tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1450689565385616172024-03-18T21:29:10.366-07:00unitSphereIdeas are only a pale shadow of the world around, but it's fun nonetheless to look for ideas that reflect reality as simply as possible. What can do this better than a reflective sphere?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger188125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-54121613358142081522023-04-07T12:34:00.002-07:002023-04-07T12:37:22.852-07:00soap opera blues<p>How might we help re-direct the current news focus on organism-centric "soap" (e.g. "who said what about who") rather than on process goals that we all share? Sooner or later I'm hoping that folks (i.e. the market) will develop an interest in making our institutions better than any one of us, in spite of our paleolithic attraction to narratives about bad-guys and fear.<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-87038081113892452532023-01-06T05:40:00.007-08:002023-01-06T05:55:14.278-08:00fewer unwished kids<p>Pro-choice is not the same as pro-abortion. In fact anti-abortion laws are relatively pro-abortion, because such laws force folks who get pregnant with unwanted children to reproduce while pro-choice lets that trait be reduced by natural selection. Might encouraging and/or helping folks to avoid getting pregnant with unwished kids therefore work better, at least in the long run?<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-16506981348158871092022-08-06T06:40:00.009-07:002022-08-09T07:53:30.207-07:00multi-layer challenges<p> Consider the importance of the 6 different "broken-symmetry" layers of organization in earth's multi-celled life, namely layers that look in (←|) and out (|→) from the <b>boundaries</b> of metazoan-skin (←<sub>1</sub>|<sub>2</sub>→), gene-pool (←<sub>3</sub>|<sub>4</sub>→) and idea-pool (←<sub>5</sub>|<sub>6</sub>→). These suggest that we might look at <b>fitness</b> (←<sub>1</sub>), <b>pair bonds</b> (<sub>2</sub>→), <b>family</b> (←<sub>3</sub>), <b>community</b> (<sub>4</sub>→), <b>culture</b> (←<sub>5</sub>) & <b>profession</b> (<sub>6</sub>→) as separate but key elements of a healthy human world. </p><p> If so the real challenges that we collectively face, of balanced approaches
considering all 6 levels, are much more ambitious than the
challenge associated with any one of the issues normally covered in the
news. Hence to examine the balance of any
given argument, we might want to look at its impact on all of these layers.</p><p> For instance, does a law which prevents a raped 10 year old from getting
an abortion serve all 6 layers well, or does it serve a mainly cultural mandate (←<sub>5</sub>) but help replicate the
gene-pool (←<sub>3</sub>) of rapists (<sub>2</sub>→) while boosting the population of uncared for children (<sub>4</sub>→), at the same time promoting governmental infringement of an innocent 10 year old's personal space (←<sub>1</sub>)?
If this law is not well balanced, then it may help lead toward the
decline (rather than the bloom) of layered complexity, especially <b>if our
planet is having trouble providing all 6-layers of opportunity to the folks
already here</b> (<sub>6</sub>→). </p><p> What other "news issues" might be put into an integrative context like this?<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-66939017288835875412022-06-14T04:35:00.002-07:002022-06-20T08:23:26.996-07:00joy-sparking as tool<p>In the spirit of the phrase used by Marie Kondo, what sparks joy for you? Also, what are some ways that folks might <i>redirect</i> what sparks joy for them to include helping spark the joy of others?</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-48358519680035109862022-05-28T17:05:00.021-07:002022-05-31T15:35:52.711-07:00finding what works<p>If you are serious about any particular problem, ranging from how to
fix a dripping faucet or a broken electrical circuit to making
gerrymanders constructive, minimizing abortions, or reducing gun deaths,
consider adopting a scout (versus soldier) mindset and embark on the
cycle: Observe → selectModel → predictOptions → Implement → Observe....
</p><p>This "V↔S" cycle (vary then select then vary etc.) is not only
how (for example) science works (although it often also gets bogged down in
doctrine), but also how life on earth has always worked. In other words
it's part of perhaps our oldest constitution, namely that on the basis
of which life itself continues to adapt and survive.</p><dl><dd>In this context how may we get media to focus on problems
that folks could agree to collaborate on solving, using model strategies and
data-based observations that can track progress and thereby lead to
making things better? For instance folks on both local and global scales might agree to work toward: (i)
fewer gun deaths, (ii) fewer abortions, (iii) fewer COVID infections,
(iv) constructive redistricting, (v) community-oriented policing, (vi)
minimizing unconstructive use of tax dollars, (v) a healthier middle
class, etc.</dd></dl>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-82091520476916484792021-01-08T06:11:00.010-08:002021-01-14T10:56:17.985-08:00Kool-aid danger<p> It's one thing to drink the kool-aid. You may not be able to help that. It's another thing to start spreading it for profit.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Aside: </i>The "kool-aid" available on social media, which captures hearts and minds in
unbalanced narratives of all sorts, is all about the idea that <b>other people are the problem</b>, when in fact the kool-aid itself is one of various <i>natural processes</i>
whose "taming" will point the path to better outcomes downstream.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-66195827993045096632020-12-19T06:55:00.009-08:002021-01-08T07:18:17.783-08:00The hype machine<p>The book by this title from Sinan Aral suggests that social media might adapt their LIKE BUTTON to a set of six buttons to indicate <i>the responder's impression</i> that the post is liked by:
</p><dl><dd>"I as an individual",</dd><dd>"My friends & I",</dd><dd>"My family & I",<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtD2zIQUaskF4D2sYNbe2hY1epfNAQB7VBFA03gXFKkc8-fdiyuQz_M9bY2VXxAOfkevSPDTbZdU1ZS5WxLVu0FVDfpLxxR8KAFjkAH4FIK1i9UIbh0WFGmEwVbW1i21OTDg_m0p4f4kg/s234/ProposedLikeButton.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="85" data-original-width="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtD2zIQUaskF4D2sYNbe2hY1epfNAQB7VBFA03gXFKkc8-fdiyuQz_M9bY2VXxAOfkevSPDTbZdU1ZS5WxLVu0FVDfpLxxR8KAFjkAH4FIK1i9UIbh0WFGmEwVbW1i21OTDg_m0p4f4kg/s0/ProposedLikeButton.JPG" /></a></div><br /></dd><dd>"My community & I",</dd><dd>"My culture & I", and/or</dd><dd>"My profession & I".</dd></dl>
<p>This may seem like a benign (even superfluous) augmentation, but it's designed to shift awareness away from organism centricity
to the wider range of social subsystem correlations that we'd like to
nurture. Moreover, it will provide data on the shifts in focus that a
given post elicits in that post's audience.
</p>Thus for example posts that elicit a focus on politics when the topic is some natural process (like a pandemic) that we need to bring technical knowledge to bear on will automatically show up as a professional topic with few professional likes. Likewise when experts (say in astronomy) make assertions about elements of culture with which they have limited experience.<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-1565627669795888792020-11-23T03:38:00.000-08:002020-11-23T03:38:07.063-08:00O-centricity & COVID<p> The COVID-19 choices <u>given to us by nature</u> (not people) have always been simple: <b>Wear masks together or shut down your economy if you don't want way more than 2 folks in the US to die every 3 minutes.</b> </p><p>Our <i>organism-centric thinking</i> instead imagines the problem is <u>other people</u>, e.g. (i) wanting to tell you what to do, (ii) trying to trick you into paying more taxes, or (iii) out to get your boss, etc. This latter way of thinking is an evolved trait that's had survival value in the past, but does not have survival value in this case.<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-3102511290249896402020-10-21T09:56:00.002-07:002020-10-21T11:38:44.989-07:00symptom vs. disease<p> Don't confuse the symptom (like a giant pus-filled pimple) with the disease. The cure for the latter likely involves constructive adaptation to the new speed at which ideas can be replicated across the globe electronically.<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-8194309133317777262020-10-17T06:31:00.006-07:002020-10-17T06:31:42.625-07:00what narrative to chose<p>This depends on the audience. An audience equipped to work toward a healthy future might be better served with balanced narratives, allowing them to make decisions based on their own interests. Such narratives are likely to focus on demographic information and on incoming data (often statistical) about processes afoot. </p><p>If you instead want to decide for (e.g. to simply manipulate) an audience, your narrative should be one-sided and focus on personalities or organism-centric anecdote i.e. on paleolithic triggers like fear, "bad-guys", and xenophobia. In this electronic information age, the gullibility of audiences to these strategies has proven itself again and again, from the invention of radio in the early 20th century through to today's internet of social media. <br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-350512435538849992020-10-06T10:08:00.005-07:002020-10-17T06:35:30.837-07:00cartoon obsession<p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Leadership concepts evolved in modest-sized groups and communities, but modern communications extends them to larger communities where leadership becomes a media figment rather than a relationship. </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">The mismatch is especially apparent in election years, because <b>figment promotion</b> eclipses the <b>statistical process challenges</b> that are hitting our communities where it hurts. </span><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #1f497d; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #1f497d; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Hence discussion of mindfulness, measurement, and mitigation of the latter might be worth a bit more attention, even if there is a windfall in money for cartoons.</span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #ffe599;"><span></span></span><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-63919312850235287552020-08-27T06:22:00.004-07:002020-08-27T06:23:56.567-07:00the anecdote lurch<p>Data on whole communities is something that can provide a heads up on trends in community health on all levels. Alas, our visceral reactions are more attuned to anecdote than to "data about many". </p><p>Electronic media (starting with radio, then TV and now the internet) are therefore able to trigger visceral reaction to anecdote, while the "data about many" (which signals real developments in the bottom line) is ignored. The result is a plethora of unbalanced narratives with strong feelings on all sides, which are often uninformed to the real trends and issues tht we'd all like to manage.<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-64765323054864581062020-07-20T12:26:00.005-07:002020-07-21T06:21:17.269-07:00shared adaptationsThanks to our evolutionary history over the last million years (and then some), we share:<br />
<ul>
<li>recognition of our family as different from "non-family", although known as "nepotism" when overdone, as "subsystem correlations that look inward from our genetic code pool" is a key element of our social structure,</li>
<li>recognition of our culture as different from "other culture", although known as "discriminant racism" when overdone, as "subsystem correlations that look inward from our idea code pool" is also a key element of our social structure.</li>
<li>obsession with organism-centric anecdotes (especially about folks who are either "super bad" or "super good") as distinct from statistically significant data (Zzz...) on processes that are key to our individual and community health in the world around.</li>
</ul>
Although we share these things, we might also want to recognize the need for balance with the bewildering array of unique tasks that each of faces in buffering correlations that look in and out from our boundaries of self, family, and culture. Electronic media that panders to one or another unbalanced aspect of these paleolithic traits is a fast path to social systems with no community at all, something that I for one would prefer not to hurry.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-65527438856831114222020-06-07T10:07:00.001-07:002020-06-07T10:07:42.092-07:00Balance narratives......but be cautious, because the opposite of an unbalanced narrative is automatically also unbalanced.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-51307734556653832452020-06-03T07:01:00.001-07:002020-06-03T07:01:48.694-07:00anecdotes & o-centricityModern electronic communications give audio-visual anecdotes new power, but their appeal to our paleolithic adaptions (like organism centricity in general and our attraction to leader worship in particular) can also decrease our awareness of quantitative developments in the larger processes that affect community-level health. What are some ways to help out with this problem?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-42678091816958897212020-04-14T06:02:00.004-07:002020-04-14T06:02:58.617-07:00verbal diarrheaTry resisting the temptation to pass it around.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-17266401317262067022020-02-29T09:50:00.000-08:002020-02-29T09:50:02.121-08:00yellow reportingNew roles for technology historically give rise to often unexpected consequences, that stem from the fact that our paleolithic adaptations did not take them into account. The list includes tools for transportation, housing, and fighting. It also includes communication technologies. Invention of the printing press for books and newspapers, of radio, of television, and of the internet are some of the more memorable examples.<br />
<br />
Yellow journalism historically is associated with communications that are rewarded by their consumers not for their usefulness but for their sensationalism, or for the fear and/or xenophobia that they trigger, etc. Yellow reporting in that sense is of course now born again in new ways with modern social media, and that rebirth includes not only reporting about policy issues and matters of belief, but also about science. The worst examples of this are linked to the personal injury suit industry, but empty sensationalism in routine scientific reporting is also all over the place. Might in that context a more sophisticated approach to balanced narratives be helpful for the general public, as well as for journalism professionals? Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-51304234733454441322019-12-30T08:45:00.001-08:002020-01-01T11:25:05.863-08:00narrative collapseLayers of organization in our communities include those that look: (a) outward from the boundary of individual families including matters of social hierarchy i.e. politics, (b) inward from the boundary of culture including sports and religion, and (c) outward from the boundary of culture including the guidelines for many professions. In this context two effects on narrative, that reduce its effectiveness, may be expected to occur especially when resources are scare.<br />
<br />
One of these effects is that narrative on levels (b) and (c) may be trivialized to level (a) thinking, i.e. politicized. This for example happens with different groups when the topics of inequality and climate-change come up, with the result that the structural problem and consequences underlying these things end up being ignored.<br />
<br />
The second effect, that works hand in glove with the first, is our tendency to think of causes as organismic, i.e. to explain problems in terms of bad guys and good guys, rather than in terms of natural processes in a world which will always be sending us new challenges. As a result, we have a tendency to react to real effects in the world around by focusing on a personality soap opera that has little to do with the problem itself.<br />
<br />
How can we fix that?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-23914988359454568012019-12-12T02:06:00.002-08:002020-01-01T11:25:51.732-08:00income & offspringEric Chaisson has argued that community-level health (e.g. as measured robustly by <a href="https://sites.google.com/a/umsl.edu/tlm/" target="_blank">task layer multiplicity</a>) is linked to free energy <i>per capita</i>. This is expected to peak (and perhaps has peaked in some places) as our environmental impact builds and as our population continues to grow.<br />
<br />
Although wealth imbalance clearly hurts community-level health, arguments for blind redistribution are well-known to put incentives (i.e. natural selection pressures) in the wrong place. In steady-state, income should be linked with contributions to community-level health e.g. to the nurturing of subsystem correlations (<u>especially one's own)</u> that look in & out from the boundaries of skin, family and culture.<br />
<br />
How to do this in the face of pressure from defectors (this is part of human nature) will always be a work in progress. But it does mean that sustainable-incentive based resource distribution, which limits population growth as well as sequestration of resources in a tiny fraction of the population, is part of our challenge now and in the future.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-5406963509509219272019-07-18T09:41:00.003-07:002019-07-18T09:41:18.896-07:00OppositesThe opposite of an unbalanced narrative is also an unbalanced narrative. We can do better than both.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-8701905014055291032019-06-05T11:42:00.003-07:002019-06-05T11:42:55.915-07:00quantifying riskUse of probabilties p and surprisals k ln[1/p] in communicating and monitoring risks to
medical patients could make patient decisions about actions with a small
chance of dire outcomes as informed as possible. This could reduce the
costs of medical malpractice in the long run by empowering patients with
tools to make informed and responsible choices, making the need for
legal redress less frequent. Thus <b>the media could play a key role in reducing the costs of defensive medicine</b>.
<br />
<br />
The same may be true of defensive practices e.g. in food and
chemical distribution. Instead of all bakery goods saying "manufactured
in a facility that processes peanuts" so that folks with a peanut
allergy (not to mention teachers wanting to bring a treat to class) are
thrown under the bus, instead teach the population to quantify risk
(using surprisals or probabilities) and then develop guidelines for
putting the risk into context based on real data. In this way, folks who
use a product take ownership of the risk that it confers at the outset,
taking personal injury-suit lawyers out of the loop except to the
extent that they can contest the data used to report the risk to begin
with.<br />
<br />
The bad news is that every thing you do brings with it a
finite risk of almost any dire outcome. The good news is that this risk
is likely to be much smaller than you might guess, from the
non-quantitative hype that the media brings to every problem that it
decides to fan flames on today.<br />
<dl><dd>
</dd></dl>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-62580076987231926592018-11-13T03:16:00.002-08:002018-12-23T10:27:04.525-08:00balanced imperfectionAny society that perfects reproduction of molecular or idea codes, to the point where it is accurate, may be in deep trouble. This is because tradition, most likely, will always need to evolve. As a result (along with accurate replication) communities may also benefit from a healthy amount of diversity, in both genes and in ways to think!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-66245066310938841242018-08-06T03:48:00.003-07:002018-08-06T04:21:36.032-07:00tech vs. manners & skillTechnology, writ large, opens new doors for good and for bad. Concentrating on the latter here, technology can make us weak and ill-behaved, so that we may want to work to correct for these effects. For example, rely on automatic parking and GPS directions and our population's spatial awareness and spatial management skills may suffer.<br />
<br />
Ethics and manners also suffer. For instance, in the first half of the 20th century, it was by & large good manners not to bring a stick to a fist fight, not to bring a knife to a stick fight, not to bring a gun to a knife fight, etc. This ethic was there to correct for the opportunity that technology provided for devaluing fitness and bypassing time-honored skills. Respect for these levels of engagement, as well as our obligation to have manners and to respect skills, is today strangely absent from popular narratives.<br />
<br />
Laws themselves are a form of technology that can in turn prompt us to ignore our cultural obligation to be ethical as well. Reliance on any one technology, including laws, smartphones, or guns, can in this way nurture a population that gives short shrift to spatial and social awareness, fails to reward physical fitness, and selects against cultural and professional morality. Dropping free-energy per capita may eventually lead to the decline of our social systems, but we may want to try to keep new technologies from helping expedite that decline. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-9636771198820803132018-06-11T05:44:00.000-07:002018-06-11T07:15:27.394-07:00highlighting o-centricity What are a list of places where our preference for focusing on "organism agents as the cause of everything" shows up, for
the better and for the worse?
<br />
<br />
Examples might include:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li> The Olympics, and the enjoyment we take in thinking about sports heroes in general,
</li>
<li> Our blindness to "the medium as the message", highlighted in that specific context by Marshall McLuhan,
</li>
<li> The media's obsession with treating whole countries and corporations as organisms, personified by a single leader,
</li>
<li> Madame Curie's comment that we should "be less curious about people and more curious about ideas".
</li>
<li> The way our "public relations module" often caters to a homunculus theory of the way that our own minds work,
</li>
</ul>
and what else?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145068956538561617.post-25219183438291301912018-06-07T07:20:00.002-07:002018-06-08T05:10:57.691-07:00making fallibility workGovernment administrations often serve up leadership
examples which are culturally, and sometimes professionally, flawed. The message to take
from this is not that we are better than our leaders, but that we all are obliged to nurture "6-ways nested" communities (i.e. that buffer sub-system correlation layers looking in/out skin, family, and culture) which however are made up of individuals who do this well on only 4 or 5 of the 6 layers of organization. This is not just "our lot". An average of only about 4¼ layers per
person may be key to maximizing individual opportunity or "task-layer
diversity", something that could well be a key survival trait for
communities in the days ahead.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1