Notices by Rusty Swarf (rustyswarf@refactorcamp.org), page 3

@zacharius It might help if there were a better way to search the fediverse for topics. I usually get no results using the search function, even with hashtags.

@arteteco I actually have a text file called "great emails" where I occasionally save (copy and paste) writing that stands out to me as especially smart & funny.

It's outlasted several email addresses, where I would have lost them if I'd used in-browser storage.

@BruceJia Write more, write faster, and write sloppier.

Learning to touch type fast enough to take real-time dictation can really help.

The purpose of these notes isn't to serve as a reference for later, it's to make sure the ideas go into your ears/eyes and come out your fingers.

The important ideas will stick, the others won't.

@BruceJia
Think about how difficult it can be to trust a published academic source in your own discipline. Now imagine instead trying to do publishable work that builds on some stranger's data from the internet.

@BruceJia But the main reason is interpersonal network effects. Ultimately science is a *culture* about how to evaluate knowledge. Written words are always an unreliable way to transmit culture, you need back-and-fourth agreement on multiple timescales:

1. rapidly (conversation)
2. regularly (weekly, monthly, yearly)
3. historically (you can check the books)

@BruceJia There are universities in europe that pre-date the entire concept of the nation-state.

@BruceJia I keep hearing this "universities are becoming obsolete" argument floating around, and I don't buy it at all.

First off, universities are one of the most tenacious institutions around, second only to churches. Both are mostly tax-free, so they can easily wait out all kinds of social catastrophe. Governments like to keep them around.

Harvard is ~130 years older than "The United States of America." The Sorbonne was around for ~500 years before the French Revolution.

@BruceJia That pressure definitely exists, but think about RISD for visual art, or Juliard for music.

Time is ripe for the field to gain prestige, but lack of a hub might be holding it back.

Is there any particular university that's pre-eminent in Environment / Climate / Ecology / Meteorology stuff?

Seems like there's no obvious choice the way there is for engineering, medicine, finance, etc.

#climate #environment

Advertising Morality

1) There's a natural fairness to conversation, where parties agree to alternate presenting information.

Advertising (and all media) is thrust upon a sometimes-unwilling audience. This isn't necessarily evil, but with advertising the goal is always financial gain.

2) Shaping people's needs and wants is intrinsically manipulative. It's psychologically dangerous territory, but I'm interested to hear about ways it can be used for good.

@dereklh @aRandomCat

I'm being nudged into a marketing role where I work, and it's forcing me to re-examine a long-held belief: Advertising Is Evil.

Anyone care to play devil's advocate?

@BruceJia I think people feel an intuitive stance for or against "the system." It's almost a basic personality trait, not a reasoned-out position.

The biggest difficulty most anti-civ people face is figuring out how to make a living outside the system. Their life-scripts are vaguely defined, and their role-models few and far-between.

So in this genre, I prefer writing with the message "this was my exceptional experience outside the system" or "here is the method I used to escape the system."

@nindokag Knew I'd seen an estimate before, took a moment to dig this up:

http://www.jilloutside.com/2008/03/cost-of-fuel.html

@BruceJia I can't help interpreting the takeaway as: "Look how miserable the system is."

It's not an actionable or compelling message.

The more convincing angle is: "Look how great life can be outside the system!"

Thinking about "Practice of the Wild" by Gary Snyder.

@BruceJia I can't help but interpret the book's central question as whether to identify with a losing or winning team:

Primitivists: We are all losers to the system now, and we would have been better off if we'd sided against the oppressors from the beginning.

Modernists: Come join us as a member of the system, and you too can become a winner. And if you won't, just look at the past several millenia: resistance is futile.

@BruceJia what were your favorite chapters?

@BruceJia I guess the flaw I find in the author's thinking is that he tries to ascribe interpersonal morality to civilization-level behavior.

Culture finds a way
http://gph.is/WAvoar

@BruceJia Exactly, but what were the original dynamics of that transition. Agriculturists were once a tiny minority. How did they survive?

@BruceJia Primitivists often cite the history of Euro-Americans abandoning their culture to join the Native Americans. But you can also read current accounts of tribal amazonians leaving their tribes to become gold miners.

Is it a simple volume issue? Colonists have an overwhelming supply of defectors, hunter-gatherers have a limited supply?