I looked at the Consilience Project. Following the thread. Noticed a few friends on the Board who should know better. Old school dichotomous thinking. Heads in the sand where the future is concerned.
On Wed, Feb 16, 2022 at 5:55 PM Steve Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm glad you brought up the Consilience Project again. I have not > hardly but scratched their "veneer" and have my own warning signals, > including how smooth some of their stuff goes down *my* gullet. Almost > as if it were crafted for the likes of me? And given the topic of their > discussion (all I've read so far is their "End of Propoganda" and some > meta-info about them), it feels a little too reflexive? I am > interested if not intrigued and very resistant to being "hooked" by what > seems like pretty sophisticated arguments. The MIU pedigree is a > little disturbing... I have a couple of links back into them, one that > when taken with the right amount of salt is somewhat supportive while > the other makes me want to run for the hills. "fevered gaze of > zealotry" fits the latter. > > I haven't extracted enough of their examples of "human sovereignty" to > know if it is actually an anthropocentric arrogance or not, but I'm > looking for it. I think the one place I saw it, I would have expected > something more like "toxicly deluded individualism" as a judgement, but > I really haven't given this work a fraction of what you apparently have. > > Like many of the frayed threads that is FriAM, I wonder who else is > following this and not chiming in with some useful parallax? > > I wanted to read your "my Pyrrhonian tendencies" as "Pyrrhic" but > nevertheless, thanks for a new word! > > > > My jury is still out. But this is similar to my evaluation of the > > Consilience Project, in particular this concept of "human sovereignty": > > > > https://consilienceproject.org/the-digest-issue-9/ > > https://consilienceproject.org/the-digest-issue-9/ > > > https://highexistence.com/jordan-greenhall-humanity-global-collapse-survive/ > > > > > > And I can't put my finger on precisely what's unsettling about it. It > > is similar to Rogan's dissonance, where with so much Rogan "content", > > you can easily cherry pick both good and bad stuff. But at least with > > Rogan, in spite of frequent bouts of arrogance, he's really just some > > dude yapping with people. Stein, Hall, Shmachtenberger, et al [⥀] have > > something akin to the fevered gaze of zealotry. I get this feeling > > from all the Eastern mystic-friendly people (present company excluded > > of course, Dave & Kim). What started my worry was Shmachtenberger's > > (apparent) alma mater: https://www.miu.edu/. > > > > But backing out of my Pyrrhonian tendencies, my real worry is their > > idealism, seemingly fueled by eschatological thinking. Putting so much > > emphasis on concepts like "human sovereignty" seems anthropocentric > > and a bit arrogant to me. It's directly in the transhumanist > > tradition, I guess, but more utopian and less Blade > > Runner/Neuromancer. The stylistic difference coheres a little bit when > > comparing their feverish narrative(s) with posts by Robin Hanson or > > Eliezer Yudkowski. > > > > I don't know. I'd appreciate any opinions offered here. > > > > > > [⥀] Rutt is of a different category. His affinity for anti-Woke > > rhetoric, constant F-bombs, and Weinstein-style alt-right ideas makes > > me worry there's also an affinity with the right's obsession with the > > anti-vaxx "bodily sovereignty" and maybe even the whackadoodle > > "sovereign citizens" thing. Both Rutt and Weinstein are listed as > > advisors: https://consilienceproject.org/team/ But I'm obviously OK > > with cafeteria style idea farming. Even a broken clock's right twice > > per day, right? [[⥁]] > > > > > > [[⥁]] Of course NOT! Clocks are mechanisms, maybe even the canonical > > mechanism. And, as a mechanism, a stopped clock cannot be a clock at > > all. So "stopped clock" is self-contradictory ... from which, > > classicaly, we can derive any theorem at all. So stopped clocks are > > either always right or never right, which means they can't be right 2 > > times per day. Pffft. > > > > On 2/16/22 10:32, Steve Smith wrote: > >> > >> I kinda gave up on Rutt... he's not exactly Joe Rogan, but there was > >> something in his PlanB stuff that left me feeling like he was > >> snookering me (all of us), even if he himself didn't know it? Maybe > >> reading too much Rebecca Solnitt has made me hypersensitive to > >> (other's not my own) mansplaining. > >> > > > > > .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: > 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > -- Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D. Center for Emergent Diplomacy emergentdiplomacy.org Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA mobile: (303) 859-5609 skype: merle.lelfkoff2 twitter: @merle110
.-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
