Friday, March 16, 2012

Re: Mind's Eye Re: the standard over-optimist?

On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 6:33 AM, archytas <nwterry@gmail.com> wrote:
> This is true rigs - but the deeper point on this is about how we
> maintain a more collective form of madness and lack the means to
> question it without massive resistance.  I forget most of Freud these
> days James, though I'm looking at Weber again.  I rather like the idea
> of looking at ourselves as Jared Diamond suggests in terms of
> societies that went barking into ecocide.

The hilarity just struck me when considering the Romans, we don't seem
to have things figured much better. Where is the waste exchange
economy? I agree, resource consumption is a good variable to watch-
but then I have lately been translating everything from garbage to
crime and poverty with one variable resulting from mismanagement:
Waste.

> I'm not really a tree
> hugger (though have been known to hug trees), but feel we have to find
> ways to admit we've got most things upside down.

Several times I've communed with a hand on one, but I've personally
taken down several more. Kids make some sense when asking "why." If we
took time to inspect the answers we might find things resemble a
science, of the dark ages..

>  On the personal
> paranoid side James, I now find myself believing very little outside
> of science in the guise of public argument and academic trivia.  I've
> long believed creativity is killed stone dead by 'smiling ignorance'
> and daft ideas like brainstorming - because the critical edge needs to
> be sharp and stun the ideological trance.

Very much in agreement, but tact is important to get them decoupling
their enthusiasm from conditioning without putting them into a
post-traumatic state. Leave enough slack for the trauma to his them
around bedtime! :D I say stuff like this to my fiancee about her
students to lighten things up a little. It would be neat to take
something like brainstorming and collect a few strategic examples of
problem solving methods from different fields, there's gotta be
something out there to ignite a few synapses. If you get flak from the
supers chide them on the lack of dynamic teachers in the profession
who can get through to kids and the impacts on society, be sure to
phrase it in a way that makes the super look good of course. ;-) LOL

Somewhat unrelated, there is a neat German movie (subtitled not
dubbed) called The Wave you might like, it's one of those simple
concept movies tying psychology to social movements baring the dark
and potentially sinister and is between a teacher and his students.

> I find myself a proponent of de-schooling after so much time in
> education.  Apple is now 'worth more' (in market capitalisation) than
> the whole of US retail.  I don't like being retailed and would be
> happy to see the shops go in favour of more direct sales.  What we
> miss is stuff like this means we are finding new efficiencies, but
> retain the same old ideas on what jobs  are for.  Fear not, the
> private sector cavalry will ride in with new products and services -
> but where are they?  My guess is this is all to do with our easy
> acceptance of positive gloss and lack of ability to take
> responsibility for new ways of living.  This is so bad we 'believe'
> that global competition will do something other than put us all  on
> Chinese wages and conditions.

I think the plan was for global economy to stabilize around the year
2050, but then again I never caught wind of a Plan A before the B. I'm
confident you would despise me in the classroom due to learning and
study habits, I once had an Indian algebra teacher chanting the rule
of not dividing by zero for a solid four minutes, he had the whole
class join in. :/

>
> On Mar 15, 6:12 am, rigsy03 <rigs...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Sociopaths exist in all socio-economic groups.
>>
>> On Mar 14, 9:32 am, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > I particularly like the research on investment CEOs that shows they
>> > over-rate their abilities and actually produce 'negative alpha' rather
>> > than competent investment decisions - these being the very people who
>> > threaten to go away if we restrict their 'earnings'.  The quick
>> > portrait of Steve Jobs also demonstrates a main theme of the 'rich are
>> > mean' in his selfish world in which rules do not apply to him.  One
>> > wonders whether Apple might be an American manufacturer (and so on) if
>> > we had proper economic rules that stop chancers like him doing their
>> > immoral stuff?
>>
>> > On Mar 14, 2:23 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > >http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=opting-out-of-overop...
>>
>> > > This is an interesting little story covering some of the research
>> > > demonstrating people are over-optimistic and this has dangerous
>> > > outcomes.  I winder if this is how the peculiar views on economics
>> > > most hold and the dominance of cheery types in our media?- Hide quoted text -
>>
>> > - Show quoted text -

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