Mike

I saw this:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/steve-bannon-and-the-making-of-an-economic-nationalist-1489516113

But I didn’t read it because I just wanted to ask the question:

Which one of YOU wants to pay for globalism?

Globalism has a cost, a serious cost to the leader and their supporters.

We notice that Obama – a globalist only paid 19% of his income in taxes… so it’s clear he’s not leading the way for paying for globalism but instead choosing to profit from it;)

Can’t blame him, or you.

BUT, someone has to pay the cost of globalism and it’s always going to be on the shoulders of those who can run the credits….

So whether you think you are (US taxpayers), or not, you are, we are and some people are being honest and saying they don’t want this burden being piled on our children and grandchildren.

Our national debt of about 20 trillion is a manifestation of those costs, interest, et al.

I did a study in graduate school and when the debt starts to compound as it will at some point (it already has because we are paying interest, albeit it low, on interest!!), it can’t be solved without some form of default – direct or indirect.

So while most of us are not paying attention to the noise in WASHINGTON, at some point the point of no return will be breached.

All of us are hoping it will be someone else’s problem to solve… and that is the cost of globalism 😉

Now the question again:

Which one of YOU wants to pay for globalism?

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Inner Circle Member 1

I wondered why the group had gone so quiet, and then realized I’d re-formatted my email so the group emails go to a new tab. I’ve missed you all!

Mike, what do you see as the potential costs associated with not participating in globalization?

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Inner Circle Member 2

My problem with these kinds of questions is that they are at low resolution.

My sense… it is a similar question to “which one of you wants to pay for nationalism?”

Or: “Nationalism has a cost, a serious cost to the leader and supporters”… etc.

There are, of course, enormous costs to globalism, I am not arguing about that or even for or against globalism.   To be honest, I don’t even know what that means (“globalism”) at this point in history.

The question is really about who gains and loses by any particular policy, economic strategy.  Which I think is more to the heart of your question.

And it is a fantastically complex question.  Robotization/AI is now shifting the dynamic even further, almost to the point of making the issue of “globalization” a minor issue comparatively (at least over the next 20 yeaers).  Everyone will be impacted by this, including countries like China.  This is the real genie out of the bottle that no one can put back in.

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Mike

That’s a good question.

At this time they may be equal to, less or more than the costs of not globalizing 😉

Mike

Something Graves missed…

http://www.kurzweilai.net/maker-city-a-practical-guide-for-reinventing-american-cities

“Maker City: A Practical Guide for Reinventing American Cities is a comprehensive case studies and how-to information useful for city leaders, civic innovators, nonprofits, and others engaged in urban economic development. Maker City: A Practical Guide for Reinventing American Cities is committed to going beyond stories to find patterns and discern promising practices to help city leaders … more…

Something that I have been considering for some time is how 2nd Tier comes for the masses?

The path is in this metatheme:

EXISTENTIAL FEAR

Now the mode with which that occurs is technology.

If we were to go back (I’m sure someone has already done this) and look at broad spectrum technological innovation, we would see the “markers” necessary for memetic evolution.

What the author points to is one of those broad spectrum evolutions… and that’s what is required for GT-YELLOW conditions to emerge because the world is stuck and the current civil war is about existential fear on the far left and the far right – whose values are mobilizing the end of First Tier.

The question I have is will the end of first tier be the end of man;)

The polarization occurring is setting up the conditions where all systems devolve into a FT (First Tier) cul de sac… with no way out.

The only way out, to borrow a phrase… “is not to play.”

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Mike

From Cherie Beck, who was not in original copy.

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Inner Circle Member 1

You can read the Maker book here free:
https://makercitybook.com/

Is the tiny house / minimalist movement a choice not to play?

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Mike

It could be.

I’m some form, the minimalist movement is a function of an aversion to peak ER-ORANGE, where the “crown prince” of BS lives, not in a bad sense always because there is nothing wrong with those who needs for more are present… just the BS projection of those needs onto the needs of the many, that’s where “everything” runs off track.

So one has to look at something/anything through a lens of is this value-based need, or a perspective on a perspective of need.

Mike

“In particular, neuroscience needs to start investigating how network configurations arise from the brain’s lifelong attempts to make sense of the world. We also need to get a clear picture of how the cortex, brainstem, and cerebellum interact together with the muscles and the tens of thousands of optical and mechanical sensors of our bodies to create one integrated picture.
Connecting back to the physical reality is the only way to understand how information is represented in the brain. One of the reasons we have a nervous system in the first place is that the evolution of mobility required a controlling system. Cognitive, mental functions — and even thoughts — can be regarded as mechanisms that evolved in order to better plan for the consequences of movement and actions.”

http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-brain-a-radical-rethink-is-needed-to-understand-it?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=1d52a90ee1-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6de721fb33-1d52a90ee1-282130173

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Mike

This is why it is network dynamics that must be represented in memetic and why SGD needs upgrade.

I’ve explained this previously at spiral dynamics confabs.

Now we have proof that my intuition and upgrades with Graves primary research identifying these value basins can give us great (although complex) explanatory power for individual and collective design!

Mike

I think I heard this bit of monologue in the end of Bound for Glory, the movie about Woody Gutherie’s life (1976)…

What caught my ear… and my eye below is the memetic structure of these sentences.

What caught me is that these words are early structures of GT-YELLOW… I think, and as you listen to them, or read them, you think they are something else, but the manner in which they are woven together speak to warm, even hot memes… but they contain communal memetic structure at the face….

If you do an inventory, these memes don’t fit anyone basin… they are a hybridization not normally heard or seen by me anyway (limited by my own bias and small mind;)….

They are hot, they are cool, they are transcendent and somewhat complex because the order of complexity leans to metathematic notions.

I will come back to this at some point after my intuition has time to digest the novelty that attracted me in the first place; to confirm the idea that this might be early GT-YELLOW structure… there are several filters that I think must be in place for GT-YELLOW structure and emergent memetic expression.

And of course, I could be full of BS;)

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Inner Circle Member 1

Interesting!

In Guthrie’s words I hear radical inclusion and empowerment and sacrifice and fighting spirit.

But of course this could simply be speaking to where I’m at, and what I’m currently doing.

Best wishes from Berlin

Mike

Mike

Here’s a side of the story.

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Inner Circle Member 1

These pictures are really intense.
Absolutely frightening.
Do you see this where you live?

Do you see anything like this being allowed here in the States?

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Mike

Yes I live in the middle of all of that, what I see on the streets is almost worse because more street children here around me than almost anywhere, we have some of everything.

What is so one-sided about this is you don’t see the normal Heinicity of everyday life and the number of people dying from “everything else”…

I guess most of us don’t realize the number of people dying everyday in the USA from drug-related problems?

Annual Causes of Death in the United States | Drug War Facts
www.drugwarfacts.org › cms › Causes_o…
It excludes unintentional injuries, homicides, and other causes indirectly related to alcohol use, as well as deaths due …

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Causes_of_Death#sthash.LPMOTTZn.DURPAh7X.dpbs

Opioids addition is out of control around the world.

The hard thing here is the way in which it’s being done… you just don’t know who is the bad and who is the good, but everyone can see the ugly.

This society is at the edge of chaos… but hardly more so than any other.

The biggest problem he has is a PR nightmare which is going to create far-reaching problems.

The NYT seems to be so one-sided, they get away with murder also… metaphorically.

It’s difficult to tell one-sided news from fake news.

Manila is the most densely populated city in the world, it’s amazing it functions at all, and it does, at the edge of chaos.

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Inner Circle Member 1

Dying from drugs and dying from everything else is much different than a police force executing people without trials, with encouragement from an elected president.

That sort of behavior tends to have lasting implications – makes me think of Cambodia, where the current gang rape culture is blamed by some on the deadening of empathy caused by the Khamir Rouge. People generations from now may suffer from this brutality.

I classify a number of our police shooting black people here as execution without trial. Right now it’s blamed on “bad apples,” but do you think we could get to a point where we allow a president to encourage this behavior in the name of “creating peace” or “solving the gang problem” or whatever, or are we different enough in some way that we would never allow Trump to become Duarte? Duarte has been called the Trump of the Philippines already – could it go the other way?

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Mike

There is too much selection of facts to use for our values – it will never be any different.

One has to be extremely careful in drawing generalizations from small datasets.

I know I’m not leaving myself out of that warning.

Things are much more complex than we can understand, each values net has its own interpretations and solution-sets via rulesets – and until we can map them, our individual maps are mostly wrong, even as we feel they are right in our bounding of reality through bias.

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Inner Circle Member 1

Years ago, I interviewed some of the mothers of the disappeared in Argentina, and I’m certain that shaped some of my feelings on this subject.  My morals say it’s wrong for a leader to approve and encourage murder of their people. Yet, I know from history that not all agree, or perhaps agree up to the point that personal risk is required in order to refuse to allow it. Do enough people in the States agree the trade offs for whatever (peace, stability, name-your-fear-solution-here) are worth allowing our leaders to do what Duarte is openly doing?

I agree things are more complex than we, including Duarte, can understand. That doesn’t mean I should not hold leadership’s feet to the fire if I think their means are immoral – which is what we see happening with Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock. Or, I can move to a place where the majority feels the same way I do. I guess my underlying question here is what does the majority here in the States feel – are we at high or medium or low risk of seeing something like these police killings here? After seeing the water protectors hit with water hoses from behind protective fences – in freezing weather – and their route to the hospital blocked off,  I’d say medium to high, but I’m curious what you think

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Inner Circle Member 2

Inner Circle Member 1,

To your specific question, to institutionalize enmass/organized extrajudicial killings by public safety employees in the US?  A very very low risk.   Far too much cultural and legal density combined with growing ubiquitous technology should generally hold the course.

And that does not explain away the intermittent use of deadly force without cause.  I remind myself though when I hear of police killings that 99% plus of all police encounters with the public in a given day do not resort to any physical contact whatsoever (let alone use of deadly force).  90% plus of police officers never fire their weapon even once in their entire career while on duty.   A very rare event.  10s of millions of encounters between police officers and citizens happen daily.   And 99.999% of them (est) do not end in the use of deadly force (justified or unjustified).

That said, we as citizens give vast deference to police in the use of force, including the mistrial in South Carolina where one juror refused to convict the police officer who shot and killed the fleeing black man in the back.

One thing to remember too, is that the vast majority of police are embedded in the communities they serve so reflect the values and priorities of those communities.  So the function is highly decentralized.

E.g. most police depts. in the south of the US were created initially to ensure the return of runaway slaves.   Decentralization can be a good or bad thing depending on your values.  Fair to say, most police departments are generally very responsive to the perceived needs of the power structures of the communities they are embedded in.  That is a leverage point organized citizens can use one way or the other.

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Mike

I suspect that people are killed for reasons most of us would not approve.

I don’t think what Duterte is saying or doing is anything other than what he said he would do and the people elected him and continue to support him.

Is it likely to happen in the USA?

I doubt anyone would elect someone or support them if they did that.

For me, it becomes a real issue when we lose rights guaranteed by the constitution we live under.

However that doesn’t necessarily mean that people are following it in any real agreed-upon notions

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Inner Circle Member 1

Thank you, Jim – the de-centralization of policing makes sense. I live in South Carolina, and I probably see and hear of more abuse than would be found in other parts of the country – population diversity, history, and education playing roles in it.

I hope you are right about very very low risk.

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Inner Circle Member 1

I heard some reporting on this story yesterday on Democracy Now. We are supporting the police there.

In the Philippines, the death toll from President Rodrigo Duterte’s so-called war on drugs continues to rise. Police have killed at least 2,000 people, and vigilantes have killed at least 3,500 more, since Duterte took office this summer. Tens of thousands more have been arrested or turned themselves over to police out of fear they’d be killed. Human rights groups say many of those killed have been summarily shot and had nothing to do with the drug trade. On Wednesday, the White House condemned the extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. But a recent BuzzFeed investigation reveals the U.S. State Department has continued to send millions of dollars in aid, as well as training and equipment, to the Philippine National Police. Meanwhile, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte gave an impression of his December 2 phone call with Donald Trump while speaking Wednesday. He imitated Trump praising Duterte and appealing for a closer relationship between the two men.

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Inner Circle Member 2

“Nothing new here.  Move along.”

E.g. the US has a long history in funding and even directly training counter-insurgency elements to the various militaries in the Southern hemisphere.  These troops / units were/are directly responsible for killing 10s/100s of thousands via organized “death squads.”

The difference here is that the target seems to be typical drug users/peddlers vs. political opponents.

Given the source of Duterte’s political support though, one could make the case that he is killing political opponents or creating “positive” political affect for him by these actions.

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Mike

Don’t be fooled by guy talk as told to you by media – would be my first thought, because Obama chose the typical PC approach which is to act proper, but behind the scenes don’t change a THING.

Duterte is looking for a reason to like Irvine liked by TRUMP, and if you listen to Duterte talk, you know that almost no human has a worse mouth than he does… but the key to dealing with a rooster is to be a rooster 😉

Other than that?

I look for no fair treatment of ANYTHING TRUMP DOES or SAYS, or is reputed to have said, and I shared a taxi with two bright philipinos working for French nonprofit and it was totally amazing what they thought about TRUMP based on distortions they believed on what they heard in the international treatment.

As to killings, they continue but it’s very hard to know whose shooting at who.

I’m here in manila and it’s a quiet night. One would need to understand context to see how many murders there are in every large city, including our own.

Duterte, and perhaps TRUMP are not making things easy, but these types thrive on dissonance, and their is a lot of noise when roosters are around.

Inner Circle Member 1 do you realize that cock-fighting is a national sport here and it’s even shown on TV?

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Inner Circle Member 1

I agree that Trump and Duarte’s personality types thrive on the energy created by bombastic talk. There are two schools of thought on “don’t be fooled by talk” – on the one hand you can say watch what I do not what I say, and on the other hand you hear that no one believed a person when he said he was going to do x, and lo and behold, he did x – “believe what I say”.

So, look at the recent actions “watch what I do”
There: crazies are killing people, inspired by police (supported by my tax dollars) who are killing people, led by a leader who espouses killing people.
Here: police, from behind a fence shoot Native American protestors with water cannons in sub freezing weather and blow off a girl’s arm with a concussion grenade. The police are backed up by National Guard troops.
Here: Trump places into power a cabinet that will stand up for the interests of big business over individuals, reflective of what we see at Standing Rock – in positions in Energy, Labor etc

Or, we can look at “believe what I say”
There: listen to what Duarte says, which you can attest to since you hear more than we do and perhaps what we hear is only the sensational stuff.  Do his words and actions happen to line up?
Here:
Trump hasn’t said much about the protests, but he is (was??) heavily invested in two partners of the pipeline.
However, he has said things like, “bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding” and he sends out tweets against individuals who speak truth or against his words.

Am I being fooled? Am I “unfair” to attempt to analyze these things using what is reported and what I can try to ferret out as true?  I do think mainstream media got a lot wrong, but the biggest problem was people being lulled into believing the tone of the mainstream media. I’d like to think past that and look at both words and deeds to try and predict the future, though maybe predictions . . . well, we’ve been there:)

Yes, it’s nothing  new, Obama, Bush, Clinton everyone stirs the international pot and supports killing abroad while holding ourselves up as a bastion of human rights at home. Doesn’t make it right. And, we allow sacrifice zones here so very rich people  can get richer and we created a for-profit prison industry unsurpassed by other countries. Not too long a step from those things to sanctioned killing.

Perhaps Duarte is targeting the poor, could be for political aim – absolutely something we do here as well.
From an interview this morning, this is the mother of an 18-year-old victim of the extrajudicial killings.

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Mike

There are some interesting meta points you make here that reveal values conflict, IMHO… and support well those values positions pro and con.

In each case, the leaders were all selected by a system “deemed” democratic and are seen carrying out the wishes of their electorate.

There isn’t anything – so far – that is a surprise based on what we know about the leaders in each case before they won elections.

As to what is going to happen?

I would suggest it will follow closely with what people have elected and will allow.

Probably your best metapoint.

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Mike

“One thing to remember too, is that the vast majority of police are embedded in the communities they serve so reflect the values and priorities of those communities.  So the function is highly decentralized.”

This is the case here in ph as well, as I suspect in all communities around the world to some extent.

It’s key because this allows edict to be modified to local standards, which is why I posted the Chicago Study by the NYT, it depends on where you live as to what the behaviors are, and this leads back to a metapoint I’ve tried to make about fractionalization….

I think it was GORE who did the studies on plant size and neighborhood size where once you are past 150, you can’t assimilate/relate to more people… why churches work probably as a social organizing mechanism, or did… and why I’m suggesting that complexity would be served perhaps in greater efficiency if we actually created these “fractionalized, yet integrated” (don’t know the sustainable integrating mechanism, some think gov, others bus, some church, others tribe, clan, organization, etc.)…

in any case… making the case for smaller and smaller units of organization as complexity increases, but with more focus on using integrative tools within the system to allow for the fractionalization to exist even in inappropriate (to some) ways, and levels – >some would say there is no place for KKK, or cults, or communes, etc. those outliers in fractionalized communities, but complexity would suggest otherwise, as the mechanism for “control’ maybe actually enhanced with the number of different options, with deeper density and frequency than can be achieved in larger groups.

I’m still unclear on hot this might all work, but it is already, and there seems to be a pervasive attitude that inclusion would actually wipe out diversity anytime it’s outside the valueset of those who deem inclusion to be inclusive – an oxymoron – am I??

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Inner Circle Member 1

Some sort of long tail of communities within the broader “market.” I come back to this as well, in my internal battle with activism to change vs seeking out like minded and just moving to be near them.

I doubt we will maintain “countries” in their current form too much longer.

Could certain values be an integrative tool?

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Inner Circle Member 2

Inner Circle Member 1,

For what it’s worth, I don’t see anything on the horizon other than a thermonuclear event to reset things sufficient to which countries change all that much in their basic major functions.  In different forms, “countries” have been part of the landscape for thousands of years (e.g. roman empire or England).    The rise of global corporations, capacity to fluidly move capital across borders, and networked world wide citizenry, for example, are rapidly changing the power dynamics and efficacy of countries to maintain existing power structures, but countries are not likely to change their form all that much.  At least in function.  How decisions get made and how power is distributed certainly might.  My sense anyway.

Why not much change in function?  Because people grouped together will find forms of governance one way or the other to handle necessary functions of a society.  And the more people, the more complex the environment, the more requirements for governace.

For the very few interested, attached is a simple powerpoint of the functions of a city (Madison, WI) that I ran across the other day.  This is what a typical city government attends to on a daily basis.  One medium size city = approx.. $600m annual budget.  That’s a lot of money, but we want poop to go somewhere other than our back yard, same with trash and stormwater, we want to turn on our tap and get safe drinking water, we want someone else to shovel snow from the streets, we want police to protect us, we want firefighters to come put out our fires, etc.

This does not include the County or School District or a variety of other local jurisdictions.   And this is just at the local level, does not include functions at the state or national level

We can quibble here and there but these functions MUST be attended to if you have a grouping of people together of any sufficient number.  Otherwise you will literally have chaos reign in a few short days/weeks.  No different on the national/country level, just different functions.

Ironically, in spite of all the rhetoric to the contrary, vast swaths of governmental functions have a very strong consensus from the citizenry on the role of government.

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Mike

Did anyone watch the B movie blackout… it’s probably a relatively reasonable approach to what would happen among different groups should we lose basic services (all connected to electricity of course).

Mike

In Aleppo, Displaced Returning to Rubble

Syrian government forces have retaken large parts of rebel-held neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo, leaving few areas under opposition control on Monday.

Just like almost everything else over “there” our meddling in the evolution of culture without knowing what we are doing caused a humanitarian crisis which will continue to destabilize the world as a result…

You will never see a mention of it in the news.

We destabilized Ukraine, and almost all the rest of the places in the world where there are problems, you can track it back to our “nation” building.

I would have never said this a decade ago, but what we have done/allowed to be done on behalf of the American people is misplaced good intent.

I think there is a saying, “… forgive them for they know not what they do.”

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Inner Circle Member 1

You will see mentions of this daily if you watch Democracy Now and read the Guardian and Al Jezeera.

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Mike

I try al jeezera every now and then, little RT, but others don’t show up here in ph

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Inner Circle Member 1

Can you see this?
https://democracynow.org/2016/12/15/journalist_iona_craig_the_us_could

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Mike

Yes

Thx

Do they have a blog to subscribe too?

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Inner Circle Member 1

Five days a week they do an hour show that you can also see on line, which is how I watch. They have podcasts, here:
https://democracynow.org/pages/help/podcasting

Don’t see a blog. But, their search function on the home page is really good if you have a particular topic you want to explore, which is just democracynow.org

The show has always had the same main host, creator Amy Goodman and often has interesting guests – it’s an unusual alternative to corporate media. They just had their 20th anniversary last week.

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Inner Circle Member 2

Mike, as a trenchant supporter of the best in America, and it is indeed full to the brim with good stuff and good intention, I can only agree.

It seems to me that again and again this comes back to the underlying thread of American exceptionalism.
“We’re different, and we’re exceptionally different.”

In addition the belief that American values/culture/behaviour/governance can be transposed holus bolus on other parts of the world causes so many unexpected consequences. Of course this belief is wonderful in driving overarching ambition by the likes of Google, Facebook and so many more.
So this belief is building a united global context.
And it’s completely necessary.

However again and again this same belief confronts the depth of diversity amongst humanity.
The uniting so easily tramples the diverse and the diversifying.

So this is also my context for my own work supporting the increasing acceptance and recognition of Globish; I believe it is the only realistic candidate at this time to become the one necessary global shared second language for everyone.  I certainly l hope this urgent need won’t default to English!

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Mike

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Now, America, You Know How Chileans Felt
By ARIEL DORFMAN

The C.I.A. says Russia rigged the U.S. election. The same C.I.A. that helped overthrow my country’s democracy

Mike

“In the U.S., many are using the term “fake news” for any articles they see as hostile to their agenda. “We’ve effectively brainwashed the core of our audience to distrust anything that they disagree with,” one conservative radio host said.” -NYTIMES

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Inner Circle Member 1

I thought human beings already distrusted anything they don’t agree with.

Inner Circle Member 1

Kevin Kelly | Backchannel | 27th December 2016

Let us welcome the robots that come for our jobs. “This is not a race against the machines. If we race against them, we lose. This is a race with the machines. You’ll be paid in the future based on how well you work with robots. Ninety per cent of your coworkers will be unseen machines. There will be a blurry line between what you do and what they do. You might no longer think of it as a job, at least at first, because anything that resembles drudgery will be handed over to robots” (650 words)

https://backchannel.com/the-seven-steps-toward-making-humans-obsolete-3a5c4e24a19b#.tl0qwpv26

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Mike

Yes this is true, we are all working with “forms” of robots now as we type, email, text, speaks, browse, etc.

As robots go through “purple” animation, we can watch them begin to progress and form a culture of interaction as the most capable begin to be chiefs and “elders”, then red bosses, blue governance…

But for now?

AN-BEIGE: survival of the fittest.

Inner Circle Member 1

We grant a Muslim woman the right to wear a burka, but for certain security situations, she needs to show he face to an official –which is OK with the Muslim woman if the official is a woman.

But what if the female official is actually transgendered, starting out life with a male anatomy and a male birth certificate, but now demanding the right to be treated as a woman.  E.g. the right to hold position as an official who checks women’s faces to compare them to their passport photos.

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Inner Circle Member 2

It so happens that I was just looking through a mapping of moral virtues into a hierarchy of cardinal virtues and subcategories of values within each cardinal virtue.  The idea is that a dilemma is resolved as a function of the weights and prioritizations of these values and virtues.  Interesting implications for organizational culture and values alignment, but that’s outside the point.  The reason I mention this is because this dilemma that Herb proffers seems to focus only on a narrow band of values – certainly all within the virtue category of Justice.

“Justice is the constant and permanent determination to give others their rightful due. The just person is distinguished by respect for others’ rights, promoting harmony in relationships, and genuine concern for the common good.”

If we give equal value to both the Muslim woman and the transgendered official, it appears unresolvable. It seems, at first glance, a choice must be made for whose consideration is most important.  Does religious consideration outweigh respect?  Or is respect more fundamental?  This is a tough one.

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Mike

The metapoint (for me), is does everything and everyone; anyone deserve the same consideration?

At what point does a society exist for the one?

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Inner Circle Member 2

If you highly value equity and respect over and above other values, then yes.  Otherwise…  ????