5 ms·

> those are the exact words I use when talking to people about networking Or the U.S. financial system. Or civilization in general.

by lisper 1y ago

psunavy03 1y ago
It ultimately comes down to shared norms, shared expectations, and trust.
- _kb 1y ago
  Which is why the long tail impact of current times is frankly terrifying.
  - chairmansteve 1y ago
    Yes. The preppers are starting to look sane.
    - organsnyder 1y ago
      The preppers can only buy themselves a small amount of time, though—no more than a year or two. Eventually, their stockpiled supplies will run out, or some piece of equipment will need a replacement part. I'd much rather focus on "prepping" by building social resiliency, instead. The local community I'm plugged into is much stronger together than anything I could possibly build individually.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  A bit of a tangent, but I don't think this is it. There are plenty of species with plenty of shared norms, expectations, and trust - but no civilization. And, vice versa, many of the greatest societies have been riddled with completely incompatible worldviews yet created amazing civilizations. Consider that Sparta and Athens were separated by only 130 miles, yet couldn't possibly have been further apart! The reason people work together is fundamentally the same reason you go to work - self interest. You're rarely there because you genuinely believe in the mission or product - mostly you just want to get paid and then go do your own thing. And that's basically the gears of society in a nutshell. But you need the intelligence to understand the bigger picture of things. For instance Chimps have intricate little societies that at their peak have reached upwards of 200 chimps. They even wage war over them and in efforts to expand them or control their territory. This [1] war was something that revolutionized our understanding of primates behaviors, which had been excessively idealized beforehand. But they lack the intelligence to understand how to bring their little societies up in scale. They understand full well how to kill the other tribe and "integrate" their females, but they never think to e.g. enslave the males, let alone higher order forms of expansion with vassalage, negotiated treaties, and so on. All of which over time trend towards where we are today, where it turns out giving somebody a little slice of your pie and letting him otherwise roam free is way more effective than just trying to dominate him. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War
  - namaria 1y ago
    > There are plenty of species with plenty of shared norms, expectations, and trust Citation needed on that one. > Consider that Sparta and Athens were separated by only 130 miles, yet couldn't possibly have been further apart! They spoke the same language, shared the same literature, practiced the same religion, had a long history of diplomatic ties. When the Persians razed Athens, they took refuge with the Spartans. > For instance Chimps have intricate little societies that at their peak have reached upwards of 200 chimps. Again, I don't think this claim stands to evidence. The so called chimp war you mention is about a group of about a dozen and a huge fight that broke out among them. That doesn't support the idea that they are capable of 200-strong 'intricate' groupings.
    - somenameforme 1y ago
      Try to speak holistically. I have no idea what you're trying to argue. I could expand or provide evidence for everything I said, but providing a citation or proving that there are indeed social groups of upwards of 200 chimps, or whatever, isn't going to do much, because you're not really formulating any argument or contrary view yourself. Put another way, you're arguing against an example and not a fundamental premise. Proving the example is correct doesn't really get us anywhere since presumably you disagree with the fundamental premise.
      - krisoft 1y ago
        > Try to speak holistically. That sounds very much like "Just believe me." or even more "The rules were that you guys weren’t gonna fact-check" > I have no idea what you're trying to argue. Presumably you know what you are trying to argue. That is what the questions were about. > Proving the example is correct doesn't really get us anywhere You would have solid foundations to build your premise from. That is what it would get us. First we check the bricks (the individual facts), then we check if they were correctly built into a wall (do the arguments add up? are the conclusions supported by the reasoning and the facts?). And then we marvel at the beautiful edifice you have built from it (the premise). Going the other way around is ass-backwards. > you're not really formulating any argument or contrary view yourself. I don't know what viewpoint namaria has. I know that "Sparta and Athens [..] couldn't possibly have been further apart" is ahistorical. They were very similar in many regards. If you think they were that different you have watched too many modern retellings, instead of reading actual history books. That's my contrary view. > For instance Chimps have intricate little societies that at their peak have reached upwards of 200 chimps. Here the question is what do we believe to be "societies". The researchers indeed documented hundreds of chimps visiting the same human made feeding station. Is that a society now? I don't think so, but maybe you think otherwise. What makes the Chimps' behaviour a society as opposed to just a bunch of chimps at the same place?
BrandoElFollito 1y ago
For me it is the financial system as a whole. I am an ex-scientist and an engineer and had a look at the books of my son who studies finance in the best finance school in the world (I am saying this to highlight that he will be one of the perpetrators, possibly with influence, of this mess) The things in there are crazy. There are whole blocks that are obvious but made to sound complicated. I spent some time on a graph just to realize that they ultimately talk about solving a set of two linear equations (midfle school level). Some pieces were not comprehensible because they did not make sense. And then bam! A random differential equation and explanation as it was the answer to the universe. With an incorrect interpretation. And then there are statistics that would make "sociology science" blush. Yes, they are so bad that even the, ahem, experts who do stats in sociology would be ashamed (no hate for sociology, everyone needs to eat, it is just that I was several times reviewer of thesises there and I have trauma afterwards). The fact that finance works is because we have some kind of magical "local minimum of finance energy" from which the Trumps of this world somehow did not maybe to break from (fingers crossed) by disrupting the world too much.

> those are the exact words I use when talking to people about networking Or the U.S. financial system. Or civilization in general.

by lisper 1y ago

> those are the exact words I use when talking to people about networking Or the U.S. financial system. Or civilization in general.

psunavy03 1y ago

It ultimately comes down to shared norms, shared expectations, and trust.

_kb 1y ago
Which is why the long tail impact of current times is frankly terrifying.
- chairmansteve 1y ago
  Yes. The preppers are starting to look sane.
  - organsnyder 1y ago
    The preppers can only buy themselves a small amount of time, though—no more than a year or two. Eventually, their stockpiled supplies will run out, or some piece of equipment will need a replacement part. I'd much rather focus on "prepping" by building social resiliency, instead. The local community I'm plugged into is much stronger together than anything I could possibly build individually.
somenameforme 1y ago
A bit of a tangent, but I don't think this is it. There are plenty of species with plenty of shared norms, expectations, and trust - but no civilization. And, vice versa, many of the greatest societies have been riddled with completely incompatible worldviews yet created amazing civilizations. Consider that Sparta and Athens were separated by only 130 miles, yet couldn't possibly have been further apart! The reason people work together is fundamentally the same reason you go to work - self interest. You're rarely there because you genuinely believe in the mission or product - mostly you just want to get paid and then go do your own thing. And that's basically the gears of society in a nutshell. But you need the intelligence to understand the bigger picture of things. For instance Chimps have intricate little societies that at their peak have reached upwards of 200 chimps. They even wage war over them and in efforts to expand them or control their territory. This [1] war was something that revolutionized our understanding of primates behaviors, which had been excessively idealized beforehand. But they lack the intelligence to understand how to bring their little societies up in scale. They understand full well how to kill the other tribe and "integrate" their females, but they never think to e.g. enslave the males, let alone higher order forms of expansion with vassalage, negotiated treaties, and so on. All of which over time trend towards where we are today, where it turns out giving somebody a little slice of your pie and letting him otherwise roam free is way more effective than just trying to dominate him. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War
- namaria 1y ago
  > There are plenty of species with plenty of shared norms, expectations, and trust Citation needed on that one. > Consider that Sparta and Athens were separated by only 130 miles, yet couldn't possibly have been further apart! They spoke the same language, shared the same literature, practiced the same religion, had a long history of diplomatic ties. When the Persians razed Athens, they took refuge with the Spartans. > For instance Chimps have intricate little societies that at their peak have reached upwards of 200 chimps. Again, I don't think this claim stands to evidence. The so called chimp war you mention is about a group of about a dozen and a huge fight that broke out among them. That doesn't support the idea that they are capable of 200-strong 'intricate' groupings.
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    Try to speak holistically. I have no idea what you're trying to argue. I could expand or provide evidence for everything I said, but providing a citation or proving that there are indeed social groups of upwards of 200 chimps, or whatever, isn't going to do much, because you're not really formulating any argument or contrary view yourself. Put another way, you're arguing against an example and not a fundamental premise. Proving the example is correct doesn't really get us anywhere since presumably you disagree with the fundamental premise.
    - krisoft 1y ago
      > Try to speak holistically. That sounds very much like "Just believe me." or even more "The rules were that you guys weren’t gonna fact-check" > I have no idea what you're trying to argue. Presumably you know what you are trying to argue. That is what the questions were about. > Proving the example is correct doesn't really get us anywhere You would have solid foundations to build your premise from. That is what it would get us. First we check the bricks (the individual facts), then we check if they were correctly built into a wall (do the arguments add up? are the conclusions supported by the reasoning and the facts?). And then we marvel at the beautiful edifice you have built from it (the premise). Going the other way around is ass-backwards. > you're not really formulating any argument or contrary view yourself. I don't know what viewpoint namaria has. I know that "Sparta and Athens [..] couldn't possibly have been further apart" is ahistorical. They were very similar in many regards. If you think they were that different you have watched too many modern retellings, instead of reading actual history books. That's my contrary view. > For instance Chimps have intricate little societies that at their peak have reached upwards of 200 chimps. Here the question is what do we believe to be "societies". The researchers indeed documented hundreds of chimps visiting the same human made feeding station. Is that a society now? I don't think so, but maybe you think otherwise. What makes the Chimps' behaviour a society as opposed to just a bunch of chimps at the same place?

BrandoElFollito 1y ago

For me it is the financial system as a whole. I am an ex-scientist and an engineer and had a look at the books of my son who studies finance in the best finance school in the world (I am saying this to highlight that he will be one of the perpetrators, possibly with influence, of this mess) The things in there are crazy. There are whole blocks that are obvious but made to sound complicated. I spent some time on a graph just to realize that they ultimately talk about solving a set of two linear equations (midfle school level). Some pieces were not comprehensible because they did not make sense. And then bam! A random differential equation and explanation as it was the answer to the universe. With an incorrect interpretation. And then there are statistics that would make "sociology science" blush. Yes, they are so bad that even the, ahem, experts who do stats in sociology would be ashamed (no hate for sociology, everyone needs to eat, it is just that I was several times reviewer of thesises there and I have trauma afterwards). The fact that finance works is because we have some kind of magical "local minimum of finance energy" from which the Trumps of this world somehow did not maybe to break from (fingers crossed) by disrupting the world too much.