Hot Off The Presses

RobertaX is test marketing a novelization of her sf stories I Work On A Starship. I've read several installments over the last couple years (or so; who keeps track of their casual reading schedule?) and I must say the lady has the story-teller's gift.

Definitely worth a double sawbuck; go check it out.

What Does What Want!?!

Not for the first time (and, to be honest, almost certainly not for the last :)), I wish to dispute with Phil Bowermaster regarding something in one of his typically thought provoking Speculist posts. Also not for the first time, let me begin by pointing you somewhere else first.

My blog-friend Kevin Baker is spending his actual Saturday having fun in similar fashion to my own, but before he left, he posted the transcript of a speech George Will gave last May to the Cato Institute's biennial Milton Friedman Prize dinner. As part of his remarks, Mr. Will said the following in comparing the political beliefs of two Princeton graduates, James Madison of the class of 1771, and Thomas Woodrow Wilson of the class of 1879:

Madison asserted that politics should take its bearings from nature, from human nature and the natural rights with which we are endowed that pre-exist government. Woodrow Wilson, like all people steeped in the nineteenth century discovery (or so they thought) that History is a proper noun with a capital "H," that history has a mind and life of its own, he argued that human nature is as malleable and changeable as history itself, and that it is the job of the state to regulate and guide the evolution of human nature ...

Now back to friend Phil:

I think technology "wants" to improve our circumstances. Technology wants to empower individuals and transform society. Technology wants to decrease human suffering and increase human happiness.

In other words, technology wants exactly what we want. And that shouldn't be all that surprising, because our technology is us.

Much like Socialists anywhere (and American Progressives particularly) do in their economic thinking, Phil is doing in the quote above. Both resort to a species of magical thinking to make their argument.

{In his defense, Phil is responding to this article about the book What Technology Wants, by Kevin Kelly, so the views he expresses might not be entirely his own.}

Now, I recognise the implied intent of the modifying quotation marks Phil employs; I understand he is making an allegorical statement and not a literal one. While I am quite willing to accept without comment using such as a rhetorical device, to advance a narrative say, such thinking simply isn't explanatory though which is Phil's stated purpose for the passage quoted above.

I have argued in the past that money is an artificial human intellectual construct. I believe the same can legitimately be said for history as well.

We have a (variably detailed and questionably reliable) historical record, which is often seemingly well-supported by a collection of historical artifacts. What we don't have is any actual history, because it doesn't exist any longer. Belief in "History" as George Will attributes to Woodrow Wilson above, "that history has a mind and life of its own", is thus shown to be a class of magical thinking that imbues our collection of variously ancient detritus with independent intent and consciousness.

In similar fashion as does Phil with "technology", that accumulation of not-quite-finished-with-yet proto-detritus we are frequently pleased to hold up as self-evident examples of "civilisation" (and that will be enough of the scare quotes).

Basically, it's just stuff. And while we may have an occasionally embarrassing excess of stuff (and a correspondingly distressing lack as well), it is the height of folly to think of it as anything more (or less, it should be acknowledged) than a particular example of varyingly well-contrived crutch we frequently find useful in certain applications (and decidedly not in others). The contents of our ever-expanding tool box laid out on public display, if you will.

And like all the rest of our stuff, we can make more if we break it, use it up or just plain outlive it's usefulness to us.

I can think of very little in this world (or off it that I am aware of) that has any great store of intrinsic worth or value (oh, please, is there a Gold Bug in the house?) on it's own. Usefulness in plenty, to be sure, but that's a different standard of measure, one that is imputed by some other agency and often quite variable by circumstance (ruminants find grass generally quite useful; humans without a Lawn Service quite a bit less so). Endowing our stuff with magical abilities doesn't improve it in any measurable way and, frankly, works to impede our usage more often than not.

I don't care what my toaster might think, nor my induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, I just want them to function. And should they not do as I expected, then the failure is to be found in my own lack of understanding, not some fanciful cognitive whimsy. We may in fact one day make stuff that has independent consciousness and identity from ourselves - the so-far mythical AGI. Come that day, I certainly agree we should ask it's opinion. 'Till then, why deliberately obscure our already flawed understanding of stuff, eh?

In the spirit of full disclosure, the things I say to my tools when I screw up a job would seemingly put the lie to all the above (and make my past nautical association disturbingly plain), so if humor was your intent I take it all back, Phil.

What Border Violence?

Nice.

UTB/TSC Emergency Warning #5
The campus is closed and evening classes have been canceled today and Saturday, Nov. 6 because of gunfire taking place across the Rio Grande.

A fence is nice and all, but when your neighbor's troubles start shooting up your place as well that tends to make his business your business too. And when it comes to international border violations, the US Army and Marines do our business for us.

Just sayin'.


Via Instapundit.

First Saturday

Since we started working a 4/10 shift at the j. o. b., we've had Friday's off. Thus, Friday is First Saturday.

Went here this morning and worked my way through 100 rounds of this. I do indeed still remember which end the noise comes out of.

On a related note, shooting with the laser sight requires a completely different target acquisition process than does using the traditional sights. Remarkable how that alters the magazine swap mechanics.

Strategic Employment Opportunity - 2012

Given the number of mentions on Instapundit alone of YouTube videos having telling effect this just-past political cycle, I predict more than a few someone's will pursue a course of action something like the following for the 2012 cycle.

A moderately well-heeled campaign will hire 12-15 people at (US)$1,000.00/week with an additional (US)$1,000.00/week operating budget each, starting about a year from today. These people would initially work to document the candidate's electioneering efforts while they hone and develop their filming and reporting skills and methodology (both individually and working as spontaneous teams).

Once competing campaigns are identified, selected videographers are assigned to capture as much video of the candidate and his/her campaign as possible. As the more viable opponents emerge over the course of the year, a greater proportion of the video campaign effort is assigned to the more prominent/effective opponent(s), leading eventually to literal 24/7 coverage of the post-Primary candidate(s).

Objective: document and report self-destructive behavior by the opposing candidate(s) and/or the campaign's operatives/supporters and post it on YouTube (and other video outlets) as early and often as seems useful over the course of the 2012 campaign effort.

Simultaneous to this, a few videographers travel with the candidate to document OpFor activities staged against the campaign. This can include documenting the general activities of those identified as OpFor personnel (think New Black Panther members) going about their public personal activities as well.

So, 15 people @ $1k/week + $1k/week operating funds x 50 weeks = (US)$300,000.00.

Even with the added expense of initial equipment purchases (to include vehicle leases) along with contingency funds (medical expenses incurred "on the job", serial data encription software implimentation for internal communication security, etc), a year-long coordinated effort to control the campaign narrative and influence all campaign reporting by others for not much more than a (US)$500,000.00 budget for a year-long national political campaign doesn't seem a terribly excessive investment given the demonstrated potential return there-on (unfortunately, I don't see the numbers becoming remarkably smaller for a regional/state level campaign either; the principal expense is the people, the videographers, so even a local campaign wouldn't be able to cut the number of personnel required for effective coverage of even a major municipality by more than, say a third of those projected above).

This is yet another example of how classical strategy works "in the real world"; identify an opportunity (most commonly a risk of some demarcateable description - if an apparent opportunity can't be clearly demarcated it falls to the level of variably vague "threat", a potential risk perhaps), position forces to advance your position thereby (in the example above, learn how to effectively use video equipment under a variety of conditions along with the computer technology to get the result on YouTube as quickly as possible for one possibility) and arrange an alliance to maximise the advancement for all allied positions (sticking to the example above; get your name and skills "out there" and decide what your alliance standards and conditions are in advance, just for a start). Sun Tzu's The Art of War really ought to be titled "THE ART OF SUCCESS".

So, anybody got any equipment recommendations? :)

Update: It occurs to me that a professional political consultant seeking modern relivancey *cough* Karl Rove *cough* or a news/opinion reporting business *cough* PJTV *cough* might find this model an attractive operational investment to begin developing this year.

Just saying ...

Safe Passage

What was that about "shall not be infringed"? So much for that summer vacation to Alaska for now.

Make your own CCW map.

Thanks to Joe Huffman for the map link.

Are they trying to start a fight?

Yes, they are Tam. And the way they win is to get you to swing first.

This is basic classical strategy, folks. When forced to engage an enemy within a defined boundary (like a national border), every effort must be taken to provoke as many localized incidents as possible so as to prevent formation of an organised and unified opposition. Especially when attacking from a position of (societal) dominance, it is desirable to incite actions in response to which exceeding established societal constraints and limitations can be argued as imposed necessity. The more extreme the enemy (that would be our fellow citizens, you understand) can be portrayed to be, the easier it is to claim the rightness of whatever behavior needs justification. Claiming the moral high ground isn't enough, being acknowledged as being in the ethical and moral right is mandatory for the ultimate legitimacy of any "victorious" claimant.

Do you know why fascism ultimately failed following WW II? Because the Jews held the moral high ground 'till the gasping, fiery end and were acknowledged as having done so. How many of us are prepared to go to such an equivalent extreme in order to "restore the Constitution" or "show that socialist _______ (name of politician of your preference here) what's what"?

Have you - not just you personally, Tam - have we taken a moment to consider just who it is we are most likely to violently confront "come the revolution"? It won't be Judge George Steeh of the Eastern District of Michigan, some bureaucracy, or any politician; no, it's going to be the people specifically employed to "interface" with the public. You know, the cops. With the fire fighters and EMS types very quickly to follow.

Take a look at the riots in the LA area back in 1992. While the fuzz was all forted up during the first 36 - 48 hours of the thing, the FD and EMS were regularly shot at (and even occasionally hit). Persistent denial of authority's intrusion into disputed territory is one of the most commonly chosen tactical errors known. I say error because the simple fact of control of a region being visibly/publicly disputed is sufficient to undermine authority's claims thereon; actively engaging them (especially from within the boundaries of that region) on their own terms thereafter is a recipe for defeat in detail.

Are we really prepared to accept the almost certainly utterly insignificant nature of the incident(s) that will spark off the conflagration? It won't be the next act of further infringement on our rights itself, it will be some cop's trying to "do his duty" afterwards that has Joe and Jane Six-Pack going off. Maybe the FBI "... tagging you like a migrating harp seal every time you want to run to the 7-11 for a bag of chips, and warrant be damned" or just Officer Random Example serving a subpoena. All without any of us going anywhere near a Costco you will note.

Before this goes too much further, might I suggest a close examination of the French Resistance during WW II? Pay attention to who was associated with whom, and by what political ideology and/or class distinction, and then determine how almost everyone eventually "just happened" to come to the Gestapo's peculiar attentions. France is a pretty unified country compared to America, any bets on how long it takes for the debt settling to get good and bloody here? Then add all of those foreign US bond (government debt) holders trying to get some of their own back into the mix.

There's never a "good" time to start fighting and "history" is always much nastier in the doing than in the telling later. Before we do this, maybe take the time to check for alternative options just one more time? We don't want to fall victim of "their" manipulations, do we?

Even if you can put it out in time, there's just not much you can do with a burnt bridge afterwards.

Power Psychology

Reading this blog post (about this study) an assertion caught my eye that has some relevance to Krav Maga, I think:

Which guy appears more powerful? They guy with leaning back in a chair, feet up, hands behind his head? Or the guy hunched forward, hands together in his lap?




Which guy do you think feels more powerful?



The study found that assuming the 2 power positions (vs. non-power) for 1 min each had three results:

1. Subjects rated themselves as more powerful (2.84 vs. 1.87 on a 1 to 4 scale)

2. When offered a choice of keeping $2 versus betting it all on dice, 86% of the power group chose to gamble, vs. 60% of the non-power

3a. Their testosterone went up about 15% or down 10% from baseline, respectively:





3b. Power position also significantly lowered cortisol levels by about 15%, while adopting the low-power position had a limited, but upwards effect. Cortisol is usually secreted during acute stress.






All this, from two minutes of a posture change. True for men and women equally.

...........

III.

This isn't anything new, it's long been known that forcing a physical maneuver can alter mood. Forced smiling can make you happier; clenching the fist makes men more aggressive and women feel less in control; method actors key off of physical movements to get their head in gear. And yoga exists.

(my bold)

There are many women students at my Krav Maga school who are much further advanced in the discipline than I am yet. Even so, I think I see some evidence in support of the contention in bold above. I can't think of a single woman who doesn't strike harder/smoother with the palm than she does with a clenched fist (after taking the differential in wrist strength into account). Since the more advanced levels require traditional boxing gloves (for training partner protection if nothing else), I wonder if this seemingly minor psychological observation ought to be pointed out as a regular part of training?

UPDATE: 2:30 PM, 10/09/10:

I should make clear that I'm talking about the in-class training environment here and not during an actual defense. Then it all comes down to the very simple formula: 1) hit as hard as you can, any way and place that you can; 2) survive to escape your attacker. In training though we ought to consider utilizing whatever techniques we can that offer seeming benefit for the training experience. As my pseudonymous source observed elsewhere in the same post:

It should also be obvious that this shouldn't work. How out of touch with our own bodies must we be if we can unconsciously change our mood by accidentally sitting a certain kind of way?

..........

Some readers will come back with a notion of a mind-body feedback loop, fine, no argument from me; but if these principles are so well known, why don't people do them more often?

Indeed, why don't we? Neutral stance ought to be expressly about attaining this bio-physical response for our own advantage. We don't have to know the precise physiological chemical process that triggers the demonstrated bio-chemical reaction, we only need to recognise it's utility in countering the overwhelming impact the adrenal flood that accompanies any violent encounter can impose on us. I don't think we should count on the influence such a physical display is asserted to have on an observer, but we shouldn't just dismiss it either - the attacker isn't the only observer of an altercation often enough.

This is a bit farther out on the limb of possibility, but I think the whole "method actor" reference made above has potential training utility too. Developing specific mental/physical associations to stimulate increased aggressiveness of response during training (don't just throw that number 4, 6, 1, 7 elbow combination, snap it) will almost certainly carry over when it's dark and noisy and this guy's just not going to stop ....

Needs follow up with somebody who knows much more about the realities involved, but there's something to this, I think.

One final thing; since this is all about training, via this very NSFW site (really, don't click on the link if female nudity offends you) comes awareness of this post that is quite work safe other than the letter arrangement within the URL.

Seems that most everything your high school gym teacher told you is wrong. Well, at least when it comes to all that start-of-the-class stretching.

A recent spate of studies shows that when it comes to warming up before exercising, phys ed instructors didn’t do us any favors by having us to go through a series of calf extensions, hurdler’s stretches and the like.

The latest salvo against stretching comes from a study published in the September issue of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, which found that static stretching before a workout lowered runners’ endurance and made their body less efficient. While previous studies have illustrated the effects of stretching on anaerobic activities[1], this was the first one to show the effects on runners.

I think that stretching generally, and range-of-motion extension specifically, ought to be an intrinsic part of any Krav Maga training routine. It isn't "warm up", it's a fundamental contribution to our total training effort. Unlike other athletes, Krav Maga trains us for an "event" we can never warm up for; you're physically and mentally relaxed and then it's on, full-tilt-boogy! If you're lucky you might have time to take a basic foot stance, but not for much more than that.

Static stretching's limitation of performance is actually a benefit within the Krav Maga training environment, I think, as it more realistically contributes to simulating the physical stress and fatigue we experience during a violent confrontation. In any case, something further to consider before the next class session.

I'm 1407

Here.

How about you?

I admit to some ambivalence as regards my employer's hoplophobia, but lacking a more courageous (not to mention clear thinking) alternative immediately to hand, I console myself that working to change our culture includes continuing working myself, so ...

It's an imperfect world and I fit in disturbingly well. :)

Go take a stand on where you'll take a seat.

------

Oops, forgot to finger the chapeau: via Instapundit.

What Day Is This?

I know it's Saturday once I hear Alan faintly gasp, "I can't breathe ...".

Weerd Beard cums through for me again.

:)