket for a chance at a prize. If no prize is awarded, regardless of whether or not the prize money is used to sell additional tickets for a future contest award, isn't that false advertising?

How is it legal for folks to sell tickets on prize money they plan not to award, so that they can sell tickets on it again next week? Not awarding of course increases the profit margin of those selling the tickets, but what does it do to the odds that the ticket you bought will pay off?

The standard approach is to fix the odds of winning at much less than one out of the number of entries. This has the added advantage that sequential "failures to award" can bump the prize money for a new entry up, creating interest in the game. The fact that it's a bad investment is old news, while a billion dollar pot is today's news.

neolithic media

New media sometimes elicits inappropriate neolithic responses, like fear and xenophobia, from crowds first exposed to it. A classic contemporary example of course is the role of radio in 1930's Germany.

Did development of the printing press play a role in religious intolerance on or around the Renniasance in Europe? More importantly, is the internet playing a similar role in the emergence of "conservative" extremism across the globe today?