PJ @pj@qoto.org

Very interesting article:
#mastodon #fediverse #thecommons #restorativejustice
"Mastodon Isn't Just A Replacement For Twitter"
https://www.noemamag.com/mastodon-isnt-just-a-replacement-for-twitter/

#7books of #nonfiction:

1️⃣Summa Technologiae - Stanisław Lem
2️⃣The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
3️⃣An Introduction to Cybernetics - W. Ross Ashby
4️⃣Thinking in Systems - Donella H. Meadows
5️⃣The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement - Eliyahu M. Goldratt
6️⃣At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity - Stuart Kauffman
7️⃣A Question of Physics: Conversations in Physics and Biology conducted by Paul Buckley and David F. Peat

#7books of #fiction:

1️⃣ Summa Technologiae - Stanisław Lem
2️⃣The Glass Bead Game - Hermann Hesse
3️⃣The Foundation series - Isaac Asimov
4️⃣The Teachings of Don Juan - Carlos Castañeda
5️⃣Earth's Children series - Jean M. Auel
6️⃣Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach
7️⃣Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse

Economist James Quilligan and Charles Eisenstein discuss #GiftEconomy and #TheCommons

https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/gift-economy#:~:text=A%20gift%20economy%20is%20one,%2C%20community%2C%20honor%20or%20prestige.

I was updating my Bio and realized I've never had a proper #introduction. So here it is:

Retired #systems_engineering professional and #organizational_change coach with years of experience in the #military and #aerospace domains.

WRT to #STEM, I'm primarily interested in the #Science and #Engineering of #Systems. My attitude towards #Technology is opportunistic (will use whatever works best for the occasion) and I consider #Mathematics a necessary evil to get things done properly.

My experience with #computing technology starts in the late 70's on a room-sized IBM machine and #FORTRAN programs on punch-cards, transitioned to the HPL #BASIC on an HP 9825A "fully algebraic desktop calculator" and ended abruptly with the "peeking" and "poking" on a ZX81.

Even if I was reasonably good at it, after getting my first DOS/Windows PC to play with on something called the #internet, I fell in love with things like #writing, #drawing, and #exploring new ideas, that could be done much better and faster with this new gadget, and soon decided that being a #user, doing the #design and #testing while dealing with other #people to define #product and #process #requirements is much more fun than the actual #development of the #software product itself.

I'm very glad I found this #community where we can "Question Others to Teach Ourselves". Please feel free to ask questions and argue with my views. Be sure I'll be doing the same. Nothing is sacred. There are no stupid questions, just BS answers.

Stay safe and be nice to other people.

@pj

Radio Paradise, from Eureka CA, a pioneer in the "#gifteconomy" is hiring a CTO:

"We'll pay you enough to live here comfortably. Semi-generous by local standards, low compared to SF, LA, NYC or London. “Enough” is all any of us aspire to make here. We're not capitalists. We participate – gratefully – in a gift economy. That's a huge part of why we love coming to work each day."

Check it out, forward to anyone who might be interested, or just listen the superb lineups of music on multiple different streams. It's free.😘

https://radioparadise.com/blog/cto

Viktor Frankl on the Human Search for Meaning
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/03/26/viktor-frankl-mans-search-for-meaning/

Good thing #quantity does not always correlate with #quality.

#Identitypolitics does not promote #diversity.

"Táíwò’s project is reclamation. “It’s a starting point,” he said of the concept’s original use. “It’s compatible with working on common problems with people from other identity groups.”"

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/olufemi-taiwo-identity-politics-elite-capture.html

I've always considered #identity, much like #knowledge, an #individual's own, personal, tacit, unique attribute, evolved through a lifetime and representing the history of all social interactions they had with their environment.

I find the modern #identitytheory focus on the many #social "identities" (father, golfer, employee, etc ...) one has during the day, wrong.

In my view, these are just external #roles one assumes and plays in different #systems they are part of. They may define #what an individual is but not #who they are.

In fact, I believe that it is #who an individual is that affect #how they do #what they do in the role they are given.

I also consider the largely accepted academic #theory presented in the attached document as the direct cause of our present dysfunctional society marred by #identitypolitics.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314243231_The_Development_of_Identity_Theory

I vividly recall my first HP Pocket Calculator with Reverse Polish Notation I had during my undergraduate studies:

https://hpmuseum.org/hp35.htm

“#Freedom is normally seen as a privilege and not a reason to be afraid. But many people did fear freedom, Ms. Müller commented on the developments in Eastern Europe. The initial euphoria of finally being set free had soon worn off and evaporated, replaced in many places by fear. #Fear, she said, “is as complicated as freedom.” Adding momentum, organized fear is at the heart of all authoritarian regimes, which try to literally raise people to be afraid.”

https://www.bosch-stiftung.de/en/news/how-authoritarian-regimes-create-climate-fear

I just hope that after a century people have smartened up and the instantaneous and global news cycle on social media can make a difference in how we react to the completely natural #fear of change:
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/george-orwell-s-1940-review-of-mein-kampf

Terrific article about how the “Move fast and break things” philosophy inevitably leads to the rise of group #identity-based #totalitarian societies.
In fact, all #revolutions need a "cleanup" time to establish the "new order" and restore all the good things they have broken in the process.
https://www.noemamag.com/the-perils-of-smashing-the-past/

From "The Socratic Way Of Questioning":

"A #definition must be both #clear and #distinct. It must express “the perfect idea" of a thing, but if we cannot have perfect clarity, we should at least have "perfect distinctness.” so that it is not mistaken for some other thing".

In other words, if you are not able to properly describe what a thing IS, try to explain what the thing ISN'T.

Very glad I found this community. Please don't stop Question Others to Teach Ourselves😀

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59712099-the-socratic-way-of-questioning

Robert Rosen on #complexity and the emergence of a #hierarchy in #biology.

https://www.academia.edu/6576779/Rosen_and_Pattee_on_Theoretical_Biology?email_work_card=view-paper

Historical introduction to #LAWS, #LANGUAGE and #LIFE
#HH_Pattee's classic papers on the #physics of #symbols, #epistemology, #quantum_measurement, #complementarity, #hierarchy_theory, and #artificial_life, with contemporary commentaries by Howard Pattee and Joanna Rączaszek-Leonardi.

https://www.academia.edu/2767702/Historical_introduction_to_LAWS_LANGUAGE_AND_LIFE

Heisenberg's Levels of #Reality:
1. Things objectified independently of the knowledge process (#laws of #physics);
2. Things inseparable from the knowledge process (#measurement, #control);
3. Things created in the knowledge process (#philosophy, art, politics, religion).