Meta Transitions, Teaching and Duty

 Disclosure

I am a public employee and a teacher, who lives in the State of Wisconsin. On the state and local level, the transition discussed below may have gotten to the point that it has a negative impact on my livelihood.

Disclaimer

Nothing herein is the opinion, position or idea of; my colleagues, current employer, past employers, clients, friends, family, acquaintances, past pets,  or any other anyone else other than me.

I was born when the transitional dynamics of my country from a republic to a plutocracy were already in an advanced stage. Even so, the proposed budget by Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin provides significant insight into what that transition is like. Not only does the proposed budget provide insight into the anti-republican mind, but it raises questions about the future in very deep ways, particularly for an educator.

I am going to skip the reiteration of the whole plutocracy vs republic thing, as you can find a post or two about it on this blog, not to mention growing analysis on this topic available via Google. In this writing, I will assume the reader knows what the terms i use mean.

The revision of the Wisconsin Idea University of Wisconsin Mission statement, (as recently opined on in a New York Times editorial http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/opinion/gov-scott-walkers-drafting-error.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0 ) is a perfect illustration of this change underway in our social/mental landscape. Further, this is supported by a number and range of cuts in funding and reorganization measures, included in the budget, to the university system, other parts of education spending, public lands related spending, etc.

A decent description of the attempted wording change re the “Wisconsin Idea" can be found here:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/02/05/drafting-error-or-gubernatorial-assault-expansive-view-higher-ed-wisconsin

And now to my point.

Public education, is mostly an American creation.  It is rooted in the acts of our Congress after the Revolution and in some of the colonies prior to that, and is a creature of The Enlightenment. In accord with the principles of our revolution, bound to the Enlightenment, including the principles at the time of Liberalism (individual rights, representative government, Adam Smith's recently published ideas that eventually came to be called "capitalism", etc etc). Our new republic  required a common level of basic education through university, to create a citizen as required by a republic (see Aristotle, Montesquieu etc). As Aristotle quipped, "All men are born idiots. Education makes them citizens."

Yet the purpose of education can in our transitioning society can be different than that intended by our  Founders. In a plutocracy, the republican model of "citizen" is frankly not relevant. training a workforce is the main goal of education in a plutocracy. In a plutocracy, there is still a place for what the Founders called, a "liberal" education. However in a plutocracy is type of education is more appropriate for the rulers: as an educational option for their children, likely from an expensive private college or university. When your view/philosophy is neo-liberalism, like that of Governor Walker and his fellow travelers, public education is not necessary. It is just another untapped market to be privatized.

Tainter Simplification and the Course of Events

As noted previously in this blog, I posit that the trend of politics in the United States, since around 1980,  reflects the progression of our Tainter Simplification, a  simplification that has accelerated markedly since the beginning of this century. This makes sense, given mainly two things: The Golden Rule and biogeophysical stress factors.

The "Golden Rule" I refer to is the one I learned in my first year of law school, (it was explicitly mentioned by faculty) that states those with the gold makes the rules. Given the rise to dominance of neo-liberalism as the majority ideology in my country, the trend to plutocracy is I believe, irreversible. I also think that the biogeophysical changes that are underway may be prompting a limbic reaction, even within the brain of the most ardent foe of "environmental interests". If I am correct, this should increase the intensity of the standard behavior of maximizing the advantage for one's progeny. These two factors dovetail very well with first plutocratic rule and perhaps a yet later simplification to neo-feudalism.

Some readers, who actually know me, may view what follows as "selling out". OK. But I feel compelled to point out a few things.

First, republics have the shortest life span of any governance form. The Roman Republic still holds the record of nearly 200 years before beginning its transition to an oligarchic form. That we went almost 100 years from the beginning of our Revolution before the start of our transition isn’t bad. That is a good run for a republic, historically.

Second, the horses got out of the barn already. Neo-liberalism is the dominant political ideology here, and is consistently reflected in both major parties and our other public institutions. Example: Those of you on the older side of life involved in post secondary education, remember in the 1980's when you were schooled in the idea of redefinition of the "student" to being a "customer"? That is basic neo-liberal mindshare evidence. Apart from the anti-immigration folk, how most folks self identify as "tax payers" rather than "citizens? Ditto.

Personally. last year I surrendered my bar license. Granted, I had not practiced law since 1994. But the changes in my state government, and a number of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, capped by the Citizens United case, and a couple of follow up interpretations, were my moral last straw. The weight of oath when I entered the bar, forced my hand to surrender my license.

 Yet I an not a violent person. While I prefer republic to plutocracy I do not intend to rage against the "dying of the light". The large majority of the folks in my life do not want the individual burden and self-control necessary to support a republic. I do not view the neo-liberal and producerist political sector as "immoral". I view what is occurring as just another inevitable historic transition from republic to a defacto oligarchic form.

So here is an older republican (small r intentional :) ) living in a proto-plutocracy during a period of rapidly increasing biogeophysical stress. Being a republican, I hold to the duty of increasing the public good. But as a teacher, what is the need of those I am to teach?
Perhaps for the family/individual level of "the good", I should rethink my gut level negative reaction to Scott Walker's edit of Wisconsin Idea. I would not train "workers" for the good of their plutocrats, though it would help them also. I perhaps should  teach what is and will be needed by what I still think of as "citizens", to be productive  "taxpayers/consumers/workers". What needs will  learners have in the  harsh future  most people will have under plutocratic rule?
To quote Saint Ronald Reagan, "facts are such stupid things". As governor Walker pointed out with his editing pen, the search for the truth is so retro, so not now. Who has time for that anyway?

Practice note: You might say there was outcry at the "attack" on the Wisconsin Idea. True. When transitioning from a republic, it is important to preserve as Augustus Caesar called them, the proper forms. What he mean is that people are attached to the words and symbols of their republic even after it is lost. The Romans kept theirs for the whole imperial period. All acts were still done, for the "Senator and People of Rome". To edit the venerated Wisconsin Idea , showed Governor Walker’s poor sense of craft, at least apart from appealing to the farthest "right" elements nationally of his party's base.

Picture Note

The eye image is from the cover art of the original cover for the book Jennifer Government, by Max Barry, (2003).

An oldy for storage.

May be doing a redesign of my primary website, so gonna store this, here:

Sustainable Development by Jay Moynihan version 08092012 

Sustainable development is a process of human adaptation to a planetary environment that incorporates the following boundary conditions: 

Biogeophysical

 1. Substances and materials from the planetary crust are not removed at a rate greater than planetary processes replace them, or the rate of substitution of a renewable alternative. 
2. That substances produced by humans are, when no longer used by humans, not accumulating in the environment. That any substances or materials released into the environment can breakdown into non-toxic components. Non-toxic means that a plant or animal cell can metabolize it, without disruption of its nominal functions.
 3. The productive capacity of biotic systems are not degraded by human processes. Harvesting of living materials is at a rate no greater than their rate of regeneration. 
4. Delegation of human production and infrastructure functions that can be performed by other living things, to other living things when possible. 
5. That any material or substance produced by manufacturing that is not part of a product be a feedstock for another human process. 
6. The design of all products and services uses life cycle analysis and full cost accounting. No externalization to society and the environment of any costs. 
7. Birth control.
 
Governance

8. Governance structures designed to:
a. Maximize diversity in thought b. Reduce pseudospeciation* c. Decouple status competition from material objects 
9. That economic processes be equitable for the people involved. 
10. Allenby Principles
a. A system of problem solving with increasing or stable returns, or diminishing returns that can be financed with energy subsidies of assured supply, cost, and quality. 
b. The solution space for design is not bounded by simplification or ideology. c. Evaluation of design solutions considers scale, scaling, and emergent events across foreseeable time-lines. 
d. Technological implementation is evaluated across categories and foreseeable time-lines, prior to roll-out.
e. Design objectives are defined, and metrics created to measure success and early identification of feedback in the system. 
f. Solutions are resilient and incorporate redundancies, and are not irreversible.
 

Notes: * pseudospeciation. The tendency of social phenotypes to behave towards other phenotypes of their specie, that are not of the same variant or otherwise differ in tags (as in contingent altruism) as if those that differ are not the same specie. Examples in Humans include nationality, ethnic identity, ethnic hatred, "race", racism, religious group symbol reactions, etc.
Note re #4 & #8C.
These may not be possible where economics is a socially obligate boundary condition. (A Socially Obligate Boundary Condition is a set of social parameters or conditions that evolved in a specie, that limits its behavior at a given point in space time.)
 
Source Note 
The definition I am using is in some part mine, but primarily from other sources: The Hanover Principles, The Natural Step, Herman Daly's Rules, The Bellagio Principles, Joseph Tainter, Braden Allenby, and basic science. Numbers 1,2,3 & 9 are based primarily on The Natural Step. Number 4 & 7 are from me. The "Allenby Principles" are from the work of Branden Allenby. Number 8 (a ,b &c) are from me, (the Creative Instability section of Air Water Ground )
Boundary Condition "Boundary Condition" is a concept borrowed from mathematics. In this use of the term it is a condition imposed on a solution so as to obtain the desired outcome. It could also be viewed as what bounds a solution space, so as to derive a range of possible solutions to further analyze and choose from.
My Assumption(s)
My desired outcome, is that humans survive as a species (or daughter species) for as long as possible.
That space/time, and all environments are in a state of constant change.

Musings on Being Hoisted on Our Own Petard*

“It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able to adapt to and to adjust best to the changing environment in which it finds itself……so says Charles Darwin in his “Origin of Species"                                                                                           

Leon C. Megginson

This morning, after over-sleeping and not yet having a good cup of coffee…

 I found myself beset with examples of my specie’s apparent inability to deal with large, complex problems and threats, while remaining mired in minutia and monkey games. The examples placed before ranged in scale from immediately around me to the unfortunate content of today’s news.

I stopped for a moment and thought:

I wonder if advanced intelligence can be an overspecialization?

We pride ourselves on our intelligence, and much of the story, the saga of our rise to world dominance is (if not depicted as the result of our being favored by some invisible all powerful ethereal creature(s) )founded on our mental abilities producing a behavioral repertoire unmatched by any other creature on the planet. But the most rapid change we currently need to adapt to, is the product of our advanced intelligence accreted into the usual animal instincts and legacy behaviors.

The apparent inability of a majority of us not being capable of, or not caring about, it being hard to discern which; understanding our impact now and since the last ice age on our biogeophysical surroundings is perhaps, the best example of this.

Most of us seem ill disposed or unable, to act with the knowledge we now have of our impact through time. That temporal element for us; the accelerating, accumulating, multi-linear, interacting blizzard of changes that our intelligence spawns, eludes us. When we do get a glimpse, our obligate and socially obligate boundary conditions tie us in knots, launches waves of combinatorial explosions that drive us back into the trees of the tried and true.

Will our species and our daughter specie in the future be an even brainier version of ourselves?  Or, will the future be left to our daughter specie who is a bit slower in the head, sturdier and simpler?

·     *  “A petard was a small bomb used to blow up gates and walls when breaching fortifications, of French origin and dating back to the sixteenth century. A typical petard was a conical or rectangular metal object containing 2–3 kg (5 or 6 pounds) of gunpowder, with a slow match as a fuse…. The pétard, a rather primitive and exceedingly dangerous explosive device, consisted of a brass or iron bell-shaped device filled with gunpowder fixed to a wooden base called a madrier. This was attached to a wall or gate using hooks and rings, the fuse lit and, if successful, the resulting explosive force, concentrated at the target point, would blow a hole in the obstruction, allowing assault troops to enter.  The word remains in modern usage in the phrase hoist with one's own petard, which means "to be harmed by one's own plan to harm someone else" or "to fall into one's own trap," implying that one could be lifted up (hoist, or blown upward) by one's own bomb.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petard

Thinking Out Loud or, Oooops!

In Air Water Ground, I state early on in the section on Creative Instability that:

“I make the following assumption; It is good for my species to survive in a complex social form. I do not found this assumption on any fact, theorem, or belief. The root is purely desire.”

Correction?:
I make the following assumption; It is good for my species to survive in a complex social form. Wherein some semblance of individual liberty exists. I do not found this assumption on any fact, theorem, or belief. The root is purely desire.
Granted, a Creative Instability inspired process could give rise to any number of governance formats, I realized that:
In writing AWG, I am doing so as a child of the Enlightenment.
And
“…my species to survive in a complex social form…” may happen just fine, even on our current world line. Part of my own prejudice that kept me from seeing this is  my liking the concept of liberty.
Discussion
With the current world line (Increasing economic disparity, Increasing structural unemployment, decreasing government funds, decreasing government regulation, declining quantities globally, of usable fresh water, rapid climate change) complex social forms can exist, and probably will exist for hundreds of years at least (assuming that a general nuclear weapons exchange does not take place in future water wars).

Chinese Fascism may have a good survivability value (as is well laid out in  The Oreskes and Conway, Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future (2014)). But another route is the following. The United States is obviously well into a transition to being a plutocracy. But a plutocracy under biogeophysical pressure, could itself then transition into a form of  Neo-feudalism .

You take the following things:

Vertical Dominance Socially Obligate Boundary Condition
Economic Socially Obligate Boundary Condition
Plutocracy
Cloud based tech and continued computer/communications tech
CNC (computer numerical control machines)
Frank Luntz style public relations work techniques
3D printing
Robotics
You could develop a structure of, say:
Elite/plutocrats
Artisans/Engineers
Security
Poor/underclass.

The last category would be involved in a strenuous struggle to work doing what was left to them with increasing structural unemployment due to increasing automation, (my American readers may find this familiar). Given that struggle, social outliers among the poor could be handled by the Security class. Assuming the Elite could maintain the cooperation of the 2 middle classes, this model could be driven forward in time for a long time, even under very adverse biogeophysical conditions.

We have historical precedent of sorts.

Athenian democracy simplified into more autocratic forms. The Mediterranean republics (Rome, Carthage, etc.)  became a plutocratic empire, only in the west, to “simplify” into feudalism.
Hmmm. Need to update AWG I guess?

"Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past."*

Texas "text book" standards:

Double Plus Good! 1

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/us/texas-approves-disputed-history-texts-for-schools.html?_r=0

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=365686593&m=365762059

* George Orwell
1 To say that something or somebody is the best in Newspeak

Air Water Ground version 1.6

I hope to prompt examination and discussion about government and society. Governments at this time are conceptually based on the leading ideas of the eighteenth century. Likewise the most successful expression of complex reciprocal altruism today, is capitalism, or market economics. It too, is a child of the eighteenth century.

Since that time we have experienced the development of the bulk of modern science. That development has not only broadened our horizons, it has also it has profoundly changed, for those conversant with the sciences, the experience of reality. While the development of modern science has transformed nearly every area of human endeavor, two crucial areas remain immune to it. They are the practice of government and social structuring itself. Past attempts to incorporate "science" into these two areas have been based upon deep misunderstandings of the science involved.

We are animals, and we are primates. With the challenges our specie faces, most of which are the result of our own behavior, it is more crucial than ever to internalize the last few hundred years of learning into our manner of governance and social structuring. The time has come to use what we know to govern, to structure, and to redesign.

I discuss governance in its broadest terms, that being the relationship between each other and our specie and its planetary environment. With dominance of a planet comes responsibility. I will not argue that It is responsibility to other life, I will argue that it is responsibility to our specie. What is at the “top” is dependent on what is “below” it. Ignoring this will only increase the suffering of our progeny.

Nonetheless, I do not believe that what appears herein would have success in direct applications or implementations. This writing embodies a significant departure from our path dependence. The material about the Economic Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (ESOBC) may be of use in understanding the difficulty we have in coming to grips with big “abstract” problems though.

The origin in my brain of the Creative Instability concept was in the late 1970’s. That along with the work of  Gerard K. O'Neill and my learning what bar code could do, resulted in a piece written in 1978 entitled Orbital Polity Model. That piece is in this document’s appendix. My later understanding of the ESOBC, hyperbolic discounting etc. has delegated the Orbital Polity Model to a curiosity or humor piece. It is the product of a youthful optimism that I no longer suffer from. But if we were moving along a different world line, who knows?

PDF
 https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3H2LxHTQJ2mZ0RhajNxbzY2bm8/view?usp=sharing

The danger of not studying history

Received on Facebook:

 

"I somehow have gotten on Scott Walker's supporters email list. On Tuesday evening he sent me his victory message. I thought I had heard this saying before so I did a little research and found this photo. His quote was "helping move people from government dependence to true independence through work."

OK, perhaps a mistake by a young staffer, but perhaps...

Curiouser and Curiouser

Exit polls yesterday in the 2014 U.S. elections revealed that 60% of voters were very disappointed with the Republican Party leadership in Congress. The majority of voters also gave the Republican Party majorities in both houses of Congress.

Found on an index card of mine

Ginsberg’s Theorem

The three laws of thermal dynamics can be restated as:

1. You cannot win (conservation of mass energy)

2. You cannot break even (entropy increases)

3. You cannot get out of the game (impossibility of reaching absolute zero)

Freeman’s Commentary on Ginsberg’s Theorem

1. Capitalism is based on the idea that you can win

2. Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even

3. Religion is based on the assumption that you can get out of the game

The New Duck and Cover?

I recently was exposed to the workspace /school safety flavor called ALICE .That means:
Alert
Lockdown
Inform
Counter
Escape
For details, just google say;  with the words ALICE and shooter, and you will get plenty of links. It appears to be an amendment to the Full Employment For Consultants Act.
Anyway, it reminded me of something from when i was a sprout, Duck and Cover .
Duck and Cover, and ALICE are, in a systems thinking sense, good examples of our culture's tendency to recommend a band aide to the gut shot.

ALICE recognizes the reality of the Tainter Symplification , and is actually a decent, well meaning attempt to deal with the problem of the loony shooter in the public place/workplace, given our inability to address the prime multi-causal origins of the phenomena.

1. We do not have a healthcare system. We have a healthcare sector of a market system. I think that is one of the reasons that countries that have a healthcare system and lack a strong gun mythos, also have less mass shooters. In these, it is much easier to spot the looney  at a younger age.

2. The 30 years of "tax revolt" and "government is the problem", not to mention imposition of revenue caps on local governments via state reduction of local decision powers (Wisconsin, where i am); makes it nearly impossible to have public buildings designed during the cold war (threat = "the bomb") to be remodeled/repaced with ones for the current threat (crazy/disgruntled/drug trial/etc. shooter).

3. The easy to get guns and use them nearly anywhere 2nd amendment misreading/NRA for gun manufacturers who can't compete in overseas sales against the AK-47 so need expanded domestic market for military small arms/culture of fear/have to rely on your self/ concealed carry/castle doctrine/gun mythos, war on drugs increasing the risk factor for non-corporate drug entrepreneurs therefore raising prices and therefore street violence (totally unregulated market therefore self help disput settlement)/ ... etc

4. The culture of violence, which is amplified to the Looney that ultimate authority in this kingdom of magical thinking, is a thing called "capital punishment", that sets a wonderful example for the fusterated deranged folk among us... ecspecially if god is communicating with them...

5. Increasing economic disparity and structural unemployment and at the same time teaching that status/power comes from wealth increasing fear/desparation...

I could go on.
ALICE is a duck of the social problems and vacant ideology that we have. What comes after ALICE? Concealed carry allowed everywhere, as the failure cascade continues.