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Friday, Apr 11, 2003

third wave

"Who are the third-culture intellectuals? The list includes the individuals featured in this book, whose work and ideas give meaning to the term: the physicists Paul Davies, J. Doyne Farmer, Murray Gell-Mann, Alan Guth, Roger Penrose, Martin Rees, and Lee Smolin; the evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins, Niles Eldredge, Stephen Jay Gould, Steve Jones, and George C. Williams; the philosopher Daniel C. Dennett; the biologists Brian Goodwin, Stuart Kauffman, Lynn Margulis, and Francisco J. Varela; the computer scientists W. Daniel Hillis, Christopher G. Langton, Marvin Minsky, and Roger Schank; the psychologists Nicholas Humphrey and Steven Pinker.
During the past three years, I have had ongoing one-on-one discussions with the above mentioned scientists about their own work and the work of other scientists included in the book. The result is not an anthology, nor is it an overview. I see it as an oral history of a dynamical emergent system, a celebration of the ideas of third-culture thinkers who are defining the interesting and important questions of our times."

link cache

evolutionary psychology primer

Thursday, Apr 10, 2003

freedom fries

via booknotes

hall of shame

"Long live democracy, free speech and the '69 Mets -- all improbable, glorious miracles that I have always believed in."

afghonistan

"April 10, 2003 | President George W. Bush signed the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act into law last Dec. 4, authorizing $3.3 billion in economic, political, humanitarian and security assistance for Afghanistan over the next four years. The next month, Bush submitted the 2003 budget authorization to Congress but requested slightly less than that.

As in: $0.00.

"The administration anticipated that Congress would put it in," explains a sympathetic congressional source. "So they low-balled it."
via tapped

insignificant undoings

"I opened the case and � to my horror � found nothing inside. There was a little booklet, I suppose, but there was no DVD. Has this ever happened to anyone else? I wonder whether they�ll even believe me when I bring it back this afternoon. A brand new, fully shrink-wrapped and sealed DVD case turns out to have no actual DVD inside. Can you imagine the fun that French cultural theorists could have with an event like this? E.g., Baudrillard:"
via megnut

Wednesday, Apr 09, 2003

danang, tennessee

just watched Daughter From Denang on pbs. kind of a gut wrenching story of a girl who was one of the many mixed race children born in vietnam during the war. her mother like many other poor women sent her off at age seven to america to be adopted mostly out of fear resulting from the childs mixed parentage. she was raised in the heart of dixie by a single mother who cared for her but was stern and emotionally distant. in her late twenties she successfully tracks down her real mother and ventures to vietnam for a reunion. unfortunately she is not emotionally or intellectually prepared for the visit and in the end rejects the family she had been seeking. she wanted the picture postcard memories of family without the burden. what struck me was despite their (the vietnamese familys) impoverished circumstances and their lack of schooling, they were so much more mature in their emotions and their relationships with others. meanwhile she had some sort of college degree and a family of her own but remained childish in her rapport and demeanor. im the last person that should judge anyone for shirking familial responsibilities and im sure the experience was overwhelming in many many ways, but it still seemed tragic that she wasnt able to see much beyond the blinkered ways of her adopted culture to embrace her unrealized self. instead she shuts the whole experience out of her mind (at least for the two years after the event covered in the movie) as it becomes a fuzzy memory itself, just a stack of pictures for her children to look at with wonder. but the filmmakers held out a hope that she still has the chance to grow and understand how to cope with her feelings and embrace what it means to be a part of her disrupted past.

Tuesday, Apr 08, 2003

a huge headache

"Stewart: Look, even some American generals have said that the Iraqis have put up more resistance than they were expected to.

Colbert: First rule of journalism, Jon, is to know your sources. Sounds like these "generals" of yours may be a little light in the combat boots, if you know what I'm saying.

Stewart: I don't think I know what you're saying.

Colbert: I'm saying they're queers, Jon. They're Hitler-loving queers.

Stewart: I'm perplexed. Is your position that there's no place for negative words or even thoughts in the media?

Colbert: Not at all, Jon. Doubts can happen to everyone, including me, but as a responsible journalist, I've taken my doubts, fears, moral compass, conscience and all-pervading skepticism about the very nature of this war and simply placed them in this empty Altoids box. [Produces box.] That's where they'll stay, safe and sound, until Iraq is liberated.

Stewart: Isn't it the media's responsibility in wartime ...

Colbert: That's my point, Jon! The media has no responsibility in wartime. The government's on top of it. The media can sit this one out.

Stewart: And do what?

Colbert: Everything it's always wanted to do but had no time for: travel, see the world, write that novel. I know the media has always wanted to try yoga. This is a great time to take it up. It's very stressful out there -- huge war going on. Jon, hear me out, it was Thomas Jefferson who said, "Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach."

Stewart: Stephen, Stalin said that. That was Stalin. Jefferson said he'd rather have a free press and no government than a government and no free press.

Colbert: Well, what do you expect from a slave-banging, Hitler-loving queer?"

Monday, Apr 07, 2003

divine wrongs

"This is not the Old Testament, I emphasize, but St. Paul. One can understand his words as referring only to lawfully constituted authority, or even only to lawfully constituted authority that rules justly. But the core of his message is that government�however you want to limit that concept�derives its moral authority from God. It is the �minister of God� with powers to �revenge,� to �execute wrath,� including even wrath by the sword (which is unmistakably a reference to the death penalty). Paul of course did not believe that the individual possessed any such powers. Only a few lines before this passage, he wrote, �Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.� And in this world the Lord repaid�did justice�through His minister, the state."
via orcinus

trinity square

"Third, and most important, the attempt to impose democracy in Iraq and the Middle East has all the unreality of Don Quixote. The truth is that an invasion and occupation of Iraq with the pronounced intent of imposing democracy will more likely be a �poison dart� with a �boomerang effect� than a �magic bullet� with a �democratic domino effect� in the region. For decades, the Iraqi middle classes have been forced to act like supplicants towards those who rule them with arbitrary power. Their servility has undoubtedly produced a psychology and culture that emphasize avoidance and distrust of political life. In no way do the Iraqi middle classes resemble the proto-liberal capitalist classes of seventeenth-century Western Europe with their preferences for, and understanding of, a legally framed market economy and individual autonomy. As for Iraqi society in general, it is fragmented into hostile tribes and clans based on kinship, religion, and ethnicity. In such an environment, creating civility will require Promethean effort. Creating a civil society and democratic government will take a miracle."
via talking points

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