Social Mode

After a TechCrunch article writer by Sarah Lacy posted August 22, 2011

A few months ago Sarah Lacy, a TechCrunch.com writerwas giving a talk in her hometown of Memphis, TN, and someone asked what the city could do to ignite more entrepreneurship among inner city kids. Her immediate answer was to teach coding– even basic app building skills– along with English and Math in every public school. She was surprised that her brother– an engineer who worked for many years in Silicon Valley before relocating to the Midwest– didn’t necessarily agree.

The thing is that while this is a first level issue of who gets the jobs needed in coding – foreign or domestic coders, it occurred to me that we are in the 30^th year or so of serious code writing and it has had some unanticipated consequences. The changes in the world that have been brought about by the Internet and technology have changed what is done by people. Now, more and more what is done is done by software applied to different technologies. The world of TechCrunch and other quasi-geek clusters are alive and well due to the prevalence of algorithms. They are the workers in a mired of different ways today.

They paint the cars, cut the steel, do the book binding, print the content, answer the phone and a zillion other things that we all used to do. In a cumulative way the jobs that were are now being done by technology just like was the case when ol’ Ned Lud (see emphatic published accounts for the most favorite spelling…) brought to mythical status between 1779 and 1812 that changes in British textile practices were coming to a screeching halt.

No, I am not being Luddite here. I am simply pointing out that, when all the talking heads whine and moan about this political union or that political union not producing jobs for the reconstitution of the economy, they should take note; the jobs in the past that went away aren’t coming back. Many of them aren’t coming back due to being long overdue to be absorbed before the downturn and no one – or not many, took notice.

Instead of asking for someone else to provide jobs, it is time to create jobs based on that uncomfortable situation that we find ourselves in every 70-90 years. Change has overtaken the status quo. Now we need to create jobs that machines can’t do – yet. That is, jobs involving organizing communities, infrastructure, law, education and human-care… for children, for families in transition, for elders and for soldiers who are brought back and deposited on the steps of America. They were taught how to do what was necessary to what they had to do to survive. Nowhere is the training they get any better for that purpose. Now however, they have done that under duress, for double tours, etc. etc. etc. To be spit out by those that trained them as worn out and disposable civilians with defects without the slightest bit of care on how to survive reestablish domestic values, is despicable. Software and algorithms can’t pull that off. We can if we stop waiting for someone else to do something we favor or don’t find dogmatically repugnant.

HP’s decision to go big and purchase the U.K.’s Autonomy Corp., and probably other players doesn’t seem so ridiculous under a ‘software good – hardware sad’ scenario, does it.

UN-intended Consequences of software…

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Aug 23
Guest Writer Ron Williams again… Attorney, Businessman and Citizen

It is clear to even the most casual observer that the sole political agenda of the Republican Party is to prevent the reelection of Pres. Barack Obama. It is equally clear that it is the absolute, single-minded focus of the Far Right of the Republican Party to prevent the reelection of a Black Man, any black, as President of the United States.

Thus, for nearly two years, as the President negotiated health-care with the Republican Party, those negotiations were futile, because no matter what would have been offered by this President the answer from this Republican Party would have been “no”. It is clear that no matter what initiative this President put forward, the Republican Party answer would always have been “no.”

And today, we see the Republican Party, and in particular the Far Right portion of that party, deciding to attach items on their political agenda to the debt ceiling bill as a means to further weaken the president and as a means to move their political agenda forward. As a political strategy, the move is almost brilliant. They were able to attack Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security (three programs that the Republican Party has been attempting to repeal sent each of them were first adopted) while at the same time further demonstrating the weakness of this President.

The mistake President Obama continues to make is to attempt to negotiate substantive programs with a group of people whose agenda is not to negotiate on those programs, but to attack the man himself. They will never negotiate to yes until they have used the so-called negotiations to attack the President (demonstrating his weakness) and until they have also gotten what concessions they otherwise wanted.

I predicted when this whole debt limit “crisis” began that the Republican Party would string this out until the end of July, after they had extracted significant concessions from the President and the Democratic Party, that is they had gotten as much as they could based on the time limit left. I am being somewhat facetious when I suggest that if these negotiations continued much longer, President Obama would eventually have negotiated away the entire Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs.

It is telling that the Republican Party started these negotiations stating that there could be no revenue increasing tax changes that would affect the wealthy. And that exactly where they ended. How can you have negotiations when one side gives up nothing in the other side makes all the concessions? That because their whole purpose of the Republican Party was to use the debt ceiling issue as a means of moving their political agenda forward with demonstrating their basic weakness of President Obama. And the Democratic Party and this President let them.

What Barack Obama should have said to the first overture from the Far Right that they would not agree to raise the debt ceiling unless there were major cuts to the various social programs, was “no.” He should have simply stated that he would veto any legislation that came across his desk that did anything other than simply raise the debt ceiling. And then stopped negotiating. Whenever they said “well let’s talk about this,” his response should have been “there is nothing to talk about.”

The President should have said, “I’ve told you my position. Congress, you do what you feel you need to do. If you want to pass legislation that has provisions other than raising the national debt attached to it, do so. I will veto it. And if you choose to then put the full faith and credit of the United States government at risk because you want to attach non-relevant politically motivated subject matter on what should be otherwise routine legislation, do so, but I will not be a party to this game-playing”.

If he had said that from day one, and then stuck to his guns,, this so-called crisis would’ve gone way. Then should he want to discuss modification of Medicare, Medicaid and/or Social Security that could have been done in conversation along with tax code changes.

The president has got to learn to stand up. If he doesn’t he will be a one term president. As it is, he is losing his base and maybe a one term president in any event. It may already be too late.

Sometimes I Think President Barack Obama Is an Idiot

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Aug 10
With all the hyped and real charisma that can be mustered concerning a NFL Hall of Fame enshrinement, two of my favorites were inducted last week.   Yes, some of the presentations were better than others but it may be that way based on which player was your favorite person to follow or scorn.   You saw it all on TV. You were treated to the stories, the emotions, the commitments and sometimes the confessions that came forth. Almost to a person, each claimed that they were who was now standing in front of that elite group, family, friends and invited quests due to the hardships they experienced and overcame along the way.

Here are some of the statements from Deion Sanders:

“I made a pledge to myself. I don’t care what it takes. I’m not going to do anything illegal. But my mama is never going to have to work another day of her life someday.”

“When you told me what I couldn’t do; when you told me what I didn’t do; when you told me what I’d never be, I saw …”

There were equally compelling statements by Shannon Sharp and sometimes even poetic descriptions of living in poverty in a leaking cinderblock house in Glennville, Georgia, where his existence was hard, unforgiving and marginalized:

“I didn’t want my kids to live one hour in the life that I had, let alone a day. … [I] got them to a life they never would’ve enjoyed had it not been for that” [the costs to his family…]

No, there was going to be no country cooked raccoon, opossum, squirrel and turtle. He committed then and there that…

“I’m not gonna have to eat that when I become an adult.”

And he didn’t. He committed at an early age that his family would never have a reason to endure that level of despair and poverty. And they didn’t ever have to. Both these heroes of mine made millions and provided for mothers, grandmothers, sisters, wives, brothers and friends in ways that made certain those individuals would not have to do what he did… to experience the elevated status that both were now experiencing.

But the power of consequences of those commitments was lost on their self-congratulation and entitlement. I was hoping they heard their own voices but the lights were bright and those sitting there on folding chairs may not have sensed their missed opportunity, not of experiencing poverty but of commitment and dedication.

Each person in the audience that was provided for by these athletes would never know the thrill of victory or the despair from a loss. No one wants to have that poverty and no one wants their children or family to struggle against all odds.
They hadn’t been ‘robbed’ by being provided for but in most ways their chance at learning and achieving great success was ‘short-circuited’.    There they were, Deion and Shannon, the pillars of self-reliance and perseverance having learned, struggled, and found success now entitling others to watch rather than start doing early and do what they did to succeed. Not necessarily football but anything…

Experiencing the consequences of commitment, focus and dedication is what the Hall of Fame members in all sports share. Deion got the closest to describing the formula for his success by providing the components for “Prime.” But, the $1500 plane ride to hear someone talk about how they prevailed is transitory and is known to induce a stupor similar to that of being stoned.

It was how Deion and Shannon handled the consequences of their struggles, their focus and their perseverance that got them there and nothing else. It is what they did… It would have been nice to know both understood that and to hear them say it loud so the fans that idolize them could hear it clearly that nothing is free and everything each of us values comes with a price.    Maybe next year.

http://theurbandaily.com/sports-news/theurbandailystaff1/deion-sanders-nfl-hall-of-fame-speech-video/

Follow the Consequences: NFL Hall of Fame Enshrinement 2011

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Aug 9
Dr. Tim Maudin posits in his “BIGTHINK.COM” article, that there is not much procedural difference between how one arrives at philosophical axioms for life and scientific ones.

However, let’s not wax Pollyannaic to the gods of ‘blog’; there are major processes that are different.   The philosophical axioms of life that one distills along the way are private and not amiable to testing or any type of validation or falsification. That’s good for the individual according to those that traffic in concepts, metaphors, mysticism and similes, but it is not so relatively good for the species and the universe. Those philosophical interpretations, rules, axioms and beliefs die with the owner.

Scientific ones may have, but don’t necessarily have, a similar etiology. But scientific content is converted from private to public by the bridging of communication that can be scanned for a value proposition by anyone exposed who is attending to it and, in so doing, gets to tests the content in their reality as well as the public reality that science serves.

Our belief frame out behavior and when those beliefs don’t have any course correction available they can lead to good and less good consequences for the owner and the community that owner inhabits. We all are stuck with some very outdated concepts; mostly tied to the Judeo-Christian-Newtonian World view, as some have pointed out responding to philosopher Maudlin’s article. No attempt or clue is offered how we all have these albatross’ of folk science, folk psychology and folk folklore and that, for some, make this Dr. Maudin’s video an opinion piece rather than an information piece.

What is unbounded is the need for explanation of relationships in ways that are general or conditional. Private or covert neural patterns that equal what we call “cognitive” is not been a productive place to look to find out what the heck is going on in the world. It is unbounded because of the complexity.   Staring at our belly button is one relationship that, while interesting to many philosophically, medically or technically, is not particularly relevant scientifically other than how it fits into existing context of those who value understanding a broader set of relationships. A scientific “explanatory crisis” is critical only because there is so much to do and behavior is complex. The philosophical procedures that have been around for 2500 years have left us wondering and wanting. Scientific approaches have provided the Gore-Tex to suit the astronauts on the moon, if you get the difference in meaning. The differences are literally mind boggling because we’ve spent so much time in the ‘mind’ idiom that is marginal if not, blatantly unfruitful. Current philosophical journals and entries validate this one-liner’s contributions to “our ordinary life”.

in starts and sputters science handles the changes in content understanding. Philosophical approaches hang on using the metaphors and mysticism that was oh, so trendy in 1200 BC (interesting way to reference, ah!?). Thus, we have a similar explanatory crisis in our individual daily lives right now. It could be called a dichotomy between those that ‘Get it” and those that “Don’t Get it” concerning myth, gods, premonitions, intuitions, feelings, motivations and the private axioms we treat as real (reification). These reified concepts keep us ginned up recycling tattered messages rather than focused on the infinite simple relationships that make up the complex relationships that contribute to figuring out what the heck is going on out there. Many people just gave up, are giving up, to become atheists, agnostics or vaccumists musing the antics of the “–isms” which are the stock and trade of philosophy as well. But the quest to make sense of things is valuable and will find a course it finds rather than one based on ‘should-ought,’ or truth, beauty, right, wrong, etc., ad nauseum.

It is ironical that those that want to disagree with this piece are right now looking for a scientific-looking way to frame their Judeo-Christian-Newtonian folklore arguments to make them so strong that it will launch their careers… as philosophers.   Lol.
1. Thursday, June 23, 2011; http://bigthink.com/ideas/24170
Philosophically – NOT so BIGTHINK

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Jun 23
Good sunday morning thought cycles about “work”, organization, the big “laws”, theories of all sorts of things. I really like Stuart Kauffman. Not afraid to say “I’m stuck.” and keep working.

The life cycle of a cell is simply amazing. It does work to construct constraints on the release of energy, which does work to construct more constraints on the release of energy, which does work to construct even more constraints on the release of energy, and other kinds of work as well. It builds structure. Cells don’t just carry information. They actually build things until something astonishing happens: a cell completes a closed nexus of work tasks, and builds a copy of itself. Although he didn’t know about cells, Kant spoke about this 230 years ago when he said that an organized being possesses a self-organizing propagating whole that is able to make more of itself. But although cells can do this, that fact is nowhere in our physics. It’s not in our notion of matter, it’s not in our notion of energy, it’s not in our notion of information, and it’s not in our notion of entropy. It’s something else. It has to do with organization, propagation of organization, work, and constraint construction. All of this has to be incorporated into some new theory of organization.

…

We don’t know what Darwinian pre adaptations are going to be, which supplies an arrow of time. The same thing is true in the economy; we can’t say ahead of time what technological innovations are going to happen. Nobody was thinking of the Web 300 years ago. The Romans were using things to lob heavy rocks, but they certainly didn’t have the idea of cruise missiles. So I don’t think we can do it for the biosphere either, or for the econosphere.

…

I can begin to imagine making models of how the universe gets more complex, but at the same time I’m hamstrung by the fact that I don’t see how you can see ahead of time what the variables will be.

…

The same question applies to the economy. How can human beings assemble this increasing diversity and complexity of ways of making a living? Why does it work in the common law? Why does the common law stay a living body of law? There must be some very general conditions about co-evolutionary assembly. Notice that nobody is in charge of the evolution of the common law, the evolution of the biosphere, or the evolution of the econosphere. Somehow, systems get themselves to a position where they can carry out coevolutionary assembly. That question isn’t even on the books, but it’s a profound question; it’s not obvious that it should work at all. So I’m stuck.

From “The Adjacent Possible“, Stuart Kauffman

Unanswered Big Things

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Jun 5
JHB,

I think the killing of Osama Bin Laden changed the world dramatically.

It won’t change terrorism or our world views… yet. OBL was a powerful symbol and the media, politics and academics are going to make sure that the symbol carries a lot of weight and reinforces whatever agenda they want to push.

From oil prices, to futures, to political fortunes, the process of killing and marketing OBL has changed everything.

What if all it does is change the political fortunes of Pres. Obama? isn’t that a big deal?

Perhaps we need to consider different levels of change. Even if all these things I claim are a big deal actually, in the grand scheme, are just small perturbations in the overall arc of the human and Earth story. Perhaps this story has played out thousands / millions of times and its just part of it. No real outlier.

What say you?

RFS

Death of Osama Bin Laden – Changes Everything?!

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May 3
Just watched absolutely fascinating NatGeo Explorer episode, The Moment of Death.

This is a really uncomfortable show to watch. Asks some amazing questions AND unemotionally explores some answers/approaches.

What got me really thinking was listening to the Drs. and researchers who work on this stuff everyday. It’s shocking to many of us who don’t deal with this stuff everyday, but for these researchers, its clinical.

Absolutely fascinating research over hundreds of years. Some really kooky stuff.

There’s a part where this Dr. “MacDougal” attempted to measure the weight of the soul in the 1800s. WHAT??!?

There’s an amazing part involving the air force testing the effects of G on pilots’ brains.

Definitely a much watch, if you can handle it. It’s not for everyone.

The Moment of Death, A Documentary

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Apr 10
“Tripping over Buddha” is an expression about not recognizing the obvious…or important stuff.

“If you were looking for Buddha [or insert subject of VALUE here], you could trip over him and be unaware of whom you had encountered.”

Such a statement can be pejorative or it can be about nothing more than the difficulty in not being able to see the forest for the trees.

Likewise, if we’re looking for a way to understand what the hell is going on in the world and we need some place to start, the recommendation is for you to start with “The Man in the Mirror” (thank you, Michael Jackson). Us. Homo sapiens.

By starting with ‘us’ then there’s a chance that you’ll learn how frustratingly complex organisms we are. For starters, perhaps you’ll be amused that we all
1. sense things that aren’t there (do we really need examples?) and
2. don’t sense things that are there (do we really need examples?)
3. but continually muster outrage, violence, and retribution when we aren’t taken serious about our interpretations of life – from art to asinine and politics to potentates
So, as a starting place for getting to know what makes us tick, what makes us frail and what is the best hope we have of recognizing Buddha [or subject of VALUE here] if we should trip over him (or her), START HERE.

www.g2conline.org/#

This is by far the best site I have ever come across with regards to what’s going on about ‘us’. Yes, great for sorting out the complexity from the hyperbole. No, it can’t be watched and absorbed in a week, or on YouTube. So go look, mess around, add it to your computer’s links, find what you are interested in or just gape at the wonders of it all but do it.

And, if you do, I hope you enjoy it.

But, like the Earl Nightingale once recounted, if you do take the time and effort to examine only a spat of the rules that govern you, in the end you’ll find you’re alone because the effort to grasp even the simple rules was too great a challenge for pretenders. You know, those who claim to be looking for Buddha [or what the hell is going on] but don’t recognize what is there in front of them when it’s encountered.

If you do process what is there and you come away convinced there is something more or better or of greater value, then fine. Now you know some serious empirical stuff you are rejecting and Buddha [or subject of VALUE here] may be right around the corner.
Tripping over Buddha…

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Mar 7
Our society wastes a lot of time crafting clever but completely inaccurate models of the world looking for shortcuts to wealth, fame, power, peace, prosperity, liberty, or whatever…

That strategy can never work. All things that lead to the above goals are computationally irreducible systems.

The most efficient strategy, and here comes the bad news… is to jump in, do stuff* and see what happens.

*stuff = take to the streets, code something, write that book, run the marathon, quit that job, join the peace corps, send the letter, have the talk, etc.

More Efficient to Participate and Experience than to Analyze and Look for a shortcut

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Mar 4
Last night my wife and I ended up seeing The King’s Speech. We set out to watch Black Swan, but it was sold out.

I was disappointed at the time and still am a little bit. The King’s Speech was a fine movie, but when you have a rare baby sitter night you want what you want…

Alas, one facet of The King’s Speech intrigued me quit a bit. How does someone in a position of fame behave when they realize the reality of the facade. Colin Firth brilliantly played a fascinating character without anchors. The scene with Geoffrey Rush sitting in Edward’s throne in Westminster Abbey was the clearest example of this.

“People have carved there names in this chair! I don’t care how many royal assholes…”

A throne with graffiti still used in a coronation ceremony! What could be more anchorless!

Even at the end of the movie, Firth still had this look when he was waiving at the throngs of people “What is all this for?!”

Not sure there is a resolution to this quandary for any of us and certainly not for a monarch in name. Oh, sure, we can all find a justification if we don’t question too hard and profess it out to the world enough….

Other thoughts to follow up on:

Impact of radio/mass broadcasting to politics, power, public policy

Current obsession with Monarchy and America’s own “monarchs in name”

The King’s Speech: Quick Reaction

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Feb 21