Thursday, September 22, 2022

Statecraft: the Crafting of States

Globe & Map

One idea of a nation is it's like a tribe, a large group with some shared ethnicity i.e. common customs and language.  "These are my people" say the denizens of such a nation.

Another idea of a nation is a kind of cybernetic machine that lets people of many ethnicities co-exist.  This is not a recent idea or invention.  The value "cosmopolitan" comes to mind, as older than "multicultural".

The federations of states in North America, including those of Lower48, along with the provinces of Canada, have internalized a lot of the "melting pot" aesthetics that go with the cosmopolitan mindset, although acceptance of diversity also allows for niches and enclaves (or call them "ghettos" as in the "Buddhist ghetto" like where I live -- also known as Asylum District), so-called neighborhoods.

That my family should have to live next door to some other family of greatly different heritage seems unfair and wrong according to the first set of criteria.  The Clint Eastwood film here is Gran Torino.  The retired factory worker from Detroit resents having to live next to refugees from Asia -- until he gets to know them better.

People in the federated states of North America tend to see a state as cosmopolitan and cybernetic, unless they feel threatened by such notions, in which case the idea of fragmenting into local "stans" may be attractive.   Some people suggest that, if you want a "whites only" experience (as if "white" were either a race and/or ethnicity, whereas it's neither), you might try moving to Idaho.

To cosmopolitan ears, the parochialism of "Ukraine for Ukrainians" meaning "Russians go home" sounds like nationalism of the first sort.  More like Kurdistan, a place for Kurds.  On the other hand, many European nations, especially those with a colonial past, have embraced the values of cosmopolitanism.  Their idea of a state is it should work for multiple ethnicities.

India supposedly wants to stay multicultural, meaning Hindu and Islamic subcultures get to share the same infrastructure.  Again, the temptation is to give in to tribalism, more like some Ukrainians, some Americans.  States that know how to accommodate multiple ethnicities might be more experimental, but then in principle they may be more robust, as they better mirror the whole earth in microcosm.

We might ask similar questions about corporations, sports teams, religious institutions:  are they able to hold it together even when there's lots of diversity?  That's a question to ask more than to answer.  The jury is still out in so many cases, meaning Judgement Day has not yet arrived, apparently.

What hurts Ukraine's prospects of staying in the game, as a nation, are its ultra-nationalists, the ones who say "Ukraine is for ethnic Ukrainians only".  That's an attitude Europeans are taught is immature, too immature to be a basis for statehood.  Ukraine's inability to stomach its own Russian population seems to have doomed it from the beginning, at least in the eyes of some spectators.  

Ethnic chauvinism may be safely repackaged as "pride" around which parades are permissible, even festivals.  But raining on others' parades is considered gauche and rather tasteless, as a rule of thumb.  Again, I'm speaking from a globalist perspective.  Tribalists will take a different view.

When it comes to tribalism, that's where I believe in "diaspora nations" and/or "virtual nations" that don't need to claim vast tracts of contiguous land.  Ethnicities cohere more through telecommunications than through sharing common acreage.  We could call a supranational corporation, say Global Data Corp, such a tribal ethnicity, although again, management may value diversity along several axes, without surrendering the company's tribal nature.

Saturday, September 17, 2022

Campfire Hero

I'm still the hero in little ways, like when my router died, and I found a new one on sale (because an older model) for cheap, got it up and running in short order.  In the meantime, the CenturyLink modem came with its own Wifi, and I've learned to keep one of the laptops on direct Ethernet.

Just now I was a hero because I'd regenerated some access token with one chance to copy it, for Github access. That's where I'm working with teachers on a High School of Tomorrow kind of curriculum, one that incorporates Github and Git.  So I should know this stuff right?  I more swill around in it, the big pig, learning as I go.  The proud boar in the mud.

The WiFi laptop had no idea of the Ethernet laptop's doings and when I went to git push, authentication failed immediately.  How could I (a) force Git to prompt for new credentials (lots of Windows answers) and (b) push the new token through its password mouth.  That was my morning battle, with coffee and time off to think it through slowly.  I believe I came to an optimal solution, which I'll not bore you with.

OK, I will, bore on!  I emailed the token from one laptop, equivalent to archiving it in the cloud and do we trust the cloud.  Maybe the next step is to delete that email.  Then, after wandering through some reams on StackOverFlow, I finally found this gem (for my problem).  The next git push caused a prompt, and I've verified username.  The new token served.

Finally, I managed a second time this season around that 14 mile loop, down to OMSI, south to Sellwood (the new extended pavement got us lost), over to I-205 (past Precision Cast Parts), and north to Division.  That's not exactly how it all went, given a flat tire (not one of mine).  Division was repaved and ready, for today...

What's today?  TriMet unveils its new "bendy bus" service along route 2, from Gresham to downtown by way of Division and OMSI.  The service is free to help publicize, familiarize, do some testing.  Tomorrow it starts "for real".  TriMet is the hero, for sculpting a future (chiseling new features).  That reminds me of another hero story...

I finally tackled Apple Pay and got a virtual Hop card wired to a credit card in my virtual wallet.  The next time I hop a bus, I should be able to wave the phone somehow.  Except not today as the debut service is free.

You've gotta do some of your own patting yourself on your own back, for a job well done from time to time.  Others may not have time for your details, which they've dismissed as irrelevant.  You're being a hero nonetheless, and giving yourself credit for it.  

I'm saying that's healthy sometimes, like logs on the fire, as we keep the mythic (mithraic) campfire burning.

A next chance to be a hero:  that newly regenerated Github token expires soon.

Sunday, September 11, 2022

From VectorVille

Martian Multiplication (2 x 2 x 5 = 20)

I got immersed in another tale from VectorVille, the place of Grassmann, Clifford, certainly Whitehead, but that's one school.  Gibbs-Heaviside inherits more directly from Hamilton-Tait.  And those are just a couple of the moving pieces; I'm not saying I have a total grasp of this engine.  I learned a lot of new things just this morning, about Clifford in particular.

We're talking about Algebras here (in the plural) if none of that made sense.  These are the superstars, and that Whitehead is the same Alfred North who worked with Bertrand Russell, another higher up among philosophers.  These algebras have the property of being foundational in the sense of general.  They each show off how every other algebra is an instance of what they describe.

Anyway, for all I know, the "web foot multiplication" of two and three vectors, forming a "close the lid" triangle and tetrahedron respectively (bottom and top figures), is well known as some [Borges] Algebra.  I'm not a super-sleuth vs-a-vs every nook and cranny of this library see.  I'm no Columbo (Wings of Desire allusion).

Why I'm talking about VectorVille, in turn, is because I was just posting to a listserv (open archive) regarding Quadrays again, what else is new, right?  That's a vector algebra you only need prior exposure to XYZ to understand, and indeed I describe it as "an API to XYZ" which sort of begs the question "from where?" i.e. who is outside of XYZ enough to need an "API" into it, Martians?

I've been reading about the Vector World and its evolution more as one of those sideline journalists, following from afar, than some immersed professor, in spite of all my dabbling the Quadray architecture. I've been needing excuses to build Python muscles, and I could see the investment in Synergetics was paying off, if only in terms of getting to meet with some superstars of my generation.  Standing ovation, y'all.

For those still scratching their heads, I recommend more searches, and bone up on "caltrop" as a good Scrabble word.

Speaking of Scrabble words, and Puzzle World, hats off to that world, e.g. Sodoku, Wordle and all that. Crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles... count me a fan, with no pretensions to being innately good at solving any of them. I confess to being a bit of a maze junky in my day, and I even innovated a fun variant, a directed graph looking thing (with bridges and tunnels).

7 x 10 = 70

Thursday, September 08, 2022

Pronouns Again

 
Originally posted to the TTBC listserv. Some typos fixed in this version.
-- 

With all this talk about pronouns in Lower48 (probably Hawaii too), there seems little introspection on the problematic "we", as in "we invaded Iraq" or some such nonsense (I certainly didn't, so don't include me in any such "we" -- I don't have nuclear weapons either, so no "we" there either). Don't tell me Uncle Sam did it because in my mind he's off the hook, resting in peace and all that (a soul searching Grunch is in the control room these days).

But then comes "we" as in "humans in Universe" in which case I (a human) get to be responsible for an ongoing criminal operation, our operation, against a precious planet. Maybe that's not the best way to look at it? Too aggressive? 

People sang something about overcoming. Were those the alcoholic Gurdjieffians that Bucky talks about? Alec's book has inspired me to look more into that relationship, twixt Bucky, and G & O. [2]

I have Fuller's Dymaxion Map in the picture, showing how any mature / lasting "we" must consider itself at least the whole globe i.e. "we the people" can't be just some island or continent.

"Think globally act locally" is akin to the enjoinder to "Drive Safely". This idea that globalism is anti-nationalism seems wrong to me. The only good nationalist screenwriting comes from those able to think globally. The rest is from morons.  

But then you have those teams and various Venn Diagram games, vs how to deploy one's pronouns more narrowly, in the context of language games (world games). Back to "we" and "I" in the small sense. Back to loner individuals and the Wild West. [3]

Kirby

[1] from a previous post. Re Math Forum. Started at Swarthmore College, acquired by Drexel, then taken over by NCTM. I'd call it a hostile takeover given the consequences. NCTM = National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. In the UK, the corresponding body was founded by one Caleb Gattegno, or so "they" tell me.

[2] https://controlroom.blogspot.com/2022/09/of-g-o.html

[3] aka WestWorld (curating a favorite artwork):
https://youtu.be/elkHuRROPfk


 

Friday, September 02, 2022

Public Relations

Hawthorne Street Fair 2022

I've adopted a somewhat "word of mouthy" approach to PR, meaning organic sharing, without any promise of direct compensation, is the best test of a product's index of osmosis.  Those of high index advertise themselves, which means, in today's parlance, they go viral i.e. spread of their own accord.

Does this mean I'm arrogantly boasting that I'm a master of word-of-mouth PR?  On the contrary, I'm more the message in a bottle type, tossing out as many messages in as many bottles as I might afford, but it's a finite effort, and each bottle, in and of itself, is a long shot.  To extend the metaphor, nothing stops the ocean from tossing them right back on shore, for me to open them.

What is my "product" you ask?  Where do you click to get the succulent dessert cookies or whatever?  Do I sell Champaign?  I'm thinking of the new pink-motif retailer I stumbled upon during the Hawthorne Street Fair yesterday.  They sell little pastries and alcoholic drinks.

Glam Bakery