Prometheus and Mega Lists, April 1999 (Part Fifteen)
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 04:57:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: Langan <clangan@suffolk.lib.ny.us>
To: megalist@brokersys.com
Subject: Re: [MegaList] Re: A Personal Reply to Chris Langan
Well, looks like it's back to the grind.
Before we begin, let me point out that what we're seeing now typifies
what has been happening for the last ten years in the Mega Society. The
game: AVOID CONTENT AT ALL COSTS. Why? Because when it comes
to content, the "right people" never seem to win the arguments they start. Who
are "the right people"? First and foremost, the right people is Chris Cole.
And more recently, the right people is Kevin Langdon. There are several
other "right people" as well - collectively, we may refer to them as the
WCF (West Coast Faction) - but they usually refer all issues of content
to their fearless leaders for immediate suppression.
The content we're supposed to be discussing now is (1) the relationship
between rationalism and empiricism in science, on which a certain "crank
theory" of mine (the CTMU) happens to bear strongly; (2) the relationship
of IQ to power IEQ, especially vis-a-vis our qualification standards; and
(3) how the Mega Society can begin to meet the needs and aspirations of
members other than Messrs. Cole, Langdon, et al. These items of content
have historically been avoided in the Mega Society, and would probably
continue to be avoided were it up to the WCF to make the call.
Kevin is starting to worry now because he's finally being pinned to the
wall regarding these matters, and no amount of twisted rhetoric seems to
be getting him out of the fix he's in. I'm sure we all sympathize with
Kevin, who would like to spend the next decade suppressing meaningful
discussion of these topics by limiting the dialogue to a glacial exchange
of viewpoints in his hard-spun version of "Noesis". In that much
slower-paced venue, his repetitious accusations of crankery, etc., don't
become stale as quickly or obviously as they do here. He can also maintain
a more convincing air of authority, thereby ensuring that things always go
precisely as the right people want them to.
At some point soon, I'm going to stop responding to Kevin's personal
attacks. They might be mildly entertaining for others to read, but they're
circular and diversionary, and therefore a calculated waste of my time and
the Society's. Meanwhile, I'll answer Kevin's latest sally as though it
were worth my while to do so.
> > And yet, I and a majority of others seem to get along with the TNS
> > leadership just fine.
>
> Most people don't care about the governance of societies they belong to.
>
> I agree with Chris, up to a point, that one takes on certain responsibilities
> when one joins one of these societies. And one of the most important
> ones is to pay enough attention to be able to tell the good guys from the
> bad guys in the organizational conflicts that erupt from time to time.
>
> What is a good guy? The good guy is for honesty, democracy, and
> member rights and against official secrecy, coercion of members by
> officers, and violation of agreed-upon operating rules
>
> It remains the case that people are often taken in by demagogues who
> promise them peace at the expense of principle, which is not peace at
> all but a conspiracy of silence about the way those in power use that
> power to silence and punish their enemies. It's too bad that that works
> much of the time.
>
> As for Chris, well, birds of a feather . . .
Kevin Langdon is one of the sneakiest, most underhanded, most consciously
Machiavellian "bad guys" in the upper-HIQ world. One ready example of
Kevin's modus operandi is the way he climbed into the editorship of what
he calls "Noesis". His padrone Chris Cole called for "volunteers",
telling
them to contact Jeff Ward. Right about the time Chris C. made his call,
Ward was in receipt of a letter from me that could have been interpreted
in one way only: that I was willing to edit the journal. Cole followed up
by announcing that there had been "only one" volunteer: Kevin Langdon.
The whole sham had obviously been rigged in advance.
Any honest person in Kevin's position would have admitted that he was
intellectually underqualified to edit the journal and deferred to any
available qualified member (under the circumstances, this would have
been me). Instead, he clung to his new "post" and swore to eliminate all
"crap" from Noesis. By "crap", Kevin made it clear that he meant
"anything
written by Chris Langan". But when it comes to highly abstract thinking,
Kevin wouldn't know crap from angelfood cake.
What Kevin was *really* announcing was a personal vendetta against me, a
qualified member of the group. In his own bizarre way, I'm sure he was
convinced that I could be easily subdued by one of his great acumen. But
the only reason someone like Kevin is able to make such a judgment about
someone like me is that he can't recognize the width or directionality of
the intelligence gap that exists between us. He can't understand anything
I write; therefore, he presumes that I must be "crazy" (as opposed to a
couple of standard deviations smarter than he is).
In short, Kevin is neither politically nor intellectually honest, and
everyone without a screw loose knows it.
> <snip> >
> >> Chris continues to draw conclusions about other people's motives
> >> without evidence.
>
> > "Without evidence"? How about telling us where we can look and
> > *not* find some evidence?
>
> You seem to be able to find "evidence" whether it's there or not.
No amount of evidence can survive Kevin's powers of denial.
>
> >>> And as his analogy shows, his psychological idiosyncrasies happen
> >>> to include a John Phillip Souza complex.
>
> >> Whereas Chris has had trouble finding anyone to join his "band."
>
> > That's because I only play with the best.
>
> Right. Like Paul Maxim.
Why does Kevin keep picking on poor Paul Maxim? Could he be envious of
Paul's IQ, which exceeds his own by 20 points on standard tests? Or is he
merely jealous of Paul's work on the French poet Mallarme?
> <snip>
>
> >>> First, brains consist of neurons, and are therefore neural networks.
> >>> So certain aspects of the basic mechanics are present in the most
> >>> general neural models.
>
> >> Brains consist of atoms and are therefore atomic networks, but this
> >> may not be the most fruitful way to study them.
>
> > Maybe not. Then again, you can't make a contrary assertion either.
>
> There are many ways to study. The burden of proof is on the proponents
> of any particular way to show its advantages.
Kevin is always making "burden of proof" mistakes. This time, his mistake
is to forget that a statistical toiler like him must adhere to (and not
just talk about) a black box model of the intellect, which means making no
assumption that might be invalidated by whatever the box turns out to
specifically contain. For example, when Roger Penrose says that "there
exists a possibility that intelligence is a form of quantum coherence in
the neural cytoskeleton", he is citing a constraint on what Kevin is
allowed to assume. To wit, unless Kevin can prove Penrose's claim FALSE,
he can legitimately make no contrary assumption. In effect, Kevin's hands
are tied by anyone with an undiscredited mechanical hypothesis!
> > Ever read "Shadows of the Mind" by Roger Penrose? Here's another
> > theory you can't rule out, and for the potential truth of which you
> > must allow.
>
> I haven't read that book, but it's on my "intend to read" list already.
>
> Penrose is one of the people that fall into the class that Chris contends
> we should admit without testing. He's a highly creative mathematician,
> physicist, and cognitive scientist who's had many interesting ideas.
>
> Of course no distinguished real genius would be likely to embarrass
> himself by joining the Mega Society anyway. And if he *weren't*
> distinguished how would we recognize him?
If it were true that any distinguished genius would be embarrassed to join
the Mega Society, the reason would be spelled K-e-v-i-n L-a-n-g-d-o-n.
It's Kevin who is forever at pains to assure us, and whenever possible the
world at large, that the Mega Society is nothing but a trivial, do-nothing
joke. On the other hand, if we could get a few well-recognized real-world
geniuses as members, we could get wired into something potentially
worthwhile for all of us (as opposed to "worthwhile for Kevin").
> <snip>
>
> >>> Meanwhile, I'm on the inside of any field I *want* to be inside
> >>> of, intellectually speaking. That's what a high IQ is good for.
>
> >> Who do you think you're kidding? That's what you've been
> >> complaining that a high IQ *isn't getting you* for a long time.
>
> > Wrong. Where a high IQ doesn't get you is inside the CLUB, not the
> > field. To a complete sucker for academia like you, the club *is* the
> > field.
>
> I'm no sucker for academia; I'm more the kind of sucker who doesn't
> stay with the program and winds up without credentials, which after
> a while is just a pain in the ass.
>
> I've been close to the guys who are making a difference in many fields,
> over the years; as I assume the rest of you know, this is not terribly
> hard to do, given the interest and a certain investment of energy.
I'll agree with that, up to a point. However, Kevin is making it sound
like those who don't make it in academia have only themselves to blame
for the "pain in the ass" occasioned by their lack of credentials. This
is exactly what academia would like everyone to believe. That way, they
can continue to suck up tax money and pursue their social engineering
agenda without having to fear the many talented people their idiotic
bureaucracy has shafted.
> >>> And what I'm saying to *you*, Kevin Langdon, is that I know
> >>> more about the subject than you do. Probably a *lot* more!
>
> >> As stated a few paragraphs back, "the subject" is "cerebral
> >> organization and mechanics." For simplicity, let's call it "how
the
> >> brain (or mind) works." I see evidence only that you have some
> >> math background and you've had some interesting insights into
> >> this and that, not that you have a uniquely penetrating "theory
> >> of everything," as you claim, or even a comprehensive brain/
> >> mind model.
>
> > There you go again...making judgments on that which you don't
> > understand. My theory of intelligence is actually pretty advanced;
> > I'm not prepared to go into it here for my own reasons.
>
> I will refrain from speculating about Chris' "reasons," but until he
> presents his material on this subject he can't very well expect others
> to give him credit for it.
Again, Kevin attempts to confuse the issue. My own theory of intelligence
was never on the table, and isn't even necessary to counter Kevin's
dubious claims regarding the ceilings and reliabilities of his tests.
> > But as far as the CTMU is concerned, it can have you for lunch.
>
> We keep missing these lunch dates.
No, you keep ducking them.
>
> > Why don't you try arguing with it again? It eats things that disagree
> > with it all the time.
>
> If *it* is *you* (and you certainly seem to think that *you* are *it*),
> that would explain your disposition.
What the hell are you talking about? You think I equate myself wholly
with a theory?
> > You never learn, do you? You're still trying desperately to justify
> > your decade of asinine, logic-free opposition to what may be, for
> > all you know, the most advanced theoretical construct ever devised.
>
> What I have been opposed to for a decade is your grandiose,
> unsubstantiated claims. For all I know, you could be a potential
> supergenius who just couldn't adjust to how stupid everybody else
> is and got the heebie-jeebies on account of that. But if that's the case
> your theory is of no more practical use for apes like us than Einstein's
> theory is for Koko the gorilla.
No, Kevin. I'm not talking about "everybody else". I'm talking about you.
You're the runt who disparages my work while attempting to throw his
weight around like an 800-lb. silverback. I've substantiated every claim
I've ever made to any member smart enough to see it (with a reservation or
two involving proofs submitted to a particular qualified member under an
agreement of secrecy). If you're not that smart, then why blame others?
> > But as you're beginning to realize, you only dig your hole deeper
> > every time you clear your truth-twisting pipes.
>
> I must be even stupider than Chris thinks I am, because I have not
> begun to realize anything of the sort.
If I were you, I'd reach for the smelling salts.
>
> <snip>
>
> >> I'd suggest that you put a damper on it. I can't speak for all Mega
> >> members about exactly where the civility limits here might be,
> >> but whatever the limits are, you're the champ in the bad behavior
> >> department.
>
> > All I ask is to be addressed civilly, as opposed to being called a
> > "crank" out of the blue by people with no room to talk. Since
> > you've always relied on the bad behavior of your Langdonoid
> > cult zombies to prop you up in times of opposition, you have no
> > right to complain when somebody gives it back to them.
>
> You're asking for too much. In the academic world toward which
> you seem to have an ambivalent attitude, every scientist knows that
> there will be people in his field who will shoot holes in his theories
> if they can, but he refrains from boasting about his superiority to
> these others and from belittling them personally, takes their
> criticisms seriously, and listens to *their* theories. They consider
> themselves colleagues and often become friends. You tend to take
> disagreement of any kind as evidence of stupidity, insanity, and/or
> Langdonoidicity.
Scientists don't call each other cranks, they don't question each other's
sanity, and they actually make honest attempts to understand each other's
work. Kevin has never made an honest attempt to understand my work in his
long, sad life. He never "shot a hole" in anything I wrote; instead, he
and his keyboard-tapping thugs - who richly deserve whatever pejorative or
humorous labels they've picked up along the way - went straight for the
cheap shots. This is simply Kevin's attempt to "con the new fish". I
sincerely advise my newer colleagues not to let him do it. He'll turn on
you the first time it suits him to do so.
> Your labeling of people whose views have happened to coincide
> with mine on one thing or another at some time as "Langdonoids"
> is insulting, offensive, and unfair. There is also an implied threat
> to those silently following this exchange that if they should rashly
> agree with anything I'm saying in these arguments with you, they
> would be on the receiving end of the same kind of crude invective
> that has been leveled at Bob Dick and others whom you perceive
> as "Langdonoids."
The crude invective started when Kevin's friend Bob called me a crank,
right out of left field. Everyone on this list watched it happen. And
whatever the reason that Bob's and Kevin's views "happen to coincide"
it isn't because either of them ever made an honest attempt to understand
my own attempts to communicate with them. The only alternative explanation
seems to be that they function as single politically-motivated entity.
This is where the term "Landonoid" comes from...it reflects the mindless,
zombie-like way that Kevin and a tiny handful of allies oppose anyone and
anything they regard as a potential threat.
> >> If you're right, why do you need the nasty stuff?
>
> > Because being right has historically had nothing to do with how
> > one is treated in this group.
>
> Treated, shmeated. Who's "treated"? I write my stuff, often
> disagreeing with one thing or another that's been printed in
> *Noesis*, and send it to the Editor. My stuff gets published. The
> other guy's stuff, often disagreeing with *me*, gets published too.
> (This was going on long before I became Editor of *Noesis*.)
> We go back and forth. Maybe sometimes we arrive at some
> common ground. The same thing goes on on this list. One
> person says one thing to me, has one attitude. With another I
> have a different relationship. I am not being "treated" any
> particular way by the society as a whole. And I'm sure that's
> the experience of the great majority of members who have
> participated actively in the affairs of the society.
I was speaking, of course, about the self-interested behavior of you and
Mr. Cole as bogus "officers" (editors, etc.) of the Mega Society. You're
not just members disagreeing with other members; you're self-designated
"authorities" who have repeatedly used the journal to further your own
agenda and relentlessly disparage the work of qualified members whose
work you lack the intelligence to understand.
> > And because "nasty stuff" is all that certain people pay attention
> > to. Evidently, the only way to make you look closely at
> > something is to clock you over the head with it, and even *that*
> > doesn't work most of the time.
>
> I am very much opposed to what you're saying here. You don't
> have a right to steal other people's attention via rhetorical violence,
> but that's a major part of your way of operating.
Who cares what you think at this point? You beg for every piece of
"rhetorical violence" you get.
> <snip>
>
> >> You're insulting the very premise of this group!
>
> >> More projection. Your attempted usurpation of the editorship of
> >> *Noesis* and the authority to make decisions for the Mega Society,
> >> including admitting unqualified people to your version of Mega,
> >> your attempts to dumb down our admission standards, and your
> >> intemperate statements about other members of the society have
> >> done more damage to the Mega Society than Paul Maxim has been
> >> able to do with all his frothing at the mouth.
>
> > Dry up. As everyone familiar with the history of this group is well
> > aware, you and Chris Cole are the original "usurpers". And I never
> > make an intemperate statement about anyone unless they make one,
> > and usually more than one, about me first.
>
> I see. So how many wrongs *does* it take to make a right?
Enough to make you and Bob shut up.
>
> > For example, the reason I make a lot of apparently unkind
> > statements about *you* is that I finally got fed up with having you
> > publicly festoon my name with every complex, disorder and
> > syndrome in the Dictionary of Abnormal Psychology, simply
> > because you don't know enough logic to think your way out of a
> > wet barf bag.
>
> 1. "Apparently," my elbow.
>
> 2. You have the causality backward there, Mr. Potential Supergenius.
And you, for want of a gentler term, are lying.
>
> 3. Your talent for graphic metaphors is an interesting spectacle but
> grows vearing.
So go back to the ISPE.
[From this point onward, all Kevin does is take me to task for what he
considers my shameful mistreatment of Bob Dick. As I've said before, I
sympathize with Mr. Dick, who has apparently had his share of trouble.
But being out of work, or having psychiatric problems, or being insecure
never entitled him to attack me and call me names (one of his favorite
pastimes for about a decade). After all, I've had my quota of problems
too. But unlike Mr. Dick and even Kevin himself, I never used them as an
excuse to employ smear tactics against other members.]
From: GR2rojad@aol.com
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 02:28:26 EDT
Subject: Re: [MegaList] Re: A Personal Reply to Chris Langan
To: megalist@brokersys.com
In a message dated 4/15/99 3:58:24 AM US Eastern Standard Time,
clangan@suffolk.lib.ny.us writes:
> The content we're supposed to be discussing now is (1) the relationship
> between rationalism and empiricism in science, on which a certain "crank
> theory" of mine (the CTMU) happens to bear strongly;
Name one person besides yourself, Chris, who agrees with this.
RD
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 14:14:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: Langan <clangan@suffolk.lib.ny.us>
To: megalist@brokersys.com
Subject: Re: [MegaList] Re: A Personal Reply to Chris Langan
[Quotation of the message above omitted. --KL]
See what I told you, everybody? Bob never, ever says die.
But let me take this opportunity to fill everybody in on the implications
of all that stuff about objectivity, models and isomorphisms we just went
through (already sounds like John Baez). Most scientists tacitly
subscribe to something called Cartesian dualism. This is because a long,
long time ago, French mercenary Rene Descartes noticed that there were
certain...differences between what went on in his mind and what went on
in reality, and that mind and body were therefore to be distinguished. So
he stuck a divider between the mental and the actual or concrete sides of
reality. Subsequently, scientists realized that this divider also afforded
a convenient way to achieve "objectivity" in science: just subtract all
consideration of the observer and his cognitive processes from scientific
descriptions of the observation. Since this was the ultimate quick fix for
all that runaway observation-free "rationalism" that the Greeks had
started, nobody bothered to consider whether it might present certain
logical difficulties later on.
To make a long story short, philosophers and many scientists have long
wondered what would happen were one simply to remove the divider. Well,
one part is obvious; "dualism" would become "monism". But what would
the
associated monic reality look like? Specifically, what can monism do for
us when it comes to explaining some of the mysteries and resolving some of
the paradoxes associated with ordinary Cartesian science and philosophy?
It was only a matter of time before someone (me) tried it and found out.
The first step is to recognize that monic reality is in fact already
implicit in certain aspects of logic and formalized theories. Concisely,
it turns out that it is impossible to achieve a meaningful, logically
consistent description of science itself without removing the Cartesian
divider (my point about models of scientific theories is that the divider
has already been removed in the formal definition of "model"). The second
step is to construct a general logical framework according to principles
embodying constraints that derive from the relationship between the
cognitive and informational aspects of monic reality. And the third step
is to refine the framework, according to the same principles, in light of
what science already knows.
The result is the CTMU, short for "[C-word]-Theoretic Model of the
Universe". The C-words are cognition, computation, and category (we could
add "complexity" and "consciousness" too, but let's stick to
well-defined
concepts for now). That is, the CTMU unites all of these C-words in the
context of another C-word, cosmology. It's really easy to understand why;
cognition is identified with objective reality by removing the Cartesian
divider; computation is just "objectivized cognition", so that distinction
also falls (at least on a general level); and category theory provides the
most natural mathematical language for describing the relationship between
the newly-reunited cognitive and objective aspects of reality.
Unfortunately, all of these c-words are simply not in the vocabularies of
most scientists, and especially physicists and cosmologists. So there
really isn't any way to get the CTMU "peer-reviewed" within the cosmology
community, or the physics community, or even the philosophy community. And
this is the reason that people like Mr. Dick can continue to ask why, if
it is such a great theory, the CTMU can be totally without support in the
scientific community. Scientists are specialists, not generalists, and
their mental apertures can only accept inputs of specific sizes, shapes
and colors.
That's why I presented the CTMU to the Mega Society, my friends
and colleagues...because I thought it would contain people with "wider
mental apertures", so to speak. Now, there's no question that the CTMU
exceeds the mental input capacities of Messrs. Dick and Langdon (who
amusingly calls himself a "generalist"). But if the Society doesn't
contain people to whom this limitation does not apply, then what the @#$%
good is it?
What it comes down to is this. If you want to get your little head patted
by the scientific community, write a couple of trivial monographs and
submit them to specialty journals. Better yet, become an acadummy and
intellectual bureaucrat, dutifully parroting the great wisdom that echoes
through the hallowed halls of academia. But the founders of the HIQ
community didn't intend that groups like the Mega Society should function
as mere dutiful little adjuncts of academia. They're supposed to produce
content of their own, and this content is supposed to include the kind
that academic specialization precludes.
The Mega Society can achieve exactly nothing, and will receive exactly no
meaningful attention, until this fact is realized by its members. Thanks
for your attention, and long live the CTMU.
Chris Langan
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 09:13:40 -0700
To: Prometheus <theft_of_fire@egroups.com>
From: Kevin Langdon <kevin.langdon@polymath-systems.com>
Subject: [theft_of_fire] Re: attracting members
At 06:57 AM 4/26/99 PDT, Jerry Walsh wrote:
> How much do you think the requirement that addresses cannot
> be unlisted affects people's willingness to be a part of
> Prometheus? Many people (myself included, though I have no
> objection to having my own address listed) see this as an
> invasion of privacy.
In the early 60's, when I joined Mensa, I was struck right away
by the fact that members were required to allow their names and
addresses to be published--and I liked the idea. As one who
intends to be active in whatever groups he participates in, I'm
not happy about performing in front of lurkers who are watching
me but don't want me to be able to see them.
For the same reason, I am displeased with the custom, common
online, of using "handles" in chat rooms.
On the other hand, some people have good reasons not to want
to see their addresses displayed publicly. Those people should
rent post office boxes; that's a win-win solution.
Kevin Langdon
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 11:12:42 -0700
To: Prometheus <theft_of_fire@egroups.com>
From: Kevin Langdon <kevin.langdon@polymath-systems.com>
Subject: [theft_of_fire] Re: attracting members
At 09:48 AM 4/26/99 -0700, Fred Vaughan wrote:
[Quoting Jerry Walsh:]
>> How much do you think the requirement that addresses cannot be
>> unlisted affects people's willingness to be a part of
>> Prometheus? Many people (myself included, though I have no
>> objection to having my own address listed) see this as an
>> invasion of privacy.
> I tend to not worry much about privacy myself; however, it does not
> bother me if others desire to remain out of sight as long as that is not
> because of intimidation, in which case, it is the source of intimidation
> that draws my disdain.
Yes. I frequently hear from people who support my positions but have
been intimidated into public silence. But, on the other hand, criticism
of one's ideas or conduct (especially official conduct) is not intimidation.
> As I'm sure you are aware, there tends to be very little tolerance for
> privacy by some in our Society.
It's not much of an invasion of privacy to make an address available to
other members who may wish to contact one.
> In conversation with Marilyn VS, she indicated that that issue was
> her only concern with renewing her membership in our Society. She
> said that her address is inadvertently given out by individuals in these
> Societies which is a threat to her life. Obviously we did not come up
> with a solution that convinced her of its efficacy.
One perfectly workable solution would be to list her address as "c/o
*Parade* magazine." Or the Editor could forward mail to her (I listed
her as "c/o the *Four Sigma Bulletin*" in the most recent Four Sigma
roster, after discussing the matter with her). Listing her in the roster
while protecting any reasonable expectation of privacy, given that she
is a nationally-syndicated columnist, is easy.
> You will notice that most of the officers in the US use PO boxes
> anymore [sic (twice): 1. there's no such word as "anymore"; 2. "any
> more" is only correctly idiomatic with negation], but whenever I go
> to my box I am aware of how easy it would be for a lurker to watch
> for anyone who goes to that box and follow them.
A lurker with nothing else to do! Someone seeking to find me by
waiting for me to go to my P.O. box will need to hang around for at
least several days, on the average. Who is that strongly motivated?
(Hey, wait a minute.... Nobody forward this message to Paul Maxim,
O.K.?)
And this problem does not apply to either of the methods I mentioned
above.
> I suspect a preoccupation with privacy could lead to a Howard Hughs
> [sic] syndrome, but privacy and, yes, even anonymity, in a world
> where terrorism has become too much of a norm should be
> accommodated.
Anonymity is the author of much mischief. Anyone who's had much
to with discussion groups on the Net knows that one screwball can
cause a huge amount of mischief. For example, one man in one of
the groups I know became incensed with two other members and
sent each of them several thousand harassing e-mails. Mike Lewy, a
Triple Nine member, had his hard disk trashed by a hacker. We have
a very legitimate reason to want to know with whom we're sharing
our private thoughts.
Anonymity is a two-edged sword. It may help an individual escape
from the terrorists but it also helps the terrorists escape from justice.
My understanding of the theory underlying the language in Mensa's
and Prometheus' constitutions is via the idea of the "tragedy of the
commons." Left to their own devices, people will tend to act in their
narrow self-interest while resources all are dependent on become
degraded through this exploitation. Many of the rules of society are
intended to provide an incentive to do one's bit to preserve the
commons.
Kevin Langdon
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 14:40:19 -0700
To: tns@egroups.com, Prometheus <theft_of_fire@egroups.com>
From: Kevin Langdon <kevin.langdon@polymath-systems.com>
Subject: [theft_of_fire] Re: Strangely, no requests...
This message is in response to a post (to which I replied on the TNS
list before), by Heather Preston, on the TNS e-mail list. Because the
issue here is relevant to current affairs in Prometheus as well, I am
sending it to the theft_of_fire list as well.
At 06:37 PM 4/22/99 -0700, Heather wrote:
> Strangely, I've had no requests from list members for non-responses
> [Heather had asked if some might object to her arguing about this],
> so here goes:
> Kevin Langdon replied:
>>> air his views and his perceived cherished grievances, [HLP's
>>> phrase]
>> There are real, serious irregularities in the society's business
>> which I have detailed in previous messages. Heather's gratuitous
>> labeling of my positions, without attempting to answer them, is
>> cowardly and deliberately misleading.
>> ...
>> How about just minding her [J. White's] own damn business?
>> ...vicious characterizations of me by the Regent and her cronies...
>> ...conducted a vendetta against those who dare to tell it like it is...
>> ...organizational police state...
>> ...those who are now pulling her strings...The hypocritical
>> demonization...
>> ...Anyone who has been reading *Vidya*...knows that my remarks
>> have been both cogent and temperate...
> I'd hate to see what Mr. Langdon considers intemperate.
Sometimes forceful language is needed in order to momentarily snap
people out of their stereotypical perceptual/conceptual mindsets and
give them a glimpse of things as they really are. While it is not always
possible to avoid making uncomplimentary remarks about what
certain individuals' acts reveal about their character, this can be done
without bringing in irrelevant points about these persons.
To place restictions on the form of speech (beyond existing laws
prohibiting libel, fraud, obscenity, etc.) inevitably treads upon content
as well and gives one side in a dispute an unfair rhetorical advantage.
Consider the difference in impact between the more familiar forms
of the following sayings from American history and the forms
presented below:
1. Taxation without representation is unfortunate.
2. Give me a degree of self-rule or I shall be displeased.
3. Let us all hang together or some of us may encounter individual
difficulties.
4. Persons of English ancestry are reportedly approaching.
5. We think that God may be right, if he exists.
6. Fifty-four forty or cry.
7. The nation's long-term viability is in doubt without a consensus
on the question of slavery.
8. December 7, 1941, which will not be remembered as a particularly
good day.
9. If you can't stand the heat, I'll stand here and fan you while you
cook.
10. Some of my best friends are Berliners.
Kevin Langdon
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 04:51:38 -0700
To: tns@egroups.com, Prometheus <theft_of_fire@egroups.com>
From: Kevin Langdon <kevin.langdon@polymath-systems.com>
Subject: [theft_of_fire] Re: another request
At 08:07 PM 4/27/99 -0800, Kerry Williams wrote:
> At 9:20 AM -0800 4/27/99, Kevin Langdon wrote:
>> Dear Mr. Vaughan,
>>
>> You have requested that you not receive messages containing
>> personal attacks and I have complied...
> And earlier Heather asked:
>> Other TNS-ers: if you do NOT want to receive messages about this
>> issue, just send me a two-word message to that effect and I will desist
>> if I >get five of them -- fair enough?
> Please, Heather, no more messages on this subject. Why?
> Because Kevin wrote:
>> Experience on a number of these lists indicates that most people
>> find these sorts of exchanges at least soemwhat entertaining
>> (whether or not I'm involved in a particular exchange) and such
>> requests are rare on these other lists as well.
> And I happened to be around when these kinds of accusatory exchanges
> reduced TNS's membership by (approximately) 80%.
That isn't true. What reduced TNS' membership was the behavior that was
the subject of (some of) the accusations (those that were true)--twice.
First, Barry Kington and Patrick Hill took over the government of TNS,
through blatantly unconstitutional actions, in the late 1980's, violating
many members' rights in the process, and then John Hook and Jacquelinne
White did the same thing last year, long before the election they won.
Thanks to the prevailing moral cowardice, I am generally in the forefront
of those opposing such unjust actions.
> If Kevin really believes that "most" members find these exchanges
> entertaining, then he simply doesn't get it.
A number of people have said so at various times, e.g., Adelaide Jaffe
(not exactly a Langdonoid).
>> Perhaps you could be a little more specific about what you don't
>> want to see.
> Derogatory, insulting, baiting, accusatory, he said she said bickering
> that's been repeated, copied, and recopied to the point that it drives
> members away.
It takes (at least) two to tango. It's my policy not to let certain types of
statements pass unchallenged (accusations against me and assaults on
democracy and member rights). If you don't want the reply, don't make
that type of statement.
>> At 03:12 PM 4/26/99 -0700, Fred Vaughan wrote:
>>> I and many others requested to be deleted from the TNS list
>>> because of communications like those you refer to here. Please
>>> delete me from the distribution [of] such communications.
> Like that.
> Kerry
Naturally, the chief villain in the destruction of democracy and member
rights in Prometheus would object.
Then, on Tue, 27 Apr 1999 at 23:39:11 -0500, Robert Gillis wrote:
> Subject: [tns] Re: another request
> Kerry,
> I must agree wholeheartedly at this point. It is clear that nothing not
> already obvious will be learned from the continuation of this subject. My
> opinion is that the *entertainment value* has been virtually nil to all,
> save, perhaps, one participant.
I suppose he means me. Funny, I haven't been having fun with this crap.
> With all the topics in the world we could discuss, why must it all come
> down to catering to the egocentricism of one?
This is a more serious question than it may appear to be. In the history of
ideas, it has often been the case that a person with new and strange ideas
has turned out to be right (sometimes only generations later). Because of
this, it has long been the custom in what serious circles exist to allow
unpopular ideas to be expressed along with popular ones. Unfortunately,
the people running the show in TNS and Prometheus have other ideas.
> It puts a damper on anyone considering commenting to existing threads
> or starting a new one. As I see it, our group's sole benefit to members is
> to provide a means of discourse between highly intelligent people...
Censorship puts a more effective damper on intelligent exchange than a
voice crying in the wilderness.
> Ironically, with the ways things are, most of us shrink from this exchange
> because it's far *less* palatable than talking with people of average
> intelligence. Sniper attacks, incessant vitriol about the same tired issues
> and the litany of point-by-point rebuttals of every statement (and not very
> convincing ones at that) made by those in the wrong camp are just not
> conducive to a free exchange of ideas.
Perhaps you should stop worrying about what "camp" people are in and
pay attention to the content of their remarks.
> Aren't most of us here to read well-considered opinions on a variety of
> topics and to be alerted to news of items that other members think might
> be of special interest to us?
> Bob Gillis
> This applies to Vidya & GoF as well-- even more so.
I write on a greater variety of topics than the great majority of posters here.
And society politics is a subject to which intelligence can be applied, too.
Kevin Langdon