Year: 2018

Nice Jewish Guy?

This is an excuse to post the entire lyric from Tommy Womack’s “Alpha Male and the Canine Mystery Blood“ from his “There, I Said It” CD release.

Although I make frequent reference and allusions to lines from the lyric, I hadn’t posted the whole until today. Whether it’s a liberal response to a loose-cannon president or UK Labour tearing itself apart, the whole world is in this one song. The anti-semitism embedded in Western Christian cultural tradition thanks to a “nice Jewish guy” who preached love. Arabs and Christians, Pepsi and Coke. When it’s a band gig it’s rockin’ or “When it’s solo, people talking while I’m singin’” how I remember Tommy from 2007/08 (before car accident and cancer turned his life upside down.)

Alpha Male and the Canine Mystery Blood
Copyright Tommy Womack

Alpha Male and the Canine Mystery Blood
came to town with Death Cab for Cutie
I stayed home with my wife and my child
And six pack of beer.
I pondered that name for fifteen minutes
after I saw the poster stapled to a phone pole
On the corner of Grand and Twenty First.

That was a couple of years ago,
I was already in my forties then
So I didn’t go out on a whim just to see a band called
Alpha Male and the Canine Mystery Blood
Just because I liked the name,
Just because I’m twenty-five
And every day’s a stoned summer’s day

My band was always giggin’ then,
REM was still kickin’ then
I drove that Ford Granada Mom and Dad gave to me
after they got ‘em a Ford LTD
And there was music on MTV
I smoked my manager’s pot and got laid quite a lot.

Planes hadn’t flown into towers yet (*)
And we didn’t have a loose cannon president
Didn’t have all this credit card debt
Hanging over the house like a cloud
Ensure there’s not much more drugging allowed
The body won’t take it, the wallet can’t hang it.

Singin’ all the songs I’ve sang for years
When it’s a band gig it’s rockin’
And when it’s solo the people are talking while I’m singin’
They make me depressed, you’d think I could take a hint
My time came and went
Hell, there’s many nights I came and went

In a manner of speakin’
My conscience is leakin’
The world is changed and the good times are gone
We get to be the folks who greet the dawn
Of an age of mistrust, surveillance and sleaze
And bombs in shoes and way too many enemies.

I bet their name was Menstrual Blood
And the A&R guy said that’s no good
Make it Mystery and then we can target
a broader-based goth dog-loving market

I love my boy he’s becomin’ a drummer
Got a drumkit from Santa at this rate by summer
He’ll be keepin’ a beat in a world
That needs a metronome shoved up its ass so hard
That all voices’ll raise in a heavenly choir
Shit’ll get straight; bothers’ll hug
We’ll dance like we did in the decades of drugs

I’m spittin’ my genes in an ocean that’s risin’
Clingin’ to Jesus with some compromisin’
About what was handed to me from my Mom
And Daddy the preacher
Who watched all that TV in a cream recliner
Frownin’ thru life like a stone hard liner

You couldn’t phase him
He knew Jesus died for his sins
And was raised from the dead
And I’ve always wondered why can’t he stay dead
It doesn’t change any good thing he said
What matter is his life and not how he died

Why can’t he just be a nice Jewish guy
Who was super clued-in and showed us the way
To salvation from sin
And that doesn’t mean that you’re not quote-unquote “saved”
You fry like a piece of country ham in your grave

It’s a great big world and life is a joke
Arabs and Christians, Pepsi and Coke
People so gorgeous it causes ‘em pain
And nobody gives any sympathy for somethin’ like that
You suffer in silence or form a band
With a name that appeals to goth dog-lovers everywhere

On a poster that’s seen by a forty-ish bastard
Walking to work at eight-fifteen,
Eleven an hour for all that he does
Can’t be a has-been if you never was
Going all day-long without eatin’
Till all my nerve endin’s are seriously overheatin’
My legs get wobbly walkin’ down the stairs
To smoke me a cigarette out in the cold fresh air

Wonderin’ why I do the things I do
And I do ‘em everyday
And it can’t turn out good living this way
But live this life I must
And in some fuzzy god I’ll trust

I’ll kiss my wife, I’ll kiss my son
And maybe someday I’ll go for a run
And may some day a song’ll stick
And I’ll walk around like I got a big … boat

And maybe someday my boy’ll drum
In a hippy jam band that plays out some
He’ll take after Daddy and get in a van
Go somewhere only young people can

Doing things only young people do
Banging those skins at Bonnaroo
Rockin’ the dreadheads dancin’ in the mud
Before Alpha Male and the Canine Mystery Blood
God go with him,

Amen

[(*) For me the allusion to 9/11 resonates, because as mentioned elsewhere, the original footer to this blog, it was 9/11 that gave me the kick in the pants to switch from nagging doubts to active research.]

[Lyrics above from the original CD / T-Shirt version.
Slightly cleaned-up and updated variations in later broadcast versions.]

[Tommy is most active on Facebook these days. As well as experiencing his poetry through his music, you should read him too. “Cheese Chronicles – the true story of a rock’n’roll band you’ve never heard of.” is full of humanity and wit. And from 2018 his “Dust Bunnies” memoir fills out more of his story in similar style.]

The Court Jester in Real Life

There are many posts here describing the idea of “The Court Jester” in the context of potentially offensive humour. There are some basic rules of thumb on the rhetorical use of humour here, but reality is invariably more complex when free speech meets the concepts of offensive humour and hate-speech.

Charlie Hebdo was probably the highest profile example, and #dankula the Scottish comedian convicted without any prior complaint(!) for an offensive video joke the most recent, but it’s a general question of when humour is valid use of – potentially offensive – free expression:

The basic rules, followed by post-notes of real examples:

The Court Jester

Essentially UNLESS you are appointed / recognised / claiming the role of court jester in any given context, then humour comes with a duty of care to its target. If the target doesn’t find it funny, you have a responsibility to make peace with the target, either by prior investment of love or working to resolve the offense.

If you ARE the court jester, you are given licence to offend your target, on the mutual understanding of yourself, audience and target(s) that this freedom is being used to make points of social value, to prick consciences etc. The fool was tolerated at the court of kings, kings that otherwise had the power of summary execution of anyone causing offense. King, fools and courtiers all knew the rules of the game, even if the innocent child who couldn’t see the emperor’s clothes did not.

Suffer the little children. The corollary is despite freedom of expression, we can’t all choose to be court-jester or innocent-child anywhere anytime. It would be chaotic, unproductive, destructive and tiresome if we all did, but that is simply the practical problem. A game with rules is there to be gamed and the rules evolved. There is a more fundamental issue. Context and understanding matter. In these days where anything and everything is shared publicly, immediately, beyond any context, original intent within any original context are lost. The offense may be apparent whereas the care, the humour and the point are not. The only rule is respect and duty of care towards any target, deliberate or unintended.

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[Post note for the Court Jester thread. Don’t believe me about the “rules”? Here a hostage to fortune from 1940’s BBC in attempting to frame actual rules of rhetoric and humour. Let’s don’t go there:

And this twitter exchange:

“Maybe” notice.

Ongoing fall-out from the #dankula Scottish comedian guilty of joke case, but same is true of the “jokes at expense of ex” cases.]

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[Post Note: And looking at humour as a game with rules, broken rules that prove the rule, at many levels, it’s worth thinking of counter-intuitive professional cases. Anyone who has worked in any of these professions, or has a loved-one who has will know:

Healthcare professionals and their patients, education professionals and their students, policing professionals and suspected criminals, care professionals of all kinds and their wards – even service providers and their customers more generally – provide contexts for some of the most vicious, cruel humour where their punters are the target. It’s a given that no-one cares more for the target than the carer and (privately) such humour is tolerated as an important therapeutic release. Of course that toleration breaks down if the trust in the carer is lost or the private context is made public.]

[And why not? Another post-note: Given the Corbyn anti-semitism saga …. whether we’re talking about the mural or The Merchant of Venice, my base position is that anti-semitic prejudice is built into much western tradition, since much of it stands on  Christian (ie pointedly-not-Jewish) tradition. That’s not to excuse the prejudice rather it says it’s something we have to care enough to be cognisant of when inadvertent instances of prejudice arise.  As ever it’s about care and respect, love even. So what about humour?

My archetype offensive humourist has been Frankie Boyle in many previous posts. Well, another of our established court-jesters is David Baddiel, and tiresomely people often fail to notice a court-jester is not always on duty, and often feel all interactions should be (attempts at) humour. 

Obviously, the remark is indeed racist. Equally obviously it was a rhetorical question – but was the sarcasm simply to draw attention to David’s Jewishness never being hidden, to draw attention to his Jewishness itself, like, who needed that? Or, were there any other levels of irony intended to make any other valid points? If zillions of people do this to you every day – even if they think they’re being funny – it’s tiresome as well as racist. Is it offensive to be tiresome? The point is without evidence that the person is caring and respectful of the target it is gratuitous racism, whatever David’s level of annoyance or offence. He’s an intelligent person who takes it in his stride to simply point out the fact, neither taking offence nor even making a big deal out of the annoyance.

I might draw parallels and contrasts with (say) Lenny Henry on humour around his Afro-Caribbean-blackness …. but another day.

Nice Jewish Guy? Given all the conflated issues around Zionism more widely and Israeli politics more specifically, I still have on CD in the car Tommy Womack’s “Alpha Male” from the album “There, I Said It”. The whole world in one song.]

[And finally: David Baddiel’s line resulted in this excellent TLS piece. A “twinkle in the eye” doesn’t travel well in text. When I say excellent I’m not kidding – it’s bloody marvellous, a must read if ever there was one. Conviction and sentencing here. Tough one for the judge. I agree on balance with Baddiel’s take that the – admitted / agreed – intended humour protects the free speech aspect. In the end it came down to context that the private joke – the twinkle in the eye – doesn’t travel well. Understanding of the girlfriend’s relationship with the dog gets left behind when content goes viral. The social value of the joke is shared with those that share that understanding – without that it’s a dumb animal trained to do offensive things. Quoting myself above:

“The offense may be apparent, whereas
the care, the humour and the point are not.”

We all need to care enough to take responsibility for that.]

[Oh and more “and finally” – since the #dankula sentencing – more reflective pieces. This from Douglas Murray – same, same – context is everything. The Pythons’ “Tell ’em we’re Jewish” gag  is an obvious (archetypal in fact) court-jester-in-chief situation, AND said with obvious love for the target(s) – both Jews and Germans.]

[Guess now this story can never be complete without the Roseanne Barr example.

Offensive humour has to have a point (*).

At least there were apologies and sackings in some of these cases, and some taking of responsibility. Hope for us all.

(*) In cases where free-speech appears to be being oppressed, even oppressed by conservative public reaction rather than authority, one point may simply be to protest or claim the right to freely offend. That’s fair enough so long as that point and the original point are both followed-up.

It’s not a general  “right to offend”.]

This Watershed Week?

I started to draft this post several days ago, a day or two after Channel 4 News first broke the Cambridge Analytica / Facebook story, and as they followed-up that story and its Trump / Brexit implications the world latched onto the scale of the story …. and the outrage. Oh the outrage!

For a take on the outrage it’s worth listening to @TheSimonEvans in the closing minutes of this week’s This Week – a great take on the “I can’t come to bed yet, there is something wrong on the internet” meme:

In fact, given the week and the topic, that whole edition, the @JamieJBartlett piece specifically, and all the regular contributors, provides a means to capture most of what needs to be elaborated.

Initially I was linking this post to this BBCR4 Digital Human “Social Media Vortex” piece, broadcast coincidentally(?) about the same time the C4 story broke:

I disagreed with a lot of what this programme suggested about the nature of the problem, but it provided an opportunity to recognise the issues, which I raise below

[Before diving in, let’s not forget it was Channel 4 News and The Guardian and an international team of collaborating journalists that researched the CA/FB political story over many months, and we’re only seeing the tip of an iceberg. This kind of proper journalism deserves our ongoing support.]

Worth starting with the outrage. Sure it was “big” news – something many people didn’t seem to know about, or were in ignorant denial of, on a grand scale. Plenty to concern us, but if we’re going to be outraged, we’d better understand where things went wrong and address the right solutions.

Whether it’s CA’s cynical services, or Russian bots, the national and international political manipulation is clearly the top of the pile of concerns. The main ignorance (ie news) seems to be in the extent to which our contract with the likes of FB makes aggregated personal data available for public use and private targeting. Marketing campaigns, commercial and political, have always used – and guarded their valuable use of – personal data. It’s a psychological game in which we all participate at every level. Privacy or transparency, which is it? Neither. It’s a game, always has been and, as an entirely natural process, it probably always needs to be.

All that technology has done is up the scale and speed of possibilities. What many of us have been warning (for decades) is that how we interact with those accelerating, concentrating, reinforcing forces is key to our future human progress. For me the feeling is one of relief rather than outrage. “I told you so” counts for nothing, but at least fewer people are now blind-sided to the issue, so long as they address the issue beyond initial outrage. At last! I say.

Let’s leave aside several topics for now: details of Facebook’s business model with us (free use in return for use of our data); or knotty ethical boundaries in the psychological tactics using guilt and fear as well as beliefs and desires for marketing purposes; the fact that apart from the evolving technology, little if anything is new; for example. The national and international level political concerns here are simply the highest profile layer of my own agenda: human decision-making –  cybernetics – using “knowledge” to act. That is the psychology of how we understand and apply our own “rationality” individually and in groups of any size.

It’s about polarisation memetics. JP O’Malley posted four very quick takes, to which I responded:

And in the main dialogue:

And another thread:

So what are people missing?

That was followed by a 5/6 post thread that captured some of what I’m elaborating here. The conclusion of which is that legislating for every possible future use / misuse / abuse of the evolving future technology is the wrong strategy. We only ever know specifics of the future with hindsight. We need to focus on human behaviour.

Apart from “Plus ça change / ‘Twas ever thus” – key point is that what’s missing is moderation – think moderator rods in an otherwise runaway nuclear reactor? Think conservatism – we have to provide it, institutionally, individually. The way to protect freedoms is to conserve them. Understand fidelity & fecundity in evolution.

This is only 4 or 5 years ago, but already people were failing to notice the reality. Using increasingly available data to target social media was only ever leading the wrong way. Ask the Labour Party about Momentum for example:

To round off. Persuasion, whether it be about choices or seemingly objective knowledge, is a game and games have rules. In the game of life, those rules are mostly implicit and inevitably “gamed”. Gaming evolves rules by creativity. The last thing we want is rules cast in statute in advance of technological possibility. Careful what we wish for.

And finally, at the national / international governance level, democratic electoral reforms must focus on systems that are more tolerant of – less dependent on – polarising effects, because future technology can only ever reinforce these effects. It’s binary choice that’s killing us. And worse, applying the rules of objective knowledge to both sides of any subjective choice invariably deepens the polarisation. We need objective knowledge automated by algorithms like a hole in the head.

You would tell me if – after careful consideration – you thought I was mad?

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[Post Note: Jamie Bartlett’s one tweet summary:

As I said, leaving many detailed issues aside, this is important. Targeting is by definition small but real effect. The real influence on the specific decision can be small, and the rationale doubtful, but nevertheless crucial. What is real is the inexorably divisive targeting – the deepening of polarisation must not be ignored, in fact it’s the thing we must actively moderate by our own efforts. ]

[Post Note: And given the Grauniad was part of the team that broke the story, along with C4 News, this made @afneil chuckle:

Me too, but it reinforces the point that sharing and accessing personal data is NOT the problem. The issue is limits to ethical use of shared data.]

“The Denial” of Consciousness

I’ve been referring to those that insist that our subjective conscious mind cannot be real, because – by definition – their objective science is unable to explain it, as deniers since I first wrote on Searle, back here in 2005. Since then I’ve been like a cracked record on consciousness denial.

This week Galen Strawson has an essay extracted from his “Things That Bother Me: Death, Freedom, the Self, Etc.” (2018) published in the New York Review of Books.

The title of the extracted essay is:

“The Consciousness Deniers“

Many people already tweeting assorted quotes from his opening para:

“What is the silliest claim ever made?

Some people have denied the existence of consciousness: conscious experience, the subjective character of experience, the “what-it-is-like” of experience.

Next to this denial”I’ll call it “the Denial””every known religious belief is only a little less sensible than the belief that grass is green.”

He’s right. It’s actually a long and worthwhile read – I’m guessing it’s practically a whole chapter from the book. Of particular interest to me is that amongst his list of those who are explicit in their denial of the reality of consciousness is “the generally admirable” Dan Dennett!

Certainly at times in his long quest to explain consciousness Dennett may have seemed to deny the subjectivity – he certainly refuses to entertain qualia as separate dualist subjective stuff. But along with a number of enlightened physicists he has homed in on explaining consciousness as just as much a part of physical reality as any fundamental physics. The way we experience it may be “kinda” illusory – making us seek the qualia – but the fact it and our experience are real is beyond doubt. His explanation is deflationary. And Dennett has spent much effort putting many a behaviorist-psychologist and naturalistic-philosopher right on the topic.

Strawson is right to point out that a mechanical functionalist take on the rise of Information Technology – computing – may itself have contributed to the hardening of The Denial in the 21st Century, but Dennett shows how computation independent of its physical embodiment is what real consciousness is in fact made of and just as physical (as some physicists would agree).

Not been a fan of Strawson, but it’s good to see him taking sides against the deniers. It may take a bit more reading to find where he fits in constructive dialogue with Dennett.

Taking Down Jordan Peterson

It’s become a industrial strength polarising meme in its own right, to cast Jordan Peterson and anyone who finds sense in his thinking as naive boys or unreconstructed misogynist lads or indeed something altogether more sinister.

Where the use of the mcm (Man Crush Monday) meme is

Peterson is the kind of guy guys have a crush on – oh how we laughed. [I personally addressed this meme directly in this previous post. Mocking? See Court-Jester]

He’s insistent on using that metaphor, exactly to make the point about sexism. PoPoMo is very slow to catch on it seems. Some people still prefer to attack PoMo when many of us have moved on.

“Jordan Peterson may be an advocate of free speech but he is also something far more sinister“ by Sam Jacobsen of SOAS.

Interesting piece. Sure, he does say things that can be interpreted as sinister – on the intellectual dark web – in dialogue with other “conservative” commentators, even though Jacobsen agrees his position in the content of the Newman interview – non-sexist freedom and equality – was valid and straightforward. However this piece stinks with disingenuous rhetoric – the reason to support free-speech-platforming of Peterson is apparently to  to take him down by providing opportunities for him to damn himself in front of critics who know better, rather than play the victim of censorship. Talk about Machiavellian.

And from a year ago, by way of contrast, before the Newman meme:

The Abstraction of Jordan Peterson – Mapping Meaning in the Land of Identity Politics by Brent Cooper

Which is an excellent piece on an important topic Peterson understands well, yet Cooper already felt obliged to include a follow-post last year, before Newman.

“I have written a follow-up post to this article, titled “The Detraction of Jordan Peterson“, which discusses his overstepping and the critical reaction to him. I argue that although Peterson is an expert in abstraction, he commits vicious abstraction with some concepts.”

Exactly – polarising reaction is not what constructive criticism is about. And by way of an aside, whilst we’re on about “abstraction” today, let’s contrast Natural Inclusion with Abstract Rationality:

Back to the dissing-Peterson meme: Also properly analysing the polarising reactions that destroy any nuance in Peterson’s position (and using the same Eric Weinstein – intellectual dark web – reference):

Eric Weinstein’s Four Quadrant Model
by Rosa Laura Junco of The Knife Media

“… illustrating how the media stigmatizes certain nuanced views that challenge the status quo by portraying people who hold those views as prejudiced or intolerant.”

Absolutely! The polarisation means anyone on the “bad” pole of it is stigmatised and the nuance in relation to the “good” pole is lost. I’m not defending Peterson’s position on everything – but everything I’ve seen or heard him say makes sense as (small c) conservatism in a memetic evolutionary context. Fidelity and fecundity in footnote here.

Dialogue beats #takedown anyday.

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[Post Notes:

This is becoming a meme – ridiculing specific whacky clips of Peterson. This is indeed a mad exchange on a mad claim, but absolutely no attempt to understand his actual point.

And …

And the “Forward” smearing affair … 

It goes on:

Review of Jordan Peterson’s Stupid Lecture.

And on …

Friend who thinks he’s dangerous
(but doesn’t mean he’s wrong):

I was Jordan Peterson’s strongest supporter.
Now I think he’s dangerous.

And a friend who thinks he’s right but not perfect:

Jordan Peterson’s Evidence-Based Endeavor.

And on.]

[Post Note: On a positive note …

That much-spoofed intellectual dark-web conversation …

Massimo Pigliucci has to remind us of the listening half of dialogue:

Yep, JBP’s content here – and sources – is whacky pseudo-science. Only defenses might be in his intent in the word “representation” and in questioning why, what he was trying to achieve, in the original educational context? Surely not a serious scientific hypothesis! He clearly back-pedals subsequently and being loath to provide his own elaboration is a sure sign anyway as GMS points out. Ancient natural symbology has its value in understanding human understanding, even in Crick & Watson’s minds – there’s life beyond science, and accepted science is far less objective that many presume – but that life is in living dialogue. As Massimo reminds us, and as GMS (Genetically Modified Skeptic, the original vlogger here) demonstrates, understanding requires proper listenting to what is actually said (in context). And what is wrong – scarily wrong(!) – in one specific is not itself a reason to damn the whole. Exemplary.]

So Much Disingenuity

Could comment on any number of links on the Tillerson story, but I’m exasperated at partisan news channels making their story out of it.

Obviously, Trump previously communicated with Tillerson – even in “my people speaking to your people” mode – about wanting him to “step aside” at least the week before – clearly Tillerson conflicted with Trump’s line for some time and resignation beats sacking any day.

Obviously, Tillerson didn’t know – as Goldstein said – he was actually being fired until the public tweet, which is seriously naff, but then we already knew Trump is an effing valueless moron.

The two are not mutually exclusive.
There is no news, no secret, no mystery.

Fan Base vs Actually Listening to Content

Fascinating responses to this Grauniad CiF piece on Jordan Peterson – introducing him to new people who’ve maybe heard he has a fan base as well as vocal detractors. The kind of controversy that sells tickets.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do do obsessive fandom of humans I love from afar, but I’m no “fan” of Peterson. I scarcely know him. It’s barely a month since I clicked on any link to listen to or read anything by or about him – I’m a “post Cathy Newman” interested party and I like what I hear. I’m over-60 – male obvs (!) – and he’s talking about stuff I’ve been researching for 20 years. I’m not some snotty teanager looking for a psychological crutch.

The comments of interest are below the line in the CiF piece as well as on social media, like this thread for example:

It’s actually quite a balanced piece, properly sceptical but fair. Yet ironically, Peterson can’t even accept the possibility of error. I guess when you feel besieged even tiny attacks must be repelled:

Maybe some of his generalisation are “kooky” – his anecdotal examples are a bit off the wall, that’s part of his attraction for sure – but generally he seems to talk sense (content) and more importantly seems to talk sensibly in proper dialogue (process) avoiding gratuitous attack and defence straw-men and resisting gratuitous reactions to those that wield them against him. But nobody’s perfect I guess.

Being “based on scientific research” is a ubiquitous claim but only as good – and as relevant – as the science itself and, further, “as solid as it gets in social science” tells its own story. [Invoking the scientific defence is unnecessary and unhelpfully scientistic in my book.] As defence against (enemy) attack, maybe fair enough, but it’s not the proper (mutual) dialogue I’ve already come to expect. It’s what set the Cathy Newman exchange apart.

Still, I should worry! The slings and arrows in the threads are classic examples of the genre, and I realise many people from science and/or the humanities see being smart-ass as part of the game (see court-jester). But if people believed 1% of the reactions to Peterson – and to Gareth Hutchens and the Grauniad for daring to give him a fair hearing – then we are in trouble.

Is there any tiny chance anyone might actually -memetically, naturally, unintentionally – believe Peterson believes anything remotely like:

“that lobsters prove
that women should be
subservient to men” ?!?

Self-selecting fan-base and rubber-necking audiences pay the bills, but no wonder we have the intellectual dark web for proper constructive discourse. Talk about fake-news in mainstream social-media.

The “Guardian Pick” of the positive comments restores your faith (but even that draws the mean-spirited smart-ass crap responses):

“Whether or not everything Peterson says is “defensible” (You would need to establish by whose criteria it was to be so considered), at the very least it is always arguable. The reason is that, unlike so many of those who are prone to mindlessly parroting their own received memes, and which Peterson so rightly excoriates, he virtually never puts forward any argument which he has not thought through from first principles. That is the mark of a genuine intellectual.”
by Tim Cape.

As I say, even when content is imperfect, as it always must be, the process of aiming to talk sense, with mutual respect and good faith is the true mark of quality.

STFU and listen, I say. Talk is cheap and comment is free.

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[Post Note: And another Grauniad CiF piece sparking further threads:

Yawn.]

Evolved Inhumanity

I’ve said it before, Artificial-I will only be reality when it is Real-I, ie long after human extinction I’d estimate.

Inhuman evolution evolves inhumanity until the evolved (machine) inhumanity evolves to be (living) humanity itself. Same same.

Evolution – genetic or memetic – is a real process happening everywhere right now. An evolved species is only a matter of hindsight. Careful what we wish for.

Meta-Meme – The “Overton” Meme Meme

Saw a reference to “The Overton Window” this morning – a meme so embedded in 21st C political commentary that you can simply tweet it in cynical fashion and assume your audience knows what you mean.

The “Overton Window” and its accompanying “Treviño Values” are a meme about memetics. About how ideas shift (ie literally memetics) and, more to the point, how the cynical can exploit the natural effect for ideological ends. As old as Machiavelli’s Prince, ’twas ever thus. Any idea follows a natural trajectory from its first thought. That is:

Freedom evolves:
Conservative and liberal, interests and values, are
Unthinkable > Radical > Acceptable > Sensible > Popular > Policy

Overton was coined in a public policy context, balancing these competing values, so the end-game is “policy”. But, in a more general sense, that end-game is simply “accepted reality”. Pretty much the same as  Arthur C Clarke’s science and new technology trajectory “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”  The understanding of things moves from:

“That can’t be for real!”
(Inconceivably Magic)

to

“How did our world exist without it?”
( Everyday Technology)

…. by copying expression and sharing experience.

It’s so natural that the word meme is rejected by many as having any remaining use, because what it means is so embedded in accepted reality. It’s political by political choice and ripe for the adversarial game but an entirely natural process nonetheless.

What we really need to understand is that the stack of interacting memes (or memeplex) we inhabit are evolving ever faster and inexorably in the direction supporting and supported by that environment in a self-reinforcing positive feedback or mechanistic “first cybernetics” loop.

The more we value simplicity, clarity, objectivity, transparency, (ac)countability, the more the popularity contest delivers populism. A free-for-all for the memes – including the unthinkable – rather than cultivating human freedoms and values. Perversely, we need the conservatism of active moderation on all of those inhuman values:

Simplicity and clarity – in so far as  necessary “but not more so”.
Transparency and sharing –  in so far as “need to know” in context.
Objectivity and (ac)countability – in so far as “you get what measure”.
Careful what you wish  for in “best laid plans”.
Careful what you throw out with the memetic bathwater.

Doubly perversely, the greater the stakes, the greater the need for conservation and … yes … mystification. So tough for liberal humanists (like me!) to get this. We need to make space for the humanistic “second cybernetics”.

In order to value freedom of expression we need less of it.

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[Note: The use of the first and second cybernetics is counterintuitive here. I did say “perverse”. When it comes to positive and negative feedback, the point is which processes are reinforced, not necessarily which definable states and outcomes. It’s about the freedom (process) to evolve being distinct from the freedom (state) evolved. A free state is about freedom, the process of free evolution is about conservatism – hi-fidelity and hi-fecundity – many good copies of what already exists.]