Re: on all this Georgist back and forth

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Jeffery J. Smith

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Jun 25, 2010, 10:42:49 AM6/25/10
to Matthew Stillman, Hanno Beck, Lindy Davies, Mike O'Mara, Yisroel Pensack, Mason Gaffney, Mike Curtis, common-g...@googlegroups.com, David Giesen, David Spain, Ed Dodson, Frank de Jong, Frank Walker, Fred Foldvary, Harry Pollard, Jason Bessey, Michael Scott Moore, Nadine Stoner, Nicolaus Tideman, Polly Cleveland, Richard Giles, roy_langston1, Schalkenbach Foundation, Scott Baker, steven cord, Ted Gwartney, WAFra...@aol.com, Walter Rybeck, Wyn Achenbaum, Karl Fitzgerald, Godfrey Dunkley
On Jun 25, 2010, at 7:12 AM, Matthew Stillman wrote:

These blogs are well visited by the public and policy makers for ideas and discussion.

I see why they come away without any.

Is a non-left, non-right, purely geoist blog a possibility?

Any more than a non-left, purely geoist movie a possibility?

What else are we here for but to find out?

If anything, we are the anti-economist. Rather than hash over each detail and drag out every indicator, we offer a way to lock the hood on the economy.

Millions of people who hate having to deal with cycle's ups and downs, squashed saving, lost jobs, foreclosures, etc, love hearing that message.

SMITH, Jeffery J.
President, Forum on Geonomics
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scott baker

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Jun 25, 2010, 10:56:24 AM6/25/10
to common-g...@googlegroups.com, Matthew Stillman, Hanno Beck, Lindy Davies, Mike O'Mara, Yisroel Pensack, Mason Gaffney, Mike Curtis, David Giesen, David Spain, Ed Dodson, Frank de Jong, Frank Walker, Fred Foldvary, Harry Pollard, Jason Bessey, Michael Scott Moore, Nadine Stoner, Nicolaus Tideman, Polly Cleveland, Richard Giles, roy_langston1, Schalkenbach Foundation, Scott Baker, steven cord, Ted Gwartney, WAFra...@aol.com, Walter Rybeck, Wyn Achenbaum, Karl Fitzgerald, Godfrey Dunkley
I'll check these blogs out.  of course, I've been writing Georgist articles for Op Ed News (a top 100 blog with 350,000-800,000 visitors a month, sadly not all to my articles :) ) for some time.  We've now done a comic book with lots of easy to digest facts and citations too.  One of the next projects for CG is a <10minute movie in the style of The Story of Stuff (which went super-viral to thousands of schools and on the net).  I hope to start the screenplay by fall.  Stay tuned.
We need to think not only outside the box, but start building new boxes.  Internal debate is fine, up to a point, but it won't change the world.  I don't claim to know what will, but I know we have to do something different.

Jeff - isn't the Progress Report a non-left, purely geoist blog already?  Yes, a non-left geoist movie is possible.  Start appealing to the entrepreneurs and middle class by promising to lower their taxes on production, and you've got the libertarians. 

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Jeffery J. Smith

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Jun 25, 2010, 11:11:26 AM6/25/10
to Matthew Stillman, Hanno Beck, Lindy Davies, Mike O'Mara, Yisroel Pensack, Mason Gaffney, Mike Curtis, common-g...@googlegroups.com, David Giesen, David Spain, Ed Dodson, Frank de Jong, Frank Walker, Fred Foldvary, Harry Pollard, Jason Bessey, Michael Scott Moore, Nadine Stoner, Nicolaus Tideman, Polly Cleveland, Richard Giles, roy_langston1, Schalkenbach Foundation, Scott Baker, steven cord, Ted Gwartney, WAFra...@aol.com, Walter Rybeck, Wyn Achenbaum, Karl Fitzgerald, Godfrey Dunkley
On Jun 25, 2010, at 7:55 AM, Matthew Stillman wrote:

people of all stripes are interested in economics. Having intelligent back and forth on other blogs makes people who read them say: "oh wow, this person consistently writes well with a unique perspective. I am going to check out their material and engage with them there too"

Thanks, Matt, for your thoughts.

While this recipe might be necessary for some, was it necessary for any of those other bloggers?

Why must we always pay attention to others?

And others ignore us?

Can reinforcing their outmoded frame of reference really work?

Or, as paradigm shifters, need we take a more Bucky Fuller approach?

Jeffery J. Smith

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Jun 25, 2010, 1:21:47 PM6/25/10
to Matthew Stillman, Hanno Beck, Lindy Davies, Mike O'Mara, Yisroel Pensack, Mason Gaffney, Mike Curtis, common-g...@googlegroups.com, David Giesen, David Spain, Ed Dodson, Frank de Jong, Frank Walker, Fred Foldvary, Harry Pollard, Jason Bessey, Michael Scott Moore, Nadine Stoner, Nicolaus Tideman, Polly Cleveland, Richard Giles, roy_langston1, Schalkenbach Foundation, Scott Baker, steven cord, Ted Gwartney, WAFra...@aol.com, Walter Rybeck, Wyn Achenbaum, Karl Fitzgerald, Godfrey Dunkley, Joshua Vincent
On Jun 25, 2010, at 8:27 AM, Matthew Stillman wrote:

the web and the social web in particular (which blogs are part of) thrive on connectivity and relationships.
... many of them to be sure but he engaged publically and people were annoyed or impressed or confused but they knew who he was because he engaged.

Maybe necessary, but as you say, certainly not sufficient.

Our engaging with others is the easy part. As humans (a gregarious species), being with crowds is where we want to be. But what if we can't be seen in the crowd or heard by people with unshakable understandings, like how the Indians of Cuba were supposedly unable to see the ships of Columbus?

What works for people who largely share the same frame of reference might not be a strategy that will work for people who're trying to replace the frame of reference (Kuhn).

Like Confucius said, "he who defines the terms, wins the debate." Any discussion that leaves old assumptions in place leads to conclusions already in place.

Sure, let's meet others on their turf for fun. But for work? The hard part is getting them to engage us, to even have a visible turf. The job is still to formulate our message in a way that draws people (as Fuller could). No short cuts around that. What would make our existing (or proposed) sites and blogs do _that_?

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