From: "Henry van Eyken" <vaneyken@sympatico.ca>
Sent off this morning my Session-7 Q&As, then took a shower. Should
have done that the other way around. My answers might have been
somewhat different.
The thrust of the questions was where scaling calls/could call for
recognizing surprises. And what priorities ought apply different
scales. The difficulty of answering them compounded by a fresh,
uncertain notion of the bootstrapping process under different
circumstances. Survey 7 was an exhortation to rush in where angels
fear to tread.
Without statistics on hand about population and what people think
about, I am going to, between my own ears, arbitrary draw boundaries
between interested academics, middle intelligentia, the crowd
(accountants, teachers, sales & service engineers, shopkeepers,
dockworkers, homemakers). (Never mind my choice of words.) Voters all.
Corresponding ballpark numbers (seat-of-the-pants, for N. America to
keep things "simple"): 1000s(?), 10,000-1,000,000(?), up from there.
(Never mind the accuracy.)
Mostly these people express opinion more freely over drinks. Mostly
instant opinion. Much of it to be amicably concurring with partners
in conversation and not an insignificant portion of it (depending
somewhat on alcohol consumed) to display superior contrariness,
independence of thought.
Am I talking hooey? Well, why not put it to the test? Listen and
observe at social occasions over drinks and at watering holes like
bars, taverns.
Especially taverns. Might be a good exercise to size up what kind of
surprises are in store when we scale up. A good exercise to start
thinking about how deep bootstrapping concepts should drill into the
thick of society. Thinking about where the Stanford Colloquium,
Oprah, Rosie O'Donnell and the crowd find common ground. Voters all,
in a turmultuous society whose attention shfts from Monica to Kosovo
to Pokimon (sp?) to "final answer?" within the blink of an eye. As do
the shifts from thoughtful consideraton to emotion and back.
How deep the reach of strategy? Where to turn from brain to brawn?
***
I guess my questions are prompted by my own low-to-middle class
background and by having spent a quarter of a century in a huge
inner-city community college with middleclass staff "teaching"
lower-class kids, as well as a somewhat unusual blend of other
experiences.
I have faith in Doug's strategy on the intellectual plane. Insofar I
am understanding something, there is a comfortable consistency here
as long as I mentally compartmentalize myself. But I am worried about
penetration issues, which do not only concern corporations,
bureaucracies, and NGOs, but also society (societies) at large. Not
much consistency there. Not easy to be unflappable and calmy return
to force on oneself a disciplined thinking about the subject at hand.
Sorry, if this all comes a bit off the top of the head, but I think
we should recognize here another urgent, complex problem that mankind
must cope with. One I can't fit easily within any of the Millennium
Project's other fifteen, and also looks very real.
Henry
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