Dutch left-wing launch critique of Islamic immigrants

[ this is not my writing ]

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, the Netherlands had lived through something akin to a populist revolt against accommodating Islamic immigrants led by Pim Fortuyn, who was later murdered; the assassination of the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, accused of blasphemy by a homegrown Muslim killer; and the bitter departure from the Netherlands of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali woman who became a member of Parliament before being marked for death for her criticism of radical Islam.

Now something fairly remarkable is happening again.

Two weeks ago, the country's biggest left-wing political grouping, the Labor Party, which has responsibility for integration as a member of the coalition government led by the Christian Democrats, issued a position paper calling for the end of the failed model of Dutch "tolerance."

It came at the same time Nicolas Sarkozy was making a case in France for greater opportunities for minorities that also contained an admission that the French notion of equality "doesn't work anymore."

But there was a difference. If judged on the standard scale of caution in dealing with cultural clashes and Muslims' obligations to their new homes in Europe, the language of the Dutch position paper and Lilianne Ploumen, Labor's chairperson, was exceptional.

The paper said: "The mistake we can never repeat is stifling criticism of cultures and religions for reasons of tolerance."

Government and politicians had too long failed to acknowledge the feelings of "loss and estrangement" felt by Dutch society facing parallel communities that disregard its language, laws and customs.

Newcomers, according to Ploumen, must avoid "self-designated victimization."

She asserted, "the grip of the homeland has to disappear" for these immigrants who, news reports indicate, also retain their original nationality at a rate of about 80 percent once becoming Dutch citizens.

[link]

The Acid Test of Legitimacy

For any street, neighborhood, town, region or nation in the world -here is a test to see if it is in need of change.

Remember, I am talking about the whole earth, not just American neighborhoods.

Most places have a dominant type. The type may be Vietnamese, Saudi, Buddhist, Islamic, Baptist, Russians, poor whites, wealthy Japanese business owners...et cetera.

The test: can an individual that is visibly of a very different 'type' walk in that place without being attacked or harassed? And on top of this, the individual is not there to help others, but is ambivalent, having no outward sign of respect or role in the local culture. I am not saying they are trying to be offensive, but simply in an ambivalent relationship with the local culture.

Examples:

1. Can a white Baptist preacher walk down the street in Tokyo?
2. Can a jewish woman walk through Gaza?
3. Can a black man walk through Monroe Louisiana?
4. Can a Japanese Buddhist monk walk through Islamabad?
5. Can a white business woman walk through the poorest black neighborhood in Little Rock Arkansas?

If the answer is "no", then that place is in need of reform.

Any, any, form of racial/religious/cultural solidarity that results in the other not being able to walk ambivalently, and without escort through the area -that culture is a culture of intolerance or even hate.

Since WW2 the world has focused on English and Americans as the ones needing reform, needing to mend their ways towards more tolerance. This was absolutely needed. Now the same spotlight and demand needs to be placed equally on everyone worldwide. Any and every people should allow those different from them to walk peaceably down the street, and to carry on their business without kow-towing to local identity.

Palestinians are

The population we call Palestinians were guest workers that came from Syria, Egypt and other countries to work as low wage manual laborers for Jews. The Jews were building their homes and city infrastructure on land largely void of inhabitants before the 1920's.

In 1948 the lands of origin -Egypt, Syria, etc; blocked the guest workers from reentry, helping to create the irreconcilable and contentious situation in Israel.

Now, the world loves to sympathize with the poor, and these manual laborers are perfect poster children for a "cause". My problem with this is these poor people are forever full of hate, violence and racist solidarity. Using the last 60 years as evidence, they lack the cultural capability to create a healthy economy, and prefer to spend their energies attacking Israel. The idea of a Palestinian State sounds good, but all evidence is they will have no ability to create an economy, other than a religious/racist economy of violence.

When Israel strikes, they do more damage, take more lives than the Palestinians. This is because of being more effective, and better resources. The Palestinians are always the ones who initiated the war, and that fact is more notable as a crime than Israeli success in defense.

Palestinians hate. Palestinians exist in an economy of racist violence. Palestinians reap the benefits of world opinion programmed to side with the poorer in any war, even if the poor are the worst of humans.

By analogy, the Palestinians are illegal or legal guest workers from Mexico, denied reentry to Mexico, who are fighting by throwing stones, and home-made rockets to regain "their homeland" of Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

Texans would kill them .

The right businesses are going stronger than ever

It is with glee that I report that Amazon has record profits this holiday season.

SEATTLE (AP) -- Online retailer Amazon.com Inc. called this holiday season its "best ever," saying Friday that it saw a 17 percent increase in orders on its busiest day - a rare piece of good news in a season that has been far from merry for most retailers, including online businesses. Amazon customers ordered more than 6.3 million items on Dec. 15, compared with roughly 5.4 million on its peak day last year, the company said. It shipped more than 5.6 million products on its best day, a 44 percent rise over 2007, when it shipped about 3.9 million on its busiest day. The company did not provide dollar figures and wouldn't say whether the average value of orders had changed, and the jumps it reported Friday are in line with increases Amazon has seen since it started releasing the figures in 2002. -WIRED [link]

Former culture warmonger Pat Robertson embraces objective centrism

Pat Robertson has given a the Bush Administration a grade of C minus, and praised Obama. This, too me, is an example of objective centrism. What I mean by objective centrism is when stating one's opinion of a politician or policy, one can say positive things about the party/ideology one is not typically a member of. e.g.: Pat Robertson says he is a Republican, then states that a Republican has performed less than professionally, and a Democrat has performed very well.

Objective centrism is the glue that will repair this country. Anyone that cannot manage to utter an objective statement is part of the problem.

Anarchy in L.A.

I hate Anarchism. Pure and simple. I hate the intellectual ( and anti-intellectual ) constructs. I've known quite a few while living in Olympia WA.

Here is a sample of the Northwest Anarchist ideology:

The focus .... is to draw analysis and proposals as a fervent critique of the current anarchist* milieu in the Northwest specifically (looking at situations nationally and internationally). Drawing upon a praxis - theory into action - and an experimentation of tactics towards a complete social transformation. One towards the total destruction of society, capital, technology, morals, ideology, civilization (call it what one will) and the lineage of the existent. link

Woo-woo,total destruction of society, how badass. Its no surprise most are young, full of testosterone, and have few real social ties beyond their bong buddies and ideological echo chamber.

I've just written a meme-bomb for them and planted it on seattle.indymedia.org. here.

Micro-cars of the World

To diminish our dependence on oil, many alternatives are being explored. Scooters and motorcycles are fine, but not for all weather. I think 3 or 4 wheeled personal vehicles, especially designs that handle snow and ice driving, are a better answer. Here is a video showing an amazing amount of micro-cars going back 70 years. It looks like Europe and Asia have had the right idea for a long time.

Social Justice Terrorism

Over at this earlier post I coined the phrase "social justice terrorism".

Basically, [ as explained in that earlier post ] society may move to what John Robb calls resilient communities, aka local platforms, which I prefer to call local, distributed micro-industrialism. In this new, third way -a break from medieval peasant class localism and modern macro-industrialism, there will be more technology in home life. I see this micro-industrialism increasing the status of the technologically capable, and further decreasing the respect and valuation of people who do not want to work with technology.

This will be a revolution that offends social justice fundamentalists who work solely on an unqualified human equality. The resilient community will need to defend themselves against social justice terrorists.

Archinect Op-Ed: Global Systems vs. Local Platforms

see lance's commentary

Dec 20, 2008
by John Robb

We are in the midst of radical social and economic change brought on by the emergence of a global system that is completely and utterly uncontrollable -- it is too big, too fast, and too complex to control. Unfortunately, the lack of a global control system means that we face a long series of increasingly severe shocks (due to the system’s tight coupling, each new shock will sweep the world in months), wrecking long standing and established structures with ease. The first shocks, a bubble in energy and a financial crisis, have already done significant damage. More are on the way as the global system moves ever farther from normal patterns of operation.

So, how does this impact the future of architecture and design?

In general, this means that designers will need to focus less on macro or global level needs and much, much more on the needs of the local. Why? The solutions to macro level instability will be found in the development of local community’s that build systems and organizations that enable them to both withstand systemic shocks and prosper based on internal dynamics. This is nearly inevitable since architecture and design flow to sources of growth, and we will only see prolonged growth at the local and not the macro level.

The first change will require architecture and design that transforms previously unproductive spaces – most residences and communities are black holes of productivity – into spaces that can produce value, from food to energy. A home, whether it is an apartment building or suburban residence, in 2025 will gain its value from its ability to efficiently produce necessities, and even income (as measured by the value of the output in local trade), for the owner.

Community design will in turn focus on the creation of platforms that support and catalyze increases in production for the community as a whole.

NOTE: For those that are unfamiliar with the concept of a “platform,” it finds its roots in the technology industry. Essentially, it is a system that simplifies a set of processes required for a given activity and bundles them into an easily accessible package. For example, the Internet is a platform. Platforms radically accelerate development and often foster the creation of diverse ecosystems of participants that rapidly innovate to fill the available opportunity/space. Within resilient communities, we will see the establishment of platforms that make it easier to grow/sell food, produce/share/sell energy, trade, share ideas/methods (social software), produce products (fab labs), collect/share/sell water and much more. For example, to accelerate the ability to share/sell energy within a community, smart grid technology and microgrids provide an excellent avenue of approach. More specifically, if my domestic wood-fired, combined heat power (CHP) system produces excess electricity, I could either sell it into the community's microgrid or store it locally depending on the pricing information I get from smart grid data flows. Another example would be platforms that support local agriculture. Platforms in this category such as vegitecture support localized agriculture and food production and include; centrally located open space for farmer’s markets, small fenced garden plots that can be rented, local cold storage, groves of nut trees, community composting systems, green roofs/walls and much more.

If this sounds like a return to the 19th Century way of life you would be wrong. IF done correctly, the intensity of production and the productivity of participants will be orders of magnitude higher than during that earlier period. Further, IF done correctly it promises a rapid, broad and sustainable increase in standards of living for all participants.

So, get ready and get innovating, for if we can crack the design of the models necessary to accomplish this, it will propagate virally across the entire world.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
originally published here

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Bullet List Commentary from Lance Miller:

1. This is NOT green, luddite, hippie, vegetable-trade-only localism.

2. This is energy production localism.

3. This is metal fabrication localism.

4. This is software customization localism.

5. This is electronic hardware recycling/reuse localism.

6. This is capitalism.

7. There is nothing about this localism that excludes the goods produced being sold globally.

8. The most radical departure from previous post-medieval culture is almost no concentration of wealth by semi-aristocratic gentry investors who rarely know much about nor touch the points of production. Wealth would be in the producers living in the same house with the production.

9. In the last 2500 years, humans have had a choice between a localism that is peasant class ( ignorant, pestilent, short living people who kill based on superstitious fear or loathing of other religions or cultures ) or a globalism that concentrates power in a gentry disconnected from the commoner's experience. Certainly globalism has been better than peasant-class localism. Local industrial platformism offers a third way.

10. We will have computers and fast personal vehicles in this third way.

11. A technophobic person ill at ease with industrialism will be even more devalued and disrespected than now. In this domain local industrial platformism will be a revolution that offends social justice fundamentalists who work for unqualified human equality. The resilient community will need to defend themselves against social justice terrorists.

Why does the Garden of Eden Suck and the Glacier of Eden Not Suck?

Why does the Garden of Eden Suck and the Glacier of Eden Not Suck?

By "Garden of Eden" I mean any tropical or sub-tropical culture. The less industrialized or literate of tropical cultures the more they rate as "Garden of Eden".

By "Glacier of Eden" I mean the cultures that reside on land that has at some point had glaciation on it. Not all of the United States has had glaciation on it, so the USA is divided into both Garden and Glacial Edens.

"Glacial of Eden" does not equal G8, or industrialized countries, necessarily. The indigenous people of northernmost North America, Greenland, Iceland, Europe and Asia are included. To the south, Chile and New Zealand. The Han Chinese are especially included due to their early origins as the world's first polar culture (predating their migration into China).

The criteria is not industrialization, or literacy. I am not agitprop-ing for Aryan supremacy at all here. It is about places that suck, and do not suck, in 2008. That map of suckness seems to cooperate very well with the ice versus tropics map.

White prejudice, enslavement and military power are usually a cornerstone of most narratives seeking the cause of cultural misery. Why the success of native peoples in Alaska and Greenland? By success I mean they have worked with the global power and monetary system, leveraging/establishing their land rights effectively to both keep their homes and homeland while renting access to oil, mining, fishing, and timber harvesting. ( I have lived with and been close friends with people fitting this description in Akutan Alaska ) So why the relative misery in Africa versus Alaskan indigenous success?

Where I am agitprop-ing is in the realm of reverence. The "Gardens of Eden" seem to hardcoded into mainstream dialogue as a desirable place, a natural place, the place "being human" defaults to by the origin stories in the Bible and secular anthropology. This reverence is misplaced. We should be looking further towards the poles of the earth when seeking anything worth revering, we ( especially those in the Garden ) should be looking at the cold places as the places that are the gems of "being human".

I have a nebulous and unfinished guess as to why glaciers generate less miserable cultures. It is a little about technology, but please don't think of trains. planes, phones, and computers. It is more technology in form of clothes and maybe food storage. Warm places do not demand very technical clothes, cold places do. Warm places have food more ready to serve right on the vine or tree. I believe Glacier of Edens make the human mind work with more contingency. Above that, I think the entire culture that emerges is a Contingent Culture. While all cultures have minefields of political/familial contingency to challenge the mind with, the glacial cultures had a load of cognitive challenge more ever present and demanding. The ice was an evolutionary filter, thinning from the population those that got their empiricism wrong. Glacial Edens are a place where the question "is it it better to be right or happy?" [link] is answered with survivors who all answered with "Being right". Garden of Edens, for millennia, answered with "being happy".

Millennia of breeding people who answer "being happy" has, ironically, produced people more miserable in today's world.

( Written the morning after the Dec 20th snow storm in Seattle, the photo is my own taken in Seattle )

Finding the Fascists

In my reading of news articles spotlighting Obama's selection of Mega-church Pastor Rick Warren, I came across this outright lie:

People for the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert told CNN she is "deeply disappointed" with the choice of Warren and said the powerful platform at the inauguration should instead have been given to someone who has "consistent mainstream American values."

Wow, I guess the name of the organization, combined with what Kolbert said lets us know their agenda: to take what a minority of Americans believe or embody or support, and cast that as The American Way. I'm a liberal inner-city Seattle resident; and Ms Kolbert; your way isn't an American Way; it is a way that won't share the stage with others in the same country that you have little in common with. Ms Kolbert, your values and message are the problem. The Huffington Post [link], in contrast, discusses more transparently that, yes, most of the columnist's friends support gay marriage, but the columnist recognizes their opinion was a minority in the California vote on the issue. What a fair and balanced dialogue when compared to The American Way proclaiming their minority agenda as the national identity.

Maybe clusters of ideological purists like The American Way, or zero-growth environmentalists, or bio-regionalists, or any other radical departure from global industrial-information-transportation economics can be found out during the Obama tenure of the White House. The reactionaries who exploded with declarations of intolerance for Warren ( and his America ) have provided the archetypical behavior. These radicals can then be labelled what they have been all along: intolerant, self-righteous fascists attempting to impose their world view on the rest of society.

I was once in a graduate program operating with The Center for Creative Change ( a.k.a C3). Over my year and a half as a student, I slowly began to realize the horror of what they intended: to impose their anti-industrial, anti-intellectual agenda on the world. The faculty explicitly stated that folk ways were better than scientific/professional experts, that non-linguistic cognitive processes were more powerful and legitimate than the literate functions of our brains. Since my eyes were open to such stupidity marching self-righteously in lockstep, I started this blog and other writing projects to alert the world of these scumbags. I am so grateful for the Obama Presidency. It is going to be a true flashpoint in which these fascists get found out by their intolerant screeching being aired in national media.

Die, fascists, die.

• Embrace What You Have In Common With Rick Warren -Huffington Post
• Rick Warren, Obama and the Left -WSJ
• Obama Selects Evangelist for Invocation -New York Times
• Choosing Warren represents diversity

My post at Salon[link]:

Rick Warren is as mainstream as it gets.

White, middle-class, Protestant, heterosexual suburbia IS the mainstream in this country. It is wrong to leave them out of ANY national event.

I say this not as a right wing troll. I am an inner-city Seattle liberal that voted for Obama, and the choosing of Warren is a good civic moment gay rights supporters should easily recognize.

The orthodox, entrenched, fascist left should stop trying to recast 'America' as a place without white, middle-class, Protestant, heterosexual suburbia.

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Obama Uniting Nation: Alienates Orthodox Left

President-elect Obama has selected Rick Warren, the most prominent evangelical preacher of the post-Billy Graham generation, to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. The decision was announced today by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.

Thank you, President Obama. Finally someone is not playing the culture war, and even more significant that it is our elected President.

Already those vested and committed to the culture war are blurting out their disapproval of Obama's selection of Rick Warren. American Way President Kathryn Kolbert -commenting that choosing an abortion and gay marriage opponent is a disappointment, and also Andrew Sullivan -a pro-gay rights blogger, and many others are voicing their discord with Obama.

These haters of Conservative Christianity think Left, Liberal, and Democrat are the banner for their army. They think that when a Democrat finally gains the White House, that Conservative/Suburban Christians are, in a very real sense, thrust out of power.

This war-like attitude on the part of left-leaning special interest groups helps perpetuate the worst abuses on the right side of politics. The Right, whether they be pro-military, Libertarian, anti-abortion, or just plain anti-urban; know they are out of power when a typical Liberal gains power. SO THE RIGHT FIGHT HARDER, AND BUILD UP GRASS ROOT COALITIONS BECAUSE THEY ARE TRULY UNDER-REPRESENTED.

The war culture crime here is under-representation. When an old-style conservative comes to power -its all military, Protestant Christianity, and urban environments/issues are disdained. When an old-style liberal comes to power -lesbians get to go out into the hinterland appointed as socialistic nurses/teachers or city planners; and tell girls to skip church, screw both guys and girls, and get an abortion. My hyperbole is extreme, but in the 60's and 70's, before Conservatives learned how to kick holy ass by co-opting postmodernism and doing it better, the countercultural/Democratic machine pretty much did send their minions out to the backwaters of the nation, showing hillbillies and black sharecroppers the ways of Marx.

Unlike the liberal or countercultural agendas of the past, Obama realizes he is the leader of the whole country, and is offering an olive branch to suburban, typically white, America. Obama is a higher caliber human being, wanting everyone in America to do good, not just one side of America that supports leftist or typically liberal ideology.

• Embrace What You Have In Common With Rick Warren -Huffington Post
• Obama Selects Evangelist for Invocation -New York Times

Mass Leftist Shift Doesn't Have To Kill Our Industrialism

News column of reference: Mass Transit Doesn't Have to Kill Our Love Affair With Cars -Krist Novoselic

Krist Novoselic ( yes, the bass player for Nirvana ) wrote a measured, mature opinion in The Daily Weekly. He basically says we don't have to dislike cars while supporting a transition to mass transit.

I like the way his perspective is not charged with villains, shrill absolutism, or conspiracy theories. Quite a contrast to the luddite all-local, no-metal political agenda orthodoxy that passes itself off as academia and leftism in America. This fascism would sneer at Novoselic's pleasure of owning and working on old VW's. To the luddite pseudo-progressives Novoselic is hellbound for hitting the high points of evil: he likes transportation ( overtly anti-local ) , he likes something metal, he likes something with a motor (the core of all industrialism), and he has the cognitive capacity for mechanical troubleshooting ( implying scientific method and objective functionalism, which was employed by colonialist to subjugate, which makes it evil, and it doesn't hurt that most of the pseudo-left have no mental proficiency in this area and operate in a state of jealousy and fear they will be found out as morons who depend on the crapshoot of mysticism and magic [ and their mom's credit card or school loan ]).

But enough about these fascist luddite, humanist scum. Their numbers are going to shrink, no matter which way the future goes: 1) If the world regresses to pre-industrial, they'll be killed, raped, or taken as slaves (not in that order) as they are easy targets -stupid, pacifists, and weak from too little protein. 2) The Obama-Trend, in which the best and the brightest are once again able to identify as the left -while openly touting their rigorous education and industrial economy agenda. This will corrupt and disable the semiotic game the luddite fascists have been getting away with for a years.

Novoselic's article is small symptom of the Obama-Trend, a measured and balanced way to pursue social change as part of the natural course of an industrial society, without the absolutism and fascism of more primitive societies.

My New Website

I've created a new website, and not sure what the content theme is going to be. Right now I've got a few travel stories on it. http://lanceville-antarctica.appspot.com/

Notes to myself on rationalism

1. Rationalism's root word is ratio.

2. Rationalism is not just a philosophical branch talked about amongst humans, but also can be thought of as the environs of semiotics. Ratios provide a perpetual disequilibrium in which all 'things' (ideas and tangibles) must co-habitate in a system of unequal relativism, that shifts and morphs those inequalities over time.

3. The Boethian Wheel is a political/economic expression of this semiotic rational universe operating in constant perpetual disequilibrium.

4. Is Pragmatism equivalent to Rationalism?

5. Is American Pragmatism an economic, cultural embodiment of Rationalism?

6. Is American Pragmatism so repugnant to ideologues because it operates with the dynamism of ratios?

7. Perpetual disequilibrium and American Pragmatism does not necessarily have to equate to an evil, dystopic chaos.

8. Ideologues, usually humanistic and religious or communistic, have 'made bank' in the 20th century by propagating derivatives of Rationalism as evil, and promoting a more static, safe but (in my opinion) untenable and unsafe economic culture ( this propaganda often reveres more primitive cultures such as Native Americans or European peasants ) .

9. The core disease introduced by these ideologues has been irrationalism. Mysticism, which is impervious to facts (empiricism).

10. Empiricism is the brake and steering wheel of Rationalism ( the one operating in the semiotic universe, managing the decline and ascendance of 'things' ). It is the feedback loop. Mysticism throws away the feedback loop. Mysticism creates within humans an ability to keep marching on in service to an idea even when facts are coming in showing the idea is a bad one.

11. It is this quality of Mysticism that is driving the nihilism of Islamic terrorists and violent criminals.

12. 'Religion' does not have to equate to 'Mysticism'. There is an ancient etymology in which Rationalism is the religion. See Logos. In his book, "Zero, the Biography of a Dangerous Idea." Charles Seife notes that the Greek word for 'ratio' was 'logos'. Thus the translation of John 1:1 reads: "In the beginning, there was the ratio, and the ratio was with God, and the ratio was God."

orthogonal terwilliger accordion

Sending secret messages using Google Search Wiki.
Enter->orthogonal terwilliger accordion
into Google search.
Note Lauren Weinstein's Blog in search results, read it.

The Best and the Worst of Op-Ed Polemics

Two columnists at the New York Times published an article within the last week, and wow are they an example of the good and the bad. Here are links for reference:

1. David Brooks Opinion.
2. Gail Collins Opinion.

Keep in mind, I am an Obama supporter. Additionally, keep in mind a rhetorically and cognitively fossilized Lefty might resonate with both opinion pieces, but I like one and hate the other.

David Brooks takes the highest road here. Keep in mind Brooks is a conservative, and if he were to simply take a default stance it would be on the side opposite of populist liberal. In the his piece he praises the Obama appointments for cabinet and White House staff. He uses a phrase to describe the type of Democratic politician Obama is selecting: "First, these are open-minded individuals who are persuadable by evidence". With this sentence, Brooks has revealed the mantra of The New Age that is upon us.

The Old Age is the one where academics, voters, politicians, and agit-prop careerists in PR positions at think-tanks and watchdog groups stood lockstep in solidarity with these opposing Titans: A ) Hippie and black hating George Wallace campaign rhetoric that was co-opted into Nixon's southern strategy B ) Countercultural assumptions that industrialization is evil and needs dismantling, and every culture with brown or black people is inherently superior and should be militantly assisted in order to replace WASP hegemony. My question is, can we start brutally eliminating proponents of A and B now?

Back to this New Age that sprung up in 2008. It is political empiricism, performance and merit based. In the Old Age, you took a life long stance of hating or revering Blacks/Whites/Industry/Nature/Lesbians/Cities/Public-Property/Money/Localism/Bicycles/Air-Travel/War and you voted for whoever gave the sometimes coded messages in their speeches that signaled a support of your hate agenda ( I'm including you peace-lesbians in this who revere a mythical Tibet and would close the Pentagon, with a little spiteful blip in your hearts). Of course the letdown is when this politician isn't really gunning down Blacks/Whites/Industry/Nature/Lesbians/Cities/Public-Property/Money/Localism/Bicycles/Air-Travel/War, but merely implementing punitive dysfunctionalisms into agency practices that perpetuate the A vs B culture war.

The Old Age A vs B culture war is void of ratio, void of rationalism, mystical. But that is a view from high in the intellectual clouds. There is a corporeal basis for everything intellectual. Ah, the corporeal. Let's look at these old battle bots politically born in the 1960's. THEY ARE EITHER ELDERLY, POOR, OR THE YOUNG ARE ATTENDING INTELLECTUALLY SECOND OR THIRD CLASS COLLEGES. They are Spain after the smartest migrated to the Netherlands -a land of the mediocre beating their chests and talking about pride while a vacuum of merit sucks a good fate from all future scenarios.

Bye, Old Age.

Gail Collins is nice enough to write a column for every Old Age-ist on the left [B] side. Nevermind that no one in a position of political or intellectual relevance is talking about crushing the GWB regime, much like we are not talking about crushing Joseph McCarthy. The Anti-Bush T-Shirt industry should not be a perpetual, perennial phenomenon, get a life people, you're embarrassing anti-Bush people like me. So go ahead and read the Collins piece, it is an IQ test, an entrance test for whether you lack the intellectual heft to enter the New Age.

Byrne and Eno at Benaroya Hall

Eno and Byrne have made a new record, Everything that Happens will Happen Today, their first in 30 years. Byrne and Eno began their artistic relationship in the late seventies with 3 Talking Heads albums, followed by their groundbreaking album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Songs from all of the above will be performed in this concert, but not in that order.

Their performing together, and at Seattle's premier opera and symphony hall, has me really considering seeing the show. Both men are more than musical giants of a bygone era, they are still a central presence in current intellectualism. Eno is a board member of the Long Now [link], and Byrne has the giant building instrument in New York City [link]. In the late 90's Byrne wrote an eerie social/art critique piece for either the Atlantic or New Yorker, I can't remember. I do remember reading it and being struck by its "prophecy". He wrote that the soft plastic, rounded edges, candy colored tech aesthetic that was so hot in gadget and furniture design [example ] was all very cute and pretty, but that something sinister lying beneath this cute and candy-like society, and may emerge someday soon. Then came G.W. Bush, the Taliban blew up the Buddhas of Bamyan, and then Islamic extremists killed 3,000 Americans on September 11th. Back to talking about Byrne, we live in a world of artists who long for the status of shaman and soothsayer in our culture, who believe they are attenuated especially for perceiving subtle shifts of popular aesthetic and able to be an Oracle of Delphi sounding an alarm. Most artists fall short of oracle or prophet, David Byrne actually did it.

( I am not saying David is the greatest teller of the American story, the teller of our whole on-the-ground real experience and semantic space. That distinction goes to the Minutemen. Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan are more famous for this epic 20th century Americana song crafting, but the Minutemen took it as far it could ever go. )

Benaroya Hall
Wednesday
February 18, 2009
7:30pm
$45
http://www.theparamount.com/artists/?artist=919

Ayman al-Zawahiri is my sandnegro

In the news:
"Ayman al-Zawahiri described the president-elect and other black Americans who have served in high positions as 'house negroes'"

Doesn't this house negro slur kind of "not stick" when the black person OWNS the house. Back in the day when blacks did not own their own house, yeah, this epithet made some sense. ( although I think any class, especially race, must break the bonds of solidarity in order to become better off ) So back to Obama and Rice. They are very real intellectuals ( professors at US academic institutions ), and have made enough money to place themselves in the upper-middle-class. They own or embody more of this economic paradigm than most whites.

To Ayman al-Zawahiri: No, my towelheaded sandnegro, these are not house negroes, they have not "accidently" broken ranks with you or your league, rather, these are negroes working to kill you and every scum bag supporter that happens to be in the same building with you.

The American Automobile Manufacturers

When I think of the hard working people making automobiles in the USA, I usually think of these plants and the cars they produce:

• BMW: Spartenburg, South Carolina
• Hyundai: Montgomery, Alabama
• Honda: Lincoln, Alabama
• Mercedes-Benz: Tuscaloosa County, Alabama
• Nissan: Smyrna, Tennessee / Canton, Mississippi
• Subaru: Lafayette, Indiana

To exclusively think of unionized Ford, GM and Chrysler plants in Michigan is counterintuitive, since few people I know would by products made at those plants. I wish mass media and politicians would get on the same page as Americans have been on for over 20 years: Americans do buy vehicles made in the USA, mostly from the above list. The spin doctors from the unions and the Big Three love to control our dialogue by saying "American auto manufacturers" and only mean Ford/GM/Chrysler, which is a lot like like saying "people" and only meaning "white people". It is a dirty rhetorical trick the American people are not on board with.

Proposition 8 in California. My Reaction.

(I'm not an LDS, but have lived in Southern Utah and known many in the Seattle Area)

The Church of Latter Day Saints is one of the most progressive of all religions grouped in Christianity. There seems to be a Left and Right LDS, and the Left almost always out Left me. The LDS leader's decision to do anything intense and overt with Prop 8 is a case of really poor reasoning, and poor "religious" reasoning. Here is the logic breakdown:

Society is already divergent from an LDS path. I don't expect the LDS to be ambivalent about this, and it is commendable on some level for LDS to sincerely want a better fate of the wider society. But to jump in with both feet on a single issue is a lose-lose-lose scenario.

Lose-lose-lose; here are the 3 ways the LDS lost:

First, for the LDS to feel threatened by society's behavior and semantics (a legal status is merely semantic). This is a core religiosity dimension, show me schism that is so weak its members might turn into gays any other way of life that religion happens to oppose -and I say that schism is has an internal cohesion and coherence problem threatening their "faith" more than anything external. So to drive this home, I'm calling the LDS faith itself weak and prone to demise by its own device(s).

Second, for imposing LDS doctrine on society, especially one as eclectic as the population of California. Faith and metaphor wise, this may sound like a good old David and Goliath story. Amongst the faithful in any religion such a challenge always looks appealing. Herein is the perfect storm: Wanting to be faithful and rock-throwing David is a temptation in of itself, it is indulgent testosterone driven hail-mary-pass religious activism. LDS fell for this temptation. But in this case the opponent wasn't Goliath -it was the Death Star, Klingons, and now even the Terminator. The LDS stood up and threw their little rock, and unfortunately for them, they hit it. What they hit is something big, from outer space, and may not die.

Third, the LDS did wrong for disrupting Western society's progress towards more cohesion and peace. For the last 50 years society has experimented with no boundaries (no definitions). Countercultural trends inverted all that had previously defined opposites such as right and wrong, crime and righteousness. Maybe this was needed. But now I believe we are starting to settle in with some boundaries, slowly stating again what is right and wrong. Gay marriage is part of this return to a right-and-wrong sensitive society, allowing homosexuals to have an overt place in civic legitimacy. Gay marriage can serve as one of the larger "gains" we made with the last few decades of discord and experimentation. Sure, I know gay marriage is not in the plan for most Christian Churches, but these churches should see the better place that society is ascending to, and not be THE roadblock to a better place. These churches should have practiced an outward appearance of political and emotional ambivalence, neither condoning nor condemning. Only the self-centered think they always have to do one or the other, the wise know when to shut up.

The Means of Innovation may trump the Means of Production

"The proletariat seizes the power of the state and first of all transforms the means of production into the property of the state." -State and Revolution

So here is the muse ( and the reader is expected to know the gist of Marxism, Lawrence Lessig, GPL and creative commons licensing ): The Soviets transformed Russia from an illiterate peasant class agrarian and artisan culture to a literate heavy industry culture in just a few years. Skipping the misery of millions as an indictment of the regime, I'm selecting the industrial output as an indictment. Russia produced big, clunky, undependable crap. Always inferior to anything made in the West or Japan/Korea.

Over in another part of the world, almost immediately after the fall of the Soviets, a new form of human called "geeks" created a computer operating system and ancillary programs, then big cross-platform scripting frameworks, that changed every game of man. The output was tangible and definable in some ways, but the epiphenomenon was what everyone knew was the remarkable aspect. The epiphenomenon was innovation.

The proletariat can nationalize a few cranes and the port, oil, and coal, but my musing is that the means of innovation is the goose laying the golden egg. And those without that goose have a less vibrant or resilient lifestyle.

Hey Texas Ranchers: Ride This

It may be interesting as pragmatic budget concerns drive the farmers and ranchers away from their identity with oversized 4WD trucks such as the Suburban and on to less oil consuming farm vehicles. Since the 1970's, when trucks started being large and impressive rather than just hard and dependable, Joe Redneck has been very attached to their rigs. Might I suggest this Pakistani built motorcycle workhorse?

The New Center

"The country must be governed from the middle," Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters Wednesday. "You have to bring people together to reach consensus on solutions that are sustainable and acceptable to the American people."

-New Congress must govern from the middle. FoxNews

Nancy Pelosi has made this statement as a guiding principle for Democrats. Combined with President-elect Obama's constant assertion of centrist ideals, this should provide a great deal of clarity to the American people as to what to expect in the next two years. This message was sent out the day after the elections, in a style that both major parties in Washington D.C. use to announce to what ends their agenda will serve.

Nancy Pelosi just defeated a political challenger from the Far Left, Cindy Sheehan. See:Pelosi defeats Sheehan. SFGate. This in of itself should send a message to the center and center-right as to where San Francisco and Berkely liberals truly stand. And if San Fran is voting down the Far Left, then the Far Left really have no "base" of operations, and are thrust into the wilderness.

Note: I hope the Far Left die in that wilderness. Or better yet, start plenty of powerless non-profits, everyone of which will likely buy copying machines, computers, office furniture, hire a website programmer, and pay a graphics artist to create a logo. ( Hey Revolutionaries, Thanks for the $$, and good luck telling each other you are right(eous). - the Economy. )

I have an acquaintance who lives in Wasilla, Alaska, and wrote the day before the election with these fears that are being discussed in his local church: After Obama is elected, laws will be implemented that prevent people from speaking their beliefs, specifically people will not be able to say "I believe gay marriage is wrong, and against the wishes of God". The other thing some at his church are afraid of is gun rights being taken away. One of his local church leaders is buying extra ammunition, saying that if Obama wins then he may not be able to legally get more ammunition.

Here are my responses to all the above:

1. This is not "funny", and I think any big city liberals that make fun of such concerns exacerbate the cultural rifts and the potential cultural war.
2. I have attended the nation's most extreme left colleges over the last 8 years, and absolutely YES, there are leftist extremists in those schools who are after the things my conservative Wasilla friend is fearful of, and these extremists almost always vote Democrat.
3. Most important point: With Obama and Pelosi's declared intentions, these extremists don't have representation. They are like the KKK who voted for George W. Bush, in that they may feel more resonate with one party than the other, but their agenda doesn't have traction anywhere it matters.

I believe the Democrats are going to rebuild the public part of this country -the parts that make all of our lives and livelihoods work. For too long we have had a fear of the Far Left, and run to shakedown artists feigning they give a sh_t about conservative values, or any values. We had to kill two birds with one stone to kill either one. With Obama, we did -the Far Left and the Republican shakedown artists are both swept into the dustbin of powerlessness. Tip for America: Keep both of them dead by keeping both of them dead.

The President puts email before television

“We’re entering a new era – not only in terms of voting, we’re entering a new millennial presidency – it’s not only that young people turned out in big numbers, but also the way in which they were engaged in the process. There’s a whole new level of transparency and access that Obama as president will utilize to much more engage young people.”

That was evident in the way Obama reacted to his win. He chose first to send an email to supporters thanking them, before heading out to speak in the glare of television klieg lights to the throngs of tens of thousands of cheering - some tearing-up - supporters at Grant Park on Tuesday night.

- Obama’s turnout historical in numbers, diversity. Christian Science Monitor

17,537 viewers for 35 cents

I have an ad using Googles Adwords advertising service. It has been in operation a little less than 24 hours. The ad has already been shown 17,537 times, for a total cost of $0.35 to me. ( I am one the world's cheapest advertisers, with a limit of $5 per month, so I can only afford a few cents per day for my worldwide ad campaign. )

15,635 of these ad viewings were in the Google "content network", which can be anything from the New York Times to a blogspot blog. The remaining views were seen by users of Google search, using certain keywords.

Economically, Adwords has not made me any money yet. Maybe the excitement I feel is in the ease of use by me the advertiser, and the reach of the advertising. I am excited that memes can be spread this far, this cheaply.

Technical glossary: By 17, 537 "views" I mean my ad was seen on a webpage, I do not mean the users clicked on my ad. My ad was only clicked on 5 times, and that is the only time I am charged money for the ads. My average cost per click was $0.07.

Decentralized Ad Hoc Industrialization Hubs

This is a list of items that may be useful in an economic collapse in which new ad hoc decentralized industry arises.

1. AM Broadcasting. Up to 2 mile reception.
   http://www.sstran.com/
2. Fabrication. Lumenlabs MicRo or RoGR CNC
   old post with photos
3. Mesh networks.
   Motorola products as examples

DIY Industrialism: Lumenlab

Lumenlab makes a $600 robot tool called miCro which is not only the all-purpose tool many people need, it can also build parts for their $1600 RoGR robot tool which will:

"Replace most tools in your shop, improve the quality of your work and spend less time doing it!"

They proclaim that do-it-yourself-and-then-have-the-robots-do-it-for-you is the go-to philosophy of the New Great Depression:

"Every dollar spent must count in today's economy and Lumenlab's robotics products are not only the best value on the market, you can use them to generate income!"

They also sell $230 recycled desktop computers with Ubuntu and the software for controlling the robots pre-installed. If you add $65 for a used 15" LCD monitor (latest RE*PC price) and $25 for a keyboard and mouse, then you can get a basic home/small business fabrication system for under $1000 and the full enchilada for under $2000. In other words physical fabrication technology is now about the same cost as the computer hardware you use to design electronic content.

Junk Thought: A Definition

“The defining characteristics of junk thought, which manifests itself in the humanities and social sciences as well as the physical sciences, are anti-rationalism and contempt for countervailing facts and expert opinion. It cannot be stressed enough that junk thought emanates from both the left and right, even though each group—in academia, politics, and cultural institutions—thrives on accusing the other of being the sole source of irrationality….The real power of junk thought lies in its status as a centrist phenomenon, fueled by the American credo of tolerance that places all opinions on an equal footing and makes little effort to separate fact from opinion” (Jacoby 211).

- Jacoby, Susan. The Age of American Unreason. 2008;
from chapter titled, "Junk Thought."

Eschatology, Money Metabolism ,Global SuperOrganism

I am writing this blog entry acknowledging my blind-man's view of an elephant.

Reference materials:

• Evidence of a Global SuperOrganism -Kevin Kelly
• The Behavioral Revolution -David Brooks
• Auto-Catalytic Software Development -Joe Gregorio

Along with the three documents above, a fourth reference is this snippet from a friend's email:

Our conversations frequently touch on eschatology (the end of the world) whether it's a religious eschatology like the second coming or a secular eschatology like peak oil, economic collapse or kurzweil singularity. It's interesting how people react differently to an anticipated end of the world regardless of it's precise nature.

Finally there are people who see the ending of worlds as an endless cycle which should be endured rather then fought, escaped or embraced. The old religions: Hinduism, Shinto, Roman and Orthodox Catholicism for example encourage this attitude in many of their adherents, which you can see in the internal politics of India or the apocalyptic science fiction of Japan. I particularly recommend the novel A Canticle for Liebowitz as one Catholic's post-apocalyptic vision of the future.

A key theme in Canticle is the preservation of books (and eventually all knowledge) by the Albertian Order of Liebowitz, and it's implications for the rebirth of technology and long-term survival of the human race. The monks contend that this is what the Church has always done, even though worldly governments and philosphers go through cycles of creation, destruction and reinvention of ideas as well as civilization itself.

I do not have a working articulate synthesis-thesis that ties all the above together, but I do have a bullet list of ideas to popcorn into this dialogue space:

1. With source code text files being the bedrock of the internet civilization/organism, are programmers standing in the position of Albertian Order of Liebowitz? Or maybe the early free software pioneers at least? Better than Irish monks who preserved Greco-Roman scholastic greatness through the 1000 years of ignorance in Europe, the OSS programmers are preserving text (source code) that moves and operates on itself, which is an order of magnitude higher than the mission of the Irish monks. [ see the auto-catalytic reference ]

2. If money is the nutrient of the internet super-organism , are the recent global monetary troubles something that could arouse the imperative of self-awareness in the ii? Given D. Brooks opinion that human perceptive abilities are too weak for global investment, the super-organism needs massive global scales of wealth, and humans need the global transfer of information and goods, are we at a crossroads in which humans and the super-organism have a mutual interest and urgency to address that interest? [ see the kevin kelly super-organism reference ]

3. Extending #2. Will the world's middle and lowest classes see their need of free flowing global information as more imperative than the wealthiest, and see efficiencies gained by the super-organism becoming human's transactional policeman? Will the world's less-than-most-wealthy see the internet transactional civilization of Amazon/Google as their only true savior, rather than Luddite dreams of basal economies ( local and less technology) rising up to rescue their families?

Writer predicts demise of Open Info Culture

Article of reference: An End to Open Source after Economic Downturn

Just read the article. The author is either:

1. thinking of open source/open info world as sort of a donations-of-the-wealthy-enough, where wealth has more to do with time than money. He is thinking of it as an equivalent to donations to United Way.
2. thinking of the commodity being produced as a widget that gets simply given away. Sort of like building lawnmowers, then just parking them on the street corner and any idiot can pick one up. Further, this equates the open source/info people to tinkerers that want to build lawnmowers for fun -basically mechanics with some extra time who like having a mini-factory at home.

The author doesn't get that we are making the meaningful and useful part of a telecommunication infrastructure, the last mile of it. Or more like the last few inches of the TCP/IP layer where those worthless bits get turned into what we really want and need.

Yes, a lot of activity will cease. Which kind? The kind that is all hype, the dross, the crap, the stuff that marketing is telling is cool rather than the true popular will. Thank god for everyone of these deaths. Thank god.

Open info culture will whittle down to projects that resemble the seminal moments of its beginnings: Stallman's obsessive pursuit of a C compiler, Torvald's posting of an OS project. Open info culture will become once again Zen, the users crafting what they use.

No, this will not do much for getting some chicken on the dinner table, or the roof fixed, but then that's not what open info culture was originally about in its purer days.

A note on specifics: I would see myself using Google's cloud computing services MORE, not less, if I am less wealthy. I see myself using only free software to do anything on a computer. If no new open source was created, I bet I can do anything needed with the python, perl and sqllite we already have. Even if Wikipedia was to slow in its addition of new material, I would use what's already there. Google may make less revenue if economic activity goes down, but I bet it still has a resiliency much like the broadcasting and entertainment business did during the Depression and World War 2.

Female Promiscuity and the OODA Loop

My friend Seth provided this schema of combat operations process employed by sexually promiscuous females.

A woman who is disrupting a working group by 'ho'in' around is simply exploiting a weakness in a culture whose family values are based on romantic monogamy. It is not especially difficult to bond quickly with fellow workers and get inside their social OODA loop, getting a great deal of power with limited resources: "In order to win, we should operate at a faster tempo or rhythm than our adversaries--or, better yet, get inside [the] adversary's Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action time cycle or loop. ... Such activity will make us appear ambiguous (unpredictable) thereby generate confusion and disorder among our adversaries--since our adversaries will be unable to generate mental images or pictures that agree with the menacing as well as faster transient rhythm or patterns they are competing against." (Think about that Boyd quote from a sexually promiscuous woman's perspective.)

Of course it is not only women who can manipulate people in ways that undermine their ability to act. Hucksters, motivational speakers and spiritual gurus use similar tactics. They always have something "clever" to say which stops the conversation and stupefies the mind, as you get stuck halfway in Observe-Orient-Observe-Orient-Repeat paralysis. And if you call them on it, refusing to be caught flat footed and keep maneuvering, then they call you Shrill, Militant, Agressive, Domineering, just as you would be labeled, Insensitive, Sexist, Misogynistic and Abusive for complaining about sexual sabotage.

Asynchronous personalization and convenience versus communal ritual

It is October 21st 2008 and I just mailed my absentee ballot yesterday for the November election. This morning there is an article in the local paper highlighting the profiles of candidates running for Washington State Superintendent of Education ( a hotly contested position ).

I use this as an example of "asynchronous personalization and convenience versus communal ritual". The media will be serving up information and disinformation within the next two weeks synchronized to work with those attending the ritual of election day poll attendance. It is interesting, beyond the domain of politics or even media influence on society, to note how being out of sync with a ritual creates a disjoint with timed information.

I am thinking of any communal ritual here. Election day poll attendance, Sunday church attendance, Ramadan, or even the timing of gift giving to a particular day (Dec 25th). I am not against: Islamic fasting, Bible study and reflection, Xmas gifts, or voting , I am emphasizing the choice between 1) just doing the action and 2) doing the action coordinated with others.

Whole writing and academic careers have been built upon promoting asynchronous individualism or communal ritualism. Both have their strengths, and we don't have to be so stupid as to side with just one for our whole lives.

I definitely become more proficient and happy in asynchrony. The advent of wide spread use of the internet in the 90's seemed to help me intellectually and to communicate with others -I went for 24 years without a phone because I hated communicating in a real time dyadic conversation, before email there was no way to get ahold of me besides writing a letter to my often changing address. I dwell well in asynchrony. But then I exist on the margins of our species and cultural boundaries.

Synchrony and ritual is knocking on my door. In the last few days my wife has opened up a quest for ritual in our lives, a sacred place to participate the sacred time of Christ Mass. [her blog entry here]

X VERSUS Y is not a tension -it is the force that propels a return of balance. I'm glad for have the powerful Gods Asynchrony and Synchrony in my life.

Against Zero Growth: Technical economic growth solutions to polution

From seanat: " It probably starts with public awareness and getting people to view the land as more valuable for conservation than for building."

This sounds like a Zero Growth perspective, which is exactly opposite of a wise or reasonably progressive society. The Earth is first and foremost an economic engine. The cultures in the world who do not operate on an economics-first principle are noteworthy as impoverished, powerless people.

There is likely an answer to this in technology, something along the lines of additives to the water that could eat away at the pollutants. I am not saying we have the answer yet, but we should be emphasizing solutions that are technical, not natural.

My comment posted on article: Science panel says "radical" changes needed to control stormwater.

Bloomberg's sighting of a Black Swan

Assaults on students at Seattle's Roosevelt High School

[link] Seattle P-I Article with user comments

Posted by JoeUser at 10/9/08 9:56 a.m. 194545

I attended Roosevelt from 77-81. I was robbed twice on school grounds by black students, and this was almost a daily occurrence among my friends back then. The attackers were nearly always kids that had been bussed in from other schools, so we never knew who they were, and they typically disappeared from school for a week or two afterwards, so the problem never went away.

Regarding reader "Roosevelt" comment about baseball bats...it was also fairly common for people to show up at school with a trunk full of them after an incident.

I know one student who ran down the stairs in front of the school when a black kid pulled a knife and attempted to rob him. The attacker threw the knife from the top of the stairs and managed to nick my friend in the back.

I'm not afraid to say that it was black students committing these crimes, because that's who it was. Is it racist to state that fact? I don't recall a single instance of a friend being robbed by another white kid.

I had many black friends in high school, and still have many today. I don't care what color a persons skin is as long as they are good people. Unfortunately, many experiences in high school and while living in the Central District for three years have made me wary.

Nimbyism versus Universal Solutionism

In the NIMBYism vs Global-Solutionism choice, the later is untenable and not what local community resources should concern themselves with. Global-Solutionism is just an old Catholic Social Justice construct ( universal solutions ) that is fine for someone's religion but is ruining civic dialogue and purpose.

I am progressive and ONLY practice Nimby-ism. The exception is the global effect I intentionally introduce with my commerce, which is heavy on the use of Amazon.com.

( the reason I'm so touchy about NIMBYism is in our local papers the dominant refrain when dealing with neighborhoods with high drug abuse on the streets is to denounce NIMBY's, and claim we need to the wider scope of poverty or homelessness statewide or nationwide. I disagree with that dominant refrain, )

Supporting material:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimbyism

Tipping Point Specifics: When the Police Protect the Users and Makers

CNN: Sheriff orders no evictions for foreclosures. [link]

In this earlier rant [ not my best writing ] I'm juxtaposing a class of doers versus a class of investors who make nothing but own merely by speculation. In this post I'm juxtaposing the Users of cultural artifacts versus Absentee Abstract Ownership.

If or when our economy and society implodes/devolves, the most crucial question is who the police and military will work for-who will they point their guns at, serve eviction notices to, or help in standing guard for their property. As people's monetary resources dry up, it will be crucial whether the police/military stay cohesive, and if so, who will they determine owns the physical resources of this industrial society. If they side with the Absentee Abstract Ownership class by removing people from the use of the cultural artifacts necessary for a modern life, then we have a recipe to replay the horror of the early Middle Ages -Roman citizens became lifelong debtors (slaves) to their creditors. ( It took the bubonic plague to kill off those who maintained the status quo of Europe, and allowed in the slow march out of the Dark Ages into modernity).

This sheriff in Chicago is functioning as a counterexample: police siding with the general population rather than the Absentee Abstract Ownership class. Want to avoid decades or hundreds of years of serfdom? Support police like the Sheriff of Chicago. I recommend a meme, THE SHERIFF OF CHICAGO, as a quick reference to the archetype and the political construct.

It is no small detail that this THE SHERIFF OF CHICAGO emerged from the people, rather than academia, and it was first publicized on Fox News and CNN, rather than the alternative-left press or left leaning bloggers. Even if the mechanics of the THE SHERIFF OF CHICAGO is essentially socialist, I think if it had come from the left or academia it would have provoked the police/military, along with ordinary citizens, into a more staunch support of the Absentee Abstract Ownership class. If it had come from the left or academia, I'm pretty sure I would have died a slave.

John Robb's Resilient Community (see his blog) thesis is a crucial concept to anticipate and build upon if our society goes through major disruptions. THE SHERIFF OF CHICAGO meme needs to be spoken easily and frequently by everyone participating in the early construction phase of the resilient community.

The Vow Dialogue

Craigslist philosophy thread that I started.

Today I vow < linux_lance > 10/02 06:52:32

1. Not to intervene in social system to save dying nodes
2. Transact with all in a peaceful ambivalent modality
3. To practice Nimbyism, not global solutionism
4. To end social justice
5. Make all life machine readable, and machine manageable

---

Is your idealogy regarding this matter.... < shakesfear > 10/02 14:00:31

That humans can reach their ultimate potential by enhancing their bodies with nanotechnology and computer bionic replacements, but essentially the mind left as it is - with the exceptions of possible faster (data) processing by enhancing certain cerebral functions? OR - do you propose or is your main focus on man creating a new machine totally void of all biological and organic features and programmed with the creation (not yet conceived) of artificial intelligence? In other words, do you propose that humans create a better more efficient model of themselves, but eventually the biological, organic, humanoid would soon be extinct and the world left with our creation to further our goals? E.g., instead of creating the superman within ourselves, you would rather forgo your species and let humans die with the legacy of being God and creator of a new and more efficient thinking machine?

It certainly brings new meaning to the Nietzsche phrase "God is dead"...or as some theists would interpret as being that our God created us and then once free will was placed within us our creator died -his purpose no longer needed. Makes one ponder how many "Gods" we have gone through and is it our time now to be God and create a model in our own image and somehow give it free will and AI and our existence extinct.

---

excellent capture of my ideology < linux_lance > 10/02 15:15:44

I think I am choosing this one->" man creating a new machine totally void of all biological and organic features and programmed with the creation (not yet conceived) of artificial intelligence? "

But there is a little more to it than your two choices ( which you wrote pretty well and are accurate ).

The third choice would be the machines governing man, and the whole planet. Not eliminating man, but being in symbiotic relationship. The symbiotic would be in job vacancy. Man gives up a huge amount of social engineering and control jobs such as legislative, courts, police and gives this job to the machines. The machines would excel by not doing to two things humans often did in those positions: corruption and/or performance inconsistency. Even the honest cops and legislatures out there have limits to what they can learn and what they can see.

---

Do you think upgrading AI < maslow > 10/02 18:51:45

would cause human degradation, or equal upgrading?

---

my answer: humans will equally upgrade § < linux_lance > 10/02 18:59:11

---

Another's answer assuming Google is AI < linux_lance > 10/02 19:17:02

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/06/will_we_let_goo.php

---

So do you feel the distance < maslow > 10/02 22:21:08

from organic to synthetic will always equate to a need to keep up with progress? Do we constantly run the risk of having too much of a gap in leader to follower, and limited resources dictating the survival of the fittest?

---

yes, almost assuredly < linux_lance > 10/03 06:31:36

This retool of our lived environment, and the resulting gaps and disparities, is nothing new. It was an intuitively known when European descendants converted land into crops for global trade rather than local sustenance for aboriginal agrarians, nomads or hunter-gatherers. Britain wanted a line of demarcation, to leave the aboriginals land for their lifestyle and technological strata. The American Revolution was primarily about deregulating that line of demarcation, opening up an unmitigated competition between technological cultures.

By this precedent, the question of protections to mitigate disparity between leader and follower was answered.

---

Thus it seems the gap < maslow > 10/03 07:10:12

continues to get wider, and narrower, wider, and...

On the other hand, there have been major falls of civilizations, where the majority imprint of said civilization, is left behind.

Can a more connected world suffer an even greater downfall? Should overly dependent needs hierarchies be broken? And, conversely, should too loose systems become more efficient...

Or is the continual adaptation a normative state?

---

yes, continual adaptation < linux_lance > 10/03 07:53:20

I believe continual adaptation is the normative state. A stronger statement is that anthropology is the study of continual adaptation, and where it is different from zoology's evolution is on cultural/technology emphasis alongside genetic mutation.

Can a more connected world suffer an even greater downfall?

Not sure. Most of the anarcho-primitivists talk I hear seems to think "blow up internet, trains,planes, and autos and we will have a localism utopia" seem to forget the world was very connected in the era of wooden hulls, metal swords, gunpowder, and sails. I'm fearful of that meaner world we would downfall to, but mapping out plans of how to survive in a world of more prevalent schism genocide and slavery. But complete downfall to eating grass, don't think so.

Should overly dependent needs hierarchies be broken?

The Global Systems-Health role of terrorism is to test, and harden, the Global Systems-Health. Thanks nihilistic criminals, terrorists, and hackers -you are our unpaid systems test engineers.

---

Does this mean that moderation < maslow > 10/03 12:11:55

wins the day?

It seems the extremities always collapse to the center...

---

Yes, moderation or I'm looking for... < linux_lance > 10/03 12:51:25

Moderation or something else. Maybe not moderation on rate change ('let's don't change so fast'), but more like ubiquity of the change. Ah here, if a big change, then speedy wide dispersal of the change.

So I'm seeing moderation as one optimization doctrine, but another optimization doctrine being immoderation -extreme and swift change for a lot of people.

Hmmm, maybe moderation *does* win the day. Extreme mutation is an ok practice, but not of a whole class/species/type, as this is very poor evolutionary gambling.

Extreme change without speedy wide dispersal is, to me, the mother of volatile social tensions. I tend to be very pro ubiquity.

---

That makes sense < maslow > 10/03 16:32:20

Major shifts require equally major dispersal to bridge the gap, while the majority of evolution is moderately sequenced.

Well done.

Unqualified is the Qualified in Postmodernism

A little backstory: I'm from Arkansas. Live in Seattle. Will vote for Obama. Do not like George Bush as President. I am liberal by most right winger perspectives. What I say in this blog posting is analysis, not my preferences. And the analysis is aided by my extensive experience in the backwaters of the Southeast, combined with undergrad and graduate studies in postmodernism in uberleftist schools in the Northwest.

The Left and (good) established media are getting it wrong on Sarah Palin. She is qualified because she is a hockey mom. Her answers in interviews that have sent pundits into a tailspin of derision are the articulations of your standard hockey mom, or a mom that owns a successful diner in Memphis Tennessee, or a mom that is in a bureaucratic position at the local police station. I'm met 100's of those types of women, kin to a few, and can tell you for sure that all they need to know is the leader of Iran hates Israel and the next thing out of their mouth is "then we need to kill that man".

America will vote for a woman like that.

Postmodernism has taught the legitimacy of the less than aristocratic, the less than educated, the less than expert. Republicans operate on that; are strengthened by that. While the nuanced and smart that proliferate the campuses and more urbane metro areas of the USA tout academic capital P Postmodernism, they don't know game as it is being played on the streets. Postmodernism is certainly a threat to old orders of doing things, but it is not a tool that only fits into the hands of former slaves, the downtrodden, and indigenous. Actually it is a tool that only works for those who know how to manipulate it. I contend that to manipulate it, one is better served by acting unqualified and ignorant rather than articulating a thesis such as historical slavery.

George Bush II was the only person in his family we could call "stupid", and his family has been amazed at his success eclipsing his more brilliant brother. GWB should thank god for postmodernism, because he got through 2 Presidential elections riding on the mandatory qualification of "ignorant" as part of the Cult of Personality in a postmodern state. Adding to this, in the smaller towns away from metropolitan suburbs across the South is a type of man who is successful by local standards but an ignorant oaf by New York City or Stanford standards. I've met a lot of those kinds of middle aged men -they talk and act just like George Bush II.

America voted for that kind of man.

With every New York Times Op-Ed piece that correctly points to Palin's lack of expertise, they have added to the power of her in Cult of Personality in the postmodern state.

Supporting resources Dump Palin?

"Eastern US Useless Moneychangers Culture" - you so die now, die die die die

Below is, too me, a scary description of what may happen in the US if the tax payer bailout goes forward. It is all a quote from MSNBC MCCAIN VS. OBAMA: BAILOUT POLITICS:

The New York Times’ David Brooks sees an ideological shift for the country coming, and it starts with the enactment of this plan: "The Paulson rescue plan is one chapter. But there will be others. Over the next few years, the U.S. will have to climb out from under mountainous piles of debt. Many predict a long, gray recession. The country will not turn to free-market supply-siders. Nor will it turn to left-wing populists. It will turn to the safe heads from the investment banks. For Republicans, people like Paulson. For Democrats, the guiding lights will be those establishment figures who advised Barack Obama last week — including Volcker, Robert Rubin and Warren Buffett." Brooks continues, "If you wanted to devise a name for this approach, you might pick the phrase economist Arnold Kling has used: Progressive Corporatism. We’re not entering a phase in which government stands back and lets the chips fall. We’re not entering an era when the government pounds the powerful on behalf of the people. We’re entering an era of the educated establishment, in which government acts to create a stable — and often oligarchic — framework for capitalist endeavor.” -MCCAIN VS. OBAMA: BAILOUT POLITICS with Brooks comments at bottom

David Brooks is brilliant, hip and honest. The only brilliant, hip and honest voice from the conservative side of American politics, in my opinion. So my vehemence is not aimed at him, but at those who would carry out the assessment Brooks has prophesized.

With more sadness than vehemence I read on the Barack Obama official campaign website that Obama is supporting the bailout, with conditionals that are a little more disciplined than the initial White House offering. I may not be voting for Obama now.

I think the red-blue state cultural divide may take a back seat to another cultural divide that is as yet unnamed. I cite this article to give some of its tectonic shape: CNN: Fed's bailout plan met with skepticism out West. I will call the Pro-Bailout side the Eastern US Useless Moneychangers Culture. I brushed up against this class when I lived in Arkansas. There was a class of wealth who looked down on anyone 1) with a skill 2) that had to show up at a job. Even CEO's, bank presidents, and the state governor were of the lower class to these people. All these people knew how to do was invest, to hedge massive amounts of abstract wealth in ways that insured their continued aristocratic lifestyle. Doubly emphasize one aspect: this hedge investing class viewed any skill or technical knowledge class of humans as expendable slaves. Now that you have this Eastern US Useless Moneychangers Culture in mind, look at another cultural tectonic landmass that is forming in the form of I.T. intelligentsia: Door Number Three -Bob X. Cringely. I quote from the Cringley op-ed below to give a quick glance of this emerging cultural force, but emphasize my own schema first: the old redneck suburbanite or southerner versus urbane social justice redstate/bluestate may be slipping in relevance. The Giant Data Warehouses with Web Access Culture is on the West Coast ( Amazon and Google). This culture has a new kind of person in their workers and their more adept users/customers. I think this new kind of person has the potential to subvert and take over, and the first and most appropriate target for destruction should be the Eastern US Useless Moneychangers Culture

We're in an important transition period not just for IT, but also for business in general. Everything seems to be in flux. And that means the old ways of doing things are changing and ought to. And in this way IT is leading -- or ought to lead -- the way. Later this week I'll be making a dramatic shift and proposing the Cringely Energy/Economic Policy, but first I need to drive home the point that, however different it is from the rest of the company, IT is generally the vanguard for a new corporate culture and whole new ways of doing business for the world. We're in a mess. The world is screwed up and some of that can be traced to the improper use of IT as a financial weapon. But the people of IT actually present many of the answers we need, because they are living much deeper in technology than other parts of the company or of our society. Think about it. There has nearly always been a class of eggheads showing us a path toward new business models, whether it was Edison and Firestone, Hewlett and Packard, Noyce and Moore, Gates and Allen, or Brin and Page. It takes in each case a generation to happen, but ultimately we all (and I mean ALL -- everyone in the total organization) come to look like the geeks of the generation before. So let's lean into that, get on with the transition, and get past this place we're in right now where nobody wants to be. Let's consciously embrace the next model that's generally running fitfully right now inside every company, down in the more functional parts of the IT department. What I mean by this is that times have changed and the world can no longer afford even John Reed's world view with its needs analysis, design, debug, test, rollout strategy -- whether we're talking about a new app or a new marketing campaign. By the time the app (or the campaign) is rolled out, the world changed from HTML to Javascript/SOAP/Ajax (or from financial regulation is bad to financial regulation will save us). At the heart of this is a concept completely foreign to traditional business -- Open Source. What the open source community has demonstrated is the superiority of a strategy that emphasizes early proof of concept, early release, and frequent releases with features added as needed -- probably totaling 20 percent of the features identified in a needs assessment. This is the new IT strategy we live with every day -- 80 percent solutions because they are fast, increasingly reliable, and keep the end users in the loop from almost the beginning. All made possible because of an open Internet (at least until Comcast succeeds and enslaves us), easily grasped standards and impressive demonstrations by companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, and a ton of start-ups. Wall Street back offices figured this out long ago, they just never got their boss's bosses to understand. Last week's column was a utopian vision that simply requires all the old managers to be reprogrammed or accept a bullet in the head. But it is not at all utopian if applied solely (or initially) to IT, where this stuff actually works pretty well. IT people are most of the time building fortresses or feeling unappreciated -- often both at the same time. Yet to our discredit, we've done a very poor job of explaining or demonstrating or outright selling our utility to the broader organization. Where are our Geek Appreciation Days? Take a Geek to Lunch? Bring Your Geek to School? Taciturn, we disparage our co-workers for not appreciating us while giving them little obvious reason why they should appreciate us. That has to change. Door Number Three isn't just an escape hatch for nerds, it is the way business and culture and civic life will be for most of us a generation further into this information age. We're just leading the way. And if we're leading the way let's embrace that role and become leaders. If, like me, you are likely to be fired, anyway, there's no real downside to this strategy. Let's give it a try. Door Number Three -Bob X. Cringely

Giant Data Warehouses with Web Access Culture.....march forward and don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes!

I should add that those strongly invested in the redneck Protestant suburbanite or urbane Catholic social justice cultures are like the peasants and indigenous peoples during WW2 -spectators, soldiers or victims in a battle they do not guide. This won't be about valuing all humans equally and giving them equal access to food and housing, and it won't be about giving white rednecks a default safe haven. Both those agendas will only live on in the minds of the old or irrelevant.

Eastern US Useless Moneychangers Culture in the news with their views:

• Note how Picken's only qualification of the bailout is that it needs to happen soon
• Note how Welch exalts Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and New York Fed President Timothy Geithner without any real qualification for such praise and trust

Email to Barack Obama

Senator Obama

I am one of the millions who find your candidacy for President exhilarating. Across the board on issues and nuanced perceptions of America's needs, I feel you have potential no other politician has offered us in my 46 years of life. I support you way beyond the context of this one Presidential election. I hope to be seeing the effects of your vision long into the future.

Unfortunately, I have some precise business to write you about. The issue of taxpayer bailouts of private investment banking firms. I am absolutely against these bailouts. In the November 2008 election I will not vote for any one running for a national office who voted for the bailouts. With your historic run for the Presidency, I have had an ill feeling about standing absolutely on one issue and voting, or not voting, for you based solely on your Senate voting record with the bailout. In final summation I cannot cheapen our relationship -I must vote or not vote for you based on our agreement on issues.

I heartily encourage you to coordinate with Congressional ( especially GOP ) leaders who are standing up against White House pressure, and articulate a resounding no to this amazing attempt to swindle tax dollars to reward failed market risks in the private sector.

Good Luck
-Lance Miller

The New Characteristics of the Tao

I read the Tao Te Ting alot in my year on the ice in Antarctica. The clincher for me is the last poem. It basically acknowledges the big problem trends cannot be avoided unless we 1) avoid symbolic analysis 2) avoid travel/mobility.

So in 1996, at the end of my 13 months in Antarctica, I committed TO mobility and symbolic analysis, which has further mushroomed into my full embrace of digital technology as the cure for social ills. The essence is I saw the Tao as stating an untenable path. Plus I was in the first years of extreme mobility after a lifetime spent bound by localism fetish in Arkansas. I associated localism with a lack of intellect and ability, only those lacking talent tended to stay in Arkansas.

Mobility and symbolic intellectualism are my Tao.

Project Gutenberg Tao

Republican scum promoting MORE socialism

"Drill Here, Drill Now"

I'm an odd liberal progressive that has no problem with lifting moratoriums on domestic drilling. But the vagaries of meaning the Republicans are embedding the phrase with is such a sham. First, the oil that would come from any drilling in the US would be sold on the "spot market", which simply means to the highest bidder -e.g. If China outbids on the barrel of oil, China gets the oil. The spin we get from Republicans is as if the oil resources are nationalized, like in communist countries, and oil pulled from US soil automatically goes to American consumers. Ask a Republican if they want the US government to seize all oil produced on US soil, if they say "no", then tell them its the Drill Here Drill Now may mean no oil for the US consumer if the US consumers are too poor to pay for it.

Republican scum kill the free market

Reference article for this blog post: McCain’s Radical Agenda

1. Good: Republicans are for a free market ( this does NOT have to mean pro-corporations, it DOES have to mean the market will kill off bad ideas, bad people, and bad products, and it DOES have to mean if a product is successfully being sold or method of trade is occurring, including barter or living solely on goats milk -is legit by its simply existing. )

2. Bad: The REPUBLICAN government is bailing out failed financial services giants.

1. Good: Republicans are for personal responsibility, innovation and initiative as the means of bettering one's living standard, and not the role of HIGH TAXES paying for bums, idiots, and worse to have things they don't deserve. Key here is the GOP almost always run on a LESS TAXES mantra.

2. Bad: The McCain-Palin Health Plan is to do an entirely new tax in the form of TAXING HEALTH BENEFITS AS IF IT IS INCOME, with the intention of poisoning the current employer-based health insurance scheme with negative social engineering.

The negative social engineering, combined with higher taxes, would make the McCain-Palin Health Plan a double crime from a purist free market perspective.

Its worth noting that Obama is the only voice of free market principles since these bailouts started happening. He is saying, too nicely for my taste, that these bailouts are the wrong signal to the economic system. He puts it in moralistic language sympathetic for the middle-class, which I think obscures the absolutely right stance he is taking. In a free market, one can make billions, or one can lose all of one's billions -the socialistic crime is government preventing either one.

The Republicans circa 2000-present are the worst failures in American history. Security from terrorism -failed; War- failed; Economy -failed. We'd do better electing a crack whore with a history of recurring head lice. At least we could run the country while she was passed out.