I managed to close out the year on a loud note. About mid-day yesterday, I closed a swap/buy deal with my regular FFL. In exchange for my Ruger Mini Thirty and a wad of cash, I am now the proud owner of a Browning lever gun in .22 S/L/LR (which will probably end up in my Grandson's proto-arsenal once his Dad and I agree he's ready for such; since he's only 8 mos old as of yet, Mom insists I'll have a good decade to get it well shot in for him :)).
Along with the rifle, I found a real gem of a pistol I really wasn't looking to acquire, a S&W 625-10 revolver in .45acp with the Performance Center stamp proudly displayed below the cylinder release (mine is a 1" barrel and has finger-grooved wood grips though). Purportedly, this was one of the samples on show at SHOT 2005 (all bought en mass following the show by a dealer, from whom my FFL bought it in turn shortly thereafter). Needless to say, it has a very smooth double action for a gun having so little appearance of having been shot much. It's spent most of the last five years as a safe queen, something that won't occur around here! :) Commercial 230 gr. FMJ isn't unbearable recoil-wise, but I think I'll try to stick to 185 gr JHP as much as possible.
I didn't do much shooting-wise over the course of 2010, but it all came good in the end. Now, of course, I'll have to look around the web for all the other stuff you want to go with a nice piece. Something for the new year too.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Sunday, December 19, 2010
A Question Of Strategy
An anonymous commenter encouraged me to read the Martin Ford book The Lights In The Tunnel (available free in .pdf form here).
Chapter Two is titled "Acceleration" with the first sub-heading being, The Rich Get Richer, where-in Mr. Ford illustrates the process of technologic acceleration using the example of Bill Gates and the old daily doubling model (this time with pennies instead of grains of rice). I notice a logical fault in Mr. Ford's thinking though.
Mr. Ford asserts that as Bill Gates increases his wealth through continued expansion of the technology acceleration Microsoft contributes to, necessarily others become less rich as a result of the advancing automation of industry (and human labor occupation generally) made possible thereby (which Mr. Ford analogises as the titular Lights in the Tunnel growing respectively brighter or dimmer). This seems consistent with a purely technological process, but ignores the actual condition and process of wealth possession (or so I have read; no direct experience sadly).
While I am confident he theoretically could, I suspect Bill Gates can't remember the last time he balanced his own accounts personally. This statement requires a brief look at the process of "wealth". Fortune doesn't exist as stacks of material in a storeroom somewhere; even in the days when it did that was a temporary solution to a handling problem, not a model for economic activity generally. With great wealth comes the necessity to manage it, an activity that typically doesn't generate great wealth for it's practitioners ("bankers" - those who own banks - employ financial managers, not vice versa). Bookkeepers, who's work is Accounted for by others so that specialists in Investment can transact in Markets to obtain some degree of ownership in something to result ultimately in some financial gain to Bill Gates.
See the problem here? Mr. Ford's Tunnel model fails to acknowledge the universe of financial betterment attendant to Bill Gates' richness. Not only does this illustrate the severe limitation on modeling-as-prognostication, it calls into question just how well Mr. Ford understands the strategy of human wealth.
Just to get this out of the way, when Bill Gates finds himself a bit short of cash of an evening, he stops at a convenient ATM just like most other Americans do. Unlike most of the rest of US, if he's thinking ahead he sends an employee to do that for him or has his bank (quite possibly literally his) deliver it to him. And Mr. Ford seems to think that Bill Gates is only about half way through his computer/technology related exponential growth, too.
The strategy of wealth is to create a series of interconnected mechanisms that each independently work to increase their net worth while avoiding inhibiting the efforts of allied efforts doing so themselves. Net worth, the value of something after removing the expenses incurred from maintaining and operating it, is one success standard that works against the change process due to the desirability for stability to nurture continued strength of alliances and control of costs in pursuing a chosen strategy. Mr. Ford's Tunnel model doesn't seem to even recognise the effect such contrary interests exert on market transaction decisions.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation exists to keep Bill and Melinda in a sufficiency of the folding stuff and does so by creating as many opportunities for others to do so for themselves as can be arranged through the efforts of as many others as Bill and Mel can comfortably keep track of. Not only does this call into question Mr. Ford's financial example, it casts doubt on his "overcoming automation" concern. Agreed that automation removes humans from an existing application within the job market, but there without doubt exists mechanisms whereby they can adapt to changing circumstance - even from the most extreme of disadvantage, thanks to Bill and Mel among many others. Wealthy people (which condition doesn't actually include wealthy companies/corporations all that well) don't hoard their gains in a vacuum; they employee other people, both directly and at often surprising remove, to perform that process to their mutual benefit. The human psychology of "control" is intimately involved and any examination which doesn't take that into account is a profoundly flawed model.
None of which makes Mr. Ford's book a failure. His point about a lack of examination of the process such changes effect on financial and economic considerations is well taken. As too is his direction of attention on the short-term costs such a process inevitably levees on individuals. I look forward to reading his prescriptions in this area of concern especially.
It is a strategic maxim that Opportunity = Risk. Indeed, it is the emergence of the latter that creates the former. You can't have the one without the other and it is this which distinguishes Opportunity from Chance. Accept this most fundamental condition of human existence and you free yourself from useless resistance to change to concentrate on adaptation of your personal circumstance to benefit instead.
Addenda: Mr. Ford's Tunnel model posits Bill Gates as a single market source and uses the market transaction of a $50 cell phone sale as example; behind Door "A" is Bill Gates, behind Door "B" is tens of thousands of potential individual sales. Since Bill Gates (through his dominance of other's purchasing decisions by way of their financial relationship) represents a potential single sale of tens-of-thousands of phones on his own individual decision, I choose Door "A", Mr. Ford, as doing so potentially represents a reduction in my transactional costs by an order of tens-of-thousands to one. None of which precludes my yanking open Door "B" as well, you know. People like Bill Gates are simultaneously both a single point of sale and a group purchase opportunity, a circumstance Mr. Ford's model doesn't address very well. Which is more a failing of models than anything else.
Chapter Two is titled "Acceleration" with the first sub-heading being, The Rich Get Richer, where-in Mr. Ford illustrates the process of technologic acceleration using the example of Bill Gates and the old daily doubling model (this time with pennies instead of grains of rice). I notice a logical fault in Mr. Ford's thinking though.
Mr. Ford asserts that as Bill Gates increases his wealth through continued expansion of the technology acceleration Microsoft contributes to, necessarily others become less rich as a result of the advancing automation of industry (and human labor occupation generally) made possible thereby (which Mr. Ford analogises as the titular Lights in the Tunnel growing respectively brighter or dimmer). This seems consistent with a purely technological process, but ignores the actual condition and process of wealth possession (or so I have read; no direct experience sadly).
While I am confident he theoretically could, I suspect Bill Gates can't remember the last time he balanced his own accounts personally. This statement requires a brief look at the process of "wealth". Fortune doesn't exist as stacks of material in a storeroom somewhere; even in the days when it did that was a temporary solution to a handling problem, not a model for economic activity generally. With great wealth comes the necessity to manage it, an activity that typically doesn't generate great wealth for it's practitioners ("bankers" - those who own banks - employ financial managers, not vice versa). Bookkeepers, who's work is Accounted for by others so that specialists in Investment can transact in Markets to obtain some degree of ownership in something to result ultimately in some financial gain to Bill Gates.
See the problem here? Mr. Ford's Tunnel model fails to acknowledge the universe of financial betterment attendant to Bill Gates' richness. Not only does this illustrate the severe limitation on modeling-as-prognostication, it calls into question just how well Mr. Ford understands the strategy of human wealth.
Just to get this out of the way, when Bill Gates finds himself a bit short of cash of an evening, he stops at a convenient ATM just like most other Americans do. Unlike most of the rest of US, if he's thinking ahead he sends an employee to do that for him or has his bank (quite possibly literally his) deliver it to him. And Mr. Ford seems to think that Bill Gates is only about half way through his computer/technology related exponential growth, too.
The strategy of wealth is to create a series of interconnected mechanisms that each independently work to increase their net worth while avoiding inhibiting the efforts of allied efforts doing so themselves. Net worth, the value of something after removing the expenses incurred from maintaining and operating it, is one success standard that works against the change process due to the desirability for stability to nurture continued strength of alliances and control of costs in pursuing a chosen strategy. Mr. Ford's Tunnel model doesn't seem to even recognise the effect such contrary interests exert on market transaction decisions.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation exists to keep Bill and Melinda in a sufficiency of the folding stuff and does so by creating as many opportunities for others to do so for themselves as can be arranged through the efforts of as many others as Bill and Mel can comfortably keep track of. Not only does this call into question Mr. Ford's financial example, it casts doubt on his "overcoming automation" concern. Agreed that automation removes humans from an existing application within the job market, but there without doubt exists mechanisms whereby they can adapt to changing circumstance - even from the most extreme of disadvantage, thanks to Bill and Mel among many others. Wealthy people (which condition doesn't actually include wealthy companies/corporations all that well) don't hoard their gains in a vacuum; they employee other people, both directly and at often surprising remove, to perform that process to their mutual benefit. The human psychology of "control" is intimately involved and any examination which doesn't take that into account is a profoundly flawed model.
None of which makes Mr. Ford's book a failure. His point about a lack of examination of the process such changes effect on financial and economic considerations is well taken. As too is his direction of attention on the short-term costs such a process inevitably levees on individuals. I look forward to reading his prescriptions in this area of concern especially.
It is a strategic maxim that Opportunity = Risk. Indeed, it is the emergence of the latter that creates the former. You can't have the one without the other and it is this which distinguishes Opportunity from Chance. Accept this most fundamental condition of human existence and you free yourself from useless resistance to change to concentrate on adaptation of your personal circumstance to benefit instead.
Addenda: Mr. Ford's Tunnel model posits Bill Gates as a single market source and uses the market transaction of a $50 cell phone sale as example; behind Door "A" is Bill Gates, behind Door "B" is tens of thousands of potential individual sales. Since Bill Gates (through his dominance of other's purchasing decisions by way of their financial relationship) represents a potential single sale of tens-of-thousands of phones on his own individual decision, I choose Door "A", Mr. Ford, as doing so potentially represents a reduction in my transactional costs by an order of tens-of-thousands to one. None of which precludes my yanking open Door "B" as well, you know. People like Bill Gates are simultaneously both a single point of sale and a group purchase opportunity, a circumstance Mr. Ford's model doesn't address very well. Which is more a failing of models than anything else.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Making IF Real
Alvis Brigis examines a potential resolution to the current job loss situation in his latest blog post which I commented on here. In his post, Alvis said:
Over at The Speculist commenter damndirtytape asks in comments:
Alvis' response speaks for itself, I wish to use both the above quotes to give context for what follows. As per my usual want, we get there by going this other way first. :)
I suspect more people are aware of Bristol Palin from her recent turn as third place finisher on the latest season of Dancing with the Stars, but what seems to be largely lost is the example she provides us of a possible mechanism whereby we can all help save our national economy. Unwed teen pregnancy is traditionally regarded as at best a devastating event. Young Miss Palin's response takes a different tack (via wikipedia). Instead of a disaster, she chooses to make teen motherhood into a career - one that apparently earns a decent living, I might add.
Anybody seeing where I'm going with this yet?
In my initial comment to Alvis' post (which is where this all started, remember?), I said:
The "context" I seek to define today is how we might structure our transition from a job-losing economy - where jobs are the providential offering of some diffuse other - into a job-creating environment in emulation of la Palin's example.
A Limited Liability Corporation is a recognised legal and economic mechanism available to virtually any US citizen or resident, at modest individual cost, that provides a mechanism to transform almost any activity into a profit-making (and, lest we forget, tax-paying) enterprise. Unwed teen mother? No problem, Professional Advocate. Prosumer? What (or even who) do you know that you can start building into a network positioned to connect to a market (either existing or potential)?
The underlying point of all this is that, so far, we the individual retain the initiative in determining how (and by whom) our economic salvation might be attained outside of the established, historical arrangements. To do so via such a creative example as touted by Alvis (and many others, to be fair) requires that we provide some mechanism whereby the existing powers-that-be (like, potentially, that other Palin woman) can recognise and categorise our efforts into their present understanding of things. Doing that makes our efforts merely part of the system, something to be ordinarily taxed and otherwise burdened (think Craigslist), rather than some extremist, disruptive activity to be actively opposed and outlawed (pick your favorite file sharing/aka: music piracy site as example).
Classical strategy teaches that success is attained by a steady process of supportive alliance and avoidance of active opposition. I believe that to be an effective summation of ordinary human interaction and something everyone is well advised to consciously practice in their day-to-day activities, most especially when setting out to effect change to an existing -and well entrenched - paradigm of human behavior and association.
Like turning "job" into individual liberty instead of controlling dependence.
One result of this possibility expansion will be the ongoing emergence of a new class of Super-Prosumer companies that will fill much of the void left by dwindling American jobs. As the traditional economy flounders, these social web companies will clean-up (they already are) and expand the phase space for massive, rapid value creation like never before.
Over at The Speculist commenter damndirtytape asks in comments:
That's an enticing scenario, but what does each CEO-company actually do or make? as in what tangible goods do they produce that other people (foreigners primarily) will buy?
What we are doing now doesn't work. A high tech, but debt and credit based economic model is an illusion. At some point America will have to actually create real goods and services to sell to other countries to reverse the trade gap and get out of worlds largest debtor nation status.
Not sure how any of this prosumer stuff really creates anything new.
Alvis' response speaks for itself, I wish to use both the above quotes to give context for what follows. As per my usual want, we get there by going this other way first. :)
I suspect more people are aware of Bristol Palin from her recent turn as third place finisher on the latest season of Dancing with the Stars, but what seems to be largely lost is the example she provides us of a possible mechanism whereby we can all help save our national economy. Unwed teen pregnancy is traditionally regarded as at best a devastating event. Young Miss Palin's response takes a different tack (via wikipedia). Instead of a disaster, she chooses to make teen motherhood into a career - one that apparently earns a decent living, I might add.
Anybody seeing where I'm going with this yet?
In my initial comment to Alvis' post (which is where this all started, remember?), I said:
How you initially define context greatly influences individual willingness to commit to a concept. The context "root cause" places the existing economic environment in an aggressive defense of established practice and process; the suggested alternative identifies potential additional revenue streams for existing business entities to consider. From there it becomes easier to consider more fundamental changes to business structure and process. Much like the change from manufacturing to service, the economy is easier to change to some entirely different model if there is an established business practice to expand upon to effect the transition. Without something of that nature in place, the established economic/governmental structure will actively resist transition instead of merely drag its collective feet.
The "context" I seek to define today is how we might structure our transition from a job-losing economy - where jobs are the providential offering of some diffuse other - into a job-creating environment in emulation of la Palin's example.
A Limited Liability Corporation is a recognised legal and economic mechanism available to virtually any US citizen or resident, at modest individual cost, that provides a mechanism to transform almost any activity into a profit-making (and, lest we forget, tax-paying) enterprise. Unwed teen mother? No problem, Professional Advocate. Prosumer? What (or even who) do you know that you can start building into a network positioned to connect to a market (either existing or potential)?
The underlying point of all this is that, so far, we the individual retain the initiative in determining how (and by whom) our economic salvation might be attained outside of the established, historical arrangements. To do so via such a creative example as touted by Alvis (and many others, to be fair) requires that we provide some mechanism whereby the existing powers-that-be (like, potentially, that other Palin woman) can recognise and categorise our efforts into their present understanding of things. Doing that makes our efforts merely part of the system, something to be ordinarily taxed and otherwise burdened (think Craigslist), rather than some extremist, disruptive activity to be actively opposed and outlawed (pick your favorite file sharing/aka: music piracy site as example).
Classical strategy teaches that success is attained by a steady process of supportive alliance and avoidance of active opposition. I believe that to be an effective summation of ordinary human interaction and something everyone is well advised to consciously practice in their day-to-day activities, most especially when setting out to effect change to an existing -and well entrenched - paradigm of human behavior and association.
Like turning "job" into individual liberty instead of controlling dependence.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
The Future Is Coming
Blog friend Alvis Brigis has a post up about the transition in economic activity he sees underway in the US. While I still question just how broadly applicable the Prosumer concept will prove to be, I concur that it is certainly one of the options available to people today to begin their individual transition into the developing economy.
In his post, Alvis identifies some of the factors that contribute to the on-going economic downturn:
I find it telling that all of them are governmental/regulatory in nature.
That said, I also find it refreshing (if not at all unexpected of the man) that his prescriptions are all oriented around the individual human, alone or in organised groups, creating their own relief without recourse (or even regard) to government.
Note that I did not say in dis-regard to government. Lack of reliance does not mean rejection.
Elsewhere in the post, he says:
Every company Alvis identifies is dependent on government provided infrastructure just to operate and all of them have both governmental regulatory constraints and self-imposed limitations they impose on their users - Alvis' proposed Prosumers. Certainly they offer some opportunity, and the Groupon example Alvis provides is inspirational, but the problems left unstated make success through these channels much more unlikely than Alvis makes apparent (not an unexpected aspect of an introductory effort such as this one, it should be acknowledged).
All of the companies named have to offer the most user experience for the least user expense (whether financial or in usage frustration levels). All of the companies named risk additional regulatory and taxation burdens resulting from increased individual economic activity beyond that already regulated/taxed. From this it can be seen that increased usage will result in decreased usability. Methinks these won't cooperate much or for long.
All of which ignores the mores most of them practice; E-Bay discriminates against anyone wishing to exercise the tenets of the US 2nd Amendment on their site for only one example of highly dubious company conduct that inhibits the user/prosumer experience. Google is infamous for it's unethical censorship and data gathering practices.
The point being that none of the examples proffered are positioned to be quite as opportune as Alvis seems to believe. They could be, but in practice have not been to-date. Perhaps an effort to persuade them differently, developed at the local societal level, would be a practicable first step in changing this circumstance.
As is his usual practice, a complex and thoroughgoing look at the present circumstance with an eye to getting to a future we all can find fulfilling. Well done you.
In his post, Alvis identifies some of the factors that contribute to the on-going economic downturn:
The erosion of traditional American jobs continues unabated and we can expect it to steadily worsen. From a macro perspective, there is simply no silver-bullet counter to the converging forces of globalization, automation, overvalued real estate prices, national debt, mega quantitative easing (printing more U.S. dollars to buy back our bonds so they don’t tank - a new round of $600 billion has just been proposed), mounting international resistance to U.S. monetary policy, massive overseas spending (Iraq, Afghanistan) general inefficiencies in govt, defense, education, oversight, and social services. Despite weak signs of life in the country’s massive services sector, which comprises an astounding 80% of U.S. jobs, last week’s dismal jobs report reinforces the steady downhill march.
I find it telling that all of them are governmental/regulatory in nature.
That said, I also find it refreshing (if not at all unexpected of the man) that his prescriptions are all oriented around the individual human, alone or in organised groups, creating their own relief without recourse (or even regard) to government.
Note that I did not say in dis-regard to government. Lack of reliance does not mean rejection.
Elsewhere in the post, he says:
If our goal is to save American jobs, then it’s our responsibility to identify, vet and selectively apply these emerging solutions.
First and most obviously, we can turn to well-established, leading-edge American tech and web companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Intel, Cisco, IBM, Johnson Controls, Amazon, EBay for software, hardware and intelligent systems that can bring down personal and business costs and increase profit.
........
Even more interesting is the symbiotic relationship these companies have with their customers. Each and every one of them fundamentally depends on user generated content and participation to function. Therefore, they inherently must make the cost of participation as low as possible, and the benefits to users as high as possible
Every company Alvis identifies is dependent on government provided infrastructure just to operate and all of them have both governmental regulatory constraints and self-imposed limitations they impose on their users - Alvis' proposed Prosumers. Certainly they offer some opportunity, and the Groupon example Alvis provides is inspirational, but the problems left unstated make success through these channels much more unlikely than Alvis makes apparent (not an unexpected aspect of an introductory effort such as this one, it should be acknowledged).
All of the companies named have to offer the most user experience for the least user expense (whether financial or in usage frustration levels). All of the companies named risk additional regulatory and taxation burdens resulting from increased individual economic activity beyond that already regulated/taxed. From this it can be seen that increased usage will result in decreased usability. Methinks these won't cooperate much or for long.
All of which ignores the mores most of them practice; E-Bay discriminates against anyone wishing to exercise the tenets of the US 2nd Amendment on their site for only one example of highly dubious company conduct that inhibits the user/prosumer experience. Google is infamous for it's unethical censorship and data gathering practices.
The point being that none of the examples proffered are positioned to be quite as opportune as Alvis seems to believe. They could be, but in practice have not been to-date. Perhaps an effort to persuade them differently, developed at the local societal level, would be a practicable first step in changing this circumstance.
As is his usual practice, a complex and thoroughgoing look at the present circumstance with an eye to getting to a future we all can find fulfilling. Well done you.
Friday, November 12, 2010
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.
Definitely worth a double sawbuck; go check it out.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
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:
Now back to friend Phil:
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.
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.
Friday, November 5, 2010
What Border Violence?
Nice.
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
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 ...
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 ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
