... on Complexity Theory and Environmental Management. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
... there is nothing more sobering than a 30 year old newspaper. You can’t figure out what the headlines mean. You don’t know who the people are. Theodore Green, John Sparkman, George Reedy, Jack Watson, Kenneth Duberstein. You thumb through page after page of vanished concerns—issues that apparently were vitally important at the time, and now don’t matter at all. It’s amazing how many pressing concerns are literally of the moment. They won’t matter in six months, and certainly not in six years. And if they won’t matter then, are they really worth our attention now?
... there is nothing more sobering than a 30 year old newspaper. You can’t figure out what the headlines mean. You don’t know who the people are. Theodore Green, John Sparkman, George Reedy, Jack Watson, Kenneth Duberstein. You thumb through page after page of vanished concerns—issues that apparently were vitally important at the time, and now don’t matter at all. It’s amazing how many pressing concerns are literally of the moment. They won’t matter in six months, and certainly not in six years. And if they won’t matter then, are they really worth our attention now?
Unless you look at the USA upside down you can be led astray by fear mongers?
ReplyDeleteDisasters aren't really all that horrendous. All these population fear mongers and climate fear mongers and nuclear disaster fear mongers were, and are, lying. At the very least, mistaken. So OK, I believe it. We're not on the brink of extinction. Whew, that was close!
But the war fear mongers, they're telling the truth! So we have to torture suspected terrorists and deny people their habeas corpus right. So OK, this makes sense, right?
Just - not to me.
-blue
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"Is this a Pavlovian reaction?"
"I don't know, are you tired of political expediency?"
Hi Blue,
ReplyDeleteDid you read the piece? Or watch the video. The gap between predictions and fact are startling. Coming froma family a family whose members used to bless themselves whenever FDR's name was mentioned, I still think "The only thing we have fear is fear itself."
PS U.S. citizens are protected by the U.S. Constitution, not enemy combatants. I trust you are similarly bothered by the AlQaeda torture room.
Frank,
ReplyDelete"Fear may draw a television audience. It may generate cash for an advocacy group. It may support the legal profession. But fear paralyzes us. It freezes us. And we need to be flexible in our responses, as we move into a new era of managing complexity. So we have to stop responding to fear:"
(from the article)
Seems like the point. Right? Unless I've missed the point, again.
All I want to add is - that it applies to more than just climate or nature or whatever else the propaganda organs of our country what us to be afraid of .. including rushing to war.
And I realize that, as an American, no one could possibly declare me an 'enemy combatant' .. oh, wait .. how many levels do conservatives have before they start calling a 'great american chicken' an 'enemy combatant'?
PS - I'm disgusted by all people who would torture a fellow human. I just never thought I'd ever see Americans administering the electrodes.
As long as those who are declared 'enemy combatants' are declared such by militarists, in secret, I'm opposed to the practice. As long as a fellow human can be thrown into an off-shore prison camp without access to a lawyer or habeas corpus I am opposed to the practice. As long as there are Americans who willing torture others because they're afraid and can rationalize away their victim's humanity I will shout out that it is WRONG.
-blue
Well, I don't support torture, but the only thing I've seen Americans accused of doing in an official way in that regard is waterboarding, and I don't think that is in the same league as what was being done in the Al-Qaeda house. If you had in custody a guy who knew where you're kidnapped daughter was, how far would go to have him divulge that information? Me? I'd go pretty damn far. I would also point out that there are detainees at Guantanamo who have requested not to be sent back home and at least one has developed a weight problem thanks to the abundance of food. Cut it any way you want, they are not U.S. citizens.
ReplyDeleteOne other thing, none of this has anything to do with what Crichton was talking about, which you will note was complex systems and environmental management, not war, not torture.
ReplyDeleteFrank, with all due respect,
ReplyDeleteThe pictures from Abu Graib didn't display tortured men? Torture has leagues? Painting a hypothetical scene of a kidnapped daughter isn't an appeal to fear over reason? The Stockholm syndrome doesn't happen to detainees in prison camps? The are no Americans being held in Gitmo? How do you know that? Rumsfeld tell you? Maybe Cheney?
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"One other thing, none of this has anything to do with what Crichton was talking about, which you will note was complex systems and environmental management, not war, not torture."
Yes, complex systems and environmental management was what was being discussed by Crichton. And for me to expand his scope is unfair, I suppose. What can I say. Doesn't it take some kind of complex system to get from a bunch of Saudis attacking New York and Washington to American soldiers occupying Baghdad?
-blue
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"And we need to be flexible in our responses, as we move into a new era of managing complexity. So we have to stop responding to fear .." -Crichton