using the harris model to design a sustainable culture

[biz modl]

hi folks,

 

if you haven't seen this essay, I offer it as a useful reference:

 

http://persuademe.com.au/need-talk-growth-need-sums-well/

 

the author focuses on the production and population systems (the infrastructure layer of the harris model). changes to the structure and superstructure systems are not addressed in any significant way J

 

the structure systems support the infrastructure; the superstructure systems support the structure systems.  but the upper layer systems are constrained by the infrastructure - you must have a solution there that fits reality - and that requires engineering, not political and ideological nonsense.

 

for detail on the harris model:

 

http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/users/f/felwell/www/Theorists/Harris/Presentation/Harris.pdf

 

note the decision matrix used for cultural selection.  it must be consistent with the infrastructure solution J

 

have fun,    biz

 

 

 

[Cole Thompson]

Thanks for this biz, I think I see the issues you point out: the math against infinite growth is straightforward (infrastructure stuff as Harris would call it).  It's the upper layers, what makes societies change (or not) that is the challenge not addressed.

Well, I am awaiting my copy of "Our Kind" by Harris, so I will keep my fingers crossed that after reading that, I'll gain some tiny epiphanies about how our kind can actually do something about the math staring us in the face.  

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[biz modl]

yes, a steady state solution must have a zero growth production and population system.  as the paper suggests, any level of compounding only changes the time frame to terminal failure.  the level of production and population is determined by the sustainable carrying capacity of the production system within the environment.  so far, our species has tried just a few production systems: horticulture, agriculture, industrialism and now hyper-industrialism (per harris).

 

a variety of forms of structure and superstructure systems (political economy, domestic economy, behavioral symbolic systems, mental symbolic systems) are possible, but only the forms that will support a sustainable infrastructure solution will 'work'.  so a culture has to find a sustainable production system first, determine the carrying capacity it affords, determine the population level that matches that carrying capacity, then design the structure and superstructure systems that will enable a stable state in the infrastructure.

 

you can't start with the superstructure or structure system first, then worry about the infrastructure.  economics, politics and ideologies address different variable sets - you can't define the problem domain of a production system and environment with them - so you can't get a solution from them.  daly's insight about including the environment as a variable in the economic problem domain is useful - but it doesn’t address the problem of the infrastructure system solution.    

 

have fun,   biz

[Ishi Crew]

its quite nice you  brought up koonin (nyu, cal tech, mit , wsj, spencer, lindzen, curry).  i guess you have to dig up the dregs of the dregs (u have to go through the mud to get the pearls---except you don't).. (supposedly koonin has a phD in physics---but if u know about that sometimes or more often its just a pay for play). obviously he hasnt done any thing in that area for years apart from s-king up to NYU.  have (no (iggy, sp's))  fun---i gather your hero m crichton (harvard) has decided to contribute to a steady state.  glad to see u go.(its the biz modl---u gots to pay to play or leave immediately).

maybe when i stop down at jurrassic park  we can recreate something like Him  for the zoo.

[Cole Thompson]

Thanks biz, just since I'm new (completely unversed actually) in Harris' theory, let me see if I can paraphrase correctly, to see if I'm understanding.  I know this is glossing over important stuff but want to see if the gist is right:

A society must get its physical demands on the environment in balance if that society is to endure.  Once that balance is achieved, a society may move on to establish all the superstructure, e.g. culture, institutions, government, elites.  

If I got that mostly right, I could see then how something like 15th century Japan illustrates the point.  Stable use of resources, with an extremely rigid "superstructure" that kept everything on track and everyone in line.   One could find faults all over the place, but one would have to also say, "it worked." 

PS: If I recall correctly from the Australian "persuade me" article, there was a good example of what would have happened if ancient Egyptian civilization had kept on growing.  Simple answer, it would have grown today to require huge numbers of earth-like planets.  I reckon that is, sadly, the default answer to what will happen to current civilization and its obsession with growth.  How will it go on?  It won't.  Sigh... here's hoping for a tolerable decline, and not an "age of planetary wars" type outcome.  Huns with laser guns, looking for drinkable water :(  

[biz modl]

here is the detail on koonin:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Koonin

 

do you think his credentials match up to anderson's?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Anderson_(scientist)

 

have fun,    biz

 

From: steady...@googlegroups.com [mailto:steady...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ishi Crew
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2014 10:19 AM
To: steady...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: using the harris model to design a sustainable culture

 

its quite nice you  brought up koonin (nyu, cal tech, mit , wsj, spencer, lindzen, curry).  i guess you have to dig up the dregs of the dregs (u have to go through the mud to get the pearls---except you don't).. (supposedly koonin has a phD in physics---but if u know about that sometimes or more often its just a pay for play). obviously he hasnt done any thing in that area for years apart from s-king up to NYU.  have (no (iggy, sp's))  fun---i gather your hero m crichton (harvard) has decided to contribute to a steady state.  glad to see u go.(its the biz modl---u gots to pay to play or leave immediately).

 

maybe when i stop down at jurrassic park  we can recreate something like Him  for the zoo.

 

On Friday, October 17, 2014 7:15:30 AM UTC-4, Biz Modl wrote:

yes, a steady state solution must have a zero growth production and population system.  as the paper suggests, any level of compounding only changes the time frame to terminal failure.  the level of production and population is determined by the sustainable carrying capacity of the production system within the environment.  so far, our species has tried just a few production systems: horticulture, agriculture, industrialism and now hyper-industrialism (per harris).

 

a variety of forms of structure and superstructure systems (political economy, domestic economy, behavioral symbolic systems, mental symbolic systems) are possible, but only the forms that will support a sustainable infrastructure solution will 'work'.  so a culture has to find a sustainable production system first, determine the carrying capacity it affords, determine the population level that matches that carrying capacity, then design the structure and superstructure systems that will enable a stable state in the infrastructure.

 

you can't start with the superstructure or structure system first, then worry about the infrastructure.  economics, politics and ideologies address different variable sets - you can't define the problem domain of a production system and environment with them - so you can't get a solution from them.  daly's insight about including the environment as a variable in the economic problem domain is useful - but it doesn’t address the problem of the infrastructure system solution.    

 

have fun,   biz

From: steady...@googlegroups.com [mailto:steady...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Cole Thompson
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2014 10:30 PM
To: steady...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: using the harris model to design a sustainable culture

 

Thanks for this biz, I think I see the issues you point out: the math against infinite growth is straightforward (infrastructure stuff as Harris would call it).  It's the upper layers, what makes societies change (or not) that is the challenge not addressed.

 

Well, I am awaiting my copy of "Our Kind" by Harris, so I will keep my fingers crossed that after reading that, I'll gain some tiny epiphanies about how our kind can actually do something about the math staring us in the face.  

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 7:59 AM, biz modl <biz...@gmail.com> wrote:

hi folks,

 

if you haven't seen this essay, I offer it as a useful reference:

 

http://persuademe.com.au/need-talk-growth-need-sums-well/

 

the author focuses on the production and population systems (the infrastructure layer of the harris model). changes to the structure and superstructure systems are not addressed in any significant way J

 

the structure systems support the infrastructure; the superstructure systems support the structure systems.  but the upper layer systems are constrained by the infrastructure - you must have a solution there that fits reality - and that requires engineering, not political and ideological nonsense.

 

for detail on the harris model:

 

http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/users/f/felwell/www/Theorists/Harris/Presentation/Harris.pdf

 

note the decision matrix used for cultural selection.  it must be consistent with the infrastructure solution J

 

have fun,    biz

 

 

 

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[Ishi Crew]

i'd half 2 say 2 things. 

    1. Anderson is from the uk.  I was in the original tea party, in boston, so we no longer deal with the uk because of religious differences---we just wanted to have a nice thanks(indian)giving, and to practice our own religious views (some of my people were the 'brethren', a bit like the amish).  We wanted to have a nice halloween with salem witch trials (its the american dream---we're close to #1 in violence and incarceration!!) , so we had to close the border and deport the british.  We wanted, not a steady but a meta-stable state. (Meta is a term---e.g. see Haydn White (UCSC) 'metahistory'. kinduh like metaphysics.

     (Somehow Niall Ferguson managed to sneak in----not  R Brian Ferguson of Rutgers in anthropology (Yananamos v s Chagnon , etc.) , nor the town in missouri) .

    (So  we no longer deal with the uk---- apart from punk rock---a partly UK religious movement---see 'god save the queen',  or 'new york' (on youtube by sex pistols also) and Nicholas Barton (university of edinburgh, institute of evolutionary biology,  editor now of evolution ---though i now disagree with his views on group selection and he should know better  ).  

   2. Kevin Anderson seems much more on track than the bought and paid for Koonin. (he has a paper on the '4 degrees' in PRSL-A (phil  transactions of the royal society) in 2011 edited by 'mark new' (quite a name). 

   www.rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1934/4

azimuth blog (john baez, math) has some good discussions of hits and misses in climate prediction from the 1800s (feb 5 2013  ----on a tyndall conference). These confirm my view that i was never not even wrong.  (the Oxford Martin School i think does deserve some sort of prize---like maybe the biggest bull hitters twitters- before being put out to pasture; if they eat or smoke grass they'll emit less methane or other hot air---but they can still claim to have 'superintelligence' --garbage book).

[Ishi Crew]

p.s.  I found some papers by koonin on arxiv.org from the 90's.  the most recent one with chris adami  i can understand partly. so if this is same one he's legit apart from climate science. it has fokker-planck hamiltonian (which is actually a contradiction)