RE: List dynamics

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Jan 20 2003 - 23:39:22 MST


Brett writes

> Really I think it's just about whatever helps communication.

Yes, quite right. We probably have to try to be flexible.
I'll try to be more careful about using the right word; and
you (and the rest of us) can try harder to appreciate the
fallibility of communication, especially this form of it.

> > I might point out, however, that the whole adversarial
> > process of law is based upon opportunistic exploitation
> > of these human tendencies.
>
> You might. But you haven't yet. It's an interesting thesis.

I'll take that as a joke ;-)

> > I think that we should live with a balance between the utterly
> > rigorous and detached (and sometimes boring), and the visceral.
>
> Yes. But I come to the extropian list and communicate with
> you and others at least partly because I *like* the
> intellectual rigor especially when it is applied to the solving
> of human problems. I can exercise my 'ol viscera anywhere.

Well, others here perhaps come to the list (why do I feel
like breaking out in song? "Oh, Come to the List!!" ?)
to express their feelings, and some come for a combination.
And most, of course, have no really good idea why they come,
nor should they have to have a reason.

I myself don't want to entirely discard the emotional component,
partly because I don't feel like it, and partly because of
Damiaso's brilliant demonstration that the emotions are vital
to our reasoning in many cases. I really must post his
experiment here, for those who haven't heard of it.

For a pertinent example, the emotion we see in the thread
about Iraq has everything to do with people's feelings (well,
duh, I guess you can't argue with that!), and their feelings
are what took nature millions of years to develop as correct
responses to the world around them. If some people hate
Saddam, or hate America, or love America, and if the rest
of us have partial feelings one way or the other, these may
have everything to do with unconscious calculation; in
game theory, for example, it's easy to prove that sometimes
it's best to be *ir-rational*. Nations, evidently, can have
feelings too, and it's all a part of the stew.

Anyway, I digress. Returning, I'll conclude by saying that
I want to entertain the hypothesis that even outbursts on
this list may contain some ur-rational sense. (No typo there.)

> > Nature will take its course so far as list dynamics go,
> > just as in all other human affairs, and the prohibitionists
> > eventually wise up and understand that suggesting tiny
> > course corrections is one thing, and profitable, but
> > revolutionary and radical programs are something else,
> > and inevitably fail.
>
> "Nature" may impose limits. Our freedoms rise to the
> extent we can push back those limits. So I don't want
> to just say "whatever will be, will be".

I agree.

> The thesis that revolutions and radical programs inevitably
> fail seems a very bold one. I'm not inclined to agree with
> it at this stage.

Yah, I'll take back the word "inevitably"; but notice
that moral campaigns are seldom more than slightly
successful---the case at hand is that your exhortations
to everyone to switch off the "point scoring mindset"
will definitely be futile---and hardly just because one
or two of us disagree with you---the vast number of posters,
if they read thread at all, will not have their behavior
affected by it.

Still, I will agree that we should speak out every so often
when things seem too acerbic.

> But I'm more concerned with *our* "flame wars" because our
> "flame wars" are "flame wars" between the good-guys and they
> "burn" *us*. I think an enormous amount can be achieved thru
> the willing cooperation of a few good minds and this list is
> a gold mine for good minds.

  8^D *We* don't have flame wars. If you think that
what you see here is ever anything like a real flame
war, then you haven't seen anything yet.

Alas, I'm only one-fourth the way through your great long
post, but I'd better stop now. I'll reply to the rest
later, when there is time.

Thanks,
Lee



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Jan 21 2003 - 17:10:22 MST