Radical Complexity (John T. Murphy)

Opinion | ‘The Power of Science to Solve Problems Is Almost Limitless’

Worth reading; discusses challenges that need to be addressed (e.g. Americans pay more but are sicker, and "... a lot of medical research is junk that can't be reproduced...").

Key quote: "The problem with Dr. Bhattacharya is not that he’s cynical... It’s that his theory is naïve about power..."

Yep- 100% agree. I will also miss Midwestern fare like corn on the cob and casseroles, but there's plenty to make up for it.

Make sure to visit the Carolina Rediviva exhibition. Among many other treasures, it has drawings from the design phase (the yellow tubes are sadly absent) and an associated exhibit on floor tiling patterns, for all floor-tile-pattern fans.🙂

I don't know how hard it hit except to say my mom got the album & really liked it. It might still be in the basement.

I like cucumbers, so it sounds delicious!

Their loss! What is it?

(And you're still an archaeologist/archeologist! It's a set of habits and skills, and those will always remain, even if they're a few strata below the current floor surface.)

Ha! I think I remember noticing that at my university all the web-presence regarding the anthropology department (course listings, professor specialties, major specializations, etc.) uses "archaeology," but all the signage in the department (office door signs printed by the U) uses "archeology."

In addition to helping with some school assignments and being a genuine source of fun reading, the main impact it had on me was making it very confusing for me to try to spell 'encyclopedia' the way my teachers in school wanted me to.

I was very depressed to learn a few years ago that my parents got rid of the Encyclopaedia Britannica set that they bought when I was a kid. It was 40 volumes and roughly 900 pounds, and included all the British-approved knowledge in the world as of 1973.

A screenshot of the linked web page for Project 2029 (Progressive Grassroots Version), with text: Project 2025 was built over decades; we don't have that much time. Project 2029 PGV is a Progressive vision for the future of our country, one that repairs the damage of the current administration and sets a course for a new American future. The goal of the project is to collaboratively generate a response to 'Project 2025'. Project 2025 took decades; we do not have that time. But we have the means to create a community to 'crowdsource' the document. Ideally this would form a fulcrum for a broader Progressive movement in response to the extreme components of Project 2025 that have been revealed by the administration's actions. We need a new vision; we need new leaders; and we need them on a short time scale. The project consists of: A work-in-progress main document: Project2029-PGV.pdf A github repository for collaboration on the text of the main document A Zotero collection of references cited in the text A Discord community server for discussions about the text and the project

This is exactly right. I have sketched out the barest possible outline/idea/Hail Mary for a way to build and integrate these kinds of teams:

perfectknowledgedb.com/project2029-...

It's threadbare as yet, and maybe silly. But I would love it if people excited about specific areas would dive in.

A collection of text from the website linked in the post: "My deep belief is that anthropology and archaeology, by giving us a wider view of what's possible, can help us make our world better, and that it can help us reach a diverse, equitable, inclusive, resilient, and just society. I believe that the path toward this is exciting and full of beauty and wonder; it is an exploration of the full scope of the human journey on earth. Despite being a 'computer guy' - or maybe because of it - I believe technology in general, and computation specifically, will play a role, but it is likely to be minimal; simplicity is a better guide. The real resources on which we need to draw are the lived experiences of individuals, the rich histories of all peoples and nations, and basic goodness and humanity of all of us who share the planet. I'm exploring this by reading, traveling, writing, and thinking. Having learned that archaeology has missed out on many of the past's lessons, there is an exciting research path ahead, and, along with it, a personal journey. I've decided to call what I do, "Radical Complexity." I hope more people will join me on the trip." Also a picture of myself with road-construction-barrel man from a Missouri rest area.

Definitely agree. I believe I may have bet my entire professional career on this specific point. (It's still a work-in-progress!)

perfectknowledgedb.com/bio.html

I'm also looking at Dan McQuillan's 'decomputing' work- looks amazing:

www.danmcquillan.org/pages/about....

I haven't listened to this yet, but I definitely will because I think this message will be very much in line with my own thinking, which comes from years as a social scientist studying complexity while living rather uncomfortably in a computational career.

Or the underlying point is just the opposite.

I watched it and agree that it's a worthy watch- definitely recommend.

I've had life phases with high & low interest in 'joining.' It's interesting to bridge the societal/macro with the personal/introspection- but it's not always easy.

Would love to discuss. Start a book/movie discussion club?

I'll give it a look this weekend.

New example of "a paradise built in hell" just dropped.

Always remember, when we humans are side by side, not above or below, we are good. Love is the default under all that fear, greed and stratification.

@kenjennings.bsky.social: re: "Candidates that don't suck," I hope you know about @katmabu.bsky.social.

www.katforillinois.com/issues/prote...

Possibly. I viewed it as needing to study all of the components- the domain being visualized, the viz. technique and technology, and the people using the visualization (does viz. actually aid understanding and problem solving, e.g.). But the 'people' side was the hardest to pitch to my colleagues.

One day in IL my house got 2.5 inches of rain in 90 minutes. Some places got more than 9" total. A couple days later I suggested to the guy improving my downspouts that his business could tell clients that intense rainfall would be more common. He said he didn't want to get 'political'.

This wasn't lack of a steady pen hand; it was the gap between something concrete on paper and the way they 'saw' the thing in their head, which really wasn't visual at all.

(Not sure if this adds anything re: dreams, but if yours don't win in cinematography, I bet they do very well in screenplay!)

When you handed them a pen and said "Draw what you see," they couldn't. Once I asked a guy to draw what he wanted and he put one dot on the whiteboard and then stopped and stared, puzzled. When I asked what the dot represented, he couldn't answer.

What they were describing was actually either qualitatively what they wanted the visualization to accomplish ("You'll be able to link X to Y and see how Z works...") or was several different kinds of things (bar graphs, maps, networks) operating at the same time that they believed could work.

But then I'd work with them to try to put it into practice. At that point their description of what they could 'see' revealed that they couldn't possibly really be seeing it: It simply didn't work.

I used to work with data visualization, and sometimes I would work with someone who wanted their data vizzed. They had the absolute conviction that they could 'see' how a data visualization (network diagram, graph, augmented reality, whatever) would be done.

I didn't know you had aphantasia- at least, I didn't remember it. But trying to think about how I think, which is sometimes visually and sometimes not, reminded me of something.

I worry tech folks now think that LLMs are automating these 'mechanical' tasks, and this subsumes the thing they were told they weren't good at, ergo they are better at it. The LLM 'writes all possible summaries,' so they win. The personal & contingent Why you, for me? Why this, now? is invisible.

This is very important. From the start ChatGPT- the name, the interface- was designed to make us view it as 'like us' & capable of thought, not just a collection of numbers for text prediction. Creating a social role for an LLM is more imp. than the LLM itself, and it's where any profit comes from.

@gbrockell.bsky.social and some others have a network and seem to be following these flights.

Yeah, stick to the legal stuff. My emotional support fragrance would probably be "Pizza Hut ca. 1983".