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We are products of complexity,
but our evolution has focused our
understanding on the situation of hunter gatherers on the
African savanna.
As humanity has become more powerful we can significantly impact
the systems we depend on. But we struggle to comprehend
them. So this web frame
explores significant real world complex
adaptive systems (CAS):
- Assumptions of randomness & equilibrium allowed the
wealthy & powerful to expand the size and leverage of
stock markets, by placing at risk the insurance and
retirement savings of the working class. The
assumptions are wrong but remain entrenched.
- The US nation was built
from two divergent political
views of: Jefferson and Hamilton. It also
reflects the development
of competing ancient ideas of Epicurus and
Cyril. But the collapse of Bretton Woods forced Wall
Street into a position of power, while the middle and
working class were abandoned by the elites. Housing
financed with cash from oil and derivative transactions
helped hide the shift.
- Most US health care is still
operating the way cars built in the 1940s did.
Geisinger is an example of better solution. But
transforming the whole network is a challenge. And
public health investment has proved far more
beneficial.
- Helping our children learn to be
effective adults is part of our humanity, but we have
created a robust but deeply flawed education system.
Better alternatives have emerged.
- Spoken language, reading and writing emerged allowing our
good ideas to
become a second genetic material.
- The emergence
of the global economy in the 1600s and its subsequent
development;
It explains how the examples relate to each other, why we all
have trouble effectively comprehending these systems and
explains how our inexperience with CAS can lead to catastrophe. It
outlines the items we see as key to the system and why.
Example systems frame |
Dietrich Dorner argues complex adaptive systems (CAS) are hard to understand and
manage. He provides examples of how this feature of these
systems can have disastrous consequences for their human
managers. Dorner suggests this is due to CAS properties
psychological impact on our otherwise successful mental
strategic toolkit. To prepare to more effectively manage
CAS, Dorner recommends use of:
- Effective iterative planning and
- Practice with complex scenario simulations; tools which he
reviews.
Complexity catastrophes |
E. O. Wilson reviews the effect of man on the natural world to
date and explains how the two systems can coexist most
effectively.
Adaptive ecology |
Barton Gellman details the strategies used by Vice President
Cheney to align the global system with his economics, defense, and
energy goals.
US vds alignment |
Inventing Christian America |
Charles Ferguson argues that the US power structure has become
highly corrupt.
Ferguson identifies key events which contributed to the
transformation:
- Junk bonds,
- Derivative
deregulation,
- CMOs,
ABS and analyst fraud,
- Financial network deregulation,
- Financial network consolidation,
- Short term incentives
Subsequently the George W. Bush administration used the
situation to build
a global bubble, which Wall Street
leveraged. The bursting of the
bubble: managed
by the Bush Administration and Bernanke Federal Reserve;
was advantageous to some.
Ferguson concludes that the restructured and deregulated
financial services industry is damaging to
the American economy. And it is supported by powerful, incentive aligned academics.
He sees the result being a rigged system.
Ferguson offers his proposals
for change and offers hope that a charismatic young FDR will appear.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on them framed by
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory. Once the constraints are removed from CAS
amplifiers, it becomes advantageous to leverage the increased flows. And it is often
relatively damaging not to participate. Corruption and parasitism can become
entrenched.
Financial WMD |
Matt Taibbi describes the phenotypic
alignment of the American justice system. The result
he explains relentlessly grinds the poor and undocumented into
resources to be constrained, consumed and ejected. Even as
it supports and aligns the financial infrastructure into a
potent weapon capable of targeting any company or nation to
extract profits and leave the victim deflated.
Taibbi uses five scenarios to provide a broad picture of the:
activities, crimes, policing, prosecutions, court processes,
prisons and deportation network. The scenarios are:
Undocumented people's neighborhoods, Poor neighborhoods, Welfare
recipients, Credit card debtors and Financial institutions.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on them framed by
complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. The alignment of the
justice system reflects a set of long term strategies and
responses to a powerful global arms race that the US leadership intends to
win.
Aligned justice |
Jonathan Powell describes how the government of, the former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair,
actually operated. Powell was Blair's only chief of
staff.
Mechanics of power |
H. A. Hayek compares and contrasts collectivism and
libertarianism.
Libertarianism |
John Doerr argues that company leaders and their
organizations, hugely benefit from Andy Grove's OKRs.
He promotes strategies
that help OKR success: Focus,
Align, Track, Stretch; replaces yearly performance
reviews, and provides illustrative success
stories.
Doerr stresses Dov Seidman's
view that employees are adaptive and will
respond to what they see being measured. He asserts culturally supported OKRs/CFR processes will be transformative.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on them
framed by complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Doerr's architecture
is tailored for the startups KPCB
invests in. It is a subset of the general case of schematic plans, genetic operators and Shewhart cycles that drive all
CAS. Doerr's approach limits support of learning and deemphasizes the
association to planning.
Startup PDCA |
David Bodanis illustrates how disruptive effects can take
hold. While the French revolution had many driving forces
including famine and
oppression the emergence of a new philosophical vision ensured
that thoughtful leaders
were constrained and conflicted in their responses to the
crisis.
Voltaire's disruptive network |
An epistatic meme suppressed for a thousand years reemerges
during the enlightenment.
It was a poem
encapsulating the ideas of Epicurus rediscovered by a
humanist book hunter.
Greenblatt describes the process of suppression and
reemergence. He argues that the rediscovery was the
foundation of the modern world.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the memetic mechanisms
are discussed.
Constraining happiness |
Isaacson uses the historic development of the global cloud of
web services to explore Ada
Lovelace's ideas about thinking
machines and poetic
science. He highlights the value of computer
augmented human creativity and the need for liberal arts to
fulfill the process.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of agent networks and
collaboration are discussed.
Arts technology & intelligence |
Haikonen juxtaposes the philosophy and psychology of
consciousness with engineering practice to refine the debate on
the hard problem of consciousness. During the journey he
describes the architecture of a robot that highlights the
potential and challenges of associative neural
networks.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory is then used to illustrate the
additional requirements and constraints of self-assembling
evolved conscious animals. It will be seen that
Haikonen's neural
architecture, Smiley's Copycat
architecture and molecular biology's intracellular
architecture leverage the same associative properties.
Associatively integrated robots |
Good ideas are successful because they build upon prior
developments that have been successfully implemented.
Johnson demonstrates that they are phenotypic expressions of
memetic plans subject to the laws of complex adaptive systems (CAS).
Developing ideas |
A government sanctioned monopoly
supported the construction of a superorganism
American Telephone and
Telegraph
(AT&T). Within this Bell Labs was at the center of
three networks:
- The evolving global scientific
network.
- The Bell telephone network. And
- The military
industrial network deploying 'fire and missile
control' systems.
Bell Labs strategically leveraged each network to create an innovation
engine.
They monitored the opportunities to leverage the developing
ideas, reorganizing to replace incumbent
opposition and enable the creation and growth of new
ideas.
Once the monopoly was
dismantled, AT&T disrupted.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the innovation mechanisms are
discussed.
Strategic innovation |
Roger Cohen's New York Times opinion about the implications of
BREXIT is summarized. His ideas are then framed by complex
adaptive system (CAS) theory and
reviewed.
BREXIT |
Scott Galloway argues that Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google
are monopolists that
trade workers for technology. Monopolies that he argues
should be broken up to ensure the return of a middle
class.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on these arguments
assuming they relate to a complex adaptive system (CAS).
While Scott's issue is highly significant his analysis conflicts
with relevant CAS history and theory.
Monopoly job killers |
The IPO of Netscape is
defined as the key emergent event of
the New Economy by Michael Mandel. Following the summary
of Mandel's key points the complex adaptive system (CAS) aspects are highlighted.
New economy |
Ed Conway argues that Bretton Woods produced a unique set of
rules and infrastructure for supporting the global economy. It was
enabled by the experience of Keynes
and White during and after the First World War, their dislike of the Gold Standard,
the necessity of improving
the situation between the wars and the opportunity created
by the catastrophe of the Second
World War.
He describes how it was planned
and developed. How it
emerged from the summit.
And he shows how the opportunity inevitably allowed the US to replace the UK at the center of the global economy.
Like all plans there are
mistakes and Conway takes us through them and how the US recovered the situation as
best it could.
And then Conway describes the period after
Bretton Woods collapsed. He explains what followed
and also compares the relative performance of the various
periods before during and after Bretton Woods.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of Complex Adaptive System (CAS)
theory. Conway's book illustrates the rule making and
infrastructure that together build an evolved amplifier.
He shows the strategies at play of agents that were for and
against the development
and deployment of the system. And The Summit provides a
key piece of the history of our global economic CAS.
Bretton woods |
A key agent in the 1990 - 2008
housing expansion Countrywide is linked into the residential
mortgage value delivery system (VDS)
by Paul Muolo and Mathew Padilla. But they show the VDS
was full of amplifiers and control points. With no one
incented to apply the brakes the bubble grew and burst.
Following the summary of Muolo and Padilla's key points the
complex adaptive system (CAS)
aspects are highlighted.
Housing amplifiers |
Satyajit Das uses an Indonesian company's derivative trades to
introduce us to the workings of the international derivatives
system. Das describes the components of the value delivery
system and the key
transactions. He demonstrates how the system
interacted with emerging economies
expanding them, extracting profits and then moving on as the
induced bubbles burst. Following Das's key points the
complex adaptive system (CAS)
aspects are highlighted.
Derivative systems |
Johnson & Kwak argue that expanding the national debt
provides a hedge against unforeseen future problems, as long as
creditors are willing to continue lending. They illustrate
different approaches to managing the debt within the US over its history and of the
eighteenth century administrations of England and France.
The US embodies two different political and economic systems which
approach the national debt differently:
- Taxes to support a sinking
fund to ensure credit to leverage fiscal power in:
Wars, Pandemics, Trade disputes, Hurricanes, Social
programs; Starting with Hamilton,
Lincoln & Chase,
Wilson, FDR;
- Low taxes, limited infrastructure, with risk assumed by
individuals: Advocated by President's Jefferson & Madison,
Reagan,
George W. Bush (Gingrich);
Johnson & Kwak develop a model of what the US
government does. They argue that the conflicting
sinking fund and low tax approaches leaves the nation 'stuck in
the middle' with a future problem.
And they offer their list of 'first principles' to help
assess the best approach for moving from 2012 into the
future.
They conclude the question is still political. They hope
it can be resolved with an awareness of their detailed
explanations. They ask who is willing to
push all the coming risk onto individuals.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Historically developing within the global cotton value delivery
system, key CAS features are highlighted.
National debt |
Robert Gordon argues that the inventions of the second
industrial revolution were the foundation for
American economic growth. Gordon shows how flows of people
into difficult rural America built a population base
which then took the opportunity to move on to urban settings: Houses, Food in supermarkets,
Clothes in
department stores;
that supported increasing productivity and standard of living.
The deployment of nationwide networks: Rail, Road, Utilities;
terminating in the urban housing and work places allowing the workers to
leverage time saving goods and services, which helped grow
the economy.
Gordon describes the concomitant transformation of:
- Communications
and advertising
- Credit
and finance
- Public
health and the health
care network
- Health insurance
- Education
- Social
and welfare services
Counter intuitively the constraints
introduced before and in the Great Depression and the demands of World War 2
provide the amplifiers that drive the inventions deeply and
fully into every aspect of the economy between 1940 and 1970
creating the exceptional growth and standard of living of post
war America.
Subsequently the
rate of growth was limited until the shift of women
into the workplace and the full networking of
voice and data supported the Internet and World Wide Web
completed the third industrial revolution, but the effects were
muted by the narrow reach of the technologies.
The development of Big Data, Robots,
and Artificial Intelligence may support additional growth,
but Gordon is unconvinced because of the collapse of
the middle class.
Following our summary of Gordon's book RSS frames his arguments from
the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
American growth |
Carl Menger argues that the market induced the emergence of
money based on the attractive features of precious metals.
He compares the potential for government edicts to create money
but sees them as lacking.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames his arguments from
the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
With two hundred years of additional knowledge we conclude that
precious metals are not as attractive as Menger asserts.
Government backed promissory notes are analogous to:
- Other evolved CAS forms of ubiquitous high energy
transaction intermediates and
- Schematic strategies that are proving optimal in
supporting survival and replication in the currently
accessible niches.
Emergence of money |
Eric Beinhocker sets out to answer a question Adam Smith
developed in the Wealth of Nations: what is wealth? To do
this he replaces traditional
economic theory, which is based on the assumption that an
economy is a system in
equilibrium, with complexity
economics in which the economy is modeled as a complex
adaptive system (CAS).
He introduces Sugerscape
to illustrate an economic CAS model in action. And then he
explains the major features of a CAS economy: Dynamics,
Agents, Networks, Emergence, and
Evolution.
Building on complexity economics Beinhocker reviews how evolution applies to
the economy to build wealth. He explains how design spaces
map strategies to instances of physical and
social
technologies. And he identifies the interactors and
selection mechanism of economic
evolution.
This allows Beinhocker to develop a new definition
of wealth.
In the rest of the book Beinhocker looks at the consequences of
adopting complexity economics for business and society: Strategy, Organization, Finance,
& Politics
& Policy.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS explores his conclusions
and aligns Beinhocker's model of CAS with the CAS theory and evidence we
leverage.
Economic complexity |
Sven Beckert describes the historic transformation of the
growing, spinning, weaving, manufacture of cotton goods and
their trade over time. He describes the rise of a first global
commodity, its dependence on increasing: military power, returns for
the control points in the value delivery system(VDS), availability of land
and labor to work it including slaves.
He explains how cotton offered the opportunity for
industrialization further amplifying the productive capacity of
the VDS and the power of the control points. This VDS was quickly
copied. The increased capacity of the industrialized
cotton complex adaptive system (CAS) required more labor to
operate the machines. Beckert describes the innovative introduction of wages
and the ways found to
mobilize industrial labor.
Beckert describes the characteristics of the industrial cotton
CAS which made it flexible enough to become globally interconnected.
Slavery made the production system so cost effective that all
prior structures collapsed as they interconnected. So when
the US civil war
blocked access to the major production nodes in the
American Deep South the CAS began adapting.
Beckert describes the global
reconstruction that occurred and the resulting destruction of the traditional ways
of life in the global countryside. This colonial expansion
further enriched and empowered the 'western' nation
states. Beckert explains how other countries responded
by copying the colonial strategies and creating the
opportunities for future armed conflict among the original
colonialists and the new upstarts.
Completing the adaptive
shifts, Beckert describes the advocates for industrialization in
the colonized global south and how over time they joined
the global cotton CAS disrupting the early western manufacturing
nodes and creating the current global CAS
dominated by merchants like Wal-Mart
pulling goods through a network of clothing manufacturers,
spinning and weaving factories, and growers competing with each
other on cost.
Following our summary of Beckert's book, RSS comments from the
perspective of CAS theory. The transformation of
disconnected peasant farmers,
pastoral warriors and their lands into a supply chain for a
highly profitable industrial CAS required the development over
time: of military force, global transportation and communication
networks, perception and representation control networks, capital stores and flows,
models, rules, standards and markets; along with the support at
key points of: barriers, disruption, and infrastructure and
evolved amplifiers. The emergent
system demonstrates the powerful constraining influence of
extended phenotypic alignment.
Globalization from cotton |
The structure and problems of the US
health care network is described in terms of complex adaptive
system (CAS) theory.
The network:
- Is deeply embedded in the US nation state. It reflects the
conflict between two
opposing visions for the US: high tax with safety net
or low tax without. The emergence
of a parasitic elite supported by tax policy, further
constrains the choices available to improve the efficiency
and effectiveness of the network.
- The US is optimized to sell its citizens dangerous
levels of: salt,
sugar, cigarettes,
guns, light, cell phones, opioids,
costly education, global travel,
antibacterials, formula, foods including
endocrine disrupters;
- Accepting the US controlled global supply chain's
offered goods & services results in: debt, chronic stress,
amplified consumption and toxic excess, leading to obesity, addiction, driving instead of
walking, microbiome
collapse;
- Globalization connects disparate environments in a network. At the edges,
humans are drastically altering the biosphere. That
is reducing the proximate natural environment's
connectedness, and leaving its end-nodes disconnected and
far less diverse. This disconnects predators from
their prey, often resulting in local booms and busts that
transform the local parasite
network and their reservoir and amplifier
hosts. The situation is setup so that man is
introduced to spillover
from the local parasites' hosts. Occasionally, but
increasingly, the spillover results in humanity becoming
broadly infected. The evolved
specialization of the immune system
to the proximate environment during development
becomes undermined as the environment transforms.
- Is incented to focus on localized competition generating
massive & costly duplication of services within
physician based health care operations instead of proven
public health strategies. This process drives
increasing research & treatment complexity and promotes hope
for each new technological breakthrough.
- Is amplified by the legislatively structured separation
and indirection of service development,
provision, reimbursement and payment.
- Is impacted by the different political strategies for
managing the increasing
cost of health care for the demographic bulge of retirees.
- Is presented with acute
and chronic
problems to respond to. As currently setup the network
is tuned to handle acute problems. The interactions
with patients tend to be transactional.
- Includes a legislated health insurance infrastructure
which is:
- Costly and inefficient
- Structured around yearly
contracts which undermine long-term health goals and
strategies.
- Is supported by increasingly regulated HCIT
which offers to improve data sharing and quality but has
entrenched commercial EHR
products deep within the hospital systems.
- Is maintained, and kept in
alignment, by massive network
effects across the:
- Hospital platform
based
sub-networks connecting to
- Physician networks
- Health insurance networks - amplified by ACA
narrow network legislation
- Hospital clinical supply and food
production networks
- Medical school and academic research network and NIH
- Global
transportation network
- Public health networks
- Health care IT supply
network
Health care |
Deaton describes the wellbeing
of people around the world today. He explains the powerful benefit of public
health strategies and the effect of growth in
material wellbeing but also the corrosive effects of
aid.
Following our summary of Deaton's arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory. The situation he describes is complex including
powerful amplifiers, alignment and incentives that overlap
broadly with other RSS summaries of adaptations of: The
biosphere, Politics, Economics,
Philosophy and Health care.
Improving wellbeing |
Donald Barlett and James Steele write about their investigations
of the major problems afflicting US
health care as of 2006.
Problems of US health care |
Glenn Steele & David Feinberg review the development of the
modern Geisinger healthcare business after its near collapse
following the abandoned merger with Penn State AMC. After an overview of the
business, they describe how a calamity
unfolding around them supported building a vision of a
better US health care network. And they explain:
- How they planned
out the transformation,
- Leveraging an effective
governance structure,
- Using a strategy
to gain buy in,
- Enabling
reengineering at the clinician patient
interface.
- Implementing the reengineering for acute, chronic
& hot
spot care; to help the patients and help the
physicians.
- Geisinger's leverage of biologics.
- Reengineering healing with ProvenExperience.
- Where Geisinger is headed next.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS comments on them. We
frame their ideas with complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory.
E2E insured quality care |
Robert Pearl explains the perspectives of a health care leader
and son who know that the current health care network interacts
with human behavior to induce a poorly performing system that
caused his father's death. But he is confident that these
problem perceptions can be changed. Once that occurs he
asserts the network will become more integrated, coordinated,
collaborative, better led, and empathetic to their
patients. The supporting technology infrastructure will be
made highly interoperable. All that will reduce medical
errors and make care more cost effective.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS comments on them. We
frame his ideas with complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
including synergistic examples of these systems in
operation. The health care network is built out of
emergent human agents. All agents must model the signals
they perceive to represent and respond to them. Pinker
explains how this occurs. Sapolsky explains why fear and
hierarchy are so significant. He includes details of Josh
Green's research on morality and death. Charles Ferguson
highlights the pernicious nature of financial incentives.
Bad medical models |
US healthcare is ripe for
disruption. Christensen, Grossman and Hwang argue that
technologies are emerging which will support low cost business
models that will undermine the current network. Applying
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory to these arguments suggests that the current power hierarchy can effectively resist
these progressive forces.
Disrupting health care |
Atul Gawande writes about the opportunity for a thirty per cent
improvement in quality in medicine by organizing
to deploy as agent based teams using shared schematic
plans and distributed signalling or as he puts it the use of checklists.
With vivid examples from a variety of situations including construction, air crew support and global health care Gawande illustrates
the effects of
complexity and how to organize to cope with it.
Following the short review RSS
additionally relates Gawande's arguments to its models of
complex adaptive systems (CAS) positioning his discussion within
the network of US health care,
contrasting our view of complexity, comparing the forces shaping
his various examples and reviewing facets of complex
failures.
Complexity checklists |
Friedman and Martin leverage the lifelong data collected on
1,528 bright individuals selected by Dr. Lewis Terman
starting in 1921, to understand what aspects of the subjects'
lives significantly affected their longevity. Looking
broadly across each subject's: Personality,
Education, Parental impacts,
Energy
levels, Partnering,
Careers, Religion,
Social networks,
Gender, Impact from war and
trauma; Friedman and Martin are able to develop a set of model pathways,
which each individual could be seen to select and travel
along. Some paths led to the traveler having a long
life. Others were problematic. The models imply that
the US approach to health and
wellness should focus
more on supporting
the development and selection of beneficial pathways.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of CAS theory. The pathways are most
applicable to bright individuals with the resources and support
necessary to make and leverage choices they make. Striving
to enter and follow a beneficial pathway seems sensible but may
be impossible for individuals trapped in a collapsing network,
starved of resources.
Promoting longevity |
Gawande uses his personal experience, analytic skills and lots
of stories of innovators to demonstrate better ways of coping
with aging and death. He introduces the lack of focus on
aging and death in traditional medicine. And goes on to
show how technology has amplified
this stress point. He illustrates the traditional possibility of the
independent self, living fully while aging with the
support of the extended family. Central
planning responded to the technological and societal changes
with poorly designed infrastructure and funding. But
Gawande then contrasts the power of
bottom up innovations created by experts responding to
their own family situations and belief
systems.
Gawande then explores in depth the challenges
that unfold currently as we age and become infirm.
He notes that the world is following the US path. As such it will
have to understand the dilemma of
integrating medical treatment and hospice
strategies. He notes that all parties
involved need courage to cope.
He proposes medicine must aim to assure
well being. At that point all doctors will practice
palliative care.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of agency, death,
evolution, cooperation and adaptations
to new technologies are discussed.
Agent death |
Sonia Shah reviews the millennia old (500,000 years) malarial arms race between Humanity, Anopheles
mosquitoes and Plasmodium. 250 - 500 million people are
infected each year with malaria and one million die.
Malaria |
Peter Medawar writes about key historic events in the evolution
of medical science.
Medical science events |
Using John Holland's theory of adaptation in complex
systems Baldwin and Clark propose an evolutionary theory of
design. They show how this can limit the interdependencies
that generate complexity
within systems. They do this through a focus on
modularity.
Modular designed systems |
Lou Gerstner describes the challenges he faced and the
strategies he used to successfully restructure the computer
company IBM.
Compartmented systems |
Grady Booch advocates an object oriented approach to computer
software design.
Object based systems |
Bertrand Meyer develops arguments, principles and strategies for
creating modular software. He concludes that abstract data
types and inheritence make object orientation a superior
methodology for software construction. Complex adaptive
system (CAS) theory suggests agents provide an alternative strategy
to the use of objects.
Software construction |
Tools and the businesses that produce them have evolved
dramatically. W Brian Arthur shows how this occurred.
Tools |
Matt Ridley demonstrates the creative effect of man on the
World. He highlights:
- A list of
preconditions resulting in
- Additional niche
capture & more free time
- Building a network
to interconnect memes processes & tools which
- Enabling inter-generational
transfers
- Innovations
that help reduce environmental stress even as they leverage fossil
fuels
Memetic trading networks |
E O. Wilson argues that campfire gatherings on the savanna supported
the emergence of human creativity. This resulted in man
building cultures and
later exploring them, and their creator, through the humanities. Wilson
identifies the transformative events, but he notes many of these
are presently ignored by the humanities. So he calls for a
change of approach.
He:
- Explores creativity:
how it emerged from the benefits of becoming an omnivore hunter-gatherer,
enabled by language & its catalysis of invention, through stories told in the
evening around the campfire. He notes the power of
fine art, but suggests music provides the most revealing
signature of aesthetic
surprise.
- Looks at the current limitations of the
humanities, as they have suffered through years of neglect.
- Reviews the evolutionary processes of heredity and
culture:
- Ultimate causes viewed
through art, & music
- The bedrock of:
- Ape senses and emotions,
- Creative arts, language, dance, song typically studied
by humanities,
&
- Exponential change in science and
technology.
- How the breakthrough from
our primate past occurred, powered by eating meat,
supporting: a bigger brain, expanded memory &
language.
- Accelerating changes now driven by genetic cultural coevolution.
- The impact on human nature.
- Considers our emotional attachment to the natural world: hunting, gardens; we are
destroying.
- Reviews our love of metaphor, archetypes,
exploration, irony, and
considers the potential for a third enlightenment,
supported by cooperative
action of humanities and science
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames these from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory:
- The humanities are seen to be a functionalist framework
for representing the cultural CAS while
- Wilson's desire
to integrate the humanities and science gains support from
viewing the endeavor as a network of layered CAS.
Evening campfire rituals |
Brynjolfsson and McAfee explore the effects of Moore's law on the
economy. They argue it has generated exponential
growth. This has been due to innovation.
It has created a huge bounty of
additional wealth.
But the wealth is spread unevenly across
society. They look at the short and long term implications of
the innovation bounty and spread
and the possible future of
technology.
Following our summary of their arguments RSS comments from the
perspective of CAS theory.
Brilliant technologies |
Salman Khan argues that the evolved global education system is
inefficient and organized around constraining and corralling
students into accepting dubious ratings that lead to mundane
roles. He highlights a radical and already proven
alternative which offers effective self-paced deep learning
processes supported by technology and freed up attention of
teams of teachers. Building on his personal experience of
helping overcome the unjustified failing grade of a relative,
Khan:
- Iteratively learns how to teach: Starting with Nadia, Leveraging
short videos focused on content,
Converging on mastery,
With the help of
neuroscience, and filling
in dependent gaps; resulting in a different approach
to the mainstream method.
- Assesses the broken US education system: Set in its ways, Designed for the 1800s,
Inducing holes that
are hidden by tests, Tests
which ignore creativity.
The resulting teaching process is so inefficient it needs to
be supplemented with homework.
Instead teachers were encouraging their pupils to use his tools at home so
they could mentor them while they attended school, an
inversion that significantly improves the economics.
- Enters the real world: Builds a scalable service,
Working with a
real classroom, Trying stealth
learning, At Khan Academy full time, In the curriculum at
Los Altos, Supporting life-long
learning.
- Develops The One World Schoolhouse: Back to the future with
a one
room school, a robust
teaching team, and creativity enabled;
so with some catalysis
even the poorest can
become educated and earn credentials
for current jobs.
- Wishes he could also correct: Summer holidays, Transcript based
assessments, College
education;
- Concludes it is now possible to provide the infrastructure
for creativity to
emerge and to support risk taking.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Disruption is a powerful force for
change but if its force is used to support the current teachers
to adopt new processes can it overcome the extended phenotypic alignment and evolutionary amplifiers sustaining the
current educational network?
Education versus guilds |
Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld's New York Times opinion based on The
Triple Package is summarized. Their ideas are then framed
by CAS theory and reviewed.
What drives success |
Peter Turchin describes how major pre-industrial empires
developed due to effects of geographic boundaries constraining
the empires and their neighbors' interactions. Turchin
shows how the asymmetries of breeding rates and resource growth
rates results in dynamic cycles within cycles. After the
summary of Turchin's book complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
is used to augment Turchins findings.
Warrior groups |
Through the operation of three different food chains Michael
Pollan explores their relative merits. The application of
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory highlights the value of evolutionary
testing of the food chain.
Natural systems |
E. O. Wilson & Bert Holldobler illustrate how bundled cooperative strategies can
take hold. Various social insects have developed
strategies which have allowed them to capture the most valuable
available niches. Like humans they invest in
specialization and cooperate to subdue larger, well equipped
competitors.
Insect superorganisms |
Computational
theory of the mind and evolutionary
psychology provide Steven Pinker with a framework on which
to develop his psychological arguments about the mind and its
relationship to the brain. Humans captured a cognitive niche by
natural selection 'building out'
specialized aspects of their bodies and brains resulting in a system of mental organs
we call the mind.
He garnishes and defends the framework with findings from
psychology regarding: The visual
system - an example of natural
selections solutions to the sensory challenges
of inverse
modeling of our
environment; Intensions - where
he highlights the challenges of hunter-gatherers -
making sense of the objects
they perceive and predicting what they imply and natural
selections powerful solutions; Emotions - which Pinker argues are
essential to human prioritizing and decision making; Relationships - natural selection's
strategies for coping with the most dangerous competitors, other
people. He helps us understand marriage, friendships and war.
These conclusions allow him to understand the development and
maintenance of higher callings: Art, Music, Literature, Humor,
Religion, & Philosophy; and develop a position on the meaning of life.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) modeling allows RSS to frame Pinker's arguments
within humanity's current situation, induced by powerful evolved
amplifiers: Globalization,
Cliodynamics, The green revolution
and resource
bottlenecks; melding his powerful predictions of the
drivers of human behavior with system wide constraints.
The implications are discussed.
Computationally adapted mind |
The stages of development of the human female, including how her brain changes and the
impacts of this on her 'reality' across a full life span:
conception, infantile
puberty, girlhood,
juvenile pause, adolescence, dating years, motherhood, post-menopause; are
described. Brizendine notes the significant difference in
how emotions are processed
by women compared to men.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory associates the stages with
the evolutionary under-pinning, psychological implications and
behavioral CAS.
Evolved female brain |
The complexity of behavior is explored through Sapolsky
developing scenarios of our best and worst behaviors across time
spans, and scientific subjects including: anthropology,
psychology, neuroscience, sociology. The rich network of adaptive flows he
outlines provides insights and highlight challenges for
scientific research on behavior.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory builds on Sapolsky's
details highlighting the strategies that evolution has captured
to successfully enter niches we now occupy.
CAS behavior |
Carlo Rovelli resolves the paradox of time.
Rovelli initially explains that low level physics does not
include time:
- A present that is common throughout the universe does not exist
- Events are only partially ordered. The present is
localized
- The difference between past and future is not foundational.
It occurs because of state that through our blurring appears
particular to us
- Time passes at different speeds dependent on where we are and how fast we travel
- Time's rhythms are due to
the gravitational field
- Our quantized physics shows neither
space nor time, just processes transforming physical
variables.
- Fundamentally there is no time. The basic equations
evolve together with events, not things
Then he
explains how in a physical world without time its perception can
emerge:
- Our familiar time emerges
- Our interaction with the world is partial, blurred,
quantum indeterminate
- The ignorance determines the existence of thermal time
and entropy that quantifies our uncertainty
- Directionality of time is real
but perspectival. The entropy of the world in
relation to us increases with our thermal time. The
growth of entropy distinguishes past from future: resulting in
traces and memories
- Each human is a
unified being because: we reflect the world, we
formed an image of a unified entity by
interacting with our kind, and because of the perspective
of memory
- The variable time: is one
of the variables of the gravitational field.
With our scale we don't
register quantum fluctuations, making space-time
appear determined. At our speed we don't perceive
differences in time of different clocks, so we experience
a single time: universal, uniform, ordered; which is
helpful to our decisions
Emergence of time |
Consciousness has confounded philosophers and scientists for
centuries. Now it is finally being characterized
scientifically. That required a transformation of
approach.
Realizing that consciousness was ill-defined neuroscientist
Stanislas Dehaene and others characterized and focused on conscious access.
In the book he outlines the limitations of previous
psychological dogma. Instead his use of subjective
assessments opened the
window to contrast totally unconscious
brain activity with those
including consciousness.
He describes the research methods. He explains the
contribution of new sensors and probes that allowed the
psychological findings to be correlated, and causally related to
specific neural activity.
He describes the theory of the brain he uses, the 'global neuronal
workspace' to position all the experimental details into a
whole.
He reviews how both theory and practice support diagnosis and
treatment of real world mental illnesses.
The implications of Dehaene's findings for subsequent
consciousness research are outlined.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the brain's development and
operation introduce constraints which are discussed.
Conscious access |
Reading and writing present a conundrum. The reader's
brain contains neural networks tuned to reading. With
imaging a written word can be followed as it progresses from the
retina through a functional chain that asks: Are these letters?
What do they look like? Are they a word? What does it sound
like? How is it pronounced? What does it mean? Dehaene
explains the importance of
education in tuning the brain's networks for reading as
well as good strategies for teaching reading and countering dyslexia. But
he notes the reading
networks developed far too recently to have directly evolved.
And Dehaene asks why humans are unique in developing
reading and culture.
He explains the cultural
engineering that shaped writing to human vision and the exaptations and neuronal structures that
enable and constrain reading and culture.
Dehaene's arguments show how cellular, whole animal and cultural
complex adaptive system (CAS) are
related. We review his explanations in CAS terms and use
his insights to link cultural CAS that emerged based on reading
and writing with other levels of CAS from which they emerge.
Evolved reading |
Read Montague explores how brains make decisions. In
particular he explains how:
- Evolution can create indirect abstract models, such as the dopamine system, that
allow
- Life changing real-time
decisions to be made, and how
- Schematic structures provide
encodings of computable control
structures which operate through and on incomputable,
schematically encoded, physically active structures and
operationally associated production
functions.
Receptor indirection |
Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson describe a scientific
investigation of meditation's
impact on the brain. They introduce
the book by describing their experiences with meditation,
science and the research establishment, their friendship, how
meditation is now used in two distinct ways: deep - leading to altered
traits & wide - that can reach the multitudes; which
the book reviews as it critiques the claims and research used to
back them up.
Goleman and Davidson describe meeting as Harvard psychology
graduate students, interested in consciousness, and how minds
work. They rebel against the behavioral orthodoxy, visit Asia and discover the Eastern
tradition of exploring and altering the mind.
Goleman had travelled to Sri Lanka to understand an Asian model
of the mind, which he presented to the undergraduates at
Harvard. Goleman and Davidson developed it into a shared vision of
consciousness. It took over twenty years for
scientific theory and experimental data to catch up and align
with this model. Much of the prior
experimental data had to be abandoned.
They introduce meditation's
impact on the amygdala
responding to pain and stress.
They look at the changes in:
- Stress
- Compassion
- Attention
- Self-awareness; and the
potential for use of mediation
in psychiatry.
And they warn of the occurrence of dark
nights.
They detail how scientists were able to study the brains of Tibetan meditation masters,
starting with Mingyur Rinpoche,
and detect meditation altering
traits.
Finally they discuss the potential
benefits of meditation and strategies to distribute it
broadly to a busy America.
Meditating neurons |
Tara Brach was worried from
a young age that there was something terribly wrong with
her: she like many others felt unworthy. She responded
by developing Radical
Acceptance. Brach then explains the steps in
applying it: pause,
greet what happens next with unconditional
friendliness; allowing us to:
- Initially attend to the sensations
of our body,
- Accept the
wanting self and discover its source of boundless
love.
- Welcome
fear with a widening
attention, accept the pain of death and become
free.
- Use adversity as a gateway to limitless compassion for ourselves
and others.
- Focus on
our basic goodness to counter Western culture turning anger, at being betrayed,
towards ourselves. Extend observing this goodness in
everyone. This enables the use of loving-kindness.
- Leverage
friendships to understand more about our shared nature
and strengthen Radical Acceptance.
- Realize our Buddha nature.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory describes the emergence of
the dualistic self and the tree of life linked by the genetic
code and machinery. It provides an analog of the Buddhist
presence.
Compassionate CAS |
The influence of childhood on behavior is significant.
Enneagrams define personality
types: Reformer, Helper, Achiever,
Individualist, Investigator, Loyalist, Enthusiast,
Challenger and Peacemaker; based on the impact of
childhood driven wounds.
The Enneagram becomes
a tool to enable interested people to transform from the
emotionally wounded base, hidden within
the armor of the type, to the liberated underlying essence.
Childhood leaves each of us with some environmentally specific Basic Fear. In response each
of us adopts an induced Basic Desire
of the type. But as we develop the inner observer, it will
support presence and
undermine the identification
that supports the armor of the type.
The Enneagram reveals three sets of relations about our type
armor:
- Triadic self
revealing: Instinctive,
feeling, thinking; childhood needs
that became significant wounds
- Social style
groupings: Assertive, compliant, withdrawn; strategies for
managing inner conflict
- Coping styles: Positive outlook, competency, reactive; strategies for
defending childhood wounds
Riso and Hudson augment the Enneagram with instinctual
distortions reflected in the interests of the variants.
The Enneagram also offers tools for understanding a person's level of development:
unhealthy, average, healthy,
liberation; including their
current center of gravity,
steriotypical social role,
wake-up call, leaden rule, red
flag, and direction
of integration and disintegration.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory associates the models
presented by the Enneagram with evolved behaviors and structures
in the mind: feelings, emotions, social behaviors, ideas; driven
by genetic and cultural evolution and the constraints of family
and social life. Emergent evolved amplifers can be
constrained by Riso and Hudson's awareness strategies.
Enneagram strategies |
Antonio Damasio argues
that ancient
& fundamental homeostatic processes,
built into
behaviors and updated by evolution
have resulted in the emergence
of nervous systems and feelings. These
feelings, representing the state of the viscera, and represented with general
systems supporting enteric
operation, are later ubiquitously
integrated into the 'images'
built by the minds of higher animals
including humans.
Damasio highlights the separate
development of the body frame in the building of
minds.
Damasio explains that this integration of feelings by minds
supports the development of subjectivity and consciousness. His chain of
emergence suggests the 'order of things.' He stresses the
end-to-end
integration of the organism which undermines dualism. And he reviews Chalmers
hard problem of consciousness.
Damasio reviews the emergence of cultures
and sees feelings, integrated with reason, as the judges of the
cultural creative process, linking culture to
homeostasis. He sees cultures as supporting the
development of tools
to improve our lives. But the results of the
creative process have added
stresses to our lives.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames his arguments from
the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Each of the [super]organisms
discussed is a CAS reflecting the theory of such systems:
- Damasio's proposals about homeostasis routed signalling, aligns
well with CAS theory.
- Damasio's ideas on cultural stresses are elaborated by CAS
examples.
Emergence of feelings |
Robert Coram highlights the noble life of John Boyd. John
spent a lot of time alone
during his childhood.
He: excelled at swimming and was a lifeguard, enlisted in the
Army Air Corp while at school which rejected him for pilot
training, was part of the Japan occupation force where he swam;
so the US paid for him to attend University
of Iowa, where he: joined the Air Force Officers' training
corps, was accepted to be an Air Force pilot, and got engaged to
Mary Bruce.
Boyd trained at Nellis AFB to become a
combat ready pilot in
the Korean War.
While the US Air Force focused on
Strategic bombing, Boyd loved
dogfights. His exceptional tactical ability was
rewarded with becoming an instructor. Boyd created new
ways to think about dogfighting and beat all-comers
by using them in the F-100.
He was noticed and enabled by Spradling. As he trained, and defeated the top
pilots from around the US and allied base network, his
reputation spread. But he needed to get
nearer to the hot spring in Georgia, and when his move to
Tyndall AFB was blocked he used the AFIT to train in engineering at
Georgia tech. While preparing to move he documented his FWS training
and mentored Ronald Catton.
While there he first realized the
link between energy
and maneuverability.
At Eglin, in partnership with Tom Christie,
he developed tools to model the link. They developed
comparisons of US and Soviet aircraft which showed the US
aircraft performing poorly. Eventually General Sweeney
was briefed on
the theory and issues with the F-105, F-4, and F-111.
Sent to the Pentagon
to help save the F-X budget, Boyd joined forces with Pierre Sprey to
pressure procurement into designing and
building tactically exceptional aircraft: a CAS tank killer and a
lightweight maneuverable
fighter. The navy aligned with
Senators of states with navy bases, prepared to sink the
F-X and force the F-14 on
the Air Force. Boyd saved
the plane from the Navy and the budget from Congress, ensuring
the Air Force executive and its career focused hierarchy had the
freedom to compromise
on a budget expanding over-stuffed F-X (F-15). Boyd requested to
retire, in disgust.
Amid mounting hostility from the organizational hierarchy Boyd
and Sprey secretly
developed specifications for building prototype lightweight
fighters with General Dynamics: YF-16;
and Northrop: YF-17; and enabled by Everest Riccioni.
David Packard
announced a budget of $200 million for the services to spend on
prototypes. Pierre Sprey's friend Lyle Cameron picked a
short takeoff and landing transport aircraft and Boyd's lightweight fighter to
prototype.
Boyd was transferred to Thailand
as Vice Commander of Task
Force Alpha, inspector general and equal opportunity
training officer; roles in which he excelled. And he
started working on his analysis of creativity: Destruction
and Creation. But on completion of the tour Boyd was
apparently abandoned and sent to run
a dead end office at the Pentagon.
The power hierarchy moved to protect the F-15, but: Boyd,
Christie, Schlesinger,
and the Air Force chief of staff; kept the
lightweight fighter budgeted and aligned with Boyd's
requirements in a covert campaign. The Air Force
threw a phalanx of developers at the F-16, distorting Boyd's
concept. He accepted he had lost the fight and retired
from the Air Force.
Shifting to scholarship Boyd reflects on how rigidity must be destroyed to enable
creative new assemblies. He uses the idea to explain
the operational success of the YF16 and F-86 fighters, and then
highlights how the pilot can take advantage of their
infrastructure advantage with rapid decision making he
explains with the O-O-D-A Loop.
Boyd encouraged Chuck Spinney
to expose the systemic cost overruns
of the military procurement process. The military
hierarchy moved to undermine the
Spinney Report and understand the
nature of the reformers. Boyd acted as a progressive
mentor to Michael
Wyly, who taught the
Marine Corps about maneuver
warfare, and Jim Burton.
Finally, after the military hierarchy appears to have
beaten him, Boyd's ideas are tested during
the First Gulf War.
Following our summary of his main points, RSS frames the details from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Boyd was Darwinesque, placing the art of
air-to-air combat within a CAS framework.
Air warrior |
Alfred Nemeczek reveals the chaotic, stressful life of Vincent
van Gogh in Arles.
Nemeczek shows that Vincent was driven
to create, and successfully
invented new methods of representing feeling in paintings, and
especially portraits. Vincent
worked hard to allow artists like him-self
to innovate. But
Vincent failed in this goal, collapsing into psychosis.
Nemeczek also provides a brief history of
Vincent's life.
Following our summary of his main points, RSS frames the details from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Vincent creates |
Reginald Dwight, better known as Elton John, writes a hilarious
memoir, full of anecdotal and sometimes morbid humor and gossip, which describes his
immediate family, upbringing, development as a singer
songwriter, stardom and its support for his problems, collapse
and eventual recovery.
Elton stresses the serendipitous nature
of his emergence as a musician. He describes
the contributions of his parents, Stanley & Sheila, mother's
sister, and her mother Ivy;
who formed his early
childhood proximate environment which prepared
him for a job in entertainment: he
developed his performance in the club circuits, setup a
commercial partnership with Bernie Taupin to write songs;
entering a network based around Dick James Music.
And he almost got married.
DJM focused Elton and Bernie's initial song writing
while they studied the songs they admired and Elton did session
work, tightening his performance skills and paying for the
food. A first album supported touring and the formation of
a band. A second one sent them to the US where Elton became an
overnight sensation. And during this period of time
Elton's testosterone
level ramped. Life changed
dramatically.
Stardom provided many rewards but there
were still life's problems to deal with. Elton was
befriended by his idol, John Lennon; he achieved new heights of
success but, sensitive to any hint of failure and fraud, suicidally disassociated.
His career crested, he struggled with loneliness and drugs, and
foresaw a fearful vision of his future, as fame caged him idly
in hotels between concerts. His hair abandoned him.
But he was saved by the challenge of
transforming the collapsed Watford football club. He
retired from touring which allowed him the time to reconstruct his life.
Empowered by success, supported by the removal of constraints,
Elton dominates - limiting feedback, doing whatever he
hopes will bring him happiness:
trying new options, expanding the range and increasing the
quantity of mind altering substances; eventually hitting John Reid and marrying
Renata.
He allows his drug use to enter the recording studio. Problems stress him. He is
frightened by a cancer
scare, AIDS, inspired by
Ryan White, angered by the
Sun, and saddened at
breaking Renata's heart. But he was there for Ryan White's
final days. And his lover Hugh Williams confronted Elton
about his string of addictions.
Elton finally agreed he had a problem.
He went to rehab, stopped hating himself,
gave up his current addictions, accepted the influence of a
higher force, and began admiring the everyday world and other
people.
It seemed the higher force was
supporting Elton's progress: he wrote the music for the
Lion King, met David Furnish who accepted Elton warts and all;
they both enjoyed a friendship with Gianni Versace; until Gianni
was murdered. Princess Diana
died soon after, and Elton performed at the funeral.
He toured with Billy Joel and aimed to do the same with Tina
Turner. While his new records sold well he found
himself in debt and terminated the management relationship
with John Reid
Enterprises.
Elton and Bernie improved their
situations: Elton started writing film scores, he helped
turn the film Billy Elliot into a musical, Bernie lobbied Elton
to improve the way they were making records, Elton and David
entered into a civil partnership, and Elton made a record with
his seminal influence: Leon
Russell.
Elton and David became parents of
two boys: Zachary and Elijah; using their sperm a surrogate
mother and network in California. They quietly get married
when the UK allows.
Elton's mum remains
difficult and cruel to him, but he is sad when she dies, and many
at the funeral recall her fun side with him. Being parents
increases the long-term
stresses on their lives, forcing them to adjust, so they can be there for their boys.
But Elton needs to go out with a bang!
And everyone helps.
Following our summary of his main points, RSS frames the details
of the creative process from the perspective of complex
adaptive system (CAS) theory.
My song |
Richard Feynman
outlines a series of amusing vignettes, as he reviews his life story.
Richard's personality
encouraged him to patiently
seek out fun: performing Shewhart cycles
with electricity, in his childhood laboratory, and aligning theory, and
practice through building and fixing radios.
Leonardo's life inspired him to try
innovation, which he
concluded was hard. He played
with the emotion
in communications, a skill
which he used later at
Caltech. And he made a game of avoiding following
orders at MIT. Working during
the holidays revealed the benefit of joining theory and
practice.
Feynman enrolled as a graduate
student at Princeton, where the successful
approach to science was just like his.
His approach was based on
patience and fun: he used his home lab and other tools for
qualitative exploration. Overtime he added experimental
techniques. He would test
the assertions in articles with amusing investigations;
with his mind aligned by
feelings of joy. Everyone at Princeton heard he would want to be hypnotized.
He was driven to compare the challenges of complex subjects being
taught at Princeton to his current pick. In his summer
recess he explored biology.
Gathering problems in challenging areas of science, and then picking one to solve, supported his
creativity. And his practical
orientation and situation when growing up in Far Rockaway,
supported his desire for choices
and adolescent dislike for purely intellectual and cultural
pursuits. Being mostly self-taught, he
developed different approaches to problems than the
standard strategies provided by mass education.
Richard saw his skill set as very different to that exhibited by his father. But are they very
different?
While Richard was at Princeton, America became concerned about
the implications of the European war. After a friend
enlisted he decided to dedicate his
summer holiday to helping the war effort. Feynman got involved in the
Manhattan Project, and went to Los Alamos where he
experienced constraints, applied by: the military, the
physics of the project, him on Niels
Bohr; but was
freed from them by Von
Neumann. The records & reports of the project
were kept in filing cabinets. Richard explored the weaknesses of
the locks and safes deployed to secure these
secrets. Just after the war he was called up by the draft
board for a medical but was rejected for being mentally
unfit.
After the war, Richard was asked to become a professor at Cornell.
He initially struggled in this role: Too young to match
expectations, stressed by the demands of his new job and his
recent experiences; until he adopted an approach that focused on
fun. He enjoyed knowing
about numbers: using, learning about them and the tools to
use them, and competing with others; to calculate, interpolate
and approximate a value the fastest.
Traveling to Buffalo in a light plane once a week to give a
physics lecture before flying back the next morning wasn't much
fun for Richard. So he used
the stipend to visit a bar after each lecture to meet
beautiful women. Richard liked bars and nightclubs, spending a summer in Albuquerque
frequenting one, and later
ones in Las Vegas, as he explored how to get the girls he
drank with to sleep with him.
Richard reflects on various times when he made government
officials obey their parts of contracts: patent fees, limits on red tape;
Richard became frustrated with his life at Cornell, seeing more
things that interested him on the sunny west coast at Caltech. Both
institutions, and Chicago, offered him incentives to help his decision making,
but Richard began to find reevaluating the alternatives a waste
of time and he saw risks in
a really high salary, deciding he would move to Caltech
and stay there.
Richard is invited to attend a scientific symposium in
Japan. Each of the US attendees is asked to learn a little
Japanese. Richard takes lessons, persists, can converse
effectively, but stops when he
finds the cultural parts of the language conflict with his
individualism.
Richard was unhappy with his achievements in physics. He
felt: slower than his peers, not keeping up or understanding the
latest details, fearful that
he could not cope; as the community
worked to understand the laws of beta decay. But
Martin Block pushed him to question the troubling parity
premise. Encouraged by Oppenheimer the community focused
on parity and failures were discovered in a cascade of
reports. Richard attended a meeting where Lee & Yang
discussed a failure and a theory to explain it. Richard
felt terrified and could not understand what they said.
His sister pushed him to change his attitude: act like a student
having fun, read every
line and equation of their paper; he would understand it.
And he did, as well as developing additional insights about what
was happening and what still seemed conflicted. He
reported his ideas back to the community. After Richard
returned from Brazil he reviewed the confusion of facts with
Caltech's experimental physicists who made him aware of
Gell-mann abandoning another former premise of Beta decay.
Feynman realized his ideas were consistent: fully and simply
describing the details of beta decay. He had identified
the workings of a fundamental law. Years later he was awarded the Nobel
prize for physics. He was conflicted about the prize
and attending the ceremony, but eventually enjoyed the trip,
where he discussed cultural achievement with the Japanese
ambassador.
Richard was interested in the operation of the brain, modeling
it on a digital computer. He explored hallucinations and the reality of
experiences.
Richard lobbies for integrity
in science.
In aspects of his life that weren't focused directly on science,
Richard was quirky. He would tease those who asked for his
help: pushing bargains to their logical conclusion; insisting on everyone keeping to
their part of the agreement. And he paid no attention to the
logistical details of planning. He loved percussion,
playing: drums, bongos, baskets, tables, Frigideira; and became quite a success. He
eventually discovered art could be
fun, and tried to express his joy at the underlying
mathematical beauty of the physical world. He had a great
art teacher. But he discovered although he could
eventually draw well he did not understand art.
Many of the artists he met were fakers, and even the powerful,
who were interested in integrating art and science, did not
understand either subject. He found the situation was
similar in other complex adaptive systems: philosophy, religion and
economics; which he dabbled in for a while but found the
strategies of other people practicing the study of such subjects
made him angry and
disturbed, so he avoided participating in them. It seemed
ironic that he was eventually asked to help in bringing
culture to the physicists!
He discusses issues in teaching creative physics in Brazil. He gets
involved in the California public school text
book selection process which he concluded was totally
broken, but also reveals how his father
provided him with a vision of how our world works,
inspiring his interest in experimentation and physical
theory.
Following our summary of his main points, RSS reviews how his personality, family and cultural history supported
his creative development from the perspective of complex
adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Richard draws |
Desmond & Moore paint a picture of Charles Darwin's life,
expanded from his own highlights:
- His naughty
childhood,
- Wasted
schooldays,
- Apprenticeship with Grant,
- His extramural
activities at Cambridge, walks with Henslow,
life with FitzRoy on the
Beagle,
- His growing
love for science,
- London: geology, journal and Lyell.
- Moving from
Gower Street to Down and writing Origin and other
books.
- He reviewed his position on
religion: the long
dispute with Emma, his
slow collapse of belief
- damnation for unbelievers like his father and brother, inward conviction
being evolved and unreliable, regretting he had ignored his father's
advice; while describing Emma's side of the
argument. He felt happy with his decision to dedicate
his life to science. He closed by asserting after Self &
Cross-fertilization his strength will be
exhausted.
Following our summary of their main points, RSS frames the details from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Darwin placed
evolution within a CAS framework, and built a network of supporters whose
complementary skills helped drive the innovation.
Darwin emerges |
Richard Dawkin's explores how nature has created implementations
of designs, without any need for planning or design, through the
accumulation of small advantageous changes.
Accumulating small changes |
Russ Abbott explores the impact on science of epiphenomena and
the emergence of agents.
Autonomous emergence |
Terrence Deacon explores how constraints on dynamic flows can
induce emergent phenomena
which can do real work. He shows how these phenomena are
sustained. The mechanism enables
the development of Darwinian competition.
Constraint based phenomena |
|
|
Inventing Christian America
Summary
Kevin Kruse argues that from 1930 onwards the corporate elite
and the Republican party have developed and relentlessly
executed strategies to undermine Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal was FDR's political platform to help the poor, support the economy and reform the banking system. The architects included Henry Morgenthau, Harry Hopkins, and Frances Perkins, who leveraged Al Smith's social welfare reform program plan. The New Deal: - Included liberal legislation: Emergency Banking Relief Act, Banking Act, SSA, Securities Act, Securities Exchange Act, National Housing Act, NIRA, National Labor Relations Act, FLSA, RTAA, Wealth Tax Act;
- Used Presidential executive orders,
- Enhanced the role of federal government in promoting economic growth with programs supporting:
- Reformed trade policy with the RTAA.
- Blocked deflation by limiting economic competition with the NRA.
- Rural standard of living through electrification with the REA and TVA.
- Reduced unemployment with the WPA and CCC.
- Made taxation progressive through the Wealth Tax Act, capturing private wealth and allowing income to flow to the emergent middle class.
. Their
successful strategy used the credibility of conservative
religious leaders now aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. Pinker notes the evolved pressure of social rivalry associating power with leadership. Saposky observes the disconnect between power hierarchies and wisdom in apes. John Adair developed a modern leadership methodology based on the three-circles model. to:
Following our summary of his arguments RSS is Rob's Strategy Studio frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Strategy is the art of the possible. But it also depends
on persistence.
One Nation Under God
In Kevin Kruse's book
'One Nation Under God' he describes the inception and iterative
execution of corporate America's strategic plans to undermine
Franklin Roosevelt's (FDR is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He is notable for his contributions to the US CAS: - New Deal strategies including:
- Lend-lease which pushed the US and Japan into World War 2 and helped the US to become the world's predominant military power.
- Bretton Woods's agreement which economically constrained any politically driven collapse of the world economy after the war and helped the US to become the world's predominant economic power.
) New Deal was FDR's political platform to help the poor, support the economy and reform the banking system. The architects included Henry Morgenthau, Harry Hopkins, and Frances Perkins, who leveraged Al Smith's social welfare reform program plan. The New Deal: - Included liberal legislation: Emergency Banking Relief Act, Banking Act, SSA, Securities Act, Securities Exchange Act, National Housing Act, NIRA, National Labor Relations Act, FLSA, RTAA, Wealth Tax Act;
- Used Presidential executive orders,
- Enhanced the role of federal government in promoting economic growth with programs supporting:
- Reformed trade policy with the RTAA.
- Blocked deflation by limiting economic competition with the NRA.
- Rural standard of living through electrification with the REA and TVA.
- Reduced unemployment with the WPA and CCC.
- Made taxation progressive through the Wealth Tax Act, capturing private wealth and allowing income to flow to the emergent middle class.
.
Kruse highlights Eisenhower's 1952 "great crusade for freedom"
campaign, developed with advice and religious references from
Billy Graham, as a This page discusses the impact of random events which once they
occur encourage a particular direction forward for a complex
adaptive system (CAS).
frozen accident,
leveraging a national Salman Khan argues that the evolved global education system is
inefficient and organized around constraining and corralling
students into accepting dubious ratings that lead to mundane
roles. He highlights a radical and already proven
alternative which offers effective self-paced deep learning
processes supported by technology and freed up attention of
teams of teachers. Building on his personal experience of
helping overcome the unjustified failing grade of a relative,
Khan:
- Iteratively learns how to teach: Starting with Nadia, Leveraging
short videos focused on content,
Converging on mastery,
With the help of
neuroscience, and filling
in dependent gaps; resulting in a different approach
to the mainstream method.
- Assesses the broken US education system: Set in its ways, Designed for the 1800s,
Inducing holes that
are hidden by tests, Tests
which ignore creativity.
The resulting teaching process is so inefficient it needs to
be supplemented with homework.
Instead teachers were encouraging their pupils to use his tools at home so
they could mentor them while they attended school, an
inversion that significantly improves the economics.
- Enters the real world: Builds a scalable service,
Working with a
real classroom, Trying stealth
learning, At Khan Academy full time, In the curriculum at
Los Altos, Supporting life-long
learning.
- Develops The One World Schoolhouse: Back to the future with
a one
room school, a robust
teaching team, and creativity enabled;
so with some catalysis
even the poorest can
become educated and earn credentials
for current jobs.
- Wishes he could also correct: Summer holidays, Transcript based
assessments, College
education;
- Concludes it is now possible to provide the infrastructure
for creativity to
emerge and to support risk taking.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Disruption is a powerful force for
change but if its force is used to support the current teachers
to adopt new processes can it overcome the extended phenotypic alignment and evolutionary amplifiers sustaining the
current educational network?
re-education
infrastructure that helped America learn to believe it had
always been religious. Kruse challenges the resulting
present day assumption of a close relationship between religion
and politics. He asserts that the historical record shows
the founding fathers' preference for a wall of separation
between church and state. Since this is no longer the
popular notion of the constitutional relationship Kruse asks
'why is there a difference?' He concludes there were two
key influences:
- The onset of the cold war, and
- A republican faith based response to FDR is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He is notable for his contributions to the US CAS:
- New Deal strategies including:
- Lend-lease which pushed the US and Japan into World War 2 and helped the US to become the world's predominant military power.
- Bretton Woods's agreement which economically constrained any politically driven collapse of the world economy after the war and helped the US to become the world's predominant economic power.
's New Deal. This
was a corporate strategy initiated by the NAM is the National Association of Manufacturers. and the USCC is the United States Chamber of Commerce . They appealed
to evangelicals through 'free enterprise' and 'Christian
libertarianism.' The message was popularized by
Abraham Vereide, Billy Graham, Herbert Hoover and Ronald
Reagan. But it was This page discusses the benefits of bringing agents and resources to the
dynamically best connected region of a complex adaptive system (CAS).
centralized
by Eisenhower with:
Eisenhower's popular election with his public acts of faith was
catalytic, an infrastructure amplifier. .
Eisenhower came from a deeply religious family. He
responded from a basic belief in god. He was baptized
while in office. He was the first President to attend a
national prayer breakfast and to open his cabinet meetings with
prayers. In 1953 he declared the US is the United States of America. government was based on
biblical principles. In 1954 Congress solidified the claim
adding 'under God' to the pledge of allegiance.
The 1950s were the first age of religious consensus which
enabled a new idea 'public religiosity'.
Freedom under God
After the 1929 crash, Great Depression and New Deal was FDR's political platform to help the poor, support the economy and reform the banking system. The architects included Henry Morgenthau, Harry Hopkins, and Frances Perkins, who leveraged Al Smith's social welfare reform program plan. The New Deal: - Included liberal legislation: Emergency Banking Relief Act, Banking Act, SSA, Securities Act, Securities Exchange Act, National Housing Act, NIRA, National Labor Relations Act, FLSA, RTAA, Wealth Tax Act;
- Used Presidential executive orders,
- Enhanced the role of federal government in promoting economic growth with programs supporting:
- Reformed trade policy with the RTAA.
- Blocked deflation by limiting economic competition with the NRA.
- Rural standard of living through electrification with the REA and TVA.
- Reduced unemployment with the WPA and CCC.
- Made taxation progressive through the Wealth Tax Act, capturing private wealth and allowing income to flow to the emergent middle class.
it became
necessary for a new generation of Republicans to rehabilitate
their party. With little public credibility for the
previous strategy based on G.M. and DuPont funding for the 1934
American Liberty League and its call for:
the leadership now aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. Pinker notes the evolved pressure of social rivalry associating power with leadership. Saposky observes the disconnect between power hierarchies and wisdom in apes. John Adair developed a modern leadership methodology based on the three-circles model.
including: J. E. Hoover and corporate executives of General
Motors (G.M.), General Electric (G.E.),
Standard Oil (S.O.), Mutual Life (M.L.), Sears Roebuck; meeting
at NAM is the National Association of Manufacturers. in Dec. 1940
agreed to an indirect strategy proposed by NAM president Prentis
- Free Enterprise Gospel supported by public relations through:
films, radio, advertising, mail, press releases; driven by
NAM.
Reverend James Fifield provided the theological framework - he
argued the New Deal violated the 10 commandments:
- Stealing the rich's property
- New Deal is a false idol
- Christianity was to save individuals (capitalism) not the
socialist welfare state.
Fifield's First Congregational Church of Los Angeles promoted:
- Christian libertarianism 'under God'.
- Business success as God's blessing.
- That the New Deal violated the constitution and ideas of
the founding fathers.
Spiritual Mobilization
In 1938 First Congregational Church took control of Spiritual
Mobilization, founded in 1935.
Spiritual Mobilization produced pamphlets, backed by Herbert
Hoover, critical of FDR is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He is notable for his contributions to the US CAS: - New Deal strategies including:
- Lend-lease which pushed the US and Japan into World War 2 and helped the US to become the world's predominant military power.
- Bretton Woods's agreement which economically constrained any politically driven collapse of the world economy after the war and helped the US to become the world's predominant economic power.
calling on the clergy to reject the New Deal was FDR's political platform to help the poor, support the economy and reform the banking system. The architects included Henry Morgenthau, Harry Hopkins, and Frances Perkins, who leveraged Al Smith's social welfare reform program plan. The New Deal: - Included liberal legislation: Emergency Banking Relief Act, Banking Act, SSA, Securities Act, Securities Exchange Act, National Housing Act, NIRA, National Labor Relations Act, FLSA, RTAA, Wealth Tax Act;
- Used Presidential executive orders,
- Enhanced the role of federal government in promoting economic growth with programs supporting:
- Reformed trade policy with the RTAA.
- Blocked deflation by limiting economic competition with the NRA.
- Rural standard of living through electrification with the REA and TVA.
- Reduced unemployment with the WPA and CCC.
- Made taxation progressive through the Wealth Tax Act, capturing private wealth and allowing income to flow to the emergent middle class.
. After FDR is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He is notable for his contributions to the US CAS: - New Deal strategies including:
- Lend-lease which pushed the US and Japan into World War 2 and helped the US to become the world's predominant military power.
- Bretton Woods's agreement which economically constrained any politically driven collapse of the world economy after the war and helped the US to become the world's predominant economic power.
overreached -
attempting to restructure and stuff the supreme court, and
taking the economy is a human SuperOrganism complex adaptive system (CAS) which operates and controls trade flows within a rich niche. Economics models economies. Robert Gordon has described the evolution of the American economy. Like other CAS, economic flows are maintained far from equilibrium by: demand, financial flows and constraints, supply infrastructure constraints, political and military constraints; ensuring wealth, legislative control, legal contracts and power have significant leverage through evolved amplifiers. into
recession; Fifield gained more powerful backing.
By 1942 First Congregational had huge congregations including
the wealthy is schematically useful information and its equivalent, schematically useful energy, to paraphrase Beinhocker. It is useful because an agent has schematic strategies that can utilize the information or energy to extend or leverage control of the cognitive niche. and
powerful:
- Harry Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times,
- Robert Millikan was an influential physicist, who determined experimentally the charge on the electron. He was influential in the Christian conservative movement, helping Hoover to battle the New Deal. He was president of Caltech. Millikan was a key node in the academic network linking it with AT&T's Bell Laboratories.
,
president of Caltech,
- Harvey Mudd,
- chemical industry executive, and subsequently USCC is the United States Chamber of Commerce
president and
Senator, Albert Hawkes,
- Cecil B. DeMille the Hollywood film maker
Once the war finished J. Howard Pew, of Sun Oil joined the
campaign. He brought skills in strategic action which he
applied to Spiritual Mobilization. And Alfred Haake,
Rutgers's economics chair and key influence at GM pushed for the
campaign to change tactics are goals and actions which respond to the actions of the enemy in a combat, rather than focusing on ones own strategic direction. .
He argued the campaign was too obviously manipulative.
Instead by making the clergy active participants, Spiritual
Mobilization would gain more traction. Haake argued to
help the clergy to discover that their callings were threatened
by the New Deal. And they responded with many requesting
copies of Herbert Hoover's anti New Deal notes and Hayek's
H. A. Hayek compares and contrasts collectivism and
libertarianism.
Road to Serfdom. They joined
Spiritual Mobilization as representatives, increasing their
commitment. The change worked. 12,000 minister
representatives, of mixed denominations including Jews,
generated traction, which catalyzed more, un-attributable,
investment from business. G.M., DuPont, Cyanamid and L.A.
Chamber of Commerce provided funds and fund raising.
When the left attacked Fifield the right added more
funding. And by 1948 they could build on the initial fears
of the cold war and Truman's reelection and potential
socialized:
- Security
- Labor
Salman Khan argues that the evolved global education system is
inefficient and organized around constraining and corralling
students into accepting dubious ratings that lead to mundane
roles. He highlights a radical and already proven
alternative which offers effective self-paced deep learning
processes supported by technology and freed up attention of
teams of teachers. Building on his personal experience of
helping overcome the unjustified failing grade of a relative,
Khan:
- Iteratively learns how to teach: Starting with Nadia, Leveraging
short videos focused on content,
Converging on mastery,
With the help of
neuroscience, and filling
in dependent gaps; resulting in a different approach
to the mainstream method.
- Assesses the broken US education system: Set in its ways, Designed for the 1800s,
Inducing holes that
are hidden by tests, Tests
which ignore creativity.
The resulting teaching process is so inefficient it needs to
be supplemented with homework.
Instead teachers were encouraging their pupils to use his tools at home so
they could mentor them while they attended school, an
inversion that significantly improves the economics.
- Enters the real world: Builds a scalable service,
Working with a
real classroom, Trying stealth
learning, At Khan Academy full time, In the curriculum at
Los Altos, Supporting life-long
learning.
- Develops The One World Schoolhouse: Back to the future with
a one
room school, a robust
teaching team, and creativity enabled;
so with some catalysis
even the poorest can
become educated and earn credentials
for current jobs.
- Wishes he could also correct: Summer holidays, Transcript based
assessments, College
education;
- Concludes it is now possible to provide the infrastructure
for creativity to
emerge and to support risk taking.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Disruption is a powerful force for
change but if its force is used to support the current teachers
to adopt new processes can it overcome the extended phenotypic alignment and evolutionary amplifiers sustaining the
current educational network?
Education
- Medicine
- Industry.
A series of radio broadcasts were built around the implicit
theme of 'creeping socialism'. They were structured as
public service announcements ensuring free air time.
A monthly
magazine Faith and Freedom featured Leonard Read, Ludwig von
Mises, and Henry Hazlitt of the American Enterprise Institute
but positioned itself as for ministers by ministers. It
solicited sermons but filtered out the liberal responses as immoral provides rules for identifying right from wrong. It develops in stages with children using play to work out rules of appropriate behavior. Kohlberg's 1950s experiments using children led him to conclude moral judgement is a cognitive process that develops in three stages. Sapolsky raises issues with the framework: Its a model, It does not apply to other cultures, Intuition & emotion are as significant as cognition, Moral reasoning doesn't predict moral actions; and notes the capacity of the frontal cortex to regulate emotions and behavior is far more predictive. The marshmallow test, performed on three to six year olds, actually predicted their subsequent SAT scores at high school, social success and lack of aggression, and forty years on more PFC activation during a frontal task and a lower BMI! Jonathan Haidt argues people's moral decisions are rationalizations rather than using reasoning. . Articles
were consistently libertarian with a focus on Freedom under God,
all advancing conservatism but they varied in style and
sophistication.
The preamble of the declaration of independence helped reframe
by omission the founding fathers arguments on more government
and the rule of law. Suitably tailored the argument was
read by Gregory Peck. The committee to proclaim liberty
sponsored adverts featuring the declaration. The committee
included luminaries from:
- Politics - Herbert Hoover
- Hollywood - Bing Crosby, C.E. DeMille, Walt. Disney,
Ronald Reagan
- Military - Douglas Macarthur
- Industry - Pew, Hilton, Hutchinson (Chrysler), Kraft,
McBain (Marshall Field), C.E. Wilson (G.M.), Hutton, Maytag,
Luce, Penney, NAM is the National Association of Manufacturers. , USCC is the United States Chamber of Commerce
;
The committee asked clergy to provide instances based on the
theme "freedom Under God." J Walter Thompson, the
advertising experts promoted radio broadcasts of sermons to be
delivered on Independence Sunday. C. B. DeMille produced
the program featuring Hollywood stars: Jimmy Stewart, Lionel
Barrymore, Gloria Swanson, Bing Crosby; The nation started to
think of itself as "under god."
The great crusade
On 23 Sep. 1949 the US is the United States of America. learned
that the Soviet Union had atomic weapons. This adds weight
to Billy Graham's position that communism is a religion and God
is against communism. Major news groups started to educate
the US populous that the US must get religious. Graham
moves from obscurity to a national figure. 250,000 attend
Graham's Los Angeles revival. The Billy Graham Evangelical
Association helped popularize public prayer and it spread the
message of Spiritual
Mobilization more subtly and effectively.
Kruse explains that the roots of the religious revival go back
to the 1930s activities of James
Fifield. In 1949 religious revival was amplified by:
- Eisenhower's presidential campaign which provided
political development for public prayer, leveraging the
established campaign started to undermine the New Deal was FDR's political platform to help the poor, support the economy and reform the banking system. The architects included Henry Morgenthau, Harry Hopkins, and Frances Perkins, who leveraged Al Smith's social welfare reform program plan. The New Deal:
- Included liberal legislation: Emergency Banking Relief Act, Banking Act, SSA, Securities Act, Securities Exchange Act, National Housing Act, NIRA, National Labor Relations Act, FLSA, RTAA, Wealth Tax Act;
- Used Presidential executive orders,
- Enhanced the role of federal government in promoting economic growth with programs supporting:
- Reformed trade policy with the RTAA.
- Blocked deflation by limiting economic competition with the NRA.
- Rural standard of living through electrification with the REA and TVA.
- Reduced unemployment with the WPA and CCC.
- Made taxation progressive through the Wealth Tax Act, capturing private wealth and allowing income to flow to the emergent middle class.
.
Eisenhower encouraged a religious positioning for his
campaign, supported by Billy Graham's ideas. And in
1952 as President Elect, asked Graham's help to develop a
spiritual renewal.
- Abraham
Vereide's prayer breakfasts supported the political
development of public prayer. Vereide had been a
minister in Seattle in 1915. He worked for Goodwill
industries proving to be a very effective manager. FDR is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He is notable for his contributions to the US CAS:
- New Deal strategies including:
- Lend-lease which pushed the US and Japan into World War 2 and helped the US to become the world's predominant military power.
- Bretton Woods's agreement which economically constrained any politically driven collapse of the world economy after the war and helped the US to become the world's predominant economic power.
recognized his
skills. As Vereide became intimate with the effects of
the depression he concluded its issues were spiritual and moral provides rules for identifying right from wrong. It develops in stages with children using play to work out rules of appropriate behavior. Kohlberg's 1950s experiments using children led him to conclude moral judgement is a cognitive process that develops in three stages. Sapolsky raises issues with the framework: Its a model, It does not apply to other cultures, Intuition & emotion are as significant as cognition, Moral reasoning doesn't predict moral actions; and notes the capacity of the frontal cortex to regulate emotions and behavior is far more predictive. The marshmallow test, performed on three to six year olds, actually predicted their subsequent SAT scores at high school, social success and lack of aggression, and forty years on more PFC activation during a frontal task and a lower BMI! Jonathan Haidt argues people's moral decisions are rationalizations rather than using reasoning. as well as
material. During the 1934 San Francisco dockworkers'
strike Vereide gave spiritual guidance to business leaders now aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. Pinker notes the evolved pressure of social rivalry associating power with leadership. Saposky observes the disconnect between power hierarchies and wisdom in apes. John Adair developed a modern leadership methodology based on the three-circles model. . His
attempt to save the country from strikes was helped by his
partnership with property developer Walter Douglass and
leverage of funding and contracts from William St. Clair,
one of the richest men in Seattle. With their support
Vereide developed prayer breakfasts for elite
businessmen. The Seattle breakfasts were so successful
that prayer breakfasts seeded into other areas. The
breakfasts became national, with powerful This page discusses the effect of the network on the agents participating in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). Small
world and scale free networks are considered.
network effects, including
Washington D.C. where attendance was mainly from Congressmen
and the breakfasts became a fixture. There was
participation from the USCC is the United States Chamber of Commerce
and backing from the corporate elite. Billy Graham
continued on Vereide's work.
- Graham's evangelical revivals. Graham was the most
prominent of the new Christian libertarians spreading the
ideas of Fifield. Graham disliked government
involvement in the economy is a human SuperOrganism complex adaptive system (CAS) which operates and controls trade flows within a rich niche. Economics models economies. Robert Gordon has described the evolution of the American economy. Like other CAS, economic flows are maintained far from equilibrium by: demand, financial flows and constraints, supply infrastructure constraints, political and military constraints; ensuring wealth, legislative control, legal contracts and power have significant leverage through evolved amplifiers.
.
He demonstrated to business leaders the power of prayer
which could improve the public image of companies.
Similarly Graham argued against organized labor claiming it
was not Christian. Graham's crusade in Columbia South
Carolina was supported by an on stage appearance from
Governor Strom Thurmond. Millions came to hear Graham
speak. A significant admirer was Sid Richardson was a Texan oil man who provided guidance and financial backing for the political careers of Sam Rayburn, Lyndon Johnson and Dwight Eisenhower as well as evangelical Billy Graham. His executive secretary was John Connally.
who provided Graham with funding, direction and political
access to President Truman. But Truman wasn't
interested in Graham's strategy. Still Graham used
Richardson's contacts to force acceptance of a 'national
prayer day'. Richardson and Graham then catalyzed and
supported the presidential campaign of Eisenhower in
1952.
Government under god
President Elect Eisenhower argued "Our form of government has no
sense unless it is grounded in a deeply-felt religious faith,
and I don't care what it is." The right leveraged
Eisenhower's flexibility and included Judaism, Catholicism and
Protestantism. Eisenhower viewed religion as uniting and
linking to the past. So he was keen to increase belief
within America.
Eisenhower had long supported the Freedom Foundation with its
vision of free enterprise making America great. The
foundation's president was advertising executive Don Belding who
was an ally of James Fifield.
They promoted Faith
& Freedom's Christian Libertarianism.
Eisenhower and Herbert Hoover had together composed the charter
for the foundation in 1948. The charter linked:
The creed became part of the Eisenhower presidential
campaign. Boy scouts took the joint message to voter's
door steps. Eisenhower made it a concrete fixture in the
federal government. Libertarianism was consequently
propping up government.
Eisenhower stressed inclusion and re-iterated yearly support for
the American Legion's 'Back to God' movement. NBC
supported free transmission of the 'Back to God' televised
specials. Jewish, protestant and catholic clerics were
included. Eisenhower and Vice president Nixon were
featured speakers. Nixon promoted fighting moral provides rules for identifying right from wrong. It develops in stages with children using play to work out rules of appropriate behavior. Kohlberg's 1950s experiments using children led him to conclude moral judgement is a cognitive process that develops in three stages. Sapolsky raises issues with the framework: Its a model, It does not apply to other cultures, Intuition & emotion are as significant as cognition, Moral reasoning doesn't predict moral actions; and notes the capacity of the frontal cortex to regulate emotions and behavior is far more predictive. The marshmallow test, performed on three to six year olds, actually predicted their subsequent SAT scores at high school, social success and lack of aggression, and forty years on more PFC activation during a frontal task and a lower BMI! Jonathan Haidt argues people's moral decisions are rationalizations rather than using reasoning. collapse.
Eisenhower supported fellow Kansan, New Deal was FDR's political platform to help the poor, support the economy and reform the banking system. The architects included Henry Morgenthau, Harry Hopkins, and Frances Perkins, who leveraged Al Smith's social welfare reform program plan. The New Deal: - Included liberal legislation: Emergency Banking Relief Act, Banking Act, SSA, Securities Act, Securities Exchange Act, National Housing Act, NIRA, National Labor Relations Act, FLSA, RTAA, Wealth Tax Act;
- Used Presidential executive orders,
- Enhanced the role of federal government in promoting economic growth with programs supporting:
- Reformed trade policy with the RTAA.
- Blocked deflation by limiting economic competition with the NRA.
- Rural standard of living through electrification with the REA and TVA.
- Reduced unemployment with the WPA and CCC.
- Made taxation progressive through the Wealth Tax Act, capturing private wealth and allowing income to flow to the emergent middle class.
hating Senator
Carson who developed the national prayer breakfast with support
from Conrad Hilton. Eisenhower enjoyed it and also
attended in subsequent years building a new tradition.
Eisenhower helped institutionalize religion through his
administration. He required prayers at Cabinet. The
Cabinet then pushed Government under God to their
agencies.
Eisenhower was an enthusiastic supporter of the National
Association of Evangelical's manifesto. Its "Statement of
Seven Divine Freedoms" was intended to replace FDR is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He is notable for his contributions to the US CAS: - New Deal strategies including:
- Lend-lease which pushed the US and Japan into World War 2 and helped the US to become the world's predominant military power.
- Bretton Woods's agreement which economically constrained any politically driven collapse of the world economy after the war and helped the US to become the world's predominant economic power.
's four freedoms were articulated by President Franklin Delano Roosvelt. They are: - Freedom of speech and expression
- Freedom of every person to worship God in his own way
- Freedom from want ... everywhere in the world
- Freedom from fear ... everywhere in the world
.
Once again the republican movement was focused on destroying the
New Deal rather than any foreign threat.
But Eisenhower resisted Republican attacks on the welfare
state.
Pledging Allegiance
Northern ministers concluded the civil war occured because of
the Godlessness of the Constitution. The National Reform
Association proposed Christian amendments to the
Constitution. The Eisenhower administration assisted
Senator Charles Sumner's Christian amendment. But
admitting the original constitution was not religious was
inconsistent with the administration's general position.
It had argued that America was a Christian Nation as shown by
history. They cited court room oaths of 'so help me
God'. Eugene Rostow's ceremonial deism allow the courts to
ignore challenges to their use.
The pledge of allegiance was composed in 1892 but only became
'the pledge' after world war two in Dec. 1945 act of Congress
made it official.
In 1952 Democratic representative Louis Rabaut promoted adding
'Under God' to the pledge. It was accepted by Congress on
Jun. 8th 1954. It was made law by Eisenhower on Jun. 14th
1954.
Salmon Chase, Secretary of the Treasury is the department of the treasury. It is a federal government executive department created by Act of Congress in 1789 to manage government revenue. The Secretary of the Treasury is a Cabinet officer. With monetary policy devolved to the Federal Reserve, treasury manages fiscal policy. To support funding of high cost investments: Disaster recovery, Wars, Famines; the treasury can issue debt instruments and manage the national debt. in 1864 lobbied
for authorization from Congress to add 'In God we trust and distrust are evolved responses to sham emotions. During a friendship where no sham emotions have been detected trust will build up. ' to the coinage.
But Lincoln dismissed the idea. Eisenhower, John Foster
Dulles and Postmaster general Summerfield agreed to add 'In God
we trust' to the stamps. It proved popular and accelerated
the push to add the phrase on the money. Representative
Bennett sponsored 'In God we trust' on the dollar bill in
1956.
Pitchmen for piety
In 1955 Ronald Reagan, Walt Disney and ABC television linked
religion (Jewish, Protestant, Catholic) to Disney's new theme
park. Walt Disney was a Congregationalist who used
Christianity as a guide.
Back in 1941 a strike at Disney had shifted Walt from a
supporter of FDR is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He is notable for his contributions to the US CAS: - New Deal strategies including:
- Lend-lease which pushed the US and Japan into World War 2 and helped the US to become the world's predominant military power.
- Bretton Woods's agreement which economically constrained any politically driven collapse of the world economy after the war and helped the US to become the world's predominant economic power.
and the New Deal was FDR's political platform to help the poor, support the economy and reform the banking system. The architects included Henry Morgenthau, Harry Hopkins, and Frances Perkins, who leveraged Al Smith's social welfare reform program plan. The New Deal: - Included liberal legislation: Emergency Banking Relief Act, Banking Act, SSA, Securities Act, Securities Exchange Act, National Housing Act, NIRA, National Labor Relations Act, FLSA, RTAA, Wealth Tax Act;
- Used Presidential executive orders,
- Enhanced the role of federal government in promoting economic growth with programs supporting:
- Reformed trade policy with the RTAA.
- Blocked deflation by limiting economic competition with the NRA.
- Rural standard of living through electrification with the REA and TVA.
- Reduced unemployment with the WPA and CCC.
- Made taxation progressive through the Wealth Tax Act, capturing private wealth and allowing income to flow to the emergent middle class.
to the
right. And then following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the
US Army commandeered the studio as a supply base. After
the war Disney was a staunch conservative.
In 1958 Walt developed Liberty Street to celebrate 'one nation
under God.' After technical difficulties the street would
wait until the development of Disney World in Florida.
Kruse notes that political leaders now aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. Pinker notes the evolved pressure of social rivalry associating power with leadership. Saposky observes the disconnect between power hierarchies and wisdom in apes. John Adair developed a modern leadership methodology based on the three-circles model.
and religious reformers were powerfully supported by Hollywood
and Madison Avenue. The film and advertising moguls had
been constrained by New Deal F.T.C. regulation including checks
on false claims. They organized a 1941 conclave at Hot
Springs Virginia, where global advertiser J. Walter Thompson's
marketing star James Webb Young urged the industry to close
ranks with corporate America and defend its interests as their
own. He noted that they had the power to control the
channels of advertising communications. They should create
"public service" campaigns.
It was agreed to develop the Advertising Council including
advertisers and their corporate clients. The council would
promote:
- Bond drives,
- Material conservation campaigns
After the war ended the council continued with public services
acts. These were really public relations activities,
selling the American people on free enterprise. And they
also helped Americans to resist becoming pawns of the master
state. Religion in American life (RAIL) was the council's
most influential effort. And it was aligned with Spiritual Mobilization.
J. Walter Thompson executed the campaign "Go to Church." G.E.'s
Wilson was chair of the RAIL campaign. Union Carbide's
Boggs coordinated with the Advertising Council. Radio,
Readers Digest, Sports Illustrated carried the message.
Social clubs and community organizations were supplied with
templates of the execution plan to build on. Church
attendance through 1956 increased.
Hollywood's DeMille was originally a socialist but disliked the
New Deal effects so he worked with House Un-American Activities
committee in 1945. Good Americans, allied with James Fifield were contesting
the religious high ground with liberals.
Whose religious
tradition?
Kruse writes about the Gideon's "line extension" from placing
bibles in hotel and hospital rooms to supplying bibles to each
serviceman during World War 2 and then New Testaments to 5th to
12th graders. Targeting children of varied faiths was
contentious raising issues relating to the separation of church
and state. Different state
courts judgments on the practice disagreed. Kruse explains
that in contrast to Eisenhower's national but vague deism these
acts by the Gideon's were local and specific. New Jersey's
State Supreme court, for example, condemned the Rutherford
school board for allowing the Gideon's to distribute.
Then in late 1951 the New York Board of Regents overseeing all
public Salman Khan argues that the evolved global education system is
inefficient and organized around constraining and corralling
students into accepting dubious ratings that lead to mundane
roles. He highlights a radical and already proven
alternative which offers effective self-paced deep learning
processes supported by technology and freed up attention of
teams of teachers. Building on his personal experience of
helping overcome the unjustified failing grade of a relative,
Khan:
- Iteratively learns how to teach: Starting with Nadia, Leveraging
short videos focused on content,
Converging on mastery,
With the help of
neuroscience, and filling
in dependent gaps; resulting in a different approach
to the mainstream method.
- Assesses the broken US education system: Set in its ways, Designed for the 1800s,
Inducing holes that
are hidden by tests, Tests
which ignore creativity.
The resulting teaching process is so inefficient it needs to
be supplemented with homework.
Instead teachers were encouraging their pupils to use his tools at home so
they could mentor them while they attended school, an
inversion that significantly improves the economics.
- Enters the real world: Builds a scalable service,
Working with a
real classroom, Trying stealth
learning, At Khan Academy full time, In the curriculum at
Los Altos, Supporting life-long
learning.
- Develops The One World Schoolhouse: Back to the future with
a one
room school, a robust
teaching team, and creativity enabled;
so with some catalysis
even the poorest can
become educated and earn credentials
for current jobs.
- Wishes he could also correct: Summer holidays, Transcript based
assessments, College
education;
- Concludes it is now possible to provide the infrastructure
for creativity to
emerge and to support risk taking.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames them from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Disruption is a powerful force for
change but if its force is used to support the current teachers
to adopt new processes can it overcome the extended phenotypic alignment and evolutionary amplifiers sustaining the
current educational network?
education in the state
composed a school prayer, the "Regents' Prayer" they hoped would
be read at public schools' daily flag ceremonies. Many
local authorities adopted the policy and prayer. But the
very generality of the prayer conflicted with the specific
traditions of different communities. The New York courts
including the State Supreme Court accepted the Regents' Prayer
as reflecting the long history of religion in the US.
However, in 1962 the US Supreme Court looked carefully at the
"ceremonial deism" central to the case.
The Supreme Court case aimed to clarify how the use of the
prayer in school could be any different to the many other
situations where religious artifacts were tolerated in public
institutions. Children can't choose. In 1962 the
majority of justices required the prayer be removed from schools
but they accepted ceremonial deism. But a minority of
justices disagreed that this compromise was valid and so did the
popular press. Political leaders now aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. Pinker notes the evolved pressure of social rivalry associating power with leadership. Saposky observes the disconnect between power hierarchies and wisdom in apes. John Adair developed a modern leadership methodology based on the three-circles model. including
Eisenhower, Hoover and some Southern Senators disagreed with the
decision. While religious leaders eventually concluded the
decision was acceptable their congregations disagreed.
Our so-called
religious leaders
In Oct 1963 the Citizens Congressional Committee (CCC) sent a
huge petition to Congress requesting a constitutional amendment
permitting "devotional exercises" in public schools and opposing
the 1962 Supreme Court
decision.
The executive secretary of the CCC was former advertising
executive Charles Winegarner. He promoted the committee as
representing individuals from every Congressional district and
every state. But being a nephew of Gerald Smith, promotor
of right wing causes, undermined his credibility.
Nevertheless, the prayer amendment had broad popular appeal and
was seen as a means to overturn the Supreme Court's decision.
By the spring of 1964, 113 representatives and 27 senators
introduced 146 amendments to restore prayer and bible practice
to public schools. Prominent members of the lay population
were pro-amendment. Representative Frank Becker introduced
the amendment and was fully committed to getting it
passed.
Opponents of school prayer felt the proposals damaged the 1st
amendment. Representative Emanuel Celler, chair of the
house judiciary committee, was a liberal Jew who opposed the
proposed amendments. He argued that "No matter how narrow
such a proposal may be it is, nevertheless, an opening wedge
toward elimination of one of our basic tenets, the separation of
church & state."
Celler stopped any amendment from exiting the committee.
Becker responded with a procedure to force the amendment forward
-- a discharge
petition is a House procedure which once it gains enough votes (51%) forces the majority leader to bring a bill to the floor for an up-and-down vote. -- as long as he could raise 213 representatives'
signatures. He received the backing of the American
Legion, the Lions and other groups. Constitutional Prayer
Amendment Inc. was formed by Conrad Hilton, 13 Governors, Jackie
Robinson, Cardinal Spelman, Bishop Pike and William Randolph
Hearst to force the amendment out of the committee.
Celler held hearings lasting six weeks to gain Carlo Rovelli resolves the paradox of time.
Rovelli initially explains that low level physics does not
include time:
- A present that is common throughout the universe does not exist
- Events are only partially ordered. The present is
localized
- The difference between past and future is not foundational.
It occurs because of state that through our blurring appears
particular to us
- Time passes at different speeds dependent on where we are and how fast we travel
- Time's rhythms are due to
the gravitational field
- Our quantized physics shows neither
space nor time, just processes transforming physical
variables.
- Fundamentally there is no time. The basic equations
evolve together with events, not things
Then he
explains how in a physical world without time its perception can
emerge:
- Our familiar time emerges
- Our interaction with the world is partial, blurred,
quantum indeterminate
- The ignorance determines the existence of thermal time
and entropy that quantifies our uncertainty
- Directionality of time is real
but perspectival. The entropy of the world in
relation to us increases with our thermal time. The
growth of entropy distinguishes past from future: resulting in
traces and memories
- Each human is a
unified being because: we reflect the world, we
formed an image of a unified entity by
interacting with our kind, and because of the perspective
of memory
- The variable time: is one
of the variables of the gravitational field.
With our scale we don't
register quantum fluctuations, making space-time
appear determined. At our speed we don't perceive
differences in time of different clocks, so we experience
a single time: universal, uniform, ordered; which is
helpful to our decisions
time to build support. Over time
Celler got the backing of church leaders now aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. Pinker notes the evolved pressure of social rivalry associating power with leadership. Saposky observes the disconnect between power hierarchies and wisdom in apes. John Adair developed a modern leadership methodology based on the three-circles model. who argued
against the amendments:
- Threat to the 1st amendment
- Waters down the work of the churches.
Religious publications: Christian Science Monitor, Christian
Century; agreed with the church leaders against Becker.
By week three of the hearings, popular opinion shifted across to
align with the church leaders. By week six, Celler
concluded the Becker amendment will fail.
Spiritual Mobilization
responded to the killing of the Becker Amendment by forming a
national lay committee of the National Council of Churches (NCC)
which denounced the NCC for proclamations about "secular
affairs."
There was a similar strategy to get the Senate to pass an
amendment. Jim Eastland was in charge of the Senate
Judiciary Committee and was interested in proceeding. But
many Senators accepted the Supreme
Court's arguments. Everett Dirksen of Illinois took
up the cause, arguing popular discontent with the Supreme Court
decision was building. His amendment was cosponsored by 47
other Senators. And conservative entertainers promoted the
amendment through Pat Boone's Project Prayer Program.
Senate hearings tested who represented the laity. Was it
the church leaders or politicians? The Senate rejected the
amendment. But conservative clerics concluded their views
were being undermined by liberals.
Which side are you on?
Kruse notes how George Wallace's presidential campaign bumper
stickers included:
- Wallace for President
- One Nation Under God
Wallace was leveraging Richard Nixon and Billy Graham's political
strategy. Nixon was convinced of the power of aligning
with religion having been Eisenhower's vice president and seen
Graham's work first hand. He asserted that he lost the
1960 presidential race because Life did not publish Billy
Graham's endorsement of him. Graham assisted Nixon's 1968
run for president with an open endorsement. They worked
together to promote Nixon's campaign.
When Nixon became President, Graham was made part of the White
House team. Graham focused on associating piety and
patriotism with the Right. Nixon and Graham's words were
interchangeable.
Nixon made a conscious calculated use of religion as a political
instrument. This pushed Americans apart reversing
Eisenhower's inclusiveness.
Nixon's inauguration was highly religious. The Religious
Observance Committee set the tone, driven by Judge Leedom the
former leader now aims to develop plans and strategies which ensure effective coordination to improve the common good of the in-group. Pinker notes the evolved pressure of social rivalry associating power with leadership. Saposky observes the disconnect between power hierarchies and wisdom in apes. John Adair developed a modern leadership methodology based on the three-circles model. of Vereide's
International Council for Christian Leadership. It:
- Called for religious observances in all churches and
synagogues in the week before the inauguration.
- Distributed a 'conservative' collection of prayers and
readings. These:
- Called on God, obedience and subservience to government
- Complained about anti-war protestors
- Focused on Law and Order
- Made a full scale service (multi denominational) part of
the inauguration program. Other presidents had prayed
in private.
Billy Graham provided a long invocation declaring:
Nixon delivered a sermon:
- Linked to Graham's prayer.
- Referencing God.
J Willard Marriot was the inaugural committee chair.
Nixon repeated Graham's themes a week later at the National Prayer
Breakfast. But Nixon revealed he was acting.
He commented to an aid "He'd simply fed the crowd some church
stuff to keep them happy." Some of the people were worried
about all the pomp and uniforms.
Nixon and Graham setup Sunday services at the White House:
- Graham planned the services & what conservative
preachers should lead them. The White House verified
they supported Nixon. One instance used Reverend Henry
Edward Russell, the brother of the powerful southern
Senator, Richard Russell of Georgia who was at that time in
charge of the committee that would judge Nixon's
anti-ballistic-missile treaty plan.
- Nixon was keenly interested in the details sending a
stream of memos to Haldeman.
- Nixon's cabinet attended. Attendees usually included
business leaders from:
A government sanctioned monopoly
supported the construction of a superorganism
American Telephone and
Telegraph
(AT&T). Within this Bell Labs was at the center of
three networks:
- The evolving global scientific
network.
- The Bell telephone network. And
- The military
industrial network deploying 'fire and missile
control' systems.
Bell Labs strategically leveraged each network to create an innovation
engine.
They monitored the opportunities to leverage the developing
ideas, reorganizing to replace incumbent
opposition and enable the creation and growth of new
ideas.
Once the monopoly was
dismantled, AT&T disrupted.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the innovation mechanisms are
discussed.
AT&T,
Bechtel, Chrysler, Continental Can, G.E.,
G.M., Goodyear, PepsiCo and Republic Steel; with the White
House using the opportunity to lobby for campaign
contributions.
- The citizens worried that it was overly political.
The White House noted the Sunday Services were the most popular
activities they hosted. They ran for Nixon's full
Presidency. Nixon used the services as a sanctuary and
conservative rallying point as his expansion of the war into
Cambodia increased the level of protests.
The press responded negatively to the political nature of the
prayer services. The Washington Post challenged the
sincerity of "White House Religion."
Religious leaders also started to criticize them. Reinhold
Niebuhr argued Nixon had broken the first article of the bill of
rights.
Nixon looked to hold a Pro-America Christian Rally for the
Silent Majority on the 4th of July. He leveraged a Billy
Graham Crusade. It was difficult, or illegal, to disrupt a
religious service. Graham pretended the rally was not
political. It was a huge success -- the largest public
gathering that had been held in the state
of Tennessee. It was very beneficial to Nixon.
Graham
followed the crusade with 'Honor America Day', a Nixon rally
with Bob Hope in Washington D.C. looking back nostalgically at
the 1950s. Marriot did the fund raising leveraging
contributions from J. Howard Pew, Patrick Frawley and major
corporations. The Nixon administration had their advance
man Ronald Walker mobilize the Silent Majority. It was
good practice for the election campaign two years later.
Epilogue
Ronald
Reagan accepted the Republican presidential nomination ten years
after the Honor
America Day. Billy Graham gave the invocation to a
white, middle class, conservative crowd. Reagan added to
the script. "Only a divine providence could have created
the U.S.A." He began the crusade with a silent prayer and
then said "God bless America."
Reagan's political hero had been FDR is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He is notable for his contributions to the US CAS: - New Deal strategies including:
- Lend-lease which pushed the US and Japan into World War 2 and helped the US to become the world's predominant military power.
- Bretton Woods's agreement which economically constrained any politically driven collapse of the world economy after the war and helped the US to become the world's predominant economic power.
but he became captivated by Eisenhower and shifted to being a
Republican. Reagan leveraged Eisenhower themes.
Reagan/Bush called for a constitutional amendment to restore
prayer in schools. But it was blocked in Congress.
They wanted to win votes of the religious right associated with
Jerry Falwell at all costs. Religious conservatives
rallied to Reagan.
Reagan didn't attend church often but he never missed a National Prayer
Breakfast. He pushed to make them partisan.
They rallied about:
- God being expelled from the class room.
- Bible reading
- Abortion
- School prayer
In his 1983 reelection Reagan aimed to energize the religious
right. Christian conservative publishers printed books
about Regan being divinely ordained. Reagan criticized the
Supreme Court on on school prayer. Reagan asserted
"politics and morality provides rules for identifying right from wrong. It develops in stages with children using play to work out rules of appropriate behavior. Kohlberg's 1950s experiments using children led him to conclude moral judgement is a cognitive process that develops in three stages. Sapolsky raises issues with the framework: Its a model, It does not apply to other cultures, Intuition & emotion are as significant as cognition, Moral reasoning doesn't predict moral actions; and notes the capacity of the frontal cortex to regulate emotions and behavior is far more predictive. The marshmallow test, performed on three to six year olds, actually predicted their subsequent SAT scores at high school, social success and lack of aggression, and forty years on more PFC activation during a frontal task and a lower BMI! Jonathan Haidt argues people's moral decisions are rationalizations rather than using reasoning.
are inseparable."
George H. W. Bush tried to follow Reagan's lead. He was
friendly with Billy Graham. Graham started a crusade to
support Bush. Bush obtained the nomination but inherited a
party tightly linked to the religious right.
Bill Clinton was a proudly religious Southern Baptist linked to
reverend Robert Schuller. And Al. Gore was a Baptist
too. They forced Bush to retreat from his Reagan like
position.
George W. Bush was
a born again Christian:
In 2002 a Federal court disallowed -One Nation Under God- in a
2000 case Newdow v. Elk Grove Unified School District, but the
Supreme Court dodged the issue arguing Newdow had no right to
stand.
This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory provides an organizing framework that is
used by 'life.' It can be used to evaluate and rank models
that claim to describe our perceived reality. It catalogs
the laws and strategies which underpin the operation of systems
that are based on the interaction of emergent
agents. It highlights the
constraints that shape CAS and so predicts their form. A
proposal that does not conform is wrong.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS theory views strategy as the This page discusses the mechanisms and effects of emergence
underpinning any complex adaptive system (CAS). Physical forces and
constraints follow the rules of complexity. They generate
phenomena and support the indirect emergence of epiphenomena.
Flows of epiphenomena interact in events which support the
emergence of equilibrium and autonomous
entities. Autonomous entities enable evolution
to operate broadening the adjacent possible.
Key research is reviewed.
emergent process of Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agent's iteratively developing and
persistently executing Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic plans.
The schemata used by the corporate elite to respond to the New Deal was FDR's political platform to help the poor, support the economy and reform the banking system. The architects included Henry Morgenthau, Harry Hopkins, and Frances Perkins, who leveraged Al Smith's social welfare reform program plan. The New Deal: - Included liberal legislation: Emergency Banking Relief Act, Banking Act, SSA, Securities Act, Securities Exchange Act, National Housing Act, NIRA, National Labor Relations Act, FLSA, RTAA, Wealth Tax Act;
- Used Presidential executive orders,
- Enhanced the role of federal government in promoting economic growth with programs supporting:
- Reformed trade policy with the RTAA.
- Blocked deflation by limiting economic competition with the NRA.
- Rural standard of living through electrification with the REA and TVA.
- Reduced unemployment with the WPA and CCC.
- Made taxation progressive through the Wealth Tax Act, capturing private wealth and allowing income to flow to the emergent middle class.
attack include:
Walter Shewhart's iterative development process is found in many
complex adaptive systems (CAS).
The mechanism is reviewed and its value in coping with random
events is explained.
Iterative development of the
strategic response from NAM is the National Association of Manufacturers. 's
goals, conservative church men's goals
and the judgments of
strategic architects'.
Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
Genetic operation to create
combined Judeo-Christian theology to allow Wasp and Jewish
corporate elites to work together.
- Competitive allele, one of multiple alternative forms of a schematic sequence with the same address on a schematic string.
to FDR is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He is notable for his contributions to the US CAS:
- New Deal strategies including:
- Lend-lease which pushed the US and Japan into World War 2 and helped the US to become the world's predominant military power.
- Bretton Woods's agreement which economically constrained any politically driven collapse of the world economy after the war and helped the US to become the world's predominant economic power.
's liberal ideas and memetic
deployment control development.
This page discusses the benefits of proactively strengthening
strong points.
Prophylactic support of conservative clergy,
and the new allele.
- Leverage
of
This page reviews the catalytic
impact of infrastructure on the expression of phenotypic effects by an
agent. The infrastructure
reduces the cost the agent must pay to perform the selected
action. The catalysis is enhanced by positive returns.
infrastructure amplifiers to
educate American's about the new ideas.
This page discusses the benefits of bringing agents and resources to the
dynamically best connected region of a complex adaptive system (CAS).
Centralization of the strategy
through Eisenhower by Sid Richardson was a Texan oil man who provided guidance and financial backing for the political careers of Sam Rayburn, Lyndon Johnson and Dwight Eisenhower as well as evangelical Billy Graham. His executive secretary was John Connally. .
This page reviews the strategy of setting up an arms race. At its
core this strategy depends on being able to alter, or take
advantage of an alteration in, the genome
or equivalent. The situation is illustrated with examples
from biology, high tech and politics.
Evolved amplifiers to leverage
the opportunity into Republican
election success.
This page reviews the inhibiting effect of the value delivery system on the
expression of new phenotypic
effects within an agent.
Extended phenotypic alignment
ensures the corporate elite rapidly
builds revenue and wealth as American's more broadly
- Benefit from the initial effects of Reagan's
Globalization and so
- Allow President
Clinton's acceptance of the restructuring of the
Charles Ferguson argues that the US power structure has become
highly corrupt.
Ferguson identifies key events which contributed to the
transformation:
- Junk bonds,
- Derivative
deregulation,
- CMOs,
ABS and analyst fraud,
- Financial network deregulation,
- Financial network consolidation,
- Short term incentives
Subsequently the George W. Bush administration used the
situation to build
a global bubble, which Wall Street
leveraged. The bursting of the
bubble: managed
by the Bush Administration and Bernanke Federal Reserve;
was advantageous to some.
Ferguson concludes that the restructured and deregulated
financial services industry is damaging to
the American economy. And it is supported by powerful, incentive aligned academics.
He sees the result being a rigged system.
Ferguson offers his proposals
for change and offers hope that a charismatic young FDR will appear.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on them framed by
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory. Once the constraints are removed from CAS
amplifiers, it becomes advantageous to leverage the increased flows. And it is often
relatively damaging not to participate. Corruption and parasitism can become
entrenched.
financial and Matt Taibbi describes the phenotypic
alignment of the American justice system. The result
he explains relentlessly grinds the poor and undocumented into
resources to be constrained, consumed and ejected. Even as
it supports and aligns the financial infrastructure into a
potent weapon capable of targeting any company or nation to
extract profits and leave the victim deflated.
Taibbi uses five scenarios to provide a broad picture of the:
activities, crimes, policing, prosecutions, court processes,
prisons and deportation network. The scenarios are:
Undocumented people's neighborhoods, Poor neighborhoods, Welfare
recipients, Credit card debtors and Financial institutions.
Following our summary of his arguments, RSS comments on them framed by
complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. The alignment of the
justice system reflects a set of long term strategies and
responses to a powerful global arms race that the US leadership intends to
win.
justice systems.
Kruse documents the inception, growth and success of Corporate
America's strategic invention of Judeo Christian America.
It serves as a powerful illustration of the impact of strategy
on our lives.
.
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