[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote: Chock full of “straw men” (misrepresented arguments you go on to defeat, leaving the originals untouched).

BTW, equality of outcome is a nonsense goal. A soccer game, e.g., where you must immediately allow the other team to score unopposed whenever you go ahead is a farce, and no one would willingly play it.

You’re projecting again. I never said anything about equality. You have raised the equality thing and marxist drivel all on your own out of nowhere. Misrepresented (non-existent) arguments you go on to…etc.

We’ll have to set up a “Brian Bingo” game.

[Rezwan]

Perhaps we should set up a specific “technical specs” forum for this. Although it is about the mechanics of social marketing/media.

[Rezwan]

You continue to not answer the question directly.

Brian H wrote: The epitome of trust and co-operation is a sanctuary city, like Maywood, CA. Which just went bankrupt and cancelled all services and dissolved itself.

Didn’t Orange county go bankrupt a while ago? On the scale of entities that go bankrupt and dissolve, is this more noticeable than most? Produce the scale. It’s like people who claim Africa has issues because it has greater corruption. On a corruption index, Asian countries are higher up. More bribes, more everything. The more money, the more opportunities for corruption. You have to put these things in context.

A game or society without agreed and enforceable rules is just a playground for cheats and users.

A society comprised of people like you will never agree on enforceable rules. You have spent most of the rest of your posts on the forums railing against “consensus”. Now you’re saying it’s a good thing?

You know what I think this comes down to is the dynamic between spontaneous order and centrally planned order. Again, I thought you were a spontaneous guy – hence averse to “consensus” and the central planning that implies.

But apparently you’re pro central planning, as long as the rules enforced and agreed upon are the ones you espouse. You’re the dictator here, projecting, trying to calculate how to get into the position of power. Plying us with literature on that very topic. Classic.

I, on the other hand, first of all find this very humorous.

Second, I accept that about you, and most other people. Myself, too! We all have within us the dictator that wants everyone else to bow before us. If left unchecked, we just might let that character take over. But if you’ve ever had the chance to let that dictator out – well, it’s quite unpleasant. (Actually, you’ve tried, but posturing on a forum isn’t quite the same as taking over – seeing fear and cringing in your fellow human). Unless you’re a true sociopath, this just won’t be satisfying. A great story on this topic is “On the Conduct of Lord Tadanao” by Kikuchi Kan (in an anthology of Japanese Stories)

Nature, or God, or whatever, in it’s infinite wisdom, in the iterative wisdom of evolution, has made collaboration the successful strategy. When we work together, we gain tremendous benefits. If we resort to theft, we kill the golden goose. The short term benefit of theft is a test, a prisoners dilemma. Betraying one another in the short term is pathetic. Game it all you want but it’s embarrassing to watch. And it’s not in equilibrium, because people crave the higher order of collaboration. They just don’t know how to get there, and when they don’t have trust, they can’t.

Notice that the trust in sanctions and repercussions for bad behavior is also a form of trust. I trust when I stray out of my lane in traffic that I will get a lot of angry honks. People keep each other in line with this handy “communication” thing. Rarely have I gotten the “universal sign” while driving, and I have yet to be shot by a fellow motorist.

Sure, corruption, like static, builds up as people try to take advantage of trust. But people remember what you did last time, and it comes back to you. Memories. Adjustments. There’s always this background static. The progression is toward greater collaboration.

And then you die.

[Rezwan]

Thanks Aaron, the medical/military metaphor works for me. And eloquently put, as usual. What I see happening in this society is that people don’t take responsibility for themselves and go running to a doctor when things get bad for them. They overeat, don’t exercise, smoke, whatever. And then demand surgery.

That, to me, is similar to people saying that “war is the natural state” and demanding military intervention. It’s disrespectful to doctors to take your obese, self-destroyed body to them and demand they fix it, and then sue them when complications arise during surgery. It’s disrespectful to soldiers to mess up on the policy level and make a string of calculated decisions and then expect the military to go in and restore order for you. And it’s disrespectful to yourself to think you can’t do better.

AaronB wrote: Too many times throughout history, politicians and profiteers have sought to use the military for their own selfish ends, and they misapply military forces to try to affect certain outcomes. It *ALWAYS* fails, but the temptation is always there, and when in a bind, desperate people do desperate, short-sighted things. It’s called sacrifice, and sometimes we sacrifice what we want most for what we want now. Some sacrifices are justifiable and wise, while others are foolish and damaging overall.

The people who do this are hardly ever in a bind. They’re sitting in comfortable chairs overlooking splendid views, sipping their gin and tonics, what what. The people making the sacrifice are further down the line.

The same can be said about the oil spill in the gulf. We want energy to maintain our lifestyle. We have to go farther and deeper to get new supplies. Deep ocean drilling is difficult, dangerous, and risky, but we choose to do it anyway to support our energy habit. Companies and countries try to minimize environmental damage, but it happens when things go wrong.

Alas, countries and companies don’t try to minimize the damage.

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote:

Since my post was a mixture of humor and seriousness, I guess I shouldn’t complain when it was so seriously misconstrued.

But it is true we have very different political and global-social pholosophies. Let’s leave it at that.

OK, we can leave it at that. For the record, you’re leaving me confused. I’m sure we have different philosophies, I’m just not sure what your philosophy is. The line was:

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

I’m curious – does this mean you like having a strong army and police force? Yes or no? Was this line where you were joking? Being ironic?

What I seem to have misconstrued is that I took you for more of a libertarian with your strong anti-government anti-interference stand, and I was confused that you were suddenly pro-army/police.

I associate police and army with government control. For the record, I do appreciate and admire them when they are working in the public interest – control rods are a great safety feature – but stand (rough and) ready to criticize and oppose them when they go against that interest – they have a lot of temptation.

On a practical level, army and police represent the State right to use force. The very State you see as overrun with flaming eco-whatevers. I.e., it’ll be the police that arrest you when you don’t comply with the draconian environmental laws.

So…any clarifications?

FYI, I’m also trying to help y’all see a bigger picture. You are just amplifying one small sliver of human experience and making it dominant. The line could also be,

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night because the world largely operates on trust and collaboration, and on those occasions where opportunistic people resort to violence, men and women of various skills and approaches stand ready to stop their violence with various means, a few of which include violence, but less and less as we figure out better means of dealing with these breakdowns.”

I’m trying to imagine Iraqi people try to sleep peaceably at night knowing they are surrounded by armies of rough and ready men ready to do violence – all of them claiming it’s on their behalf.

And I hear the soldiers themselves are having a hard time sleeping. A lot of sleeping pill abuse out there. A lot of bringing home the violence and not sleeping well when they get back. But even that I would like to hope isn’t permanent – or their natural state. Something they can work through to get to a better state.

I guess I see the presence of all these rough folk (armed people) as a sign that something went wrong somewhere back in the process. The concentration of “rough men ready to do violence” is an indicator of sorts.

It’s like after you have an ecosystem breakdown, all these thorns show up all of a sudden. Deadly-force plants. Somewhere back down the line, somebody put a dam in place, or cut something else down, or set up a “divide and conquer” policy and drew up some stupid map, or happily exercised double standards and contrived a coup against a democratically elected leader or – OH so many things. And then you get this choking algal bloom and call it natural.

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote:

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

I’m surprised. You’re advocating outsourcing the violence to some rough and ready men standing around outside. Is this a privatized army? I would have pegged you for someone who advocated each person have their own means of protection right there by the bed.
It’s a well-known adage, a modified version of something Orwell wrote. It refers to both armed forces and police, basically. So you unfortunately don’t get to revel in paranoid fantasies of private armies. Which seems to be a scare tactic much beloved of those who want everyone to ‘jest get along’ and do as they’re told by their social planning betters, or get put away by the gubmint for their own good. :coolsmirk:

Really? You feel safe because the police and armed forces are protecting you? I thought you were more, y’know…you surprise me.

Aren’t the “social planning betters” the ones calling the shots of the armed forces and police? Don’t the police and army represent the States’ monopoly right to violence? Brian, you’re shaking my faith! What happened to you. Thought you were a John Lott fan.

So I’m the only one advocating personal responsibility here? 2nd Amendment anyone? I think people need to get better at resolving their own conflicts rather than outsourcing and escalating upward to the benevolent state police and army.

And yo: You lack imagination. The quote does not preclude private armies. Of which this country has a long and glorious tradition.

And of course I can revel in whatever fantasy I want. Like you have any say.

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote: “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

I’m surprised. You’re advocating outsourcing the violence to some rough and ready men standing around outside. Is this a privatized army? I would have pegged you for someone who advocated each person have their own means of protection right there by the bed.

[Added 7/26: Not that I’m not turned on by the idea of some rough men standing ready to do violence on my behalf. Who doesn’t romanticize heroic, primal, capable figures? It’s good to know there are such people. What bothers me is civilians making irresponsible statements like war is the natural state and terrible policy decisions which trigger events which require the rough men to go and clean up after them. That’s where the failure is.]

[Rezwan]

emmetb wrote:
The most important social skill is altruism. The ability to identify with others that are far removed from yourself. How wide a circle are you willing to draw?

That’s true. At the same time, the Almighty, in his infinite wisdom seems to have generated a lot of self-interested people and this has very practical results.

Have you ever wanted to do something and the people around you are all trying to be accomodating. “No, what do YOU want to do?” “No, YOU!” “I’m happy with whatever YOU want to do.”

What I like is to know true preferences of the people around me, and I’d like them to be responsible for expressing that. Then we can negotiate the best outcome.

I think what’s going on is each person has within then the instinct for individual self-interest and meta-collective-interest. These manifest in each person in different ratios. Both have practical value.

‘s the way I see it.

[Rezwan]

Phil’s Dad wrote:

War is not “the natural state” by any measure and I don’t know why you are so happy to claim that.

Where did I say I was happy about it?
Text and subtext.

Probably it was this: your speed to seize on Aaron’s depressing quote as “a better way of expressing” it implied joy and delight at having been proved right, rather than unhappiness about such an alleged natural state of things.

And in this post, you only want to know where you let slip you were happy about it. You have yet to question or counter your assertion. By holding on to it, it’s like you want to normalize it. If you want to normalize it, that suggests you’re happy about it.

But I could be wrong.

But come on. “War is the natural state.”????? Ridiculous. It’s like saying “Rape is the natural state.” The natural state of what?

The natural state. Are bombs raining over your head right now? Are you being raped? Call 911.

Or how about: “Lightning is the natural state.” What does that mean? Lightning occurs in nature, true. At any given moment, somewhere on the planet, there is some lightning. Yet, for most of this year – I have hardly encountered any lightning. And even though it occurs from time to time, we’ve figured out that if you place handy lightning rods, you can pretty much avoid the damage they cause.

And that’s a pure, regularly occuring force of nature. Not something that’s a combo of biology and artifice. The lightning is mindless. Wars are initiated by people with minds, and property, and we must find a way to sue the hell out of them and otherwise devise a lightning rod for war. Take those warmongers and ground them. Discharge their stupidity into the ground.

Not that it happens all the time.

The irony is you say you want to keep the videos “positive”! What’s wrong with the video showing oil spills (the natural state of oil extraction accidents, certainly) and wars for oil (war being the natural state, after all)? It has a happy ending. And it strikes me as far less negative than your continued assertions about war.

[Rezwan]

Murali is writing up the report this week. That will have your technical info. As for day to day stuff, Eric’s on vacation for a few weeks so they won’t be firing the machine. Abdel and Murali are taking the time to open all the switches, clean and examine them. And sand them (I’m not clear – I guess they literally sand things). One of the sparkplugs never fired – they’ll be checking on how it’s different from the others. A center pin holder has to be re-machined so they all have the same depth…

That sort of machine conditioning activity. Also, they will be taking this time to write up some reports for publication.

And other things. For example an “antileak/movement redesign” so that the insulator can no longer move or leak.

In more progressive news, they are also talking about the boron and tackling the to-do list to be ready to incorporate that into the experiment when the other issues are resolved.

As for me, we’ve got lightroom and I finally see the possibility of managing all the pictures I’ve taken so far. Approaching 3000, and yet plenty of gaps remain. I’ve also got a volunteer (Victor Glass) to help with the picture project. Will be taking advantage of this re-tooling time to get more information from the guys about what the heck I was taking pictures of this whole time. And what the gaps are. Oh! And the macro lens I ordered works nicely, so we’ll be getting up close for more detail.

Also – I set up a wiki for the focus fusion society, and I’m drafting a “Focus Fusion General Plan” – to be unveiled…place your bets.

[Rezwan]

Breakable wrote: Give me, give me, give me an opportunity to invest into fusion energy!!!
I would put a thousand bucks on FF, Poly-well, FRC and any other investment-accepting perspective approach and wait-see which one succeeds.
It would be like buying MSFT in the 80’ties.

Please elaborate. We can use your story as a persona around which to explain the dilemma facing the unaccredited investor.

[Rezwan]

Here’s a post where we talk about the accredited investor issue and why LPP and FFS are two separate organizations.

I would really like to join forces with Profounder to overcome this SEC issue.

[Rezwan]

This is a great idea. I think that crowdsourcing is a great way to go for fusion.

We contemplated this in the beginning but didn’t get many donations. And we couldn’t (can’t, legally) offer people a return on investment if they aren’t accredited investors.

So we didn’t get much that way and put the idea on hold.

I’m not sure how profounder bypasses that accredited investor rule. It’s SEC law. I looked at the site and they don’t mention this or how they are working around it, although they do say

So, why can’t anyone just invest a few hundred dollars in a small business they love? We’ve heard hundreds of stories from entrepreneurs and small business owners who have tried gathering investments (real investments, not just donations) from friends, family, and other members of their community, but have struggled along the way. Unfortunately, the process is unnecessarily confusing, costly, and complicated.

ProFounder will change this. We’re making it easy for your community to contribute financially to your business, so they’re literally invested in your success.

They “will” change this. Looks like they are trying to mount the argument that some SEC rules should be changed.

This is one of the items of the Focus Fusion General Plan (about to be unveiled). We need to network with people like profounder and others who are interested in microfinance, crowdsourcing and innovation, to get the SEC to make exceptions for certain types of investment opportunities.

Something to open the door to anyone and everyone who wants to invest in fusion, and not draw the line at people with over 5 million$.

Most accredited investors won’t deal with cutting edge fusion research because it’s too risky. But anyone in the world who is willing to lose a bit of money against the possible gain of a new energy source and possible financial return to boot – that is cool.

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote:
There is only one way to resist such tyrannies and ambitions. If you want peace, prepare (well) for war.

OTOH, I do have hopes that the near universal wealth and surplus energy and prosperity which FF can deliver will distract wannabe despots from adventurism, and enable their prospective victims to defend themselves competently.

I agree with this, but would frame it differently. There can be no true peace without justice. In the realm of conflict resolution, people do try to get away with whatever they can, try to meet their own needs and, if unchecked, trample over others. So it’s up to everyone to defend their own rights. Stand up for yourself.

That’s why we have a first and second amendment. Speak up for yourself, and be able to back up your words with force, if necessary. Rarely gets to part II – that’s the failsafe (or failure) – and if you’ve gotten there, it’s probably due to an imbalance of power (the resource/hand-you-were-deealt issue), or you were probably pretty incompetent at part I, or you really wanted to go to part II because you’re the flaming sociopath in this world, you want it, don’t you? All that killing. Outsource it to other countries and lick your lips while watching the news.

According to the book “The Optimistic Child”, the most important social skills are Assertiveness and Problem solving. (Assertiveness is a “useful midpoint between passivity and aggression”).

I’m all for people standing up for themselves. If you do this often enough, early enough and skillfully enough you can head violence off and have a really nice, functional world. Of course, some things are beyond your control.

Sociopaths – 2-7% of the world population. I’m aware of that. It’s still a minority, (not “the” natural state, that would be 80% sociopaths). And even many of those sociopaths don’t engage in war because it’s not in their best interest and they can get more done by running successful corporations.

[Rezwan]

Phil’s Dad wrote:

Armed conflict between nation-states, religious factions, family clans, terrorist organizations, gangs and individuals is a never-ending part of history, and from my perspective, it always will be.

seems to me just a better way of expressing “War is the natural state;”

War is not “the natural state” by any measure and I don’t know why you are so happy to claim that.

You are confused between “conflict” and “war”. This explains why the west is so trigger happy. Like to resolve all their conflicts by dropping bombs on people.

Use of the article “the” indicates it is a dominant stage, it’s not, although conflict is pretty standard. War does occur. It can be said to be “natural”. But not “the natural state.”

Conflict is a (not “the”) common state. Letting it escalate to war is not that frequent. Family clans may argue over inheritance, but they don’t firebomb each other’s houses. Most of them use the handy court system. Just because a few have been known to go ballistic doesn’t make it the natural state. Gangs may assert their territory rights but they don’t have drive-by shootings every day. In fact, you’re more likely to be killed by a family member in an argument that is settled by a gun, than be killed by a gang member.

But just because murder occurs, doesn’t mean it’s the natural state. And even here, in America, land of gun lovers, you get what, 18,000 gun deaths a year, most of them are suicides. Out of a population of 300 million. The natural state is cancer and heart failure. If on the individual level war=murder, it is still not “the” natural state. Very few individual conflicts end in murder.

2/ The other thread is about whether we do the cause any good by “ambulance chasing” man made disasters. I think not. If that is judgemental so be it. There are times when sound judgement is the best thing you can bring to the table.

It’s not sound judgment so much as limiting and stifling. Ambulance chasing is a fine line of work with a long and glorious tradition. It does plenty of good.

And in the realm of brainstorming, why limit and censor other people’s expression? This is one way of looking at things that might resonates with people. Not with you, but you’re not the only audience. You go watch your arthouse flicks, others will watch ambulance chasing thrillers. Popcorn will be sold. The world is big with room for many views. Not all conflicts need to be resolved. We don’t need consensus. Diversity is fine.

But, Rezwan, you already have your positive message. You said, among so many other excellent examples;

(https://focusfusion.org/index.php/forums/viewthread/364/)

Rezwan wrote: I do want to live in a world where we transition easily from sleek urban areas with the option of jumping in a supersonic chopper to hawaii, or hopping on a horse and riding all day to the next town…

I mean, this corporate American western civilization is a bit boring. I’d like to see more anachronism and greater expanses of wild land where that could happen.

So, I have a number of fantasies of alternative futures and landscapes. None of these is very viable in the current limited resources…

There is your story. Roll cameras.

Cool! Except this isn’t a story. Just some text fragments. You need a beginning, middle, end, some sort of narrative arc and some clear tie-in to fusion. See if you can’t flesh this out into a more complete script. Also, this baby has high production values – where would get the footage? CGI budget on this is high.

And in the same thread you said

Rezwan wrote: I hear you on the holier than thou thing…So, the environmental movement doesn’t resonate with me because its focus is on punishment and guilt,…

And no whiners.

Queue the video

Yes, and now I’m experiencing your comments as holier than thou whining. Worse. War-justifying holier-than-thou anti-brainstorming creating-lots-of-impractical-work-for-other-people whining.

[Author]

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