tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post7899658146004990290..comments2024-03-28T04:58:13.341-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Perspectives from Science Fiction: Hugos and other marvels David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger160125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-23006339235525913992017-09-19T19:19:17.325-07:002017-09-19T19:19:17.325-07:00Donzelion said:
One unique factor of California h...Donzelion said:<br /><br /><i>One unique factor of California has been our public higher ed investments: the triple whammy of (nearly free) community colleges, excellent (quite inexpensive) state universities intended for educating workers (the California State University system), alongside true research institutions (the University of California system) - all running in parallel to, and dramatically enhancing the competitiveness of, the private institutions. <br /><br />Huxley might have looked at that system in the 1930s and seen 'Alphas/Betas/Deltas/Gammas' - but it's actually been more Apples, Googles, and Hollywood spectacles.</i><br /><br />Interesting to me as my son just started at Cal Poly, SLO studying biology (where our host's daughter graduated). He's not interested in medicine (can't blame him seeing the life of a practicing physician in his father...) <br /><br />In an event, I hadn't spent much time in CA since the late 80s in SF when I came back to my parents during college breaks. <br /><br />I went out to SLO for freshman orientation for my son, and was really rocked. Got to see a documentary about the kid who died of alcohol poisoning in 2008 along with a student produced film on the same theme. Also, noticed that many of the students involved in the orientation were involved with "Greek Life" and promoted it. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but I felt that I'd stepped back in time. I'm here in MT and have this view of CA as a totally "blue" state and I go to CA and hear stories and see kids that are not much different than when I was at school in Colorado in the mid/late 80s. <br /><br />I really got a Legally Blond vibe from the orientation watching the kids, to be honest. Of course Elle (in the movie) was totally awesome, but still. :)<br /><br />My main point here is to suggest that maybe there is some remaining truth to all the SoCal and CenCal stereotypes. I am not suggesting this strongly, but I really expected to see something in the culture/ students resembling that of Seattle U where my two daughters had gone. Many things can explain that difference--not least of which is the cost I had to pay for them to go there.<br /><br /> My takeaway is that Cal Poly, SLO is far less liberal than I would expect and that (like the US as a whole) California is divided. Can we bridge those divisions? Thoughts on that are why I come here.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18162963685411928666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-7174218084041991222017-09-19T18:39:02.131-07:002017-09-19T18:39:02.131-07:00Wow, you guys have fun here! I am proud!
onward
...Wow, you guys have fun here! I am proud!<br /><br />onward<br /><br />onward<br /><br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-6670666990386234022017-09-19T18:12:39.650-07:002017-09-19T18:12:39.650-07:00Alfred Differ:
Still... Mozart doesn't move y...Alfred Differ:<br /><i><br />Still... Mozart doesn't move you? 8)<br /></i><br /><br />Ah, I'm reminded again of Tom Leherer's observation that, "It's a humbling thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for three years."<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-75184115247870393422017-09-19T18:04:38.791-07:002017-09-19T18:04:38.791-07:00A.F. Rey:
Alas, from what I recall of the novel (...A.F. Rey:<br /><i><br />Alas, from what I recall of the novel (from reading it many, many years ago), there were no sirens or bells for the Eloi. I don't recall any scene where they went willingly to the Morlocks. In fact, the Time Traveler didn't even overthrow the Morlocks, but barely escaped himself, without Weena. :(<br /></i><br /><br />I only read the book once, though I've seen the movie many times. I think you are right about both the Morlocks and the girl. IIRC, in the book, the Morlocks weren't particularly <b>the</b> antagonists, but simply one more adventure the unnamed Time Traveler had to get through on his way to the next one. And I don't think I noticed until I read about it afterwards that in the book, there is no backwards time travel. It's pretty much forward all the way down.<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-1412985397013936382017-09-19T17:59:16.969-07:002017-09-19T17:59:16.969-07:00"Maybe if they came up with a better name for...<i>"Maybe if they came up with a better name for the new show, people wouldn't be trying to destroy the world to prevent it."</i><br /><br />What's wrong with a name that can easily acronym to ST:D?<br /><br />:DAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11903687674146271189noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-76121399019067774862017-09-19T16:47:17.370-07:002017-09-19T16:47:17.370-07:00LarryHart: "In "The Grapes of Wrath&quo...LarryHart: <i>"In "The Grapes of Wrath", published in 1939, the thuggish California police were the ones hostile to the migrant workers, who got a certain modicum of relief from the federal government. How times have changed."</i><br /><br />Sometimes, maybe so...but thuggish police in rural California are still pretty hostile to migrant workers... some things change, others not so much. The beauty of our higher educational system is that there are a lot of folks here who are able to study, understand, and THEN criticize and improve. We screw up as bad as anyone, quite often, but with a lot of folks capable of understanding the screw up, we're pretty good about correcting it. That's probably a little less common elsewhere in America (the screw up gets hidden, touted as a triumph, and the touts are believed).<br /><br />Perhaps the climate helps. "OK, we really screwed up this time. What did we do wrong? Alright, let's do better next time." Incremented millions of times, that is the secret sauce of Enlightenment.donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-78067751879472184392017-09-19T16:41:02.406-07:002017-09-19T16:41:02.406-07:00@Donzelion | I taught at the community college lev...@Donzelion | I taught at the community college level for a while and at the UC level briefly. My wife came out of the State system. I completely agree with you that there is magic in what we've created there.<br /><br />When some of my conservative friends argue that CA is too unfriendly to businesses and they are leaving as a result, my usual comeback involves some partial understanding that the costs of doing business are high here, but no one has an education system like ours. If they go, they lose a lot. Perhaps all business don't need to be close to educated labor, but I don't think that is a good move in terms of competition. Opportunities to create human capital is one heck of a good fringe benefit to offer employees and it might even pay back with innovations. My usual finish-up involves wishing them well in the backwoods. 8)Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-13655111753490470782017-09-19T16:32:12.927-07:002017-09-19T16:32:12.927-07:00Paul SB | I'm sure it will take at least anoth...Paul SB | I'm sure it will take at least another century to break us of the zero-sum belief. I AM optimistic, though. Too many people are leaving the squalor behind to put up with returning to it. Once they understand HOW they got out, humanity will never be the same again. THAT we got out is a good start.<br /><br />I had a friend who felt I would appreciate Bach for the mathematics. My friend had a talent for the piano, but understood that what he could say about Chopin went right over my very untrained head. Turns out he was wrong, though. Bach is okay, but I prefer much more emotion in the music. Yah. I think like an engineer a lot, but that's not enough. My mother was an artist. Not surprisingly, so was/has been every woman in whom I've ever taken an interest. Anyone I've known with a strong talent for mathematics who is still sane also has a high demand for the arts... often music. I suspect their sanity is sustained by this appetite. For testing my level of sanity, though, I turn to Pink Floyd. Shine On. 8)Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-6898776409374587802017-09-19T16:21:51.885-07:002017-09-19T16:21:51.885-07:00Alfred: "the REAL triple whammy we [Californi...Alfred: <i>"the REAL triple whammy we [Californians] have is an alliance of universities, private business, and government."</i><br /><br />Ah, you might call that "the American way" (at least as of the 20th century). Many other states likewise ally universities, private business, and local government: none have our three-tiered public higher education system, or if they do, have invested a small fraction per capita in building it (hence, their public universities cost on average 2-4x what ours do).<br /><br />The irony within the claim that universities are 'liberal' bastions is nearly as silly as the claim that a 'liberal media' actually exists. What, the private businesses that finance both universities AND media are suicidal or incompetent?<br />donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-55618609929103897702017-09-19T16:06:38.037-07:002017-09-19T16:06:38.037-07:00Alfred,
Probably every century was in some way a ...Alfred,<br /><br />Probably every century was in some way a reaction to the previous, just as every generation reacts to the previous. Certainly the brutality of not just the 30 Years' War (which gave us the very cinematic Hellburner of Antwerp, which I am surprised has never mad wit into a movie), but the endless carnage that started almost as soon as Martin Luther nailed his Theses to the door of the church in Wittgenstein. <br /><br />I would definitely put old Charlie D high on the list of great thinkers, too. But it will take more than genius to break humanity of the habit of thinking in zero sums.<br /><br />Mozart was one of my best friends when I was a larva, though I listen to him much less today. For most of my adulthood I have had a trio of classical artists that top my most played list - Franz Liszt (one of the true pioneers of the piano, along with his buddy Fred Chopin - but Fred's tunes can be dreadfully melancholy), Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky. Bit of a mash-up, I know. I had a very good friend who was all about baroque, which is something I can take in short doses. He loved the mathematics of it, I think the constraints are too stifling. But when I'm in a really grey mood I go for Grieg, Sibelius and Rimsky-Khorsakov. Weird, huh?Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-6408139689303050612017-09-19T16:03:28.717-07:002017-09-19T16:03:28.717-07:00@Donzelion | Smith was very far from thinking trad...@Donzelion | Smith was very far from thinking trade was zero-sum. I'd argue the opposite, in fact. He grokked the stupidity that was Mercantilism, but had to phrase things in terms of national wealth anyway.<br /><br />The only ding I would give Smith was his avoidance of the virtues that were of a more transcendental nature. Wealth of Nations focused upon prudence as it was designed, but Moral Sentiments only treated Love in a half-way fashion and skipped mention of Hope and Faith. Given his times, though, I understand why.<br /><br />Still, Smith is a good start. We know a few things now that he could not hope to have known. We have a mountain of historical data and we know trade as he knew it is MUCH more capable of enriching everyone. In a modern light, he could be accused of underestimating the impact of what he described. That would be unfair, though. They ALL* underestimated it.<br /><br />*With one exception that I know of, but who would have believed such a thing. There isn't enough gold and silver in the world to make everyone rich. 8)Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-26922193521509707112017-09-19T15:43:36.689-07:002017-09-19T15:43:36.689-07:00What I expect and what is so are often different. ...What I expect and what is so are often different. I am used to it. Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-12936404813601924092017-09-19T15:33:04.948-07:002017-09-19T15:33:04.948-07:00Paul SB | I view the 18th century as a bit of a re...Paul SB | I view the 18th century as a bit of a reaction to the 17th with its wars of religion. The sterility that bugs you (and me) about 18th century writers is, I suspect, an attempt to pull back from the insanity of the earlier era. The 30 year war killed an awful lot of people. And then there was the Inquisition. Ugh.<br /><br />I was mostly reacting to Donzelion's mention of Veblen, though. There is good and bad in each century. The 19th gave us Darwin after all. Of all the achievements of Science, I put Darwin at the top. Bringing the idea that a system that looks designed might have many actors yet have no designer into our forebrains is huge. Our failure to see that in the past is #2 on my list of humanity's blunders. Trade is zero-sum is #1.<br /><br />As for music, well... it did take a while for the piano to find its modern form. It's tough to express emotions on a harpsichord. Still... Mozart doesn't move you? 8)Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-82694254082208805472017-09-19T15:17:33.612-07:002017-09-19T15:17:33.612-07:00I expect in the original book Wells had bells sign...<i>I expect in the original book Wells had bells signalling the Eloi to prepare to be eaten.</i><br /><br />Alas, from what I recall of the novel (from reading it many, many years ago), there were no sirens or bells for the Eloi. I don't recall any scene where they went willingly to the Morlocks. In fact, the Time Traveler didn't even overthrow the Morlocks, but barely escaped himself, without Weena. :(<br /><br />But I bet Wells would've loved the scene... :)A.F. Reynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-65534231926412556542017-09-19T15:15:03.225-07:002017-09-19T15:15:03.225-07:00@donzelion
Perhaps 'nuclear power' is ...@donzelion<br /><br /><i>Perhaps 'nuclear power' is 'post-dated' - as in, it's probably a highly appropriate form of energy use that we are not, at our current social levels of organization, quite ready to utilize effectively. Neither the capitalist mode (putting Homer Simpson in charge of plant safety) nor the Soviet mode resulted in safety. Perhaps we just need a different mode of social organization before this energy source can be exploited. </i><br /><br />It's late in the evening here (I seem to have time for this blog only at the fringes of the day) but I try a short answer. All the other comments will have to wait.<br /><br />One is, even with our imperfect safety record, it still is the main power source that has least deaths. Lack of safety is more in perception than in reality.<br />Two, there are many types of reactors that have their safety based on having natural laws working for them, not engineered safety like the most common types now. <br /><br />More later.Twomindsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-82479497556435593102017-09-19T15:07:58.126-07:002017-09-19T15:07:58.126-07:00My view of California's EV choices is that we&...My view of California's EV choices is that we've usually voted socially liberal. When the Dixiecrats were allied with Democrats, CA voted GOP. When the alliance flipped, CA voted Dem. The exception is Reagan and not Nixon.<br /><br />Within California, it is best to think of us as a nation in our own right. Lots of variety. Last I checked our population was closing in on 40 million. Also, the last time I learned this stuff, the REAL triple whammy we have is an alliance of universities, private business, and government. It's a WWII carry-over. No one in their right mind would willingly screw it up as it has made us VERY rich.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38103838178523603422017-09-19T15:02:07.712-07:002017-09-19T15:02:07.712-07:00Larry,
Your little pet hypothesis sounds intriguin...Larry,<br />Your little pet hypothesis sounds intriguing. It would be consistent with what we know about the behavior of neural networks, but I couldn't say I have any more solid evidence to support it. I'm not even sure how you would test it without doing a longitudinal study that would take much of a decade. If you could show people pictures of spouses or pet owners that they know personally while being scanned in an MRI or similar, then over several years see if the blood flow patterns begin to physically merge, that would do it. <br /><br />Alfred,<br /><br />The 19th C. was a bit of a reaction to the 18th C., so in a very important sense you are right. However, knowing the intellectual history of those two centuries, you can learn to take what is good from both and find that happy medium. I greatly prefer the Enlightenment to the Romantic Era in the most practical terms, but I find the music and arts of the Enlightenment somewhat dull compared to the music and art that followed it. Humans need practical things like medicines that actually work, as opposed to sham faith healers, but humans also have emotional needs that are not always satisfied by the strictly rational approach of the Enlightenment. I know I am talking to an engineer, here, but feelings need engineering, too.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-37565329143168438672017-09-19T14:27:22.510-07:002017-09-19T14:27:22.510-07:00LarryHart: Dr. Brin has his marine corps colonel i...LarryHart: Dr. Brin has his marine corps colonel in SD (home of Camp Pendleton), and I'm gonna try to help a chemist in OC (whose district includes the Nixon Library). I'm finding Orange County to be exceptionally diverse. The county did vote blue last time around, but the elites here were also among Trump's biggest campaign cover (compare Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego, which published endorsements of Trump on anti-socialist grounds, and many other Evangelicals here who are hard core Trump stalwarts).<br /><br />I was shocked by how effective the Republican mailers here were - they showed a sophistication and expense utterly unlike anything I've encountered before (you'd never have known they came from Republicans either). We've had operatives come knocking with 'repeal the gas tax' petitions - who were actually trying to recall a local state senator (their story was completely deceptive).<br /><br /><i>"Historically, California's EVs went for Republicans more than Democrats."</i><br />Historically, half the Democratic politicians were Dixiecrats who built states so badly that their people left to find jobs and homes - often to California.<br /><br />California is a land of contradictions: Earl Warren was the prime instigator of Japanese internment during WW2 - yet his legacy will always be the Warren Court civil rights reforms. Jerry Brown was an 'out of touch nutjob' hippy in the 1970s - who can now say this about our president:<br /><br /><i>“President Trump is the null hypothesis, which he’s proven...Everything he’s doing is … stupid and dangerous and silly. I mean, come on, really, calling the North Korean dictator ‘Rocket Man'? … He is accelerating the reversal through his own absurdity.”</i><br /><br />I didn't know that I was capable of loving Brown a little bit more.<br /><br /><br />donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-18536928506214205442017-09-19T13:45:21.454-07:002017-09-19T13:45:21.454-07:00@donzelion,
I know that California has its conser...@donzelion,<br /><br />I know that California has its conservative places as well (like Orange County), and I was thinking strictly in terms of winner-take-all electoral votes. Historically, California's EVs went for Republicans more than Democrats.<br /><br />Of course, the parties have morphed as well. In 1860, the Republicans were (literally) the party of Lincoln, and in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the old Confederacy were a reliably Democratic bloc.<br /><br />In "The Grapes of Wrath", published in 1939, the thuggish California police were the ones hostile to the migrant workers, who got a certain modicum of relief from the federal government. How times have changed.<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-39749274977957594452017-09-19T12:28:38.096-07:002017-09-19T12:28:38.096-07:00Andrew Sullivan, as usual, gets a couple of things...Andrew Sullivan, as usual, gets a couple of things right, and then falls into the "both sides do it" trap. Still worth a read. <br /><br />http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/can-democracy-survive-tribalism.html<br /><br />"When a party leader in a liberal democracy proposes a shift in direction, there is usually an internal debate. It can go on for years. When a tribal leader does so, the tribe immediately jumps on command. And so the Republicans went from free trade to protectionism, and from internationalism to nationalism, almost overnight. For decades, a defining foreign-policy concern for Republicans was suspicion of and hostility to the Soviet Union and Russia. In the 2012 election, Mitt Romney called Moscow the No. 1 geopolitical enemy of the United States. And yet between 2014 and 2017, a period when Putin engaged in maximal provocation, occupying Crimea and moving troops into Ukraine, Republican approval of the authoritarian thug in the Kremlin leapt from 10 to 32 percent."matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-62168183613363371692017-09-19T12:28:34.612-07:002017-09-19T12:28:34.612-07:00It's been ages since I read Wells' Time Ma...It's been ages since I read Wells' Time Machine. Larry piqued my interest in the history of sirens and I found this:<br />http://blogs.creighton.edu/trh42834/2012/05/31/history-of-the-tornado-siren/<br />where we are reminded that church bells used to be the standard warning, of whirlwinds, approaching soldiers, and who knows what other warnings in Europe and England (<i>when circus bears attack!</i>?)<br /><br />I expect in the original book Wells had bells signalling the Eloi to prepare to be eaten.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-49340255098455640172017-09-19T12:14:00.360-07:002017-09-19T12:14:00.360-07:00LarryHart: "We now think of California as a ...LarryHart: "We now think of California as a completely reliable blue state..."<br /><br />Of course, we also think of Illinois as a pretty blue state, but the Chicago School certainly wasn't. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Earl Warren are also expressions of 'California red' (as were Nixon and Reagan), and even Nixon signed off on creating the EPA. And once you step beneath the statewide level (where San Fran has immensely out sized power), you'll discover LA 'blue' is a different hue entirely.<br /><br />One unique factor of California has been our public higher ed investments: the triple whammy of (nearly free) community colleges, excellent (quite inexpensive) state universities intended for educating workers (the California State University system), alongside true research institutions (the University of California system) - all running in parallel to, and dramatically enhancing the competitiveness of, the private institutions. <br /><br />Huxley might have looked at that system in the 1930s and seen 'Alphas/Betas/Deltas/Gammas' - but it's actually been more Apples, Googles, and Hollywood spectacles.donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-4857553773187500012017-09-19T12:12:21.706-07:002017-09-19T12:12:21.706-07:00frankly, as I enter mid 70s I am pretty much out o...frankly, as I enter mid 70s I am pretty much out of time to read serial novels. Just give me one good book at a time.<br />Jim Bacahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14019944863771287149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-1882931825294897802017-09-19T12:04:29.124-07:002017-09-19T12:04:29.124-07:00Illinois follows a similar pattern to California t...Illinois follows a similar pattern to California too. In fact, "As goes Illinois, so goes California" holds as a truism all the way back to 1920, with one notable exception. In 1960, California went for home-stater Nixon while Illinois, thanks to Mayor Daley, elected JFK. <br /><br />Except for that, the correlation is solid for most of the 20th Century and all of the 21st.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-40670658257853031412017-09-19T12:01:21.123-07:002017-09-19T12:01:21.123-07:00Alfred: "On my list of humanity's bigges...Alfred: <i>"On my list of humanity's biggest blunders goes the notion that merchants don't produce anything."</i><br /><br />One could start with Smith (18th century) and Wealth of Nations for this view (and not just the sections I quoted). Yes, regulating the traders is typically counterproductive - but permitting traders to incorporate in the first place is also a form of regulation (and in Smith's view, possibly the worst form of regulation of all). Smith was many things, but hardly a 'zero sum' thinker.<br /><br /><i>"My beef with certain 19th century thinkers is they were treasonous to the Enlightenment."</i><br />A view Dr. Brin appears to share, and doubtless, there'd be some overlap in our lists of 19th century 'traitor thinkers.'<br /><br />Yet 'thinking' itself is seldom traitorous to a civilization. It can cross that line when the thoughts advance parasitism. Humans are excellent predators and unsurpassed farmers; we are not evolutionarily predisposed to parasitism, and can only achieve parasitic arrangements through usurping/corrupting social organization. We do so quite often (oligarchy) - and the Opium Trade, slave trade, as well as most of colonialism/imperialism are outgrowths of that sort of parasitism. America's immigration system, designed to create 'citizens' and 'second class' non-citizens, is similarly parasitic, and our health care system... donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.com