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I've got to tell you: every subculture of humans has fractal complexity that is not captured by any representation. We're reduced to using blind men's descripti

I've got to tell you: every subculture of humans has fractal complexity that is not captured by any representation. We're reduced to using blind men's descriptions of elephants. Nothing can be adequately explained in any book, not Appalachia and not the subculture of people in a semi-urban locality outside of Kandy. This is natural, so we use shortcuts as heuristic predictive tools: so the Russians throw numbers at war, the Chinese steal your secrets, the Appalachians are poor, the New Yorkers rude, the Japanese clean and neat. And the San Frannigans bristle at that demonym while they shit themselves in the street. So, no, the fact that there is complexity and uniqueness in culture is normal. It is not interesting. The only value is what you extract as the weak trendline. Imagine a scatterplot with loads of overlapping red and blue dots, but there are more blue dots above some line than red dots, by a considerable number. Most of them will interact, some red dot may even be higher than any blue dots, but you will be reduced to the fact that blue is higher than red on the graph. It is a weak decisioning tool because the complexity is both incompressible and useless for prediction.

SKILNER 7y ago
> every subculture of humans has fractal complexity that is not captured by any representation Yes, and the facile reduction of that complexity is the source for much of the political stupidity making us miserable. Also, thank you, Internet, for spreading it around so prolifically.
- dash2 7y ago
  Counterpoint: "fuck nuance". https://kieranhealy.org/files/papers/fuck-nuance.pdf https://kieranhealy.org/files/papers/fuck-nuance.pdf "I do claim that the more we tend to value nuance as such—that is, as a virtue to be cultivated, or as the first thing to look for when assessing arguments—the more we will tend to slide toward one or more of three nuance traps. First is the ever more detailed, merely empirical description of the world. This is the nuance of the fine-grain. It is a rejection of theory masquerading as increased accuracy...."
hitekker 7y ago
>So, no, the fact that there is complexity and uniqueness in culture is normal. It is not interesting. The only value is what you extract as the weak trendline. Imagine a scatterplot with loads of overlapping red and blue dots, but there are more blue dots above some line than red dots, by a considerable number. Most of them will interact, some red dot may even be higher than any blue dots, but you will be reduced to the fact that blue is higher than red on the graph. It is a weak decisioning tool because the complexity is both incompressible and useless for prediction. There is wisdom in your words.

SKILNER 7y ago

> every subculture of humans has fractal complexity that is not captured by any representation Yes, and the facile reduction of that complexity is the source for much of the political stupidity making us miserable. Also, thank you, Internet, for spreading it around so prolifically.

dash2 7y ago
Counterpoint: "fuck nuance". https://kieranhealy.org/files/papers/fuck-nuance.pdf https://kieranhealy.org/files/papers/fuck-nuance.pdf "I do claim that the more we tend to value nuance as such—that is, as a virtue to be cultivated, or as the first thing to look for when assessing arguments—the more we will tend to slide toward one or more of three nuance traps. First is the ever more detailed, merely empirical description of the world. This is the nuance of the fine-grain. It is a rejection of theory masquerading as increased accuracy...."

hitekker 7y ago

>So, no, the fact that there is complexity and uniqueness in culture is normal. It is not interesting. The only value is what you extract as the weak trendline. Imagine a scatterplot with loads of overlapping red and blue dots, but there are more blue dots above some line than red dots, by a considerable number. Most of them will interact, some red dot may even be higher than any blue dots, but you will be reduced to the fact that blue is higher than red on the graph. It is a weak decisioning tool because the complexity is both incompressible and useless for prediction. There is wisdom in your words.